the foco dad

a stay-at-home dad muses about raising his two children

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  • The Cognitive Dissonance Outfit

    Cognitive Dissonance is defined as “a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly or subconsciously hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that create this dissonance or highlight these inconsistencies motivates change in their cognitions or actions to reduce this dissonance, maybe by changing a belief, by explaining something away, or by taking actions that reduce perceived inconsistency.”

    I saw this mental phenomenon in the form of an outfit this week.

    A man was wearing a tank top with pink lettering that said, “Support Your Local Girl Dad.”

    And, he had a Trump hat on.

    You cannot be both.

    That’s it. That’s the post.

  • Must They Ruin Everything

    I am not a devoted hockey fan, but if it’s the Olympics or the Avs in the playoffs, I’ll watch a match. So I was Sunday when I saw Jack Hughes’ golden goal just 1:42 into overtime. To see the excitement of the team was absolutely contagious. I replayed the final minute of the match for the kids. We were stoked. And then the players held up Gaudreau‘s jersey and brought his kids onto the ice for photos with the team. It was a beautiful moment and a show of brotherhood that few of us get to experience.

    I truly felt proud of these guys, none of whom I follow, but it was a moment—rare these days—to be proud of something the United States of America has done. That was the before.

    The in-between was just a few hours later when, as I scrolled through Instagram, I saw the familiar coke-addled, deer-in-the-headlights look of the FBI Director Kash Patel slamming back beers with the team. I felt the moment died right there.

    Big peaked-in-high-school energy.

    The after was coming to grips with the taxpayer money used to fund such a trip, apparently $100,000. There was no such support of the women’s team when they won their gold medal. In fact, this celebration did feature the women’s team (after a few more shitty beers were had) as they were the butt of a joke by the president himself when he said, “I must tell you, we are going to have to bring the women’s team, you do know that.” Adding that if he didn’t invite the women’s team, “I would probably be impeached.” To this, the men’s team laughed, both after the mention of inviting the women’s team and again after the impeachment joke. There was one man decent enough to be heard saying 2 for 2 in the video, a reference to the USA hockey teams sweeping the medals at the Milano Cortina games, but other than that the video was filled with very bro-y chuckles and slaps on the back.

    So there we have the president and one of his closest servants mock women’s sports, even though they pretend to be the party that wants to save women’s sports, but not behind closed doors. Behind closed doors they are pedophile-protectors, misogynist pigs, and care little about serving their constituents or solving a high-profile missing person case (you forgot about Guthrie, Patel). It’s all jokes and glad-handing. Duty and honor are absent from these men. They have proven it again and again. Their love of taking credit for any American victory, whether they played any part in it, is face-palming toddleresque.

    The kicker to all this is that as far as I know, no member of the men’s hockey team has spoken out about what went on in that locker room. They could have collectively not let that wee spotlight-grabbing, sad sack of a man in the door to celebrate with them. His role at most, should be to shake hands with the players once they were back in country. And not one man has defended their much more successful counterparts, the women’s USA hockey team, after Trump made them into a joke for all the men and the world to hear.

    If I could, I would make the men’s hockey team hear this poem I just heard last night for the first time (potus and Patel are a lost cause, clearly), it’s by Daragh Fleming and it’s titled “If I Ever Have Girls.” Here is a brief passage from the poem, intended for the US Men’s Hockey Team because they clearly need the education:

    My girls will know poetry and song.
    They’ll know I will listen when something feels wrong.
    They’ll learn that “women are too emotional” is an original lie,
    And they’ll not grow up with a father who refuses to cry.
    So yeah, my girls will make some weak men shake in their knees.
    They won’t be the women that society expects.
    They’ll be the women society needs.

    —Daragh Fleming, “If I Ever Have Girls”

  • The Pulse of the City

    Denver has a pulse. I have found myself missing the beat of the city lately. I left it with relative ease in June when we packed up everything and moved to Fort Collins, but now that we have had time to settle into our new house and new hometown, I spend a lot of time thinking about the last hometown.

    Kids playing in the park, down the street from our old house in the Lowry neighborhood of Denver.

    There is always the grass is always greener excuse, but that’s not exactly what I am feeling. I don’t want to be in our last house, although I absolutely loved it. I don’t want to be back in the old neighborhood, although I sort of liked it. I just miss things about Denver, things that maybe I thought Fort Collins had too, but I haven’t found them yet. For example, good restaurants. Denver has many of them. A hundred? I don’t know, but enough that there was always some eatery with a great reputation that you could go try for the first time every single time you went out to eat. Fort Collins has an inexplicable amount of restaurants, but finding a good one is as rare as finishing the NY Times Sunday crossword in one sitting. It’s quite the task, one that we’ve been surprised by. Thankfully, we were taken to a great one on Friday, Rare, a steakhouse at Mountain and College, right in the heart of town.

    I guess I underestimated how much I was tuned into a Denver lifestyle after 15 years there. It’s a big city, especially by my standards. There was always something going on. That doesn’t necessarily mean we always partook, I mean, there’s never a need to go to some event on 16th Street, but similar activities were always an option. Prior to our time in Denver, we lived in Milwaukee, which is a noticeably smaller city, but still a city with a buzz and an identifiable scene. So, Kate and I have had 18 years of marriage in big cities, and nearly eight months in a certifiably small city.

    Fort Collins has a pulse too. But I haven’t found it. It has felt so laid back and slow it appears lifeless from some angles. I suspect that I will find the beat of this city. Time will strengthen the bond as it always does. I guess I still feel bonded to Denver in a very strong way. I don’t want that to weaken, but I want my bond to FoCo to be just as strong.

  • Feeling Well-Off

    I do not once remember my parents implying that the key to happiness is money. They expressed that money is important, of course. It pays for a roof over your head, food on your plate, a car in the driveway (or other means to easily get around town), and, if you’re lucky, it pays for other roofs over your head on an annual vacation.

    I grew up in a family that vacationed more than once a year and we were never left wanting on Christmas morning. My sister got a car on her 18th birthday. I was given a car in my second year of college. Like many families, a washer and dryer breaking down and needing immediate replacement was a financial burden, but it was not one that economically broke the house. We were not in the third of Americans who couldn’t cover a sudden $400 expense. We earned above the median household income, which currently stands at $81,600. We were reminded of unhoused people all around us and helped them through charities and mission trips.

    Essentially, I was raised in a household that made me believe we were well-off. And we were. Things were kept in perspective. Yes, there were people richer than us and we were told there always will be. But, we weren’t on the streets, we had a very nice house, I had very nice toys, I had Shaq’s Reebok Pumps (look at these beauties, damn), a Duke Blue Devils pullover jacket, and the gold Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time N64 cartridge (still do). I felt lucky. I felt undeserving on many occasions because of what my parents gave me and gave the family.

    So when my kids ask me, are we well off? I tell them the truth. Yes, yes we are. We keep it real. I don’t want them comparing up the economic ladder, I want them looking down the economic ladder to see how well off we are and thinking how we can make things easier for those who aren’t well-off. In this house, like the one I grew up in, a matter of being well-off is knowing the facts, having humility, being respectful of the majority of the country who cannot live the way you live, being grateful, and not acting like you are owed something because your family can afford it.

    And it’s about holding onto rare N64 cartridges.

  • Today’s Topic is *SQUIRREL

    Catastrophizing is a bad habit I have developed since becoming a father. I am no idiot, I know where it has its origins: London’s nearly 4-month-long NICU stay and all the things I witnessed during that, all the scares and setbacks we have had with her since then, and the ASD and ADHD diagnoses. Not to mention that since she has been born we haven’t lived in a calm, peaceful, and honorable country. A lot can go wrong. A lot can go right, but I am weak and tend to spend quite a bit of time in the former mindset. I am trying to improve that. Progress pending…

    Anyway, when you’re already fearing the worst, attending a parent/teacher conference can be like going to the front lines of the conflict. You expect to hear some bad or sad news regarding the child you already know has special needs, but when it’s the other child, the one you thought was in the clear, the mind goes blank. You can go from not very hopeful to the sky is falling quite quickly. This is precisely the way I felt when Camden’s teacher brought up his attention span last year. I stared at the ground, here we go again.

    We started the diagnosis process last year in Denver, but it fell to the wayside amidst the chaos of moving. Now, in Fort Collins, we have had another teacher express concern about his attention span in class. I’m thankful he has had attentive teachers who both, without any communication between them, mentioned attention concerns. Finally, we are taking the steps to look into it, starting with the Vanderbilt Assessments this week and meeting with his doctor next week.

    As for me, I haven’t been catastrophizing too much this go around. I don’t think it will be a multiple diagnoses situation, like with London. At most, I do think Camden has a moderate case of ADHD and we hope to get him some help. We will review the assessment results next week and probably talk treatment/solutions in the same appointment. Talking and writing about it has made it easier to face. So, even if you’re not here for updates regarding this, you’re still gonna get them because I’m here to talk and write about anything. Buckle up. 🙂

  • The Cost of Not Writing

    I run out of patience with my kids when I don’t run. It was years ago when I realized that running had become an essential ingredient in my self-care. I had not run for several days and I had a short fuse with everybody. In the middle of yelling at the kids I was chastising myself for yelling at them. I was not the best version of myself and I wanted to know why. It wasn’t just an off day—all parents have those—there was something missing from my ordinary menu of mental health entrees. I ran down the list and could not put a checkmark next to running. A day off was key, but I had taken three and felt myself stretched too thin.

    Taken during a run in Steamboat this weekend.

    Since then I have made running a priority. I try to run when it’s convenient for the family. If it’s on the weekend, then the offer stands for Kate to get away and do something by herself for a while. I try to navigate family and social commitments and, for the most part, I do that successfully.

    After more than a month of writing, I feel like it’s back on the menu, my menu of mental health entrees. Writing was at best a digestif for too long, something I indulged in only when everything was going right, but the irony is that everything felt off or just not right because I didn’t write, so I never wrote.

    Last week was busy. A lot of things going on and a trip to Steamboat Springs to prepare for, so writing took a hit. I thought about it all weekend and, at times, felt the same way I do when I don’t run for several days, dull, easily angered, not as talkative, and more cynical than normal. Yikes. But it was comforting to feel that I am a better version of myself when I write. The cost of not doing so has become crystal clear once again.

  • The Long and Winding Road

    After 15 years in Denver, having parked in a wide variety of places all over the city, and in front of my own house, I took a hard hit to my passenger side corner panel in June. I was fast asleep, it was 12:30, prime sleeping hours for an old ride like me, when a Merc pulled a u-turn behind me. It’s operator must have thought she was clear of my booty, but nope. The Merc hit my right flank and slammed me into my sister, this beautiful white Sienna. Gosh, I was sore that morning.

    The nice people that hit me left a note on the windshield. They were looking for my owners and around 7am they found them. My driver drove me forward some, easing me away from my sister Sienna. She faired pretty well. A sizable dent in her side above the rear wheel, but nothing that couldn’t be hammered out, painted, and polished. Me however, I could move fine, my driver made sure of that. He and the experts he took me to to get fixed thought I would soon be on the road again. But I felt like something was not right and that they’d have to take me apart to find out what exactly. After a several hour operation without anesthesia they found it, a cracked A/C unit that—at my age—is a death knell. They say the cost of repairing that A/C unit is more than my entire worth! Well, junk in my trunk, that freaking sucks.

    I sat in a shitty dirt lot getting dusty for a couple weeks before my owners came by and took a closer look. They kept their voices down, but I knew it wasn’t good news. I was to be put down, sent out to pasture, repurposed as an ultra-modern bookshelf, made into a tiny home, or whatever it is they do with heaps of metal like me that are never gonna roll on four wheels again. They said some nice words to me and cleaned me out really well. They get a new version of me now!…but they didn’t look excited. I knew they just wanted to keep me.

    As they walked away I recalled our long, wonderful journey together. I was brand new when they found me in Milwaukee, the first new one they had ever bought. They put some leather on me and gave me hot pads so I could heat up their butts on cold upper midwest mornings. From that day on they kept me picture worthy. I was born in 2009, but looked half my age when they had to leave me in that dirt lot in 2025. I third-wheeled it on a lot of date nights until 2014 when I became the family car. The amount of gear I carried just for a one-night stay became absurd. Then another passenger arrived in 2017 and I was officially demoted from first string to second string. I couldn’t compete with the Sienna. She’s faster, greener, smoother, and has loads more storage than I do.

    But retirement was good to me! I was still the date car. I was kept even cleaner than in years past! I even drove for Lyft for a little bit. Someone kindly left me some weed one night in the fold of my second row, it made my headlights droop. I still had time with the family, just for shorter drives. Back and forth to school. Back and forth to Costco. Last hurrahs? I had a number of them. A blizzardy drive to Omaha, leaving at 3am because if I waited longer, I couldn’t get through that whiteout. A guys weekend in Steamboat. I carried seven adult males up the road to Strawberry Hot Springs, my heaviest cargo yet and I was in my 14th year!

    I dodged bullets, stolen vehicles, and somehow avoided break-ins and hit and runs for all of my life in Denver, only to come to a stop in Fort Collins, a much safer, calmer, cleaner city. The irony. It’s not the way I wanted to go out, but I did the very best with the miles given to me.

  • Isolation Atrophies The Mind

    I keep a note on my phone called Quotable. It’s been there for years. Sometimes I add to it once a week. Then months might go by before opening it up and adding another great line or passage from an article or book.

    The quotable note is often referenced by me to jumpstart a post or a brainstorming session. This afternoon I could not decide on what to write about. Not sure why that is, but I think yesterday’s tough 8-mile run with almost 1000ft of elevation gain might have played a role. I am quite lethargic in body and mind today, a real case of the Mondays, so I turned to the quotable note for inspiration.

    A quote from The Handmaid’s Tale (I think) caught my eye. “Isolation atrophies the mind.” That hits hard for me. I have never been as isolated in my adult life as I have been during my years being a stay-at-home dad, specifically those years the kids weren’t in full-time school. I kept them busy with trips to the zoo, museums, and camps. We always had stuff to do and I was never truly alone, but I was isolated from my peers for many years. No co-workers, no “working” lunches, no peers, no conferences, no after-work happy hour meetups, a whole lot of blank stares from moms and nannies, and a growing sense that all my good, male friends don’t think of me as a professional or a person with career ambitions (I think that sense has proved correct again and again).

    As years of this flew by, I felt a greater gap between myself and peers and a dullness to my mind, like an unused muscle. The atrophy of the mind, not from old age, not from a disease, but just from the daily grind of parenting and numbing domestic work. It’s a feeling stay-at-home moms have known for generations, but it’s uniquely strong for at-home dads. Not necessarily worse, just different.

    When I tell another man that I am a stay-at-home dad they react in a few ways. One, the man is completely shocked and acts like he hasn’t heard of such a thing, also assuming I will get back on my feet and be in the “workforce” once again. Two, they share that they did the same thing, but I wait for the punchline, “it was for six months” or for some other unimpressive duration of time. And three, the man tells me that is his dream job. This is a classic case of a man not knowing what he doesn’t know. But do you see what I am dealing with here? None of the responses are welcoming, nor relatable.

    For the man giving me response number two: I have been a stay-at-home dad for twelve years now. We aren’t going to connect if you think your 6-month stint (that’s just paternity leave in Europe) is relatable to my tenure. For the man giving me response number one: While you are still giving me your response I am calculating how quickly I can get out of this worthless interaction and to make a note to never approach you again. For the man giving me response number three: You really have not given this any thought and you don’t know exactly what a stay-at-home parent does. In this case, more often than not, ask your wife.

    Try having these three conversations over and over again for twelve years. It’s not isolation, but it can sure atrophy the mind. Maybe my mind has atrophied. Hopefully, not that much. Maybe not at all. But when I came across the quote from Handmaid’s Tale I wrote it down because it’s true. That truth scared me. It has to be part of the reason I am doing this again because if not now, then when? After both of the kids have left the house? Ten years from now? Too long. Too much isolation between now and then. After a wait that long, the muscle will not have just atrophied, it will have disappeared and along with it the ambition to have ever worked it at all.

  • This Moment Will Not Last

    No one tells you that looking at pictures of your kids from years past is going to hurt so much. It really came as a shock to me when I first registered this response. I heard so many maxims and accepted truths about parenting, especially the oft-repeated it goes by so fast. I always felt the truth in that. It was made crystal clear after London’s first few years, so when Camden came along in 2017 I made an even greater effort to appreciate every single moment of infancy and the toddler years.

    I feel like I did that right, most of the time, but still, I look at a video or a picture of those years and I get overwhelmingly sad. Yes, I’m happy I lived the moment. Yes, the kids look cute as heck. But it was gone so fast. And there’s gonna be a moment that happens over the next few days that will be photographed or recorded. In a few years, it’ll pop up as a memory on my iPhone and it’ll make me sad all over again. That cycle will continue until they are out of the house. Then the memories from those fleeting moments will become even rarer.

    These really are the best years and the sadness is a reminder of that. I’ll know in the simplest of moments, like walking London to the bus stop as the sun rises or holding Camden’s hand as we walk to get the mail, that on my deathbed I’ll want them back more than anything I have ever wanted in my life. That is the most painful reminder that the years do really go by fast. You can believe it when you hear it. But you feel it in your bones when you live it. It’s a stubborn ache that will never go away.

  • A Brief History of Freelancing

    When my inbox notified me of a response from the most popular swimming website in the world, I felt like a big door had just opened. This was my break, or really just the evolution of my freelance writing career, which was gonna take off following this gig. I just knew it. The owner and editor wanted to have a phone call and talk about topics, how often I would be expected to write, and what they were looking for. The call was scheduled two days later.

    “We offer $10 per post,” the editor said. I was so insulted I didn’t know what to say. I managed an, “Okay.” This was the swim website to have publish your work and the owner just offered me enough money per post to cover the cost of my Chipotle order, but not if I wanted a drink. It was 2015 and a few days later I got them to double their offer. But even at $20 a post, I would make less than minimum wage if I took four hours on a piece, from conception to ready to publish. I entertained the website by submitting three to four articles. They were all published. I had a writer profile page on the website. In fact, it’s still there for some reason, but this was a doomed project before it started.

    This was my last gasp at freelance writing. Even if I worked efficiently and quickly, I wasn’t producing an article in under two hours so the best hourly rate I ever achieved at the aforementioned website was $10/hr. For quick reference, we pay babysitters twice that amount, and that’s the starting rate.

    My long, storied freelance career* began at DiningOut magazine. They were kind enough to offer me a paid internship in 2007 and afterward I had a monthly article with them for about the next year. Their pay wasn’t exceptional (if I remembered the exact amount I would share it), but it was a lot more than the swim website was offering. It was fair pay considering my lack of experience and if my passion was food writing, I think it would have been a better fit for me, but I was also turned off by their advertorial articles. I didn’t want to be promoting a pizza I had never eaten or a martini I had never sipped. I wanted a little more freedom, both in topic and ability to express myself.

    The ideal writing gig was with the now defunct collegeswimming.com. They offered me $75 an article. They wanted one a week. I usually took 90min to 2hr to write, edit, and submit. This was something I could easily do as I finished up my MA degree at the University of Denver and started my job search. $300/mo was nothing to survive on, but it was a nice little boost to our income and to my ego, which was in desperate need of a boost as the job search stretched on and on, much later into 2013 than I ever thought it would.

    But in 2014, something happened to us. Kate and I became parents three months sooner than we expected to be and, although I’ve dabbled with other writing projects since then (see lucrative deal from 2015 mentioned above), I knew the moment London arrived at 26 weeks gestation that if I were to write about anything of consequence ever again, it would be about this experience and the twelve years since. At this point, I don’t get paid per word or per post, but that could change, either way I feel like writing on this website about whatever it is I want to write about is the richest I have ever felt as a writer.

    *denotes sarcasm.

  • Documentary: Mr Nobody Against Putin

    I love a good documentary. This time of year between Oscar nominations and the Oscars show is like Christmas for documentary lovers. A lot of the films become available to stream on some platform or at least become available to rent. In 2023, one of those movies was titled Navalny, after the Russian lawyer and opposition leader, who was sentenced in 2022 to nine years in prison. In 2024, Navalny’s death in a Russian prison was announced and even though terribly sad, it was not shocking to the community of people who knew what he was up against.

    When Navalny won the Oscar for best documentary feature no one was surprised. Navalny was gripping, disturbing, touching, and so incredibly sad. But so important. I have been interested in documentaries from inside Russia or from countries they invade, see 20 Days in Mariupol, since then. You can watch 20 Days at this site. It won best documentary feature at the Oscars in 2024.

    The latest and greatest documentary feature smuggled out of Russia is Mr. Nobody Against Putin. It’s available to rent on Amazon Prime (that’s how I watched it). Although it is not as polished, nor as well known as Navalny and 20 Days, its story is pivotal in understanding today’s Russia, especially their now four-year-old war with Ukraine. Mr. Nobody is about an events coordinator at a primary school in Russia’s industrial heartland who was also the only videographer at the school. His name is Pavel and he was constantly filming, thus making himself a bit of an accidental documentarian when he gets in touch with someone outside of Russia who is interested in his footage.

    The footage Pavel collects is at first general reactions to the war with Ukraine, but it takes a radical turn when Putin launches a national education program with scripted, patriotic speeches from every teacher in the school. Time spent learning nosedives. Grades tank. And Pavel, well he very conveniently is in charge of filming the rollout of this propaganda, which gets weirder and weirder. Students get scripted responses to the scripted questions asked of them. Military marching is frequently practiced in the hallways. The Wagner Group even comes to the school and makes a presentation, holding a grenade-throwing contest for boys not much older than my son.

    The footage is sickening, but like Navalny and 20 Days, essential viewing if you want to educate yourself about Russian leaders and what Ukraine, and frankly the rest of the world, is up against. The movie would not exist if Pavel did not escape Russia with his hard drives and memory cards. He leaves behind a city he truly loved, a mom who works as a librarian at the primary school, and dozens of current and former students who consider him a true friend. But, under Putin, Pavel was at risk of being sentenced to prison for 15 to 25 years under new and old laws which punish Russians who spread “false information” or dissent against Russian activities or leaders.

    Pavel will likely never be allowed back into Russia. Like any well-known Russian dissenter he also faces the threat of Putin’s ire, which does not respect boundaries, sovereignty, or international law. It was a great risk, and still is, for Pavel to have made this movie. It faces tough competition at the Oscars this year, but of the 4 out of 5 Oscar-nominated documentaries I have watched this year, it gets my vote.

  • A Brief History of Birthday Parties

    Successful birthday parties for a child on the spectrum are rare, at least they have been for us so far, having just celebrated London’s 12th. The first parties, the preschool parties, don’t count. Those are the easy ones, where everyone is invited. Parents hang around too. Maybe you have a cooler of juice boxes next to a cooler of craft brews, clearly marked of course. All the kids get along for a bit. There’s some crying. There’s some chaos. There’s some confusion. But, the really nice part is that kids aren’t mean yet. If they see differences at all among their peers it is not an issue.

    Elementary was a whole different beast. Girls got very clicky. They aren’t kind to each other and they’re especially not kind or welcoming to someone who appears to think and act differently than them. My daughter, who is the most welcoming and nice person I have ever known, did not get invited to a birthday party more than twice in elementary school (I might be exaggerating). We hosted a few parties, though it was a mix of good and bad. One girl at a third grade party showed up with her cellphone. At another party, a sleepover, we had a guest steal toys and jewelry (real jewelry, not kiddie dress-up garbage), later receiving it in the mail and severing ties for the best.

    London would often speak of friends at school. I knew some of them. But there was never an invite. And in group interactions, I saw no one engaging London like a true friend. I was disgusted and admittedly so disappointed in her peers that I referred to them as bitches when complaining to Kate. How is this possible? How are these girls so mean already?

    My heart has been shattered again and again thinking about how many birthday parties she hasn’t been invited to. It has bothered her too, although she is so damn resilient and has faired much better than I have. For her, it’s normal and I think it truly does not bother her. But I know exactly what she’s missing and the sadness that comes from that enwraps me in a dark shroud somedays.

    I have normalized London not having friends she sees outside of school. No one is gonna call for a playdate. There just aren’t going to be birthday party invites. No need to navigate a busy weekend of social gatherings for her because there aren’t any. I know London has attended more parties as the older sibling guest of Camden, who receives birthday party invites, than parties she received an invitation for.

    So when we moved to Fort Collins and London met a girl one year older than her and two houses away from us, I was not optimistic. I started to wonder how long until this girl can see London’s differences and any hope in a friendship is dashed? How will we handle that when she lives on the same street? We are going to see her so much. London won’t get it. London will approach this girl every day like they are best friends.

    But it’s been months now and that hasn’t happened. London and her new friend have even hung out outside of school, having hot chocolate on Fridays and fishing together on the weekends. They walk back from the bus stop after school. The girl says bye to London and London actually says bye back! London’s new friend has introduced her to other friends in the neighborhood and at school. And just this last weekend, we hosted a party for seven of London’s friends who, according to spies in the room (I took Camden to Fort Fun), got along very well and were respectful and sweet to London. After the party, London was on cloud nine. She showed me all the generous gifts she received. I reveled in her glow, even feeling a bit optimistic about her future friend situation, which I have never felt. I expect there to be setbacks along the way, these are middle school girls after all, but so far they are much kinder than any elementary “friend” she ever had.

    I just have to recalibrate my social expectations for her because—although they are fleeting—hopeful moments in this area are a new thing for us. Although we have encouraged her socially for years, it’s her who is really putting in the work, putting herself out there, and talking to anyone and everyone like it’s the best day ever. I love that.

  • Dry January Lessons

    1. I can do it! I don’t know about you, but my drinking hasn’t been a problem (other than it just generally not being the healthiest thing to do to one’s self), but it had increased during the pandemic and it hadn’t really tapered off. I may be having pandemic-induced amnesia, you know the kind that makes it hard to remember that much before 2020, but I don’t think I heard of dry January before then. I wanted to see if I could do it and…
    2. It was easy. Yes, much easier than I thought it would be. NA beer has come a long way and I relied on that to have something nice to drink with or after dinner. The strong craving for a drink only happened 2-3 times in January.
    3. A good ginger beer and pomegranate juice is my go to mocktail. The best ginger beer out there is Cock’n Bull, the premium stuff, none of that diet ginger beer. This seemed to be the only NA drink that gave me heartburn at night, which is a consequence I deal with any time I drink more than one alcoholic drink.
    4. I gained weight. I stepped on the scale two days ago and I was up 5-6 lb in January despite also having steadily run throughout the month. So not drinking makes you gain weight!
    5. With no alcohol at night, I more easily justified dessert. A favorite go to is vanilla ice cream, with chocolate syrup, and a sprinkle of malted milk. It’s the lazy man’s chocolate malt. Just stir it up in the bowl and you’re set. Another favorite, a giant bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch after the kids go to bed. One night I had it out of a small mixing bowl…this may or may not have contributed to weight gain.
    6. I see two scenarios. One in which I weigh around 260 lb and don’t drink, but I have a near nightly dessert and/or mountain of sugar cereal. Scenario two in which I weigh around 250 lb, drink when I want to and when I want a bowl of ice cream I grab another beer. Which is healthier? I can tell you right now, I like the sound of scenario two.
    7. Moving forward, I’d like to drink less in general. I don’t know what that will look like. More weeknights without a cocktail? More nights with ginger beer and my juice of choice? Just drinking socially? I’m leaning toward a mix of all three.
    8. Forgoing drinks in January did not make me sprint like Noah Lyles.
    9. Forgoing drinks in January did not make me run like Cole Hocker.
    10. But forgoing drinks did not make me slower. If anything, I felt better endurance and during a month in which I increased my training load, not drinking certainly helped, but I knew this, having done long stretches of not drinking leading up to big races or PR attempts.
    11. I went to sleep better.
    12. I slept better, little to no waking up in the middle of the night.
    13. I woke up feeling more rested.
    14. I might have had more energy in the day. You know? I think I did, despite not cutting back on caffeine consumption.
    15. I will NEVER do a coffee dry January or any other month. Forget it. Horrible idea. Proud to say I could not do it. Time to go pour another cup of joe.

  • Appreciation Post: Trail Running

    Trail running. I have always loved it. One might think that living in Denver for 15 years provided a lot of trail running opportunities. Well, if that’s the case, you just don’t know Denver. It is a shockingly flat city and spread out. Omaha has more undulation and hills than metro Denver. Truly. I have run a decent amount in both cities.

    Also, if you live in east Denver, the mountains aren’t close. You have a one-way, 35-40-minute drive to get to the foothills, a total slog that means a trek on 70, 6th Ave, or a really long loop south via 225, 25, and 470. That’s just to get to a run, that by this Coloradan’s standards, could qualify as a trail run. Then you have the drive back.

    So, for fifteen years, trail running wasn’t a big part of my running regimen. Whenever we would vacation in the mountains, which was frequent, I would bring all the running gear and over the years I’ve accrued a lot of miles in Breckenridge, Frisco, Vail, Steamboat Springs, and Estes Park.

    Since Fort Collins has been home, trail running is back on the menu and a regular part of my week. The mountains in general just feel much more accessible here. I can reach the base of them in twenty minutes. I have a standing trail run with a good friend every Thursday at noon. I have joined the Fort Collins Run Club and participate in their training runs for the Horsetooth Half Marathon (not a trail run, but a decent chunk of it happens in the mountains).

    Solo trail runs are also a regular occurrence. This time by myself serves as a much-needed meditative hour in the midst of so much noise and bustling about. Now, the week doesn’t quite feel fully taken advantage of if it doesn’t include a trail run.

    A good trail run always presents a scene worthy of a photo. So, before I head off on my weekly trail run, I’ll share a few photos below of the scenes trail running has brought me. The new header image for this blog is from a trail run as well. It’s not a remarkable photo, but it was time to lose the old photo of the Denver skyline, circa 2014.

    On the Peaks Trail, from Breckenridge to Frisco.
    Bay to Bay trail, Horsetooth Reservoir.
    From the summit of Emerald Mountain (9,236ft) looking at Longs Peak.
    Running up to Lily Lake from the YMCA of the Rockies. Kate, the kids, and my mom had driven to the lake for a hike around it. I met them there in a moment of perfect timing. Just as I finished the climb from the valley below the family was halfway through their hike and spotted me.
    From one of the many summer and fall trail runs in Vail.
    Bear Canyon Bridge. Draper, UT, near SLC.

  • The Glass Sibling

    Being a sibling of a child with special needs is tough. I think about Camden’s voice being stifled and smothered from time to time by London’s voice. Not that she is trying to be rude. She loves a good chat. She loves sharing facts. She loves asking questions. Hang around for an evening and you’ll get all three. Of course, there is an element of not being able to read the room, i.e. know when someone else wants to talk. That comes with the autism.

    Camden is very patient with it all. Yes, there are times where he will scream at the top of his lungs in order to interrupt or he will simply just tell London to stop talking. But most of the time, he settles in for a good while and waits to talk. He’s often better at this than me. His frustration does manifest in unique ways though. He has broken down in tears in response to us telling him he does not have autism like his sister. In hindsight, he was likely expressing a yearning for attention. Because he doesn’t have autism, he won’t get as constant attention as London, nor will he receive hours of playtime therapy at home, which London received. He has FOMO, the most unusual kind, but it’s definitely FOMO.

    Both kids playing Legos in London’s room for the first time.

    Camden has had to develop very good listening skills. We all have. There is one person with autism at the dinner table every night, but we all feel it. We all live with the diagnosis. To be clear, this isn’t a curse. It’s merely a clarification. Autism is a family diagnosis.

    There is a name for the siblings of diagnosed children. “Glass siblings, they’re called, because they are thought to be invisible—as transparent as glass,” writes Carrie Cariello in Autism Out Loud. Now, I think with London’s diagnosis not being in the moderate to profound level, Camden isn’t quite a glass sibling, but he does spend his time being overshadowed because of his sibling needing more guidance, attention, verbal reminders, etc. To think that he has ever felt invisible makes me incredibly sad, even if it was just for an evening.

    It may be hard at times, but Camden is a perfect sibling for London. Constantly on the move and ready to play with her. The minute he walks in the door after school he asks, “Where’s London?” They increasingly play well together, whether building Legos, a Brio train, or playing in each other’s Minecraft worlds. I say increasingly, but I still feel like a boxing referee 50% of the time. That’s okay! That’s an improvement. They play in each other’s rooms. They enjoy the same music. They are both in love with playing in the snow. Their connection is very strong.

    It used to be if Camden crossed the threshold of London’s room she would instantly yell, “Get out,” done so with a signature staccato, which Kate and I still imitate. I remember the first time London allowed Camden into her room to sit down and play Legos. London’s ABA therapist alerted me to the moment and I snuck upstairs to get a picture of it before the moment vanished. And it did vanish, but it happened! I’ll take that win.

  • London is almost 12

    London enjoys a lot of the same music I do. While driving across town I might listen to the score from Dune 2 or Oppenheimer. We love a big, vibrant, orchestral soundtrack.

    Since she first heard “Can You Hear the Music” from Ludwig Göransson’s stirring score for Oppenheimer, it has been one of our favorites.

    I love it because I think it is the perfect musical representation of what happens in London’s head when she gets an idea. There is this sudden, crystal clear motivation to develop, build, and perfect the idea. She sees all angles of it at once and wants to work on all angles at once, even though that’s not possible. As the short song rapidly increases tempo, so are her thoughts flying at her faster and faster, bouncing every which way in her head.

    The glorious crescendo of the song races at you like a freight train. There are so many layers to the song, so much going on. You can’t pick one part apart from the other. At the end, it’s noise. It’s chaos. But London hears the music, I think she’s heard something like this before, but just in her head. I’ll never know what that sounded like, but Göransson seems to have perfectly bottled it up in a one-minute, 50-second song. I think London loves the song because it’s her. It’s the soundtrack to her mind. It’s everything all at once at a speed I can’t keep up with, but watching it in her is one of the greatest blessings of my life.

    She turns 12 on Friday. Like the music, our lives are speeding up. Time seems to be accelerating at a faster rate as I age and watch her grow. It feels like the song getting faster and faster, closing in on a crescendo, a zenith. But we certainly aren’t there yet. For now, I’m so grateful to be on the journey with someone who can hear the music. I need to stop every once in a while and ask her what it sounds like because I don’t hear the way she hears. That’s the mystery and beauty of it all.

    Happy Birthday, London. Your Dad loves you.

  • Alex Pretti was murdered by ICE

    I just want one person, any person, who I know voted for Trump, to express some sadness about his policies, any misgiving at all. That would be great. That would restore some of my faith in this country. I don’t need to hear you say you regret voting for him. Even if you just expressed some concern about ICE tactics, it would be freaking amazing at this point.

    It would be particularly great to hear this from people who expressed sadness and outrage over the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Some of my own family members shared Trump’s post about the “great and even legendary” Kirk. But all of you haven’t said a word about Alex Pretti, who is clearly murdered on the streets by federal law enforcement agents. You were silent after Renee Good. But after Pretti? Video of his murder is clearer than videos of Good’s murder. There are more angles. It’s as clear as day. And it’s clearer than ever that Trump, Noem, DHS, Vance, Patel, Bovino, and all the other grovelers are lying to you, me, and everyone else about what happened.

    Local journalist, Kyle Clark asked the question, “What if there was no video?”

    A critique making the rounds on social media over the weekend reads as follows: Voting for Trump and then conveniently “not keeping up with politics” is pure cowardice. Turn around and look at the disaster you helped usher in. You don’t get to look away.

    The reality is, you do get to look away. It’s still a free enough country that you can vote and then not pay attention to the aftermath. It’s a sick way to disregard the policies that your vote helped usher in, but it’s what I see again and again from people who I know voted for Trump. It’s very disturbing. So often we are simply afraid to admit we were wrong about something, ill-informed about a political policy, or whatever it may be. We don’t want to express doubt because we think it will show a weakness, a lack of foresight. We will look dumb. When precisely the opposite will happen. We will be taken seriously. We will show that we have critically thought about the consequences of our actions. We will show the courage to change our beliefs. We will develop a moderate position on something. We will break outside of our insular echo chambers.

    We should all challenge and critique our own beliefs and opinions. Sometimes the onus is on democrats. Sometimes it’s on republicans. Sometimes its on all of us. But when it comes to Alex Pretti, there’s just no excuse to justify his killing.

    Give us hope. Express some goddamn outrage.

  • Why Am I Doing This?

    For a good part of yesterday I beat myself up about not writing. My goal for this January has been to write every weekday that the kids are in school, I even managed a post on one holiday, but the streak died yesterday.

    I have a very defeatist attitude about not reaching a goal sometimes. For example, a teeny, tiny voice was telling me to just give it up altogether yesterday because I did not blog. Obviously, that voice lost out, but it’s one that I am very familiar with. I’ve heard it many times before when I have abandoned blogging or journaling and I’m human, so of course the voice won on more than one occasion.

    Hand in hand with that struggle is my ability to forgive myself. Traditionally, I have been horrible at this! But, as I close in on the ripe old age of 43, I’m getting better at forgiving myself, allowing grace to be in parts of my day and in my head with much more consistency than before. When I slow down enough, when I stop catastrophizing, grace stabilizes me, lifts my spirits, and even gives me hope.

    You can see where this is going. After a very strong start to this blog, there were some gaps in writing. Sometimes just a few days, but then months, and even years between posts. I think that entire time I was engaged in negative self talk about not writing, or about my writing itself. It was a relentless voice and it not only criticized my writing (or lack thereof), but my parenting, my running ability, my husbanding. 

    That voice paired with depression, which reared its scary, ugly head in early 2017, was a double whammy to my motivation to write. Instead of writing, I ran more, I consumed more shows, movies, and podcasts. To be clear, these are not bad things, but nearly every time I was watching, running, or listening I thought, well, I could be writing.

    I thought the new goal was surviving. One child with ASD and ADHD, another having just arrived, plus every thing else a stay at home parent does, I did not see a way I could maintain a habit of writing. But survival started to feel like stagnation. I stagnated for a long time. There were flickers of activity, but no consistency. No habit. A behavior can’t change you until it’s a habit.

    In November of last year I started to think about writing again, but with consistency. Internal debates carried out in my mind. What does consistency look like? What will you do if you miss a day? How many posts a week are we talking here? Once a day? Twice a day? Seven days a week? Allowing myself grace, thank God, I settled on five posts a week, unless kids are not in school. If I manage a post while they are home, then great, but with a moderate dose of realism, and again grace, if I don’t write on a day I am soloing them about town that’s completely fine.

    Yesterday was another test of that grace. It was a struggle for a bit, but this time I knew I’d be right back in this seat in the morning. All this time I’ve put writing on the back burner to survive, to get by. What was really happening was that some big part of me just started to be taken over by everything else this life throws at you. I guess in November I just had this realization that if I wanted to save that part of me, that dream, my voice, I would have to share it. I would have to create again. I am once again excited to.

    *Just wanted to share that one of my favorite movies of the year is Train Dreams on Netflix and since starting this writing thing again I have listened to its beautiful and haunting soundtrack a lot, but no more than the titular song “Train Dreams” by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner. Have a listen here and then watch the movie if you have not.

  • Diagnosis Day

    Inspired by the tales about three different days of diagnoses in Autism Out Loud, I’ve been trying to recollect our own, the day London was diagnosed with Autism.

    Before the day, actually much earlier in that preschool year of 2017-2018, London’s teacher expressed concern about London’s behavior. London rarely shared information with other kiddos and did not have appropriate interactions with them, but engaged a lot with adults. London was “flagged” for further evaluation. No parent likes hearing that at a parent/teacher conference. When I heard it, I shut down for the rest of the conference, not able to focus on the teacher’s words, only able to worry, worry, worry.

    2018. The summer of ASD diagnosis.

    After that it was a long wait until we were able to even get London assessed…for what? I didn’t know. But, I wrote on April 5, 2018, “We met with Emerge (the company we used for the assessment) today. They are going to spend some time with you in June and give us parenting tips later on.” I mean, I had no clue what was coming. London is a preemie, we were told from the start that delays in movement and speaking are quite common. London did have some delays, but she was speaking a ton and moving a lot, albeit clumsily, but she was only 4 and growing so fast. At the time, I thought after all of this we would get some magical parenting tips and any issues regarding London would be resolved with time and a few new strategies. It was a cute thought.

    London had two, 2-hour assessments. The first wasn’t until June 26th. The second in July. I attended neither, having already sat through one assessment with Denver Public Schools when London was three—that assessment having concluded that London did not need extra support.

    August 2, 2018, we get the diagnosis, Autism Level I. I knew so little about ASD at the time. I was so confused, thinking, but wait, she can’t have autism, she can speak. Kate was also a bit confused, but not as much me. We nodded our heads as the doctor further explained the diagnosis and handed us some basic information about ASD. We could use Emerge’s therapists or seek help elsewhere.

    The short journal entry for the day reads: You received a diagnosis of motor coordination disorder today and a very mild case of autism. Emerge did not see any cognitive delay or speech impairment. Actually, your speech and vocab tested equivalent to a kid aged 5 yrs, 7 months, a year older than your actual age.

    My ignorance truly shines in the use of “very mild case of autism.” I think that makes it sound like London rolled around in a patch of poison ivy and everything will clear up after a few months or, at worst, some years.

    As Kate and I read more about ASD, we had enough doubt about the diagnosis that we did entertain a reevaluation elsewhere, but we never did it on account of eventually seeing that Emerge was onto something, it would take months to get seen somewhere else, and another assessment would cost another $1500 at least.

    But that first night home after the diagnosis I remember thinking, somewhat naively—let’s call it premature optimism—that this does not change anything. I had no idea then how much it would, but I think in terms of my love for London, that did not dwindle a bit. In fact, my love, and, unfortunately, my worry for her, which had been locked in at a very elevated state since she was born three months early, grew in huge strides that day.

    To have an answer was a blessing and a curse. It was a paradigm shift and not the first one we had in London’s young life. Just like after her extraordinary birth, we had to move forward, again with life’s reminder that we are never in control.

  • Threatening Europe

    After all the things Trump has done with his first year of his second term, threatening to invade and completely take over Greenland, strikes me as the most dangerous action yet. Never in my wildest dreams did I foresee a day in which the greatest threat to European sovereignty would be the United States. But, here we are.

    Our European allies are declaring their support of Denmark (also a US ally) and Greenland. In those countries there are thousands protesting against Trump and his declaration that Greenland will be American territory.

    I would expect every leader and politician in Davos this week to push back and deny the little piggy another piece of pie. Apparently though, that is not happening and Gavin Newsom had a nice little quote in The Guardian regarding the leaders still afraid of Trump and even worse, those groveling at his feet, “It’s time to buck up, it’s time to get serious and stop being complicit. I can’t take this complicity. People rolling over. I should have brought kneepads for all the world leaders … this is pathetic.”

    The same article shares this embarrassing detail about Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of NATO and former prime minister of the Netherlands, reporting that he sent Trump a message, praising him, “what you accomplished in Syria today is incredible.” Rutte is referring to a 4-day ceasefire between Syrian government forces and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF. One really has to do some digging to see if Trump played a significant role in this. The article from Al-Jazeera (linked above) only references a US proposal to be Syria’s main ally in fighting ISIS. However, this article from the BBC does not give Trump the same kind of credit Rutte does. And, somewhere out there, is probably a Fox News article describing the conflict as the 10th, 11th, or 12th war Trump has ended. I have lost count!

    Either way, it is so incredibly sad to see how broken we are within our own borders, and yet, our deranged leader, once again, turns away from domestic affairs to international affairs because those get him the headlines, the publicity, and the respect or fear (he loves either one) from world leaders. My hope is that European leaders protect Denmark and Greenland. I hope they tariff the shit out of the US. I want to see people brave enough to fight back because no obsequious republican in this country is going to do it.