Watching the video of Renee Good’s murder is essential viewing in America today. It’s a prerequisite if you deign to defend ICE. And, if you don’t defend ICE, congratulations! You have a conscience.
I have many thoughts about the tragedy, the political implications, the hypocrisy of our “leaders,” and about how I would absolutely love to throw snowballs at ICE agents, but today, I have one reaction. It’s a reaction I have had since the footage dropped. What would an autistic person do in the situation Good found herself in? The answer is easy, they would have likely done the same exact thing. They would have attempted to drive away, turning away from the officer, just like Good did.
You see, anxiety often goes hand in hand with autism. An autistic person can go from calm to high strung faster than any of us neurotypicals. They often do not navigate social situations very smoothly, especially situations that would be already stressful to a neurotypical human. Good found herself in such a situation and I found myself imagining my daughter in the same situation, even though she is only 11 years old. But I was picturing her off somewhere, years from now, living on her own, driving through a neighborhood like Good’s when she becomes entangled in some gestapo ICE-led shakedown. With loud commands coming at her from every direction telling her to stop, telling her to move along, and telling her to back up, she would almost certainly flee from the confusion, the chaos, and the noise. And, what would she get for it? Well, you know how this ends in Trump’s America.
Renee Good’s reaction to the chaos is my daughter’s reaction, simply an attempt to get away from it all. It was harmless to the ICE officer, but DHS (like you can trust anything they say) reports that the officer had internal bleeding from this interaction. Dutifully, Fox News has the report, in their constant attempt to paint Good as a terrorist and J6ers as patriots.
I just keep thinking about how the current situation in Minneapolis and wherever ICE invades next is at the boiling point, absolutely primed for another event like we have already seen. If ICE approaches everyone as if they are guilty, then of course they will encounter more people who run away, drive away, and get away any way possible. Those people who run first from ICE just might have an extra dose of anxiety in them, a few more drops of confusion in social situations, but no ill intent, no hatred. Just kindness.
Good’s voice, seconds before her murder, is full of kindness, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.” No derangement. No madness. No anger. Just patience and peace.
The following is an incomplete list of events I forgot to add to our real estate listing last spring when we sold our Denver house and bounced way north to our new landing spot, Fort Collins.
Halloween 2016…maybe – Hooligans decide to throw a large block through the glass rear dear of a neighbor’s house. I remember speaking to a DPD officer that night about a security system, asking him, is it worth having one? Does it work? He bluntly said, No. These people out here who are going to actually break into a home do not stop at a security system. They know what to do. They are fast and a siren isn’t going to change that. I took that to heart. We didn’t have one at the time (never did), although we still had the ADT sign in the front yard and the stickers in the window from the previous owner. We left those there. Note: Every other neighbor had a security system.
Kids watch the truck involved in a crime get towed away after three months on
Late Summer 2020 – This is when things really pick up. People are bored. We’ve spent a lot of time indoors. They made us wear masks! (Cry more!) People needed to get out and do some major crime as evidenced by the moderate-sized moving truck that appears in front of the house. It is illegally parked, but at least on the far side of the street. In December of 2020, it is finally moved after I called the police, sheriff, and my city councilwoman. I did examine the truck at some point. It was empty and unlocked. The steering column had been torn up so the truck could be hot-wired, just like in the movies! Cool!
One night I woke up to some talking outside my bedroom window. I looked outside and spotted a man with a sign standing at the bottom of the stairs to our front door. He kept talking for a while and I kept watching from the window, but after thirty minutes or so he started walking up our stairs. That’s when I got a bit worried and made my way downstairs. Right before I made it to the front door he very violently tried to open it. We were fine, it was locked, but I yelled at him that he needed to stop and leave the property. The police were called and they showed up in 15 minutes. This incident did motivate me to get a Nest doorbell.
My Nest doorbell was awesome! It worked way better than the Ring doorbell and accompanying app that we have at our Fort Collins house. One of the first things our Nest doorbell caught was a man crouching on our front patio. It looked like he was trying to hide behind the planter and large pine tree that was on the NE corner of the front yard.
Initially, the neighbor’s car was shoved up onto their yard. The police put it back on the street.
During the warm, but not the warmest months, we slept with our window open, facing the front of the street, and our busy corner of Denver. We heard and saw a lot of interesting things from that window, but nothing louder than a car speeding at approximately 60mph from the east, crossing Dayton, and slamming into a parked car two houses west of us. The first car that was hit wound up in the neighbor’s yard. The other cars hit got stacked up on one another. I was at the window in a split second to see police already approaching the crash scene with lights off and guns drawn. I found out later, they were responding to a robbery at a weed shop about a mile east of us in Aurora. This was a car chase that ended in front of our house! The perp threw a gun into my neighbor’s front yard and was able to evade police.
Neighbor’s car that took the brunt of the 60mph impact.
Around this same time, a stolen car was crashed into the apartment complex in front of the house. It didn’t go through the fence, it went under it, the fence swinging upward like an old school garage door, letting the stolen vehicle neatly crash into a parking spot. The perp ran. The perp got away.
Stolen car. Driver ran away, north on Dayton.
Late one morning, a car sped down Dayton, crashing into multiple parked cars and came to a stop in the middle of the road. The owner of one vehicle came out of the apartment buildings along Dayton and began yelling at the driver, You hit my car! You hit my car! The driver of the car was standing next to his broken ride and didn’t say anything. After a long moment, he ran. The car, broken as it was, stayed there for another 12 hours before someone decided to report it. Snitches get stitches in this neighborhood. It was almost certainly a stolen car. The perp, as far as I know, got away.
A driver decides to do a u-turn in front of the house. Street not wide enough? Ah, that’s okay, I’ll just run over your new tree.
Look kids, a murder scene. I didn’t know at the time. I probably wouldn’t have walked them over there.
Most alarming was the time I noticed about a dozen cop cars three houses west of the house. They were Aurora police, which means they followed criminal activity from east of Dayton into my neighborhood, which is in the City of Denver. I went to take a look by myself and then took the kids over there. There was no sign of an ongoing threat, but just to make sure I asked an officer and he said, there’s nothing to worry about. Well, great. Time for a photo op. I found out later that night that someone had been shot on the corner three houses west of us. He was in his car. And, after being shot, he was driven eastward into Aurora a couple blocks and died. It was truly tragic. This murder remains unsolved. Since it took place, there’s a small memorial to the victim. I cleaned it up a few times before we moved away.
There was that one time we were having a nice family dinner and I was beginning to move around, do some dishes, and clean up, when I noticed a red 4Runner park right in front of the house. The two guys in the front arranged lines of coke on a pocket mirror, snorted them, and drove off. Sorry, no picture! They were so fast!
Last, but not least because this couple was fighting for years, we have this nice image of a lady on top of a moving car. She was on the phone and also yelling at the driver. I took several videos of this fight and others, certain I would catch something of interest to the police if anything seriously bad happened. Luckily, no such video exists, but these people would fight in front of our house, mostly at night, on and off for about two years. Their dialogue, much of it recorded by yours truly, can not be repeated here.
Fast forward a few months and we are spending the first night at our new house in Fort Collins. The home has a huge covered deck out back where we were enjoying the remnants of our drinks. I was thinking of the corner we left behind, the very urban setting. It’s not like we moved to the country, there are about 170,000 people living in FoCo, but still, I told Kate, “It feels like we are camping.”
If you know me, you know that I love movies and, to complement that love of movies, I listen to and also love The Big Picture, the esteemed podcast from The Ringer with hosts Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins. I do not miss an episode and, on occasion, I even listen to them discuss a movie that I have not seen. In fact, that frequently happens because getting to the theater is hard. I really have to carve out time, arrange for someone to watch the kids, and then, hope that what I want to see has not left theaters during the weeks it took me to secure said viewing time.
I was listening to such an episode (one in which the hosts discuss a movie I haven’t seen) in October, when Sean interviewed the writer and director of If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Mary Bronstein. To help out, here’s the one sentence synopsis from IMDB, “While trying to manage her own life and career, a woman on the verge of a breakdown must cope with her daughter’s illness, an absent husband, a missing person, and an unusual relationship with her therapist.” The connection I feel to this movie (I still haven’t seen it!) and its writer/director is that Bronstein’s daughter had a serious illness and Bronstein played caregiver for a long, hard time. Okay, let’s go to the interview.
Right out of the blocks, Sean asks, “Do you remember the exact day you began writing it?”
Bronstein gives a long, eloquent answer, but one thing she says hits me so hard, some truth that I had felt before I listened to this pod, but a truth that was really good to hear someone else utter, especially an artist. Bronstein answers that she had a “sense of existential dread that I couldn’t put my finger on and, at first, I thought it was because the situation I was in, like, will she get better? What will happen? Then I realized it wasn’t that at all. It was the feeling that I felt like I was disappearing, because everything, every part of my being was put into taking care of her and making sure that she was gonna get better and we could get back to New York and get back to normal. But then I realized, oh wait, she is gonna get better and we are going to go back to New York and our home and it is going to go back to…normal. But like what then? What then? Because I’ve been in this state now for so long…in this caretaking role for so long it’s been my whole life, what then? What’s gonna happen?…In a very literal sense I felt myself disappearing, my being, my self, and I started writing…in that state.”
That’s the quote. And if you’ve been a caretaker for someone before, especially of a child with some disease, disorder, or illness, you know that regardless of the severity of that disease, it can be all consuming and it can completely suffocate the will you have to do anything else with your time, if you’re lucky enough to have any time leftover.
Although I didn’t realize it then, my time as a caretaker started nearly 12 years ago when my daughter was born at 26 weeks. She had, at times, a very rough NICU stay that lasted 109 days. After discharge, we were back at the hospital several times a week for appointments. That lasted months. Years later, we still had a lot of appointments, assessments, and scares. Then after teachers expressed concern, more assessments, a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1, and new, ASD-focused, home therapy for years. Then another diagnosis, this time of ADHD, a common dance partner of ASD. Then individualized education program (IEP) meetings. Then 504 (not quite as accommodating as an IEP) meetings. Then more worry. Then back to an IEP.
All that time, much of my interests were pushed aside, as happens to any present parent, and I let worry for my daughter and her future absolutely break down hope I had for myself, belief that I would get to do anything else. I felt myself disappearing. There were fits and starts with writing, but I have gone years without it. Actually, the only thing that I have consistently practiced for the last 12 years, outside of managing the house and taking care of the kids, is running. That’s the one thing I have held fast to. I guess that’s why it became an obsession of mine, which if you don’t know, we haven’t spent much time together in the last decade. But trust me, if you stick around here for any length now, you’ll know.
Anyway, back to myself disappearing, dissolving into worry and insignificance. I started to hear a voice, my voice, and it has been urging me to make sure this part of me, the one that has always loved the written word, both reading and writing it, to make sure that part does not die like all the other parts. To save that part, that’s the end game, if you will. What will come of it? I am not sure, nor do I want to dwell on that either. I know it’s a big part of me and one worth saving, one that makes me a better person in my other roles of husband, dad, and son. But you’re still gonna get running posts and don’t forget movies. I love movies.
“Sometimes fear does not subside and one must choose to do it afraid.” – Elisabeth Elliot, poet.
That is how I feel about writing these days, months, and years since I have not put pen to paper and fingers to keys. I have waited for the fear to subside. As you can tell, it has been a long wait and it would have been longer. But for what? I do not know.
Even stupider, I have waited for ideas to come to me without first sitting down at the desk.
And worst of all, I thought I would eventually convince myself, by taking a long break from writing, that I am indeed not bad at it. That most definitely did not happen. I think I have tired of the waiting. Tired of telling myself, writing, well, that is something I will do when life calms down. I think I have known for a while now that it will not.
Furthermore, my voice will not come to me if I do not share it. So, I will share it, but as Elliot reminds me, I must choose to share it afraid. For now, I have to lie to myself to get my butt in chair. (Thank you, Anne Lamott). You have something worth sharing. People will connect to the story of you and your family. I can build a following if I do this. I do not suck at writing. I will get better, even become good at this. Doing this will improve other areas of your life. These are some of the lies I tell myself. And to some degree, I recognize that some of them are not lies at this point. I guess the evolution that has taken place in my head is that it is better to convince myself of these lies than to go on believing much worse ones that I have spent a decade or longer believing, such as:
You are not unique.
You are alone.
This experience of being a stay at home dad, raising an autistic daughter and a neurotypical son is not unique enough to share.
I am not good at writing.
This will never make me a dime.
After spending 12 years as a dad and caregiver, no one will ever hire me again.
I am old and washed up.
If my own sister once told me this blog is ridiculous, then I should not try anymore.
I should not share because that one cousin called into question my whole education (a BA in English and an MA in International Studies) and approach to life all because I dared to support the COVID-19 vaccines. I should be fearful of pissing off people like him.
Yes, these are all things I have convinced myself of over the years as my writing became rarer, as blank journals stacked up, as keys stopped clacking. But no more. I will believe the first set of lies that, even if they do not come true, at least I will be a better person for having lived like they are truths.
The fear bit, well, I do believe the more I do this the more it will dissolve away. But I must be prepared for it to always be there and to always put pen to paper alongside a well of dread.
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” – George Orwell, 1984
In the aftermath of ICE murdering a woman in Minneapolis today, this quote from Orwell’s classic filled up social media feeds, and rightfully so. Like many people, I have seen all the presently available videos of this incident multiple times. From every angle, the woman driving the car, Renee Nicole Good, 37, steers her Honda Pilot away from the officer (a stretch to call him that), to the right, to be precise. If she had decided to weaponize her car, like Kristi Noem and POTUS, implied she had, she would have swerved left or, at any point yesterday, attempted to drive over an officer.
Multiple outlets have taken ICE and POTUS at their word, reporting that the ICE officer who fired a shot into Good’s head was injured during the incident. I keep looking at the video, trying to figure out where this poor guy was injured. It looks like it could have been a hand dinged by the quarter panel or side mirror or a foot run over as she turned away from him. Either way, it is impossible to imagine a scenario in which this agent feared for his life or thought that a kill shot was necessary.
When I hear about an officer involved shooting, I actually give the officer the benefit of the doubt, waiting for a video of the incident to be released. What you frequently see in those videos is a person running at police (sometimes with a weapon, sometimes without), or they’re reaching into their car after being told to present their hands, or they’re reaching into a coat pocket or some other area where a weapon could be stored, or they’re resisting arrest by wrestling with an officer. More often than not, the person in question is doing something that, in the far reaches of an officer’s imagination or perspective, can be interpreted as life-threatening or dangerous. I’m trying to let my imagination run wild here, but I’m failing, I did not see that in Minneapolis. I see an officer clear enough of the car to have both hands on the gun and fire through the windshield once and into the driver’s side window another time. I see a potential injury no worse than getting hit point blank with a Nerf dart from one of my son’s toys. After all, the officer who murdered Good, felt fine enough to jog down to Good’s car, after she had crashed, to “check” on her.
This incident, and the administration’s attempt at telling you that your own eyes and ears are lying to you, comes right in the wake of them telling you that something you watched on live television on January 6, 2021, was a peaceful demonstration and perfectly okay to do, apparently. I mean, check out this official White House site about January 6, 2021. It’s absolutely bonkers. Orwell himself would be floored by the propaganda.
I leave you with another Orwell quote, highlighting the difficulty of facing obvious truths and facts in the face of government and political subterfuge:
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
Here is a shorter summary of just some of what this family did in 2025!
January – Love a good run on the first day of the year. A clean slate. Everything back to zero. All things feel new, even though a lot of them aren’t. London turned 11 and made her own Barbie cake! I did not do dry January!
February – I turned 42. We entered the air fryer game. Should have done that sooner. I rented a storage unit for decluttering our house and prepping it for going on the market. My mom and I get drinks at Traveling Mercies, an excellent bar at Stanley Marketplace. Girls trip to Omaha. Guys trip to Steamboat. Guys win.
March – March 6th, the house is listed. The sight of the sign puts a pit in my stomach. London completes her last ABA session. It’s the right time, I think. But at the same time, I feel scared of what life will look like without any of those sessions. The obligatory Great Wolf Lodge trip is scratched off the list. Camden had never been. We did it once for him and won’t go back.
April – The house goes under contract. Meanwhile, we look all over SE Aurora and Centennial, even Parker, for homes, but go under contract only once, breaking contract the next day. We offer $5k over asking on one house and lose to an offer $50k over asking. I take pictures of our pristine house before serious packing up begins. I get tremendously sad about that.
June – London finished elementary school. We moved from one rental in Denver to my parents’ house in Fort Collins, where, surprise, we started looking at homes, hoping to find and close on one by the end of summer. The day before we leave for a California road trip our parked cars are slammed into by a 16-yr-old driver out at 12:30am for “snacks.” My car is later totaled. The minivan is good and we drove it the next day. It was 107 degrees in Las Vegas when we arrived and I valeted the minivan next to Lambos and Ferraris at Mandalay Bay, not joking. There were lots of pools at the hotel, but with people packed into them like sardines. The night walk along the strip was memorable and worth doing one time, but we passed on the $16 coffee in our hotel room, the minimum $150 spend per diner at the steakhouse, and Camden laughed at the thong-clad dancers strolling the street who asked him if he wanted a photo with them.
July – On to LA, which was much cooler and enjoyable. Stayed with good friends. Swam in their pool, not packed with people. Went on to Oceanside and met Kate’s family there. We did it, we went to Disneyland for the day. A team of cast members had to stuff me into Space Mountain so I could join the rest of the family on the rollercoaster. I was taller than the Chewbacca in the Star Wars area and London got to meet Rapunzel. London was overjoyed. We grilled Cardiff Crack, the best. Back in Fort Collins, we took possession of our new home on Kate’s birthday, but didn’t spend the night for a few more nights. We attended the wedding of good friends in Monument.
August – Unpacking really got under way. The kids started school August 13th and 14th, insanely early. Their first 7 days of school were half days because it was so hot and not every school here has AC. They are attending schools I went to while I lived in Fort Collins from 1991-1999. Casa Bonita and Water World trip with the best people. The Casa really is a fun place! London starts cross country. So proud of her!
September – After I rent a U-Haul in Denver and load up all our things from the storage unit and unload all the things at the house, all of our belongings are under one roof for the first time since February. Both cars in the garage on September 25th. A big day. We meet more neighbors here in less than two months than we did in over ten years at our last house. People in FoCo are more open to talking. They’re friendlier than your average Denverite. The USAF Thunderbirds put on a show here and practice right over the house a couple times.
October – We took a much-needed mountain weekend trip with my parents at the YMCA of the Rockies. The weather and views were perfect. My kids love the outdoors and the mountains. My parents played a role in that and I am forever thankful for it. Camden turned 8! We threw one of those big birthday parties with pizza, cake, snacks, and games. That’s not much fun at all, but Camden loved it!
November – A late fall trip to Steamboat, where it is in the 50s. I swim outdoors. I dig out our Christmas decorations from a crawlspace, which is primarily filled with Christmas decorations. I run my first Turkey Trot in Fort Collins. It’s a big race and I am happy with my time. We see the northern lights for the first time in all of our lives.
December – I always love this month. Christmas decorations and lights are up before the month starts. London and Camden both have Christmas concerts. London still wants to visit with Santa at the Gardens on Spring Creek. We attend several excellent Christmas parties and get some time in Denver on a 60 degree day. There’s an early Christmas celebration with my parents before we travel to Omaha for a week. Omaha is mild. I manage to get in 22 miles of running while we are there. We go to Top Golf, the only place I enjoy golf. My father-in-law turns 70. We party like he’s 30. We tell the kids we are going to London this summer. They freak. We come back to Fort Collins and ring in 2026 with dear friends, good drinks, homemade pizzas (one of which I dropped on the kitchen floor), and the kids stay up until midnight for the first time. We all sleep in, sort of, like just to 7:30. That’s late for us.
How do you sum up a year? I have in the past, written blog posts under the title “The Year in Review,” or something along those lines. I started writing such a thing a couple days ago and I finished today, but it’s too long. I post the whole review and not many people are going to make it to the end. I’ll boil that down to the bones and post that later. But for now, I’ll leave you with my thoughts on May 2025. It was a big year for my family and May was the hardest, busiest, and most emotional month in a year of busy and emotional months.
May 2025 In Review
We sold our house on 5th Avenue this month. The buyers, inexplicably, wanted us to take apart a floating deck we built in between our house and our neighbor’s house to the west. My parents and Kate’s dad were there to help dismantle the deck. We enjoyed our small, but perfect backyard on that wonderful spring evening. We found a home to live in for a few weeks until the kids finish school. It’s in the same neighborhood, within walking distance of our beloved 5th Ave house.
The PODS arrived May 13th, 3 of them. They’re filled on the 14th, to the ceiling. The next day they are taken away and the house is cleaned for eleven hours, luckily, not by me. I take videos of the empty house and record voice memos of what I remember from every room, hallway, closet, and door, crying or fighting back tears in each one.
My last moment in the house is the morning we close. The kids are at school. Kate is at work. I touch the walls in the living room. I pat them. I run my hands across their textured surface. I hug them. I say goodbye to the house like an old friend, a friend of eleven years, eleven of the toughest, eleven of the best. I laugh at myself as I speak to the house and whisper into its walls, telling it to be as nice to the next family as it was to ours, telling it to be a good friend to them.
From the front door, I take one last look about ten times. The house is open concept and has a relatively small first floor so with a glance I see the dining room, kitchen, and living room. I could have stood there for the rest of the day cycling through memories from every corner of those rooms, but it was time to close that door one last time.
At the bottom of the stairs, standing on the sidewalk, I felt so lonely, like I had truly lost a friend. I called Kate and let all the emotions out. I had a mix of feelings: gratitude for this structure I just stepped out of for the last time, a sense of mourning our Denver lives, and a greater sense of fear, not knowing where we would live next, and second-guessing our decision to move at all.
But the day did not allow for much contemplation. I had to unpack and continue our sort of move-in at the temporary house. I had elementary field days to attend. I had a half marathon to run in Steamboat Springs. (Note to self: never train for a race and move at the same time ever again.)
I am grateful for the busyness of the days following our 5th Ave close. They did not allow for me to further mourn or worry about what was next. We just had to continue life as usual in Denver, just with a different place to come back to at the end of those hectic days.
Advice, strategies, and thoughts on 1000 pushups in a week:
Anytime you think of them, drop and do 10. Do you know that 1000 pushups a week is only 142.86 pushups a day? Most of us are up for well over 12 hours a day. That’s only 11.9 pushups per hour! Totally possible!
My pushup numbers were recently questioned when competing in a pushup challenge. All contestants were supposed to complete 400 pushups a week. My lowest number of pushups in a week for the last five weeks was 700.
In the last five weeks, I have completed 4,036 pushups. An average of 807.2, although that’s a little bloated by this last week of 1000.
Moving back to strategies, anywhere is a good place for a pushup, even in the shower if it is big enough. I am 6’9″, a shower big enough for me to do pushups in is not in my house, nor have I seen one, but I have seen plenty of showers in which an average height male could drop and get 20 ups in.
Keep a note in your phone titled Pushups Completed Today. Every time you knock out a set, no matter how large or small, instantly record those numbers in that note. It’s great to look back through the day and see that number grow and grow, bringing a great sense of accomplishment to the day. Also, at the end of the day, when it’s time to enter your numbers you have a handy note on your phone to tell you exactly how much ups you pushed.
There aren’t many rules to a pushup challenge, other than you have to do a proper pushup. No wide placement of the hands, but your elbows don’t have to stay in contact with your side through the movement. No incline pushups either. Those are too easy. But yes, decline pushups would count. Decline meaning with your feet on a chair or up a couple steps while your hands are on the ground.
Pushups don’t require special athletic clothing. They can be done in a suit. They can be done in your birthday suit, although that does mean some parts of your anatomy may be touching the floor during every rep. This can be uncomfortable and certainly a bit awkward if someone else is in the room.
This last week I did 150 pushups a day for the first five days. I did 170 on day 6 and only 80 today (that felt nice). The upper body definitely needs some rest now, but I never did more than 40 pushups straight. I often did sets of 25, but more common were sets of 20, 15, and 10, making that 1000 in a week completely manageable.
And if thinking about doing 1000 in a week is too overwhelming, set a timer to go off every 30 minutes or 1 hour for a reminder to do 10 or 15 pushups.
After building up to 1000 pushups in a week you will definitely be able to do things with your pecs that you have never been able to do, or haven’t been able to do in a long time. If you squeeze your pecs together and flex, BOOM, pencil holding cleavage. Make your kids aware that you can “dance your pecs.” They will delight in that oddity and it’s even something that you can keep your shirt on for.
Get your kids involved. On my last set of 20 today, my son was motivated to do pushups with me so he dropped to the ground and did sit-ups, telling me he can only do ten at a time. That’s okay. If you are walking around the house and randomly doing sets of 20 pushups your kids are going to get the message, pushups are important, fun, a great workout, and you can do them anywhere! Okay, maybe not in the shower.
As soon as I carefully took the kids artwork down, picking at the bits of scotch tape holding self-portraits to doors, and taking care not to rip the large piece of paper my son drew a pipe system on, the house felt different. Moving changed from this half-serious idea that has held space in our heads for two years to this real, tactile change involving paper cuts from handling cardboard boxes and sore backs from lifting just a little too much.
Official-looking family portraits have come down, replaced by blank walls or a photo of a nondescript hillside most passers by would not recognize as Scotland. Old carpet has been torn up and tossed out and now the house smells like Carpet Exchange. The amount of furniture in the house has been trimmed down, making some rooms feel nice, but not lived in.
Load by load to the storage unit—the first I have ever rented—the home becomes a house, the house becomes a structure. Yet, still there are memories being made, even today, that will forever be associated with this house, which I have called home for ten years, the longest I have lived in one place.
Open house after open house I begin to appreciate our house a little more. The painted walls, the shiplap entryway, the exposed I-beam in the basement so I could attach a pull-up bar, and the immaculate basement bathroom. All projects that we completed ourselves or hovered nearby acting like an overbearing super on a construction site while others did the work.
The furniture we are keeping in the house has been moved, cleaned, and flipped around like Lego pieces, indeed, revealing long-lost Lego pieces, a vintage Fisher Price puzzle piece that has been missing since my son was four-years-old, and more of those Checkers pieces that I thought we had successfully rounded up.
The last evidence of our family in the house are some of the most treasured items. No stager will get me to take them down and no storage unit is secure enough for them. It’s my daughter’s framed one-month handprint that is barely bigger than my thumb, resting on my desk. A polaroid of Kate and I taken by an old friend. Two pictures of the family on the beach in Mexico. A kid’s first hand-drawn family portrait. And a large picture of my namesake, Bryce Neff, pictured with his bombing group in the Korean War. All these items and more will find a new structure that will become a house that will, with time, become a home, and God-willing, lives lived in that home will produce an equally wide swath of life as we have seen on 5th Ave.
Twenty-one years ago Kate and I were driving back to the University of Wyoming from Longmont, Colorado. We made it as far as Cheyenne before the interstates iced over, visibility dropped to almost nothing, and the road to Laramie closed.
Stranded in Cheyenne on Oscar Sunday, we made the most of it by staying at a Quality Inn, ordering Domino’s, and watching the three hour broadcast of the 2004 Oscars.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King reigned over most of the night. Peter Jackson won best director, paving the way for a promising, yet ultimately, horrible adaptation of The Hobbit into three massive films.
But there was no denying Jackson’s touch on Oscar night in 2004. The LotR trilogy are three of the best movies made in my lifetime, but it wasn’t until the third movie that the Academy anointed Jackson and his flawless epic of a movie.
Tonight there will be no pizza and no wine shared during the Oscars. I am in Steamboat with Camden and Kate and London are in Omaha. It might be the first Oscars that Kate and I have spent apart since that Wyoming blizzard in 2004. We will make up for it tomorrow in the best way we can by queuing up the recording of the broadcast, opening a bottle of wine, and digging into some pizza. Although in the last 21 years, the pizza is greatly improved over Domino’s. And I don’t exactly miss the Quality Inn in Cheyenne either.
A version of this post appeared on my blog years ago when London wasn’t even a year old. But I just tweaked it a bit, slimmed it down , and added here and there. I think it’s better now. Here it is…
Never in my wildest dreams, as I prepared for fatherhood, did I think I was going to spend so much time with lactation nurses, reviewing the intricacies of hand expressing (including motions), analyzing breast milk volumes, discussing engorgement, and just how much breast milk one could fit in a chest freezer.
A few hours prior to my meeting with lactation consultants, thinking there were three more months to learn these things, I didn’t even know lactation nurses existed. I knew that some babies were born prematurely, but I didn’t know my wife’s breast milk would still come in just as early as our daughter wanted out at 26 weeks gestation.
So it was that our 109-day stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) started with a crash course in breast milk. Within those first days of life for my daughter (London), my wife (Kate) and I spoke at great length with not just one lactation nurse, but several of them about breast milk and breasts, starting with a nurse asking my wife if she was going to pump breastmilk. Partly due to the trauma of the last 24 hours, and partly due to my complete lack of knowledge about breastfeeding, I had not thought a bit about breast milk or pumping. Kate was of a similar mindset at that particular moment, but we were both satisfied to know that there was a good chance Kate’s milk would come in. The early drops of colostrum, the nutrient-dense milk first released by the mammary glands, often come in shortly after the placenta detaches from the uterine wall, no matter the gestational age.
A couple of hours later a lactation nurse wheeled into our room something that looked like a medieval torture device. They were calling it the Symphony. They hooked Kate up to it and it hummed and sucked for 18 minutes. At the end of that first session, we could just barely make out two milliliters of colostrum. A few hours later Kate produced 2.6ml and then later that night 3.8ml. The next day, January 31, marked Kate’s first 24 hours of pumping. She produced 32.6ml that day, or 1.1 ounce. The lactation team handed us a log with the direction that we were to write down when Kate pumped, for how long, and the total volume.
We then received a DVD to watch, which would apparently help Kate get more milk by hand expressing and provide tips to alleviate the pain of engorgement. We were to watch it and return it to the NICU team afterwards. That same day, we popped the DVD into my laptop to watch some before going to bed. One minute into this educational video, the biggest breast and nipple either of us had seen appeared on screen. Kate laughed so hard she began to worry she might injure herself being only two days clear of a C-section. Everything hurt. If we continued watching, we put Kate’s health at risk. I slammed the laptop shut. Tears ran down our cheeks from laughing so hard.
Who knows who is responsible for making this particular lactation video, but may I make one small suggestion on behalf of my wife and all women who have recently had C-sections? Great. Do not make the first breasts on the video also be the largest breasts known to mankind. They should not be comically large, needing 3-4 hands to get them under control. In fact, this video is a danger to new mothers everywhere, they might literally bust open their gut laughing from it, like we almost did.
Thus, it fell on me to watch the lactation video alone, gleaning from it any helpful tips and then sharing them with Kate. She was impressed. It wasn’t like Kate’s breast milk volumes needed any help. Not long after London was born, I was spending part of everyday rearranging containers of breast milk in the chest freezer in the basement—the chest freezer we needed to buy solely to store breast milk. Kate and I would joke that I knew more about hand expressing breast milk than she did so I should print up some business cards and walk around the NICU offering my services to anyone who needed them. Hand Expressions by Bryce. Simple and to the point.
By day of life 57 for our little girl, Kate was producing 1,863ml a day, or 63oz of breast milk. To put that in perspective, London was fed a total of 800ml on day 57, the most she had ever consumed in one day. In fact, it took London a long time to drink as much milk in one day as Kate got from one 20-minute pump. A point was reached where no amount of rearranging the breast milk in the freezer would make room for more. I picked up a second chest freezer at Costco and Kate started to fill that, too.
For the months London was in the NICU we rented a Symphony pump, which at the time retailed for $1500-2500, and kept it in our bedroom. We started to call it the pump house. When at home, Kate disappeared every three to four hours to spend some quality time with the Symphony. As all moms know that schedule wreaks havoc on sleep and work responsibilities, but Kate did an excellent job. I did what I could by waking with her every time throughout the night, assisting in bottling of the milk, labeling and recording volumes, washing pump parts, and then delivering milk to the freezers in the basement. So, at our house, at least two times a night, Netflix and chill was swapped out for Netflix and pump.
As Kate tapered off the pump, we were just filling up the second chest freezer and the lactation nurses understood why Kate was putting an end to pumping. She had developed a reputation in the NICU as a super producer. At London’s discharge, on May 19th, 109 days after she was born, the NICU staff wrote messages to us. One of our favorites from the lactation team wrote, “Your mom was a rock star with pumping. She could have fed three babies in the NICU!”
Next week, London will be six-months-old and I can thaw breast milk from three months back. And right now it’s lunch time for the little girl, to the chest freezer I go.
I wrote the following on November 6, 2024, after Trump was elected the 47th POTUS.
These are my gut reactions, overreactions, and, in italics, what I now think about what I wrote then.
Honestly, I’m not sure how any dad with a daughter could cast a vote for him. Pretty much, still feel this way. Sorry, not sorry. I don’t know what else to tell you.
Trump voters just voted to give Ukraine to Russia. Untold thousands will now die in that war because of what Trump won’t do. Well, perhaps an overreaction here, that is if Ukraine does remain a sovereign country through this scam of a negotiation process, which, so far, has excluded Ukraine. We always knew Trump liked and respected Putin, but what Trump did this week behind Ukraine’s back was worse than I thought. I sort of saw US support for Ukraine completely drying up, the war continuing, and Russia eventually grinding down what’s left of Ukrainian armed forces. Russia gains complete control over Ukraine. The end.
Some of my worst fears now: a countrywide law banning abortion beyond 6-12 weeks, Vance running and winning in 2028, the climate and Earth not having any sort of advocate anymore in any branch of our government, the way women are thought about and treated in this country getting worse, worry for minorities, corporations getting even bigger tax breaks, including the top 5% income earners. As for the nationwide abortion ban, I am not ruling it out. Vance running in 2028 is a strong possibility. I feel the same about the future of women and minorities under this administration. It’s abundantly clear, more than I thought possible on Nov 6, that corporations are going to rule this administration, more accurately, their CEOs. As for tax breaks, we are already living under Trump tax breaks, which were passed in 2017. I suspect he wants further tax breaks for his super wealthy friends. As for everyone else, he doesn’t care.
You can praise Hitler and get elected. Still in strong agreement here. It’s worse than we could have imagined. Elon did the Nazi salute and there was no uproar. Only morons argued that he was trying to show that his heart goes out to his supporters.
History made, first convicted felon elected to the Office of the President. Accurate.
Trump has a lot of trust in our election infrastructure when he wins. Same.
I fear that Trump will be very successful in increasing the power of the executive and limiting the checks and balances the other branches of the government supposedly have on executive power. This has also been way worse than I could have imagined. There is no one in power making a great fuss like I would expect. I’ve been very disappointed in the Democrats response to the first month of Trump’s term.
I am sad for London and Kate. So many women out there did not vote for Harris because they think a woman can’t handle the job. Yep, still true.
I heard people say they liked Trump more because they got stimulus checks in the mail during his first term. Enough said. These are not critical thinkers.
I am just one of many Harris voters who know people who voted for Trump. They are in my family. They are friends. Some of them are acquaintances. I know people who abstained from voting because they could not bring themselves to vote for any presidential candidate. Odds are, if you voted for Harris, you know these people too and, there is a very good chance, you find yourself completely dismayed at the absolute silence from this crowd, like I do.
The people who have done this have made a living off of, and risen to power on, calling anyone who does not support them or their views un-American. Yet, this is maybe the most un-American thing I have seen in the news this week and, if you haven’t been paying attention, there have been a lot of un-American blockbusters lately.
How about this one: Trump claims Ukraine started the war with Russia. Do my family members who follow Trump on Instagram or who think Tucker Carlson is a journalist recognize how dangerous appeasing Putin is? I grew up in an America in which people did not aspire to be Neville Chamberlain. If you have to look that name up, you’re part of the problem.
I have been sharing my outrage on social media almost every day since Trump was elected. I have dozens of friends who have lost their jobs or are expecting an email at any time of day to let them know they have been fired.
Yet, not one word of regret. Not one public expression of worry for democracy, federal employees (their families, livelihoods, health insurance), air travel safety, a prepubescent Elon disciple fiddling with your SSN or bank account numbers, or the rampant McCarthyism spreading into every corner of our government.
A friend told me, “I want the people I know who voted for him to admit they made a mistake, but they’re watching a news station [Fox News] that consistently tells them they’re winning.”
I so want this too. Even if it’s not regret. I would take, I voted for him, but now I am really concerned about this or that…. That would be so refreshing to hear. Show us you care. Show us hesitancy.
But we all want to be right all the time. We hate to swallow our pride and admit a mistake. Like we can’t be against something until it directly bites us in the ass. That is how Trump supporters are, I guess, forging ahead. I mean, that, plus cognitive dissonance and the Fox News IV drip.
Rising above the din of American democracy and institutions crumbling is the loudest sound of all, the silence of those who are watching it all burn down.
Soft power in international relations and diplomacy, as I understand it, is a power (or tactic, if you will) that is utilized by global powers, in the US’s case, superpower, to gain favor with a great number of countries around the world that the US, quite possibly, would otherwise have little to no interaction with. Favor is gained through attractive measures (not coercion) such as targeting a program or initiative in that foreign country that the US would like to assist. In theory, this program aligns with traditional American principles on the world stage; bringing a democratic political process to countries without it; protecting the rights of all people regardless of age, sex, race, or sexual orientation; an elimination or drastic decrease of diseases via vaccines or simple mosquito nets; maternal health in poverty-stricken or war-torn countries; or sharing best practices when it comes to environmental protection or conservation. That is to name just a few of the just causes the US has pursued since the founding of USAID in 1961 by then President Kennedy.
It is from our international cooperation with countries receiving USAID packages that the US has built a vast array of allies throughout the globe. Countries, and other populations helped, recognize the US as a friend and, rightfully, have come to believe that we are interested in building up other nations, no matter where they are on the map. Up until two weeks ago, we have aided many nations with significant undertakings as well as countries with minor projects and initiatives.
The bond between America and these foreign partners is decades old and its strength invaluable to our stance as a global superpower. Other nations vying for global prominence, or dominance, have limited opportunity for advancement with the governments and people USAID has worked with for decades. The importance of a foreign country’s loyalty and trust in the US cannot be emphasized enough. This is soft power. Far cheaper and safer than hard power. And, many would argue, more effective.
Desperate as these populations are, when USAID, its employees, and its funding disappear in a week, they will naturally turn to other powers for myriad reasons. Standing at the ready, China and Russia, eager to fill the power vacuum and more than happy to take the place of the United States, will offer aid in their own way. It may not be the way the US was helping, but it will be enough for us to lose our status. Friendships will weaken, or worse, disappear. Protected environments will flounder and be drained of their resources. And when one of these countries has an emergency, someone will pick up the phone and dial China because right now Trump, his voters, and the Republican party aren’t answering the call from the weary, from the burdened, or from the poor. How much damage will be done remains to be seen. As a friend recently told me, this is “the start of a huge crack in all that is good.”
During the first week of his administration, President Trump issued a number of directives concerning the federal workforce. Among those directives, the President required that employees return to in-person work, restored accountability LOYALTY for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior career executives, and reformed WHITEWASHED the federal hiring process to focus on merit NEPOTISM. As a result of the above orders, the reform of the federal workforce will be significant.
The reformed federal workforce will be built around four pillars:
Return to Office: The substantial majority of federal employees who have been working remotely since Covid will be required to return to their physical offices…
Performance Culture: The federal workforce should be comprised of the best America has to offer. We will insist on excellence LOYALTY at every level – our performance standards will be updated to reward and promote those that exceed expectations SERVITUDE and address in a fair PREJUDICE and open OPAQUE way those who do not meet the high standards which the taxpayers of this country have a right to demand BEND THE KNEE.
More streamlined and flexible workforce: While a few agencies and even branches of the military are likely to see increases (BECAUSE SOME OF MY CLOSEST FRIENDS PROFIT FROM WAR) in the size of their workforce, the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force. These actions are likely to WILL include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will (MEANING WE CAN FIRE YOUR ASS AT ANY MOMENT) status for a substantial number of federal employees.
Enhanced standards of conduct: The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal (THEY ACTUALLY PUT LOYAL IN, NOT MY EDIT), trustworthy, and who strive for excellence FOLLOWING ORDERS in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability LOYALTY and conduct as we move forward. Employees who engage in unlawful behavior FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation JAIL TIME and discipline, including termination LOSS OF FINGERNAILS.
Each of the pillars outlined above will be pursued in accordance with applicable law (AS BEST WE UNDERSTAND THOSE PESKY LAWS), consistent with your agency’s policies, and to the extent permitted under relevant collective-bargaining agreements.
If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus LOYALTY TO THE PRESIDENT EVEN THOUGH FEDERAL EMPLOYEES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE LOYAL TO THE CONSTITUTION… we look forward to working together as part of an improved WHITER, BLANDER, DUMBER, federal workforce. At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity AS WE QUICKLY REBRAND YOUR OFFICE AND ELIMINATE YOUR CAREER ACCOMPLISHMENTS. (DOGE NEEDS THE LIVING SPACE).
If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified FUCKED OVER…utilizing a deferred resignation program…
Whichever path you choose, we thank you for your service to The United States of America, BUT IT’S A NEW WORLD NOW. THE CONSTITUTION IS OUT. THERE IS ONE BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT. SERVE ACCORDINGLY.
Just in case you have not read the now infamous email sent to federal employees over a week ago I have included it in this post. As a reminder, Elon Musk sent an email to Twitter employees in 2022 similarly titled. Ultimately, he fired 80% of Twitter employees. The email to federal employees reads as follows:
(No Salutation)
During the first week of his administration, President Trump issued a number of directives concerning the federal workforce. Among those directives, the President required that employees return to in-person work, restored accountability for employees who have policy-making authority, restored accountability for senior career executives, and reformed the federal hiring process to focus on merit. As a result of the above orders, the reform of the federal workforce will be significant.
The reformed federal workforce will be built around four pillars:
Return to Office: The substantial majority of federal employees who have been working remotely since Covid will be required to return to their physical offices five days a week. Going forward, we also expect our physical offices to undergo meaningful consolidation and divestitures, potentially resulting in physical office relocations for a number of federal workers.
Performance Culture: The federal workforce should be comprised of the best America has to offer. We will insist on excellence at every level – our performance standards will be updated to reward and promote those that exceed expectations and address in a fair and open way those who do not meet the high standards which the taxpayers of this country have a right to demand.
More streamlined and flexible workforce: While a few agencies and even branches of the military are likely to see increases in the size of their workforce, the majority of federal agencies are likely to be downsized through restructurings, realignments, and reductions in force. These actions are likely to include the use of furloughs and the reclassification to at-will status for a substantial number of federal employees.
Enhanced standards of conduct: The federal workforce should be comprised of employees who are reliable, loyal, trustworthy, and who strive for excellence in their daily work. Employees will be subject to enhanced standards of suitability and conduct as we move forward. Employees who engage in unlawful behavior or other misconduct will be prioritized for appropriate investigation and discipline, including termination.
Each of the pillars outlined above will be pursued in accordance with applicable law, consistent with your agency’s policies, and to the extent permitted under relevant collective-bargaining agreements.
If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce. At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.
If you choose not to continue in your current role in the federal workforce, we thank you for your service to your country and you will be provided with a dignified, fair departure from the federal government utilizing a deferred resignation program. This program begins effective January 28 and is available to all federal employees until February 6. If you resign under this program, you will retain all pay and benefits regardless of your daily workload and will be exempted from all applicable in-person work requirements until September 30, 2025 (or earlier if you choose to accelerate your resignation for any reason). The details of this separation plan can be found below.
Whichever path you choose, we thank you for your service to The United States of America.
Upon review of the below deferred resignation letter, if you wish to resign:
Select “Reply” to this email. You must reply from your government account. A reply from an account other than your government account will not be accepted.
Type the word “Resign” into the body of this replay email. Hit “Send”.
THE LAST DAY TO ACCEPT THE DEFERRED RESIGNATION PROGRAM IS FEBRUARY 6, 2025.
Deferred resignation is available to all full-time federal employees except for military personnel of the armed forces, employees of the U.S. Postal Service, those in positions related to immigration enforcement and national security, and those in any other positions specifically excluded by your employing agency.
DEFERRED RESIGNATION LETTER
January 28, 2025
Please accept this letter as my formal resignation from employment with my employing agency, effective September 30, 2025. I understand that I have the right to accelerate, but not extend, my resignation date if I wish to take advantage of the deferred resignation program. I also understand that if I am (or become) eligible for early or normal retirement before my resignation date, that I retain the right to elect early or normal retirement (once eligible) at any point prior to my resignation date.
Given my impending resignation, I understand I will be exempt from any “Return to Office” requirements pursuant to recent directives and that I will maintain my current compensation and retain all existing benefits (including but not limited to retirement accruals) until my final resignation date.
I am certain of my decision to resign and my choice to resign is fully voluntary. I understand my employing agency will likely make adjustments in response to my resignation including moving, eliminating, consolidating, reassigning my position and tasks, reducing my official duties, and/or placing me on paid administrative leave until my resignation date.
I am committed to ensuring a smooth transition during my remaining time at my employing agency. Accordingly, I will assist my employing agency with completing reasonable and customary tasks and processes to facilitate my departure.
I understand that my acceptance of this offer will be sent to the Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) which will then share it with my agency employer. I hereby consent to OPM receiving, reviewing, and forwarding my acceptance.
Upon submission of your resignation, you will receive a confirmation email acknowledging receipt of your email. Any replies to this email shall be for the exclusive use of accepting the deferred resignation letter. Any other replies to this email will not be reviewed, forwarded, or retained other than as required by applicable federal records laws.
Once your resignation is validly sent and received, the human resources department of your employing agency will contact you to complete additional documentation, if any.
END OF EMAIL.
I will post again next week and include my comments to several of these disturbingly-worded sentences. Have a good weekend.
As I drive Dayton Street north to take my kids to school the city boundaries are so zig-zagged that I may be in Denver one block and in Aurora the next, never really quite knowing which city I am in from the moment I turn onto the street until I turn off of it in the Central Park neighborhood of Denver.
When Dayton approaches and crosses Colfax is when things get interesting. Colfax is bustling any time of day, but in the morning it’s full of pedestrians and bus riders going to and from school and work. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to how pedestrians cross the street here or how drivers navigate the madness.
Once north of Colfax, Dayton is lined with day laborers who have congregated there for over two decades. They line the sidewalks with their lunches (if they are lucky enough to have them) and wave at any car that drives by, hoping the driver is looking to hire them for a project. When they wave at me, I don’t wave back, out of not wanting to give them some false hope. When a car does pull over though, it is surrounded and overwhelmed by people willing to work on just about any project I imagine. Regardless of the weather or time of year, Dayton Street from Colfax to 16th Ave is lined with those willing to work. I have seen a hundred workers on this block of Dayton.
Naturally, I have been interested in how Trump’s policies would affect this block of Dayton, especially since it is in Aurora and Trump stated that immigration raids would start in this city. Well, he’s a bit late, so he lied again, but they did start yesterday. Even prior to the raids, the number of day laborers drastically decreased. This morning, I counted five of them on the street, still friendly, still waving, still eager to do the work no one else is going to do.
Where have the rest gone? Well, that is a good question and I think in the days, weeks, and months ahead we might get answers or we might not, but for starters here is a fact (remember those?): based on the promised mass deportation, “Gross domestic product (GDP) would be reduced by 1.4 percent in the first year, and cumulative GDP would be reduced by $4.7 trillion over 10 years.” It is not a stretch to conclude either that day laborers who used to get regular work by lining the sidewalks of Dayton have been forced into a cat and mouse game with ICE agents, in which the immigrants might become more and more desperate to make a living here in Aurora or Denver. Surely, that will be the case for some immigrants. Where do they look for work now? Pushing them off the streets into the dark recesses of an Aurora apartment complex for the entire day can’t be good. They are looking for decent pay and constructive work in the daytime. When forced onto the streets at nighttime, the same might not be said. This would be a very unfortunate result of ICE raids here in Denver and elsewhere, but do keep in mind this is a population that respects the rule of law here in the US more than US-born Americans. So, they have that going for them, even though the strongest and most capable government in the world is not willing to help them anymore.
This was a journal prompt I had almost four years ago. I answered it this way on February 21, 2021…
This is the question, isn’t it? It has been for quite some time, the question that gives me pause, makes me stop in my tracks, that question that forces me to take a good long look at what I do and, more importantly, am I any good at it? My answer for the majority of the time I have been an at-home dad has been, “Yes.”
But there are always buts. That’s the nature of the beast. The nature of any job you love. On a good day I love 80-90% of what I do. If the day is not going well, that number drops to 10-30%.
I consider being a stay-at-home dad (SAHD) a job. People who scoff at that and/or give me a weird look when I tell them this have never been a full-time at home parent with two kids and most domestic duties/responsibilities on their plate. It’s really not realistic to expect to do a lot more day to day, especially if you are also prioritizing time spent with a spouse and children, which, I know, I have the luxury of doing.
There was a time in 2019 to early 2020 that I drove for Lyft. The driving force, dad joke, for this was impending therapy bills for London that could amount to an extra $900 a month. They did for a while and driving for Lyft really helped ease the burden of all those $30 copays. Did I love Lyft though? No, but I do have some decent stories from the experience.
What I have loved more than anything else about being a SAHD is that I see nearly every moment of my kids’ young lives. I have been there for all the firsts. Now that London is at school M-F from 8:15 to 2:00, I have this weird feeling and it simply stems from someone else being in charge of her during those hours. It’s much more pronounced now that she is in FT school than it was at Montview where it was just a three-hour day or 5.5-hour days at kindergarten at Montview.
My three years with London before she went to Montview are years I absolutely loved. That’s not to say they were without struggle, but they were great. We had a lot of freedom. Now I have that opportunity with Camden. Of course, the pandemic has made the last year very difficult, but 2021 is going to be better. We have renewed memberships at the zoo and the DMNS and I hope to have more daytime adventures with Camden, more like the years I had with London, hopping from one museum to another with stops at the zoo and long lost parks in between.
For a long time now I have had this goal of being a SAHD until Camden goes to school either part-time or full-time. There is a possibility of him going to FT preschool [he did not]. If that works then my time as a FT SAHD is going to end I think. I have no idea what I will do next. Sometimes I think coaching swimming might be in my future once again. But collegiately speaking, there are not good options in Colorado. Perhaps something a little more low-key, but I don’t like the idea of that becoming a major chapter in my career arc.
I can predict the future though. Whatever I do next and until my life ends I will be grateful for these years. I will likely look back on them as the best of our lives. It hurts so much to know that they come to an end. I would choose to relive all of this again; all of the strife, the scary days, the difficult and dark days, and all of the loneliness that comes with being a SAHD, just so that I could have my loving 3-yr-old Camden and 7-yr-old London run into my arms again and again, without ever tiring of it. So, yeah, I do love what I do.
This could be my last summer as a full-time stay-at-home dad. As much as I need and crave time away from my kids, after less than 96 hours without them, I miss them dearly. Their squeals, laughs, pitter patter of small feet, noises from the kitchen as I wonder what they’re helping themselves too. Even sometimes their cries, when the silence without them feels like a suffocating blanket of absence.
Being alone is very nice. More time to catch up on the projects you’ve been meaning to do. A lot more time to read that book catching dust wherever you last set it. And an abundance of time to binge the newest buzzy show. There is just a lot more time to busy yourself with work, entertainment, things. And you can do all of it with minimal interruptions or, if you prefer, in absolute silence.
But after a little bit, after you get a taste of all those things that you were missing and that you have now done, there’s something else. There are questions in the quiet. Is this all there is? If this was life all the time would I get sick of it? Would solitary pursuits give way to success, self-absorption, or both? Would I feel like I am missing out on something? Would I get lonely or would my spouse be enough? Would she get lonely? Even questions about my far flung end arise. Will we arrive graying and wrinkled at the end of our lives wondering what could have been? Who are we missing? Who could be by our side now as we live our last days? What being/s will we never know because we do not have a child? I feel like the what-ifs would continue stacking up and then it would be too late.
What I don’t spend time doing is wondering what I could give to the world or to society if I did not have kids. Sure, it could be something great, but would it be as awe-inspiring, humbling, and as terrifying as having created a life? No. As holding the smallest hand in the pad of your index finger? No. As head-spinning as bearing witness to how fast the early years of life fly by? No. As proud a moment when you see your child shed a bit of your imprint on them to become someone wholly new, someone independent from you, but still your heart? No. As terrifying as the moment you realize they will spend many, many years on this Earth without you and you won’t be able to rush to their side anymore at the first sound of trouble, pain, or loneliness? I mean, the sadness of that thought could be enough to drive you to never have a kid, but it’s only a thought that parents can truly understand. And, by then, it’s too late. That is the risk we take. And there are big risks, but I know the answers to the questions above. Sometimes they get a little hazy and I feel the what-ifs rush in, but then I get a few days away from all their smiles, noises, questions, innocence, and imaginative everythings and the answers crystallize again into a sharp relief against a life without them.
I know I could give nothing to the world more precious and more important than them. I know the questions in the quiet would eat me up, but I know the answers to them and, for that, I am grateful.
the FoCo dad 