Chapter 6: A ninja on my neck

It was a long day. My company had been rolling out one of the bigger projects we’d had to date. I was on hour 12 of a 16 hour day, finishing up the work from home so I could at least be near by family. My wife, who had recently fallen under the spell of bronchitis and a sinus infection, sat on the couch, somewhat coherent and catching up on the DVR backlog of shows we had recorded. Dylan was engrossed in some online video game fashioned for kids his age. I was grouchy, tired, and stressed, nose in my laptop, trying to power through all the work that I needed to do to help get this project launched. And then there was Stella. She’s like an apparition, darting around the room, asking questions over and over again until someone answers. Getting toys out...