Dad and daughterWhen you're a working parent, the days that you can spend one-on-one with your kids are few and far between. Hence mommy guilt (and daddy guilt too -- I don't kid myself that my gender has the corner on the market). And from that comes the overwhelming need to plan out those special days with our kids to the nth degree. But an adorable YouTube video by a dad playing in front of a camera with his toddler just might change all that:

You can take that two-minute clip of Dad and tot sticking out their tongues and mark it down as the cutest thing you've seen all day (and if it isn't, please share, because I can't say I've ever seen cuter ... outside of hanging with my kid, natch!). But I'm going to take it a step further. Did you see how simple that was? How easily entertained that child was? How totally 100 percent in love that kid was with dear old Dad?

When we go crazy planning out our days with our kids to "make the most" of our quality time together, we drive ourselves crazy. The kids don't cooperate because they're kids. The world doesn't know it's our one day off this week, and it gets in the way. And by the end of a 24-hour, fully-packed schedule, we're ready to throw in the towel and go back to work because we feel like we suck at this whole parenting thing.

OK, Mom? Dad? Give yourselves a break. When we try to go all uber-parent, we end up missing out on the insanely cool moments that come out of just hanging out and being! Like standing in front of the web cam and playing "whose tongue can stick out the farthest." Now that's quality time.

Does this video inspire you?

 

Image via YouTube