Once a year, there are certain rites of passage that every Virginia family must endure. In spring, it’s cherry blossoms in D.C. where you spend three hours in traffic on I-95, four hours finding parking and two hours waiting in line for 10 minutes of “look, flowers!” In summer, it’s beach traffic where your odometer reads “stuck in tunnel…” and then laughs maniacal in squeals of overheating! But in fall, it’s apple-picking. You load everyone in the van and head for the mountains, because nothing screams picturesque family bonding like paying to pick fruit that costs less at Walmart.

And yet, we do it. Why? Because fall in Virginia is magical. The air is crisp but not yet biting, the mountains are painted in fiery reds and golds, and every fruit stand along the way looks like a Hallmark moment.

I had us on the perfect plan: a drive through the mountains, windows cracked just enough for that sweet autumn air, but to keep out the last of the summer mosquitoes. Enjoy the drive, and then straight to the orchard for apple cider donuts, caramel apples, and the kids posing with pumpkins larger than Slayden. Mom was even smiling, which, if you’ve ever packed kids in a car for a road trip, is its own small miracle.

We wound our way up the mountain, marveling at the view. The ridges stretched like a patchwork quilt of God’s best handiwork. The Blue Ridge has this way of looking painted, like someone dipped a brush in a mix of sapphire and mist, then finished it off with a golden highlight. I was in my element.

Then it happened.

From the back seat, Kara at the time 6 years of age, and already a mastermind, my child who never touches dirt, the one who thinks hand sanitizer should come in a spray bottle for maximum coverage—let out a phrase no father ever wants to hear.

“Dad… I feel… sick. I’M GOING TO PUKE!”

Time slowed to a crawl. Birds scattered from the trees. My hands locked on the steering wheel. The problem? We were on a mountain road with sheer drop-offs on one side and rocks on the other. No shoulder, no pull-off, no chance. Stopping wasn’t an option unless we wanted to reenact a scene from Final Destination.

The car erupted into chaos. Logan started yelling “DON’T PUKE ON ME!” I immediately began gagging in sympathy. Slayden, sweet baby director of family chaos, clapped his hands like she was watching a circus act.

Jo scrambled like she was on The Price is Right, frantically digging through the car for anything—anything—that might serve as a receptacle for the unworldly substance about to erupt from Mount Karasuvius. Finding nothing, the one day our van was actually empty of all everything, she steeled her nerves, cupped her hands and shot them under the rushing river of yesterdays meal. I went limp, and almost feinted. Logan said what we all were thinking… ” EW GROSS!” Yes Logan, we all agreed.

“Here!” she shouted, thrusting it backward like Indiana Jones offering the Holy Grail.

And Kara… oh, Kara. She didn’t just puke into Jo’s outstretched hands. She performed a feat of precision under pressure that Olympic sharpshooters would envy. Every parent knows the nightmare of kids missing the bucket, the bowl, the bag. But not Kara. She nailed that landing like it was her life’s calling.

The rest of the car sat in stunned silence, broken only by the sound of Logan still muttering, “Don’t puke on me” like a soldier chanting a foxhole prayer.

By the time we found a flat spot to pull over and regroup, the damage was contained—but my soul was not. Nothing prepares you for the smell of warm french fries and cold mountain air mixing with your child’s breakfast. Nothing prepares you for holding your hands at arm’s length like it’s a live grenade while yelling at the other kids to “stop breathing through your mouths.” Ending this tale of woe, Jo threw the remains out the window, providing a meal to some forest creature. Even in chaos, we must be mindful of the animals.

But here’s the kicker: we still went apple-picking. That’s the parental law of sunk costs. If you’ve already risked life and limb on a cliffside road and witnessed projectile betrayal from the backseat, by George you’re going to pick some overpriced apples.

And so we did. We picked apples, we ate cider donuts, and Kara—because kids are resilient and slightly evil—was back to skipping between rows of trees like nothing had happened. Meanwhile, I was left with the memory of my wife holding a days worth of regurgitated food, who freely gave her sanity in service to the family. I watched my family, who I love running back to the fruit stand to get a refill on cider, while i lugged 800lbs of apples up the side of a mountain.

Parenting, they say, prepares you for anything. Wrong. Parenting just makes you realize that “anything” is far worse, grosser, and funnier than you could ever have imagined.

So, lesson of the day? Take the mountain drive. Pick the apples. Enjoy the beauty. But for the love of Virginia, pack a bigger cup.

hope today is puke-free
austininva

There are a handful of moments in a young man’s life that stick with him forever. First movie in a theatre. First moped. First time you accidentally turn a turtle into mulch with a push mower on a hot Tennessee afternoon…

I was fifteen, already half-baked by the summer sun, wrestling our old push mower across the yard. It made noises that no self respecting mower should make. Granted many of them came from prior instances of lawn-mower abuse. Running over a 4×4, running over a Car Tire. Running over 150ft of rope. My father ever amazing fixed it through them all, (the joys of being middle class.) That mower had one setting: angry. It rattled, shook, and smelled like burning oil, but it was mine to command. Or so I thought.

Then it happened. Thunk-crunch.

The kind of sound that immediately makes your stomach lurch because you know whatever it was, it didn’t deserve that. I yanked the mower back and looked down. There it was. A large… turtle? Most defiantly, no longer among the living.

I froze. My mouth went dry. My teenage brain screamed, I have committed reptilian homicide. I didn’t even know if you could go to jail for that, but I was ready to turn myself in to the local sheriff. I imagined the headlines: “Boy With deadly Briggs and Stratton Emulsifies Beloved Neighborhood Turtle.”

I couldn’t take it. I left the mower sitting in the sun, ran inside, and found my dad.

“Dad,” I stammered, “I…I ran over a turtle with the mower. I feel sick. I don’t think I can finish the yard. This is…traumatizing.”

My dad looked up from his chair, raised one eyebrow, and delivered a line from some ancient text, wisdom of the ages. “Well, son, you’re gonna have to move that turtle carcass and get back to mowing. Grass ain’t gonna cut itself.”

That was harsh enough, but then he added the kicker. “And I’m gonna need you to just mow till I get tired.”

Cue my internal teenage meltdown. How exactly is he gonna get tired? He’s sitting in the lovely A/C, flipping through a book, while I’m outside in 538-degree heat, committing war crimes against the local wildlife!

It was the great unsolvable riddle of dad logic. Somehow, until he got tired in the recliner, I was obligated to keep pushing that mower until kingdom come. It was as if our household operated on a mysterious union contract that only he had signed and I was bound by.

So I did what teenage boys have always done: I muttered under my breath, gagged a little while moving the turtle, and trudged back to the yard to finish the job. Every push of that mower was heavy with guilt and grass clippings and sweat.

That day left a scar. To this day, I slam the brakes anytime I see a turtle crossing the road, like I’m protecting the last dinosaur on earth. Meanwhile, somewhere deep inside, fifteen-year-old me is still mowing “until Dad gets tired.”

Moral of the story? Teenage trauma is real, Tennessee summers are brutal, and dads will always value a finished yard over your emotional well-being. Especially if they can supervise your character growth from the comfort of central air conditioning.

hope today is a good one!
austininva

There are a lot of things I didn’t expect fatherhood to teach me. For instance, the average couch cushion can conceal more snacks than a 7-Eleven. Or that toothpaste is apparently multipurpose—good for brushing teeth, hallway wall art, and hair styling gel if you’re really desperate.

But nothing—nothing—has prepared me for my children’s absolute dedication to chaos as a lifestyle.

Logan once led his siblings on a “covert mission” to raid the pantry for some kind of junk food, which ended when Kara came and tattled because they forgot to include her in the op the way she thought they should be including her. Slayden, for reasons only he and possibly God understand, tried to “eat” one of our ducks, while it was very much alive, but grabbing it by the neck and going for the jugular. And Moira? Well… Moira has her own brand of madness.

This last weekend, I was outside cleaning the workshop. The kind of sweaty, muttering-to-yourself job where you keep finding tools you forgot you owned. I had the garage wide open, broom in hand, and was actually making some progress when—BAM!

Out pops Moira.

Not through the door. Not by yelling my name. Oh no. She launched herself through the dog door. Like a feral jack-in-the-box in pigtails. She flung the flap open, grinned like a maniac, and shouted “BOO!” at a volume only toddlers and malfunctioning fire alarms can reach.

I nearly dropped a hammer on my foot.

I sent her back inside. She giggled. Thirty seconds later—BAM! Out she came again, shrieking with glee, this time hanging halfway through like she was auditioning for a horror film titled The Cursed Chihuahua Portal.

We repeated this cycle five, six, maybe seven times. Me, trying to sweep sawdust and an ever growing pile of “useful” things, in peace. Her, proving that stealth is less fun than giggling in your dad’s face every time he tells you to go back inside.

And honestly? I gave up.

Because at some point, you stop asking why and start admitting the truth: my kids don’t need doors. They’ve already demonstrated that dog doors are faster, funnier, and way more effective for surprise attacks. You realize that while yes, it is annoying, one day my little Moira will be 16 and slamming the door, and not cutely popping her head through the dog door, to “surprise me” for the 50th time in 12 minutes.

So the next time someone asks me why the front door is still locked but the toddler is already walking down the street chasing the ice cream truck with my wallet and a hammer, I’ll just point to this picture.

Hope today is a memorable on,
austininva

There are places a man carves out in life that are supposed to be sacred: a throne room, a fortress of solitude, a quiet wedge of time between dish duty and sock-matching. Mine was the garage. Not the two-car jumble of stuff—my new garage retreat. A chair that hugs your spine like it knows your sins. A desk where cables behave. A reading nook whispering “peace.” A board-game table that demanded adult conversation. This wasn’t storage; it was a manifesto.

Enter Moira.

She’s two, sweet, slightly feral, and loud enough to rattle the drywall. She burst in like the Kool-Aid Man wearing a tutu and the subtlety of a marching band. For an hour she treated my “sanctuary” like an Olympic venue—sprinting, flopping, giggling, and inventing new ways to demonstrate that proximity is love. Then she discovered I was trying to read.

Normal toddler closeness is not a thing in her vocabulary. She perched at my elbow like a small goblin, breathing directly into my personal bubble and performing what I can only describe as an elbow taste-test—lick. Lick. Lick.

I adore that kid, but I’ll swear on my DeWalt tool set: one more lick and I was Googling whether super-glue counts as temporary custody. At the very least a super glue infused time out! (I did not glue anyone. The thought is my therapy.)

She almost did get a craft-project–adjacent glove the night before, though. While I searched for an extension cord, she found a glob Play-Doh and waved it like she’d discovered fire. Jo wandered in, watched the chaos, and deadpanned, “She’s testing the structural integrity of your patience. Looks like it’s failing inspection.”

That’s the rub right there: there is no retreat. Your “man-cave” is just another jungle gym with better mood lighting. You can outfit it with ergonomic chairs and tasteful shelving, but if you have kids, it will double as the free daycare of the home improvement world.

Eventually Moira settled—briefly—next to me, whispered some made-up toddler poetry, gave my elbow one last audit-lick, and sprinted off yelling “MIO MAO!” into the void, leaving a trail of tiny footsteps and approximately three hundred unresolved nuts-and-bolts.

Conclusion: my next retreat will be soundproof. And in another county.

hope today is a secluded one,
austininva