I’m Alright With a Slow Burn… Sorta
Life Lessons From Babies and Toddlers
I’m back on the newsletter after Podcaster Parental Leave and here’s my honest answer to the question everyone asks:
“How’s life with four kids?”
It’s a lot.
You’d expect that from a household with a screaming, nap-averse baby, an obstinate toddler, and two older brothers finding new ways to maim each other daily. It’s work and chaos and stress, every single day. Thanks for asking.
Yet the youngest two are teaching me something surprising. Having a toddler and a baby simultaneously is a lot. But it’s also forced me to slow down, to do less, and to embrace the soul-crushing inefficiency I didn’t know I needed. “The Littles,” as I call them, are teaching me how to stop hurrying through this phase of life.
Once my daughter was born, though, I realized I wasn’t “in a hurry” anymore. I was busy, as there was still too much to do and not enough time. But when your days are full of agonizingly slow minutes rocking a fussy baby to sleep for a nap she was never going to take anyway, it’s hard to be in a hurry.
Born in a Hurry (and Don’t Know Why)
My fourth child (a daughter this time) was born in August last year, and the timing couldn’t have been worse.
Her elementary-aged brothers started school the very next week. Fall sports and The Holiday Gauntlet were next. And worst of all, her youngest, toddler brother learned to escape his crib in October, leaving him free to roam the house and destroy our hope of ever sleeping again.
Having four kids is a lot, but I hate saying that I’m “busy.” It feels flippant and unspecific and it doesn’t tell the whole story. After all, being busy is the norm for modern parents with too many things to do and not enough time to do them.
When I think about being busy, I think of the lead-up to my daughter’s birth: hurrying around the house, grabbing baby supplies, building cribs, and firing off Amazon orders. Or I think of the lead-up to The Holiday Gauntlet: speeding around town on shopping sprees, muscling boxes full of decorations down from the attic, and packing the calendar with parties and errands and dreaded “Theme Days” at the elementary school.
Being “busy,” in country music terms, is Alabama’s “I’m in a Hurry (and Don’t Know Why).” In my world, it’s a Christmas song.
Once my daughter was born, though, I realized I wasn’t “in a hurry” anymore. I was busy, as there was still too much to do and not enough time.
But when your days are full of agonizingly slow minutes rocking a fussy baby to sleep for a nap she was never going to take anyway, it’s hard to be in a hurry.
When you’re on the floor of a toddler’s bedroom with a Lego digging into your side, every single night, waiting for him to fall asleep for a few hours, time itself starts to lose its meaning.
“All I really gotta do is live and die,” they say. So maybe I’ll just live here, on the floor of my toddler’s bedroom, until I die.
It was easy to feel angry and resentful in those (hundreds of) moments. I had no choice but to hold her, or to lie next to him, and wait. In those moments, I felt trapped. I had so much to do.
But it’s impossible to rush a fussy baby. It’s foolish to rush an obstinate toddler.
Also, being angry and resentful never helped my daughter take her naps and it never helped my son fall asleep in his scary new Big Boy Bed. It certainly didn’t make life any fun when I should have been enjoying the big, messy family my wife and I thought was a pipe dream back when we were naïve, child-free twenty-somethings.
The Slow Burn of a Fussy Baby
I’m learning to appreciate the slowness that a restless toddler or a fussy baby can provide in a world where I’m always in a hurry. It’s a hard, yet essential lesson.
Part of that lesson is that I won’t get everything done. Not even close. But the tradeoff is holding a baby who needs to be held and hugging a toddler who needs to be hugged. Those are big moments for a dad (or a mom) that you’ll miss if you’re hurrying past these difficult seasons too quickly.
In country music terms, the peace I found was in Kacey Musgraves’ “Slow Burn” from her 2018 album Golden Hour, which won big at the Grammys the next year.
“Born in a hurry, always late, haven’t been early since ‘88,” she begins. Me neither (it was ’83 for me, though).
I don’t want to resent my kids for their inefficiency, and I don’t want to rush them through our precious handful of years together. Maybe what I’m looking for is the “slow burn” Kacey Musgraves is talking about: a pace that rejects the hustle and hurry of modern life so you have space and time to hold babies and hug toddlers.
Even when it feels like a lot.
As always, thanks for reading. And Happy New Year from the Country Music Dads. Hope 2026 is a Slow Burn, in the best of ways, for you and yours.
A Note of Appreciation
While I was BUSY holding babies and hugging toddlers, Donnie kept the lights on with the Country Music Dads newsletter and Instagram feed, and I am so grateful for his partnership. That is no small feat for a guy also putting out unique, important, high-quality content on the Country Cutler platform. Follow and subscribe to Country Cutler for an even deeper dive into country music’s industry, current affairs, and best new, under-the-radar artists than Donnie can squeeze into his rants on our podcast.
Thank you again, Donnie, for having my back.
In Case You Missed It on The Pod
A few months ago, we interviewed our most prominent guest yet: Shooter Jennings. It was an amazing chat with Shooter that we’re very proud of, so please check it out. He is one of the most interesting dudes in the country music universe, is one of the coolest dads I’ve met, and he just produced an incredible album of previously unreleased work by his late father, Waylon Jennings, that took the country music world by storm.
We also recorded three fresh episodes. The first answered the all-important question: Why are there no great Thanksgiving songs in country music, and which country songs get close?
The second answered the more transitory yet more belligerent question: Who is Gavin Adcock, why is he fighting everyone in country music from Zach Bryan to Beyonce, and what are dads to do with the subject of fighting in country music and on the school yard?
Finally, we previewed the Grammy Awards’ expanded categories of country music nominees, made our predictions, and ranted about our favorite snubs.
Check them all out now on our website, or wherever you get your podcasts.
One last thing….
Our Slow Burn toward Season 3 is underway and we want to hear from YOU! What do you want to hear (and read) from us in 2026? Our Listener Survey is live until February 28th, 2026 and it’ll only take you two minutes to make your voice heard.
https://countrymusicdads.com/feedback/