It’s exactly this time of year when it feels like spring and summer have ghosted us.

The daylight is stingy. The air hurts your face. The sidewalks are slush-adjacent. Everything feels harder than it needs to be… for no particular reason.

And then you layer in a toddler.

Suddenly life feels less like a season and more like a merry-go-round you didn’t realize you boarded… and the operator has walked away.

Is this the terrible twos?

Because she isn’t terrible. Not even close. We haven’t had public meltdowns or aisle-five breakdowns at Target. But emotions? Opinions? An assertive personality that could run a small municipality? Absolutely.

Everyone says “terrible twos” like it’s a diagnosis. Like you should just nod knowingly. No one explains what “hard” actually means.

And lately, hard has meant… poop.

No parenting book prepares you for the psychological warfare of a toddler suddenly being afraid to poop in a toilet.

Her pediatrician assured us this is common. So common, in fact, that no one bothers to mention it until you’re living inside it.

We’ve tried everything.

Warm epsom salt and baking soda baths. Prune juice. Pear juice. Imported pear nectar from Spain because apparently domestic fruit isn’t persuasive enough. High-fiber foods. Thirty-minute toilet sits because obviously we have nothing better to do.

Her doctor suggested a pull-up with a strategically cut hole for comfort. I resisted. That felt like regression was turning into surrender.

And so we wait.

Days go by.

And then her body decides it can’t wait anymore, and it becomes painful and dramatic and emotional for all involved. Thankfully no accidents. Just stress. Anticipation. A tension that lives in my shoulders now.

I go to work preoccupied by bowel movements.

This is not the adulthood I envisioned.

At the same time, her verbal skills are exploding. She understands more every day, but not everything. Which means we’re navigating fear she can’t fully articulate and reassurance we can’t fully land.

Parenting is hard, people say.

But no one explains the nuance of hard. The quiet, low-grade anxiety hard. The loving-someone-so-much-it-hurts hard.

And here’s the part I don’t love admitting: sometimes I wish time would fast-forward us to the other side of this phase.

Except I don’t.

Because every single day with her is joy. Pride. Magic.

The juxtaposition of being a parent is not for the weak.

What’s getting me through right now? The Winter Olympics.

The athleticism. The backstories. The precision. The fact that someone trains for years for a performance that lasts 90 seconds - and one micro-mistake rewrites history.

But what gets me every time?

The camera cutting to the parents just before their child competes.

Their kids are teenagers. Or grown adults. And yet the parents look like they’re about to sit for the bar exam.

Where do they store that stress? In their jaw? Their chest? Their lower back like me?

How do you support your kid if it goes sideways? What do you say if the dream cracks on television - in front of the whole world?

I’m going to go out on a limb and say: being the parent of an Olympic athlete is just as hard as being the athlete.

No one trains you for how to show up for someone else’s dream.

This week I watched Elana Meyers Taylor win her first gold medal after five Olympic Games. Five. And she’s raising two deaf sons.

Suddenly my imported pear nectar felt… manageable.

We are not facing the headwinds other families face. We have our health. We have resources. We have support.

Perspective doesn’t erase stress.

But it recalibrates it.

When I started this newsletter, I secretly hoped I’d land on an “ah-ha” every week. A neat answer to life’s messier questions.

But the question of “When does parenting get easier?” doesn’t seem to come with a clean resolution.

Because when you conquer one thing, another thing steps up to the plate.

From pooping in the toilet to skiing 70 miles per hour down a mountain - you may be physically alone in the act, but this parent-child dynamic?

It’s a team sport.

Right now, I’m the captain.

But I know that one day, I won’t be.

We root. We coach. We sit beside. We carry the stress when they can’t. We transfer the confidence when theirs flickers.

We show up.

Even when no one told us it would be this hard.

Especially then.

Somewhere between a fiber-filled breakfast and a 9:30 a.m. meeting, I read this:

Nineteen monks walked from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C. Over 108 days. Just… walked. In the name of peace.

No viral stunt. No product launch. Just intentional, daily movement toward something better.

Peace isn’t the absence of stress.

It’s the decision to keep walking anyway.

It’s sitting on a toilet for 30 minutes because your kid is scared.

It’s cheering in the stands knowing you can’t control the outcome.

It’s understanding that winter feels endless… but seasons change.

Maybe parenting doesn’t get easier.

Maybe we just get stronger. Softer. More patient.

Maybe we learn to carry the weight differently.

So this week, I’m choosing to believe this:

From bathroom breakthroughs to Olympic podiums to monks walking across America - none of us are doing this alone.

We’re on a team.

And even in the longest winter, we keep walking toward peace.

Is this it?

Maybe not.

But it’s the season we’re in.

And I’m learning to walk it anyway.

The weekly section where I will call out a fraction: something that felt like progress this week (like a fraction forward) and a fiction: something that turned out to be a distraction or illusion. 

🎯 Fraction: Romeo Energy

Romeo, a 71-year-old manatee, just became the oldest recorded manatee ever.

Seventy-one. In manatee years.

Which tells me one of two things: he either never had kids… or he has achieved a level of inner peace I’m currently chasing with imported pear nectar and deep breathing.

Manatees don’t rush. They float. They snack. They persist.

In a season where everything feels tense and urgent, I’m inspired by the aquatic monk approach.

Slow. Steady. Still here.

🎭 Fiction: AI Replacement Dysfunction

Apparently there’s now a term for workers spiraling about being replaced by AI: AI Replacement Dysfunction.

Symptoms include anxiety, insomnia, and existential dread, which feels bold to diagnose in 2026.

Yes, work is changing. Yes, the future is weird.

But if I start turning every uncertainty into a diagnosis, I’ll never leave the apartment. I have enough on my plate - namely, raising a human who is afraid of toilets.

If AI wants to replace something, it can start there.

Until then, I’m choosing Romeo energy.

If this resonated somewhere between pear nectar and existential dread, forward it to three friends who are also pretending they have it together. Parenting, Olympic solace, and manatee-level calm in late February… we’re all in it. Share it. Post it. Put it in the group chat before someone else sends you a meme instead.

Same time, same place next week -
Chris

P.S. Before I diagnose myself with AI Replacement Dysfunction, I read Morning Brew. It keeps me smart on what’s happening in business and tech — without requiring a second cup of anxiety.

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