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
If you’re a parent who spends a lot of time online, it’s hard to escape the meme about making the most of the 18 summers you have with your children before they leave home.
Read MoreMy 10-year-old son and I were playing two-square in our driveway after I picked him up from school. It was one of those hot, muggy Florida afternoons where it seems like everything is melting at least a little. Even the bright yellow chalk we used to outline the court felt a little squishy.
Read MoreAbout eight months after getting our first pet rabbit, Apollo, we decided to get a second one. We always knew the bunny we added to our family would be a girl and she would be named Artemis. These were non-negotiables for obvious reasons.
Read MoreWhen I was in my twenties and extremely bored, I came across a book by humorist Bill Bryson called A Walk in the Woods.
Read MoreWhen you’re a parent, you eventually find some sort of rhythm. It doesn’t happen overnight. In fact, it probably takes years for almost everyone. The addition of another child at any point along the road typically requires a reset.
Read MoreMost weekdays now I drop my kids off at school around 7:30 in the morning while the light is soft and the Florida winter air feels expectant.
Read MoreFirst words. First steps. First birthdays. First days of school. It’s no secret that “firsts” dominate the lives of parents of young children. Heck, we buy whole books about them and then forget to fill in anything because who has time for recordkeeping when there are hours of doll videos on YouTube to watch?
Read MoreSometimes we get so caught up in the daily minutiae of existing that it’s easy for the big milestones to sneak up on us.
Read MoreI’ve been doing a lot of driving lately. After more than a year spent within a very tight radius of our home, we began to venture out more about the time school started.
Read MoreIt only took about two weeks of kindergarten for my daughter to master the fine art of persuasion.
Read MoreThe past few weeks around these parts have been rough. Just a couple of months ago, there was hope that this school year would be better than last. Nope. It’s remarkably worse.
Read MoreMy oldest son who is nine years old and just starting fourth grade entered quarantine four days after school started back.
Read MoreThe first full week of school summer vacation kicked off with all three of my children attending tennis camp for four hours each day. This might not sound like much, but it was monumentally significant for me because it marked the first time in more than nine years of parenting that all my children were away at the same time.
Read MoreAccording to UNICEF, at least 40 million preschool children worldwide have missed out on early education because of COVID-19. This is a staggering statistic, but while I was searching for information on how missing preschool could affect a child’s development, I could not find any data on how many would-be preschoolers have started naming letters of the alphabet “Jeff.”
Read MoreBefore there was a wife and three kids and everything else in this life that I type about on the blank white space of my laptop late at night and lay bare on the pages of the internet, there was a dog.
Read MoreI picked up my first grader’s shoes one afternoon and sand spilled out of them all over the wood floors of our living room.
Read MoreOne 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 MoreIt 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 MoreThere’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.
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