After yesterday morning’s swim lesson, the family piled back into the car and Joseph asked, “Coffee shop?”

He’s two years old and already knows exactly what the coffee shop is.

And honestly, that’s okay because it’s one of our favorite things to do as a family.

So we headed home to grab Joseph’s shoes, let Jillian change, and then made our way to our favorite coffee shop.

It was packed, which isn’t unusual for a Saturday morning, although we normally get there a little earlier. Jillian and Brooks got in line while Joseph and I claimed the last table that would fit all four of us.

Joseph was hungry and getting restless, so I dug some granola balls out of the diaper bag while we waited.

Meanwhile, Jillian ordered strawberry cream matchas for the two of us, muffins for the boys, and a smoothie for them to share.

Once the muffins arrived, Joseph climbed onto my lap and all was right with the world again.

He dug into that chocolate muffin like it was his full-time job, smashing pieces into his face while I tried to keep up with the crumbs falling in every direction.

Across the table, Brooks methodically worked through his blueberry muffin while announcing that he was going to be the first one to finish his drink.

Meanwhile, Jillian and I attempted to enjoy our matchas while also helping the boys with theirs.

Every family has traditions.

As a kid, I thought family traditions revolved around holidays and big events. Things like Christmas morning or our annual trips to the mountains.

Now that I’m older and have kids of my own, I’ve realized traditions can be much smaller than that.

They can be things like going to the used book sale at the library on the first Saturday of the month.

Reading together before bedtime.

Or Saturday mornings at the coffee shop.

None of those traditions were planned.

Nobody sat down and decided they would become part of our family’s routine.

They just happened naturally and kept happening until they became part of who we are.

And that’s what I love about these Saturday mornings.

It’s not really about the matchas, although they are delicious.

It’s not about the muffins.

And it’s not even about the coffee shop itself.

It’s about taking thirty minutes to get out of the house and sit around a table together.

No work.

No chores.

No bills.

No errands.

Just the four of us enjoying each other’s company.

Who knows how long this tradition will last?

The boys will get older. They’ll have sports, activities, and friends competing for their weekends. Eventually they’ll be going to the coffee shop without Mom and Dad.

That’s part of growing up.

But until then, until the Saturday morning matchas are no more and muffins are no longer on the menu, I’ll keep enjoying these mornings around the table.

Because sometimes the traditions we cherish most aren’t the ones we set out to create.

They’re the ones that quietly become part of our lives before we even realize they’re traditions at all.

Yesterday was Donuts With Dad at Joseph’s preschool.

The school year was coming to an end, and they were hosting the event as an early Father’s Day celebration. Nothing extravagant. Just dads bringing their kids to school and spending a few minutes together in the courtyard over donuts and juice before the day began.

I walked in with Joseph, checked him in, and then headed out to the courtyard where I grabbed a few donut holes for both of us and a cup of orange juice to share.

As we walked to our table, Joseph made sure to say hello to every kid we passed. He knew all of their names and seemed determined to greet each one before we sat down.

Once we got settled, Joseph went to work on the donuts.

The sprinkle-covered one disappeared first, followed quickly by the glazed one. The crumb-covered donut hole required a little encouragement, but eventually it met the same fate as the others.

When he finished and took a sip of juice, he looked up at me and said:

“More donuts.”

So, of course, I went and got him another one.

I don’t get to take Joseph to school very often or pick him up at the end of the day. Jillian teaches at the preschool, so unless she’s off work, she usually handles those responsibilities.

It was fun getting to see Joseph walk into that school like he owned the place.

He waved at kids as he passed them, as if he had been voted Most Popular in the Preschool Yearbook. It was fun getting to see him in his element.

As parents, we spend a lot of time with our kids before school and after work, but we rarely get to see them in the environment where they spend so much of their day.

I’m fortunate that I get to volunteer in Brooks’s classroom and coach many of his classmates on the baseball field, but I don’t really know Joseph’s friends beyond the stories I hear from him and Jillian.

So it was nice to put some faces to the names.

It was also nice to see a few familiar dads, including my brother-in-law, who was there with my niece and ended up joining us at our table.

Time is moving fast.

Brooks will be in first grade next year, and Joseph will be heading to elementary school before I know it. It feels like yesterday that we were bringing them home from the hospital. In fact, we were looking at those pictures just this morning.

Being able to pause time for a moment and sit next to Joseph while sharing a donut in the middle of a busy week felt meaningful.

It wasn’t a vacation.

It wasn’t a birthday.

It wasn’t a holiday.

It was just a Friday morning in June before I headed off to work.

An ordinary moment.

But one that was captured in a few photographs and permanently stored in my memory.

Next year will be my last Donuts With Dad at preschool.

And before I know it, there won’t be classroom parties to attend or baseball teams to coach.

But yesterday there was.

And I’m glad I got to share that moment—and that extra donut—with Joseph.

Ideally, I would get up in the morning and complete my routine of weighing in, stretching, and doing my push ups, sit ups, and squats before waking up the boys. While they watched cartoons, I would have my standard breakfast and get ready for the day.

Assuming it’s a weekday, I would then take Brooks to school and head to the office where I would go through my morning routine, complete some administrative work for this project, publish a blog post, and begin the balancing act between work and project tasks. Somewhere in there I would fit in a morning walk, a lunch walk, and some reading.

After work, I would come home, change clothes, have dinner with the family, complete my evening chores, get the kids to bed, and finish a workout. Then, after a shower, I would spend some time working on the project or writing while watching TV with Jillian before heading to bed.

That’s the ideal weekday.

Do you know how many of those days I’ve had since this project began?

Zero.

Because the ideal day and the real day are two completely different things.

Take yesterday for example.

I had completed all of the morning pieces of my ideal day and was feeling pretty good as I headed to work. Then I got caught in a tornado of unexpected tasks. Things were flying at me from every direction, and it was a couple of hours before I could finally come up for air and regain control of my schedule.

Then I got a text that Brooks might have a fever, which meant our evening plans could be changing as well.

Thankfully he felt better, which meant that after work it was straight to karate with him. By the time we got home, dinner was later than usual, and when I started my chores it felt like I was being pulled in a million different directions. The work never seemed to end.

Eventually we got the kids to bed and, instead of completing a workout, I collapsed into my chair and started working on things here. Before long I was dozing off while Jillian and I tried to watch a show together.

None of that is unique to me.

Every parent has days like that.

I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m simply pointing out that there is no such thing as an ideal day because life is going to happen no matter how carefully we plan.

Most of us wear multiple hats.

I’m a husband, a father, an employee, a writer, a coach, a homeowner, and a dozen other things depending on the day. Any one of those roles can demand my full attention without warning, and when that happens the ideal day disappears.

The goal shouldn’t be to create a perfect schedule and then force reality to conform to it.

That’s impossible.

The goal is to find balance between the day you planned and the day you actually get.

And balance doesn’t mean giving every role equal time and attention every day.

Some days work wins.

Some days family wins.

Some days your health wins.

Some days sleep wins.

Balance isn’t perfection.

Balance is adjustment.

It’s recognizing which role needs you most in that moment and being willing to give it your attention.

And honestly, even our best attempts at balance don’t always work.

Yesterday I fell asleep in my chair with goals unfinished because I was simply exhausted. Work had been demanding. There was karate, dinner, chores, family time, and an attempt to watch soccer with my son.

There just wasn’t enough energy left to do everything I wanted to do.

But this morning I woke up and started again.

I completed my morning routine. I attended an event at Joseph’s preschool. I came to work, prepared for an afternoon meeting, and sat down to write this blog post.

That’s the thing about the balancing act.

You don’t ever complete it.

You don’t master it.

You simply keep showing up each day and doing your best with whatever life places in front of you.

Some days you’ll feel perfectly balanced.

Other days you’ll feel like everything is falling apart.

Either way, tomorrow you’ll get another chance to adjust, refocus, and keep moving forward.

The last few weeks at home have been chaotic.

We discovered a hole in a sewer pipe, and the only way to repair it was by demolishing a bathroom and replacing the sewer lines beneath it. We have been dealing with contractors, buying materials, living with only one bathroom for four people (thank goodness Joseph isn’t potty trained yet), and we even had to move out of the house for a week while the water was shut off.

Like I said, chaotic.

What made it harder was that my grandparents had added that bathroom onto the house and decorated it the way they wanted. I never imagined that one day I would have to tear out something they had built.

Most people probably don’t get sentimental while picking out tile and flooring for a bathroom renovation, but I wasn’t just replacing a bathroom. I was investing in a space that my children may someday inherit.

My grandparents bought our house in the 1960s.

My mom, aunt, and uncle were raised there. My grandmother took care of the house while my grandfather was away on deployment. My uncle built the shed in the backyard, the bookcase in my office, and the cabinets above the washer and dryer.

Years later, I grew up there too.

The house was less than two miles from my parents’ home, so I would ride my bike over and have coffee at the dining room table with my grandparents. My friends and I would stop there after trick-or-treating for pizza, chili, and time with the neighbors. We had Easter egg hunts in the yard and Christmas mornings in the living room.

When I was sick, my mom would drop me off there before going to work, and I would crawl into the bed in the guest room, a room we simply called the Blue Room.

Then, about ten years ago, my grandparents passed away within a couple of weeks of each other.

Not long after, my mom approached me and asked if Jillian and I would be interested in buying the house.

I had always hoped to raise a family in the same neighborhood where I grew up, but I never imagined that would happen in my grandparents’ house.

Jillian and I moved in a few months before we got married, and two years later we purchased the house from my parents.

Since then, we have made plenty of changes.

We landscaped the backyard. We replaced the roof and added solar panels. We have replaced most of the appliances. Jillian even operated a childcare center out of the converted garage until last August.

Over time, we made the house our own.

Now Brooks’s bedroom is what used to be the Blue Room.

Joseph’s bedroom was once my grandfather’s office.

And my boys are growing up in the same house where so many of my own childhood memories were made.

They are creating memories of their own now, just as I did years ago.

The bathroom we demolished isn’t as tragic as it might sound.

It’s just a bathroom.

Just another change we are making as we continue shaping the house into our own home.

Because in the end, it really is just a house.

It’s walls and floors and plumbing and paint.

The structure itself isn’t what matters.

What matters is what the structure holds within.

The stories.

The memories.

The people who once lived there.

The people who live there now.

And maybe, someday, the people who will live there after us.

So while the plumbing, tile work, and flooring might look like nothing more than a bathroom renovation, to me it’s something more.

It’s a chance to remember the past while adding a new chapter to a story that began long before I ever stepped foot inside that house.

And it’s an opportunity to create a place where memories will continue to be made long after I’m gone.

The other night I came home from work. It had been a long day at the office and I was already spent. Then my youngest son decided he had also had a rough day, and it was about to get rougher.

He had something going on, maybe a cold or something with his ears, but he wanted his mom and she was busy trying to make dinner. My father-in-law and his girlfriend had come over to eat with us, and Jillian had worked later than normal. It was a bit of a perfect storm, and Joseph was the thunder and the lightning.

I tried holding him while we watched TV, but he wasn’t having that. He was tossing and turning and clearly not having a good time, so eventually I decided that he and I would go sit in his room for a while.

I thought maybe we could read a book, play with some toys, or just sit together in his rocking chair, but those weren’t viable options for him. Unfortunately, he just didn’t want me, and I was his only option.

I tried to be there for him. I tried to figure out what was wrong. I tried laying on the floor with him. None of it worked.

So I sat in the chair and gave him some space until it was time for dinner.

That was not the plan for the evening.

My plan was to come home, have dinner with the family, do my evening chores, get myself ready for the next day, help get the kids to bed, complete a weight training session, take a shower, and watch some TV with Jillian while I worked on this project.

But those plans disappeared.

Instead, I was frustrated, felt helpless, and by the end of the night was emotionally and physically drained.

We tend to measure a good day by the progress we make. The tasks completed, the steps taken, the calories burned, the goals accomplished. We look at the scoreboard at the end of the day and decide whether we succeeded or failed.

At least that’s how I tend to measure my days.

The problem with that is that, by those standards, not every day is going to be a good day.

Some of the most important things we do throughout the day can’t be quantified. They aren’t on a checklist. They aren’t tracked on our smart watches or phones. They aren’t measured by the number of emails we sent or blog posts we wrote.

They are sitting with your son when he’s having a hard time.

They are being present with family around the dining room table.

They are making the choice to stop worrying about being productive for a moment and simply be present instead.

Not every good day is a productive day.

And not every productive day is a good day.

They aren’t mutually exclusive, and they don’t always overlap.

Some of the best days are the ones where very little gets accomplished because you were too busy making memories, helping someone who needed you, or simply enjoying the people around you.

This project is built around tracking all sorts of statistics. I’m tracking my weight, my steps, my food intake, my actions, my pages read, my habits, and the time I put into the project. All of those things matter for the success of this project.

But there are things that matter more.

Things that can’t be seen on a scoreboard or spreadsheet.

Success doesn’t always mean getting things done.

Sometimes success means being the person you want to be.

It means being present.

Showing up.

Listening.

Showing affection.

Being there in the moment.

Because those things can make for a great day, even if it isn’t a productive one.

I’ve been trying to launch this blog for over ten years. I can remember sitting in my bedroom at my sister’s condo and having this great idea to launch a blog that would ultimately launch me by allowing me to package every aspect of my life into a single project.

But I didn’t start writing blog posts. I just thought about it.

I didn’t start planning out a content calendar. I just dreamed about what one might look like.

I would get motivated to start, only to fail within a couple of days and then begin the process all over again.

You see, this wasn’t—and still isn’t—just a blog. It’s an operating system for my life that happens to contain a blog. It’s a massive project that has only grown in scale over the last ten years.

I want to build systems, utilize journaling, create workflows and mind maps, and start with a clean slate and be absolutely perfect from that moment on.

But that’s not possible, because life happens.

I would have one bad diet day. I would miss one workout. Something would come up with my family and I wouldn’t get to put the time into the project that day, and suddenly it wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t perfect enough.

So I had to start over.

The problem wasn’t motivation or inspiration because I could always bring those to the table. The problem was sustainability and consistency.

The problem wasn’t not knowing what to do because I had every detail sketched out in my mind.

The problem was overthinking, overplanning, and failing to act.

The problem wasn’t that I couldn’t make progress because I could.

The problem was that progress didn’t mean perfection, and if it wasn’t perfect, then it wasn’t good enough to continue.

Thus the name: The Young Napoleon Project.

If you haven’t had a chance to read my post about the name (Why The Young Napoleon Project), I hope you will, but the short version is that General George B. McClellan was known for overplanning and underachieving. He would plan, strategize, prepare, and think about what needed to be done, but struggle to take action.

That sounded a little too familiar.

I would plan, strategize, prepare, and think about all the actions I was going to take and then fail to take any of them.

So what changed?

This iteration of the project has been live for seven days now, and this is the seventh blog post I’ve written. What’s different this time?

Honestly, I have no idea.

Maybe nothing is different.

But maybe I just grew tired of starting over.

Maybe I got tired of writing the same introduction over and over again and completing the same setup tasks for the hundredth time.

Maybe I realized that as I get older, take on more responsibilities, support a family, maintain a household, and hold down a full-time job, there is never going to be a perfect time to launch.

And maybe I finally accepted that one bad day doesn’t erase all the good ones if I simply wake up the next morning and keep going.

I don’t know if this project will succeed, and honestly, I’m not even sure what success looks like beyond showing up each day and moving forward.

I don’t know if anyone will read this blog other than me.

And I don’t know if I’ll achieve all the dreams I’ve attached to this project over the last ten years.

But what I do know is that I’ll never find out if I keep hitting the reset button.

So I came back today to write this blog post.

I’m planning on being back tomorrow.

And the next day.

And the day after that.

Because the only way to guarantee I never achieve those dreams is to stop giving myself the chance.

Yesterday was a typical Sunday morning at our house. I got the kids up and gave them their waters and some cereal while they watched Zootopia 2 (or as Joseph calls it, “Toopia”). Then Jillian got up, made the kids breakfast, and got them ready for the day.

We headed outside so Jillian could do some yard work and I could hang out with the boys. Brooks hit some wiffle balls, and then I pushed both boys on the swings before they had a snack. Later, Brooks and I walked up to the baseball fields for a practice with some friends. After dinner, the whole family went for a walk around the neighborhood. Brooks brought his scooter and Joseph brought his strider bike. We ended up at the local school, where the kids played in the parking lot while Jillian chased them around and I sat on the curb and took it all in.

Right now, the boys are both at the stage where they always want Mom. All we hear throughout the house is, “Mom,” “Mommy,” “Mama,” and “Where’s Mama?” all day long. But they want me sometimes too, like when it’s time to hit the ball, swing, or wrestle. I’m a big target if I ever try to lay down in the living room. Last night, I laid back on the sidewalk at the school and Joseph promptly came over and sat on my head.

It’s easy to forget in the hustle of everyday life that kids don’t know all the stresses we place upon ourselves. They just think it’s always time to play, even when it isn’t convenient.

Brooks is six and Joseph is only two. Right now they want their Mom, and sometimes their Dad. They want us to watch them do every silly stunt they can think of in the living room, carry them through the house, watch movies, color, make things out of slime, build Legos, and the list goes on and on.

But that’s not always going to be the case.

Someday they’ll grow up and go to friends’ houses or run up to the park by themselves. They won’t need help on the swings or with their bikes. And that’s part of growing up and becoming independent.

So right now, I need to remind myself that one day I am going to miss being needed and that I should enjoy those moments while I still can. The chores around the house, the blog posts to write, and the errands to run aren’t going anywhere. But the years of the kids being little will disappear.

The thoughts in this post are reflected in a song I wrote called The Last Time, and I’ve included a link below if you’d like to listen.

Over the last few days, we have spent a lot of time with family without having to venture too far from home. Thursday was Brooks’s first Tae Kwon Do class just down the street at the rec center. Friday was cribbage at my dad’s house, which is only a mile or so away. Saturday brought swim lessons and a family BBQ, both less than ten minutes from home.

It’s easy to take our proximity to extended family for granted.

I never really knew anything different because, growing up, most of my family lived within twenty minutes of us. I never had to think much about it. But so many people live hundreds—or even thousands—of miles away from the people they love, and honestly, I’m not sure how they do it.

My kids are incredibly fortunate. Both sets of grandparents live nearby, as do their aunts, uncles, and cousins. My sister and brother-in-law are even within walking distance.

They show up to school events and sporting events. They come over for dinner during the week. We spend weekends together. This summer, Brooks is spending some of his days at their houses while Jillian and I are at work.

We are incredibly fortunate to have everyone so close by.

It’s the little moments that make me realize just how lucky we are.

Running into the kids’ aunt, uncle, and cousins at swim lessons. Stopping by my parents’ house to pick something up on the way home from work. Staying at my mother-in-law’s house while our water was shut off this week during the plumbing work.

It’s easy to recognize the importance of having family nearby during the big moments—holidays, birthdays, graduations, and celebrations. But it’s those ordinary, everyday moments that often get overlooked.

Who knows what my boys will remember about growing up surrounded by family?

Maybe it will be going to the same school as their cousins. Maybe it will be seeing family members drive by while we’re out on a walk or spotting familiar faces on the sidelines of their games.

For me, some of my favorite memories are riding my bike to my grandparents’ house and sitting at the dining room table having a cup of coffee with them. Or going to a Saturday morning movie with my uncle and cousin.

I don’t know if the next generation of our family will stay here or eventually spread out across the country.

But for now, we’re going to take advantage of everyone being nearby and make as many memories as we can with the time we have.

My mom, sister, and nephews went out of town for the weekend. It’s an annual trip, and when they go, my brother-in-law, his dad, my dad, and I usually get together for an evening. Sometimes it’s just hanging out to watch a game. Other times it’s a poker night.

This time my brother-in-law asked if we wanted to play cribbage.

Normally we only play cribbage once a year when the whole family heads up to the mountains for a weekend away in the fall. It’s a tradition that goes back to when my grandpa was alive. We’d all sit around the table at the cabin playing cribbage. It was incredibly competitive and fiercely fun.

The funny thing is that when you only play once a year, everyone needs a refresher on the rules whenever the cribbage board comes out.

As it turns out, my brother-in-law’s dad hadn’t played since he was in the Navy in the 1970s, so we started with a few practice hands before getting into the real games.

My brother-in-law and I teamed up against the dads, and after winning the first game by eighteen points, I admit I got a little cocky.

That feeling didn’t last long.

The dads proceeded to beat us three games out of the next four and quickly reminded us that experience still counts for something.

I thought the night was winding down at that point, but then Doug taught us a new card game called Golf. Each game consists of nine hands, and we ended up playing two rounds. I managed to win the second one, which is always a nice way to end the evening.

Eventually we called it a night and headed home.

Last night was about playing cards with the guys, but it also wasn’t.

It was about spending time together.

It was about stepping away from work, bathroom remodels, responsibilities, and all the other things competing for our attention. It was about sitting around a table, sharing stories, laughing, and enjoying each other’s company for a few hours.

I ended up staying much later than I intended.

As I drove home just before midnight, I realized that some of the best memories aren’t always the big events.

Sometimes they’re just a card game, a few laughs, and a Friday night spent with people you care about.