March 4, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode of The Gray Hair & Daycare Podcast, Carlo returns from his escape to Florida 🌴, just in time to face the aftermath of a historic snowstorm! ️ The guys catch up on all the baby prep and life chaos, proving that even a Swiss chard-sized baby 🥬 can't stop the world from throwing snowdrifts and tech problems their way. Carlo confronts Frank about the new coffee machine, and Frank defends his desperate need for caffeine. Plus, a social media deep dive reveals the generation gap, and a family smuggling operation is foiled at customs!
Chapter Markers:
0:00 - Hosing Down Drama: The comment that keeps on giving!
1:48 - Frank's Betrayal: Florida vs. Snowpocalypse ️
5:47 - Silver Fox Mailbox: Moose Munch and mayhem!
8:00 - New Gear Alert: Carlo grills Frank about the coffee machine.
10:48 - Baby Prep & Checkups: All systems go!
11:45 - Shower Surprise! Kelly gets ambushed with love.
13:12 - Seeing Stars ✨: When pregnancy gets weird.
15:30 - Snowed In! Frank's battle against the elements begins.
20:40 - Neighborly Love: A hero with a plow saves the day!
25:30 - Cabin Fever: When you're trapped with a pregnant lady.
30:00 - Brotherly Love: $800,000 for 2 acres and no house!
34:40 - Customs Chaos: The great banana smuggling incident!
37:00 - Milestone Moment: Celebrating 20 episodes!
37:47 - The Puke Zone: Real talk about impending parenthood.
Links to Products/Services Mentioned:
Carhartt Overalls: https://www.carhartt.com/product/104461/yukon-extremes-loose-fit-insulated-biberall---4-extreme-warmth-rating
Northern Atrex: https://northernatrex.com/
Don't forget to subscribe, like, and share! What's the craziest weather you've ever been stuck in? Tell us in the comments! #GrayHairAndDaycare #Parenthood #Snowmageddon #BabyOnTheWay #FunnyPodcast #LateInLifeParents
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We discussed at length at a couple episodes now your original statement and then some reaction from Trina about the hose my wife down.
(00:10):
Are we still talking about this?
The only reason we are is I will say that this is my single favorite comment from anyone on anything that we have done.
Okay.
Is that we did a little short that was on TikTok.
Right.
And of course TikTok is bigger with the younger folks, some of whom are your sons.
(00:32):
Yes.
And the comment was very succinct.
It was brief, but it was on the one where we discuss hosing, hosing, hosing Trina.
And it was just Nikki and his comment was what just the, just the word.
What?
I almost died.
(00:53):
I loved the comment immediately.
That made me laugh.
So I literally, I'm looking at my phone, laying in bed.
Kelly's, she's like, what are you laughing at?
I'm like, Oh God.
Yeah.
So I thought, just what?
(01:17):
This is the gray hair and daycare podcast with a combined age of 111 years and a combined IQ in that same range.
Your hosts Frank Cereo and Carlo Russo.
Okay.
We are back.
Here we are.
We're back.
Frank, you you're back because you deserted me.
(01:38):
I did.
And went to Florida for, you were gone for two, two weeks, almost two weeks.
Yeah.
I had to do some work out there and I got out at the right time.
Yes.
Well, by which he means we were buried under mountains of snow for like, it seemed, what seemed like forever duration of my sending pin pictures of please, you left me, please come home.
(02:03):
It was horrible.
But yeah, but I'm back.
We are back.
So we're playing a little bit of catch up, but we are here as always.
I am Frank Cereo.
I'm 55 years old.
And this episode, my wife is 36 weeks pregnant.
We are getting close.
It is a, it's a crazy, crazy situation.
(02:24):
Things have just feel like it's moving really, really fast, which is, which is good.
It's very exciting.
But so as, as usual, we have something new.
I'm not sure if this is something I've ever had.
Okay.
From a produce standpoint for a size comparison.
I'll let you know.
And I'm interested if you loved every produce product you gave me.
(02:44):
This week, little baby Josie is the size of a Swiss chard.
I don't think that's been said.
I don't know.
I don't have any idea.
Pictures right here.
You're out there, Phil.
And you have cooked some Swiss chard recently.
Let us know what the hell it is.
That's the size.
So it's size of Swiss chard.
She right now, according to where we are 36 weeks, looks like a newborn.
(03:08):
It looks like a baby, but lungs and brain still developing.
It sounds like everything else is largely there.
Like mine.
That's exactly it.
Still developing.
I still got time.
That's a genius.
So that's where we are for the baby update.
(03:28):
So this episode and next, what you're going to see is we normally have been trying to do it a week at a time.
And, and there's a little about a couple of weeks lag between when we record and when you guys see stuff.
Right.
But what we're going to do is probably we're going to cover week 36.
And then next episode, we'll probably catch up with week 37 and week 38.
(03:51):
Sure.
But we're trying to even it out because a lot has happened while you were gone.
We have lots of updates.
I can't wait.
So we're going to, we're going to get right into it though.
Okay.
With well, unless is there anything, was there anything super exciting about your, your trip or any of that stuff?
Nothing really exciting except weather wise.
(04:11):
Obviously it was a nice break.
Nice weather.
The only time I called Trina was when it was raining.
Yeah.
Cause I didn't know.
It was tough.
It was tough to call back home while you guys were dealing with all that snow.
I hated being away from the house.
I left, my dad was in the hospital.
My son just got the test back that he had the flu.
(04:33):
Oh man.
And Trina was stuck with all this.
Right.
And then I left.
So I was feeling kind of like, and you left me and I left Frankie and I felt, you know, kind of bad because I was home for the whole month of January.
Yep.
Nothing like this happened where I could have helped.
(04:53):
And the minute I started working again, everything went to complete crazy town.
It was something.
So that was it.
It did make me feel better.
Cause I would be like on my back in snow, trying to dig my Jeep out.
And I would just, when I would be ready to give up, I would open my phone and there'd be a video of you and Frank Spadone walking down the street in Florida.
(05:21):
That's right.
He's in a tank top.
I'm like, okay, at least Carlos safe.
Yes.
I was doing, I was doing our daily vlogs, which I kept up with the whole time in Florida.
Yeah.
So I did that.
So nothing, nothing major.
I feel like I'm piling on and making you feel worse.
Everything went well.
You were working, you were there working.
I was working and everything went well.
(05:42):
Yeah.
So I'm back now and I'm ready to get into baby talk.
Okay.
Well, where we're going to start is our next installment of the silver Fox mailbox.
So this time we just got a couple.
So, and these were on some shorts that we put out there.
There was a short, one of them that we talk about how I have a tendency when you come to record to send you home with various treats, popcorn and chocolates and the moose punch.
(06:16):
And one of our fans that we see commenting and liking stuff a lot, Gina Marie, Gina, Gina said moose munch is yummy, which she is.
I was, you are a hundred percent correct.
It is very, very yummy.
So we had to yell at you about giving us, yes, Trina did.
She did say, please stop.
Please stop.
(06:37):
Yes.
So there is that.
The other one that I thought was a little more funny was we discussed at length at a couple episodes.
Now your original statement, and then some reaction from Trina about the hose, my wife, are we still talking about this?
The only reason we are is I will say that this is my single favorite comment from anyone on anything that we have done.
(07:04):
Okay.
Is that we did a little short that was on tech talk.
Right.
And of course, tick-tock is bigger with the younger folks, some of whom are your sons.
Yes.
And the comment was very succinct.
It was brief, but it was on the one where we discuss hosing, hosing, hosing Trina.
(07:25):
And it was just Nikki.
And his comment was what?
Just the, just the word.
I almost died.
I loved the comment immediately.
That made me laugh.
So I, we're literally, I'm looking at my phone laying in bed.
Kelly's I was, she's like, what are you laughing at?
I'm like, look.
(07:45):
Oh God.
Yeah.
So I thought just what, what that, what that would be.
This is the beauty of the internet.
Imagine if we, when we were kids, your father, somehow there's video of him in the coffee shop talking about something with the coffee, the coffee shop podcast.
That would be great.
Actually.
A lot of stuff that they couldn't be beeped out.
(08:08):
That's true.
Oh my God.
So Nick, my son, Nick, my youngest.
Yeah.
I started him.
He's on his way.
He's a young man.
He's 18 now.
I have a feeling he'll survive, but I did when I saw that.
That's funny.
I did not know that.
That's funny.
That was fantastic.
Yeah.
(08:29):
So he's, he's watching at least the reels.
He's watching the short.
Yeah.
He's watching us on TikTok.
Yeah.
That's it.
So that is the silver Fox mailbox.
And now since we have so much to get, to get to and through, we'll go right into what just happened.
So, well, before I start, I know what just happened now.
(08:52):
You made me a lovely cup of coffee in your new coffee machine.
Now I said this jokingly a couple of episodes ago, Frank's going to buy a new coffee machine.
And sure enough, I was, was I in Florida when you shot something or was I here?
He was right before he came back maybe.
And sure enough, he sends me new, a new cast member of the podcast or new equipment for the podcast.
(09:18):
And so we had a nice cup of coffee.
So that just happened there.
That's true.
That did just happen.
I decided, look, it's all about the baby.
It's all about the baby.
Everyone keeps talking to me and laughing, saying you're going to be exhausted.
You're going to be tired.
Now I, I am a coffee drinker and I usually, I will make a pot in the morning.
(09:39):
I get up early six o'clock in the morning.
I make a pot 10 cups and I will drink that gentleman.
I will drink that.
It's half calf.
It's not full calf.
And I will drink that over the course of the morning.
I'm usually wrapping up about 11.
So over the course of five hours, are you like me?
Do you let the coffee get cold?
(10:00):
Cause I'm not just, it sits around or do you, do you drink it?
I try to drink it when it's hot, but the only, it doesn't stay.
So I'll hit the, hit it in the microwave to warm it up if it needs it.
But so, but I'm not going to make a pot if I'm not on a, if I'm not going to be on a regular schedule anymore, I'm probably going to end up in caffeine withdrawal.
(10:21):
And I really don't, I've had an espresso, one of the ones that uses the pods.
I'm not a big fan.
So I found one of the ones that you basically put the beans in and it does a cup at a time, grinds the beans fresh, does it, it does cappuccino and all the milk.
It's fantastic.
It's like you swipe through, you pick whatever drink you want, how intense, how big you can do two at a time.
(10:44):
It's awesome.
So I'm going to rely on that to keep me alive.
I think you're on the right track.
I think it was a good investment.
So we did do that.
But so anyway, so we started with going back now, I was trying to remember this morning.
I'm like, okay, it feels like it seems like forever since you left.
But really this all, you know, this week started with a checkup and a fetal stress test or non-stress test.
(11:12):
Do we talk about, I think we talked about that already once.
Yes, we did.
Yeah.
So basically we're getting these weekly now to make sure things are on track the right way.
So again, we go in now we kind of know how this works.
They put the two sensors on a little bit easier time.
Josie was not avoiding the sensors as well as she had previously and everything looked good.
(11:36):
Heart rate variability is good.
Everything's fine.
Nice.
So we did that, but we're kind of, you know, it's week 36 all along.
They've been telling us probably we'd be induced in week 39.
So it's only three weeks away and we're thinking, okay, when are we going to hear about this?
And again, nothing.
They're like, okay, we'll see you next week.
(11:57):
So, okay, we'll see you next week.
So then we kind of move into Kelly's going to work.
She's been working there several years now.
She has some of her coworkers that are very nice.
And they, as a surprise, threw her a baby shower.
Oh, really?
Really?
Yeah.
So now this is the third one.
(12:18):
Yeah.
Right.
So there was a few items like straggler items left on the registries because we had the one in Buffalo and we had the one here in town and now this other, so they like cleaned out the rest of the baby registry and really some very generous, nice gifts.
She's a kind of a more private person with work stuff.
(12:40):
She keeps work at work, but I think she was really surprised by how, yeah, how, how nice it was.
So that was, you know, that was really cool.
But it was also around that time, that part of the week, she started, she noticed that she started to see some little flashes of light in her vision.
(13:03):
Okay.
And she didn't really mention it, but I was around when she was talking to her sister about it.
Okay.
And her sister of course was like, well, did you mention anything to the doctor?
And Kelly said, well, no.
Well, you should, you should call your doctor, talk to them about it.
So she was at work and she called the doctor and they said, well, you know, have you noticed anything different with, you know, is your blood pressure?
(13:33):
Well, not sure.
So she went in, they took her blood pressure and her blood pressure was a little bit high.
So those two things, the combination of this visual phenomenon of the, the seeing flashes or a flex like flex, she describes it like a chandelier effect.
I don't know what that means.
(13:53):
Like she's like, maybe.
Yeah.
So she sees that and then her blood pressure is a little bit high, which it has not been.
So the doctor's like, okay, we're going to do a bunch of blood work and see what's going on because what they're worried about is what we talked about previously, a little bit, the preeclampsia.
Yes.
Right.
Which can be, is very dangerous.
Gotta be careful.
(14:14):
So they, they did that.
And now when she came home and we were kind of waiting for the, the results with the blood test or the blood work that they did, I was, I, I, I know, I tried to, I think I know Kelly really well.
I know when she's upset and when things were out of her and I knew when she was on her way to work that day, we were talking about work stuff for her work stuff and she was pretty worked up.
(14:43):
She was a little upset about work, about work.
Right.
So I'm, and I know that, and I was asking her how her day was going up until she had to go to the doctor.
Sounded pretty stressful.
Right.
And she has a job that can be very stressful.
So I, I'm like, you know, your blood pressure has been good all along.
Every time we go in, it's good.
(15:04):
It's been good.
So, you know, maybe you were stressed, like maybe you're stressed out.
I know I've had that happen to me more than once.
I've gone, I went one time, I'm going for a physical, I sit down in the waiting room, I get a work text that was just, just all right.
I'm so, and I go in highest blood pressure they've ever taken on me.
(15:25):
And I literally, I told the nurse, I'm like, look, just take it in a little while again.
Cause I know it's not like when you're doing like a procedure, they know your blood pressure is going to be high.
You're nervous.
Yeah, absolutely.
So obviously do that.
So I'm thinking, I'm hoping it's that.
Sure.
And luckily we get the results.
They don't call.
So the blood, the, the blood work, whatever they were worried about finding, they didn't find.
(15:50):
Okay.
So felt, you know, felt like, okay, relieved, relieved.
We can kind of set, we can kind of set that aside.
But then, so this is around the time you, you desert me and I'm all by myself.
My wife, my kids, your whole family.
We're all just like, where did he go?
I was on the news missing.
(16:10):
So this is, so this is Thursday.
This is like the week of Valentine's day.
We're talking about, right?
So Valentine's day is Friday, Thursday.
We go to bed, the weather's fine.
There's nothing wrong when I left.
It's winter in Syracuse, right?
So it's not great, but there's no, nothing to worry about.
There's no chaos happening.
(16:32):
We wake up and we get up early Friday morning, 6am.
And I'm looking at, I can't, I'm looking at the, the, the doors in our bedroom outside and I can't see.
And I look and there's just snow on the window, like stuck to the window.
And then I'm peering over that and there's drifts of snow.
(16:56):
And I'm like, what's going on?
I go to the, I go to the front.
I look and there's easily three, four feet of snow everywhere.
Wow.
And it's drifting in different places, windy, still snowing, still going.
And it's still dark out.
So you really can't appreciate it.
Yeah, you're not seeing the whole thing.
The first thing I'm seeing is, you know, when you walk out our front door, we have two posts and two big coach lights.
(17:23):
They're covered, right?
So completely, you know how when the snow is so heavy, it just coats everything and it kind of grows.
That's what it's like.
So I'm like, okay, I know this is going to be a long day.
This is going to be a rough day.
I'm like, okay, I go and I get, look, a couple of Christmases ago, one of my presents was a pair of heavily insulated Carhartt overalls.
(17:46):
I put on my Moodons, I put on my overalls, I put on my parka and I go out there.
I can barely get to the Jeep, to the plow.
I put, now I have a V plow on a Jeep Wrangler, not the heaviest plow, but we're far away from the road.
We're like 600 feet from the road.
Got a big, long kind of quarter circle driveway.
(18:09):
So it's a long ways.
And I'm like, I'm just going to try to, you know, cut a path.
I put it in the V position because I've never, ever had a problem.
You can get through any depth of snow.
It's just because it just pushes it out of the way.
You're not trying to push a lot of snow.
It just moves it away.
I get maybe a third of the way and the snow is building up in front of my plow so deep that the Jeep can't move.
(18:38):
You made yourself a wall.
I'm stuck.
So then I thought, okay, so then I start backing up and I'm just running up ahead of steam and hitting it.
You're ramming it.
Trying to break through because the drifting, I'm thinking, okay, if I get through this, I could see the snow was a little lower, but it's also so white and still snowing.
(18:58):
And so kind of smooth.
You're giving me anxiety right now.
It was horrible.
You're killing me.
I couldn't even see.
Now I have put out stakes on either side of my driveway all the way to the road, four foot tall, four foot tall stakes with orange, like orange hazard stakes.
They're gone.
Cover.
You can't, you can't see that.
(19:20):
So I'm doing this.
I'm backing up.
I'm doing it.
I'm not, I'm not even sure where to aim if I get through it.
So I'm like, okay, I'm going to walk out a little ways to see.
So I start walking.
It's up to my waist.
I can't do more than six steps and I'm winded trying to push through this snow.
(19:41):
It's heavy, heavy snow.
So I'm like, okay, turn around, go back.
Long story short.
I try to the point where my Jeep gets stuck.
So now it's stuck.
So I can't even go back anymore.
I can't, I back cause I, when I'm backing up, I can't see the only way I can back up.
Can't look in the rear view of the backup camera.
You can't see anything.
I have to open the door and stick my head out and try to go back and I get off a little bit stuck.
(20:06):
So now I'm laying on the bomb.
It's 20, like 23 degrees.
I'm in a park.
I have to climb over the snow into my, into my garage to get a shovel and I'm on my back in the snow next to the Jeep digging snow out from underneath the Jeep because it's kind of bottomed out.
(20:27):
It's settled on the snow.
I get it unstuck and I'm like, there's no way I can do that.
And I think, okay, uh, the only thing I could do is rely on the kindness of my neighbors.
Yes.
And I have a, we have some great neighbors across the street.
Chris and Ashley, I, I messaged him.
I'm like, Hey, is there any way he actually has an excavation business called Northern Atrax?
(20:50):
If you need any, any work like that, call him up, call Chris at Northern Atrax.
I think he took my car out when I got stuck.
He's a great neighbor.
They're really, they're sweet people.
So I call him.
I'm like, Hey, just, can you cut a path for me with your plow?
And then I'll, I'm thinking, then I'll be able to push the rest of it out.
Right.
(21:11):
So he comes over with like a, he has a full, like a three quarter ton diesel full size pickup with a plow.
You ain't scaring him.
He's plowing and it's coming up over the plow onto the hood of his, his truck.
There's so much snow, but he gets through and I now have a path and I'm like, okay.
(21:32):
So then I get out there with the little Wrangler and I'm trying to widen it out and do it.
But I'm basically just stemming the tide because it's still snowing more and more.
So I'm just basically keeping his path that he cut for me, which is a plow blade with, I can't make it any wider.
The banks are so high that when my plow, my little plow tries to push snow up, it hits and goes back.
(21:57):
So it's, it's, but at least by this time I can get out, we're not trapped.
So it comes down to, this is Valentine's day and we had made reservations.
It's kind of our, our last Valentine's day without, without kiddos.
So we, as, as a couple, so I didn't want to miss that.
(22:18):
So we were able to, we, we didn't take the other cars.
I went in the, in the Jeep, we went and had dinner and we'd had a really nice dinner.
We went to Texas to Brazil.
It was nice.
And, and that was good with Kelly's current dietary restrictions, lots of protein, didn't have to worry about carbs and stuff.
But the thing that killed me was now this is the weekend of, you know, it's like Valentine's day weekend, president's day.
(22:43):
Right.
Right.
So long weekend.
I'm thinking I'm going to get a bunch of stuff done.
No, no, because the snow would not stop.
I was plowing four and five times a day just to keep a way to get to the road.
Right.
Like just to keep it clear enough.
(23:03):
Yeah.
You're just to get out.
You're maintaining and the whole time, never even approaching 30 degrees high winds.
So Saturday plowing four or five times, keep it just enough.
We go to church, we come home Sunday, same to all day long plow four or five times and either Saturday or Sunday, then it also, it warmed up just enough for it to be freezing rain and ice.
(23:30):
That's what I heard.
So now it's, now it's there's feet of snow covered with a hard, crusty shell of ice, but I'm still just stemming the tide the whole, the whole time I am feeling like, and this is, this is how it relates to a child and pregnancy.
The whole time I am in what I could only describe as a low grade panic attack because all I can think about is my wife is 36 weeks pregnant.
(23:59):
She could go into labor at any moment and I can't get her to the hospital, let alone, I can't even get her to the road.
Right.
If this gets closed up.
Yeah, that's the, yeah.
So Sunday it's still coming down.
It just still coming down.
Won't stop.
There's so much.
No, the, the, the, the deck in back is just a drift.
(24:20):
The dogs go literally.
And my dogs usually like the snow and cold rumple goes out the door, just gets just outside the door, does her business and comes back in Watson.
Same thing.
They don't want to like it.
They want nothing to do with it on nothing to do with it.
But now I'm thinking I'm worried because it's coming down hard into the nighttime and I'm going to sleep.
(24:42):
So I go out at 10 30 at night and I plow on Sunday night, 10 30.
I get it as clear as I can get it.
Whatever happens, happens.
I'm up.
I get up at five 30.
I go outside and there's another foot, foot and a half.
And again, I can't get through it.
(25:03):
I'm stuck.
And I'm like, now, and now this is a day that it's a Monday and we typically have our appointments for the OBGYN.
So I'm like, okay.
Uh, the, you know, that's kind of where we are.
Five 30, five 30 in the morning.
We got an appointment at eight 30 and I can't get to the road.
(25:23):
And, and I have to come back in after trying for two hours.
I have to come back in and tell Kelly.
So now it's like seven 30.
It's like seven o'clock, seven, seven o'clock.
So it's probably out there for an hour and a half.
So I'm like, look, I don't think we can make it to the doctor's appointment.
Why don't you call and see if you can reschedule to the afternoon.
(25:44):
And I'm going to call, I'm going to call Chris and see, cause Chris was like, obviously people with equipment like he has all weekend long, he was out doing stuff and he's doing stuff for businesses.
One of the things he posted was he was up in Brewerton and he had cleared a parking lot for somebody using his skid steer, which for people who don't like a skid steer is like a small bulldozer.
(26:10):
It's like an eight foot blade, eight foot bucket.
So you can, he could scoop the snow up and put it where he needed to be.
So I'm like, is there any way, like, is there any way you could come over and just clear my drive, clear the whole thing for me?
I don't care what it costs.
And he's like, yeah, absolutely.
I told him Kelly was able to reschedule to like later to one o'clock.
(26:35):
Right.
But he's got things going on.
I'm like, yeah, we've got a doctor's appointment.
We really want to make to help a pregnant woman.
Right.
And I mean, that's dangerous to not have a way out.
No, first of all, he tried to charge me probably less than what he spent on fuel.
Right.
And I was like, no, I'm not, I'm not going to pay you that, but he said, don't worry about it.
(27:00):
And he comes over now, this is a huge piece of equipment.
Yeah.
It took him about an hour and a half hour and 45 minutes to clear.
It's just so much note to, but he widened it out.
So, so yeah, that was it.
But it was just as chaos.
It is the most, it was the most horrible feeling.
(27:20):
I told Kelly because Kelly is one of those people that loves, she grew up in Buffalo on the top of a hill, right?
This is tons of snow all the time.
And she just loves to look at it.
And I'm like, you cannot say you can't say the snow is pretty for at least a year.
It was just absolute, just an absolute nightmare.
(27:41):
It's totally different in your case.
Cause you have a pregnant wife at home that if you woke up and it was a year ago where nobody was pregnant and you're just like, what do we got in the freezer?
Right.
Let's cook something.
We didn't lose power.
A lot of people lost power.
Thousands of people had no power in the area.
We were lucky we didn't lose power.
You know, we're warm and safe inside.
(28:04):
If we didn't have to go anywhere, you'd be fine.
And the crazy thing was, correct me if I'm wrong.
I wasn't here.
I was on the beach.
That's not right.
What I heard was everywhere.
Didn't, I mean, everybody got snow, but some places got nailed while other places just got snow.
(28:25):
Yeah.
Like, well, and it was, yeah, it was very different.
Like the day, the first day he cut through and just cut the first half Friday on Valentine's day, his wife, Chris's wife, actually works in the city.
She was in the city and there was nothing.
Exactly.
That's what I read.
And it was different.
We had to go over the weekend.
My sister and her husband were traveling.
(28:45):
They were also away.
They missed all the weather they were in.
They had gone to London and then Paris.
And so we had to go water her plants and there was snow there, but not like here.
And that's just up the road.
Like literally my brother and sister.
I know this is very detailed information here, but my brother in Cicero, not too far from Liverpool just nailed and everybody else was like, Oh, okay.
(29:08):
We got some snow.
It was very, it was very localized.
Thank God you had the neighbor.
Yeah.
Without a doubt.
Chris and Ashley are awesome.
They're a beautiful little family.
They have a boy and two little girls and a absolutely prime age for babysitting in the future.
By the time we meet, like we're going to be perfect.
(29:29):
But, uh, and I know Chris travels for work.
He has his business and he has an, he has a, another guy just started a new job.
And I know he listens sometimes when he's driving.
So hopefully.
Thumbs up.
Yes, absolutely.
Huge thumbs up.
Again, Northern eight tracks coming your way.
If you are in Syracuse area and you need any of that stuff, I'm going to, I'm going to sponsor him.
(29:49):
Look it up.
Look him up.
Give him some So yeah, without that, I would have been, I would have just felt like a complete failure as a man to be able to take care of my wife.
I mean, you have a, a good walkway or driveway.
You have a long, Oh yeah.
Yeah.
One of my favorite things about this house is that I have a driveway that you can get up to 30 on.
(30:12):
You can get a ticket.
Yeah.
There's the GPS works on my driveway.
Take a left at the garage.
It is funny.
Yeah.
We're, we're a ways from the road when you're stuck like that.
When you wait, especially when you wake up to that.
Yeah.
Your whole day is dictated.
You're done.
(30:32):
You're, you're, you're, you know, I have to figure this out now.
Yep.
You don't have any choice now.
There's no cup of coffee and there's no break.
Right.
There's right.
There's no like, well, I'll do it.
No, it's, yeah.
You start struggling.
You start worrying.
You start.
Oh yeah.
And what was, it was cute about it was Kelly.
(30:52):
She's like, let me come out and how I'm like, stay inside doing that.
And she's, we're talking about it.
And I feel horrible that if we can't get to the road and she's like, well, if we had to, we could just walk to the road.
And I'm like, no, I couldn't walk to the literally six steps.
And I'd have to stop over your waist.
(31:13):
You're not walking.
Yeah.
There's no walking.
It was just, I literally, at one point you were in Florida.
My sister's in Paris.
My brother's in London.
I messaged my brother.
I'm like, find me something under $800,000 with two acres in, in Franklin.
And he jokingly says, he jokingly comes back with, that would be fine if you don't want a house on it.
(31:39):
And of course I look and it was true.
I'm looking at like where he lives in Syracuse.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
He says, okay.
That's one thing.
That's one advantage that we have most normally had in five years.
They said, I think so.
Honestly, you like in our lifetime, the blizzard of 93 was this, and that was a lot.
(32:00):
This was worse.
At least it for my situation.
Now I remember back then I was stuck in silo when that happened.
You were still in silo.
Okay.
I had to go to his house because I couldn't get home.
You couldn't get stuck actually in the road.
I had to leave it.
I was working at Leechmere at destiny and I didn't go over to Leechmere yet.
(32:20):
And I was driving my Camaro.
I remember that trip home and my Camaro, my brown, my crap brown Camaro.
I made it home and make it.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It was fun because with rear wheel drive, you basically didn't, it was like, it was like a rudder steering.
You store with the, you steer with the accelerator and I was blown by jeeps.
(32:44):
Like it didn't matter.
And I got home and I was just, I just stayed home for three days and that was, that was a lot of snow.
Cause I remember we were on the third floor of an apartment building in a complex.
You could just jump right off.
That's what we did.
We were literally, we would jump off the deck.
Are you serious?
Oh yeah.
And land in the snow.
You were fine.
Cause it was like five feet of snow.
Oh, that is hilarious.
(33:05):
But there wasn't any, I was, this time there was no jumping.
No.
There was laying in the ground looking at the sky saying, please, please make it stop.
I mean, I never ever get that lucky.
And again, I feel horrible because my whole family is sick and my wife was alone and this, that, and the other.
And I'm like, not that I planned it, but yeah, I would have been the same way.
(33:28):
I mean, we would have had to.
It was, yeah, no, this was absolutely the worst winter weather I've, I've experienced in my lifetime.
It was crazy.
It just, it just wouldn't stop.
It just kept coming.
So that was, that was it.
So we basically that week, the rest of that week was just maintaining survival.
(33:54):
That was the other thing that kind of sucked was if you were a kid, that was one of the things my, my wife always trying to find the bright side.
Cause she's like, if you're a kid, this is absolutely magical, right?
You out there, you're building forts, you're digging tunnels.
It would be perfect for that.
And I agree.
But the thing that was sad was the kids were already on vacation that week.
(34:16):
So they didn't even get snow days out of the deal.
They were just trapped in the house, which for kids today, that probably isn't as big a thing.
It wasn't probably bad.
It's probably not bad for kids like in like, I don't know, sixth grade.
But I have a teenager at home and he has a car.
Yeah.
He doesn't want to, he doesn't want to build a fort.
But with him, he had the flu and his girlfriend was in Spain for the school trip.
(34:43):
Isn't that crazy?
Everybody was gone.
Yeah.
It was, it was something.
And I get home, it's 41.
Oh yeah.
It was sunny a couple of days ago.
I was talking to my sister when they were still, it was still nuts.
Hadn't stopped.
Right.
She came home with kind of like the middle of this next, the middle of that next week.
(35:03):
And I was like, stay in Paris another day.
They ended up making it home, their flight into, I think they flew into DC and then DC here.
Their flight in was, was delayed.
And then the flight back was delayed, but they made it home on the same day.
A couple hours late.
This is, I think, entertaining.
(35:25):
My intrepid brother-in-law, traveler.
He's, he worked in a job where he traveled all over Europe.
He's retired now.
They travel all the time.
My sister's been to Paris more times than I've been to Utica.
I've done it a bunch of times.
They got hung up in customs.
Why do you think they got hung up in customs when they came back?
(35:46):
They brought, well, they had something on them.
They had something.
A plant?
A fruit?
Fruit?
This is what kills me.
That's the first thing you think of.
What's the first thing you get hung up on?
What did they tell you?
No fruit.
No, no, no, no, no cocaine.
Right.
Right.
He said that he was trying to smuggle a couple bananas into the country.
You can't do that.
(36:06):
You don't.
Yeah, not everybody does.
So they had to go to the, talk to the agriculture people to get.
I wanted bananas.
Go to Wegmans.
Have you ever had a French banana?
No, but I will go to jail for it.
I will be deported.
That held them up a little bit.
That's funny.
I can just see him.
Just have these bananas and grapes.
Yeah.
They're asking him like the, the beagle is sniffing the bag.
(36:28):
What's in the bag?
We're going to make a banana split when we get home with these French bananas.
That's funny.
That was fun.
So, but that is, uh, that is week 36.
That's what happened.
That is, that is what happened.
That is what happened.
So we will hopefully, uh, we'll catch up again.
(36:51):
Next episode.
We'll, we'll go through, uh, and bring you guys closer up to date with us.
We're going to catch up.
We're going to, we are going to, we're going to catch up.
We kind of started in episode one and two where we were covering those first few weeks.
And now as we approach episode 20 with this one's 19, as we approach episode 20, we might catch up a little bit too.
(37:13):
We made it.
Well, hopefully you'll make it to 20.
That would be nice.
We said 10.
Remember 10 was our number.
We're going to have 10 episodes.
We're going to now we doubled that or hopefully we'll know.
And, uh, who knows?
Who knows now?
Maybe in a couple of months we'll get to 21.
That's where the rubber really meets the road.
(37:33):
You know, we always, we always do something, you know, the baby's going to be here right now.
It's all fun and games.
We're talking about it, you know, Hey, how's that crib coming?
And Hey, it really, it really is.
Like I'm forcing you to test out ridiculous products.
It is all fun and games.
It's about to really, yeah, it's about to really change.
(37:55):
I'm going to be like, it smells like puke.
Are you, did you change yet?
Is there sour milk in the studio?
Yeah, it's going to be something.
That'll be fun.
It will be fun to you for people to watch too.
Don't forget if you're listening right now, you want to see this chaos.
Yes.
Oh, go to the YouTube channel.
Please subscribe, comment.
Oh, you'll love it.
(38:15):
Get your, hit that bell for alerts.
For alerts every Tuesday at 7am when the new episode comes out.
Yeah, absolutely.
YouTube.
It seems like it goes back and forth.
Some weeks the video does better.
Some weeks the audio does better.
But absolutely.
However, yes.
(38:35):
However you listen, we're, we're thankful that you do appreciate it.
But yeah, like and subscribe and do all that cool stuff.
Absolutely.
Okay.
We will see you next time.
Well, folks, that's another episode of the gray hair and daycare podcast in the books.
Thanks very much for tuning in and spending this time with us.
We hope it was fun.
If you enjoyed this week's descent into the madness of dadness, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss any of our future adventures.
(39:02):
While you're at it, give us a like and share the cast with your friends on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, carrier pigeon, whatever you crazy kids are using.
Have any hilarious parenting stories of your own questions about navigating fatherhood later in life, or even when normal people do it, email us at ghdc.podcast at gmail.com.
(39:23):
We'd love to hear from you.
And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed.
We discussed at length at a couple episodes now your original statement and then some reaction from Trina about the hose my wife down.
(00:10):
Are we still talking about this?
The only reason we are is I will say that this is my single favorite comment from anyone on anything that we have done.
Okay.
Is that we did a little short that was on TikTok.
Right.
And of course TikTok is bigger with the younger folks, some of whom are your sons.
(00:32):
Yes.
And the comment was very succinct.
It was brief, but it was on the one where we discuss hosing, hosing, hosing Trina.
And it was just Nikki and his comment was what just the, just the word.
What?
I almost died.
(00:53):
I loved the comment immediately.
That made me laugh.
So I literally, I'm looking at my phone, laying in bed.
Kelly's, she's like, what are you laughing at?
I'm like, Oh God.
Yeah.
So I thought, just what?
(01:17):
This is the gray hair and daycare podcast with a combined age of 111 years and a combined IQ in that same range.
Your hosts Frank Cereo and Carlo Russo.
Okay.
We are back.
Here we are.
We're back.
Frank, you you're back because you deserted me.
(01:38):
I did.
And went to Florida for, you were gone for two, two weeks, almost two weeks.
Yeah.
I had to do some work out there and I got out at the right time.
Yes.
Well, by which he means we were buried under mountains of snow for like, it seemed, what seemed like forever duration of my sending pin pictures of please, you left me, please come home.
(02:03):
It was horrible.
But yeah, but I'm back.
We are back.
So we're playing a little bit of catch up, but we are here as always.
I am Frank Cereo.
I'm 55 years old.
And this episode, my wife is 36 weeks pregnant.
We are getting close.
It is a, it's a crazy, crazy situation.
(02:24):
Things have just feel like it's moving really, really fast, which is, which is good.
It's very exciting.
But so as, as usual, we have something new.
I'm not sure if this is something I've ever had.
Okay.
From a produce standpoint for a size comparison.
I'll let you know.
And I'm interested if you loved every produce product you gave me.
(02:44):
This week, little baby Josie is the size of a Swiss chard.
I don't think that's been said.
I don't know.
I don't have any idea.
Pictures right here.
You're out there, Phil.
And you have cooked some Swiss chard recently.
Let us know what the hell it is.
That's the size.
So it's size of Swiss chard.
She right now, according to where we are 36 weeks, looks like a newborn.
(03:08):
It looks like a baby, but lungs and brain still developing.
It sounds like everything else is largely there.
Like mine.
That's exactly it.
Still developing.
I still got time.
That's a genius.
So that's where we are for the baby update.
(03:28):
So this episode and next, what you're going to see is we normally have been trying to do it a week at a time.
And, and there's a little about a couple of weeks lag between when we record and when you guys see stuff.
Right.
But what we're going to do is probably we're going to cover week 36.
And then next episode, we'll probably catch up with week 37 and week 38.
(03:51):
Sure.
But we're trying to even it out because a lot has happened while you were gone.
We have lots of updates.
I can't wait.
So we're going to, we're going to get right into it though.
Okay.
With well, unless is there anything, was there anything super exciting about your, your trip or any of that stuff?
Nothing really exciting except weather wise.
(04:11):
Obviously it was a nice break.
Nice weather.
The only time I called Trina was when it was raining.
Yeah.
Cause I didn't know.
It was tough.
It was tough to call back home while you guys were dealing with all that snow.
I hated being away from the house.
I left, my dad was in the hospital.
My son just got the test back that he had the flu.
(04:33):
Oh man.
And Trina was stuck with all this.
Right.
And then I left.
So I was feeling kind of like, and you left me and I left Frankie and I felt, you know, kind of bad because I was home for the whole month of January.
Yep.
Nothing like this happened where I could have helped.
(04:53):
And the minute I started working again, everything went to complete crazy town.
It was something.
So that was it.
It did make me feel better.
Cause I would be like on my back in snow, trying to dig my Jeep out.
And I would just, when I would be ready to give up, I would open my phone and there'd be a video of you and Frank Spadone walking down the street in Florida.
(05:21):
That's right.
He's in a tank top.
I'm like, okay, at least Carlos safe.
Yes.
I was doing, I was doing our daily vlogs, which I kept up with the whole time in Florida.
Yeah.
So I did that.
So nothing, nothing major.
I feel like I'm piling on and making you feel worse.
Everything went well.
You were working, you were there working.
I was working and everything went well.
(05:42):
Yeah.
So I'm back now and I'm ready to get into baby talk.
Okay.
Well, where we're going to start is our next installment of the silver Fox mailbox.
So this time we just got a couple.
So, and these were on some shorts that we put out there.
There was a short, one of them that we talk about how I have a tendency when you come to record to send you home with various treats, popcorn and chocolates and the moose punch.
(06:16):
And one of our fans that we see commenting and liking stuff a lot, Gina Marie, Gina, Gina said moose munch is yummy, which she is.
I was, you are a hundred percent correct.
It is very, very yummy.
So we had to yell at you about giving us, yes, Trina did.
She did say, please stop.
Please stop.
(06:37):
Yes.
So there is that.
The other one that I thought was a little more funny was we discussed at length at a couple episodes.
Now your original statement, and then some reaction from Trina about the hose, my wife, are we still talking about this?
The only reason we are is I will say that this is my single favorite comment from anyone on anything that we have done.
(07:04):
Okay.
Is that we did a little short that was on tech talk.
Right.
And of course, tick-tock is bigger with the younger folks, some of whom are your sons.
Yes.
And the comment was very succinct.
It was brief, but it was on the one where we discuss hosing, hosing, hosing Trina.
(07:25):
And it was just Nikki.
And his comment was what?
Just the, just the word.
I almost died.
I loved the comment immediately.
That made me laugh.
So I, we're literally, I'm looking at my phone laying in bed.
Kelly's I was, she's like, what are you laughing at?
I'm like, look.
(07:45):
Oh God.
Yeah.
So I thought just what, what that, what that would be.
This is the beauty of the internet.
Imagine if we, when we were kids, your father, somehow there's video of him in the coffee shop talking about something with the coffee, the coffee shop podcast.
That would be great.
Actually.
A lot of stuff that they couldn't be beeped out.
(08:08):
That's true.
Oh my God.
So Nick, my son, Nick, my youngest.
Yeah.
I started him.
He's on his way.
He's a young man.
He's 18 now.
I have a feeling he'll survive, but I did when I saw that.
That's funny.
I did not know that.
That's funny.
That was fantastic.
Yeah.
(08:29):
So he's, he's watching at least the reels.
He's watching the short.
Yeah.
He's watching us on TikTok.
Yeah.
That's it.
So that is the silver Fox mailbox.
And now since we have so much to get, to get to and through, we'll go right into what just happened.
So, well, before I start, I know what just happened now.
(08:52):
You made me a lovely cup of coffee in your new coffee machine.
Now I said this jokingly a couple of episodes ago, Frank's going to buy a new coffee machine.
And sure enough, I was, was I in Florida when you shot something or was I here?
He was right before he came back maybe.
And sure enough, he sends me new, a new cast member of the podcast or new equipment for the podcast.
(09:18):
And so we had a nice cup of coffee.
So that just happened there.
That's true.
That did just happen.
I decided, look, it's all about the baby.
It's all about the baby.
Everyone keeps talking to me and laughing, saying you're going to be exhausted.
You're going to be tired.
Now I, I am a coffee drinker and I usually, I will make a pot in the morning.
(09:39):
I get up early six o'clock in the morning.
I make a pot 10 cups and I will drink that gentleman.
I will drink that.
It's half calf.
It's not full calf.
And I will drink that over the course of the morning.
I'm usually wrapping up about 11.
So over the course of five hours, are you like me?
Do you let the coffee get cold?
(10:00):
Cause I'm not just, it sits around or do you, do you drink it?
I try to drink it when it's hot, but the only, it doesn't stay.
So I'll hit the, hit it in the microwave to warm it up if it needs it.
But so, but I'm not going to make a pot if I'm not on a, if I'm not going to be on a regular schedule anymore, I'm probably going to end up in caffeine withdrawal.
(10:21):
And I really don't, I've had an espresso, one of the ones that uses the pods.
I'm not a big fan.
So I found one of the ones that you basically put the beans in and it does a cup at a time, grinds the beans fresh, does it, it does cappuccino and all the milk.
It's fantastic.
It's like you swipe through, you pick whatever drink you want, how intense, how big you can do two at a time.
(10:44):
It's awesome.
So I'm going to rely on that to keep me alive.
I think you're on the right track.
I think it was a good investment.
So we did do that.
But so anyway, so we started with going back now, I was trying to remember this morning.
I'm like, okay, it feels like it seems like forever since you left.
But really this all, you know, this week started with a checkup and a fetal stress test or non-stress test.
(11:12):
Do we talk about, I think we talked about that already once.
Yes, we did.
Yeah.
So basically we're getting these weekly now to make sure things are on track the right way.
So again, we go in now we kind of know how this works.
They put the two sensors on a little bit easier time.
Josie was not avoiding the sensors as well as she had previously and everything looked good.
(11:36):
Heart rate variability is good.
Everything's fine.
Nice.
So we did that, but we're kind of, you know, it's week 36 all along.
They've been telling us probably we'd be induced in week 39.
So it's only three weeks away and we're thinking, okay, when are we going to hear about this?
And again, nothing.
They're like, okay, we'll see you next week.
(11:57):
So, okay, we'll see you next week.
So then we kind of move into Kelly's going to work.
She's been working there several years now.
She has some of her coworkers that are very nice.
And they, as a surprise, threw her a baby shower.
Oh, really?
Really?
Yeah.
So now this is the third one.
(12:18):
Yeah.
Right.
So there was a few items like straggler items left on the registries because we had the one in Buffalo and we had the one here in town and now this other, so they like cleaned out the rest of the baby registry and really some very generous, nice gifts.
She's a kind of a more private person with work stuff.
(12:40):
She keeps work at work, but I think she was really surprised by how, yeah, how, how nice it was.
So that was, you know, that was really cool.
But it was also around that time, that part of the week, she started, she noticed that she started to see some little flashes of light in her vision.
(13:03):
Okay.
And she didn't really mention it, but I was around when she was talking to her sister about it.
Okay.
And her sister of course was like, well, did you mention anything to the doctor?
And Kelly said, well, no.
Well, you should, you should call your doctor, talk to them about it.
So she was at work and she called the doctor and they said, well, you know, have you noticed anything different with, you know, is your blood pressure?
(13:33):
Well, not sure.
So she went in, they took her blood pressure and her blood pressure was a little bit high.
So those two things, the combination of this visual phenomenon of the, the seeing flashes or a flex like flex, she describes it like a chandelier effect.
I don't know what that means.
(13:53):
Like she's like, maybe.
Yeah.
So she sees that and then her blood pressure is a little bit high, which it has not been.
So the doctor's like, okay, we're going to do a bunch of blood work and see what's going on because what they're worried about is what we talked about previously, a little bit, the preeclampsia.
Yes.
Right.
Which can be, is very dangerous.
Gotta be careful.
(14:14):
So they, they did that.
And now when she came home and we were kind of waiting for the, the results with the blood test or the blood work that they did, I was, I, I, I know, I tried to, I think I know Kelly really well.
I know when she's upset and when things were out of her and I knew when she was on her way to work that day, we were talking about work stuff for her work stuff and she was pretty worked up.
(14:43):
She was a little upset about work, about work.
Right.
So I'm, and I know that, and I was asking her how her day was going up until she had to go to the doctor.
Sounded pretty stressful.
Right.
And she has a job that can be very stressful.
So I, I'm like, you know, your blood pressure has been good all along.
Every time we go in, it's good.
(15:04):
It's been good.
So, you know, maybe you were stressed, like maybe you're stressed out.
I know I've had that happen to me more than once.
I've gone, I went one time, I'm going for a physical, I sit down in the waiting room, I get a work text that was just, just all right.
I'm so, and I go in highest blood pressure they've ever taken on me.
(15:25):
And I literally, I told the nurse, I'm like, look, just take it in a little while again.
Cause I know it's not like when you're doing like a procedure, they know your blood pressure is going to be high.
You're nervous.
Yeah, absolutely.
So obviously do that.
So I'm thinking, I'm hoping it's that.
Sure.
And luckily we get the results.
They don't call.
So the blood, the, the blood work, whatever they were worried about finding, they didn't find.
(15:50):
Okay.
So felt, you know, felt like, okay, relieved, relieved.
We can kind of set, we can kind of set that aside.
But then, so this is around the time you, you desert me and I'm all by myself.
My wife, my kids, your whole family.
We're all just like, where did he go?
I was on the news missing.
(16:10):
So this is, so this is Thursday.
This is like the week of Valentine's day.
We're talking about, right?
So Valentine's day is Friday, Thursday.
We go to bed, the weather's fine.
There's nothing wrong when I left.
It's winter in Syracuse, right?
So it's not great, but there's no, nothing to worry about.
There's no chaos happening.
(16:32):
We wake up and we get up early Friday morning, 6am.
And I'm looking at, I can't, I'm looking at the, the, the doors in our bedroom outside and I can't see.
And I look and there's just snow on the window, like stuck to the window.
And then I'm peering over that and there's drifts of snow.
(16:56):
And I'm like, what's going on?
I go to the, I go to the front.
I look and there's easily three, four feet of snow everywhere.
Wow.
And it's drifting in different places, windy, still snowing, still going.
And it's still dark out.
So you really can't appreciate it.
Yeah, you're not seeing the whole thing.
The first thing I'm seeing is, you know, when you walk out our front door, we have two posts and two big coach lights.
(17:23):
They're covered, right?
So completely, you know how when the snow is so heavy, it just coats everything and it kind of grows.
That's what it's like.
So I'm like, okay, I know this is going to be a long day.
This is going to be a rough day.
I'm like, okay, I go and I get, look, a couple of Christmases ago, one of my presents was a pair of heavily insulated Carhartt overalls.
(17:46):
I put on my Moodons, I put on my overalls, I put on my parka and I go out there.
I can barely get to the Jeep, to the plow.
I put, now I have a V plow on a Jeep Wrangler, not the heaviest plow, but we're far away from the road.
We're like 600 feet from the road.
Got a big, long kind of quarter circle driveway.
(18:09):
So it's a long ways.
And I'm like, I'm just going to try to, you know, cut a path.
I put it in the V position because I've never, ever had a problem.
You can get through any depth of snow.
It's just because it just pushes it out of the way.
You're not trying to push a lot of snow.
It just moves it away.
I get maybe a third of the way and the snow is building up in front of my plow so deep that the Jeep can't move.
(18:38):
You made yourself a wall.
I'm stuck.
So then I thought, okay, so then I start backing up and I'm just running up ahead of steam and hitting it.
You're ramming it.
Trying to break through because the drifting, I'm thinking, okay, if I get through this, I could see the snow was a little lower, but it's also so white and still snowing.
(18:58):
And so kind of smooth.
You're giving me anxiety right now.
It was horrible.
You're killing me.
I couldn't even see.
Now I have put out stakes on either side of my driveway all the way to the road, four foot tall, four foot tall stakes with orange, like orange hazard stakes.
They're gone.
Cover.
You can't, you can't see that.
(19:20):
So I'm doing this.
I'm backing up.
I'm doing it.
I'm not, I'm not even sure where to aim if I get through it.
So I'm like, okay, I'm going to walk out a little ways to see.
So I start walking.
It's up to my waist.
I can't do more than six steps and I'm winded trying to push through this snow.
(19:41):
It's heavy, heavy snow.
So I'm like, okay, turn around, go back.
Long story short.
I try to the point where my Jeep gets stuck.
So now it's stuck.
So I can't even go back anymore.
I can't, I back cause I, when I'm backing up, I can't see the only way I can back up.
Can't look in the rear view of the backup camera.
You can't see anything.
I have to open the door and stick my head out and try to go back and I get off a little bit stuck.
(20:06):
So now I'm laying on the bomb.
It's 20, like 23 degrees.
I'm in a park.
I have to climb over the snow into my, into my garage to get a shovel and I'm on my back in the snow next to the Jeep digging snow out from underneath the Jeep because it's kind of bottomed out.
(20:27):
It's settled on the snow.
I get it unstuck and I'm like, there's no way I can do that.
And I think, okay, uh, the only thing I could do is rely on the kindness of my neighbors.
Yes.
And I have a, we have some great neighbors across the street.
Chris and Ashley, I, I messaged him.
I'm like, Hey, is there any way he actually has an excavation business called Northern Atrax?
(20:50):
If you need any, any work like that, call him up, call Chris at Northern Atrax.
I think he took my car out when I got stuck.
He's a great neighbor.
They're really, they're sweet people.
So I call him.
I'm like, Hey, just, can you cut a path for me with your plow?
And then I'll, I'm thinking, then I'll be able to push the rest of it out.
Right.
(21:11):
So he comes over with like a, he has a full, like a three quarter ton diesel full size pickup with a plow.
You ain't scaring him.
He's plowing and it's coming up over the plow onto the hood of his, his truck.
There's so much snow, but he gets through and I now have a path and I'm like, okay.
(21:32):
So then I get out there with the little Wrangler and I'm trying to widen it out and do it.
But I'm basically just stemming the tide because it's still snowing more and more.
So I'm just basically keeping his path that he cut for me, which is a plow blade with, I can't make it any wider.
The banks are so high that when my plow, my little plow tries to push snow up, it hits and goes back.
(21:57):
So it's, it's, but at least by this time I can get out, we're not trapped.
So it comes down to, this is Valentine's day and we had made reservations.
It's kind of our, our last Valentine's day without, without kiddos.
So we, as, as a couple, so I didn't want to miss that.
(22:18):
So we were able to, we, we didn't take the other cars.
I went in the, in the Jeep, we went and had dinner and we'd had a really nice dinner.
We went to Texas to Brazil.
It was nice.
And, and that was good with Kelly's current dietary restrictions, lots of protein, didn't have to worry about carbs and stuff.
But the thing that killed me was now this is the weekend of, you know, it's like Valentine's day weekend, president's day.
(22:43):
Right.
Right.
So long weekend.
I'm thinking I'm going to get a bunch of stuff done.
No, no, because the snow would not stop.
I was plowing four and five times a day just to keep a way to get to the road.
Right.
Like just to keep it clear enough.
(23:03):
Yeah.
You're just to get out.
You're maintaining and the whole time, never even approaching 30 degrees high winds.
So Saturday plowing four or five times, keep it just enough.
We go to church, we come home Sunday, same to all day long plow four or five times and either Saturday or Sunday, then it also, it warmed up just enough for it to be freezing rain and ice.
(23:30):
That's what I heard.
So now it's, now it's there's feet of snow covered with a hard, crusty shell of ice, but I'm still just stemming the tide the whole, the whole time I am feeling like, and this is, this is how it relates to a child and pregnancy.
The whole time I am in what I could only describe as a low grade panic attack because all I can think about is my wife is 36 weeks pregnant.
(23:59):
She could go into labor at any moment and I can't get her to the hospital, let alone, I can't even get her to the road.
Right.
If this gets closed up.
Yeah, that's the, yeah.
So Sunday it's still coming down.
It just still coming down.
Won't stop.
There's so much.
No, the, the, the, the deck in back is just a drift.
(24:20):
The dogs go literally.
And my dogs usually like the snow and cold rumple goes out the door, just gets just outside the door, does her business and comes back in Watson.
Same thing.
They don't want to like it.
They want nothing to do with it on nothing to do with it.
But now I'm thinking I'm worried because it's coming down hard into the nighttime and I'm going to sleep.
(24:42):
So I go out at 10 30 at night and I plow on Sunday night, 10 30.
I get it as clear as I can get it.
Whatever happens, happens.
I'm up.
I get up at five 30.
I go outside and there's another foot, foot and a half.
And again, I can't get through it.
(25:03):
I'm stuck.
And I'm like, now, and now this is a day that it's a Monday and we typically have our appointments for the OBGYN.
So I'm like, okay.
Uh, the, you know, that's kind of where we are.
Five 30, five 30 in the morning.
We got an appointment at eight 30 and I can't get to the road.
(25:23):
And, and I have to come back in after trying for two hours.
I have to come back in and tell Kelly.
So now it's like seven 30.
It's like seven o'clock, seven, seven o'clock.
So it's probably out there for an hour and a half.
So I'm like, look, I don't think we can make it to the doctor's appointment.
Why don't you call and see if you can reschedule to the afternoon.
(25:44):
And I'm going to call, I'm going to call Chris and see, cause Chris was like, obviously people with equipment like he has all weekend long, he was out doing stuff and he's doing stuff for businesses.
One of the things he posted was he was up in Brewerton and he had cleared a parking lot for somebody using his skid steer, which for people who don't like a skid steer is like a small bulldozer.
(26:10):
It's like an eight foot blade, eight foot bucket.
So you can, he could scoop the snow up and put it where he needed to be.
So I'm like, is there any way, like, is there any way you could come over and just clear my drive, clear the whole thing for me?
I don't care what it costs.
And he's like, yeah, absolutely.
I told him Kelly was able to reschedule to like later to one o'clock.
(26:35):
Right.
But he's got things going on.
I'm like, yeah, we've got a doctor's appointment.
We really want to make to help a pregnant woman.
Right.
And I mean, that's dangerous to not have a way out.
No, first of all, he tried to charge me probably less than what he spent on fuel.
Right.
And I was like, no, I'm not, I'm not going to pay you that, but he said, don't worry about it.
(27:00):
And he comes over now, this is a huge piece of equipment.
Yeah.
It took him about an hour and a half hour and 45 minutes to clear.
It's just so much note to, but he widened it out.
So, so yeah, that was it.
But it was just as chaos.
It is the most, it was the most horrible feeling.
(27:20):
I told Kelly because Kelly is one of those people that loves, she grew up in Buffalo on the top of a hill, right?
This is tons of snow all the time.
And she just loves to look at it.
And I'm like, you cannot say you can't say the snow is pretty for at least a year.
It was just absolute, just an absolute nightmare.
(27:41):
It's totally different in your case.
Cause you have a pregnant wife at home that if you woke up and it was a year ago where nobody was pregnant and you're just like, what do we got in the freezer?
Right.
Let's cook something.
We didn't lose power.
A lot of people lost power.
Thousands of people had no power in the area.
We were lucky we didn't lose power.
You know, we're warm and safe inside.
(28:04):
If we didn't have to go anywhere, you'd be fine.
And the crazy thing was, correct me if I'm wrong.
I wasn't here.
I was on the beach.
That's not right.
What I heard was everywhere.
Didn't, I mean, everybody got snow, but some places got nailed while other places just got snow.
(28:25):
Yeah.
Like, well, and it was, yeah, it was very different.
Like the day, the first day he cut through and just cut the first half Friday on Valentine's day, his wife, Chris's wife, actually works in the city.
She was in the city and there was nothing.
Exactly.
That's what I read.
And it was different.
We had to go over the weekend.
My sister and her husband were traveling.
(28:45):
They were also away.
They missed all the weather they were in.
They had gone to London and then Paris.
And so we had to go water her plants and there was snow there, but not like here.
And that's just up the road.
Like literally my brother and sister.
I know this is very detailed information here, but my brother in Cicero, not too far from Liverpool just nailed and everybody else was like, Oh, okay.
(29:08):
We got some snow.
It was very, it was very localized.
Thank God you had the neighbor.
Yeah.
Without a doubt.
Chris and Ashley are awesome.
They're a beautiful little family.
They have a boy and two little girls and a absolutely prime age for babysitting in the future.
By the time we meet, like we're going to be perfect.
(29:29):
But, uh, and I know Chris travels for work.
He has his business and he has an, he has a, another guy just started a new job.
And I know he listens sometimes when he's driving.
So hopefully.
Thumbs up.
Yes, absolutely.
Huge thumbs up.
Again, Northern eight tracks coming your way.
If you are in Syracuse area and you need any of that stuff, I'm going to, I'm going to sponsor him.
(29:49):
Look it up.
Look him up.
Give him some So yeah, without that, I would have been, I would have just felt like a complete failure as a man to be able to take care of my wife.
I mean, you have a, a good walkway or driveway.
You have a long, Oh yeah.
Yeah.
One of my favorite things about this house is that I have a driveway that you can get up to 30 on.
(30:12):
You can get a ticket.
Yeah.
There's the GPS works on my driveway.
Take a left at the garage.
It is funny.
Yeah.
We're, we're a ways from the road when you're stuck like that.
When you wait, especially when you wake up to that.
Yeah.
Your whole day is dictated.
You're done.
(30:32):
You're, you're, you're, you know, I have to figure this out now.
Yep.
You don't have any choice now.
There's no cup of coffee and there's no break.
Right.
There's right.
There's no like, well, I'll do it.
No, it's, yeah.
You start struggling.
You start worrying.
You start.
Oh yeah.
And what was, it was cute about it was Kelly.
(30:52):
She's like, let me come out and how I'm like, stay inside doing that.
And she's, we're talking about it.
And I feel horrible that if we can't get to the road and she's like, well, if we had to, we could just walk to the road.
And I'm like, no, I couldn't walk to the literally six steps.
And I'd have to stop over your waist.
(31:13):
You're not walking.
Yeah.
There's no walking.
It was just, I literally, at one point you were in Florida.
My sister's in Paris.
My brother's in London.
I messaged my brother.
I'm like, find me something under $800,000 with two acres in, in Franklin.
And he jokingly says, he jokingly comes back with, that would be fine if you don't want a house on it.
(31:39):
And of course I look and it was true.
I'm looking at like where he lives in Syracuse.
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
He says, okay.
That's one thing.
That's one advantage that we have most normally had in five years.
They said, I think so.
Honestly, you like in our lifetime, the blizzard of 93 was this, and that was a lot.
(32:00):
This was worse.
At least it for my situation.
Now I remember back then I was stuck in silo when that happened.
You were still in silo.
Okay.
I had to go to his house because I couldn't get home.
You couldn't get stuck actually in the road.
I had to leave it.
I was working at Leechmere at destiny and I didn't go over to Leechmere yet.
(32:20):
And I was driving my Camaro.
I remember that trip home and my Camaro, my brown, my crap brown Camaro.
I made it home and make it.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It was fun because with rear wheel drive, you basically didn't, it was like, it was like a rudder steering.
You store with the, you steer with the accelerator and I was blown by jeeps.
(32:44):
Like it didn't matter.
And I got home and I was just, I just stayed home for three days and that was, that was a lot of snow.
Cause I remember we were on the third floor of an apartment building in a complex.
You could just jump right off.
That's what we did.
We were literally, we would jump off the deck.
Are you serious?
Oh yeah.
And land in the snow.
You were fine.
Cause it was like five feet of snow.
Oh, that is hilarious.
(33:05):
But there wasn't any, I was, this time there was no jumping.
No.
There was laying in the ground looking at the sky saying, please, please make it stop.
I mean, I never ever get that lucky.
And again, I feel horrible because my whole family is sick and my wife was alone and this, that, and the other.
And I'm like, not that I planned it, but yeah, I would have been the same way.
(33:28):
I mean, we would have had to.
It was, yeah, no, this was absolutely the worst winter weather I've, I've experienced in my lifetime.
It was crazy.
It just, it just wouldn't stop.
It just kept coming.
So that was, that was it.
So we basically that week, the rest of that week was just maintaining survival.
(33:54):
That was the other thing that kind of sucked was if you were a kid, that was one of the things my, my wife always trying to find the bright side.
Cause she's like, if you're a kid, this is absolutely magical, right?
You out there, you're building forts, you're digging tunnels.
It would be perfect for that.
And I agree.
But the thing that was sad was the kids were already on vacation that week.
(34:16):
So they didn't even get snow days out of the deal.
They were just trapped in the house, which for kids today, that probably isn't as big a thing.
It wasn't probably bad.
It's probably not bad for kids like in like, I don't know, sixth grade.
But I have a teenager at home and he has a car.
Yeah.
He doesn't want to, he doesn't want to build a fort.
But with him, he had the flu and his girlfriend was in Spain for the school trip.
(34:43):
Isn't that crazy?
Everybody was gone.
Yeah.
It was, it was something.
And I get home, it's 41.
Oh yeah.
It was sunny a couple of days ago.
I was talking to my sister when they were still, it was still nuts.
Hadn't stopped.
Right.
She came home with kind of like the middle of this next, the middle of that next week.
(35:03):
And I was like, stay in Paris another day.
They ended up making it home, their flight into, I think they flew into DC and then DC here.
Their flight in was, was delayed.
And then the flight back was delayed, but they made it home on the same day.
A couple hours late.
This is, I think, entertaining.
(35:25):
My intrepid brother-in-law, traveler.
He's, he worked in a job where he traveled all over Europe.
He's retired now.
They travel all the time.
My sister's been to Paris more times than I've been to Utica.
I've done it a bunch of times.
They got hung up in customs.
Why do you think they got hung up in customs when they came back?
(35:46):
They brought, well, they had something on them.
They had something.
A plant?
A fruit?
Fruit?
This is what kills me.
That's the first thing you think of.
What's the first thing you get hung up on?
What did they tell you?
No fruit.
No, no, no, no, no cocaine.
Right.
Right.
He said that he was trying to smuggle a couple bananas into the country.
You can't do that.
(36:06):
You don't.
Yeah, not everybody does.
So they had to go to the, talk to the agriculture people to get.
I wanted bananas.
Go to Wegmans.
Have you ever had a French banana?
No, but I will go to jail for it.
I will be deported.
That held them up a little bit.
That's funny.
I can just see him.
Just have these bananas and grapes.
Yeah.
They're asking him like the, the beagle is sniffing the bag.
(36:28):
What's in the bag?
We're going to make a banana split when we get home with these French bananas.
That's funny.
That was fun.
So, but that is, uh, that is week 36.
That's what happened.
That is, that is what happened.
That is what happened.
So we will hopefully, uh, we'll catch up again.
(36:51):
Next episode.
We'll, we'll go through, uh, and bring you guys closer up to date with us.
We're going to catch up.
We're going to, we are going to, we're going to catch up.
We kind of started in episode one and two where we were covering those first few weeks.
And now as we approach episode 20 with this one's 19, as we approach episode 20, we might catch up a little bit too.
(37:13):
We made it.
Well, hopefully you'll make it to 20.
That would be nice.
We said 10.
Remember 10 was our number.
We're going to have 10 episodes.
We're going to now we doubled that or hopefully we'll know.
And, uh, who knows?
Who knows now?
Maybe in a couple of months we'll get to 21.
That's where the rubber really meets the road.
(37:33):
You know, we always, we always do something, you know, the baby's going to be here right now.
It's all fun and games.
We're talking about it, you know, Hey, how's that crib coming?
And Hey, it really, it really is.
Like I'm forcing you to test out ridiculous products.
It is all fun and games.
It's about to really, yeah, it's about to really change.
(37:55):
I'm going to be like, it smells like puke.
Are you, did you change yet?
Is there sour milk in the studio?
Yeah, it's going to be something.
That'll be fun.
It will be fun to you for people to watch too.
Don't forget if you're listening right now, you want to see this chaos.
Yes.
Oh, go to the YouTube channel.
Please subscribe, comment.
Oh, you'll love it.
(38:15):
Get your, hit that bell for alerts.
For alerts every Tuesday at 7am when the new episode comes out.
Yeah, absolutely.
YouTube.
It seems like it goes back and forth.
Some weeks the video does better.
Some weeks the audio does better.
But absolutely.
However, yes.
(38:35):
However you listen, we're, we're thankful that you do appreciate it.
But yeah, like and subscribe and do all that cool stuff.
Absolutely.
Okay.
We will see you next time.
Well, folks, that's another episode of the gray hair and daycare podcast in the books.
Thanks very much for tuning in and spending this time with us.
We hope it was fun.
If you enjoyed this week's descent into the madness of dadness, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss any of our future adventures.
(39:02):
While you're at it, give us a like and share the cast with your friends on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, carrier pigeon, whatever you crazy kids are using.
Have any hilarious parenting stories of your own questions about navigating fatherhood later in life, or even when normal people do it, email us at ghdc.podcast at gmail.com.
(39:23):
We'd love to hear from you.
And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed.
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