Braaaaaainnnns!

The Wall Street Journal's Juggle blog has an interesting post on the "zombie hour," defined as "that stress-inducing transition when you arrive home from work and start the evening’s activities with the family."

Apparently, in double-income families — where each parent comes home to the kids — the moms make out much better: "Through the evening, fathers spent more time alone, while mothers spent more time with children."

My house is so tiny that there's nowhere for me to hide once I walk in the door. In fact, I'm often bombarded by my kids before I get out of my car — even tonight, in sub-freezing weather, Jackson came out to greet me (wearing no coat) to tell me that one of my favorite SpongeBob episodes just ran. (For what it's worth, it's the one where Plankton is able to swap roles with Mr. Krabs, and he realizes that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.)

Of course, my kids are still at the "love Dad unabashedly" stage, so it's easy to take for granted that it'll always be this way. Once they get to the "my parents are sooo not cool LOL WTF" phase, it'll take more effort to make that daily connection.

Especially if he's no longer watching SpongeBob SquarePants.