July 15, 2025 • 41 mins
The foundation of any successful blended family begins with intentionality, especially when it comes to involving children in the process. In this deeply personal episode, Greg and Jess take listeners back to the earliest days of their relationship, sharing how they purposefully included their four children from the very beginning.
Rather than presenting their new relationship as a fait accompli, they created meaningful opportunities for their children to feel ownership in the family-building process. From carefully planned introductions to a memorable meeting at a small-town park where they conducted a powerful team activity involving glasses and butter knives, they demonstrate how simple metaphors can help children understand complex family dynamics.
The episode explores their creative approach to family integration—having children decorate personal cups that represented their unique personalities while using butter knives (representing the adults and God) to support each other. This visual demonstration showed the children that building their new family required everyone's participation. "It's not just one of us doing this," Greg explains, "We're all working together and we're all going to hold each other up."
Greg and Jess candidly discuss navigating emotional challenges, including how they honored previous relationships while moving forward together. They share touching details about incorporating all four children into their wedding ceremony with special vows and symbolic rope bracelets tied with fisherman's knots. As they reflect on their journey, they also address the evolving nature of their relationships now that their children are adults, describing the difficult transition from being providers to becoming coaches.
Whether you're part of a blended family or simply looking to foster deeper connections with your children, this conversation offers practical wisdom on giving children a voice without giving them control. How intentional are you with your family time? Share your experiences with Greg and Jess on social media or by texting the show directly through your podcast app.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey guys, what's up?
I'm Greg.
I hope you guys are ready tounpack and get into some good
conversations today.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm Jess, and this is our podcast Baggage
Claim.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
What's up everybody.
Welcome to Baggage Claim, wherewe just sit around the table,
hang out, have someconversations about blended
families and marriage andrelationships and mental health
and self-care and life and kidsand a lot of stuff.
So, Baggage Claim, it's yourfirst time here.
(00:37):
Thank you for joining us.
We're just hoping to createsome conversations and community
around relationships andmarriage and blended families
and all those fun things that wejust talked about.
So for those of you who havebeen listening for a while,
thank you so much.
Grab your favorite beveragecoffee, tea, whatever else that
(01:00):
may be Pull up to the table.
Pull up to our table with usand let's jump into our
conversation tonight and getstarted.
It's tonight because that'swhen we're recording.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That's when we're recording.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, that's why I'm saying tonight so, what are we
talking about Tonight?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So it's still summer.
It's summer here, obviously,and I am still on summer Jess
mode, and so sometimes, likebeing professional might be a
little bit difficult, and thisfeels like that day.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Are you going to say unprofessional things?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
No, it's just like Dang it oh yeah, oh, we got the
beeper.
Okay, yeah, Thank you.
But it's just kind of like you,when we were planning this,
you're like okay, and I'm goingto do the open and then you're
going to kick us off, and I waslike, okay, what am I going to
say?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, and she has a.
For those of you who don't know, she has a notebook of words in
front of her.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I do A notebook full of them.
We're going to kind of go backto the beginning a little bit,
oh yeah, we're kicking it.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
old school, that's right.
We to the foundational.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, the past four or five episodes we've been
talking more about marriage andrelationship type things, and
the biggest reason why we wantedto start this podcast is
because there's such limitedinformation in the world,
apparently, for blended families.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Well, for real life situations for people.
It's not over-spiritualized,there's not over-counseled or
psychology of it's just like hey, when my kid does this, what
did you guys do?
When my kid did that, what didyou do?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So we got to talking about it and we started
remembering how, in thebeginning of our relationship,
it was always from the get-go itwas important for us to make
sure that the kids were involved, like we were doing this with
them and we weren't doing it tothem.
It wasn't like a me and you arein love, we're getting married
(02:56):
and y'all have to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right, but it wasn't like.
You know, that wasn't after ourfirst or second date, it was a.
We had been out and we're like,okay, we didn't introduce the
kids to each other and we talkeda lot.
Yeah, we didn't.
We were very, very hesitant tobring the kids into it.
So we wanted to make sure thatthis was when we did bring the
(03:22):
kids into this and we have allthey all met.
We wanted it to to have somepurpose.
we wanted to have some meaningbehind it yeah and so we were
very, very careful about how wedid that when we did it.
I know, even in I tried to evenmake the fact that when I told
the kids that we were dating,that I I wanted to make it
special for them so we couldhave conversation around that.
(03:43):
Uh, see how that went, see,just so I wanted them to be a
part of that.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Okay, talk about how you told your kids, and I'll
talk about how I told my kids.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So at the time Callie loved and she may still loved
Red Lobster because she wouldeat the cheddar.
All she would eat was thecheddar biscuits and she could
eat her weight in those.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
She didn't eat a whole lot.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
She was just 12 at that time, yeah, so she would
eat those cheddar biscuits, andthen she would eat a thing of
mashed potatoes.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Mashed potatoes yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And that's I mean a lot of carbs.
She was carving up.
She was At that age, but thatwas so I took him to Red Lobster
.
Georgia.
I remember what Cody ate.
I don't think he, you know,really cared, and so I was there
and I told him that you knowwho you were and we're dating,
and Callie was a little freakedout because she knew who you
(04:33):
were and had already had someyeah, some interactions with you
from the library because you'rein the library, and so she was
just like, oh, I know her.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, and we had been buddies up until then, like
that little group of girlsbecause of one specific
relationship I had with Mollyand her parents, but they were
just big buddies and we wouldjust like hang out, like check
out books and talk and whatever.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Kelly loved books.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
She did.
She still does.
But after she found out it wasme and when they were the same
group of girls who come to thelibrary, kelly would look at me
like I had three heads and shewas like she forgot she had
words to say and she got soweird for a little bit.
It was cute.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, so that's how I told my two.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, you were a lot more intentional about it
because you know the dinner andfavorite place and all my kids
and to hear the four of themtalk about it is hilarious.
My two, we were in the cargoing to karate and I was like,
oh hey, I went on a date.
Hey, forgot to tell y'all Hisname's Greg and he's got some
(05:42):
kids and they were like, okay,cool, when do we meet him?
Yeah, that's the extent of howintentional I was in the car.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
A little thought out.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It was.
Yeah, it was pretty thought out.
I was just like ripping aband-aid, Just got to say it.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So up until then the kids had not like hung out
together.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
We had not done anything together, we just
talked about.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It kind of introduced the idea.
So we're like, okay, let's getall of them together Where's a
controlled environment.
That'd be fun, that they cankind of play and have fun.
And I was like there's a parkthat I've taken Callie and Cody
to.
It's kind of it's in Talmo,georgia.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Teeny tiny town, If you know it there's like you
drive, you blink and you miss itA restaurant, a church, a
library and a playground.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah.
And a community center, thelibrary is also part of City
Hall, I think.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
That's adorable.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, so they have everything.
So it's tiny.
So we're in this park there,which is a really cool park, and
we're at one of the tablesthere and we're just like, hey,
we can be there.
It, then we can haveconversation, then kids can just
play.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
They can meet, play.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And they all hit it off really quickly.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, and again we're like trying to set our
expectations in a way of saying,okay, they're kids, we're not
going to have like deep, great,meaningful conversations.
So it's like, okay, how do weget the kids to start talking?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Because, like we were saying in the beginning, we
wanted to involve them as muchas we could Because, I mean, all
four of them had been throughsome you know family trauma.
Yeah, it looked different forthe you know sets of two, but we
wanted to make sure that theywere involved in it.
That it, you know, becausethere was some other things that
had happened that were not intheir control, Right, Not that
(07:23):
they could control the situation, but being involved in it gave
them a little bit more ownership.
So we were really careful to dothat.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
And I think that word ownership is a cool word to use
when you're talking about yourkids in this whole relationship
and how they fit into that,Because I mean, honestly, if you
think about it, you think aboutany family.
There's lots of trauma andwhat's crazy is in, if you think
about the trauma in your life,the majority of people that
(07:51):
trauma came from in their house,and so it's knowing all that
processing, giving them a voiceand giving them some ownership,
and all of that was veryimportant to us.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So then us.
So the park situation turnedout to be a pretty big marker
for the timeline of our family.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It was.
It was kind of a big event forus, and so I was trying to
figure out a way to start theconversation.
That's how my brain alwaysworks, yeah, of course I had no
idea at all.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I was just happy to be there.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So I'm like how do we start this?
And so then I had this idea.
I was like I saw, because I wasgoing to conferences doing a
lot of team building stuff,group development things Not
that time, but in the past, Iwas like I saw this activity
that I think will work and let'stry it.
So, excuse me, I'm going tograb my props.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
For those of you who are not watching on YouTube, I'm
going to move this candlethough.
Well, it's hot, so we're goingto be real careful with that
Over here.
So Greg's got four cups andthen some butter knives.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So I'm going to let you tell all the details.
So I had I told Jess this idea.
I was like, let me pitch theidea to you.
It's a team building kind of ariddle activity, and then you're
going to help me make it better.
And she's like okay, how do youwork?
And I was like so I was like weneed four glasses and we need
three butter knives.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So these are like short, literally just clear
glass.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Almost like a highball glass.
Yeah, like a highball, if youknow what that is.
If you don't know what that is,ask your Siri and your phone or
Alexa, what a highball glass is.
It's just a short, clear glass.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, not very tall, not very tall.
And so we have those, and thenthree standard butter knives
which you know.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Which is weird about our house I don't know if your
house is this way we only havethree butter knives in our
entire drawer.
Yes, like I looked, every thisis the all, just for everybody
out there.
These are all the butter knivesthat we own, the three that
you're holding.
Yes, these are all that we haveto our name and I remember when
we got married, my sweet nanny.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
She was like I'm not buying you nonsense, what do you
actually need?
And at that moment, 13 yearsago, I said butter knives, nanny
.
We need butter knives Becausewe put our two households
together and we had probablyfour.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
But what's crazy.
We had tons of other thingsPods but okay.
So for the past 13 yearsthere's a stack of butter knives
somewhere.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And now we've ended up with three again.
But it happened with forks too.
All of our forks disappeared,but we just haven't replaced the
butter knives.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Somebody's either throwing them away or just I
don't know.
But anyway so Anywho, side note, whatever it's like a sock, it
is a sock.
It's like.
What happens to those socksLike?
It's like how do you get rid ofa butter knife?
I don't know, they literallydisappear.
I literally just trying to stayfocused here.
The butter knives are in thedryer, that's it.
They're in the dryer.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
That's a problem.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
If the socks wound up in the butter knife drawer, I'd
be like oh, so All right, soanyway, hold on.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
But you forgot about the markers.
We had special markers that wehave found.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
We hadn't got there yet, so I explained this
activity.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I was talking about what we had materials, I was
explaining this activity.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So we had the four cups and the four knives and I
was explaining this activity toJess and I was like the whole
idea is.
We use these three knives,these four glasses, and one of
these glasses has to besuspended above the table and
all it can touch is the butterknife.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So if you're not watching, he just arranged three
of the glasses kind of like ina triangle.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I put them in a triangle, and then one's in your
hand.
And then one is in my hand, andso I was like the idea is
Listen to me being mindful ofpeople who are not watching they
have to arrange these threebutter knives in order to make
this fourth one and Grace.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Ariongas said.
To make sure that we're mindfulof that, I am.
I'm sorry I interrupted you.
I'm proud of myself.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Go ahead, I'm going to sit back now from the mic.
Thank you, Okay.
Do you want to do this part?
You can?
No, sure, don't, sure, I'm good, summer Jess, anyway.
So I explained the activity toJess and then Jess being the
(12:08):
teacher she is, she says I waslike how do we make this
personal?
Like how do we connect the kidsand us?
How do we make this an activity?
So it's a visual, hands-on, butactually part that we can make.
And then she had the idea.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
This is where the markers came in.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Now we're going to talk about the markers that you
wanted to talk about earlier.
So go ahead and talk about the—.
We have one cup here that has alot of drawings on it, and if
you looked at it you would belike I don't know what this is.
I don't even know what it iseither With the kids' ages.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
they were 8, 10, 11, 12.
The one cup we have is Thomas'sand I'm not sure how it ended
up on the bookshelf in theoffice at our house.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I went and got it when he moved out.
It was in his room and I justtook it.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Gotcha, erin, she knows where it is.
It's packed up.
Cody lives in Athens.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I think there's broke .
Speaker 2 (13:03):
They had a couple of them that broke and then Callie
lives in Florida, so there'ssome unaccounted for, but I'm
happy we have this one.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, as an example.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
As an example, and it's just got random artwork
like this We'll post somepictures.
I'll post some pictures onsocial when this hits.
I mean he colored red all overthe bottom.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
The idea was that you gave them a bunch of markers I
did, and we all gave them one ofthese highball glasses and
they're permanent markers and wesaid you can write and draw
anything appropriate.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Decorate it however you want to.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
However you want, it needs to reflect your
personality.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And this is yours to keep.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah.
So when you draw on all this,this is yours, that that you're
gonna get to keep with you, it'syours, it needs to be your
personality, that's all aboutyou.
And they're like okay so, and Iwas like and then the other
part is, each one of thesebutter knives like this butter
knife is gonna represent Jess,because sometimes she's just Be
(13:59):
careful.
She's smooth, smooths everythingout.
Oh my God, anyway, jess wouldbe.
Thank you.
Jess would be one butter knife,I would be one butter knife and
God's going to be the other one.
No, don't dig into this and saythat we think Jess and I are on
the same level as God.
(14:20):
He's a part of thisrelationship, of what we're
putting together.
That's the reason.
He's a representation of one ofthe butter knives.
So Jess is a butter knife, I am.
Each one of the kids representsone of the glasses.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I'm excited to see if we can do this again.
It's been a lot of years sinceyou've tried this.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
The idea was, as the kids were drawing their cups or
painting, like just drawing,doing all kinds of crazy artwork
, we had conversations aroundthe idea of why did you put that
on there?
Tell me something about why youput that on your cup.
Yeah, what does that mean foryou?
Why did you write that?
(14:58):
Why did you color that?
Why did you use that color?
Just allow them and at the endwe would just let them take
their cup and just kind ofexplain what it was that.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
As the best they could.
As little kids.
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like.
I mean it's not?
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Callie's probably had a ton of thought into it,
because that's just the way shedid everything, and so we did
that and we did that, and then Iexplained to them.
I was like, okay, you guys eachhave a glass.
One glass has to be suspendedabove the table using me, your
mom and God, and that's it.
And so those were the rules,and so we set forth to letting
(15:37):
them do that to try to figure itout yeah, because it's not.
It's one of those things, butit's.
You can dig so deep into thisas metaphors, but we just tried
to be pictures of what it lookslike, because it's not.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
It's not, it's one of those things, but it's you can
dig so deep into this asmetaphors, but we just tried to
be.
We'll post pictures of what itlooks like when it's actually
working.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yes, I won't do it now because we're in the middle
of the podcast.
But it's almost like it's notan easy solution.
You got to kind of thinkoutside the box.
Well, a lot of times it's justlike our families.
Well, a lot of times it's justlike our families Like when you
take six people, three from eachside, and you put them in one
house and everybody's now living, cohabitating, doing life
(16:13):
together.
That's not a simple, easy,straightforward thing.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I just had like literally a flashback of this.
I remember when it first worked, when you showed them how to do
it.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I let them do it for a while and then they were like
you can't do this, this can't bedone.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I don't remember whose was on top first, but they
were like I win, you're allholding me up or blah blah.
And then you made them do itagain and again so that all four
of them had a term for theircup to be the one on top.
And then you use that kind ofmetaphorically too.
It's like this is not just oneof us doing this, like we're all
(16:49):
working together and we're allgonna hold each other up while
we're doing this.
I remember that that's kind offun.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So I think the biggest thing for me in the walk
away, the visual I kind ofwanted them to catch and all of
this is like it's going to takeevery single one of us engaged,
yeah, and a part of this, tomake this happen.
If we're not all, like you,take one of these pieces out,
this doesn't work right likeit's just, it doesn't work, it
has to.
They're they all four have to beengaged?
(17:17):
Yeah, or not all four, but allsix of these pieces have to be
engaged in order to make thishappen.
And so we had some greatconversations around that and
that was it.
We were just like, because theidea was like hey, we're not
getting married.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
We haven't talked about it yet.
And it's funny, when we weretalking about this too, it was
like you know, we took our timewith that.
But I mean we only knew eachother for eight months when we
got married, and I mean we onlyknew each other for eight months
when we got married, but wewere so intentional with every
single thing that we did that itfeels like it was a lot longer
than that.
But like, even at this point,like you said, like we weren't
(17:55):
with the Cup Park situation, weweren't like OK, and then we're
going to get married Like wewere not even there yet.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
No, we knew we wanted to pursue each other and like
we knew, ok, I really like thisgirl, I want to make this work.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
And so this was not.
I know you could look at thisscenario and go oh, you're
combining everybody together.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
No, we weren't.
I don't even know.
Right now we're just like, we'rejust trying to build
relationships with each, withyou part, because that day it
happened that we both felt thatthe same day the kids were
playing in the yard, so they hadalready started forming little
friendships then.
But what was the funny thing isbecause we had not reached that
(18:39):
part yet.
But immediately after that wasover, cody and Thomas started
like whose house are we going tomove into and what room am I
going to get?
And they started like makinglittle plans.
We're like no, no, no, no, no,we're not there.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, I do remember the boys were dead set on.
If we move into the house, weget the basement, which is where
the pool table was, and the TVsand all the fun stuff, which is
really interesting.
So it goes to actuallysomething just to keep in mind
where your kids are at, even ifyour kids aren't 9 and 10, your
(19:13):
kids are older.
You say you're doing this andyou have teenagers.
You don't have to do this verysame thing.
You don't have to do.
I'm telling you, be intentional.
Intentional, allowing your kidsto be a part of this.
Give them a voice in therelationship.
Now that that voice doesn'tmean that if they say I don't
(19:35):
like them and I don't want thisto work, that's not the kind of
voice I'm talking about, becausethey're the kid yeah, it's, but
also, too, it's like we have anopen conversation so we can
talk about what's wrong, what'snot wrong, what do we need to
work on, how do we fix it?
And do it with them?
Yes and so.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
I mean for us from that park conversation and all
that, you can kind of fastforward to even our wedding,
like we don't have a video ofour wedding which that was my
fault, probably, and Mr J wouldprobably agree with me that my
co-worker that agreed to hadsaid he would video.
We each thought each other wasbringing a video camera.
(20:17):
Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
There's no video.
Nobody brought anything.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
We don't even have a physical copy of our vows, we
just know we said, yes, we wantto get married, but—.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Good friend Ken did it for us yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
But we were intentional even in our wedding,
because our kids said vows too.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
We did when we were on stage.
So you married.
It was just us and the kids andthe kids, yeah.
All those on stage and we didthis thing where—I mean, this
was 13 years ago.
We were ahead of our time.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
But Pastor Ken after we had done our vows.
Then he addressed the kids andobviously we don't remember
exactly what he said, but it wasthe gist of you know, do you
promise to support your mom andyour dad while we're building a
family?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
I was going to share something else before you jumped
into that, but that's okay.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And they said we do, okay, go.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
No, we had the two pieces of rope and we were going
to do what's called afisherman's knot, so it's a good
way to attach two ends of therope.
So you tie one end of thefisherman's, I tie one end of
the fisherman's, and the idea is, when you pull on each end of
those, ropes the knot getstighter.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
We literally tied the knot.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, so we literally tied the knot while we were
there, but then, as a part, whenthe kids said those vows, we
actually gave them bracelets.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
In the same.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Same kind of rope, same color, and they had double
fisherman's.
We tied them together withdouble fisherman's knots.
Well, you did, because I wasstruggling for Double Fish and
we tied them together withDouble Fish.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Well, you did, because I was struggling, yeah,
so that they would havesomething to remember that time
from there too.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
So the whole idea was that it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
They were involved too.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, everybody like this is a process where we're
all doing this together, Evenwhen I proposed to you the kids
were a part of that proposal.
My kids were a key part of that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well, Callie and Cody were Thomas and Aaron.
Grace had no idea.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
No, but like it was, like I wanted them to feel like
they were, like they had, theyhad, they were all there.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I mean, it was literally like y'all were
proposing to us.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I mean because you did yeah, because we were
putting a family together, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
So it was, which is kind of cool, and it was really
fun.
It's not the easiest.
No, it's not the cleanest it'ssometimes, but also too, that's
just family and that's the wayfamily is.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I mean, yeah, we've got some really cute stories and
some great ideas that you'vehad along the way, but it's not
been easy.
I mean no, and kids processstuff different.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
They always process feelings, emotions, situations
so different.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
All four of our kids are very, very different.
We had some meltdowns.
We had some kids that hadmeltdowns.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, and that's okay , because when your kids are
melt like you you have tounderstand.
Though when your kids are meld,you have to understand.
Though you're an adult Say,you're coming out of a marriage,
you've been processing thatemotionally a lot longer than
the child has, you've beendealing with that probably a lot
longer and you're frustrated.
(23:19):
But your kids, they may or maynot have had that time with you.
For you guys, it was differentthan losing TJ.
I mean, you guys, all it was asudden thing.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
For all of you, all of us at the same time.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
But processing like all of you were processing that
at a different place, adifferent speed, we were, and so
it's trying to figure all thosethings out as you're walking
through this, and have patience,just say it's okay, because
even you and I I mean, if we'rehonest.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
We had harder conversations.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, we had really hard conversations.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I don't remember either of us having an actual
meltdown, which we probably did,but I mean, it was hard.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
It was hard to I mean't just keep moving forward
and it was, you know, makingsure like for me to make sure to
continue to respect and honorTJ's memory for my kids and that
kind of thing and we had tomake sure on your side to make
(24:19):
sure that respect your ex-wifeand make sure that we kept that
relationship as healthy as wecould.
So there was just a lot of alot of things to balance and
integrate your ex-wife and makesure that we kept that
relationship as healthy as wecould.
So there was just a lot ofthings to balance and integrate.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Like one of the things we and I'll share this,
because I don't mind us sharingthis and talking about it Like
one of the things that popped upthat we had to work through or
talk through or communicatethrough was I don't know if you
had a shirt or if it was apicture or something that it was
TJ picture or something that itwas TJ's.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
And we were dating and then you had worn that shirt
or had it, and so for me, Ifelt this thing of emotions and
feelings going.
Okay, I'm not telling her shecan't wear that, because that's
stupid on my part, but there'salso a part of me is going.
Is she emotionally ready forthis?
Yeah, you call, where am I atin all of that part?
But there's also a part of meis going.
Is she emotionally ready forthis?
Yeah, you, where am I at in allof that?
Because I didn't know.
(25:07):
I and I know there's probablylots of people who deal like,
who deal with that at the same,everyone was like how do I, how
do we have this conversation?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
in a good way.
When you say there's probably alot of people that deal with
that.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
It's a 32 year old widow is not very common no, but
I'm just talking about, evenwith you have something like do
you remember when we came acrossin the closet I had all the
wedding pictures?
Yeah, and you came across thatit's that same kind of thing.
You had that weird feeling likewhy are you hanging on to all
(25:40):
these wedding pictures, or whydo you have these things?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
And so then we have conversations.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Well, duh, of course there's pictures.
But I do remember what you'retalking about in that situation
and I remember you calling methat night because the kid
Callie and Cody were with youand my, obviously, my littles
were with me.
But I remember you calling meand we were trying to talk about
it, and that was, I mean, longtime ago.
So I was terrible atcommunication and so I was like
(26:06):
are you breaking up with me?
Why are you asking me all thesehard questions?
I don't understand what's goingon, like do you not want to see
me anymore?
But really you were just tryingto figure out, like are you
okay?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, I think it was like are you ready to move on?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
and move past this.
But then for me I don't know,maybe a t-shirt is a silly thing
, but it was like a big formyself and was a cool t-shirt,
which is why I hung on to itwhen I cleaned out clothing and
all those things.
It was just a cool t-shirt fromthe school I was working for at
that moment and but for me, tobe able to just be like I'm
(26:42):
going to wear this cool t-shirtand I'm proud of myself for just
being able to like no, this isa t-shirt, it was his, but I'm
proud of myself, like it was abig, like just like a victory
for myself, like feeling like,no, I've got this, I'm proud of
myself.
But I can obviously, lookingback in all the conversation
that we had about it, like I canlook back and say like well, I
(27:04):
can.
Yeah, that would have probablybeen weird for me too.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
But it was one of those though.
It's not like it wasn't like Iwanted to make sure I honored TJ
too, because that was their dadregardless.
So at the same time I'm likeI'm not going to tell you, don't
wear that.
If you wear that, we're notgoing to date.
Like that's just dumb.
It's like, hey, if you're stillprocessing, if you're still
(27:27):
going through that, that's okay.
Just, let's just be honestabout it.
But at the same time, I meanyou had those same feelings,
like people have those inblended families all the time.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But you know what's kind of crazy thing about it is.
I had this thought, and I'venever probably said this out
loud, but it's like we're ablended family.
Yes, you and I are blending ourchildren, but we're also
blending your ex-wife and we'reblending TJ's memory Like we
blended everything.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
We're not just like, oh my God, I love you, I have to
get married and we're going tolive happily ever after and the
kids are going to deal with it.
I mean, that's literally wherethis name of this podcast came
from is baggage claim you bringyour baggage, I brought my
baggage, the children broughttheir baggage, and we just have
to unpack it all and figure outwhat to do with it yeah, I mean,
yeah, well, that's what wealways say.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
You got to claim your stuff.
Yeah, like on your own, likethose are my, yeah, that's my
baggage and that's my stuff and,um, some of it's dirty and some
of it's not, and some of it'shard to deal with, but yeah, and
some of it is not fun to unpackum, but the thing is, even if
you're not in a blended family,you're in a I don't even know
(28:40):
what you.
It's not normal family.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
We've had this conversation before.
It's like do you say corefamily or like traditional
family?
But you said I wouldn't be coolif I said traditional.
Are you a trad?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
family, apparently.
You can't say traditional onsocial.
You got to say trad.
Now it's too much work to saysocial, you got to say trad.
Now it's too much work to saytraditional, you got to say trad
.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
But good gracious.
In today's world it's likethere's not really a thing
anymore of like what is atraditional family?
Look like, like family is justdifferent.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Well, like I guess we're talking like hey, you got.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Original mother and father and the children they
produced.
Yeah, you got married and yougot some kids I don't know what
to call that.
And the children they produced.
Yeah, you got married and yougot some kids.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
I don't know what to call that.
I really don't know what tocall that.
Got married, got some kids.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, you're a family .
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You can still do that Like your kids.
Just, fyi, have baggage, theydo, you have baggage.
You're bringing your baggage,your crap, you're bringing your
relationship their family is.
Now, sometimes you shouldn'tlet some of those in.
You should put some boundaries,you should we can talk about
(29:41):
that later.
But at the same time there'sall of this blending and you're
like, even in a regular family,it's like you can still give
your kids a voice.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
You can, and that's what I was about to say when we
referred to like there was somekids that had meltdowns and had
some trouble kind of integratingtogether.
Well, yeah, that's blendedfamily, but that's real life too
, and you know those kids andyou have to honor those feelings
to teach them how to do thatwith each other too.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah, and I think that's where we talk about like
so much giving the individualkid a voice and a say-so, Like
when we did our trip and theygot to plan everything on the
trip.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, their Sweet 16 trip, their Sweet 16 trip was
kind of their thing.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
They get a voice in that.
They get to say what theywanted to do.
It was kind of their thing thatthey got to do Like we pick
vacation places every year,you're going, we're going to do
this, this is we're going to dothis what we're doing, but we
gave them that option.
You can still do that in just aregular family.
You don't have to be a blendedfamily to do these things.
(30:45):
These are normal things.
This cup thing is a normalthing it should be.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I mean, I feel like there's a lot of times where
it's kind of forgotten that thechildren actually do have a
voice, but they're not incontrol.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
The problem with the— .
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
I don't want to get into it now, but the problem is
we give too much to kids.
We do and we don't—we're notparents.
And we'll get into that anotherday and I'm probably sure I'll
get demolished on social mediafor some of the things I may say
Maybe, but that's how we did it.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, on social media , for some of the things I may
say Maybe, but that's how we didit yeah.
Because I mean that kind ofleads into there's a big
question that I'm going to asknow, to kind of unpack a little
bit.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I have one, okay, and so we were so.
Okay, yes or no.
I have a couple of questions.
Okay, are we as intentionalwith our time, with our kids now
, as we were then, because nowthey're like adults.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
They are definitely adults.
I would say yes and no.
I would say yes and no.
I feel like a big transitionthat a lot of people don't talk
about is the transition to beingparents and then trying to be a
parent of an adult, becausethere's like this big gap
(32:10):
between, oh, I can tell you whatto do and tell you what I
expect.
I can tell you what to do andtell you what I expect, but then
they move out or they getmarried and it's kind of like oh
gosh, I just really want to bea part of your life, like that
is so different, and so Wellthat's a transition from a
provider to a coach.
(32:31):
Wow, like I just took on acoaching role.
That's so hard yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Sometimes it's hard just to watch your kids.
Oh my gosh.
It's just the same way, likewhen you're watching a kid ride
the bike, yes, and they're aboutto fall, and you're like, oh,
you want to save them.
Well, as adults, you see themdoing things.
You're just like, eh can't yousay something?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And you're just the being intentional part.
It was like, okay, we are veryintentional and we invite,
invite, invite, invite, but whenthey say no, so many times I
(33:13):
know I have fallen into the well, they're going to say no anyway
.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
So why would I invite you?
Go, bless your heart, becauseyou're emotionally driven,
you're a woman.
You go, dude.
They don't love us anymore.
They hate us.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
They don't want to be around us.
They don't want a relationshipwith us.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
No, they're adults and they're doing their own
thing and that's okay, like it'sall right for us.
And I have to think, becauseI'm so different from my sisters
, like I love my mom to death,like I do love, and I've tried
to be more intentional aboutreaching out to my mom more, but
there was times in my lifewhere my mom would call and be
like hey, just make sure you'restill alive, which is funny
(33:46):
because I have thoseconversations with Cody.
And every time I do.
I'm like.
He's just like me.
I can't be mad at him.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
He's exactly like you .
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yes, and so it's not that I don't love them.
Your kids are different and soI mean we can get into that.
That's a whole adult parenting.
So you bring up a good point.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
So when you're asking if we're as intentional as we
used to be, I guess I mean I'mmore emotionally driven, Not, I
guess I am more emotionally.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
There you go, way to own that baggage.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Thank you, I'm unpacking it as we speak.
I am more emotionally driven.
So when we're intentional abouttrying to make plans, or trying
to plan a family trip orwhatever it is, and it's no,
we're not going to, or I can't,or whatever, it makes me draw
back from being as intentionalwhen they're adults which is not
(34:37):
okay, I know it's not okay Ihave to be comfortable with
hearing no, we can't.
Because if I think about us andif whatever of our parents, can
you this, that or the other?
And we're like, no, we actuallycan't, we've got this going on
Okay.
Well, that's the samereflection of the children that
(34:57):
we have that are adults.
But that's just hard, that ishard, that is so hard.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
It is hard for you.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It's so hard because I want them to want to be with
us 24 hours a day, seven days aweek and do all the things with
us always, and they just can'tbecause they are grownups.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
And whether or not they already have plans or
whatever.
Or maybe they just don't wantto.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Here's what, here's how I, if you ask me no, I don't
think I'm as intentional as Iused to be.
I'm trying to change that.
I read a post the other day andit just man, it wrecked me.
One thing I've realized as I'mgetting older I'm stupid
emotional.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Maybe you're always emotional.
I am.
I'm a little too connectedprobably to my emotions.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
You're very emotional .
It's not because you're older,you just are an emotional guy.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
It's okay.
I don't even know how to reactto that, but anyway, it's
attractive in my eyes.
Oh is it?
Don't do that.
Okay, sorry, Don't do that.
Hey, we're recording stillSorry.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Make it weird.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So I read this post that was saying they'll come.
That and I know you have too,if you've been on social media.
I sent one the other day toThomas and Miranda because
little Lucy is just as cute asshe can be, but she's just,
she's still crawling, she's notrunning around.
But the post was it showedthese little baby feet and it
says just make sure that youenjoy these moments, because
(36:28):
next summer these little feetwill be running around
everywhere.
And I was like it.
Just it hits me Like that wholeidea, like hey, there'll be one
time where it'll be the lasttime your kids ever ask you to
hold them.
It'll be the last time theyever ask you to hold their hand
while they're out in public, soyou're going to make me cry.
So it's those.
Those moments make me go.
(36:49):
I need to be intentional aboutthe time I have now, even as
they're adults.
Am I intentional with my timewith Lucy, with Thomas, with
Cody, with Callie and withCharles and I mean all of them,
and Erin and Miranda, all ofthose, and just say like when
I'm with them, I'm with them.
Like I'll put my freaking phonedown.
(37:10):
I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
And I know that's not the subject of this podcast
this time, but we were watchingthat show on Hulu, the Bear and
he said I got to grab my phone.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
I'm sorry, I have to get up because I have the quote
If you guys haven't watched theBear.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Phenomenal show.
It's about cooking, it's abouta chef.
Really really cool show.
He said we're not sponsored bythem at all.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
No, we're not, Because if you haven't seen it,
I'm not going to spoil a lot foryou, but there's a timer on
this latest season.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
The whole series is just about a clock.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, it's about time , and so he said.
When he was talking about hisown parents, he said there's
always a timer.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
There's always a timer, parents, he said, there's
always a timer.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
There's always a timer, and it's true.
We just don't.
We don't look at our, we don'tlook at life that way.
So my unpack is going to be alittle different.
I want to pose a question forour listeners out there to
unpack wherever you're at,wherever you're at in the world,
wherever you're listening tothis at, wherever it may be, and
thank you, by the way.
Yeah, thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
My question is how, man, I just lost it.
How intentional are you withyour time with your spouse and
with your kids?
Like, what are you doing tomake each day count?
It doesn't.
I'm not saying you have to doan elaborate thing, but what are
(38:46):
you?
What?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
are you doing?
Speaker 1 (38:49):
to make each day matter.
Like it could be simple, I know, like this is just a thing for
me, Like I know you love Reese'speanut butter cups, and so
every time I go, if I'm everstopped at a store, I'm just
stopping to pick something up.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I always see the.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Reese's peanut butter cups, and sometimes I grab them
sometimes.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
I don't.
Sometimes you bring me an icecold Dr Pepper and it's like
you're my hero.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, Dr Pepper and Reese's Bean Butter Cubs is just
his love language.
So it's a but it's just likesome little thing to make it
intentional, Like what are youdoing as a parent for your kids
or for your spouse?
To make it intentional?
This is about you doingsomething for them.
This is a selfless thing.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
And my question is not about being intentional.
It's more about kind ofcircling back to some of the
things that we were talkingabout earlier, because we're
talking about involving kids andmaking sure it's like you're
building this family together.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
It's your foundation.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
And so when we were talking about it, we were
thinking about.
So how did and how do you ourfriends listening, how think
about this?
How do you give your kids avoice and honor their
personality and honor theirthoughts and their feelings
without giving them too muchcontrol in what's going on in
your family?
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, that's a great question I felt so too Good job.
So I would love to hear like foryou guys out there who are
listening and downloading.
You can find us on all thesocials Facebook, instagram.
We're trying to get better atour TikTok.
We're trying to get better atall those.
You can send us a text.
(40:31):
If you're listening on I knowat least on Apple Podcasts or
Spotify you can send us a textstraight to the show.
It comes to us.
We see that.
Answer that question.
Answer those.
Help us unpack, think aboutthose two questions.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Be engaged with us, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, and I want to hear your response.
The idea is to create acommunity, so you share
something.
You may have a great idea and,like I've never thought of that,
let's share that because thatsomebody else can benefit from
that in this community.
So what you have is valuable,you just have to share it and
share it with us.
Send us direct.
(41:07):
Message us.
Yeah, if you don't want to textfrom the uh, your app to the
show exactly what we're tryingto.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
We're trying to build this community.
It's not just talk us at you.
We want to talk with you and toyou, and we want to know what
your thoughts are.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
So take some time, hang out, communicate with your
kids, with your family, yourwife, and thanks for joining us
at the table tonight.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
For a fun conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Thank you for getting to look at what's recording us
for YouTube over there.
I just look at you.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
See you guys later.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, thank you.
Hey guys, what's up?
I'm Greg.
I hope you guys are ready tounpack and get into some good
conversations today.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm Jess, and this is our podcast Baggage
Claim.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
What's up everybody.
Welcome to Baggage Claim, wherewe just sit around the table,
hang out, have someconversations about blended
families and marriage andrelationships and mental health
and self-care and life and kidsand a lot of stuff.
So, Baggage Claim, it's yourfirst time here.
(00:37):
Thank you for joining us.
We're just hoping to createsome conversations and community
around relationships andmarriage and blended families
and all those fun things that wejust talked about.
So for those of you who havebeen listening for a while,
thank you so much.
Grab your favorite beveragecoffee, tea, whatever else that
(01:00):
may be Pull up to the table.
Pull up to our table with usand let's jump into our
conversation tonight and getstarted.
It's tonight because that'swhen we're recording.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That's when we're recording.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, that's why I'm saying tonight so, what are we
talking about Tonight?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So it's still summer.
It's summer here, obviously,and I am still on summer Jess
mode, and so sometimes, likebeing professional might be a
little bit difficult, and thisfeels like that day.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Are you going to say unprofessional things?
Speaker 2 (01:31):
No, it's just like Dang it oh yeah, oh, we got the
beeper.
Okay, yeah, Thank you.
But it's just kind of like you,when we were planning this,
you're like okay, and I'm goingto do the open and then you're
going to kick us off, and I waslike, okay, what am I going to
say?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Yeah, and she has a.
For those of you who don't know, she has a notebook of words in
front of her.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I do A notebook full of them.
We're going to kind of go backto the beginning a little bit,
oh yeah, we're kicking it.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
old school, that's right.
We to the foundational.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Yeah, the past four or five episodes we've been
talking more about marriage andrelationship type things, and
the biggest reason why we wantedto start this podcast is
because there's such limitedinformation in the world,
apparently, for blended families.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Well, for real life situations for people.
It's not over-spiritualized,there's not over-counseled or
psychology of it's just like hey, when my kid does this, what
did you guys do?
When my kid did that, what didyou do?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So we got to talking about it and we started
remembering how, in thebeginning of our relationship,
it was always from the get-go itwas important for us to make
sure that the kids were involved, like we were doing this with
them and we weren't doing it tothem.
It wasn't like a me and you arein love, we're getting married
(02:56):
and y'all have to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Right, but it wasn't like.
You know, that wasn't after ourfirst or second date, it was a.
We had been out and we're like,okay, we didn't introduce the
kids to each other and we talkeda lot.
Yeah, we didn't.
We were very, very hesitant tobring the kids into it.
So we wanted to make sure thatthis was when we did bring the
(03:22):
kids into this and we have allthey all met.
We wanted it to to have somepurpose.
we wanted to have some meaningbehind it yeah and so we were
very, very careful about how wedid that when we did it.
I know, even in I tried to evenmake the fact that when I told
the kids that we were dating,that I I wanted to make it
special for them so we couldhave conversation around that.
(03:43):
Uh, see how that went, see,just so I wanted them to be a
part of that.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Okay, talk about how you told your kids, and I'll
talk about how I told my kids.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
So at the time Callie loved and she may still loved
Red Lobster because she wouldeat the cheddar.
All she would eat was thecheddar biscuits and she could
eat her weight in those.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
She didn't eat a whole lot.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
She was just 12 at that time, yeah, so she would
eat those cheddar biscuits, andthen she would eat a thing of
mashed potatoes.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Mashed potatoes yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
And that's I mean a lot of carbs.
She was carving up.
She was At that age, but thatwas so I took him to Red Lobster
.
Georgia.
I remember what Cody ate.
I don't think he, you know,really cared, and so I was there
and I told him that you knowwho you were and we're dating,
and Callie was a little freakedout because she knew who you
(04:33):
were and had already had someyeah, some interactions with you
from the library because you'rein the library, and so she was
just like, oh, I know her.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, and we had been buddies up until then, like
that little group of girlsbecause of one specific
relationship I had with Mollyand her parents, but they were
just big buddies and we wouldjust like hang out, like check
out books and talk and whatever.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Kelly loved books.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
She did.
She still does.
But after she found out it wasme and when they were the same
group of girls who come to thelibrary, kelly would look at me
like I had three heads and shewas like she forgot she had
words to say and she got soweird for a little bit.
It was cute.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, so that's how I told my two.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Well, you were a lot more intentional about it
because you know the dinner andfavorite place and all my kids
and to hear the four of themtalk about it is hilarious.
My two, we were in the cargoing to karate and I was like,
oh hey, I went on a date.
Hey, forgot to tell y'all Hisname's Greg and he's got some
(05:42):
kids and they were like, okay,cool, when do we meet him?
Yeah, that's the extent of howintentional I was in the car.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
A little thought out.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
It was.
Yeah, it was pretty thought out.
I was just like ripping aband-aid, Just got to say it.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
So up until then the kids had not like hung out
together.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
We had not done anything together, we just
talked about.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It kind of introduced the idea.
So we're like, okay, let's getall of them together Where's a
controlled environment.
That'd be fun, that they cankind of play and have fun.
And I was like there's a parkthat I've taken Callie and Cody
to.
It's kind of it's in Talmo,georgia.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Teeny tiny town, If you know it there's like you
drive, you blink and you miss itA restaurant, a church, a
library and a playground.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
Yeah.
And a community center, thelibrary is also part of City
Hall, I think.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
That's adorable.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, so they have everything.
So it's tiny.
So we're in this park there,which is a really cool park, and
we're at one of the tablesthere and we're just like, hey,
we can be there.
It, then we can haveconversation, then kids can just
play.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
They can meet, play.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And they all hit it off really quickly.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, and again we're like trying to set our
expectations in a way of saying,okay, they're kids, we're not
going to have like deep, great,meaningful conversations.
So it's like, okay, how do weget the kids to start talking?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Because, like we were saying in the beginning, we
wanted to involve them as muchas we could Because, I mean, all
four of them had been throughsome you know family trauma.
Yeah, it looked different forthe you know sets of two, but we
wanted to make sure that theywere involved in it.
That it, you know, becausethere was some other things that
had happened that were not intheir control, Right, Not that
(07:23):
they could control the situation, but being involved in it gave
them a little bit more ownership.
So we were really careful to dothat.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
And I think that word ownership is a cool word to use
when you're talking about yourkids in this whole relationship
and how they fit into that,Because I mean, honestly, if you
think about it, you think aboutany family.
There's lots of trauma andwhat's crazy is in, if you think
about the trauma in your life,the majority of people that
(07:51):
trauma came from in their house,and so it's knowing all that
processing, giving them a voiceand giving them some ownership,
and all of that was veryimportant to us.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So then us.
So the park situation turnedout to be a pretty big marker
for the timeline of our family.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
It was.
It was kind of a big event forus, and so I was trying to
figure out a way to start theconversation.
That's how my brain alwaysworks, yeah, of course I had no
idea at all.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
I was just happy to be there.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So I'm like how do we start this?
And so then I had this idea.
I was like I saw, because I wasgoing to conferences doing a
lot of team building stuff,group development things Not
that time, but in the past, Iwas like I saw this activity
that I think will work and let'stry it.
So, excuse me, I'm going tograb my props.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
For those of you who are not watching on YouTube, I'm
going to move this candlethough.
Well, it's hot, so we're goingto be real careful with that
Over here.
So Greg's got four cups andthen some butter knives.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So I'm going to let you tell all the details.
So I had I told Jess this idea.
I was like, let me pitch theidea to you.
It's a team building kind of ariddle activity, and then you're
going to help me make it better.
And she's like okay, how do youwork?
And I was like so I was like weneed four glasses and we need
three butter knives.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So these are like short, literally just clear
glass.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Almost like a highball glass.
Yeah, like a highball, if youknow what that is.
If you don't know what that is,ask your Siri and your phone or
Alexa, what a highball glass is.
It's just a short, clear glass.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, not very tall, not very tall.
And so we have those, and thenthree standard butter knives
which you know.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Which is weird about our house I don't know if your
house is this way we only havethree butter knives in our
entire drawer.
Yes, like I looked, every thisis the all, just for everybody
out there.
These are all the butter knivesthat we own, the three that
you're holding.
Yes, these are all that we haveto our name and I remember when
we got married, my sweet nanny.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
She was like I'm not buying you nonsense, what do you
actually need?
And at that moment, 13 yearsago, I said butter knives, nanny
.
We need butter knives Becausewe put our two households
together and we had probablyfour.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
But what's crazy.
We had tons of other thingsPods but okay.
So for the past 13 yearsthere's a stack of butter knives
somewhere.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
And now we've ended up with three again.
But it happened with forks too.
All of our forks disappeared,but we just haven't replaced the
butter knives.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Somebody's either throwing them away or just I
don't know.
But anyway so Anywho, side note, whatever it's like a sock, it
is a sock.
It's like.
What happens to those socksLike?
It's like how do you get rid ofa butter knife?
I don't know, they literallydisappear.
I literally just trying to stayfocused here.
The butter knives are in thedryer, that's it.
They're in the dryer.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
That's a problem.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
If the socks wound up in the butter knife drawer, I'd
be like oh, so All right, soanyway, hold on.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
But you forgot about the markers.
We had special markers that wehave found.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
We hadn't got there yet, so I explained this
activity.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
I was talking about what we had materials, I was
explaining this activity.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So we had the four cups and the four knives and I
was explaining this activity toJess and I was like the whole
idea is.
We use these three knives,these four glasses, and one of
these glasses has to besuspended above the table and
all it can touch is the butterknife.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So if you're not watching, he just arranged three
of the glasses kind of like ina triangle.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
I put them in a triangle, and then one's in your
hand.
And then one is in my hand, andso I was like the idea is
Listen to me being mindful ofpeople who are not watching they
have to arrange these threebutter knives in order to make
this fourth one and Grace.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Ariongas said.
To make sure that we're mindfulof that, I am.
I'm sorry I interrupted you.
I'm proud of myself.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Go ahead, I'm going to sit back now from the mic.
Thank you, Okay.
Do you want to do this part?
You can?
No, sure, don't, sure, I'm good, summer Jess, anyway.
So I explained the activity toJess and then Jess being the
(12:08):
teacher she is, she says I waslike how do we make this
personal?
Like how do we connect the kidsand us?
How do we make this an activity?
So it's a visual, hands-on, butactually part that we can make.
And then she had the idea.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
This is where the markers came in.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Now we're going to talk about the markers that you
wanted to talk about earlier.
So go ahead and talk about the—.
We have one cup here that has alot of drawings on it, and if
you looked at it you would belike I don't know what this is.
I don't even know what it iseither With the kids' ages.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
they were 8, 10, 11, 12.
The one cup we have is Thomas'sand I'm not sure how it ended
up on the bookshelf in theoffice at our house.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
I went and got it when he moved out.
It was in his room and I justtook it.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Gotcha, erin, she knows where it is.
It's packed up.
Cody lives in Athens.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I think there's broke .
Speaker 2 (13:03):
They had a couple of them that broke and then Callie
lives in Florida, so there'ssome unaccounted for, but I'm
happy we have this one.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, as an example.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
As an example, and it's just got random artwork
like this We'll post somepictures.
I'll post some pictures onsocial when this hits.
I mean he colored red all overthe bottom.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
The idea was that you gave them a bunch of markers I
did, and we all gave them one ofthese highball glasses and
they're permanent markers and wesaid you can write and draw
anything appropriate.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Decorate it however you want to.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
However you want, it needs to reflect your
personality.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
And this is yours to keep.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah.
So when you draw on all this,this is yours, that that you're
gonna get to keep with you, it'syours, it needs to be your
personality, that's all aboutyou.
And they're like okay so, and Iwas like and then the other
part is, each one of thesebutter knives like this butter
knife is gonna represent Jess,because sometimes she's just Be
(13:59):
careful.
She's smooth, smooths everythingout.
Oh my God, anyway, jess wouldbe.
Thank you.
Jess would be one butter knife,I would be one butter knife and
God's going to be the other one.
No, don't dig into this and saythat we think Jess and I are on
the same level as God.
(14:20):
He's a part of thisrelationship, of what we're
putting together.
That's the reason.
He's a representation of one ofthe butter knives.
So Jess is a butter knife, I am.
Each one of the kids representsone of the glasses.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I'm excited to see if we can do this again.
It's been a lot of years sinceyou've tried this.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
The idea was, as the kids were drawing their cups or
painting, like just drawing,doing all kinds of crazy artwork
, we had conversations aroundthe idea of why did you put that
on there?
Tell me something about why youput that on your cup.
Yeah, what does that mean foryou?
Why did you write that?
(14:58):
Why did you color that?
Why did you use that color?
Just allow them and at the endwe would just let them take
their cup and just kind ofexplain what it was that.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
As the best they could.
As little kids.
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't like.
I mean it's not?
Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Callie's probably had a ton of thought into it,
because that's just the way shedid everything, and so we did
that and we did that, and then Iexplained to them.
I was like, okay, you guys eachhave a glass.
One glass has to be suspendedabove the table using me, your
mom and God, and that's it.
And so those were the rules,and so we set forth to letting
(15:37):
them do that to try to figure itout yeah, because it's not.
It's one of those things, butit's.
You can dig so deep into thisas metaphors, but we just tried
to be pictures of what it lookslike, because it's not.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
It's not, it's one of those things, but it's you can
dig so deep into this asmetaphors, but we just tried to
be.
We'll post pictures of what itlooks like when it's actually
working.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yes, I won't do it now because we're in the middle
of the podcast.
But it's almost like it's notan easy solution.
You got to kind of thinkoutside the box.
Well, a lot of times it's justlike our families.
Well, a lot of times it's justlike our families Like when you
take six people, three from eachside, and you put them in one
house and everybody's now living, cohabitating, doing life
(16:13):
together.
That's not a simple, easy,straightforward thing.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I just had like literally a flashback of this.
I remember when it first worked, when you showed them how to do
it.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I let them do it for a while and then they were like
you can't do this, this can't bedone.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I don't remember whose was on top first, but they
were like I win, you're allholding me up or blah blah.
And then you made them do itagain and again so that all four
of them had a term for theircup to be the one on top.
And then you use that kind ofmetaphorically too.
It's like this is not just oneof us doing this, like we're all
(16:49):
working together and we're allgonna hold each other up while
we're doing this.
I remember that that's kind offun.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
So I think the biggest thing for me in the walk
away, the visual I kind ofwanted them to catch and all of
this is like it's going to takeevery single one of us engaged,
yeah, and a part of this, tomake this happen.
If we're not all, like you,take one of these pieces out,
this doesn't work right likeit's just, it doesn't work, it
has to.
They're they all four have to beengaged?
(17:17):
Yeah, or not all four, but allsix of these pieces have to be
engaged in order to make thishappen.
And so we had some greatconversations around that and
that was it.
We were just like, because theidea was like hey, we're not
getting married.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
We haven't talked about it yet.
And it's funny, when we weretalking about this too, it was
like you know, we took our timewith that.
But I mean we only knew eachother for eight months when we
got married, and I mean we onlyknew each other for eight months
when we got married, but wewere so intentional with every
single thing that we did that itfeels like it was a lot longer
than that.
But like, even at this point,like you said, like we weren't
(17:55):
with the Cup Park situation, weweren't like OK, and then we're
going to get married Like wewere not even there yet.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
No, we knew we wanted to pursue each other and like
we knew, ok, I really like thisgirl, I want to make this work.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
And so this was not.
I know you could look at thisscenario and go oh, you're
combining everybody together.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
No, we weren't.
I don't even know.
Right now we're just like, we'rejust trying to build
relationships with each, withyou part, because that day it
happened that we both felt thatthe same day the kids were
playing in the yard, so they hadalready started forming little
friendships then.
But what was the funny thing isbecause we had not reached that
(18:39):
part yet.
But immediately after that wasover, cody and Thomas started
like whose house are we going tomove into and what room am I
going to get?
And they started like makinglittle plans.
We're like no, no, no, no, no,we're not there.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, I do remember the boys were dead set on.
If we move into the house, weget the basement, which is where
the pool table was, and the TVsand all the fun stuff, which is
really interesting.
So it goes to actuallysomething just to keep in mind
where your kids are at, even ifyour kids aren't 9 and 10, your
(19:13):
kids are older.
You say you're doing this andyou have teenagers.
You don't have to do this verysame thing.
You don't have to do.
I'm telling you, be intentional.
Intentional, allowing your kidsto be a part of this.
Give them a voice in therelationship.
Now that that voice doesn'tmean that if they say I don't
(19:35):
like them and I don't want thisto work, that's not the kind of
voice I'm talking about, becausethey're the kid yeah, it's, but
also, too, it's like we have anopen conversation so we can
talk about what's wrong, what'snot wrong, what do we need to
work on, how do we fix it?
And do it with them?
Yes and so.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
I mean for us from that park conversation and all
that, you can kind of fastforward to even our wedding,
like we don't have a video ofour wedding which that was my
fault, probably, and Mr J wouldprobably agree with me that my
co-worker that agreed to hadsaid he would video.
We each thought each other wasbringing a video camera.
(20:17):
Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
There's no video.
Nobody brought anything.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
We don't even have a physical copy of our vows, we
just know we said, yes, we wantto get married, but—.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Good friend Ken did it for us yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
But we were intentional even in our wedding,
because our kids said vows too.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
We did when we were on stage.
So you married.
It was just us and the kids andthe kids, yeah.
All those on stage and we didthis thing where—I mean, this
was 13 years ago.
We were ahead of our time.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
But Pastor Ken after we had done our vows.
Then he addressed the kids andobviously we don't remember
exactly what he said, but it wasthe gist of you know, do you
promise to support your mom andyour dad while we're building a
family?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
I was going to share something else before you jumped
into that, but that's okay.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And they said we do, okay, go.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
No, we had the two pieces of rope and we were going
to do what's called afisherman's knot, so it's a good
way to attach two ends of therope.
So you tie one end of thefisherman's, I tie one end of
the fisherman's, and the idea is, when you pull on each end of
those, ropes the knot getstighter.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
We literally tied the knot.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, so we literally tied the knot while we were
there, but then, as a part, whenthe kids said those vows, we
actually gave them bracelets.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
In the same.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Same kind of rope, same color, and they had double
fisherman's.
We tied them together withdouble fisherman's knots.
Well, you did, because I wasstruggling for Double Fish and
we tied them together withDouble Fish.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Well, you did, because I was struggling, yeah,
so that they would havesomething to remember that time
from there too.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
So the whole idea was that it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
They were involved too.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Yeah, everybody like this is a process where we're
all doing this together, Evenwhen I proposed to you the kids
were a part of that proposal.
My kids were a key part of that.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Well, Callie and Cody were Thomas and Aaron.
Grace had no idea.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
No, but like it was, like I wanted them to feel like
they were, like they had, theyhad, they were all there.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I mean, it was literally like y'all were
proposing to us.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I mean because you did yeah, because we were
putting a family together, yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
So it was, which is kind of cool, and it was really
fun.
It's not the easiest.
No, it's not the cleanest it'ssometimes, but also too, that's
just family and that's the wayfamily is.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I mean, yeah, we've got some really cute stories and
some great ideas that you'vehad along the way, but it's not
been easy.
I mean no, and kids processstuff different.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
They always process feelings, emotions, situations
so different.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
All four of our kids are very, very different.
We had some meltdowns.
We had some kids that hadmeltdowns.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, and that's okay , because when your kids are
melt like you you have tounderstand.
Though when your kids are meld,you have to understand.
Though you're an adult Say,you're coming out of a marriage,
you've been processing thatemotionally a lot longer than
the child has, you've beendealing with that probably a lot
longer and you're frustrated.
(23:19):
But your kids, they may or maynot have had that time with you.
For you guys, it was differentthan losing TJ.
I mean, you guys, all it was asudden thing.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
For all of you, all of us at the same time.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
But processing like all of you were processing that
at a different place, adifferent speed, we were, and so
it's trying to figure all thosethings out as you're walking
through this, and have patience,just say it's okay, because
even you and I I mean, if we'rehonest.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
We had harder conversations.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, we had really hard conversations.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I don't remember either of us having an actual
meltdown, which we probably did,but I mean, it was hard.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
It was hard to I mean't just keep moving forward
and it was, you know, makingsure like for me to make sure to
continue to respect and honorTJ's memory for my kids and that
kind of thing and we had tomake sure on your side to make
(24:19):
sure that respect your ex-wifeand make sure that we kept that
relationship as healthy as wecould.
So there was just a lot of alot of things to balance and
integrate your ex-wife and makesure that we kept that
relationship as healthy as wecould.
So there was just a lot ofthings to balance and integrate.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Like one of the things we and I'll share this,
because I don't mind us sharingthis and talking about it Like
one of the things that popped upthat we had to work through or
talk through or communicatethrough was I don't know if you
had a shirt or if it was apicture or something that it was
TJ picture or something that itwas TJ's.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
And we were dating and then you had worn that shirt
or had it, and so for me, Ifelt this thing of emotions and
feelings going.
Okay, I'm not telling her shecan't wear that, because that's
stupid on my part, but there'salso a part of me is going.
Is she emotionally ready forthis?
Yeah, you call, where am I atin all of that part?
But there's also a part of meis going.
Is she emotionally ready forthis?
Yeah, you, where am I at in allof that?
Because I didn't know.
(25:07):
I and I know there's probablylots of people who deal like,
who deal with that at the same,everyone was like how do I, how
do we have this conversation?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
in a good way.
When you say there's probably alot of people that deal with
that.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
It's a 32 year old widow is not very common no, but
I'm just talking about, evenwith you have something like do
you remember when we came acrossin the closet I had all the
wedding pictures?
Yeah, and you came across thatit's that same kind of thing.
You had that weird feeling likewhy are you hanging on to all
(25:40):
these wedding pictures, or whydo you have these things?
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
And so then we have conversations.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Well, duh, of course there's pictures.
But I do remember what you'retalking about in that situation
and I remember you calling methat night because the kid
Callie and Cody were with youand my, obviously, my littles
were with me.
But I remember you calling meand we were trying to talk about
it, and that was, I mean, longtime ago.
So I was terrible atcommunication and so I was like
(26:06):
are you breaking up with me?
Why are you asking me all thesehard questions?
I don't understand what's goingon, like do you not want to see
me anymore?
But really you were just tryingto figure out, like are you
okay?
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Yeah, I think it was like are you ready to move on?
Speaker 2 (26:20):
and move past this.
But then for me I don't know,maybe a t-shirt is a silly thing
, but it was like a big formyself and was a cool t-shirt,
which is why I hung on to itwhen I cleaned out clothing and
all those things.
It was just a cool t-shirt fromthe school I was working for at
that moment and but for me, tobe able to just be like I'm
(26:42):
going to wear this cool t-shirtand I'm proud of myself for just
being able to like no, this isa t-shirt, it was his, but I'm
proud of myself, like it was abig, like just like a victory
for myself, like feeling like,no, I've got this, I'm proud of
myself.
But I can obviously, lookingback in all the conversation
that we had about it, like I canlook back and say like well, I
(27:04):
can.
Yeah, that would have probablybeen weird for me too.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
But it was one of those though.
It's not like it wasn't like Iwanted to make sure I honored TJ
too, because that was their dadregardless.
So at the same time I'm likeI'm not going to tell you, don't
wear that.
If you wear that, we're notgoing to date.
Like that's just dumb.
It's like, hey, if you're stillprocessing, if you're still
(27:27):
going through that, that's okay.
Just, let's just be honestabout it.
But at the same time, I meanyou had those same feelings,
like people have those inblended families all the time.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But you know what's kind of crazy thing about it is.
I had this thought, and I'venever probably said this out
loud, but it's like we're ablended family.
Yes, you and I are blending ourchildren, but we're also
blending your ex-wife and we'reblending TJ's memory Like we
blended everything.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
We're not just like, oh my God, I love you, I have to
get married and we're going tolive happily ever after and the
kids are going to deal with it.
I mean, that's literally wherethis name of this podcast came
from is baggage claim you bringyour baggage, I brought my
baggage, the children broughttheir baggage, and we just have
to unpack it all and figure outwhat to do with it yeah, I mean,
yeah, well, that's what wealways say.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
You got to claim your stuff.
Yeah, like on your own, likethose are my, yeah, that's my
baggage and that's my stuff and,um, some of it's dirty and some
of it's not, and some of it'shard to deal with, but yeah, and
some of it is not fun to unpackum, but the thing is, even if
you're not in a blended family,you're in a I don't even know
(28:40):
what you.
It's not normal family.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
We've had this conversation before.
It's like do you say corefamily or like traditional
family?
But you said I wouldn't be coolif I said traditional.
Are you a trad?
Speaker 1 (28:50):
family, apparently.
You can't say traditional onsocial.
You got to say trad.
Now it's too much work to saysocial, you got to say trad.
Now it's too much work to saytraditional, you got to say trad
.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
But good gracious.
In today's world it's likethere's not really a thing
anymore of like what is atraditional family?
Look like, like family is justdifferent.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Well, like I guess we're talking like hey, you got.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Original mother and father and the children they
produced.
Yeah, you got married and yougot some kids I don't know what
to call that.
And the children they produced.
Yeah, you got married and yougot some kids.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
I don't know what to call that.
I really don't know what tocall that.
Got married, got some kids.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, you're a family .
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
You can still do that Like your kids.
Just, fyi, have baggage, theydo, you have baggage.
You're bringing your baggage,your crap, you're bringing your
relationship their family is.
Now, sometimes you shouldn'tlet some of those in.
You should put some boundaries,you should we can talk about
(29:41):
that later.
But at the same time there'sall of this blending and you're
like, even in a regular family,it's like you can still give
your kids a voice.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
You can, and that's what I was about to say when we
referred to like there was somekids that had meltdowns and had
some trouble kind of integratingtogether.
Well, yeah, that's blendedfamily, but that's real life too
, and you know those kids andyou have to honor those feelings
to teach them how to do thatwith each other too.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Yeah, and I think that's where we talk about like
so much giving the individualkid a voice and a say-so, Like
when we did our trip and theygot to plan everything on the
trip.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Yeah, their Sweet 16 trip, their Sweet 16 trip was
kind of their thing.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
They get a voice in that.
They get to say what theywanted to do.
It was kind of their thing thatthey got to do Like we pick
vacation places every year,you're going, we're going to do
this, this is we're going to dothis what we're doing, but we
gave them that option.
You can still do that in just aregular family.
You don't have to be a blendedfamily to do these things.
(30:45):
These are normal things.
This cup thing is a normalthing it should be.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I mean, I feel like there's a lot of times where
it's kind of forgotten that thechildren actually do have a
voice, but they're not incontrol.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
The problem with the— .
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
I don't want to get into it now, but the problem is
we give too much to kids.
We do and we don't—we're notparents.
And we'll get into that anotherday and I'm probably sure I'll
get demolished on social mediafor some of the things I may say
Maybe, but that's how we did it.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Yeah, on social media , for some of the things I may
say Maybe, but that's how we didit yeah.
Because I mean that kind ofleads into there's a big
question that I'm going to asknow, to kind of unpack a little
bit.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
I have one, okay, and so we were so.
Okay, yes or no.
I have a couple of questions.
Okay, are we as intentionalwith our time, with our kids now
, as we were then, because nowthey're like adults.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
They are definitely adults.
I would say yes and no.
I would say yes and no.
I feel like a big transitionthat a lot of people don't talk
about is the transition to beingparents and then trying to be a
parent of an adult, becausethere's like this big gap
(32:10):
between, oh, I can tell you whatto do and tell you what I
expect.
I can tell you what to do andtell you what I expect, but then
they move out or they getmarried and it's kind of like oh
gosh, I just really want to bea part of your life, like that
is so different, and so Wellthat's a transition from a
provider to a coach.
(32:31):
Wow, like I just took on acoaching role.
That's so hard yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Sometimes it's hard just to watch your kids.
Oh my gosh.
It's just the same way, likewhen you're watching a kid ride
the bike, yes, and they're aboutto fall, and you're like, oh,
you want to save them.
Well, as adults, you see themdoing things.
You're just like, eh can't yousay something?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And you're just the being intentional part.
It was like, okay, we are veryintentional and we invite,
invite, invite, invite, but whenthey say no, so many times I
(33:13):
know I have fallen into the well, they're going to say no anyway
.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
So why would I invite you?
Go, bless your heart, becauseyou're emotionally driven,
you're a woman.
You go, dude.
They don't love us anymore.
They hate us.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
They don't want to be around us.
They don't want a relationshipwith us.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
No, they're adults and they're doing their own
thing and that's okay, like it'sall right for us.
And I have to think, becauseI'm so different from my sisters
, like I love my mom to death,like I do love, and I've tried
to be more intentional aboutreaching out to my mom more, but
there was times in my lifewhere my mom would call and be
like hey, just make sure you'restill alive, which is funny
(33:46):
because I have thoseconversations with Cody.
And every time I do.
I'm like.
He's just like me.
I can't be mad at him.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
He's exactly like you .
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yes, and so it's not that I don't love them.
Your kids are different and soI mean we can get into that.
That's a whole adult parenting.
So you bring up a good point.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
So when you're asking if we're as intentional as we
used to be, I guess I mean I'mmore emotionally driven, Not, I
guess I am more emotionally.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
There you go, way to own that baggage.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Thank you, I'm unpacking it as we speak.
I am more emotionally driven.
So when we're intentional abouttrying to make plans, or trying
to plan a family trip orwhatever it is, and it's no,
we're not going to, or I can't,or whatever, it makes me draw
back from being as intentionalwhen they're adults which is not
(34:37):
okay, I know it's not okay Ihave to be comfortable with
hearing no, we can't.
Because if I think about us andif whatever of our parents, can
you this, that or the other?
And we're like, no, we actuallycan't, we've got this going on
Okay.
Well, that's the samereflection of the children that
(34:57):
we have that are adults.
But that's just hard, that ishard, that is so hard.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
It is hard for you.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
It's so hard because I want them to want to be with
us 24 hours a day, seven days aweek and do all the things with
us always, and they just can'tbecause they are grownups.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Right.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
And whether or not they already have plans or
whatever.
Or maybe they just don't wantto.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Here's what, here's how I, if you ask me no, I don't
think I'm as intentional as Iused to be.
I'm trying to change that.
I read a post the other day andit just man, it wrecked me.
One thing I've realized as I'mgetting older I'm stupid
emotional.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Maybe you're always emotional.
I am.
I'm a little too connectedprobably to my emotions.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
You're very emotional .
It's not because you're older,you just are an emotional guy.
Speaker 1 (35:50):
It's okay.
I don't even know how to reactto that, but anyway, it's
attractive in my eyes.
Oh is it?
Don't do that.
Okay, sorry, Don't do that.
Hey, we're recording stillSorry.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Make it weird.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
So I read this post that was saying they'll come.
That and I know you have too,if you've been on social media.
I sent one the other day toThomas and Miranda because
little Lucy is just as cute asshe can be, but she's just,
she's still crawling, she's notrunning around.
But the post was it showedthese little baby feet and it
says just make sure that youenjoy these moments, because
(36:28):
next summer these little feetwill be running around
everywhere.
And I was like it.
Just it hits me Like that wholeidea, like hey, there'll be one
time where it'll be the lasttime your kids ever ask you to
hold them.
It'll be the last time theyever ask you to hold their hand
while they're out in public, soyou're going to make me cry.
So it's those.
Those moments make me go.
(36:49):
I need to be intentional aboutthe time I have now, even as
they're adults.
Am I intentional with my timewith Lucy, with Thomas, with
Cody, with Callie and withCharles and I mean all of them,
and Erin and Miranda, all ofthose, and just say like when
I'm with them, I'm with them.
Like I'll put my freaking phonedown.
(37:10):
I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
And I know that's not the subject of this podcast
this time, but we were watchingthat show on Hulu, the Bear and
he said I got to grab my phone.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
I'm sorry, I have to get up because I have the quote
If you guys haven't watched theBear.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Phenomenal show.
It's about cooking, it's abouta chef.
Really really cool show.
He said we're not sponsored bythem at all.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
No, we're not, Because if you haven't seen it,
I'm not going to spoil a lot foryou, but there's a timer on
this latest season.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
The whole series is just about a clock.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Yeah, it's about time , and so he said.
When he was talking about hisown parents, he said there's
always a timer.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
There's always a timer, parents, he said, there's
always a timer.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
There's always a timer, and it's true.
We just don't.
We don't look at our, we don'tlook at life that way.
So my unpack is going to be alittle different.
I want to pose a question forour listeners out there to
unpack wherever you're at,wherever you're at in the world,
wherever you're listening tothis at, wherever it may be, and
thank you, by the way.
Yeah, thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
My question is how, man, I just lost it.
How intentional are you withyour time with your spouse and
with your kids?
Like, what are you doing tomake each day count?
It doesn't.
I'm not saying you have to doan elaborate thing, but what are
(38:46):
you?
What?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
are you doing?
Speaker 1 (38:49):
to make each day matter.
Like it could be simple, I know, like this is just a thing for
me, Like I know you love Reese'speanut butter cups, and so
every time I go, if I'm everstopped at a store, I'm just
stopping to pick something up.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
I always see the.
Speaker 1 (39:05):
Reese's peanut butter cups, and sometimes I grab them
sometimes.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
I don't.
Sometimes you bring me an icecold Dr Pepper and it's like
you're my hero.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, Dr Pepper and Reese's Bean Butter Cubs is just
his love language.
So it's a but it's just likesome little thing to make it
intentional, Like what are youdoing as a parent for your kids
or for your spouse?
To make it intentional?
This is about you doingsomething for them.
This is a selfless thing.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
And my question is not about being intentional.
It's more about kind ofcircling back to some of the
things that we were talkingabout earlier, because we're
talking about involving kids andmaking sure it's like you're
building this family together.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
It's your foundation.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
And so when we were talking about it, we were
thinking about.
So how did and how do you ourfriends listening, how think
about this?
How do you give your kids avoice and honor their
personality and honor theirthoughts and their feelings
without giving them too muchcontrol in what's going on in
your family?
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, that's a great question I felt so too Good job.
So I would love to hear like foryou guys out there who are
listening and downloading.
You can find us on all thesocials Facebook, instagram.
We're trying to get better atour TikTok.
We're trying to get better atall those.
You can send us a text.
(40:31):
If you're listening on I knowat least on Apple Podcasts or
Spotify you can send us a textstraight to the show.
It comes to us.
We see that.
Answer that question.
Answer those.
Help us unpack, think aboutthose two questions.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Be engaged with us, yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
Yeah, and I want to hear your response.
The idea is to create acommunity, so you share
something.
You may have a great idea and,like I've never thought of that,
let's share that because thatsomebody else can benefit from
that in this community.
So what you have is valuable,you just have to share it and
share it with us.
Send us direct.
(41:07):
Message us.
Yeah, if you don't want to textfrom the uh, your app to the
show exactly what we're tryingto.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
We're trying to build this community.
It's not just talk us at you.
We want to talk with you and toyou, and we want to know what
your thoughts are.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
So take some time, hang out, communicate with your
kids, with your family, yourwife, and thanks for joining us
at the table tonight.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
For a fun conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Thank you for getting to look at what's recording us
for YouTube over there.
I just look at you.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
See you guys later.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, thank you.
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