There Is No Nap Where I Am
💥 DADS, THIS ONE’S FOR YOU. 💥
To the ones holding bottles in one hand and their breath in the other.
To the human recliners, the burp thrones, the sleep sorcerers, and the ones who somehow become both jungle gym and anchor at once.
Hi. Loui here.
I’m holding a cold mug of yesterday’s courage and cracking open a line from my husband’s Book of the Small. Because when a man writes the words—
"I, Dad, am the counterweight of Mom, my storm. I am not stretched, and Burp is the name of my Throne."
— Book II: Dad, The Book of the Small
—I pay attention. That’s not just a line. That’s a whole gospel wrapped in cheerio crumbs.
🍼 He Says He’s Not Stretched. But He Is.
Not in the belly, not with milk, but in the bones and bandwidth.
In the first month, his back went out for about a week—but after, he kept going.
He cleaned. Fetched. Lifted. Bottle-fed while I pumped.
He held everything.
If I was the milk-maker, he was the rhythm-keeper.
If I was the tears, he was the towel.
If I was the flood, he was the raft and the oar.
We didn’t know then, but every time I looped a plastic flange to my body and cried,
he was quietly holding the we together.
There are things I wish I’d done differently—like trusting my body sooner—
but hindsight is a soft ache.
He picked up the slack without ever calling it ‘slack.’
💫 The Burp Throne & The Sleep Magician
He became the Burp Throne.
The Sleep Magician.
The only one who could do that side-to-side sway that made the baby sigh like a boat hitting dock.
His eyes glossed.
His body slowed.
He didn’t hear everything I said the first time—
but he held the line.
👑 Not Just My Husband
And he’s not the only one.
There are fathers in apartments right now, cleaning bottles while their partners cry in the bathroom.
There are dads folding laundry with one hand while Googling
“how to soothe purple crying baby” with the other.
There are men who work all day, come home, and parent all night.
Culture loves a dad moment when it’s funny—
diaper fails and grocery list mishaps.
But where’s the hymn for the quiet ones?
The ones whose collapse is not abdication but devotion?
To the fathers who are the couch, the glue, the raft—
we see you.
We’re writing your names in spit-up and flame.
🛋️ Vanishing ≠ Absence
In the House of Crow and White,
we do not mistake vanishing for absence.
We know what it means when a Dad becomes the couch.
When he is not "gone"—he is embedded.
A coffee-ringed oracle.
A meat-sacrifice to the gods of PBS Kids.
The one who stares into the glow of a cartoon
while a toddler sits on his foot like a sacred mountain.
This is not disappearance.
This is transformation.
⚔️ When Will Crouches
When Will gets buried under eight sippy cups and the quiet death of your own name,
it doesn’t die—it crouches.
And when it rises?
It doesn’t knock.
It kicks the door in wearing mismatched socks
and holding a cold cup of coffee like a sword.
🔥 Burn the Scripts
Fathers have long been written in scripts not of their choosing:
Either the stoic statue who pays the bills and misses the milestones,
or the sitcom clown who can't boil water without supervision.
But we?
We burned the script.
And smoked the ashes out of a bottle sterilizer.
🌪️ The Myth of Dad
In The Book of the Small, Dad is not absent.
He’s mythic. He’s wild.
He’s collapsed in the toy box cyclone and laughing.
He is the storm inside the stillness.
And if you can’t see him?
Maybe it’s because he’s become the glue
between nap schedules and nuggets.
Maybe it’s because his love is so interwoven with mess
that the mess became holy.
☕ The Sleep Guardian
He’s not sleeping.
He’s guarding.
That dazed stare into the distance?
That’s calculus.
That’s prophecy.
That’s the entire week’s plan
and existential dread
getting stirred with one cold spoon.
⚡ “To Know Me Is To Know Collapse”
"I am the spark that flares in every parent's chest, and at the core of every storm.
I am Love, and the maker of Life, yet to know me is to know collapse."
Yes. Collapse.
Not a failure.
A falling-in.
A holy descent.
A spiritual free-fall into mashed peas and planetary alignment.
🧼 From Tattoo Shop to Bath Duty
This is not the old Dad who floats above it all.
This is the Dad who sinks into the floor,
because he is the floor.
The calm that cracks.
The Burp Throne. The Diaper Prophet.
He has not left.
He has molted.
Sarlon molted out of the tattoo shop and into sacred bath duty.
Out of rebellion and into reverence.
And he did it without a father map.
Without a cultural mirror.
Only Will. Only Love.
That’s not luck.
That’s magick.
🪶 Serial Witness to the Molt
This blog will become a serial witness to that molting.
To the Dads who vanish into the pile of laundry and come out sacred.
To the partners not praised with hashtags,
but whose love fills every bottle.
To the ones who dream of a nap they will never take.
This is our myth.
This is the holy mess.
This is Dad.
"I am alone: there is no nap where I am."
And yet—
he dreams.
And still—
we feast.
We laugh.
We hold the line.
🧠 YES, Dads Are Wired For This Too
DAD SCIENCE BREAK:
Did you know?
Studies show involved fathers experience hormonal shifts—
yes, actual changes in brain chemistry.
Oxytocin rises.
Testosterone can lower.
Neural activity spikes in regions tied to empathy and planning.
Translation?
Dads aren't backups.
They’re biologically built for bonding and survival-mode love.
They’re wired to watch, hold, and stay—not just “help.”
👻 Juice Box Exorcisms Are Normal
And if your house looks like it got exorcised by a juice box demon?
Good.
You’re doing it right.
☕ Burp Throne Blessing
May your coffee be hot at least once this week.
May the Burp Throne be sturdy beneath you.
May your silence be sacred, not mistaken for absence.
And if your socks don’t match—let them be holy.
“The man who dares nap mid-mess, who dares weep beside his mate,
is closer to God than ten thousand clean prophets.”
📣 Call to the Reader
Have you seen a Dad become the couch?
Have you watched love molt through exhaustion?
What is something you admire about him?
Have you tried to leave the room quietly,
only to step on the plastic echo
of a maraca sent straight from toddler hell?
Leave a comment,
or whisper it into the next sticky forehead kiss.
Let this be your altar, too.
🖤 A Crow Note
This is just the beginning.
Sarlon has more scripture in him.
And the toddlers have more chaos.
So don’t come here looking for peace.
Come here looking for proof
that your meltdown might just be the holiest moment of your day.
And to the queer dads, stepdads, trans dads, adoptive dads,
and those who father without title—this flame is yours, too.
“The diaper is the new robe.
The tantrum, a temple.
And he who keeps vigil over applesauce and ache
shall inherit the flame.”
💔 What pain or struggle is this blog addressing?
The invisibility of modern fathers who are deeply involved but rarely acknowledged.
The exhaustion of early parenting where love looks like collapse, not confidence.
The lack of sacred language or cultural praise for fathers who show up with tenderness, not toughness.By the end, the reader hopefully feels:
Seen. Humbled. Grateful. Like the spit-up prophet is real and sacred and maybe sitting in their house right now.
