{"id":2458174,"date":"2020-05-07T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=325373"},"modified":"2020-05-08T06:49:21","modified_gmt":"2020-05-08T12:49:21","slug":"born-in-a-pandemic-aspens-coronavirus-babies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/born-in-a-pandemic-aspens-coronavirus-babies\/","title":{"rendered":"Born in a pandemic: Aspen\u2019s Coronavirus babies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kate Spencer holds newborn Anna, while James Spencer, right, helps their eldest daughter, Violet, 3, put her shoes on in the park next to their home in Aspen Village on Tuesday, April 28, 2020. James and Kate met in school about twenty years ago and got married in 2011. \u201cJames is working 4 days a week and I\u2019m home with the girls. Violet would typically be at Aspen Mountain Tots two days a week, so that is the biggest difference for us. We\u2019re spending a lot of time together and there are good days and bad\u2026it definitely has its challenges, but it\u2019s probably good in the long run to have more time with both girls together.\u201d James took 6 weeks of PTO to spend with his girls, but is now back to work as a physical therapist. He said he\u2019s been \u201cbending ears\u201d to anyone who will listen about implementing paternity leave for new fathers. With the pandemic, James explained that although he has to go to work now he\u2019s had less work with only essential patients so he can go in a little later than normal and come home a little earlier, which gives him more time at home. \u201cIt\u2019s just a weird time and then you throw a newborn in on top of that,\u201d said James. \u201cIt\u2019s all contradictions: like work\u2019s light, but it\u2019s super stressful.\u201d Kate is also a physical therapist and said that although it\u2019s odd to not be going into work every day, she was mentally prepared to do that since she was having Anna. \u201cWith Violet, I was out hiking from the beginning. Maybe four weeks after she was born, we were hiking Smuggler all the time and going out for walks with friends. I think emotionally and mentally if this was my first [baby] it would be more difficult, because I would feel totally lost. I think when I first had a child, the support of friends was really helpful. Right now, I have to focus all of my energy into the routine we\u2019ve set for Violet, so it\u2019s actually probably easier, but I don\u2019t feel like that a lot of days,\u201d said Kate. \u201cI wasn\u2019t planning on working, but I wasn\u2019t planning on full-time momming. It\u2019s weird for me to complain about it, because I feel like people do this for their lives. Ever since I had kids I had a career. So when I had Violet, I wanted to be with her all the time. And now to be with them all the time, then having those stressful days, I almost feel guilty. People do this, and they\u2019re moms full-time, and now I don\u2019t know how. Or maybe it\u2019s the virus stuff on top of it, because I can\u2019t have the neighbor girl come over and watch one of them for an hour while I take the other one for a hike. It can be rough, but it\u2019s probably all the other external stuff coming through.\u201d<\/strong>
Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen TimesKelsey Brunner\/The Aspen TimesKelsey Brunner\/The Aspen TimesKelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times
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via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kate Spencer holds newborn Anna, while James Spencer, right, helps their eldest daughter, Violet, 3, put her shoes on in the park next to their home in Aspen Village on Tuesday, April 28, 2020. James and Kate met in school about twenty years ago and got married in 2011. \u201cJames is working 4 days a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2458174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 18:29:34","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2458174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2458201,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2458174\/revisions\/2458201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2458174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2458174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2458174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}