It was approaching 8 am on a crisp, spring morning in Boulder, Colorado.
All I had to do was make it to 9. That’s when Jack Jack would go down for his morning nap.
My wife, Chels, gave Jack Jack and I each a kiss and click-clacked her way across the kitchen floor in her cycling shoes. She was going for a bike ride and just reclaiming momentum on exercising regularly again. She had experienced the same thing so many other new moms face after having their first child: motherhood arrived and prioritizing herself was forgotten.
As a couple, we were working on creating more space for my wife to have time to herself. Time to exercise, read, run errands, whatever. We wanted her to experience that our one-year-old son would be ok without mom for a few hours, and that time off “mom-duty” would be good for mom too.
And it was all depending on one thing: me holding down solo dad duty at home.
“1 hour. Easy. Let’s go.”, I thought to myself.
But it didn’t start off so smoothly.
“Don’t climb on the fireplace.”
“Stay out of the kitchen cabinets.”
“Just sit here in the middle of the living room with your toys.”
None of it was working. And Jack Jack was starting to grunt and squirm as I kept picking him up and moving him back to the center of the living room.
I caught myself doing the worst habit I have as a parent: checking out mentally and reaching for my phone to scroll Twitter and distract myself from my son’s needs.
“I am not being a good dad right now”, I thought to myself.
I decided to change up our environment and bring him into the backyard. Getting Jack Jack outside when he was fussy had worked for me a bunch of times before.
Our backyard is a half acre fenced in plot with lush, green grass, a towering oak tree in the middle, a crabapple tree in the back left corner that was bursting with pink and burgundy blossoms and crooked pine trees lining the sides.
Jack Jack is usually captivated by the neighborhood squirrels that run along the tops of the fences and prance from tree to tree. He typically points and says “up!” at the airplanes flying overhead that are taking off and departing from the tiny municipal airport just down the road. He does the same thing to birds soaring up in the sky.
But now that he was crawling, he didn’t care about any of that.
His attention was locked in at ground level.
Now he was interested in exploring everything on the back patio: the Sonos speaker, my set of dumbbells and our gas grill.
“Don’t unplug the speaker.”
“Don’t tip over the dumbbells.”
“Stay away from the propane tank.”
Ugh. I was back on defense.
My go-to strategy of “change his environment and step into the backyard” wasn’t working the way I wanted.
I needed a new approach.
That’s when the idea sparked in my mind, like a lightbulb exploding with sparks of potential. I threw the diaper bag in the car, loaded Jack Jack in the car seat and set off on an adventure.
Where were we going? That’s not important yet.
The feeling of going on an adventure with my son shifted my energy. And it shifted Jack Jack’s too. His mini cries and frustrated groans turned into a silent curiosity. My confusion on what to do next shifted to optimism toward what the morning could become.
I thought of the coffee shop I like to stop at on bike rides.
I remembered they have a gravel pit with tons of toy trucks for kids. I had walked by it tons of times before, but I never saw it as anything more than a dirty pit with used toys.
But now that my son and I were on an adventure, I felt like Indiana Jones on the hunt for treasure and glory.
The movement was exciting. The possibilities were endless. And I found myself telling Jack Jack the story of our adventure.
“Jack Jack, guess where we’re going???”
“It’s somewhere we’ve neeeeeeever been before.”
“I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot for us to explore together!!”
A sense of wonder filled the car as the smooth, energetic sound of Jack Johnson poured out of the car speakers.
We arrived at the coffee shop and I plopped Jack Jack into the gravel pit. He was captivated by the unfamiliar toys and reached out to grab them right away.
There were a few other parents with young kids there too. It was 8:30 in the morning and I sensed a theme.
I asked another parent if they come often.
“It’s the best activity before the 9 am morning nap.”
“That’s exactly what we’re here to do”, I said back with a laugh of relief.
Jack Jack and I used the bulldozers to push gravel into a pile, excavators to pick up the gravel and drop it into the dump truck, then tipped dump truck to make a monstrous mountain of gravel to bulldoze through.
The morning sun reached through the pine trees that lined the gravel pit and the fresh morning mountain air filled us with life.
We were learning, laughing, and playing. Jack Jack was mesmerized by the different movements of the trucks and I was filled with peace and satisfaction that my adventure idea worked.
I thought of my wife out on her bike ride, snapped a selfie of Jack Jack and I and sent it to her.
I was so excited to tell her about the wonderful adventure I took our son on while she was out getting time to herself. I thought about the peace and comfort it would bring her as a new mom.
I thought about how not only can I handle solo dad duty, but my version of solo dad duty means adventures, excitement and making memories with my son. I was showing up as the type of dad I dreamed of being.
As I loaded Jack Jack into the car to head home, I got a text back from my wife.
“Omg. Jack looks sooooo cute and happy!! How did you think to take him there??.”
My smile stretched ear to ear. I sent a simple text back.
“We had the best time!!!”
On our ride home from the coffee shop, I glanced in the rear view mirror and got extra proof that was true.
Jack Jack was fast asleep in his car seat.
P.S. I am in Week 2 of Write of Passage, a 5-week instructional writing cohort.
This is the first of three essays that will be published during the course.
