How Emptying Sand Out of My Son’s Shoes Signals a Return to “Normal”
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I picked up my first grader’s shoes one afternoon and sand spilled out of them all over the wood floors of our living room.
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I started writing down my life goals and it turned out to be a list of places where I want to nap, but haven’t yet
— Andrew Knott (@aknott21) February 12, 2018
Writing about parenting, fatherhood, life, and all things ambiguous
A Short Car Ride with My Son Reminded Me How Difficult This Past Year Has Been for All of Us
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One recent Saturday morning, I escaped the house with my 6-year-old son to pick up coffee from a drive thru. It was a bit more mundane than some of our weekend outings pre-2020, but grading on the pandemic curve, it was probably one of the most exciting things we did all month.
Read MoreMy Little Flock Flies in Formation
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It was a strange winter break in the Knott household for several reasons I can’t really get into on the internet. There was the pandemic, of course, that limited our normal holiday festivities, but more unexpected events made the two weeks off school even more unusual.
Read MoreThis Season Is All About Finding a Little Joy and Humiliating Our Neighbors
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There’s not a lot going on right now, but that doesn’t mean my family can’t still enjoy some of our favorite seasonal pastimes like trimming the Christmas tree, counting down to Santa’s arrival, and riding bikes around the neighborhood and loudly critiquing everyone’s decorating choices.
Read MoreI’m Taking the Wins Anywhere I Can Find Them During This Crazy Year
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Most of my time these days is spent trying to figure out how to pass the time.
The pandemic has never been worse, so I feel even more compelled to stay home. Taking the kids outside to parks or playgrounds feels like it should be relatively safe, but since at least half of the community where I live has never taken the virus seriously and still doesn’t, I never feel comfortable.
Read MoreFine, I’ll Write About Distance Learning Again
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I’ve resisted writing much of anything the past couple of months because I knew if I was going to write anything during this impossible time, it was probably going to be about distance learning. And who really wants to read one more word about that?
Read MoreThere's No Joy in Pandemic Life, But There Is a Rainbow Owl
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One night recently during the stuffed animal puppet show my 6-year-old makes me do with him at bedtime several nights a week, I created a back story for one of his main stuffies — Rainbow Owl.
Read MoreWe're Really Not In This Pandemic Together
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It’s been a common refrain since the pandemic started that we’re all in this together. This sentiment has become even stronger recently in my area where schools are slated to re-open this month for in-person or online learning at parents’ discretion.
But the unfortunate truth is we’re not in this together at all.
Read MoreMy Children’s Imaginary Hair Salon Won’t Last Forever, But I’m Glad It’s Still Around
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The early years of parenting are filled with weird activities like frequenting pretend restaurants, building dollhouses out of cardboard and driving them to the playground, and conducting stuffed animal puppet shows in the dark. It can feel like these things are forever while you’re wrapped up in them, but slowly they begin to slip away.
Read MoreOur Favorite Things During a Pandemic
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One of the foundational pieces of media from my childhood is The Sound of Music. How important is the movie to my family? Let’s just say it’s one of those things where when someone marries into the family, other people who have previously married in sometimes warn the newcomer that adequate reverence for The Sound of Music is both encouraged and mandatory.
Read MoreMy Children Won't Be Returning to School in 2020
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This pandemic is impossible for everyone, but I’m starting to believe the only way to maintain some semblance of sanity is to change our timelines and expectations. Living week to week or month to month is exhausting.
Read MoreOur Bedtime Puppet Shows Might Not Win Any Awards, But I Blame the Pandemic
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It certainly seems like I write an inordinate amount about sleep, bedtime routines, and related minutiae, but as they say, “write what you know!”
Read MoreBig World Events and a Fatherless Father's Day
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One day recently, I was pushing my four-year-old daughter on the swing and she asked me to stop for a second so she could go examine something across the yard.
Read MoreThis Is Going to Be a Weird Summer
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Summer is not my favorite time of year. I live in Florida where summer weather is the worst. It’s miserably hot, swampy, and breathing the air feels like sucking in a warm bisque. I also dislike the lack of structure and my mental health tends to take a bit of a nosedive.
Read MoreA Pandemic Mother's Day
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Perhaps it’s our destiny that many Mother’s Days for my family will be highly fraught. Of course, I suppose Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and, really, pretty much all holidays bring with them tons of emotional baggage. For me and almost everyone else.
Read MoreTrying to Find Small Adventures to Keep Us Sane
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Most days distance learning is an unbearable slog, but some days it is an unbearable slog with geocaching at the end.
Read MoreHow I’m Navigating Quarantine
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We’ve been muddling through distance learning with a second grader and kindergartner, letting the kids watch tons of YouTube and play tons of Minecraft, and when my daughter runs into the table, taking her to my wife’s hospital so my wife can come out to the parking lot and repair her face with surgical tape instead of risking a visit to urgent care to get stitches.
Read MoreMourning the Little Things on My Son’s Sixth Birthday
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Our house should be overflowing with activity and noise and celebration today. It’s my middle child’s sixth birthday and, although we aren’t the most social animals, we do throw big birthday parties for our kids at our house every year. It’s one of our main traditions.
Read MoreBewildering Bedtime Conversations
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My 5-year-old and I have many deep and profound conversations at night while we’re lying in his bed. Well, deep and profound might be a bit of a stretch, but they are sometimes interesting, and I often learn a thing or two about his day.
Read MoreParenting and Reading in the Time of Coronavirus
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My two sons and I sit on the black rocking recliner in our living room. The chair is worn, cracked, and on the verge of spilling pieces of foam, but it’s still plenty strong enough to hold three bodies. An 8-year-old on one arm, a 5-year-old on the other, and a 38-year-old in the middle, reading very animatedly from a book called The Black Cauldron — the second book in the Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander.
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