An Adventure in Solo Parenting

This week, I mostly did one thing: parent. My wife was in Utah on a hiking trip with her sister from early Friday to late Monday, so I was on solo dad duty for four straight days, leaving little time for much else. So forgive me, but nearly every section below is going to have something to do with my daughter, because that’s who I spent the week with!

Obviously, being a parent comes with a lot of responsibility, whether you have one fellow parent or fifty (speaking of Utah). But with no partner in parenting, you are it. There is no backup, there is no sounding board, there is no second line of defense. You are on your own, stranded on dad island with a wet lighter and no food.

I found myself overthinking at record pace. I was quartering grapes again — something we haven’t done in at least a year — because the prospect of a solo Heimlich maneuver was far more stressful than cutting up some fruit. I started leaving hallway lights on at night, so she could find me faster if she woke up in the middle of the night, remembering my own fear of the dark when I had a bad dreams growing up. I thought about having a drink while watching a movie on Saturday, but quickly realized that if she had to go to the hospital and I was too drunk to drive, the conversation with the ambulance driver wasn’t going to paint me in the best light.

Simply put, my respect for single parents has never been higher, and I am glad my wife is back, if only for the sake of my blood pressure.

Solo dad tips of the week

Dad tips are different when you’re on your own. You don’t have any backup, which means you have to be dialed up, locked in, and ready to be the best parent you can be from breakfast to bed time.

• Activities are your friend. One before the nap, one after the nap, TV in between, you got this.👏

• Kid’s gotta eat! Solo parent duty means no one else is feeding your little one, so you better be ready to put a lot of stuff in a whole bunch of tiny bowls. 🍊 🥟 🍧

• Shut up, you are not tired. Admission is the first sign of weakness. 🤫

• Cherish the attention, because mom will be back before you know it, and you’ll be back to second fiddle. ❤️

A Master’s of Fun

There are few better sports to watch with a bunch of dads than golf. Like football, it’s pretty slow, so you still get a lot of time to chit-chat in between the action, but the breaks aren’t long enough to facilitate awkward silences. Honestly, you get almost exactly the amount of time it takes to prove that you understand what’s going on, but not so much time that you run out of things to say. And then you go pee or get a beer during the commercials, it’s perfect.

That’s why I was pumped when I realized that the birthday party for one of my daughter’s schoolmates we were set to attend was on Sunday afternoon, smack dab in the middle of the last day of the Masters Tournament. I realized I would have the ultimate conversation assistant that precluded anyone at the party from having to make eye contact for more than a few seconds.

My excitement at the timing of the event was, however, unique. Nearly every individual conversation I had with a dad at this party started with some form of “can you believe they held this during The Masters?” Even the host was acutely aware of the social gaffe, informing us that “shoes go on the rack, food is in the kitchen, and the golf’s on both TVs in the living room.”

This particular Masters Tournament didn’t disappoint either. The party started while Rory McIlroy was up five strokes, and by the time we’d blown out the candles and jumped on the bounce house, he had squandered the monumental lead and was poised to head to the playoff. I was either in the car or putting coats away when Rory hit the hole of a lifetime and sunk the final putt.

All that aside, I truly couldn’t imagine a single person that wasn’t happy for Rory when he put on that green jacket. Not only had he finally climbed the mountain to golf’s highest peak, but he gave this almost 90-year old golf tournament a great story, a memorable day, one that would sustain dads needing conversation starters at future birthday parties for generations. Thank you, Rory, from all of us.

Honestly, staring down the barrel of four weekend nights at home alone without a good show in my queue (I simply couldn’t rewatch the Office for that many hours in a row), there truly was not a better time to dig into this insanely expansive, story-rich masterpiece set in Feudal Japan from those geniuses at Ubisoft. Even better, the two protagonists are a Japanese woman and a black man, which means all the morons that hate woke stuff are furious at how successful it is. Talk about your win-win!

If you’ve never played an Assassin’s Creed game — either because you don’t play video games or because you’re a conscientious objector for NPCs — they are objectively beautiful, and this one is no exception. Because it was made for next gen consoles, the graphics are unreal, and the sheer scope and commitment to history really make it feel nothing if not immersive.

And that’s all she wrote!

So glad you made it back for the second edition of Conor Intelligence! I hope all the parenting stuff didn’t put you off too much, and I promise future posts will be about more than just being a dad. But this week, it was quite literally all I could think about, and this newsletter is about my brain and the stuff inside it, so it was pretty much the only option.

Remember, if you want more of that sweet, sweet Conor Intelligence, don’t forget to subscribe with the button below and share it with your friends. If you know me, you’ve heard me say it before, but the more the merrier!