Tag: Daughters

  • Spring Break Broke Me (Unedited)

    I take full responsibility for my actions. Let’s start with that.

    The kid has been on her Spring Break for the past week, and on the whole, I have enjoyed the time we have spent together. The older she gets, the more fun she is to talk to. She very smart and a very opinionated kid, which makes conversations with her enjoyable because she is very passionate in what she believes in. She’s at a fun age when the world is brand new and just waiting for her to explore it. I didn’t try to over schedule her, but we did some fun stuff like spend an afternoon at the Whitney Museum, and we shot some arrows over at Gotham Archery in Brooklyn.

    But I did make a mistake with this Spring Break; I fell out of my routine. This was the kid’s Spring Break, not mine. For some reason, I got it in my head that I was also going to enjoy some “time off.” Unfortunately, this was a miscalculation, as you see, when you are a stay at home parent, you never really get a day off. Your job is to keep the family on track and moving forward. This I lost sight of.

    What I ended up creating in myself was a feeling of anxiety, and the sense that I was letting “everything” fall behind. Everything was taking longer to do, and thus created situations where I wasn’t able to complete the tasks that were important to me; mainly writing and catching up on my reading. But if I took time for myself, then I started feeling guilty, and then those feelings rolled up into a ball angst, as I wasn’t doing enough for my family.

    I chalk this up on bad planning, and too high of aspirations, on my part.

  • Short Story Review: “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli

    (The short story “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli appeared in the February 16th & 23rd, 2026 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Jesús Cisneros

    “Predictions and Presentiments” by Valeria Luiselli is a short story that gave me a reassuring hug. The reassuring didn’t come in the form of any answers to the questions which the story brought up, but it reassured me that life is about growth and discovery.

    Overly Simplistic Synopsis: After a divorce, a mother and her daughter spend time in Sicily, not too far from where the mother’s grandmother is originally from. And they try to cook a swordfish head, too.

    In the story, the main character has a small mosaic fragment of the god Proteus which her grandmother obtained/stole from an archaeological dig she was working at. The mosaic fragment is a clever dramatic device in the story. But I had this thought in my head that “Predictions and Presentiments” was a bit like Proteus; it kept shifting and changing. Was this a story about just the narrator, a mother, and her daughter? Was it about her grandmother as well? Legacy trauma? Family origin story? Connection to the past, or the ancient past? What truths do we share with our families, or do we make fictions out of those truths? Can we change who we are, or we destined to our nature? Is our future but a guess, or is there a way to logically know what’s coming?

    This is a story that walks a very nice tightrope of keeping it all together. I couldn’t shake the feeling that at any moment the mother and daughter could spin off into ruin. I can’t say where in the story I got that from; perhaps it was the refrain of starting over in a new place, the perils that come with beginning again, and discovering something new? Maybe it was the climax of the story, or the fishmonger who sold the fish head? Or it could have been how not everything that happened in this piece got wrapped up neatly, or fully explained? This created a feeling of fragmentation, that Proteus mosaic again, but Luiselli held it all together. See, it reassured me that life is messy, not neat, but wonderful to experience.

  • What Did I Do Today?

    I over slept, for one.

    I made a breakfast of cereal because I was tired.

    I walked the dog.

    I woke my daughter up.

    I made my daughter breakfast.

    I had a long conversation with my daughter because she felt sad and anxious.

    I started laundry and finished laundry.

    I made my family lunch.

    I fell asleep on the couch watching an old episode of Great British Baking Show.

    I cleaned the kitchen.

    Made a Thanksgiving grocery shopping list.

    I listened to The Beatles’ Anthology 4 while folding laundry.

    I am currently writing a blog.

    I still have to walk the dog.

    I still have to shower.

    I still have to make dinner.

    I still have to clean the kitchen again.

    I still have to make the coffee for the morning.

    I still have to put the kid to bed.

    I still have to play MarioKart and try and beat the final circuit in the Mirror Level.

    I still have to snuggle with my wife on the couch as we watch Tracker.

    I still have to put my wife to bed.

    I still have to watch part three of Ken Burn’s The American Revolution.

    I still have to go to bed.

  • What It’s Like To Be a Stay-at-Home-Dad? (“Mommy Has Questions” Podcast Interview)

    Here is the episode of the podcast Mommy Has Questions that I was interviewed on. It was a fun conversation about stay at home parenting, male roles in the family, and the couple of other things. I had great time, enjoyed the discussion, and the whole Mommy Has Questions team made me feel comfortable and right at home. So thank you for having me.

    Please, give it a listen – follow, subscribe, leave a comment. You know the drill.

  • Apple Pickin’

    This past weekend, we took part in our annual tradition of going apple picking! I dusted off my red and black flannel shirt because there was a chill in the air, and I had a need to the great taste of crisp ripe apples!

    We started apple picking when the kid was two, and my folks came up to visit us in October 2017. My parents were here to see us, especially to see their granddaughter, and my Ma wanted to experience a New England Autumn. My wife was the one who came up with the idea of apple picking, and it was great Fall activity. It was cool out, slight mist in the air, leaves were changing, and it was something that my parents had never experienced before. Me as well.

    After that, on the first of second weekend in October, we head up into the Hudson Valley for an orchard to spend the morning weaving between trees, picking away.

    This year, I had been looking forward to this more than anything. Part of it is that Autumn has been late in arriving up here. Seems like two weeks ago, we still had the air conditioners on dealing with several days of 80 degrees. But Fall did arrive, and like magic the leaves started changing, temps cooled, and we even got a little rain. Driving up out of the City, it was rejuvenating to feel that the season had started changing. For me, Summer is oppressive while Autumn is liberating.

    This year, as the season was changing, there were other changes too. The apple picking was fine, we all had a good time. But as I looked around the orchard at all of the other families out there with their little kids, I noticed that my daughter was one of the older children out there. I was sort of amazed that there were no teenagers; Like almost none. And the few that were there looked like they wanted to die. I know that apple picking is a cheesy cliche thing to do in Fall, and when I looked over at my kid, who was having a good time, it was apparent that I have a limited time left to do this stuff with her.

    Things will change, as they always do. It will be sad when the day comes and she doesn’t want to do this stuff anymore, but it’s also normal for her to get older and not want to do the old things anymore. Maybe she’ll prove me wrong. I know that she’ll still want to apple pies that her mother makes after these outings. That part won’t change.