In case you didn’t know, I’ve been a tad busy of late. In fact, I’ve been so busy I have missed a few meetings here and there and feel I’ve dug myself an inescapable hole to climb out of at the office.

The reason for my apparent slacking-off is that we are fortunate to have a relatively new arrival at home. Our brand new baby girl, Emory “Emmy” Blyss Lindsey came home from Sentara Obici Hospital on Sept. 27.

She has added quite a bit of responsibility for me, my wife Melanie and even our three other children, who find themselves helping Mom with gathering diapers and pacifiers, as well as a daily routine of entertaining the new baby.

Although it will take me a little while to catch back up on my work and community service, the downtime has been refreshing and educational. One of the surprising things we’ve come to understand is that if you can handle three kids, then what’s one more? I catch myself thinking, “Emmy’s either the best baby (sleeping and limited crying), or we are getting really good at this parent thing.” I’d like to think it is a combination of the two, but who knows.

Some people think having more kids than enough to replace the father and mother is just plain crazy. After all, there are those who believe the planet is overpopulated.

For me, though, growing up as an only child, I dreamed of having a big family where holidays were special, where the whole family would spend hours around a dinner table for Thanksgiving or huddled near the Christmas tree.

Our little family has exceeded all my expectations. We’ve been blessed to have two older boys and two baby girls and, most important, each one of our children has been healthy from birth. That’s a huge blessing and one that is much more than I deserve.

The kids are doing great, too. Our baby girl, Addy, who is 20 months old, gives the new baby, Emmy, hundreds of kisses each day, and just to offset the love, throws her share of jealous fits. It’s all in a day’s work, I guess.

My boys have been great with the baby. Maybe it’s the fact they realize they have someone else to boss around, but I’d like to think they are just sweet boys.

As for Mom and Pops — well, so far, so good. Melanie has yet to call me at work begging for my undivided attention and has proved that she is, indeed, capable of managing a household full of young ones. She even has enough energy left to keep me in line, which might be the biggest task of them all.

So there you have it: my excuse for not giving everything around me 100 percent the last couple of weeks. Hindsight being 20/20, I’d do it all over again.