I just came back from going to see my son, and brought a letter that was from my middle daughter's school offering bad news about her grades.
Wife and I talked for a few minutes. We're both sick, and I showed some sympathy towards her for that (no reciprocation, of course). I asked if I could come by to read books to my son a bit later and she said ok. We talked a bit about our daughter's grades. Then I left with a quick 'bye', without lingering, a somewhat uncharacteristic bit of behavior on my part.
If this were last week, I would have tried to engage her more in conversation, ask her what she was up to (in a friendly way...I miss our talks about daily stuff), gone into more detail about our daughter's grades or would have asked her what she was planning on doing about them. I may of asked her what plans she had for the evening and would have found some reason to elongate our interactions.
