The Real Dad Podcast
Each week, these four fathers cover a wide range of "Dad" related topics, from the joys of watching your child grow up to the challenges of balancing work and family life. With their unique blend of humor and authenticity, Dave, Joey, Brian, and Mark provide a refreshing perspective on what it means to be a dad in today's world.
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The Real Dad Podcast
When The World Stops: How Losing Power Helped Us Find Connection
The power outages are like some of my fondest memories, like getting the flashlights, getting the candles, yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you remember the big one that happened when we were like in high school? Yeah, I worked at a grocery store and that's how I remember all of this stuff because we I just took so much ice cream home. And my brother is 10 years older than me, so he left work and came home I show up with like a cart, like a shopping cart, full of ice cream and I was like yo, I just took all the ice cream. He's like you idiot, where are we gonna put?
Speaker 3:it and I was like what?
Speaker 2:he's like it's gonna melt, bro, like you just you just walked home with like a bunch of cream, damn it, I'm gonna eat some.
Speaker 1:Get me a spoon and let's go as deep as we can. If you got some time to relax your mind, come have breakfast with me. The Real Dad Podcast. Welcome to the Real Dad Podcast. I'm Dave, and Joey beat me in fantasy sports this year.
Speaker 3:Wow, ooh, I did. That's a great fun fact. I loved that fun fact for me. Hi, I'm Joey and pop makes me fart. I learned that after I stopped drinking pop and I farted less, and then now every time I drink a pop.
Speaker 2:I fart a lot and he has drank a lot of pop today.
Speaker 3:Had three pops yesterday. You guys are feeling it. Let me tell you.
Speaker 2:My name is Mark and I went to Costco on Saturday for pizza and I bought a $2,000 trampoline.
Speaker 1:You got Costco'd. There's more to unravel there. Costco is Costco-ing, let me tell you Wait, wait, wait, let's dad, let's dad we have a very sad announcement the Iron man himself, Brian James Jensen, is not with us tonight. He has come down with a sickness over the weekend, a bit of a bug that has put him out enough to not be able to make it, which is sad.
Speaker 2:I'm going to say this, and I mean this in the politest way possible but fuck you, Joey. You announced him, two did like two weeks ago. You called it out and the second you said it.
Speaker 1:I'm like he's gonna miss next week. I guarantee it he's gonna mix it. It's like not calling out like a shutout. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:The announcer I'm like in football I'm super, super into like those things. Okay, hasn't missed a field goal from this far right his whole career. I'm like well, that shit's fucking wide now you dumb shit.
Speaker 3:See, I'm very much. I'd be the guy saying that for sure I am anti-superstition, so, and plus there's a little bit of uh, I missed my first episode, so I'm okay with Brian missing one now. Now we've been on the same amount of episodes.
Speaker 2:None of y'all has missed as much as me, though.
Speaker 3:Hey-o.
Speaker 1:For good, cause for good cause I mean sometimes.
Speaker 3:So, brian, we miss you and thank you for sending us instructions on how to turn on the audio so that we can still record Yep, yep, yep, apparently, or this will never see the airwaves because I might have fucked that up, so we'll see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe it's Brian's secret mission. It's like those suckers think they're recording.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, but the light is on. The light is on it's recording, it's recording.
Speaker 1:So we did miss you last week, Mark. You were dealing with the ice storm that passed through. Oh, I got some footage power outage for a long time. You sent us a picture of a power line that was just hanging over the road. Completely done, Super cooked. How long were you without power for Five days.
Speaker 3:Five days Five days, my goodness, wow, yeah, but you have a generator.
Speaker 2:I have a generator. Okay, the problem is we live in such a small town that, uh, everyone had, everyone had lost power, yeah, right, and everyone needs to power their house with something. So they use these gas power generators, right, like my neighbor howie he's he's, listens to this all the time. He comments all the time he had his up and running I think all day, yeah, so I don't even want to know what his bill was. A day running those gas jennies Filling gas, yeah, and so, yeah, it's. I mean, I say five days it came off and then, or it was off, and then it would come on for like an hour or two and then kick off for like seven hours and then, like it was Sketchy, super stressful, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was sketchy, super stressful, yeah, yeah, yeah, super, super stressful. So I came up with a system where I would um freeze my family during the day.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, like you do.
Speaker 2:It was cold.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, like temperature wise.
Speaker 3:So I wouldn't run the generator.
Speaker 2:I have two battery powered generators, which I also got a discount code for, if you want to slide into my DMs I'll look
Speaker 3:you up.
Speaker 2:It's called Mark R5. It's only 5%, but 5% is 5%.
Speaker 1:It's better than zero.
Speaker 3:No, $2,000 trampoline though I can tell you that Anyways, focus.
Speaker 2:What were we talking about?
Speaker 3:You had two generators, you'd freeze your family through the day.
Speaker 2:Correct. So my sub pump because the water was going, the water, groundwater is so high we had like a crazy amount of rain and then it froze and that's what caused all this chaos. But if you were to come up to my house you would see an inordinate amount of tree down trees. I'm going to come back to that story, remind me, because I'll guarantee to forget. Um, but anyways. So I have these gas or these battery powered generators and my sub pump was plugged into that and it that would. Just it was going off every 55 seconds on average. I timed it so this thing powered my sub pump basically continuously for over 20 hours on the backup. Then I would plug my house into with the gas power generator around like five, six o'clock at night, run it till midnight and then I would charge those two battery powered units oh, you got a good little cycle system right and then we turn the propane, like we have a propane fireplace, okay, so we turn that on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would kind of heat the house, and then the house kind of got to like whatever we keep it at. So then we fall asleep. Then everybody woke up, frozen, frozen. But it was really cool because, like in those moments you kind of have like little family, yeah things like everyone's in our bed. We're all like like like the body heat was body heating it was it was doing thing.
Speaker 1:It's when you wake up and your nose is cold.
Speaker 3:I can remember it from sleeping at Joey's parents' house because it would be the same thing, or when you're camping and you're nice and warm under your sleeping bag but your nose is frozen.
Speaker 1:That's exactly it.
Speaker 2:And we made it through. I can't say too much without getting people in trouble, okay, but I do have photos for you afterwards.
Speaker 3:Oh cool.
Speaker 2:So I get a call from somebody saying I have a surprise for you and I am so narcissistic that I'm like this is a tool or it's some sort of fucking like cool thing. Yeah, yeah. So all I get is meet me here and bring your pickup truck and I'm like, oh shit, this is a big big surprise.
Speaker 1:What's going to go down?
Speaker 2:So I get there and there is just an inordinate amount of frozen food that the stores aren't allowed to sell because power has been out for two hours. Yeah, now I only have like a little deep freeze, like three cubic feet. The thing's like not very big, it's many, yeah, yeah, so I'm like taking stuff for like thing and I'm like taking stuff that like like I'm gonna load up howie's thing for him and like, just grabbing a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2:And then, um, I'm looking right again small town and I'm like I'm going to buy another deep freeze. So I drive to the store and I bought another deep freeze. But they're all out of big deep freezes so I had to get another mini one.
Speaker 1:This time I got a five cubic feet one.
Speaker 2:So anyways, I got like easily over a thousand dollars worth of groceries and I pull up and I call howie, and then I'm like, hey, man, come over, come over. Like whatever the same thing. And I'm like, what do you want? You want some. You want some fucking pizza pockets you want some lean ground beef you want some of this and I'm like throwing it in, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then like robin comes out, she's not even phased anymore and like the stuff's all covered and like like fucking, I don't know, somebody must have dumped some milk or something. I'm like right, like bottles and bottles of orange juice.
Speaker 1:I'm like wiping off with white wipes, trying to like clean off all this shit and uh, yeah, robin was like I don't even know what to say I'm like plug that friggin freezer in, let's get the jenny cook in here so we can get these things cold, right?
Speaker 1:yeah and yeah, we've just been living I find it so wild because you're not that far from us oh yeah we're like here it was nothing and like I had an american friend message crazy. He's like I hope you guys are doing okay with the ice storm and I'm like I mean we're far enough south that like it was just rain for us. Like, yeah, there was like a light coating of ice on the windshield that just wiped away where meanwhile you go like a half hour 45 minutes and it was disastrous.
Speaker 2:I mean we're an hour and 20, but yeah, okay, a little further yeah.
Speaker 2:And uh, we, my brother and sister-in-law live like not very far from here, right, let's say maybe 20 minutes or whatever. And they messaged and then, um, they were like hey, like do you guys have power? And we're like no, like we haven't had power in like two days, basically. And uh, and they were like oh yeah, like we haven't even like had anything. And I was like you mean to tell me that if we didn't move here, right, I wouldn't have to be dealing, and anyways it was, it was like a whole a whole thing.
Speaker 2:But it was really funny talking to people from the city, cause like business would like you, because like business would like you know people are sending emails, right and like our cell phone tower. One of the cell phone towers went down and like there's some crazy, crazy footage did you feel like you got a bit of a break from totally?
Speaker 1:the world 100 because it feels like you were in your own little apocalypse almost up there, where it's just like the world stopped almost for you guys. Yeah, but was it weird that everybody else is still like you said? Like you're getting those work emails and it feels like the whole world's still moving, but you guys are frozen in time?
Speaker 3:at first.
Speaker 2:At first I didn't it didn't clue in that like there was a possibility that other people weren't experiencing what I was experiencing but like I'll show you the thing, like the ice was literally everywhere, like all over the place, and you see some of the footage from like people that are north. No, more north than I am and like some of the aftermath, like we got super lucky where, like, all the trees that were down on my property were in the forest, so like nothing happened.
Speaker 2:The trees that were down on my property were in the forest, so like nothing happened. Um, like in and around or whatever, and the the story that I was going to say is we live about 45 minutes from my in-laws. We drive my son down, um, we take him out of daycare on fridays and that's his gg and papa day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he's three and those fridays are like super valuable to us now because he's going to start school in September, so like we're trying to make it a thing where he goes and this kid, like his whole perspective at three, is just like such a beautiful, inspiring outlook, like so we're driving down and I'm like holy moly, look at all the downed trees. And then he responds with, yeah, but there's way more trees that aren't downed than are downed. Dad and I was just like dude, you are so right.
Speaker 1:Glass half full, but I can't stop looking at all the damage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, he just looks at what's alive still. Yeah, he's just like, yeah, but look at all the trees. Yeah, yeah, yeah, um, he just looks at what's alive still, yeah, he's just like, yeah, but look at all the trees that are there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what all the up trees, all the trees that are still up and I was like, oh man, like it's just such a for him it's like business, as like he was scared and his sister was scared, so like we, we uh brought them down to her in-laws, weren't without power at all, right, um, kind of pissed me off, actually.
Speaker 1:I'll send you a picture of steak dinner and I was like peanut butter sandwiches um but yeah it was.
Speaker 1:It was a very eye-opening um experience that you can't really like, be too prepared yeah but it was a very beautiful, like the fires on we're reading books we're just kind of like connecting and stuff, and it's hard to come out of that mode do you think that it would be okay, as a parent, to have, like power outage days where you literally like you go down and you shut off your power? I mean yeah, like, maybe in like a nice climate.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean Like winter and not summer.
Speaker 1:But like I just think of it, because even during COVID, as crazy as it is to look back on, there were some beautiful. There were those beautiful like lockdown, two weeks of like you can't do anything. I think like I'm a very.
Speaker 1:My brain is always going whether it's work, whether it's ideas, whether it's like there's always something I'm working on, even if it's not work, I'm coming up with new ideas, right but like there was a break there that was just like bliss in a moment where you don't know what's going on and you're not allowed to do anything. So it's like somebody's telling you you don't, you can't do this, you're done, and it's forced break and it felt great. Mind you, it would have been better if it didn't drag out the way that it did and people didn't, yes, get hurt by it and all the things. But there's something that's said about like seeing you guys up there in that state where it is the world's kind of shut down. Your responsibilities are kind of minimalized and focused, right like it almost feels like it's focused.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, because you have to focus it and you've got to focus in so that your house doesn't flood in the basement.
Speaker 1:you got to focus it and you've got to focus in so that your house doesn't flood in the basement. You've got to keep the house warm enough so that people are comfortable. You've got to keep food still cooking and frozen so that you're not just spoiling a bunch of meat and stuff. Yeah, it's just like zeros in in like a beautiful way.
Speaker 2:For me it's, it's totally it's like I'm entering a stage in my life where I never thought I would experience like I am like in my dad era okay, where like I have a fucking group of people that look to me to solve problems, right, and I have no fucking idea what I'm doing yeah, yeah, but I have to act like I have the answers and I know what it is that I'm doing, and it's weird to have that like confidence from my wife and then my kids are just like dad, go fix this.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, fuck yeah, I'm gonna go fix this youtube.
Speaker 3:How do I fix this? You figure it out, though, but you know what I'm saying, and it's like.
Speaker 2:It's a weird thing that, like I remember wholeheartedly growing up, my dad was like a small engine guy and he used to get so mad when, like you, held the flashlight the wrong way that I was like I have. No, I'm like I don't want to learn this. This isn't fun for me. So like, hold your own damn flashlight and I'll hire somebody if I have to. Right and I it's.
Speaker 2:One of my biggest regrets is not paying attention to those and like suffering through those, like dave yelling at you in the third period, kind of moments I just don't like being yelled at right, um, but now like small engines and I don't get along like I, I can't and I don't, and so like things are like generator and carburetors and all that shit, I'm just like, fuck, you might as well speak french to me. Yeah, because I have no idea that whole world. And like how he blesses heart, because he's like, yeah, you just, you know if I can remove the spark plug, check it out, make sure that it looks fine and then put it back. I'm like what's a spark plug and what is it supposed to look?
Speaker 2:like right, but I'm learning all of these things like later in life yeah and it makes you feel I know there's like a whole toxic masculinity thing there, but like I feel more manly yeah, I don't think that's wrong and I love, every minute of it?
Speaker 1:yeah, because there's an element of like providing for your family or doing something that is like going to sustain you, that like makes you feel good, like I think that's a natural thing, because even like I grew up in the city.
Speaker 2:It's a new skill, unlocked it is, and like, and I never, I've never gone fishing like fishing for me. Last year was the first time I went fishing and it was because my son wanted to go fishing. So I take him fishing at my buddy's cottage. They're all like, laughing at me because I'm. They're like look at this idiot. Yeah, I'm fishing off the dock I catch a fish and I'm like this is awesome. Yeah, how the fuck do I get it off the hook?
Speaker 2:yeah, I have no idea how to hold the fish how to like fucking loop, swoop and pull it. They're laughing at me. I'm it's flopping on the deck. I'm stepping on it.
Speaker 3:I'm like trying to rip the hook off of it. I'm 40 years old for crying out loud, ripping the head clean off a fish and then in the summertime, I see you guys go on your vacations and you got like your little sons out there and he's got his hand in the fish's mouth and he's like look at this.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh man, I'm being outmanned by a fucking four-year-old there was a lot of coaxing between behind the camera shots, but no, but I'm just saying like I never.
Speaker 2:I. I am like in this weird, there's something about those activities, those like I don't want to call them redneck activities, but like those things that you do with your grandfather and right and like the like you're fishing, you're hunting, yeah, like you're working on your engines, like that, that old school kind of like hands in the dirt type of like you know, smelling like gasoline, the, the tim allen the tool time I just never thought I would be that individual right get the fulfillment and enjoyment out of those things I was just like I was cool behind the keyboard in my office in my suit.
Speaker 2:I was good, yeah, and now that I'm there, I'm like let's do this?
Speaker 3:yeah, I think it's like I'm having a fire.
Speaker 2:It's 8 30 in the morning and I'm like, I'm up at 6 am and I'm happy, like I'm just. You know what I mean? It's just a weird. They have a whole different perspective, like for like. There's a bunch of towns around us, right one, tim hortons, and our thing, and the lineup is like absolutely massive, everyone. If this was toronto or like the city, everyone would be such an asshole and like so mean. And there Robin's in the thing. She's Robin's, my wife, she's in, like talking to these, like whatever. And this person's like I haven't had power for five days, so if I could just have a hot tea and a bagel, I'll be doing all right.
Speaker 2:Just like and they're just, they're just happy to. I mean, not everyone's there, there's some cranky bitches, and she's like like not just bitches, there's some cranky old assholes too. Yeah, but like people don't really sweat the small stuff, right, because there are like little things like like trying to figure out how to keep the power on and right, that gives you that perspective, right?
Speaker 3:yeah, so I used to love that at our old because we had a country house. Growing up like I would look forward to power outages, to your point oh, even I did like in a city townhouse growing up and like.
Speaker 1:The power outages are like some of my fondest memories like getting the flashlights, getting the candles?
Speaker 2:yeah, do you remember the big one that happened when we were like in high school? Yeah, we were golfing oh no, I was.
Speaker 1:Uh, we were at a kid's camp.
Speaker 2:Oh right yeah I was golfing, you were at a kid's camp like st catherine's or something like that I remember I worked at a grocery store and that's how I remember all of this stuff because we I just like took so much ice cream home and my brother is 10 years older than me, so he left work and came home and I show up with like a cart, like a shopping cart, full of ice cream and I was like yo, I just took all the ice cream. He's like you idiot, where are we gonna put?
Speaker 3:it and I was like what he's like.
Speaker 2:It's gonna fucking melt, bro like you just you just walked home with like a bunch of cream, damn it.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna eat some, get me a spoon and let's go as deep as we can, no, we we went to like there's like townhouses behind the thing.
Speaker 2:We went there and pushed it into like somebody's backyard and then took two, two tubs of it, went up onto our roof of our house, yeah, and just sat on the roof of our house looked at the stars this we I'd never seen stars like this in my life, because all the power was out and we're just sitting because it's dead of summer and I'm just mucking on some cookies and cream ice cream oh man, it was so good.
Speaker 3:So if you lived in the gta in a townhouse roughly 20-ish years ago and a cart of ice cream showed up in the back of your house and you don't know why.
Speaker 2:Now, you know it was so awesome. Shit like that happened. All that was a miracle for somebody. You made their whole day Totally. There was some crackhead there that was like what?
Speaker 3:Manifestation works. You found Jesus for them in that moment 100% Namaste yeah.
Speaker 1:There's something about like the simplicity of like, when life just like becomes simple for you. I think especially right now, just with everything that's going on in the world, with the tariffs and across the world, and you can get caught up in everything, with the stocks dropping and should I be doing something? What am I supposed to be doing? And just everything feels so big right now. I think think to me, because it's all globally that things are happening where I just so badly want my world to just shrink for a moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But even for the kids because, like one, if it shrinks for me, I'm more purposeful and intentional with them and two, they don't have the things that are distracting them the things that we've given them to distract themselves so that we can do the things that we do, like my friend or my son and daughter, their neighbor friends.
Speaker 1:um, whenever they get grounded from their phone, our kids are out playing so much more because, like, they're coming to the door, knocking on the door, being like hey, can so-and-so come out to play? And we're like sure, and they're like hey do you want to go play like yep or bet is what he says throws his shoes on and he's out playing basketball or they're out playing hockey, right, and it's like, oh, like, what's going on?
Speaker 1:it's like, oh yeah, he got grounded from his phone and I was like, oh well, that's why now you're actually doing something.
Speaker 1:We're like I want to message our neighbor and be like, hey, can we just like take away the phones every like wednesday or something right because your kids and my kids they do things and they're having so much fun out there laughing, the street lights come on, they're just like having the time of their life out there. Yeah, and it's because the phone got taken away, right, and like maybe we should just do that intentionally every now and then, like I said, like just turn the power off and be like we're having a no phone day.
Speaker 1:Like everybody, take my phone, yeah, throw it into a bin and nobody can reach us on that. Like we've got a landline, they can call us on that if they really want to, if anybody knows that number.
Speaker 3:I don't even know that number.
Speaker 1:That's, that's weird.
Speaker 3:It comes with the package. Yeah, we had the same thing technically have a home phone number, but we don't even own a home phone Like it. Just it exists.
Speaker 2:We had a landline, like whatever that cord thing is in our old house and I buried it. So if the person even wanted a landline, they couldn't even plug their phone in.
Speaker 3:You're not finding it. It's in the wall somewhere.
Speaker 1:So I got a story switching subjects here. Um, so I got a story switching subjects here, okay switch it up. It was really cool moment today with my youngest abby. So long story. She wanted to do gymnastics in the winter time. We signed her up. She's seven, okay, signed her up for gymnastics. She had done it when she was younger and then had a break from gymnastics. I wanted to do gymnastics, cool her up. Went for the first class with my wife and it was no longer what she thought gymnastics was.
Speaker 3:Not very good.
Speaker 1:And she had a horrible time. The teacher wasn't a great teacher. It was an older person, Not like you know how sometimes it's kids that are kind of helping them.
Speaker 1:It was an older person and because she hadn't done gymnastics, she was pretty like far behind from the other kids. So she felt like all in herself and was just like didn't want to do it. We came home and she was like that's not what I thought gymnastics was like. I thought it was like trampolines and fun. This is like cartwheels and handstands and do the splits and like all these things. So we're like okay, we talked about it. Is this something we should force her to do, like fight through it or not? Joy was like if you were there, you would see like this is not happening kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So we're like all right, we canceled that. We got the majority of our money back. But joy was worried about is this going to be a repeated thing now, joy being my wife. So we signed up. We've been in the winter. We got a package to our local community center and we've been going swimming there over the winter. We got a package to our local community center and we've been going swimming there over the winter with the kids. Lots of fun.
Speaker 1:You have to do a swim test in order to be able to do some of the things there without a life jacket. Right, oldest son swim test no problem. Middle child swim test no problem. Youngest daughter she's been practicing and practicing. She would do the swim test and get I'd say like three quarters of the way, seven-eighths of the way, but couldn't quite complete it and she was like, ah, like you could tell she really wanted it, but she couldn't quite pass that milestone. So I was like, all right, let's sign her up for swimming lessons. Do you want to do swimming lessons? Yeah, sure, I'll do swimming lessons. She did them in the summer and stuff before.
Speaker 2:So we're getting all worried like what is this gonna be like?
Speaker 1:so today was the first day of swimming lessons. Okay, are they private or are they group? So it's group in the thing, but it's only three people to the instructor. So we paid a little bit extra for that, because otherwise you can pay for like one to ten kids, like the. You just pay more and you get a better ratio.
Speaker 1:So my daughter comes home from school and my wife is like hey, I got you some new swimming goggles. Thinking like this will excite you for it. And she had the biggest meltdown. Oh no, I don't want to go, I'm not going Screaming, crying, like into a ball. Like I pick her up and I'm holding her and I'm trying to get her to like just breathe and come back. And it's like you're okay, you're safe. I'm like I hear what you're saying. You're saying you don't want to go, I hear you, you can stop repeating yourself. Like she's just in this cycle of this whirlwind of please do not take me to this something about that gymnastics experience or she's thinking it's going to be the same. It is just this whirlwind of catastrophe in an instant. Yeah, like my wife picked her up from school. She's fine. The second they get in the door it was like boom, she went from zero to 100 of like do not take me there, I will murder you if you do.
Speaker 1:So big win on my wife and I's part. We stayed super calm. We are thankful for our friends and our family who have been doing therapy and learning things with their kids and the experiences that we do, and that's why we share these stories on this podcast so that we can help somebody else maybe. But even with Meg, joey's wife had been talking to my wife about how their therapist has explained to Murphy about the mountain and how you can go up this mountain really, really, really quickly sometimes and it feels like you can't get back to a safe spot or you're going down a slide. That's too slippery of a slope, you're done, kind of, and it's like figuring out how to help that kid get through it. And then our other sister-in-law their son, has some behavioral issues and they've really been working with him on different mindfulness and stuff and there was a book that she had told my wife about. My wife was trying to find it. So I'm there cuddling my daughter your wife is searching for books.
Speaker 3:My wife's searching for a book while I'm bearing my head, yeah, and I'm like what is my wife doing?
Speaker 1:she's sitting there on her ipad and I'm like what the fuck are you doing right now? She's gonna chat gpt. That's a cheat code though maybe it is wow Just like, put the like voice thing on and like my daughter is doing this. How do I respond?
Speaker 3:Walk me through that.
Speaker 1:So then my wife's like come here, Abby, I've got a book to show you, and we had calmed her down enough to be able to see it. And Joy turns it around like did you just make?
Speaker 3:this Like, did you just?
Speaker 1:write a book like the quick time I'm snuggling her and she's like no, I found it. So it's called the worry monster calming anxiety with mindfulness by dr katherine cook cotton and illustrated by lena podessa but you're still saying her name that illustrated
Speaker 3:person, oh my god.
Speaker 1:It's a great book that walks through, like it basically like you read the book with the kid during the meltdown and it helps them walk through the anxiety and calming the anxiety by bringing mindfulness to it.
Speaker 2:Is this an online thing or can you purchase this?
Speaker 1:She found it at the library so I can post it somewhere. But it, like it, saved our day today, so I would like give it to anybody in a breaking case hold on wait.
Speaker 2:I have questions.
Speaker 1:Your wife went to the library no library, digital library yes there's a digital library yeah yes, every physical library has its own digital library but there's still only a certain amount of copies of the digital copy can we go back to the landline conversation?
Speaker 3:libraries are essentially trying to hold on for dear life so there are digital versions you will learn about this soon, because your wife has gotten into reading the books that our wives read. So our wives have, like, library cards for every municipality that may exist ever, so that they can have access to all the books but how do you?
Speaker 2:you get them on your phone.
Speaker 3:It's an app yeah, it's an app, so they have their own app and then you have it on your phone as a digital and you can just download this.
Speaker 1:Well, you can't download it but, like you have it for a certain amount of time, so this is just a picture of it.
Speaker 2:This is not a clickable link right now yeah, but how does it work, can we oh?
Speaker 1:we'll take that offline exactly, but I have some serious questions as to how you probably get your book into a library thank you, there you go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now we're thinking, but this book was so great and like it experienced, like it gets the kid to name the anxiety, like name the worry, like what is the thing that you're worried about, so that you can walk through it. It walks through the name three things that you can see, name three things that you can hear, name three things you can smell, and it just like Tad's armpit, because you got it in a full nail site in there.
Speaker 1:It's very grounding and bringing you like, like, bringing you back to earth from your spiral. Yeah, yeah, and it worked really really well, so it was written by a doctor Exactly.
Speaker 2:Some doctors know things. It had to work.
Speaker 1:So calmed her down and then we were distracted or did some other stuff. It was getting close to time to go and I'm like whispering to my wife like when does start? Because, like I think you're running out of time here, yeah. So then she's like okay, yeah, it starts soon, so we should get your bathing suit on. And then my daughter like immediately starts. Like you, it's interesting watching physical reactions from a kid, because she just started to like curl into a ball, like her whole body just like started caving in on itself and we're like whoa, like easy easy, easier and one of the things in the book is to like stretch your arms out big and then put one hand on your heart and feel it, and it's like all these little things.
Speaker 1:So we started coaching her through that again. Right, she calms down and then she goes into a bit of a giggly zone yeah what if my teacher is like this? Or what if there's a another boy and it's like so, we're joking about it, they go off? I messaged my wife like how's it going? She's like it went so well she came home.
Speaker 1:She had a great time. She loved her teacher, she, the other people in her little class. It was great. She had a great experience. But my wife was telling me after, when they got back, that she watched Abby go through this whole mindfulness thing because there was one part my wife was standing close and they told her that she had to move to a different area and then Abby looked back and saw my wife walking away and thought that she was going to leave and she could see her like taking breaths and like calming herself down.
Speaker 1:Using the strategies, using the she could see her like taking breaths and like calming herself down using the strategies, like it's just amazing to see a kid implement the thing so quickly. And then saw my wife sit down and realize she's staying and then went back and like had a great time. So it was just like I will share this on our Instagram because it was such a little like hack, like a little cheat code that we had today to help us through this, like otherwise it would have been, uh, like yeah, we're not going. Like right, yeah, there's no way I want to deal with that tantrum in public with a bunch of people around, so let's just not go and cancel this as well. Right, yeah, but we didn't want to start the cycle of canceling things and then she never does something.
Speaker 1:That right yeah that's like not every experience in life is going to be great. Yeah, like she could have gone and it could have sucked right like we don't know. But you hope that you're setting like your kids up for what they like. You know she loves swimming. It's one of her favorite things to do. Like you're gonna have fun with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, but all the nerves that come in it's funny how swimming seems to be the common like thing kids love to do like my.
Speaker 2:We're like you have to do something with my daughter. She doesn't. She didn't want to do soccer, she didn't want to do any other sport. And then we had her in ballet. She was been in gymnastics, didn't want to do soccer, she didn't want to do any other sport, and then we had her in ballet. She's been in gymnastics, didn't like it, so she'd been in ballet, loved ballet. Now, all of a sudden, she's done with ballet, right. So we're like what do you want to do? And then, yada, yada, yada, she's in private swimming lessons. Yeah, and we put our son in the same thing, one-on-one swimming lessons because he went in a group, hates people, right. And the person's like, okay, do this. And he's like fuck you, lady, I'm not doing that, I'm a home man. But then it is funny because all of the things that the teacher would get the other kids to do, he sits on the side and he's just sitting there staring at them and in my head I'm like this is such a waste of money.
Speaker 2:But then we get home where he's comfortable yeah and in the bath and he's blowing bubbles and he's putting his face under the water and he's doing all the things. So I'm like I know you know how to do it, you're absorbing it, yeah you just don't want to do it, it's just the people right.
Speaker 2:So when we get him into these private lessons he's like the first one I have to sit there with him because like same thing, temper tantrums and like going crazy and he just doesn't. He has like a hard time trusting people off the hop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but now with this swim instructor he's got on three lessons and now they're like they're able to play. We can kind of go off and like do our instructor. He's got on three lessons and now they're like they're able to play. We can kind of go off and like do our thing and he's a thing. And then we even like I was sitting on the other side of the glass watching and there's this old couple that got to be in their eighties and they're like oh, there's our buddy, there's our buddy there. Yeah, he, uh, they our buddy there. Yeah, he, uh. They didn't know that I was his dad. Oh, so they're like his dad's usually there beside him, but now mom's there, so mom's not gonna put up with his shit. Look at him, look at him.
Speaker 2:Look at him like robin's sitting off to the side right whereas I'm like right next to the pool, basically with him right, and then, um, they're like, oh, he's putting his face under the water. He's putting his face under the water. He's like I bet you by may, he'll be out there just swimming along and it's. It was really cool to see because, like before, he was like absolutely not, we had to do the things.
Speaker 2:And, like this weekend was the first time where he'd like walk down the ramp with his instructor by himself yeah holding on to the edge and like he's doing all the things, but it's, it's so cool to see them, even though he's way far behind. All these other kids are jumping off the edges and they're loving their life and he's just kind of in it. It's cool to see them progress Nice.
Speaker 1:So that brings up a good question which one of our Instagram followers has sent us on Instagram Also, we love it when you send us messages people let's do it, thank you.
Speaker 2:Messages let's do it, thank you so let's hop into it.
Speaker 1:This is from a guy named rich and he was asking um, it would be cool to listen to how all of your kids developed their skills like crawling, walking, and was it early? Was it late? If it was late, did you worry about it or look for help? Also, did you struggle comparing your kids development to your friend's kids development? So just made me think of it, with you talking about, like him, not being as far along as the other kids in the swim class, right, and was that something hard for you to sit there and watch of like why? Why isn't my kid doing the thing that the other kids are doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is. It's hard to not, it's hard to not feel like there's something wrong.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 2:When your kid is like, noticeably there's. There's something different than like. If my kid doesn't want to do something Like my daughter, for example, hated soccer was, so was very good at it like, went out, scored goals like she. If I score a goal, will you stop making me?
Speaker 3:play this game. It's like oh my god right and went out and scored two goals and was like can we be done this? Now?
Speaker 2:I did the thing, yeah but like there's, there's something there where it's like she just genuinely doesn't like it.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Or if they're like trying their hardest and they suck so bad, right. And everyone else is so like I'm getting kind of the thing. Like my son not a great swimmer, even the littlest bit, right, and his attitude is just like he does not care to try if he doesn't want to try in that moment, right. And so the these instructors are 17 years old, so they're like hey, do you want to do the thing? And he goes no, and they're like okay. Whereas, like, I remember being that little and afraid of the instructor that they'd be like put your head in the water and I'm like okay all of the things.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when you see your that's like so far behind everybody else, you're just like, oh my God, am I the problem? Is this the thing In that instance? Yes, I I do kind of struggle internally with with those moments, right, but like walking and talking and like all of those things, I never, I never paid it any attention, so you didn't even know whether or not he was on milestones or hitting the certain aspects of things.
Speaker 1:I I'd honestly say that I think I was probably similar. I wasn't really paying attention as to when they were supposed to do things. I think my wife was probably more on top of that same right. But even like with our first, like we had joey's wife who is like in the learning field.
Speaker 1:So she was kind of taught, like like you learn the things that they should be able to, like you're supposed to be able to stack like three blocks on top of each other by a certain age and stuff like that. So I don't think I was as on top of those things that I necessarily cared about. The one thing that I do remember was potty training, because I remember for some reason in my head it was like by two your kid should be potty trained. So then I felt like my kid was way behind with that stuff and then talking to other parents being like no, that's not a thing.
Speaker 1:Not even close If a kid's trained by two, then it's like a miracle. And if they say that their kid is trained by two, it's not actually that they're potty trained, they're just like they went on the potty one time or something.
Speaker 2:And now?
Speaker 1:they're calling it potty train, so that's.
Speaker 2:That was a huge thing for us. Yeah, because my daughter, uh, is seven and it was a light bulb. She was like I'm not kidding you, friday she's like I'm done, and she was two and a half probably. She's like I'm done with diapers and we're like, okay, and by sunday she was genuinely done with diapers, right three days just made the decision she just didn't like it anymore and we were like out of diaper season. It was awesome, right? My son has been potty training for two fucking years yeah, exactly, and that's not an over exaggeration, like it is the most frustrating thing on the planet.
Speaker 2:And he just now thinks I don't know if he thinks it's funny, but like this morning he's like we're like okay buddy, like let's go pee on the potty, and then now his thing is pee standing up. He's like I gotta pee standing up, dad yeah puts his like, that's his like, big person voice she's like I gotta pee.
Speaker 2:Standing up, dad and I was like okay, and then he goes. And then I'm like like let's go to the bathroom. He goes to the bathroom, pulls down his diaper, he's like I'm not gonna lie to you, I already peed in my diaper like bro, I was like why are we here? Then he's like I'm gonna try but are you? I already peed in my diaper, though I'm like I appreciate your honesty yeah, let's just put on some underwear, then okay, yeah, okay no problem, can I flush?
Speaker 3:no, you cannot you gotta earn that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say, that was one of the milestones that I was worried about. Right then I had a friend tell me like don't fight potty training.
Speaker 2:Like when they're ready, they'll be ready I think that's horseshit, honestly, like I'm not trying to diss your friend or anything, but I have a picture on my phone of the first time my son went took a shit on the toilet. Yeah, it's from 2022.
Speaker 2:Right Like that's the first time when he's like oh, poo-poo party, let's go Right, we're talking like the dude's going to be four in September, yeah, and he's still like now we have little like boxer things for him and like his only diaper diapers at nighttime, right, but he just like he doesn't, he doesn't care, he does not.
Speaker 1:I think there's like an aspect of different personalities, right especially. You said you see your daughter, because even my son was later to it. But then my daughter, who was my second, she was like, oh, he's doing that, I can do that too, and was like trained way faster, right, so girls are the best man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, exactly especially with body training, like that does seem to be across the board, because I our story is very similar. Like murph got it immediately, it was one day of putting on the toilet every 15 minutes and then she was like, okay, I get it. And now she gets it where cooper is still in nighttime diapers. Yeah, he just turned five. It's like he has no interest in not wearing a diaper to bed.
Speaker 3:That actually makes me feel way better yeah, well, he couldn't care less about not wearing a diaper to bed. He's like I literally told him the other day because I'm like we have this thing with him and it was the same with murphy and it worked out really well with my daughter, where it's like okay, if you have three dry nights in a row, then we can switch to underwear that you get to wear to bed. You could be like mommy and daddy and murphy and just make it sound like it's the bees knees and he's like, yeah, no, I'm good you sure?
Speaker 1:man, because, like it would, feel a lot better and, like you know what daddy, you should wear a diaper to bed, wake up and like go straight to the bathroom and you do your pee in the morning.
Speaker 3:It's great. He's like yeah, but why would I do that when I can just pee in my diaper? You're right, I guess I don't know what else to tell you.
Speaker 2:The logic gets you it gets you, because my son is my kid, you want jams? We have onesies or jams for two peas. He's like no, I'm going, I'm going in my diaper today, Dad and I'm like you're going to sleep in your diaper. And his thing he's like yeah, I like to play with my penis.
Speaker 3:Yeah, comes by and honestly Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough, no problem but you can only play with your penis in your bed. Yes.
Speaker 2:I haven't told Robin that yet, though she knows now. Well, she's doing lay downs tonight, tonight, so I'm excited to get that. Those series of but dad questions when I get home. Oh no, why is your hand down here?
Speaker 3:yeah, but yeah I don't remember a lot of those milestones either. Like very similarly ours, like obviously with speech is a big thing. That's what my wife meg does for a living is speech therapy with kids. So she was very conscious of those milestones when they learned certain sounds, when they pick up on certain things. Cooper had a bit, my son, he had a bit of a stutter that started to come in when he started to learn to speak. So then she was very on top of that. So like there was definitely stress around those certain things just because she knew the expectations. And then I think for her there was a lot of that like self-reflecting and like putting it on herself of like if they're not going to have good speech, like am I even good at what I do, type of thing. So she definitely carried too much of a weight in my opinion. But both of our kids learned to talk no problem and have great vocabularies.
Speaker 1:Now I think that there's a worry associated with the milestones, because I think, like as a parent, one when your kid is still inside utero, like when they're still growing, they there's a fear of are they going to come into this earth? Okay, right, are they going to be okay? Yeah, then you have this baby and it's this miracle, and you're like we did it. They're healthy, they're alive, you're alive, we all made it out of this, okay. But then there is a little bit of a sense of fear as to are they going to develop?
Speaker 1:okay, well, they're typical right will there be atypical symptoms and stuff like that. So then if a kid doesn't hit a milestone, it's like oh no, is everything okay with them, are they okay? And I think people start to worry and panic in those situations because they're wondering if their kid isn't going to be typical. Are they going to have different problems through life that they're going to have to walk through?
Speaker 2:I thought for a long time both my kids were autistic, no reason why I was just like it was my thing, where, like, if they didn't hit something, I would go to Rob and be like it was my thing, where, like, if they didn't hit something, right, I would go to Rob and be like you think autism like this could be autism, right, you think this is it.
Speaker 2:And I don't know why that particular thing like stuck out to me so much yeah, but I just think that when you're a parent, you want the best for your kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And a lot of the fear is like you don't want to have. You don't want to see your kids struggle or have to have them go through any sort of struggle. You just want the best for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that's where the the underlining issue is now obviously being on the other side of that, the beauty that comes with those yeah, types of of gifts, yeah is full of different perspectives the friend of mine has you know um a child with special needs and you just get a whole different sight.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know what I mean, absolutely I think and I haven't talked to my wife about it whether or not because I know it was always a bit of a worry because joey's youngest brother's special needs and very like high needs, yeah, um, so I think there always was a little bit of a fear for her because it was very challenging.
Speaker 1:And jake joey's youngest brother, who's still alive in special needs in his 30s, and it is still very challenging. And jake joey's youngest brother, who's still alive in special needs in his 30s, and it is still very challenging. Yeah, and it is a hard life to live with somebody who is high needs, yeah, and you don't see develop typically. So I think there always was a little bit of a level of fear for her that I never really acknowledged because it wasn't for me. So I can understand why people worry through those things. I would say that it isn't something that you need to be overly worried about, but that you can be cautious about, and I think if seeking help helps you gain some peace of mind. If your kid's not working, then there are physios that can help Kids, can't work, dave.
Speaker 1:But there's some things that can help them and people that you can take them to, and maybe it is something just as simple as like needing an adjustment or needing to stretch a certain way, like that their limbs hadn't been stretching, that their mobility wasn't fully there to be able to make the steps happen or make the crawl happen, and stuff like that, and developmentally like this is something.
Speaker 3:Obviously. It's well within my wife's wheelhouse of work, so what she has seen a lot as well is, because of the digital age that we live in and people being on screens all the time, you don't have parents playing with their kids as much, so she sees it that time, especially with like only kids where, like you have parents who are in a dual income house, they're both working all the time they're not with the kids so you're seeing these developmental delays come in, but they're really just rooted in the fact that nobody's on the floor playing with these kids right
Speaker 3:and they're not learning how to interact and they are not learning how to develop from anybody, because they're just being placed in this spot and it's like there isn't much of a fault to the parents because they're just trying to keep their heads above water more than anything else.
Speaker 3:Right, but you do see it a lot with like these are typical kids and they are going to typically learn, but they're just the development stages are so far behind because they're not having these typical ways of learning play in their lives. That's interesting. Where she's coaching, she's more often than not my wife ends up coaching parents and how to play with their kids. Really like that's what she ends up doing. Like a lot of her sessions are just playing with children and like they're different games and obviously like I don't want to oversimplify what she does she very much has a ton of strategy strategies and getting them to learn how to use their vocabularies widely, but a lot of it is just training parents on get on the ground, use your imagination, play with your kid and like let them run it and don't queue them up with certain things, just play along with them and have your own story and watch how they live and learn.
Speaker 3:So boring though it is the worst but it's such a useful tool for the kid I can remember the block stacking though, because my son would love to knock the stack over and you would see how many you can build before they knock it over.
Speaker 2:Five again.
Speaker 1:Oh, there it goes like building towers behind my back so that he doesn't notice.
Speaker 3:But yeah, like the comparison game is just a dangerous one, like for any parent and it's such a hard one to stay away from. I think one of the advantages that I'll say I had was having so many nieces and nephews, so like there wasn't a lot of, I guess it could have gone either way. I could have been someone who did compare to all of them, but I think, oh, I compare them all Right.
Speaker 2:One way or another, but I think my daughter wins every time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think more just like seeing them all grow up. From me being such a young age, watching them all grow up, and it's like they all had very different upbringings, they all had very different situations play out as they grew up and they all grew up, they all did their thing and they all learned and had those different milestones happen at different stages and they all became adults, right. So it's like one of those things where it's like that shouldn't matter.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like taking it as it comes Right, like, instead of worrying too much and panicking too much too early, like letting things happen, letting things develop and then processing them as it happens.
Speaker 2:And what helped me in those kind of moments, because I'm a worrier by, but it's like one of my love languages.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say by trade I prayed like as as weird as that sounds in those moments where I would catch myself stressing over the fact you know, you know, do I think my son is delayed in walking right or speaking, or those things, I would use those opportunities to just connect with god or the universe or whatever, and just have a conversation and say like either give him the strength, give me the strength, I trust in the process and I know this is just his story to tell and we're going to get through this together and and I found that that really did bring me a little bit of peace.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, if I'm being transparent yeah, well, and I think like more so to even what joey, what you were saying about parents not playing as much, but they're also not in community as much yeah so you have like as much as you can compare and play that comparison game, but if you're not in community and talking about it with people where it's like oh, my kid isn't doing that yet, but yours is, Some parents are braggers though, Like on the phone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true. Some parents are obnoxious Like, oh, my kid's a fucking genius. He stacks five blocks, I'm like shut the fuck up lady, Enjoy your Starbucks and just piss off.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, those are the ones you just avoid. You know, you know those people in your life.
Speaker 2:Stay away from them and don't take advice from them. You end up moving an hour and 20 minutes away from them. I think a lot.
Speaker 1:We look for reassurance in other people, right Like we look for whether it's financially, whether it's with your kids, whether it's your life experiences or work, and it's like you look for people to give you a bit of a reassurance yeah like you're. When you're struggling and you're sharing it, then it's like you're really searching for somebody to tell you it's going to be okay and nine times out of ten like exactly that.
Speaker 2:But I find that people are like no one knows what the fuck we're doing. Yeah, like especially if it's your first and you hear people taking on their things, and then you're like, oh well, so-and-so did this, so like we should try this. Like every situation is different, every circumstance is different, every kid is different and no one knows what they are doing.
Speaker 1:And that individual.
Speaker 2:That's like bragging, given like, let's just say hypothetically, like they could be their kid could be a fucking potato, right, and they're just seeing what they want to see because they just don't want like their insecurities are just.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying dude, I used to.
Speaker 2:I used to have this thing where, like I watched, I'd like put this like pillow, basically on the ground. I was supposed to help with tummy time and like lifting their head, because my daughter had this. She was four pounds four and a half pounds, so she had to like, do a bunch of like exercises, and I remember putting her on this pillow and like.
Speaker 2:The picture on the pillow was like oh, it should be like this, and she was like a potato she looked like a potato just limp, just over top of this freaking thing and I'm like poking her, I'm like, come on, baby, like it's time to do your thing did not give a shit, yeah. So at this point, at this point, I'm like she could fart right now and one person who's watching this would be like, oh my god, she's doing so great. She did this and that and this, and yeah, it can either be really toxic or really positive. You just gotta meet. Meet somewhere in the middle. And worst case scenario, just talk to God.
Speaker 1:I think it's even like your outlook as a parent, because sometimes we look at delays or if the kid does have a disability, if it's physical, if it's mental, we look at them as being a bad thing, or like you failed as a parent or it was your fault that the kid ended up that way, right where. I think it's like whatever your outlook is, if you're willing to conquer whatever you're about to face, which I think you need to have that outlook as a parent before you even become a parent because there's no.
Speaker 1:That didn't make any sense to me I'm just thinking like the outlook, as far as like we're gonna face whatever challenges we have. Yeah, where when you get married you're saying till death, do we part through sickness and health. I think there should almost be vows that you have to say before becoming a parent right from the aspect of like getting me started wanting to be able to work through any obstacles with your child that you might encounter.
Speaker 1:Brian sent me a video the other day and it's this kid who's in leg braces and he's got this four-wheel cart you saw it.
Speaker 1:He sent it to me too yeah, and he's like he he's on four wheels and he can walk, but he can't bend his legs okay, so he's got these braces on and he can still move his upper body and his arms. So he's taking this cart and his dad's coaching him through getting over a curb, right. It's a real life circumstance he's gonna find himself in and his dad's working through this with him at home on these foam mats, right. And there's like a series that they did the first part, like the kid couldn't get it. The second one, he gets it up there, but he's struggling, it's hard and the dad's not helping him. He's just like motivational coaching him right through this because he knows that he's not going to always be there to help this kid do it. But it's that concept of like he could have done nothing, he could have decided he's not going to help the kid, but he's got an outlook of like I'm going to help him conquer things.
Speaker 1:And there was a survivor episode joey, and I have talked a bunch about it where, yeah, it's still on the death. No, there's a girl who has, uh, autism on it and she's fairly high functioning. She would come across that you wouldn't necessarily know that she has autism. But her parents have really done a lot of therapy, a lot of work with her to be able to operate in the world without getting judged based on her mental disabilities or whatever it would be considered. Um, she is in a tough challenge and she's letting down her team because she can't finish the task and it's coming down to this neck and neck race and she finally finishes it and wins the challenge for her team and has this like I don't know, she calls it like a fit or a where she an episode where she just got so consumed by her emotions that it just locks her into this zone. But she had told one of the other guys there who's very much like a dad figure about this and said I need to tell somebody because if this happens, I need somebody to know how to help me and help bring me back, yeah, cause she can't get it over. So so this dad like he's on another tribe at this point and he's watching her and like her tribe mates are trying to help her Like it's okay, you did it, you did great. Nothing they're doing is the thing that she needs.
Speaker 1:And Jeff, the host, is watching this and he's watching this guy just stare her down, being like I want to help her so badly, and it was one of the most emotional moments I've seen on tv.
Speaker 1:My wife and I were both bawling watching it because he finally gives me okay to go and this dad rushes over to her and holds her and she wanted him to like grab her hands in a specific way and like brings her back out of this. And it was such an amazing moment as far as I was saying to joey that, like all we can hope for in life is that our kids are seen and understood by other people, and I think it becomes so much more scary and alarming when your kid isn't atypical and are they ever going to be seen and understood by people? Yeah, but then to watch this moment on live tv of this girl seen, understood and helped in this special way, the dad in me was just like broken, like it was so beautiful to see and, like jeff the host is crying, everybody was like it was just like to see and like Jeff the host is crying, everybody was like it was just like touching in such a special way.
Speaker 2:You guys don't like watch Survivor.
Speaker 1:Religiously. We had a Survivor pool, even where you pick your people to win.
Speaker 3:I checked out for about 12 years and then I've checked back in over the past five or six, so great COVID got me back into it.
Speaker 1:I love love watching people like it's a moment like that. I love watching people interact. I love watching people just blow things up for themselves. It's like love is blind. You watch, love is blind. That is the greatest little watching people's lives unfold. Love that shit I live for.
Speaker 2:Love is blind but, survivor is the dumbest shit oh no, I've ever seen ever you have to backstab people in a nice way, it's.
Speaker 1:I'm here for it.
Speaker 3:I will be on that show one day saying that now put it into the universe yep, I would apply now, but my kids wouldn't let me do it.
Speaker 1:Well, oh shit, we didn't do any ads go away and uh, big thank you to the group could win survivor bridge, north coba, conkley field, lindsey and millbrook.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for being a supporter of the Dad Podcast here and all dads around. They've got anything you need to help with things around the house. Joey and I are going to be doing some breakfast television segments coming up and home hardware is going to be a part of those. So if you need to learn how to patch a hole in your wall, we got you, but core at the group's got you too.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And regal ideas, the number one component-based exterior aluminum railing on the market. They have anything and everything you could possibly need for any kind of railing solution, and if you don't use them, you're not a real dad right, jeff ryan.
Speaker 2:Jeff ryan patreon didn't install it, had a tree fall down on his thing if only that's an insurance claim yep, he had regal. Wouldn't be going through that now, jeffrey would have bounced right off it's tree proof.
Speaker 3:Probably would have saved your truck and trailer too. Wow, sorry, that was too far. That was a little mean.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, jeff salt in the moons well my son has been potty training for two fucking years, yeah exactly, and that's not an over exaggeration like it is the most frustrating thing on the planet. And he just now thinks I don't know if he thinks it's funny, but like this morning he's like we're like okay, buddy, like let's go pee on the potty, and then now his thing is pee standing up. He's like I gotta pee standing up, dad, that's his big person voice.
Speaker 2:He goes to the bathroom, pulls down his diaper. He's like I'm not gonna lie, I already peed in my diaper, like bro.