March 6, 2025 • 62 mins
In this episode of Chasing Balance, we dive deep into the classic clash between the expectation and the reality of parenting. What we thought parenting would look like versus the messy, unpredictable, and often hilarious truth. Spoiler alert: it’s rarely as polished as the books make it seem! We’ll talk about the myth of being "fully prepared" and why flexibility is hands down the greatest parenting skill.
From sleepless nights to toddler tantrums and unexpected messes, it’s all part of the ride. Tune in as we reflect on the challenges and surprises of parenthood and how embracing the chaos (with humor and a whole lot of patience) is the secret to finding balance in the beautiful unpredictability of raising kids. Expect the unexpected, because parenting is never as simple as you think!
Let’s laugh together at the wild journey of parenthood!
Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe for more parenting laughs and stories. We love hearing from you—whether it's about house rules or your own parenting triumphs and challenges!
We'd Love To Hear From You: info@chasingbalance.info
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, everyone. Matt, I'm Deanna. And this is Chasing Balance. And in today's episode,
(00:06):
we're talking about expecting the unexpected.
(00:36):
So no matter how much you prepare or plan or read the parenting books, nothing is going
to prepare you for the unpredictability of having little minions in your home, little
(00:58):
kids in your house. In this show, we're going to touch on how to adapt to the unexpected.
And that you should expect nothing to go as planned. So you can prepare, but you will
not be ready. Right. And you know, some of these stories that we're going to share, you
(01:20):
know, they made it may they may have sound horrible, you know, while we were in it. Yeah.
But we can look back and laugh at it. So we're not, you know, as we go through these stories,
we don't want to sound like, you know, pessimists as far as it doesn't matter. Nothing's going
to go to plan, but expect the unexpected. Yep. So the expectation versus reality of
(01:44):
parenting, what did you or is how like when Preson was born and before he was born, how
you expected like our life to be with kids or how you expected how our kid would react.
Is that what you had in mind? No. I thought like the case in point, I thought my maternity
(02:13):
leave it was going to be glorious. And I was going to love being at home and being with
him. He hated me. He hated everything about me. Well, breastfeeding was a challenge. It
was horrible. And none of my sisters, they were like, Oh, it'll be super easy. Your body
will just know what to do. 20 minutes to feed them. And then 20 fucking minutes to feed
(02:37):
them every 20 minutes. The kid was on me all the time, all the time. And he wanted nothing
to do with me. He was in a state of misery. And the first kid was very hard. Yeah. It
got easier. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I had to do like 50 50 with nursing him with formula.
(02:59):
And that helps a lot with his moods. And then you were able to kind of take over a bit.
And that helps the whole newborn phase, I think. Now going forward into toddler phase.
Yeah. Did you think that was going to be what you had? He was, he was a terror. He was rough.
He was so, it was like, are you human? He's an amazing kid now. Yes, he is. And we'll
(03:26):
talk about later on in the show why he was, especially as a toddler, why he was so temperamental
and why he had such a bad attitude and things of that nature and what we had to do to kind
of fix that. But he was also, he came out the gates strong
weld and that carried over a majority. Yeah. And I tried my hardest to embrace it, but
(03:49):
I'm also very type A and things need to go a certain way. Right. And that's what I struggled
with mostly. And you're very alpha. Yeah. And you don't back down. You're just as stubborn
as him. So that didn't help either. From my experience is what I thought our kid
(04:10):
would be like, even if we only had one, because obviously we're just talking about pressing.
He is a spitting image of what I thought he would look like. My kid is exactly what I
thought he'd look like. As far as the shit that we've had to deal with with him when
he was a toddler and all that jazz, I honestly didn't know what to expect. I think my mind
(04:31):
was blank. Also, I can't remember what I ate yesterday. So I can't remember what happened
12 years ago and what my thought process would be. You have a very selective long-term memory.
I do. You're lucky I remember your name. Yeah. Some days. It's very dicey. So let's talk
about the myth of being fully prepared. Do you think that you can ever be fully prepared?
(04:54):
I don't. I think you can in some ways. Yeah. But there's always this thing that pops up,
right? Like our Florida trip a couple of years ago with Preston. Yeah. We can plan. We can
plan a perfect trip. We can plan the perfect hotel room. We can plan that the kids have
(05:15):
all the clothes they need. We can plan where we're going to grocery shop, where we're going
to eat, how many meals we're going to eat out, how many of those, how many of that,
how many of that. We can plan the stuff that we're going to do. We can plan just to stay
on the resort. We couldn't plan that as soon as our plane landed and got a rental car that
Preston would puke everywhere in the back of the rental car while we're checking into
(05:36):
the hotel room. Carrots everywhere. And then I got sick. You got sick. Max was sick and
Braden was the only one didn't. So we spent the whole time in the hotel room for five
days. Yeah. And I had to brave the outdoor elements of the sun and everything while trying
to hold back barf so that he could at least enjoy himself in like the slightest bit. So
(06:02):
you can plan, but you will never be fully prepared. And I don't think that's really
with, I mean, that's with, with everything, right? I mean, that's not just kids. I mean,
look at the marathon we trained for. We didn't know. Like we trained on some hard surfaces
here and dirt roads. And then we get there and we didn't know that we had to literally
run up steep steps made out of like cobblestone. Yeah, that was intense. Yeah. I hated that.
(06:29):
And there's an, and nothing was marked correctly. And it was like, you were just in the woods
while people were running. And my biggest fear is being chased in that. Well, if there's
a slowest one out there, you don't have to worry about getting chased. Yes, exactly.
But also my directional skills are not there. So if I'm the last one there, I will get lost.
(06:52):
So it goes, it goes back and forth with children, with everything in life, even stuff that you
were training for preparing for. I don't think that you can ever be fully prepared and you
have to be flexible, especially as a parent. Yeah. But I will say that I feel like if you're
(07:13):
the type of person that like babysat when you were younger and you were more exposed
to that, you would be a little bit more prepared in your adult life to see like, do you feel
like you were prepared? You babysat a lot. I, but more toddlers, right. Instead of babies.
Yeah. I don't like babies. I didn't like babies when I was that age. I didn't, I didn't feel
(07:39):
comfortable like holding a baby. It was like that EO feeling like I'm going to break it.
Yeah. But I felt like I was a little bit more prepared. And, but also I went through teaching.
So I was around them, around a bunch of kids when I was kids that can communicate though.
So it's harder, obviously, like we said, with the press center nursing and a baby. I'm just
(07:59):
like, I don't, you know, first kid, you're like, I don't know what you want. What do
you want? Tell me. They say, they say that, you know, babies have different cries. They
have different cries as far as whether it's a feeding cry or a diaper change cry or, you
know, whatever it is, attention, attention. It was all the same scream. It was, it was
(08:24):
death death. It was a deathly hello scream. Moving on to the, um, expecting the unexpected
was sleepless nights and unpredictable days. So the illusion, and I don't think I had an
illusion of that. We would be getting a perfect night's sleep with a baby and kids. However,
(08:45):
I didn't think that it would be that rough. And obviously it was more rough for you than
it was for me. But I was, I was very stubborn. Yeah. I, I, I wanted to be the one that got
up in the middle of the night. Right. Um, and you kept on insisting on allowing me to
help, but I was very stubborn. So I'll take that. Um, but I will say that it was hard
(09:07):
with the first one, but then like when Braden came around, I'm like, I could, I can function.
Like I know what to expect. And I functioned a lot better during that whole newborn phase.
Max was harder. So it went like easy. I'm sorry. It went hard with pressing a little
bit easier with Braden and the max kind of did his own thing. It was a little bit difficult.
(09:28):
Right? Yeah. He was up and down. He like, he has a, he's always been like a good combination
between the two of them. So I think it was, and on top of that, there was a bigger age
gap and I was under the impression that we were only going to have two kids. No, no,
no, no. Don't act like you didn't come to me and tell me that you wanted to have a third
(09:50):
baby. And then when it happened, you're like a lot of vodka involved in that discussion.
We don't drink, we don't promote alcohol or anything like that. So, um, so about the sleeping,
you know, there's a thing with the naps that I think I kind of maybe put in your head.
I don't know if I did or not. And I actually think about this a lot, even though it's like
(10:12):
years past, like in the, in the baby books and in the baby, um, advice columns and all
that stuff, it would say like, if your baby's napping, you should be napping. And I always
thought in my head, like that's, that's so much bullshit because like, while the baby's
napping, that's your time to be able to do stuff, you know, where you don't have the
(10:34):
baby there attached to you. And now that we're older and you know, max was, you know, when
max napped, I napped, you know, and obviously I, you know, hopefully I didn't put that on
you when I said that I call that bullshit that, you know, you shouldn't have napped
at that time or not. I'm not saying I didn't say you shouldn't nap, but I'm saying like,
I don't understand why I would say to nap while the baby's napping, but now I completely
(10:58):
understand it. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does make sense. However, I don't remember
that. So I think we're good. You can let go of that guilt. So now with napping, you and
I kind of take turns either. We're not feeling well, we're under the weather or something
like that. I mean, the kids are older now, which is, which is nice. So, but I mean, prior
(11:22):
to the pandemic, we didn't do that. No, we didn't. I think the pandemic really let us
get into a really comfortable, relaxed state while the world was falling apart. No, but
I mean, like in our safe haven, I feel like we just kind of like helped them become a
little more self-sufficient so that we could step away for 20 minutes. Yeah. But I also
(11:45):
think it comes down to, and you and I were talking about it before too, like even a couple
weeks ago, like if you go out and you do something and, and you come home and I'm sitting on
the couch looking at a movie or looking at a news article, like I feel guilty. Like I
feel when that garage door opens up, I feel like I got to get up out of my seat and make
sure that I'm doing something either picking up a clothes, toys, something, or at least
(12:08):
working. And you said you felt the same way reading your book or whatever it was. Like
we have this guilt. I do that. Yeah. And it's like a lot of relax. Exactly. When I hear
you walk across the catwalk, I instantly close my book and like pretend like I'm doing something
else because I just feel guilty from just sitting there reading or just relaxing. So
let's stop doing that to each other. Okay. But I feel like I'm not going to do anything
(12:32):
if I don't do that because the books that I read, I get very obsessed. You have your
hobbies. I have my hobbies. Yeah. We can be lazy at sometimes we can take naps. We do
both make money and contribute to this household. Why can we not relax? I don't think that that
was ever an option. It's an option. No. You're allowed to. Am I allowed to? Questionable.
(12:57):
So naps are key. I would definitely say that that naps are key as far as raising whatever
it is from a baby to three kids. Dogs, dogs, whatever. You need a nap. Yeah. The next thing
would be as the toddler rebellion. Now I don't remember and I was asking about this when
we were writing the show, like I don't remember there being really like a rebellious phase
(13:20):
as far as like, you know, the kids being like, no, I want to do it. I want to do it. Don't
touch it. I want to do it. Like they don't want mom and dad to help anymore. I don't
remember that. Do you remember that way as far as I don't really remember it until they
went to school because all of them have gone to Montessori and that is very kid led and
(13:44):
they really strive on independence. So then it turned into something where the teachers
were telling us, no, they can carry their book bag. No, they can put on their coat.
No, they can zip up their coat and tight, you know, put on their shoes and all this
stuff. So then we had to kind of step away. But I think that Preston was probably the one
(14:08):
prior to going to school that had that mindset. And I think that that's just because he's
always ran with that. Like he if he doesn't do it, it's not worth doing. Like he doesn't
do it himself.
He doesn't want somebody else to mess it up basically in a way. Yeah. So let's also talk
about, you know, dealing with the expected, the unexpected as far as like public tantrums.
(14:33):
So we've, you know, no matter how much you, you, you, you plan to go to the grocery store,
whether, you know, whether the babies or toddlers or whatever, it's mostly when they're toddlers,
when they have these, you know, if you, you bring all the chew toys, you bring all their,
their snacks and you bring, you know, milk and you bring, and you're at a grocery store,
you can grab something there if they, if they want something else, you know, and it ends
(14:56):
up, you know, them having their snack cups and they pull it out and then all the cereal
goes out all over the floor and in the grocery store, right? Those little yogurt bites. Or,
you know, if they want to get something, they just have a full blown, you know, meltdown
because they can't get something at the store or something. There was a couple of times
(15:17):
I didn't know how to deal with that. And I literally left like $200 with the groceries
in a cart. I left, I put press in the car and just left. Like I was like, I can't do
it. I can't do it. There's no way. And so expect that to happen, even though you're
expecting the unexpected, that's an unexpected thing that's going to happen. Something is
going to set these kids off. Yeah. There, I mean, there were times where I could always
(15:42):
publicly, I could handle the temper tantrums because my mind went to, if there's somebody
that has a problem with it, they can fuck off. And if I see a mom, I know she's thinking
the exact same thing. I'm thinking like, just wait, we're going to be home and you're going
(16:03):
to chill out and I'm going to be, you know, so I tried to really dial it in and ignore
it and not given. However, what I couldn't do was when they weren't in the cart and they
were running about. And they, there was one time where I had a cart full of stuff and
(16:25):
Preston ran and he hid in one of the clothing racks. And that's fun to do as a kid. No,
that terrifies me because my biggest, one of my biggest fears is my kids just disappearing
or being taken away from me. So I literally picked him up like a two by four in my arm
and I just left and carried them back. Yeah. I carried them home or into the car. No, I
(16:55):
carried them to the car and I just left everything there. And that was the only time that I think
that I had that everything else. I pretty much. Heard in my teeth and kept on going.
We have talked about, I think I talked about this before about, you know, we're talking
about the making friends podcast. Like, you know, who cares what people think about you.
(17:17):
I have tried to, and I think you have too. We've tried to come to this realization of,
you know, things are going to go wrong. Our kids, especially the little ones are going
to have an outburst. The fact of the matter is, once again, you're never going to probably
see these people again in your life. And they're probably going through struggles too. And
(17:38):
if they're looking at you a different way, then that's them judging you when you could
be judging them and all that jazz. So really you deal with these tantrums. The first one
or two are just going to take you by surprise. And she's like, Oh my God, what do I do? And
you almost kind of go in this panic mode. And like you and I did, we just left the store.
We're just like, we can't, we can't do this. We'll go back by ourselves. And then, you
(18:01):
know, you learn from that and you try to make it to where you don't care what other people
think and you just kind of let it just roll off and just, you know, they'll get over this
tantrum in two to three minutes when something else interests them or, you know, something,
you know, something else catches their eye or, you know, you make something more interesting
at the store and it'll be over. And you might never see that tantrum for another couple
(18:23):
of weeks. Right? Yeah. So you get used to that stuff. I will say with our kids, Preston
and Brayden both were, they got over things relatively quickly. So the tantrums like held
for maybe five minutes at most. Max holds onto it for days. Days. And I'm not even,
(18:44):
that's not even an exaggeration. Days. He will. Oh, you're telling them. I'm telling
them. There are times where he asks the same question over and over and over for hours.
And I swear it's some type of torture mechanism that he has built into him. I don't know.
(19:07):
I have theories. It's because we've probably given him before or the boys give into it.
That's probably why he keeps doing it because it probably works. And it does. Yeah. Because
I want to take a pencil to my ears before I hear him ask for another Lego set. That brings
up another thing. Picking your battles. I am very terrible at that. So, and this happened
(19:28):
just a couple of nights ago, right? Like what did Max want? He, it was the end of the night.
It's right before bed. What was it? I don't know. And he just wanted like a snack. Obviously
it's probably food, right? It's always food. And he wanted like a snack and you were hell
bent on, no, you were not having that. You were putting your foot down. And it was like
a little tiny snack. Listen, I get it. He had seven prior to that. But it was like,
(19:54):
is this really the hill you want to die on tonight? There's some stuff that your kids
are going to be so hard headed on that it doesn't matter what you say. If you give them
reasoning, if you talk to them like an adult and they just don't understand it, it's something
that they're hell bent on. We just got to give into it. Like I understand. Maybe this
(20:19):
goes back to Max asking a hundred times. Maybe that's the problem. But I mean, even with
the other boys, it's like, okay, this is, this is, this is the argument that we're going
to have right now. Could I have a better day, a better night? Could we have a better relationship
if I just give in to this little tiny thing that I am being stubborn about probably for
(20:41):
no reason. Yeah. You know. So yeah, you got to, you got to choose your battles and that's
the only way to keep your sanity when you're talking to these little humans. Yeah. You
don't seem to agree with me. Well, I mean, it's just very hard for me to, because, because
of the fact that he will continue because he knows that I'll cave eventually. And then
(21:08):
sometimes I'm like, this isn't, you are not winning. You're not winning this war. And
it might be, you know, an apple, like he just wants an apple. And I'm like, you've already
had seven snacks. You've already had six apples today. Yes. Your belly is going to explode.
And I'm going to be the one wiping your ass. So I'm not doing that. No, I get it. It's
(21:32):
just, I don't know. I understand the whole thing, but it's also like, what do you want
to, what do you want to die on? Right? What do you want? Do you want your night to be
bad or do you want your night to be good on a little tiny thing? Obviously if he's like,
Hey mom, can I roam with scissors? Like, maybe not tonight, buddy. You know, and I'm going
(21:53):
to put my foot down and I will back you on that. I won't be like, you know what, max,
just go here. Have fun. Just, oh, thank you. Kids moving on to the next topic. Kids will
embarrass you. And I can think of two things that the kids did. One is pretty funny. The
other one was, I don't know. Not funny, but you're trying to keep them from not just embarrassing
(22:20):
you, but hurting another person's feelings. Right? And so, and you, you know, you're bringing
these kids out into public that haven't seen as much as we have seen. Right? They haven't
lived the full lives that we have lived. So one of the things was we went to the grocery
store and there was a person that was, that was handicapped and they had like half of
(22:44):
their arm was missing. Right? Okay. And we're walking down the aisle. One of our kids sees,
this gentleman and they're like, Hey dad, you know, like I instantly turned around and
said, don't, don't you dare. And then, you know, he, he just wanted to, you know, ask
(23:04):
me questions about why this person had, you know, a missing arm. Right. And we got into
the next aisle and then I explained it to him. Right. You know, I explained, you know,
some are birth defects, some are accidents, but you don't point that out to somebody in
a public setting. And I kind of told him, so that was kind of embarrassing or could
have almost been embarrassing. Yeah. But I also disagree with that. Why? Because I, I
(23:28):
would probably encourage him to use like an indoor voice. He's like, okay, the dude was
right there. You know how wide grocery aisles are. Yeah. But also it's a, it's a point in
time where it can be educational for him. It was the next aisle over. It was embarrassing
for you, but for him, he was just curious. And a lot of the times if somebody has like
(23:53):
a, a, um, you know, like an amputee or something and they see somebody as innocent as a kid
and they're, they're wondering and everything, they aren't going to be judgment or judgmental
about it. You know, they aren't going to, he could have been having, what if that person
was having a poopy day, you know, and then this kid starts asking questions about it
(24:16):
innocently. Okay. I see what you're saying. I would probably still go and I would agree
with you. I would probably still take my cart down the aisle and explain as we went about
the many reasons why it might happen. Right. But I wouldn't, it wasn't about the reasons
that happened. It was, it was how do you, how you bring it up? Do you notice it or are
(24:40):
things like the things like that supposed to be hushed hush and you kind of pretend
like you don't notice it. Like I'm not going to go and stare at it. Like if I, I guess,
you know, if I'm in a grocery store and I see that I see it, I look away and then that's
it. This is a person living their normal life and I'm not going to talk about it, bring
it up or acknowledge it. But you're also an adult. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're probably
(25:01):
right as far as it would probably be more embarrassment on me than the other two people
that were in the situation, which is pressing and, and, and the person in the grocery store.
But I was also trying to teach him respect. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to another
embarrassing story. Okay. Cause but I mean, I did that too recently. And I mean, this
(25:24):
is very low level in comparison. There was a woman at target and she had a cart filled
with Pokemon stuff. Like I, and I mean like filled filled, like it was overflowing and
there, they had, it was her and her significant other and then their child and Braden was
(25:47):
like, why do they have so much Pokemon stuff? And I said, maybe they really like Pokemon.
Yeah. And he said, but why would you like it that much? And I go, have you looked in
our house and how many Legos we have? I feel like anybody would say the exact same thing
about your Lego collection. That's true. And he's like, yeah, I guess that makes sense.
(26:09):
But I didn't like hush it down and both the parents looked at me and they smiled. So I
knew that they were okay with me talking about their Pokemon addiction. I'm sorry. I understand
your story, but we are comparing arms to Pokemon. I think we have, I understand what you're
(26:35):
saying, but I'm saying it's the same concept. Okay. That is not the same concept. Well,
I mean, I, I stood there and I explained it. Okay. If the Pokemon was missing an arm,
you said something like, brain said something like that. Then you can be like, Hey buddy,
(26:58):
listen, they love all Pokemon. Okay. So, so another way that w that Preston embarrassed,
and I knew that he had an amazing sense of humor was when we were in swim class and he
was like three or four years old. Do you remember this one? No, it was, it was a thing that
I would do all the time where someone would tell the joke and I'd be like, no, do you
(27:19):
remember that? So we're walking on the pool deck and there's this mom and this bait and
this little girl and they're like all laughing together. Preston's, you know, nowhere near
like three feet tall or whatever. This little tough guy in a swimsuit coming out on the
pool deck and they're laughing and he just looks over at him, stops and goes, no, dude,
(27:41):
no, you don't, not here. So that one's good. So there are different moments in your life
that you can not be prepared for because kids are just curious. You know, they're open books.
You know, some of these, these temper tantrums that they have, or these outbursts where they
(28:01):
embarrass you in stores are just, it's going to be normal. And you can't really prepare
for it besides just knowing it's going to happen. You don't know when this, this ticking
time bomb is going to go off.
And I feel like that's past even toddler phase. It goes into like, cause in a similar story,
Braden did that to me at Preston's football game. He just wanted to leave. No, he, we
(28:25):
were standing in the bleachers or we were sitting in bleachers and we weren't sitting
with our designated team on the opposite side. And Braden is very competitive. And if he
sees something wrong, he doesn't keep his mind or his mouth shut. And he was going on
and on and on about how shitty the kicker was for the other team. Like probably. And
(28:52):
I tried my hardest to get him to like be quiet and like not say anything, but there was a
lot of judgmental eyes that were cast my way. And that was not a fun game.
No, it wasn't. Was that the game that Preston got his concussion?
That was, that was the next, it was that team that we played, but it was the next one that
(29:16):
happened. And both times we sat on the opposing team's side and I had to stop him from bashing
the other team.
We had to sit on that side because I had to videotape. Yes, we did. I had to videotape
the game. And I, you know, you think about the stuff with these outbursts and these toddlers
rebelling and them being so curious and asking all these questions. And it kind of makes
(29:40):
me think like us as adults, we keep everything inside. We don't let anything out. We try
not to show our weakness. We probably don't ask us enough questions as we should. Yeah.
Maybe we need to just go to the grocery store and just let it out. Yes. Like just fucking
(30:01):
complain, scream, ask why egg prices are so goddamn high. Seriously. Just like somebody
tell me that one. I wonder if because us as adults, we don't really have outlets to let
this temper tantrum that we probably want to let out on a daily basis. And that what
causes some of health decline, mental, mental disorders, stress, anxiety, all that stuff.
(30:25):
But I feel like that's going to slowly be weeded out. You would think because like I
feel like our growing up through our parents was less like kids are seen and not heard
the way that they were raised. And now, you know, and we were raised to have a little
(30:45):
bit of a voice. And then now our kids are taking over the world. Yes. Have opinion about
everything. So judgmental. So let's move on to expecting the unexpected with illnesses
and ER trips that you didn't see coming. So pressing pressing as a toddler. I guess he
(31:08):
was kind of I'll do it myself type of toddler. But he was also like, I'm going to see how
much I can get away with. And one of the things you know, there was actually three things
that he did that were just absolutely crazy. And one was the I had to go to work on a Saturday.
He wanted me to stay home. He put a goldfish in his mouth, choked on it. Yeah, we couldn't
(31:31):
get it up. Threw him in the back of the car or no, it didn't throw him in the back of
the car. I'm sorry. That's bad. Deanna was holding him. She jumped in the passenger car
and I flew to the fire station to try to get this goldfish on lodge from his throat. Granted,
the fire station was less than a mile away from our house. It was faster for us to get
there than us to get on the phone with 911. Yeah. And I couldn't form a sentence when
(31:56):
I did call 911 and the operator was like, what? And you're like, we're in the parking
lot. Come outside. So that was one of the things pressing also. I don't know where stuck
his, you know, he started sticking his finger down the drain in the shower. And I said,
don't put your drain in the shower or don't put your finger in the shower. You're going
to cut your finger. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. I look away. His fingers
(32:20):
down there. I give them the dad look. He rips it out and he just rips off a few layers of
skin off of his finger. So he had to go into the emergency room that day and get some type
of like foam tip put on his finger. So he didn't do that. Then he also grabbed a pan.
This was all in one week. No, not the choking, not the choking, but the finger, the finger
(32:40):
and the pan. We honestly thought CPS was going to come after us from all the injuries. Yeah.
He, but I mean, they were all in on him, but it just reflected terrible. It's your fault.
So that, and then, you know, like I just said, Preston had a concussion just out of, you
know, at a football game, he had a concussion. He gets in the car. He's like, dad, I don't
(33:02):
feel good. He starts talking, giving me all the concussion symptoms. I'm like, we got
to go to the emergency room. So we're there until like one o'clock in the morning doing
concussion protocol. And then obviously all the illnesses, Braden waking up at, you know,
1230. Yeah. It always, so here's something that you can plan for. This is what you can
expect when your kid gets sick. It is always going to be the worst in between 10 PM and
(33:24):
about 3 AM. Yeah. And that is when you're going to have no doctors offices are open.
No urgent cares are open. You're going to have to go directly to the emergency room.
You're going to go there. They're going to say he needs Tylenol and Motrin. He's constipated.
Yeah. Go home. And that's what's going to happen. But you, you love these kids so much
that you don't want anything to go wrong with them. So like even 104 degree fever, we were
(33:48):
like, Oh my God, we got to take them. So I rushed Braden in, we get there. They give
him some Motrin and then, you know, two, $300 later relieving in fairness. He had the one
oh four temperature. And then he was complaining that his heart hurt. Yeah. He was complaining
that his chest hurt. So obviously we're going to take them in for that. But really it just
ended up being most of the things that your kids go through are going to be Tylenol and
(34:13):
Motrin and rotate those on and off. And that's what they're going to say and give them fluids.
Yeah. Give them some Pedialyte or Gatorade, but just expect that you're going to have
these panic moments. And I'm not saying don't take him to the hospital because I will still
do it to this day. Yeah. No matter how much it costs just to make sure that they're okay.
Getting sick at the worst possible time. That's what, that's what will happen. Any holiday.
(34:37):
Leading up to that holiday, the week before that holiday, they will be sick. Yeah. On
vacation when you just pick up your rental car. Yeah. They will be puking inside of it.
You know, even just having family parties over here at the house. You know, we had Uncle
Chris over here and then Preston just all of a sudden got a stomach ache and he just started
puking. Sorry. And it happens. Welcome to our home. And you kind of wonder like where
(35:01):
in the hell are you getting the sickness from? Like who's bringing it to school? Who gave
it to them? Where'd it come from? You know? So I guess one of my PSAs would be keep your
kids at home if they're sick. Cause you never know what another family is going to be doing
if they're planning a vacation or something like that. You know, and unfortunately it
gets spread to somebody else or, you know, who knows if there's a teacher that might
(35:24):
be, you know, immune compromised or something like that. They can't handle to be getting
sick all the time with certain, you know, influenza's or colds. So yeah, just expect
that you're going to be visiting the ER or the urgent care at some crazy hours. Yes.
They're going to get sick. Braden just got sick. I was on a meeting. You pick them, you
(35:50):
take them home for the, bring them home for the doctors. I'm on a meeting and I just hear
him puking over in the bathroom. And I'm, I'm empathetic now. And I think kids have made
me very weak where if I, if someone else in our household is sick, I automatically am
like, I'm sick. So he's puking. I'm on a call trying to say something and I'm like, I'm
(36:12):
going to throw up. I'm going to throw up all over my computer. This is going to be horrible.
I mean, while I'm standing in the door, don't, don't come out here. Don't worry about it.
But I will say I was very happy that he was able to get through the drive home out of
the car and straight to the bathroom to puke instead of puking in the car or on the floor.
(36:36):
Yeah. So another thing that we could say is an emergency toolkit. What we have, what we've
learned with our kids is obviously Tylenol, Motrin. We have a nebulizer for Braden because
he has asthma. We have tons of the solution for the nebulizer. We have obviously the typical
(36:59):
band-aids things of that nature, but we also have a nice thermometer. That's a forehead
reader thermometer. And we also have an oxygen. What do you call that? Pulsometer or oxo?
I don't even know what you call them. The thing that you put on your finger to measure
your blood oxygen level. And that's mainly because of Braden. And also Max has huge fricking
(37:24):
tonsils and when he gets sick, his breathing is kind of erratic. So we have that to monitor
it. But also the thing that we've discovered recently that I've fallen in love with is
it's by Boogie Woogie. And it's that saline mask. And it's just saline water. And I don't
know if anybody this fall and winter have been stupid with sicknesses. And that thing
(37:49):
has helped a lot with cleaning out the gunk that's just in there and that cough that never
leaves.
It's like going in a sauna almost or like a salt spa or whatever you call it. It just
kind of clears it up.
They'll take it off after I think like two or three minutes. And it's just like dripping
from their face because it just keeps it in there. But that helps a lot.
(38:10):
Yeah. So that's what I think that's all we have in our emergency kit. I mean that's the
first go to things that we grab them like they're sick. OK. Check their temperature.
OK. Let's check their their their pulse. Let's check their oxygen with that. Maybe we're
too anal. You know. And then we're like check this and check this. And if they're good.
(38:30):
OK. What else is hurting you? And then we kind of go on to something else like oh is
it a stomach ache. Is it a stomach bug. Is something you ate last night. Are you hungry.
Do you need more water. Let's get some water. Let's get some vitamins in you. Let's get
some juice in you. Things of that nature.
So yeah. Expect the unexpected as far as your trips go. Definitely have an emergency kit
or emergency toolkit with you with medicine.
(38:51):
And yeah. And I will say one of the most embarrassing ER trips that I went to was when Preston had
a terrible stomach ache and he was like doubled over and he wouldn't move. And I was like
oh my God this is appendicitis. I know it. And they took an x ray and they were like
do you see all of this black. I was like yes. He's like that's all poop. He's extremely
(39:17):
constipated. Five hundred dollars later. Yeah. I just needed to give him Miralax. Are you
freaking kidding me. So he said some weird ones like that like the pooping one. That
was when he was a toddler. Yeah. But he also had the other one on his top where he was
like I can't walk. He got out of bed and he's like I can't walk. And we took him to the
(39:38):
emergency room. There was nothing wrong with him. He had an ear infection. Was that what
it was. Yeah. He had an ear infection. His leg was hurting. But he couldn't remember
because he had vertigo from his ear infection. OK. And he couldn't walk a straight line.
And I was like oh my God. This is it. So I want my baby. I know this episode is getting
pretty pretty long but we do want to say another thing that you like both of our kids. I shall
(40:05):
three of them are going to need to. But both of our kids had to have their tonsils out.
And this was the thing we were talking about with Preston earlier is that the reason why
he was such a bad toddler or I'm sorry I shouldn't say bad toddler but a an aggressive toddler
irate toddler had a lot of mood swings is that he wasn't getting enough sleep. He had
(40:26):
sleep apnea because of his tonsils. So we had to get his tonsils out. And I believe
we got his adenoids removed as well. And then it was night and day. Yeah. And stop seeing
things. Yeah. And he was that was the thing like he didn't get enough sleep. And then
that caused hallucinations during the day. And he would hallucinate things and then break
(40:46):
conversation and start talking to things. So I will you too. We were both like this
house is haunted. He I need a priest. He saw something in our closet and he would call
it dark dark. So we thought dark dark lived in a closet. Yeah. And then there was this
claw that would come from the ceiling and spikes. Yeah it was it was an insane journey.
(41:07):
I did not like that. But then as soon as we got his tonsils out it was like night and
day. He was sleeping perfectly fine. And then Braden a funny thing about Braden is that
the tonsil like to me went perfect with pressing like we walked back in the room after he woke
up and he was perfectly fine. And we're like OK let's get you some you know some Bob pops
and all that stuff. And then you know Slurpee on our way home. We get a text for Braden
(41:30):
when when he's done this is obviously years later we get a text on the pager from Braden's
done and we start walking into the back and there's a kid just screaming his head off.
And I remember looking at you and being like glad that's not my kid. It was our kids. He
was literally trying to pull out the IVs fighting the nurses trying to rip off the IVs and screaming
(41:54):
at the top of the lungs. He did not know where he was. He had a bad trip. Yeah. And the hardest
part for me was that he wanted nothing to do with me. And the difference between precedent
Braden was precedent wanted nothing to do with me from exiting my body. He was like you know
what I'm good. I got it from here. Braden was my buddy. He was like my Velcro child. He never
(42:20):
left my side. And that the reason why Braden had to have it was because his tonsils were
so big that when he laid down he would have chest retractions because they would touch
and he would get sick. I couldn't take him to the doctor or the urgent care. It was like
a straight shot to the ER because every time I took him to urgent care they were like his
(42:42):
oxygen is way too low. He needs to be like in children's hospital. So he got the surgery
and he blamed me for it. And he wanted to snuggle up next to you and you take care of
him. And that really sucked for me. But then he refused to take any of the pain meds. Yeah.
(43:05):
He was a strong strong kid. Yeah. He was because the motrin burnt his throat. He chose not
to take the medicine. So he recovered from a tonsillectomy with zero medicine. Just just
popsicles. And I tried to even like like hide it in food and he would take a bite or like
(43:25):
a drink of something and look at me like fuck you lady. I know your tricks. This is not
happening. What do you think about us being on time switching subjects. Do you think that
we are that we've gotten better as parents as far as timing and things of that nature
(43:45):
as far as going to places going to places events and stuff. I think we have I mean as
a you have. Yeah. You are consistently 10 to 15 minutes early for anything. Yeah. That's
just how you are. I am roughly 20 minutes late to everything. Well I mean unless it's
a game and because I don't want my kid to be held responsible for my lack of planning.
(44:11):
The way I look at it is that if it is a game or a football game football practice thing
that that things that show on the kid right. They should be on time which I think we both
do pretty well. Yeah. If it is a family function I'm sorry if it's a work event I'm sorry.
I don't even go to those. Yeah. But if it's you know if it's a doctor's appointment I
(44:36):
may be five 10 minutes late. Yeah. If it's you know something that doesn't involve my
kids missing out on something then I'm going to be late. And it's not because the kids
are making us late because our lives are busy. Now I can understand when we had you know
Preston as as a as a baby you know you pack up all the stuff and as you get older and
(44:57):
as you have more kids the pot the bag of crap that you bring everywhere gets smaller and
smaller and smaller. Yeah. So I don't think that we're as late as we used to be. But yeah
if it's a family function a work function a doctor's appointment something like that
that doesn't affect my kids I'm not going to be punctual to it or I'm not going to be
(45:18):
as stressed stressed out about it. But if it's a band concert a football game a soccer
game something like that then I do want them to be there on time and I try to make sure
that they are there at least 15 20 minutes early. Yeah. And I am the same way. But because
it's ingrained inside of me that anything any place that I go to is within 20 minutes
regardless of the actual GPA local or GPS location of that I have to trick myself. So
(45:45):
everything in the calendar I put like an hour ahead of what when it actually starts just
so that I can be there on time. Because you're an hour late. What was in your calendar. Well
it's like they have to like factor in like 30 minutes for like warm ups before the game
and all that stuff. But I know that. So then it doesn't work entirely because then I go
(46:09):
it's a process. My my mind is crazy. So getting ready to go out the door and expect the unexpected
especially with newborn babies because that is when they are going to spit up when they're
going to cry babies are you know they'll never they won't sleep the entire week. But when
you have something to do that is the day that they sleep in two to three hours. Yes. They
(46:31):
have a really long nap. So if anybody holds that against you for being late screw them.
Obviously they they probably aren't a parent if they know that if they if they're mad at
you for being late to a family function especially for work obviously don't take this advice.
You need to be there on time. But you know they'll have an unexpected blowout or they'll
(46:53):
sleep in or they'll sleep past a certain amount of time. I didn't want to talk about an unexpected
blowout that I thought was funny when I when I when we're writing this is that this wasn't
really forced being on time or being late. But it was do you remember Harmony's wedding.
So we bought we bought press and this really nice onesie that was had the tux tie on it
(47:14):
or the tux bow tie on everything. Yeah. So he was all super cute and everything. It was
like maybe six months. Yeah. First big event with them. Whatever. And he just had a complete
blowout. I mean all up his back and everything. And I had to. Well we went to the family restroom
I think it was. And I just hulked that onesie off of it like it was done. Like that's how
(47:34):
bad it was. So there's some always make sure you have a change of clothes. That's for sure.
That's one thing that doesn't dwindle is that snacks may dwindle things things like that.
But yeah always have multiple clothes because babies poos are unpredictable. They are money
messes and managing expectations. The financial surprises of parenthood. I think they say you
(47:59):
spend like a million dollars on each kid over a lifetime that you have them. I can believe
that. I think that you know some of the financials that are unexpected with the kids is you know
one thing how much food they fricking eat as soon as they become a toddler. I mean they
eat so much food too. They grow out of clothes so fast. And you know we used to do hand me
(48:20):
downs from from our siblings and stuff. But our kids are so hard on these clothes that
it can't be hand me downs. Yeah it can not. I have not passed down one pair of shoes from
Preston to Braden because he is so hard on his shoes. And Braden is like he slides for
everything. He does like the soccer slide. So all of his pants just coming to dinner.
(48:43):
He just slides on that. Seriously. And I can't pass any of that down to Max. But I will say
that I can't pass stuff from Braden to Max because they are virtually the same size.
Yeah. But everything gets stained. Yeah. Everything is you know has holes in it or some kid in
(49:06):
their class. Never never came out. That would be one of the financial things would be clothes
food. If you can't breastfeed formula was pretty expensive. Diapers are stupid. Diapers
are really really expensive. The unexpected trip to the emergency rooms. Those are expensive
(49:26):
even though you have insurance. Those are expensive. And then obviously sports. Yeah.
Sports keep on getting more and more expensive. You know. And if you don't do the older you
get the more expensive it gets especially if they shift over from like rec to like a club
team or something then that price is you pay dues out here. And if you don't do your parenting
(49:48):
duty like if you don't record a video game for the football team then and you don't do
certain amount of bulldog duties or Eagle duties or whatever it is then that five or
six hundred dollar deposit that you put down in the beginning of the season that goes to
the league and you don't get it back. They actually cash your check. So yeah. And I think
that was the stupidest thing when he did baseball. I was like you had to go come out and like
(50:11):
do the landscaping for the field. I was like are you fucking kidding me. Cash my check.
That's stupid. The weed and gray and all that stuff. Oh my God. It's stupid. And I'm like
why don't you just increase the price of the baseball and then hire a landscaping company.
It's a city park. Right. Yeah. Oh yeah. I get it. Your house will never be clean again.
(50:33):
No I didn't think my expectations of this. Yes I thought the house was going to be dirty
but I didn't think that I would have to be cleaning and painting walls almost yearly.
I didn't I didn't think that it would be to the level of having peanut butter smeared
on the wall. Yeah. It is without anybody recognizing it. Yeah. You know and then being like where'd
this come from. You got peanut butter on one wall toothpaste on the other. He on the bathroom
(50:57):
wall. Yeah. There's like we have one area that is supposed to be like a formal dining
room area. Whatever. It's not like super formal or lavish or anything like that. But it has
really nice chairs covered in yogurt. Just every time we have like a family event I have
to wash those so thoroughly. No I feel like we have even though we're bitching about it.
(51:22):
We are. We're being pessimistic about the stuff. But I do feel like as we look back
on the emergency room visits we kind of laugh about that. You know we look back on the embarrassing
moments in the grocery stores. We kind of laugh about that. And I think we're getting
to the point where we're embracing the mess. I know that I'm more OCD than you are. But
(51:42):
I do think that I have let shit slide more now where I'm just like yeah you know what.
I don't want to do it. I don't want to clean it up. I have time for this. You know and
if the kids don't do it they don't get their allowance money. It is what it is. Yeah. You
know yeah. Now that they've advanced into a stage where they can kind of be held responsible
for their own stuff then I think we both have kind of let go of the reins a little. The
(52:09):
only hard part is that like I don't they don't know. I don't trust them in terms of like
disinfecting cleaning. Like they can handle the mess. But it's like did you really. You
didn't really. Did you really. You didn't scrub. You didn't put elbow grease. Yeah.
Did you. Did you just use water in a bag because I feel like you just spread the flu.
(52:32):
This tape you took the P took it off the wall and now you just put it on the sink. We have
a cat on the table. Yeah. The pink just got everywhere. The blot from from the mom's dress
got everywhere. Oh man. So we've learned to embrace the mess. The next thing would be
parenting advice that no one warned you about. And I would think the biggest thing that no
(52:54):
one warned us about which seems really stupid. And I know you're probably judging us if you're
listening to this but we didn't know that you were supposed to burp a baby or how important
it was to burp a baby. Yeah nobody told us that. So Preston was very is it called colicky
because of the gas that he had. Yeah. And he would not sleep. And my mom came over because
(53:17):
we just couldn't get any sleep. I do work and I think Deanna just needed to get a nap
and because she was up all night nursing this baby this crying baby and he kept eating and
kept eating and kept eating or trying to eat. And then my mom came over and he let out like
this man type belch and he fell asleep right away on my mom. The rage that I held inside
(53:40):
my body when she was able to get him to fall asleep within like five minutes. But she did
it with four kids. I know. But yeah I was just like I'm so lost here. No I mean we like
you said you never babysat any babies. No I never babysat any babies. I was just like
the fun cousin or whatever that played with the toddlers. That was it. You know. So we
(54:03):
weren't prepared for that. So they and the parenting books at least the one that I read
you know are ones that I skimmed through I should say is you know they don't tell you
about these outbursts that they're going to have. They don't prepare you for these emergency
room visits. They don't prepare you. What if your kids choking and the fire station
is point five miles away but it takes 50 seconds to get someone on the call for 9 1 1. You
(54:26):
know what should you do. Yeah I don't think it's an instinct that just kind of hits. So
that kind of goes on to it is learn to trust your instincts. Yeah. And I don't think like
on my side nobody explained how hard it was going to be to navigate a panic situation
when it was like your children. Yeah. Like I think that I can handle panic situations
(54:49):
relatively well but when it comes to my kids I don't I freeze and I don't react very quickly.
I've gotten better over the years but with pressing it was like what do I do. Yeah. I
just froze. Yeah. And you handled it so much better. There's a lot of things that you can
(55:11):
read about that you can kind of mentally prepare for that either will happen and you'll handle
it great or will happen and you don't handle it great because it's a completely different
situation or a completely different outcome. And it's actually you know instead of just
sitting there reading a book kind of memorizing things as like a test you know when it actually
(55:35):
happens you're not going to know how you're going to react. Right. Just like we've never
you know had a certain situation you know where a house is burnt down or something like
that. Knock on wood. I don't know exactly how I would react. Right. Oh wait we did have
a situation. Just see. And that's that. That's a good example of my panic. Right. Our first
(56:01):
apartment burnt down. I'm getting in the shower. I'm like half naked. I'm getting in the shower
and someone comes and starts banging on our door wall and I'm going out there trying to
go fight somebody. And then I look in the glass off of the reflection the reflection
of the other apartment. Yeah. And I see flames shooting out of the top of the apartment.
And I'm like oh my god. So I go around I unplug everything. I shut all the doors make sure
(56:26):
that you know I don't know if the windows were shut or whatever just to suffocate it
all that stuff. And I grabbed the two dogs that we had at the time grab all the you know
the most important things the dogs. Everything was shut off in the house or in the apartment
everything. We get outside and Deanna's holding her laptop. In fairness my mind was I had
(56:50):
finals that week. Your dad just got you that laptop. I was like I need I need my computer
in order to finish my finals. So yeah that kind of shows how we are as far as panic situation
goes. But you have gotten better for sure. Yeah. Especially if we think we hear the kids
choking or something you obviously just run straight for them. I don't know what you do
to them when you get there but no growing up too fast. Let's kind of reflect on the
(57:18):
kids growing up too fast. Yeah I think we do kind of get caught or at least I do I get
kind of caught in the moments like man this was kind of a rough day. I just need to go
to sleep and get a restart tomorrow. And then you keep thinking on that of this might have
been a rough day. This is a rough day. This was a rough day. And then before you know
(57:41):
your kids 12 years old and you're like man we got to stop wasting these days that are
rough or challenging. And I guess try to find a silver lining to it. Stop cleaning the house
all the time. Stop worrying about the messes. Stop worrying about the temper tantrums. Stop
trying to have that perfect Hallmark movie. You know life house appearance appearance.
(58:09):
Kind of you know take it as as they come and the unexpected moments kind of become some
of the ones that you treasure the most that you can actually think back on. You know.
Yeah I think the I think out of one of those days where we were just having a rough time
(58:32):
and we couldn't like leave the house because it was winter and our state sucks in the winter.
Yeah. Sprouted like a thing within our whole family where we created the game the ball
game that we play in the house. Oh yeah. And all of the rules and everything and it's like
(58:54):
the one thing that we just made up. I was running around with Max in the baby carrier.
He was only like and you had to like go on the tramp the indoor trampoline in order to
use your safety reset. Yeah. And then you had to go up into the wall if you hit somebody
in the face and you have to cover your beds and your eyes. Face the firing squad if you
(59:16):
hit somebody in the face with the ball. But I mean those that came from having tear a
terrible day and a rough day and then sprouted like this thing that we share in our whole
family that trademark family game. Yeah. And it was kind of our way to kind of embrace
the chaos and go on. So expect the unexpected slow down and be present in the chaos. And
(59:46):
you know this is kind of a thing where it's like practice what you preach. The end and
I may seem like we have it all together on this podcast but we don't know. Not at all.
If you had a little glimpse in my brain bucket you would be concerned. And it's something
that we got to work on as far as like parenting as a journey. It's not a checklist. Expect
(01:00:11):
the unexpected and just roll with the punches. You know look back at the wild ride of parenting
and what you have been through as a parent or if you're a new parent there are so many
things that are going to bring you joy that are upcoming. You know I found it funny that
you know we'd have a horrible terrible no good very bad day. You know and then you'd
(01:00:37):
see I'd see Deanna scrolling through pictures of that same devil baby that was screaming
at us two hours ago scrolling through pictures of him that day or you know looking at the
baby monitor just in awe of this baby. Yeah it's like part of my heart is out there. They
(01:00:57):
drive me freaking crazy but they're also part of me and I love them so stupidly much. So
parenting is a wild ride. Expect the unexpected. If you have any stories you'd like to share
please feel free to share them either on social media or you can email us our email address
info at chasing balance dot info. Our final thoughts is really just embracing the unknown.
(01:01:25):
Expect the unexpected with humor and love. Chasing balance. Real life parenting. One
conversation at a time. We'll see you guys later. Bye.
Hey, everyone. Matt, I'm Deanna. And this is Chasing Balance. And in today's episode,
(00:06):
we're talking about expecting the unexpected.
(00:36):
So no matter how much you prepare or plan or read the parenting books, nothing is going
to prepare you for the unpredictability of having little minions in your home, little
(00:58):
kids in your house. In this show, we're going to touch on how to adapt to the unexpected.
And that you should expect nothing to go as planned. So you can prepare, but you will
not be ready. Right. And you know, some of these stories that we're going to share, you
(01:20):
know, they made it may they may have sound horrible, you know, while we were in it. Yeah.
But we can look back and laugh at it. So we're not, you know, as we go through these stories,
we don't want to sound like, you know, pessimists as far as it doesn't matter. Nothing's going
to go to plan, but expect the unexpected. Yep. So the expectation versus reality of
(01:44):
parenting, what did you or is how like when Preson was born and before he was born, how
you expected like our life to be with kids or how you expected how our kid would react.
Is that what you had in mind? No. I thought like the case in point, I thought my maternity
(02:13):
leave it was going to be glorious. And I was going to love being at home and being with
him. He hated me. He hated everything about me. Well, breastfeeding was a challenge. It
was horrible. And none of my sisters, they were like, Oh, it'll be super easy. Your body
will just know what to do. 20 minutes to feed them. And then 20 fucking minutes to feed
(02:37):
them every 20 minutes. The kid was on me all the time, all the time. And he wanted nothing
to do with me. He was in a state of misery. And the first kid was very hard. Yeah. It
got easier. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I had to do like 50 50 with nursing him with formula.
(02:59):
And that helps a lot with his moods. And then you were able to kind of take over a bit.
And that helps the whole newborn phase, I think. Now going forward into toddler phase.
Yeah. Did you think that was going to be what you had? He was, he was a terror. He was rough.
He was so, it was like, are you human? He's an amazing kid now. Yes, he is. And we'll
(03:26):
talk about later on in the show why he was, especially as a toddler, why he was so temperamental
and why he had such a bad attitude and things of that nature and what we had to do to kind
of fix that. But he was also, he came out the gates strong
weld and that carried over a majority. Yeah. And I tried my hardest to embrace it, but
(03:49):
I'm also very type A and things need to go a certain way. Right. And that's what I struggled
with mostly. And you're very alpha. Yeah. And you don't back down. You're just as stubborn
as him. So that didn't help either. From my experience is what I thought our kid
(04:10):
would be like, even if we only had one, because obviously we're just talking about pressing.
He is a spitting image of what I thought he would look like. My kid is exactly what I
thought he'd look like. As far as the shit that we've had to deal with with him when
he was a toddler and all that jazz, I honestly didn't know what to expect. I think my mind
(04:31):
was blank. Also, I can't remember what I ate yesterday. So I can't remember what happened
12 years ago and what my thought process would be. You have a very selective long-term memory.
I do. You're lucky I remember your name. Yeah. Some days. It's very dicey. So let's talk
about the myth of being fully prepared. Do you think that you can ever be fully prepared?
(04:54):
I don't. I think you can in some ways. Yeah. But there's always this thing that pops up,
right? Like our Florida trip a couple of years ago with Preston. Yeah. We can plan. We can
plan a perfect trip. We can plan the perfect hotel room. We can plan that the kids have
(05:15):
all the clothes they need. We can plan where we're going to grocery shop, where we're going
to eat, how many meals we're going to eat out, how many of those, how many of that,
how many of that. We can plan the stuff that we're going to do. We can plan just to stay
on the resort. We couldn't plan that as soon as our plane landed and got a rental car that
Preston would puke everywhere in the back of the rental car while we're checking into
(05:36):
the hotel room. Carrots everywhere. And then I got sick. You got sick. Max was sick and
Braden was the only one didn't. So we spent the whole time in the hotel room for five
days. Yeah. And I had to brave the outdoor elements of the sun and everything while trying
to hold back barf so that he could at least enjoy himself in like the slightest bit. So
(06:02):
you can plan, but you will never be fully prepared. And I don't think that's really
with, I mean, that's with, with everything, right? I mean, that's not just kids. I mean,
look at the marathon we trained for. We didn't know. Like we trained on some hard surfaces
here and dirt roads. And then we get there and we didn't know that we had to literally
run up steep steps made out of like cobblestone. Yeah, that was intense. Yeah. I hated that.
(06:29):
And there's an, and nothing was marked correctly. And it was like, you were just in the woods
while people were running. And my biggest fear is being chased in that. Well, if there's
a slowest one out there, you don't have to worry about getting chased. Yes, exactly.
But also my directional skills are not there. So if I'm the last one there, I will get lost.
(06:52):
So it goes, it goes back and forth with children, with everything in life, even stuff that you
were training for preparing for. I don't think that you can ever be fully prepared and you
have to be flexible, especially as a parent. Yeah. But I will say that I feel like if you're
(07:13):
the type of person that like babysat when you were younger and you were more exposed
to that, you would be a little bit more prepared in your adult life to see like, do you feel
like you were prepared? You babysat a lot. I, but more toddlers, right. Instead of babies.
Yeah. I don't like babies. I didn't like babies when I was that age. I didn't, I didn't feel
(07:39):
comfortable like holding a baby. It was like that EO feeling like I'm going to break it.
Yeah. But I felt like I was a little bit more prepared. And, but also I went through teaching.
So I was around them, around a bunch of kids when I was kids that can communicate though.
So it's harder, obviously, like we said, with the press center nursing and a baby. I'm just
(07:59):
like, I don't, you know, first kid, you're like, I don't know what you want. What do
you want? Tell me. They say, they say that, you know, babies have different cries. They
have different cries as far as whether it's a feeding cry or a diaper change cry or, you
know, whatever it is, attention, attention. It was all the same scream. It was, it was
(08:24):
death death. It was a deathly hello scream. Moving on to the, um, expecting the unexpected
was sleepless nights and unpredictable days. So the illusion, and I don't think I had an
illusion of that. We would be getting a perfect night's sleep with a baby and kids. However,
(08:45):
I didn't think that it would be that rough. And obviously it was more rough for you than
it was for me. But I was, I was very stubborn. Yeah. I, I, I wanted to be the one that got
up in the middle of the night. Right. Um, and you kept on insisting on allowing me to
help, but I was very stubborn. So I'll take that. Um, but I will say that it was hard
(09:07):
with the first one, but then like when Braden came around, I'm like, I could, I can function.
Like I know what to expect. And I functioned a lot better during that whole newborn phase.
Max was harder. So it went like easy. I'm sorry. It went hard with pressing a little
bit easier with Braden and the max kind of did his own thing. It was a little bit difficult.
(09:28):
Right? Yeah. He was up and down. He like, he has a, he's always been like a good combination
between the two of them. So I think it was, and on top of that, there was a bigger age
gap and I was under the impression that we were only going to have two kids. No, no,
no, no. Don't act like you didn't come to me and tell me that you wanted to have a third
(09:50):
baby. And then when it happened, you're like a lot of vodka involved in that discussion.
We don't drink, we don't promote alcohol or anything like that. So, um, so about the sleeping,
you know, there's a thing with the naps that I think I kind of maybe put in your head.
I don't know if I did or not. And I actually think about this a lot, even though it's like
(10:12):
years past, like in the, in the baby books and in the baby, um, advice columns and all
that stuff, it would say like, if your baby's napping, you should be napping. And I always
thought in my head, like that's, that's so much bullshit because like, while the baby's
napping, that's your time to be able to do stuff, you know, where you don't have the
(10:34):
baby there attached to you. And now that we're older and you know, max was, you know, when
max napped, I napped, you know, and obviously I, you know, hopefully I didn't put that on
you when I said that I call that bullshit that, you know, you shouldn't have napped
at that time or not. I'm not saying I didn't say you shouldn't nap, but I'm saying like,
I don't understand why I would say to nap while the baby's napping, but now I completely
(10:58):
understand it. Yeah. Does that make sense? It does make sense. However, I don't remember
that. So I think we're good. You can let go of that guilt. So now with napping, you and
I kind of take turns either. We're not feeling well, we're under the weather or something
like that. I mean, the kids are older now, which is, which is nice. So, but I mean, prior
(11:22):
to the pandemic, we didn't do that. No, we didn't. I think the pandemic really let us
get into a really comfortable, relaxed state while the world was falling apart. No, but
I mean, like in our safe haven, I feel like we just kind of like helped them become a
little more self-sufficient so that we could step away for 20 minutes. Yeah. But I also
(11:45):
think it comes down to, and you and I were talking about it before too, like even a couple
weeks ago, like if you go out and you do something and, and you come home and I'm sitting on
the couch looking at a movie or looking at a news article, like I feel guilty. Like I
feel when that garage door opens up, I feel like I got to get up out of my seat and make
sure that I'm doing something either picking up a clothes, toys, something, or at least
(12:08):
working. And you said you felt the same way reading your book or whatever it was. Like
we have this guilt. I do that. Yeah. And it's like a lot of relax. Exactly. When I hear
you walk across the catwalk, I instantly close my book and like pretend like I'm doing something
else because I just feel guilty from just sitting there reading or just relaxing. So
let's stop doing that to each other. Okay. But I feel like I'm not going to do anything
(12:32):
if I don't do that because the books that I read, I get very obsessed. You have your
hobbies. I have my hobbies. Yeah. We can be lazy at sometimes we can take naps. We do
both make money and contribute to this household. Why can we not relax? I don't think that that
was ever an option. It's an option. No. You're allowed to. Am I allowed to? Questionable.
(12:57):
So naps are key. I would definitely say that that naps are key as far as raising whatever
it is from a baby to three kids. Dogs, dogs, whatever. You need a nap. Yeah. The next thing
would be as the toddler rebellion. Now I don't remember and I was asking about this when
we were writing the show, like I don't remember there being really like a rebellious phase
(13:20):
as far as like, you know, the kids being like, no, I want to do it. I want to do it. Don't
touch it. I want to do it. Like they don't want mom and dad to help anymore. I don't
remember that. Do you remember that way as far as I don't really remember it until they
went to school because all of them have gone to Montessori and that is very kid led and
(13:44):
they really strive on independence. So then it turned into something where the teachers
were telling us, no, they can carry their book bag. No, they can put on their coat.
No, they can zip up their coat and tight, you know, put on their shoes and all this
stuff. So then we had to kind of step away. But I think that Preston was probably the one
(14:08):
prior to going to school that had that mindset. And I think that that's just because he's
always ran with that. Like he if he doesn't do it, it's not worth doing. Like he doesn't
do it himself.
He doesn't want somebody else to mess it up basically in a way. Yeah. So let's also talk
about, you know, dealing with the expected, the unexpected as far as like public tantrums.
(14:33):
So we've, you know, no matter how much you, you, you, you plan to go to the grocery store,
whether, you know, whether the babies or toddlers or whatever, it's mostly when they're toddlers,
when they have these, you know, if you, you bring all the chew toys, you bring all their,
their snacks and you bring, you know, milk and you bring, and you're at a grocery store,
you can grab something there if they, if they want something else, you know, and it ends
(14:56):
up, you know, them having their snack cups and they pull it out and then all the cereal
goes out all over the floor and in the grocery store, right? Those little yogurt bites. Or,
you know, if they want to get something, they just have a full blown, you know, meltdown
because they can't get something at the store or something. There was a couple of times
(15:17):
I didn't know how to deal with that. And I literally left like $200 with the groceries
in a cart. I left, I put press in the car and just left. Like I was like, I can't do
it. I can't do it. There's no way. And so expect that to happen, even though you're
expecting the unexpected, that's an unexpected thing that's going to happen. Something is
going to set these kids off. Yeah. There, I mean, there were times where I could always
(15:42):
publicly, I could handle the temper tantrums because my mind went to, if there's somebody
that has a problem with it, they can fuck off. And if I see a mom, I know she's thinking
the exact same thing. I'm thinking like, just wait, we're going to be home and you're going
(16:03):
to chill out and I'm going to be, you know, so I tried to really dial it in and ignore
it and not given. However, what I couldn't do was when they weren't in the cart and they
were running about. And they, there was one time where I had a cart full of stuff and
(16:25):
Preston ran and he hid in one of the clothing racks. And that's fun to do as a kid. No,
that terrifies me because my biggest, one of my biggest fears is my kids just disappearing
or being taken away from me. So I literally picked him up like a two by four in my arm
and I just left and carried them back. Yeah. I carried them home or into the car. No, I
(16:55):
carried them to the car and I just left everything there. And that was the only time that I think
that I had that everything else. I pretty much. Heard in my teeth and kept on going.
We have talked about, I think I talked about this before about, you know, we're talking
about the making friends podcast. Like, you know, who cares what people think about you.
(17:17):
I have tried to, and I think you have too. We've tried to come to this realization of,
you know, things are going to go wrong. Our kids, especially the little ones are going
to have an outburst. The fact of the matter is, once again, you're never going to probably
see these people again in your life. And they're probably going through struggles too. And
(17:38):
if they're looking at you a different way, then that's them judging you when you could
be judging them and all that jazz. So really you deal with these tantrums. The first one
or two are just going to take you by surprise. And she's like, Oh my God, what do I do? And
you almost kind of go in this panic mode. And like you and I did, we just left the store.
We're just like, we can't, we can't do this. We'll go back by ourselves. And then, you
(18:01):
know, you learn from that and you try to make it to where you don't care what other people
think and you just kind of let it just roll off and just, you know, they'll get over this
tantrum in two to three minutes when something else interests them or, you know, something,
you know, something else catches their eye or, you know, you make something more interesting
at the store and it'll be over. And you might never see that tantrum for another couple
(18:23):
of weeks. Right? Yeah. So you get used to that stuff. I will say with our kids, Preston
and Brayden both were, they got over things relatively quickly. So the tantrums like held
for maybe five minutes at most. Max holds onto it for days. Days. And I'm not even,
(18:44):
that's not even an exaggeration. Days. He will. Oh, you're telling them. I'm telling
them. There are times where he asks the same question over and over and over for hours.
And I swear it's some type of torture mechanism that he has built into him. I don't know.
(19:07):
I have theories. It's because we've probably given him before or the boys give into it.
That's probably why he keeps doing it because it probably works. And it does. Yeah. Because
I want to take a pencil to my ears before I hear him ask for another Lego set. That brings
up another thing. Picking your battles. I am very terrible at that. So, and this happened
(19:28):
just a couple of nights ago, right? Like what did Max want? He, it was the end of the night.
It's right before bed. What was it? I don't know. And he just wanted like a snack. Obviously
it's probably food, right? It's always food. And he wanted like a snack and you were hell
bent on, no, you were not having that. You were putting your foot down. And it was like
a little tiny snack. Listen, I get it. He had seven prior to that. But it was like,
(19:54):
is this really the hill you want to die on tonight? There's some stuff that your kids
are going to be so hard headed on that it doesn't matter what you say. If you give them
reasoning, if you talk to them like an adult and they just don't understand it, it's something
that they're hell bent on. We just got to give into it. Like I understand. Maybe this
(20:19):
goes back to Max asking a hundred times. Maybe that's the problem. But I mean, even with
the other boys, it's like, okay, this is, this is, this is the argument that we're going
to have right now. Could I have a better day, a better night? Could we have a better relationship
if I just give in to this little tiny thing that I am being stubborn about probably for
(20:41):
no reason. Yeah. You know. So yeah, you got to, you got to choose your battles and that's
the only way to keep your sanity when you're talking to these little humans. Yeah. You
don't seem to agree with me. Well, I mean, it's just very hard for me to, because, because
of the fact that he will continue because he knows that I'll cave eventually. And then
(21:08):
sometimes I'm like, this isn't, you are not winning. You're not winning this war. And
it might be, you know, an apple, like he just wants an apple. And I'm like, you've already
had seven snacks. You've already had six apples today. Yes. Your belly is going to explode.
And I'm going to be the one wiping your ass. So I'm not doing that. No, I get it. It's
(21:32):
just, I don't know. I understand the whole thing, but it's also like, what do you want
to, what do you want to die on? Right? What do you want? Do you want your night to be
bad or do you want your night to be good on a little tiny thing? Obviously if he's like,
Hey mom, can I roam with scissors? Like, maybe not tonight, buddy. You know, and I'm going
(21:53):
to put my foot down and I will back you on that. I won't be like, you know what, max,
just go here. Have fun. Just, oh, thank you. Kids moving on to the next topic. Kids will
embarrass you. And I can think of two things that the kids did. One is pretty funny. The
other one was, I don't know. Not funny, but you're trying to keep them from not just embarrassing
(22:20):
you, but hurting another person's feelings. Right? And so, and you, you know, you're bringing
these kids out into public that haven't seen as much as we have seen. Right? They haven't
lived the full lives that we have lived. So one of the things was we went to the grocery
store and there was a person that was, that was handicapped and they had like half of
(22:44):
their arm was missing. Right? Okay. And we're walking down the aisle. One of our kids sees,
this gentleman and they're like, Hey dad, you know, like I instantly turned around and
said, don't, don't you dare. And then, you know, he, he just wanted to, you know, ask
(23:04):
me questions about why this person had, you know, a missing arm. Right. And we got into
the next aisle and then I explained it to him. Right. You know, I explained, you know,
some are birth defects, some are accidents, but you don't point that out to somebody in
a public setting. And I kind of told him, so that was kind of embarrassing or could
have almost been embarrassing. Yeah. But I also disagree with that. Why? Because I, I
(23:28):
would probably encourage him to use like an indoor voice. He's like, okay, the dude was
right there. You know how wide grocery aisles are. Yeah. But also it's a, it's a point in
time where it can be educational for him. It was the next aisle over. It was embarrassing
for you, but for him, he was just curious. And a lot of the times if somebody has like
(23:53):
a, a, um, you know, like an amputee or something and they see somebody as innocent as a kid
and they're, they're wondering and everything, they aren't going to be judgment or judgmental
about it. You know, they aren't going to, he could have been having, what if that person
was having a poopy day, you know, and then this kid starts asking questions about it
(24:16):
innocently. Okay. I see what you're saying. I would probably still go and I would agree
with you. I would probably still take my cart down the aisle and explain as we went about
the many reasons why it might happen. Right. But I wouldn't, it wasn't about the reasons
that happened. It was, it was how do you, how you bring it up? Do you notice it or are
(24:40):
things like the things like that supposed to be hushed hush and you kind of pretend
like you don't notice it. Like I'm not going to go and stare at it. Like if I, I guess,
you know, if I'm in a grocery store and I see that I see it, I look away and then that's
it. This is a person living their normal life and I'm not going to talk about it, bring
it up or acknowledge it. But you're also an adult. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're probably
(25:01):
right as far as it would probably be more embarrassment on me than the other two people
that were in the situation, which is pressing and, and, and the person in the grocery store.
But I was also trying to teach him respect. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to another
embarrassing story. Okay. Cause but I mean, I did that too recently. And I mean, this
(25:24):
is very low level in comparison. There was a woman at target and she had a cart filled
with Pokemon stuff. Like I, and I mean like filled filled, like it was overflowing and
there, they had, it was her and her significant other and then their child and Braden was
(25:47):
like, why do they have so much Pokemon stuff? And I said, maybe they really like Pokemon.
Yeah. And he said, but why would you like it that much? And I go, have you looked in
our house and how many Legos we have? I feel like anybody would say the exact same thing
about your Lego collection. That's true. And he's like, yeah, I guess that makes sense.
(26:09):
But I didn't like hush it down and both the parents looked at me and they smiled. So I
knew that they were okay with me talking about their Pokemon addiction. I'm sorry. I understand
your story, but we are comparing arms to Pokemon. I think we have, I understand what you're
(26:35):
saying, but I'm saying it's the same concept. Okay. That is not the same concept. Well,
I mean, I, I stood there and I explained it. Okay. If the Pokemon was missing an arm,
you said something like, brain said something like that. Then you can be like, Hey buddy,
(26:58):
listen, they love all Pokemon. Okay. So, so another way that w that Preston embarrassed,
and I knew that he had an amazing sense of humor was when we were in swim class and he
was like three or four years old. Do you remember this one? No, it was, it was a thing that
I would do all the time where someone would tell the joke and I'd be like, no, do you
(27:19):
remember that? So we're walking on the pool deck and there's this mom and this bait and
this little girl and they're like all laughing together. Preston's, you know, nowhere near
like three feet tall or whatever. This little tough guy in a swimsuit coming out on the
pool deck and they're laughing and he just looks over at him, stops and goes, no, dude,
(27:41):
no, you don't, not here. So that one's good. So there are different moments in your life
that you can not be prepared for because kids are just curious. You know, they're open books.
You know, some of these, these temper tantrums that they have, or these outbursts where they
(28:01):
embarrass you in stores are just, it's going to be normal. And you can't really prepare
for it besides just knowing it's going to happen. You don't know when this, this ticking
time bomb is going to go off.
And I feel like that's past even toddler phase. It goes into like, cause in a similar story,
Braden did that to me at Preston's football game. He just wanted to leave. No, he, we
(28:25):
were standing in the bleachers or we were sitting in bleachers and we weren't sitting
with our designated team on the opposite side. And Braden is very competitive. And if he
sees something wrong, he doesn't keep his mind or his mouth shut. And he was going on
and on and on about how shitty the kicker was for the other team. Like probably. And
(28:52):
I tried my hardest to get him to like be quiet and like not say anything, but there was a
lot of judgmental eyes that were cast my way. And that was not a fun game.
No, it wasn't. Was that the game that Preston got his concussion?
That was, that was the next, it was that team that we played, but it was the next one that
(29:16):
happened. And both times we sat on the opposing team's side and I had to stop him from bashing
the other team.
We had to sit on that side because I had to videotape. Yes, we did. I had to videotape
the game. And I, you know, you think about the stuff with these outbursts and these toddlers
rebelling and them being so curious and asking all these questions. And it kind of makes
(29:40):
me think like us as adults, we keep everything inside. We don't let anything out. We try
not to show our weakness. We probably don't ask us enough questions as we should. Yeah.
Maybe we need to just go to the grocery store and just let it out. Yes. Like just fucking
(30:01):
complain, scream, ask why egg prices are so goddamn high. Seriously. Just like somebody
tell me that one. I wonder if because us as adults, we don't really have outlets to let
this temper tantrum that we probably want to let out on a daily basis. And that what
causes some of health decline, mental, mental disorders, stress, anxiety, all that stuff.
(30:25):
But I feel like that's going to slowly be weeded out. You would think because like I
feel like our growing up through our parents was less like kids are seen and not heard
the way that they were raised. And now, you know, and we were raised to have a little
(30:45):
bit of a voice. And then now our kids are taking over the world. Yes. Have opinion about
everything. So judgmental. So let's move on to expecting the unexpected with illnesses
and ER trips that you didn't see coming. So pressing pressing as a toddler. I guess he
(31:08):
was kind of I'll do it myself type of toddler. But he was also like, I'm going to see how
much I can get away with. And one of the things you know, there was actually three things
that he did that were just absolutely crazy. And one was the I had to go to work on a Saturday.
He wanted me to stay home. He put a goldfish in his mouth, choked on it. Yeah, we couldn't
(31:31):
get it up. Threw him in the back of the car or no, it didn't throw him in the back of
the car. I'm sorry. That's bad. Deanna was holding him. She jumped in the passenger car
and I flew to the fire station to try to get this goldfish on lodge from his throat. Granted,
the fire station was less than a mile away from our house. It was faster for us to get
there than us to get on the phone with 911. Yeah. And I couldn't form a sentence when
(31:56):
I did call 911 and the operator was like, what? And you're like, we're in the parking
lot. Come outside. So that was one of the things pressing also. I don't know where stuck
his, you know, he started sticking his finger down the drain in the shower. And I said,
don't put your drain in the shower or don't put your finger in the shower. You're going
to cut your finger. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. I look away. His fingers
(32:20):
down there. I give them the dad look. He rips it out and he just rips off a few layers of
skin off of his finger. So he had to go into the emergency room that day and get some type
of like foam tip put on his finger. So he didn't do that. Then he also grabbed a pan.
This was all in one week. No, not the choking, not the choking, but the finger, the finger
(32:40):
and the pan. We honestly thought CPS was going to come after us from all the injuries. Yeah.
He, but I mean, they were all in on him, but it just reflected terrible. It's your fault.
So that, and then, you know, like I just said, Preston had a concussion just out of, you
know, at a football game, he had a concussion. He gets in the car. He's like, dad, I don't
(33:02):
feel good. He starts talking, giving me all the concussion symptoms. I'm like, we got
to go to the emergency room. So we're there until like one o'clock in the morning doing
concussion protocol. And then obviously all the illnesses, Braden waking up at, you know,
1230. Yeah. It always, so here's something that you can plan for. This is what you can
expect when your kid gets sick. It is always going to be the worst in between 10 PM and
(33:24):
about 3 AM. Yeah. And that is when you're going to have no doctors offices are open.
No urgent cares are open. You're going to have to go directly to the emergency room.
You're going to go there. They're going to say he needs Tylenol and Motrin. He's constipated.
Yeah. Go home. And that's what's going to happen. But you, you love these kids so much
that you don't want anything to go wrong with them. So like even 104 degree fever, we were
(33:48):
like, Oh my God, we got to take them. So I rushed Braden in, we get there. They give
him some Motrin and then, you know, two, $300 later relieving in fairness. He had the one
oh four temperature. And then he was complaining that his heart hurt. Yeah. He was complaining
that his chest hurt. So obviously we're going to take them in for that. But really it just
ended up being most of the things that your kids go through are going to be Tylenol and
(34:13):
Motrin and rotate those on and off. And that's what they're going to say and give them fluids.
Yeah. Give them some Pedialyte or Gatorade, but just expect that you're going to have
these panic moments. And I'm not saying don't take him to the hospital because I will still
do it to this day. Yeah. No matter how much it costs just to make sure that they're okay.
Getting sick at the worst possible time. That's what, that's what will happen. Any holiday.
(34:37):
Leading up to that holiday, the week before that holiday, they will be sick. Yeah. On
vacation when you just pick up your rental car. Yeah. They will be puking inside of it.
You know, even just having family parties over here at the house. You know, we had Uncle
Chris over here and then Preston just all of a sudden got a stomach ache and he just started
puking. Sorry. And it happens. Welcome to our home. And you kind of wonder like where
(35:01):
in the hell are you getting the sickness from? Like who's bringing it to school? Who gave
it to them? Where'd it come from? You know? So I guess one of my PSAs would be keep your
kids at home if they're sick. Cause you never know what another family is going to be doing
if they're planning a vacation or something like that. You know, and unfortunately it
gets spread to somebody else or, you know, who knows if there's a teacher that might
(35:24):
be, you know, immune compromised or something like that. They can't handle to be getting
sick all the time with certain, you know, influenza's or colds. So yeah, just expect
that you're going to be visiting the ER or the urgent care at some crazy hours. Yes.
They're going to get sick. Braden just got sick. I was on a meeting. You pick them, you
(35:50):
take them home for the, bring them home for the doctors. I'm on a meeting and I just hear
him puking over in the bathroom. And I'm, I'm empathetic now. And I think kids have made
me very weak where if I, if someone else in our household is sick, I automatically am
like, I'm sick. So he's puking. I'm on a call trying to say something and I'm like, I'm
(36:12):
going to throw up. I'm going to throw up all over my computer. This is going to be horrible.
I mean, while I'm standing in the door, don't, don't come out here. Don't worry about it.
But I will say I was very happy that he was able to get through the drive home out of
the car and straight to the bathroom to puke instead of puking in the car or on the floor.
(36:36):
Yeah. So another thing that we could say is an emergency toolkit. What we have, what we've
learned with our kids is obviously Tylenol, Motrin. We have a nebulizer for Braden because
he has asthma. We have tons of the solution for the nebulizer. We have obviously the typical
(36:59):
band-aids things of that nature, but we also have a nice thermometer. That's a forehead
reader thermometer. And we also have an oxygen. What do you call that? Pulsometer or oxo?
I don't even know what you call them. The thing that you put on your finger to measure
your blood oxygen level. And that's mainly because of Braden. And also Max has huge fricking
(37:24):
tonsils and when he gets sick, his breathing is kind of erratic. So we have that to monitor
it. But also the thing that we've discovered recently that I've fallen in love with is
it's by Boogie Woogie. And it's that saline mask. And it's just saline water. And I don't
know if anybody this fall and winter have been stupid with sicknesses. And that thing
(37:49):
has helped a lot with cleaning out the gunk that's just in there and that cough that never
leaves.
It's like going in a sauna almost or like a salt spa or whatever you call it. It just
kind of clears it up.
They'll take it off after I think like two or three minutes. And it's just like dripping
from their face because it just keeps it in there. But that helps a lot.
(38:10):
Yeah. So that's what I think that's all we have in our emergency kit. I mean that's the
first go to things that we grab them like they're sick. OK. Check their temperature.
OK. Let's check their their their pulse. Let's check their oxygen with that. Maybe we're
too anal. You know. And then we're like check this and check this. And if they're good.
(38:30):
OK. What else is hurting you? And then we kind of go on to something else like oh is
it a stomach ache. Is it a stomach bug. Is something you ate last night. Are you hungry.
Do you need more water. Let's get some water. Let's get some vitamins in you. Let's get
some juice in you. Things of that nature.
So yeah. Expect the unexpected as far as your trips go. Definitely have an emergency kit
or emergency toolkit with you with medicine.
(38:51):
And yeah. And I will say one of the most embarrassing ER trips that I went to was when Preston had
a terrible stomach ache and he was like doubled over and he wouldn't move. And I was like
oh my God this is appendicitis. I know it. And they took an x ray and they were like
do you see all of this black. I was like yes. He's like that's all poop. He's extremely
(39:17):
constipated. Five hundred dollars later. Yeah. I just needed to give him Miralax. Are you
freaking kidding me. So he said some weird ones like that like the pooping one. That
was when he was a toddler. Yeah. But he also had the other one on his top where he was
like I can't walk. He got out of bed and he's like I can't walk. And we took him to the
(39:38):
emergency room. There was nothing wrong with him. He had an ear infection. Was that what
it was. Yeah. He had an ear infection. His leg was hurting. But he couldn't remember
because he had vertigo from his ear infection. OK. And he couldn't walk a straight line.
And I was like oh my God. This is it. So I want my baby. I know this episode is getting
pretty pretty long but we do want to say another thing that you like both of our kids. I shall
(40:05):
three of them are going to need to. But both of our kids had to have their tonsils out.
And this was the thing we were talking about with Preston earlier is that the reason why
he was such a bad toddler or I'm sorry I shouldn't say bad toddler but a an aggressive toddler
irate toddler had a lot of mood swings is that he wasn't getting enough sleep. He had
(40:26):
sleep apnea because of his tonsils. So we had to get his tonsils out. And I believe
we got his adenoids removed as well. And then it was night and day. Yeah. And stop seeing
things. Yeah. And he was that was the thing like he didn't get enough sleep. And then
that caused hallucinations during the day. And he would hallucinate things and then break
(40:46):
conversation and start talking to things. So I will you too. We were both like this
house is haunted. He I need a priest. He saw something in our closet and he would call
it dark dark. So we thought dark dark lived in a closet. Yeah. And then there was this
claw that would come from the ceiling and spikes. Yeah it was it was an insane journey.
(41:07):
I did not like that. But then as soon as we got his tonsils out it was like night and
day. He was sleeping perfectly fine. And then Braden a funny thing about Braden is that
the tonsil like to me went perfect with pressing like we walked back in the room after he woke
up and he was perfectly fine. And we're like OK let's get you some you know some Bob pops
and all that stuff. And then you know Slurpee on our way home. We get a text for Braden
(41:30):
when when he's done this is obviously years later we get a text on the pager from Braden's
done and we start walking into the back and there's a kid just screaming his head off.
And I remember looking at you and being like glad that's not my kid. It was our kids. He
was literally trying to pull out the IVs fighting the nurses trying to rip off the IVs and screaming
(41:54):
at the top of the lungs. He did not know where he was. He had a bad trip. Yeah. And the hardest
part for me was that he wanted nothing to do with me. And the difference between precedent
Braden was precedent wanted nothing to do with me from exiting my body. He was like you know
what I'm good. I got it from here. Braden was my buddy. He was like my Velcro child. He never
(42:20):
left my side. And that the reason why Braden had to have it was because his tonsils were
so big that when he laid down he would have chest retractions because they would touch
and he would get sick. I couldn't take him to the doctor or the urgent care. It was like
a straight shot to the ER because every time I took him to urgent care they were like his
(42:42):
oxygen is way too low. He needs to be like in children's hospital. So he got the surgery
and he blamed me for it. And he wanted to snuggle up next to you and you take care of
him. And that really sucked for me. But then he refused to take any of the pain meds. Yeah.
(43:05):
He was a strong strong kid. Yeah. He was because the motrin burnt his throat. He chose not
to take the medicine. So he recovered from a tonsillectomy with zero medicine. Just just
popsicles. And I tried to even like like hide it in food and he would take a bite or like
(43:25):
a drink of something and look at me like fuck you lady. I know your tricks. This is not
happening. What do you think about us being on time switching subjects. Do you think that
we are that we've gotten better as parents as far as timing and things of that nature
(43:45):
as far as going to places going to places events and stuff. I think we have I mean as
a you have. Yeah. You are consistently 10 to 15 minutes early for anything. Yeah. That's
just how you are. I am roughly 20 minutes late to everything. Well I mean unless it's
a game and because I don't want my kid to be held responsible for my lack of planning.
(44:11):
The way I look at it is that if it is a game or a football game football practice thing
that that things that show on the kid right. They should be on time which I think we both
do pretty well. Yeah. If it is a family function I'm sorry if it's a work event I'm sorry.
I don't even go to those. Yeah. But if it's you know if it's a doctor's appointment I
(44:36):
may be five 10 minutes late. Yeah. If it's you know something that doesn't involve my
kids missing out on something then I'm going to be late. And it's not because the kids
are making us late because our lives are busy. Now I can understand when we had you know
Preston as as a as a baby you know you pack up all the stuff and as you get older and
(44:57):
as you have more kids the pot the bag of crap that you bring everywhere gets smaller and
smaller and smaller. Yeah. So I don't think that we're as late as we used to be. But yeah
if it's a family function a work function a doctor's appointment something like that
that doesn't affect my kids I'm not going to be punctual to it or I'm not going to be
(45:18):
as stressed stressed out about it. But if it's a band concert a football game a soccer
game something like that then I do want them to be there on time and I try to make sure
that they are there at least 15 20 minutes early. Yeah. And I am the same way. But because
it's ingrained inside of me that anything any place that I go to is within 20 minutes
regardless of the actual GPA local or GPS location of that I have to trick myself. So
(45:45):
everything in the calendar I put like an hour ahead of what when it actually starts just
so that I can be there on time. Because you're an hour late. What was in your calendar. Well
it's like they have to like factor in like 30 minutes for like warm ups before the game
and all that stuff. But I know that. So then it doesn't work entirely because then I go
(46:09):
it's a process. My my mind is crazy. So getting ready to go out the door and expect the unexpected
especially with newborn babies because that is when they are going to spit up when they're
going to cry babies are you know they'll never they won't sleep the entire week. But when
you have something to do that is the day that they sleep in two to three hours. Yes. They
(46:31):
have a really long nap. So if anybody holds that against you for being late screw them.
Obviously they they probably aren't a parent if they know that if they if they're mad at
you for being late to a family function especially for work obviously don't take this advice.
You need to be there on time. But you know they'll have an unexpected blowout or they'll
(46:53):
sleep in or they'll sleep past a certain amount of time. I didn't want to talk about an unexpected
blowout that I thought was funny when I when I when we're writing this is that this wasn't
really forced being on time or being late. But it was do you remember Harmony's wedding.
So we bought we bought press and this really nice onesie that was had the tux tie on it
(47:14):
or the tux bow tie on everything. Yeah. So he was all super cute and everything. It was
like maybe six months. Yeah. First big event with them. Whatever. And he just had a complete
blowout. I mean all up his back and everything. And I had to. Well we went to the family restroom
I think it was. And I just hulked that onesie off of it like it was done. Like that's how
(47:34):
bad it was. So there's some always make sure you have a change of clothes. That's for sure.
That's one thing that doesn't dwindle is that snacks may dwindle things things like that.
But yeah always have multiple clothes because babies poos are unpredictable. They are money
messes and managing expectations. The financial surprises of parenthood. I think they say you
(47:59):
spend like a million dollars on each kid over a lifetime that you have them. I can believe
that. I think that you know some of the financials that are unexpected with the kids is you know
one thing how much food they fricking eat as soon as they become a toddler. I mean they
eat so much food too. They grow out of clothes so fast. And you know we used to do hand me
(48:20):
downs from from our siblings and stuff. But our kids are so hard on these clothes that
it can't be hand me downs. Yeah it can not. I have not passed down one pair of shoes from
Preston to Braden because he is so hard on his shoes. And Braden is like he slides for
everything. He does like the soccer slide. So all of his pants just coming to dinner.
(48:43):
He just slides on that. Seriously. And I can't pass any of that down to Max. But I will say
that I can't pass stuff from Braden to Max because they are virtually the same size.
Yeah. But everything gets stained. Yeah. Everything is you know has holes in it or some kid in
(49:06):
their class. Never never came out. That would be one of the financial things would be clothes
food. If you can't breastfeed formula was pretty expensive. Diapers are stupid. Diapers
are really really expensive. The unexpected trip to the emergency rooms. Those are expensive
(49:26):
even though you have insurance. Those are expensive. And then obviously sports. Yeah.
Sports keep on getting more and more expensive. You know. And if you don't do the older you
get the more expensive it gets especially if they shift over from like rec to like a club
team or something then that price is you pay dues out here. And if you don't do your parenting
(49:48):
duty like if you don't record a video game for the football team then and you don't do
certain amount of bulldog duties or Eagle duties or whatever it is then that five or
six hundred dollar deposit that you put down in the beginning of the season that goes to
the league and you don't get it back. They actually cash your check. So yeah. And I think
that was the stupidest thing when he did baseball. I was like you had to go come out and like
(50:11):
do the landscaping for the field. I was like are you fucking kidding me. Cash my check.
That's stupid. The weed and gray and all that stuff. Oh my God. It's stupid. And I'm like
why don't you just increase the price of the baseball and then hire a landscaping company.
It's a city park. Right. Yeah. Oh yeah. I get it. Your house will never be clean again.
(50:33):
No I didn't think my expectations of this. Yes I thought the house was going to be dirty
but I didn't think that I would have to be cleaning and painting walls almost yearly.
I didn't I didn't think that it would be to the level of having peanut butter smeared
on the wall. Yeah. It is without anybody recognizing it. Yeah. You know and then being like where'd
this come from. You got peanut butter on one wall toothpaste on the other. He on the bathroom
(50:57):
wall. Yeah. There's like we have one area that is supposed to be like a formal dining
room area. Whatever. It's not like super formal or lavish or anything like that. But it has
really nice chairs covered in yogurt. Just every time we have like a family event I have
to wash those so thoroughly. No I feel like we have even though we're bitching about it.
(51:22):
We are. We're being pessimistic about the stuff. But I do feel like as we look back
on the emergency room visits we kind of laugh about that. You know we look back on the embarrassing
moments in the grocery stores. We kind of laugh about that. And I think we're getting
to the point where we're embracing the mess. I know that I'm more OCD than you are. But
(51:42):
I do think that I have let shit slide more now where I'm just like yeah you know what.
I don't want to do it. I don't want to clean it up. I have time for this. You know and
if the kids don't do it they don't get their allowance money. It is what it is. Yeah. You
know yeah. Now that they've advanced into a stage where they can kind of be held responsible
for their own stuff then I think we both have kind of let go of the reins a little. The
(52:09):
only hard part is that like I don't they don't know. I don't trust them in terms of like
disinfecting cleaning. Like they can handle the mess. But it's like did you really. You
didn't really. Did you really. You didn't scrub. You didn't put elbow grease. Yeah.
Did you. Did you just use water in a bag because I feel like you just spread the flu.
(52:32):
This tape you took the P took it off the wall and now you just put it on the sink. We have
a cat on the table. Yeah. The pink just got everywhere. The blot from from the mom's dress
got everywhere. Oh man. So we've learned to embrace the mess. The next thing would be
parenting advice that no one warned you about. And I would think the biggest thing that no
(52:54):
one warned us about which seems really stupid. And I know you're probably judging us if you're
listening to this but we didn't know that you were supposed to burp a baby or how important
it was to burp a baby. Yeah nobody told us that. So Preston was very is it called colicky
because of the gas that he had. Yeah. And he would not sleep. And my mom came over because
(53:17):
we just couldn't get any sleep. I do work and I think Deanna just needed to get a nap
and because she was up all night nursing this baby this crying baby and he kept eating and
kept eating and kept eating or trying to eat. And then my mom came over and he let out like
this man type belch and he fell asleep right away on my mom. The rage that I held inside
(53:40):
my body when she was able to get him to fall asleep within like five minutes. But she did
it with four kids. I know. But yeah I was just like I'm so lost here. No I mean we like
you said you never babysat any babies. No I never babysat any babies. I was just like
the fun cousin or whatever that played with the toddlers. That was it. You know. So we
(54:03):
weren't prepared for that. So they and the parenting books at least the one that I read
you know are ones that I skimmed through I should say is you know they don't tell you
about these outbursts that they're going to have. They don't prepare you for these emergency
room visits. They don't prepare you. What if your kids choking and the fire station
is point five miles away but it takes 50 seconds to get someone on the call for 9 1 1. You
(54:26):
know what should you do. Yeah I don't think it's an instinct that just kind of hits. So
that kind of goes on to it is learn to trust your instincts. Yeah. And I don't think like
on my side nobody explained how hard it was going to be to navigate a panic situation
when it was like your children. Yeah. Like I think that I can handle panic situations
(54:49):
relatively well but when it comes to my kids I don't I freeze and I don't react very quickly.
I've gotten better over the years but with pressing it was like what do I do. Yeah. I
just froze. Yeah. And you handled it so much better. There's a lot of things that you can
(55:11):
read about that you can kind of mentally prepare for that either will happen and you'll handle
it great or will happen and you don't handle it great because it's a completely different
situation or a completely different outcome. And it's actually you know instead of just
sitting there reading a book kind of memorizing things as like a test you know when it actually
(55:35):
happens you're not going to know how you're going to react. Right. Just like we've never
you know had a certain situation you know where a house is burnt down or something like
that. Knock on wood. I don't know exactly how I would react. Right. Oh wait we did have
a situation. Just see. And that's that. That's a good example of my panic. Right. Our first
(56:01):
apartment burnt down. I'm getting in the shower. I'm like half naked. I'm getting in the shower
and someone comes and starts banging on our door wall and I'm going out there trying to
go fight somebody. And then I look in the glass off of the reflection the reflection
of the other apartment. Yeah. And I see flames shooting out of the top of the apartment.
And I'm like oh my god. So I go around I unplug everything. I shut all the doors make sure
(56:26):
that you know I don't know if the windows were shut or whatever just to suffocate it
all that stuff. And I grabbed the two dogs that we had at the time grab all the you know
the most important things the dogs. Everything was shut off in the house or in the apartment
everything. We get outside and Deanna's holding her laptop. In fairness my mind was I had
(56:50):
finals that week. Your dad just got you that laptop. I was like I need I need my computer
in order to finish my finals. So yeah that kind of shows how we are as far as panic situation
goes. But you have gotten better for sure. Yeah. Especially if we think we hear the kids
choking or something you obviously just run straight for them. I don't know what you do
to them when you get there but no growing up too fast. Let's kind of reflect on the
(57:18):
kids growing up too fast. Yeah I think we do kind of get caught or at least I do I get
kind of caught in the moments like man this was kind of a rough day. I just need to go
to sleep and get a restart tomorrow. And then you keep thinking on that of this might have
been a rough day. This is a rough day. This was a rough day. And then before you know
(57:41):
your kids 12 years old and you're like man we got to stop wasting these days that are
rough or challenging. And I guess try to find a silver lining to it. Stop cleaning the house
all the time. Stop worrying about the messes. Stop worrying about the temper tantrums. Stop
trying to have that perfect Hallmark movie. You know life house appearance appearance.
(58:09):
Kind of you know take it as as they come and the unexpected moments kind of become some
of the ones that you treasure the most that you can actually think back on. You know.
Yeah I think the I think out of one of those days where we were just having a rough time
(58:32):
and we couldn't like leave the house because it was winter and our state sucks in the winter.
Yeah. Sprouted like a thing within our whole family where we created the game the ball
game that we play in the house. Oh yeah. And all of the rules and everything and it's like
(58:54):
the one thing that we just made up. I was running around with Max in the baby carrier.
He was only like and you had to like go on the tramp the indoor trampoline in order to
use your safety reset. Yeah. And then you had to go up into the wall if you hit somebody
in the face and you have to cover your beds and your eyes. Face the firing squad if you
(59:16):
hit somebody in the face with the ball. But I mean those that came from having tear a
terrible day and a rough day and then sprouted like this thing that we share in our whole
family that trademark family game. Yeah. And it was kind of our way to kind of embrace
the chaos and go on. So expect the unexpected slow down and be present in the chaos. And
(59:46):
you know this is kind of a thing where it's like practice what you preach. The end and
I may seem like we have it all together on this podcast but we don't know. Not at all.
If you had a little glimpse in my brain bucket you would be concerned. And it's something
that we got to work on as far as like parenting as a journey. It's not a checklist. Expect
(01:00:11):
the unexpected and just roll with the punches. You know look back at the wild ride of parenting
and what you have been through as a parent or if you're a new parent there are so many
things that are going to bring you joy that are upcoming. You know I found it funny that
you know we'd have a horrible terrible no good very bad day. You know and then you'd
(01:00:37):
see I'd see Deanna scrolling through pictures of that same devil baby that was screaming
at us two hours ago scrolling through pictures of him that day or you know looking at the
baby monitor just in awe of this baby. Yeah it's like part of my heart is out there. They
(01:00:57):
drive me freaking crazy but they're also part of me and I love them so stupidly much. So
parenting is a wild ride. Expect the unexpected. If you have any stories you'd like to share
please feel free to share them either on social media or you can email us our email address
info at chasing balance dot info. Our final thoughts is really just embracing the unknown.
(01:01:25):
Expect the unexpected with humor and love. Chasing balance. Real life parenting. One
conversation at a time. We'll see you guys later. Bye.
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