This coming Sunday, I will be celebrating my second Father’s Day as a father myself. My daughter will be turning 2 at the end of July, and my wife and I will be welcoming our son in August. In my relatively short career as a father, I have found that I now value my time more than ever. Time spent with my daughter is time spent in the very best possible way.

I have been blessed to work for a company like Avanade that has provided me not only the opportunity to grow my professional career, but also the flexibility to be the kind of father I want to be. As technology has evolved and enabled us to communicate and collaborate more effectively from anywhere in the world, Avanade has embraced these advances and used them to give me more time.

Being able to work remotely several days per week has already given me back so many precious minutes with my daughter. Every day care pickup, every family dinner, every bedtime story adds up to make a world of difference. I was able to schedule my paternity leave to align with my in-laws’ travel schedule, which allowed me to devote two weeks to bonding with my daughter, but also to ensure that my wife had as much help as possible.

I later faced one of the most challenging and terrifying experiences of my life when my daughter was just 7 months old. She was struck with two different viruses that caused respiratory failure. She had to be hospitalized for nearly two weeks, and my wife and I remained by her side the entire time.

I will be forever grateful to my Avanade colleagues who were so supportive through that struggle. I was able to work around meetings with doctors and visits from family and friends. My teammates didn’t hesitate to increase their workload to help cover my day-to-day duties. It was a great relief to know that things at work were taken care of, so I could be there for my daughter as she recovered.

She’s now as healthy as can be, coming up on her second birthday, and about to become a big sister. As all my kids continue to grow, I know that every minute I spend with them will be a tremendous gift. I hope to continue to be a part of the great culture I have experienced here at Avanade. It has been a joy to work at a place that fosters such creative and intelligent professionals, but also values the importance of being an engaged and present parent.