Oh, hey there! Updates: Parent Brained, Pre-Production, Pet Senioritis & Milo!
Hey there, it’s been a minute.
When you have a four month old baby, three old pets and one big film shoot you’re in pre-production for… things sorta blur together. Time doesn’t exist. Remembering anything beyond the tasks at hand is absolutely impossible. Finding the opportunity to write a substack? It hasn’t been easy but here I am! Dropping in and saying “Oh, hey there!” I really hope you all have been well.
In July, after our beloved cat Harpo passed away, I needed time to compose my brain, my heart and find a way to feel creative again… good news was that life didn’t really give me the choice in when I’d get around to it. Carey and I have been knee deep in pre-production for our pilot Adoptive: The Series which we wrote and are now producing, directing and starring in. Recently we were given a grant through The Disability Film Challenge & Adobe to expand our 4 minute, 2024 short film, Adoptive, into a full pilot.
Adoptive follows a married disabled couple on the journey of adoption and though not exactly our personally story, it was one we are very passionate about and a world we are quite interested in. We had always discussed the idea of adoption and planned to go down that road if we found to have complications with having a biological child. It is also something we have not ruled out for the future.
Our half-hour comedy pilot will be submitted to festivals and also be shared via social media in bite sized chunks as a vertical series. We just finished the casting process and were blown away by the response. We had over 3500 actors submit for supporting roles and we reviewed over 200 self tapes! Landing on some extremely talented human beings. We are so grateful for this opportunity to share our project with the world and after we shoot next month, we head into post-production and then Adoptive will be released in January of 2026. More to come on this in the future!
Like I said earlier, we are writing, directing, producing and starring in this venture, which has been quite the undertaking while juggling parenting Milo. Though not literally juggling him… he is a bit too big for that and you know, he’s a baby, so we probably shouldn’t juggle him anyway, oh well.
But speaking of the man, the myth, the Milo — we recently shared on social media that after his birth, we found out that our little dude had bilateral hearing loss. Our plan is to do total communication education and we are very grateful we get to be the ones to guide him through this journey. He got himself some VERY snazzy hearing aids recently and we have all dived right into learning ASL, along with getting him set up with a fantastic team of specialists and starting at a lovely little school for his language development. I like to believe he is in very good hands with us as his parents and our love for this boy grows every damn day. He has my whole heart and I never want it to be returned. Ever.
Now with Milo having the ears covered… our little old pup, Yoda has been having quite the eye journey. Recently on top of having cataracts, he ended up with a corneal ulcer, which is as pleasant as it sounds. My amazing wife has been doing no less than two trips to the vet for the last several weeks to get our little man some care (while i’ve been home with Milo). If we could give anyone advice for anything it would be to try and not have four pets all the same age… with everyone hitting 15 years old its been nothing but heartache, vet visits, lots of cleaning and even more deep breaths to keep our patients. It’s been hard and though we would never have ever changed it, it’s definitely not something we will attempt to recreate in the future. Losing Harpo, watching Yoda struggle and seeing our other two pets have their own health issues… it’s just a lot to take in. But we are doing it. We are juggling.
We are parents; to our baby, to our fur babies, to our creative endeavors. We are a team and that’s a damn beautiful thing I’m grateful for.
I am also very grateful for all of you and I hope to provide you with some more writing in the near future, but this is where I will leave you for now. Enjoy the rest of your summer and as many people in our high school yearbooks have stated time and time again… stay cool.
I was wondering where you all were. Glad it's been productive for you and Carey. Here's a tip from one who wears a hearing aid: If Milo gets itchy ears, ask his audiologist to order nonallergenic molds. Also I have found that having the molds made a bit smaller than the cast sent in is helpful, especially if Milo's ears are curly inside. Mine are. Here's hoping that early intervention will be very useful. I had lip reading but I never learned ASL. I love your strategy of a multifaceted communication environment. Here's a special hug for Milo from one who has been there all my life (76 years!).
Getting these glimpses of you and Carey's partnership through curveballs and new projects, griefs and joys, is such a gift. "We are parents; to our baby, to our fur babies, to our creative endeavors." Here's to more of this kind of collaboration. And I can't wait to watch Adoptive!