Leo Walker 
It starts with weight.
A toddler clambers over my ribs, dragging a stuffed rabbit that smacks me in the face before she collapses against my chest. Her hair smells faintly of biscuits. The sun is already cutting through the blinds in thin blades, and I know the morning has begun whether I am ready for it or not.
Downstairs, the dog scratches at the back door. His nails tick against the wood like a clock I cannot ignore. By the time I shuffle into the kitchen and hit the kettle switch, the house feels alive, though I am still catching up.
Some Sundays, it’s burnt toast. Not ruined beyond eating, but blackened enough to set the smoke alarm twitching. My daughter laughs every time, as if I’ve staged the whole performance for her amusement. I wave the bread in the air to clear the smoke, knowing I’ll eat it anyway.
And then there’s the coffee. It sits steaming on the counter while I tie shoelaces, let the dog back in, wipe milk from the table. By the time I reach for it, the mug is lukewarm. Still, I drink it, because some mornings the ritual matters more than the taste.
The Mix of Quiet and Chaos
Other mornings surprise me with quiet. No feet padding across the landing. No dog demanding release. Just me, blinking into the half-dark, listening to the house breathe around me. I lie there wondering what to do with such a rare thing. Read? Scroll? Just sit and let the silence stretch?
Sometimes I scroll without really seeing. Emails, headlines, the week ahead spilling into my lap before the day has even begun. Other times I listen. Headphones in, kettle steaming, I let something fill the gaps. One week, by accident, I stumbled onto a Spotify sermon from Orthodox Church Savannah. Not what I expected; a child cried in the background, the mic crackling, but I let it play. It was oddly grounding, as if I’d slipped into another family’s Sunday and found it not so far from mine. Made me smile and oddly reassured that this is what parenting is all over the world.
The Weight You Do Not See
There’s another layer to these mornings too, the invisible one. While my children build towers out of cereal boxes, my head ticks through groceries, bills, emails waiting in the inbox. The week sneaks in even before it has started. It’s the quiet pull of being both here and elsewhere, of pouring milk into a cup while planning Monday’s meeting, of pretending the burnt toast is funny while worrying if the car needs service.
And I know I am not alone in this rhythm. In fact, one-third of fathers admit that while they enjoy these weekend mornings, part of their mind drifts toward work, deadlines, and the week ahead. It is hectic and short-lived, but that’s what makes these moments land with more weight.
Parenting is full of these double lives. Outwardly present, inwardly managing the invisible load. Some days I manage it well; other days I feel stretched thin. But even in that tension, the ordinary moments break through—the laughter, the pawprints, the way a small hand slips into mine. And suddenly the lists can wait.
Before and After Fatherhood
Before fatherhood, Sundays were blank spaces. I slept until the clock lost meaning, brewed coffee without hurry, and sometimes stayed in bed with a book until noon. Those mornings felt endless, wide enough to hold all the time in the world. Now they are short, fractured, noisy. But they feel more real. They carry weight.
And yet, there’s something about the trade. The freedom of those older Sundays was easy, but it was also empty. These new mornings are cluttered and chaotic, but inside the mess is a sense of belonging I never knew I needed.
And I know they will not last forever.
There will come a Sunday when my daughter will sleep late, door shut, music seeping faintly through the walls. No stuffed rabbit, no thud on the mattress, no biscuits in her hair. The dog will slow down too, trading urgency for the long sighs of old age. And one day, perhaps, the house will be silent from start to finish.
I wonder what I will do with those mornings. Maybe I will read again. Maybe I will sleep in. Or maybe I will find myself missing the burnt toast and the smoke alarm, the noise and the interruptions, the weight of a small hand tugging at mine before the coffee is even poured.
Holding On to the Messy Moments
Fatherhood at 7am is not a single thing.
It is weight, noise, quiet, surprise. It is resentment that softens into gratitude when I am not paying attention. It is the smell of burnt bread, the hiss of the kettle, the faint thud of little feet.
Some mornings I wish for silence. Other mornings I dread it.
But when the house is half-awake and the sky is still deciding what colour to be, there is a moment that belongs only here.
That’s 7am: the smell of coffee, the weight of a small hand, the day not yet asking too much…
