Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
We’re the Vallottons, and we’re passionate about people! Every human was created for fulfilling connections in relationship and family, but it’s not always what comes easiest! We know this because of our wide range of personal experiences as well as years of working with people. So we’re going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
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Dates, Mates and Babies with the Vallottons
133. Welcoming Our First Grandbaby!
Jason and Lauren have big news to share—their first grandbaby has arrived! 🎉 In this special family update episode, they reflect on the joy of this new season, the surprises of grandparenting while still raising their own 5- and 3-year-old, and what it means to live out relational health across generations.
Together, they unpack:
- 🌿 The uniqueness of navigating multiple family “layers” at once—parenting littles, supporting adult children, and stepping into grandparenthood
- 🎄 How conversations around holidays like Christmas shift when legacy and generational traditions come into play
- 👵🏼 The role of grandparents in relational health—offering support without overstepping, helping without hovering
- 👶 What’s different about parenting littles versus grandparenting (and how both roles sharpen each other)
- ❤️ Navigating relationships with adult kids as they step into parenthood, and why cheering them on matters more than critiquing
- 🌈 The emotional mix of joy, nostalgia, and gratitude in life’s transition seasons
The Vallottons remind listeners that family is never static—it’s always growing and reshaping. Whether you’re raising littles, sending teens into the world, or welcoming grandkids, relational health comes down to connection, presence, and legacy.
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We're the Valetins and we are passionate about people.
Speaker 1:Every human was created for fulfilling relational connection.
Speaker 2:But that's not always what comes easiest.
Speaker 1:We know this because of our wide range of personal experience, as well as our years of working with people.
Speaker 2:So we're going to crack open topics like dating, marriage, family and parenting to encourage, entertain and equip you for a deeply fulfilling life of relational health.
Speaker 1:Welcome back everyone to Dates, mates and Babies with the Valetins.
Speaker 2:We are here on a beautiful September day and, my goodness, it has been a week.
Speaker 1:You guys, we have In more ways than one right A very big announcement.
Speaker 2:We do have a big announcement we have welcomed our very first grandbaby onto planet earth. Yes, Applause all around. We couldn't be more happy and excited. She actually arrived on September 11th 2025.
Speaker 1:You guys were grandparents.
Speaker 2:We are and we thought it would be fun to give you guys a little family update today because, listen, this is a big milestone and potentially the uniqueness of it is that we have crossed into this granny territory while also parenting a five-year-old and a three-year-old and having two other adult kids.
Speaker 1:I know, I don't think you can say granny, because that's like great grandparents.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying like we're grandparents, I know, and that's wild. You can say granny, cause that's like great grandparents. I'm just saying like we're grandparents, and that's wild Cause I just turned 40. But, guys, it's been a really, really fantastic week. We are just so delighted to step into this new season. Obviously, you know you have nine months to prepare, right? Our kids told us at Christmas on.
Speaker 2:Christmas morning they told us that they were going to be expecting a baby. So for the last nine months we've been looking forward to this time and you don't know what it's going to be like. But you know because you've heard grandparents around the world tell you it is actually the best thing. But you don't know what it's going to feel like and you wonder what the implications are going to be on the family dynamic. And it's only going to be beautiful because babies are fantastic. But it's a new season and, as with any new season, there's anticipation that comes in and there's things that change, and so you don't really know what it's going to feel like until you're right in the middle of it. Well, folks, we are here to tell you it feels great.
Speaker 1:She's perfect. Yeah, I mean she was eight pounds seven ounces. Her name is Olivia, we call her Livy, uh, Ray Vallotton and just the squishiest sweetest little peanut.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she looks. She doesn't look like me. I wanted to say like she looks just like me, you know she doesn't don't think blonde hair fair little thing.
Speaker 2:So we're just so excited to watch her grow and, honestly, watching your kids step into the beauty of parenthood is so special, and we knew that it would be. But truly being able to visit and just seeing your kid experience this profound love that you have when you birth a baby and hold that baby and care for that baby through the night and just so fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's really really fun and special.
Speaker 1:It is which this launches us into right, the us being in multiple generations at once that we're really parenting and supporting, and so you know, for us it's we're parenting these little babies five-year-old and three-year-old little kids really but then also like supporting our adult children and now grandparenting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we were laughing last week when we were driving to go visit her for the first time and just having that realization. You know what? I think we are never going to have a season where there are not babies in our home, because we've just finished ourselves and now our adult children are beginning to have kids and the rest of our adult kids are going to have kids, and then, when they're done, our little kids are going to have kids and I think we're just destined to have babies in the house forever, which, honestly, is like a dream come true. So, in one sense, there's so much beauty in it. And then, of course, you know there's there are some tensions in parenting littles, which is so different than supporting adult children, which is so different than being grandparents. So you know what? We're going to get some practice on wearing all these different hats at one time, and maybe we'll nail it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most parents get to do one season at a time where they're like.
Speaker 1:Oh, remember when we had littles, oh, and then remember when they were out of the house and got married, and then remember when they had grandkids and you just focus on the grandkids, but it's such a blessing, you know. It really feels like just naturally. It's kind of launched us into these conversations that we're not going to go into a bunch, but like, what do we, what do we want Christmas to feel like and what do we want our legacy to look like?
Speaker 2:And what are?
Speaker 1:we, like, what are we doing proactively to help build a family that feels really welcoming and loving and caring? And how do we, yeah, like, how are we going to structure our lives intentionally to build a really healthy family, as we're doing this wild thing?
Speaker 2:Well, I really love it for a lot of reasons, but we released an episode a few weeks ago now where we were talking about parenting with a long game in mind and, how you know, in conversations with some of our friends who right now are parenting some preteen kids or teenage kids, you know we're talking we've been talking a lot just in our community about parenting, with parenting with this thought in mind.
Speaker 2:I want to raise amazing adults. So that's been very forefront for us in our mind, as we're, you know, our little Edie just started kindergarten and our little Liam just started preschool. But a lot of our parenting conversations have been around okay, what do we do in this situation? How do we shape our children to become amazing adults? So I love this because it kind of dovetails really beautifully. We're not just looking to, we're not just looking to raise amazing adults who behave amazing. We are actually wanting to build legacy. And so, when it comes to parenting our littles and then stepping into this grandparenting role, I think what we're realizing is that we're actually being given this really beautiful opportunity to think about building a legacy, probably earlier than most people think about leaving a legacy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the other night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true. I mean, the other night we were just talking about like what do we want to be able to give to our grand babies, and I just started thinking, like I got excited about, like I want to invest into piano lessons, or I want to invest into I want to invest into piano lessons, or I want to invest into these different skill sets that our granddaughter will will know, like, oh, pop, pop wanted me to learn the guitar, or pop wanted me to learn the piano or pops all that. I had an interest in gymnastics and so he sewed into that.
Speaker 2:or we were specifically talking about the difference between giving things to your kids and actually investing in them, and so we were talking about how cool it would be if our littles, and then our grandkids as well when they are adults, they could look back and say my grandparents invested in this because they have such a high value for dot dot dot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to build like I want to build our kids and our grandkids. I want to invest in who they are as people and help them build skillsets, and I didn't really think about that when I was just having kids, you know. Yeah, totally I didn't think about that a lot, just having Edie and Liam right away. But when the grandbaby comes you start to just think like well, and being 45, you start to look around and go like the people that.
Speaker 1:Um, well, the things that I really love the most about my life are the family, but also these skillsets that I've, I've created and that I get to use all the time. And so what better gift can you give and help can you provide than to set somebody else up for success in their future?
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's really beautiful, I think, um, you know, as this dynamic shifts inside of our family structure, there's also these shifts on perspective, on time and what really matters the most, and I think that's what we're kind of talking about and it's it's funny because we're young to have grandchildren, but having grandchildren really does make you realize like time is moving right along. Life is a life is a blink, gosh. There's other, there's other current events that happened this past week that have reminded us life is not a guarantee there. It is over in a blink. And what do you really want to do with the time you have?
Speaker 2:And so, thinking about our little granddaughter getting old enough to come over to our house and spend time with us, like, what do we want her to feel in our home? What do we want her to feel when we're, you know, in our connection? How? How do we want to? How do we want her to feel our support and our investment and our commitment to her and her life and what she's excited about, what she's dreaming about, and, of course, she's going to grow up like a cousin to our littles. Probably that's going to feel a lot like that. But you know, we have a responsibility to our children. That is different, uniquely different than our responsibility to our grandchildren. And you know what? I think we're going to find all of the lines, right, we're going to find all the lines that exist between those boundaries.
Speaker 1:How do you spoil your grandchild in front of discipline your child?
Speaker 2:We're going to find out eating and we're going to learn real quick Um.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think what we get to go on the journey of is exploring healthy grandparent involvement and how, ultimately, our dream, of course, is that that would strengthen our, our broader family, that it would strengthen our relationships and bonds with our kids, that we would learn to build a beautiful bond and bring strength to our grandchildren and that we would learn the difference between what it means to be a grandparent and what it means to be a parent, you know? But of course, it's going to be a learning journey. We've never done this before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really love what you did in prep before the baby was born.
Speaker 1:The hard, the, the big challenge, I think, when your kids are about to have kids, if you're about to be a grandparent, this will really help you is there's this, there's this thing that happens. And the thing that happens is sometimes you see it where parents just assume access to the baby and assume that they get to come over whenever or help as much, or you, of course you'll want me, of course you'll want me to be there every month, of course I get to come watch you have this baby or whatever it is. You know, and I think we us having kids, lots of kids and and being in the season, I really wanted to make sure that we set up properly the right expectation and that we were a big help. And so I think I see a lot of tension between parents and grandparents, often because there's no real clear communication and expectation and the fear. The parents are afraid that they're going to hurt the grandparents' feelings and vice versa. So maybe talk a little bit about what you did, babe, kind of setting up the expectation.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, it felt really important to me. We work hard at relationship with our kids. We really do. Now, whether we nail it all the time or not super up for debate, we don't nail it all the time, but I can honestly say that what we do, we do with a lot of intentionality. The conversations we have with our kids are our bigs and our littles.
Speaker 2:Um, the time that we prioritize the family connection that we do provide, uh, we do it with a lot of intentionality and, as I was considering moving into this season with our adult children of you know, they're having kids. Of course we want to be deeply involved but more than anything, I want to feel like a strength to them. I want to feel like a help to them. I can't assume what is strength and help to them. I can't actually assume, as the grandparent, what my kids are going to find helpful and unhelpful, based on purely like what I would have found helpful and unhelpful, you know. But the beauty in having just actually exited the baby phase so very recently, it's all pretty fresh and I could think with a lot of clarity about the kind of conversations I would have found helpful to have in our family ahead of time.
Speaker 2:So you know, I took Allie and Elijah out to breakfast, uh, before the baby came a few weeks ago, and my main goal was just to say to them hey, listen, you're going to probably realize in the coming weeks and months why this conversation is important. You don't know that it will be, but soon, when you have this baby, you're going to discover lots of feelings, lots of needs. You're going to desire setting boundaries, and I want you to know from me we welcome all of that. I want you to know from me, especially for Allie right, the mom. You know she's going to birth this baby and she's going to move into that postpartum season and recovery and bonding and all of that. And I just remember for myself, I was shocked by how many strong feelings I had about stuff going on around me in that time, and whether I did or didn't want visitors, or whether meals were or weren't helpful or they're helpful.
Speaker 2:They are helpful always, um, actually not. Our kids are like food is not a blessing. In fact, we have to start looking into getting a second refrigerator in our garage, because they have so much food from their meal train, which is a fantastic problem.
Speaker 1:Um, it's not like that in 2020, when we had nah, we didn't get a meal train in 2020, folks.
Speaker 2:That was the COVID baby years.
Speaker 1:Anyways.
Speaker 2:I know we're so past it, but um.
Speaker 1:I'm not, I want to. I want that. Should we do a meal?
Speaker 2:Maybe we should do a grandparent meal train? Do you think our friends would come and bring?
Speaker 1:us food, since we're grandparents now.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm definitely going to text my girlfriends about that. They didn't have to bring a male when Edie was born, so they're on now.
Speaker 2:Um, anyways, especially for Allie, you know, I wanted to say to her like, listen, in those postpartum days and weeks you're going to feel some things and if you need a break, if you need sleep, if you want to be with the baby and nobody else, like I want you to be able to communicate and not worry about hurting our feelings. If you're like, actually we need a, we need a minute. Like no visitors today, I got to close the blinds and stay in bed. I'm tired. You know, Um, but?
Speaker 2:but even beyond that, of course, I wanted them to know things like hey, dad and I want to be as helpful as possible and of course, like when you find yourselves needing help, we would always want you to assume we are there. Don't ever assume that we can't do it. We'll let you know if we're too busy. We'll let you know if we have a meeting. We can't move around, but I want you guys to just assume dad and I are available. We want to lend as much strength as possible. I'd want to be their go-to simultaneously. If they don't want me to be their go-to, that's okay, and I really so. My whole point was actually to say out loud some of the things that I think often parents and adult children have a hard time communicating about, for fear of hurting each other's feelings. I know grandparents in particular. You know, listen, we've had kids for a long time. We've been doing this for a long time.
Speaker 2:We know what works, we know what doesn't work and I think, because I'm so fresh out of that phase of having little, little kids, babies, it's easy for me to go. You know what. What works for me does not actually work for everybody. And if my kids don't want to have their baby on a sleep schedule and they like rolling with the punches and they don't need her to be on any sort of rhythm, I don't need that. And who am I to actually try to put that on them. Or, you know, I want her to know, gosh, if you need to drop that baby off for an hour while you go get a massage, I want her to know I'll do it her way. I'm not going to do it my way, cause I think it's the best way I'll. I'll put whatever baby diaper you want on that baby. I'll feed that baby whenever you want me to feed that baby.
Speaker 1:We're not, I'm not besides red dye, but yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but my point being, I want them to trust. Our mission is to lend strength, and sometimes I do think, especially gosh, don't we have such reputations, mother-in-laws have such reputations right. Like mother-in-laws, have those reputations.
Speaker 1:So many opinions.
Speaker 2:The last thing I want and I think the way that we really bring strength to relationships with our older kids as they move into parenthood is by saying these things out loud, not letting a lot of expectations live under the surface, where you then get afraid of hurting each other's feelings or overstepping boundaries. I'm like no, let's. Let this communication be wide, open and clear, with no fragile feelings. Let's, let's, let's do this with a lot of clarity, and I wanted to lead the way in that, so that they don't have to be guessing about what's going on inside of me that, so that they don't have to be guessing about what's going on inside of me.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think the role of a grandparent is not to raise that child. The role of the grandparent is to help, support the parents who are raising that child and to, of course, help support the child, but the raising of the child is, I mean, that's really up to mom and dad, mom and dad, totally, and so I like to just think I don't know what's, I don't, I need to leave like my, my best tips, my best tricks, my best advice until they're wanted, until they're needed.
Speaker 1:And I think, if if we can do that, then I just get to come and get the best parts of the day, right I get to come and or take the worst parts if that's what they need.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:But I think as a grandparent, we've really like postured ourselves as we're not the experts on raising your child.
Speaker 2:No way, we're not the experts. I'm not the expert on raising my own child, on building your family.
Speaker 1:We don't have the best opinions on how everything has to go and, if you want to like, pull on that resource of what we did or how we could help whatever, but our goal is to really help them, support, help to support them to raise their baby the best possible way that they see fit. And obviously you know we have some ideas and thoughts, but yeah but we're not. I'm not going in there thinking, oh, I know how to do this.
Speaker 2:Right, right, you know it makes me think about how, you know, as we have been raising our little kids, our five and three year old um, your parents have been an incredible resource and strength to us in so many ways, and also we have needed our broader community in order to do what we've done for these last five years and we have hit different places where we've taken some of your parents' parenting advice and we've heard them when they've told us, hey, we think your discipline needs to be stronger in this area, and we take that, we listen and we take it.
Speaker 2:But then we've also gotten great at going and making use of other incredible resources around us in order to help us in our parenting journey.
Speaker 2:And so I think, as grandparents, we get to we're, you know, we're not positioned to be the knowledge base or the resource for our adult children we get to actually help point them towards building a great wealth of resource and community that are going to help them raise their kids. And I think a great example, you know, is you know they had an incredible medical team that helped them with their labor and their delivery, and then afterwards they're experiencing just the incredible benefit of having that medical community around them for, like I think it's five to six weeks postpartum Allie can call and and ask questions. They'll come, do house visits and all of that, and that to me is a beautiful picture of like she is learning to utilize the experts in her life to add strength to this new journey that she's on. And we get to be there as a support and encouragement and a sounding board when we're invited, but primarily we're there to love on them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when your kids become parents, there's just this natural relational shift that takes place and I think we really have to come to a place where again you're more there, like with our, with our oldest kids, like I'm there as a friend and a support and realizing that they're gonna, they're gonna they're learning and they're gonna grow into what kind of family do they want to raise and what kind of parents do they want to be and what values and virtues are really important to them.
Speaker 1:And I think being really open to obviously offering support but they all know that is there but then just really helping to support them, I just think is the biggest thing being a hundred percent being there to cheer them on rather than critiquing them, being there to, um like, encourage them when things are challenging, um, just making sure that, yeah, that we really move into into that phase of encourager, friend, supporter and out of the phase even of, on some level, coach, you know, like for them. I'm not their coach.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I'm their friend and their support.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think too, and this is a bit of a unique angle for us, as we're doing two things simultaneously, right, like raising little kids and then stepping into grandparenting. One of the things that I'm thankful for is the perspective that both of those things lend each other, which is, you know, parenting littles requires a lot more structure and consistency, and for us, you know, like we're in the we're, we're training up a three-year-old into how to not, like lose his ever living mind when somebody takes his toy or whatever he gets angry so quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, his. His teacher told us the other day he has a short fuse.
Speaker 1:We're like totally oh, does he have one? Yeah?
Speaker 2:totally, we're going to work on that.
Speaker 1:He's been having to fight off the lions here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know, grandparenting typically right in the traditional sense that grandparenting role allows for more margin with play and delight, and just like this perspective, and I could see it in my own. I could see it in my own, I could. I I most see it in my memories of my mom, and actually it's interesting, it's what Edie says about my mom that is striking to me because, um, for those of you that don't know, my mom passed away almost two years ago after a battle with cancer we love you you.
Speaker 2:She's. She was the best grandma. Like she, I grieve for my kids that she's not here to be a grandmother to them because she was so good at it and she loved it so much. But Edie's best memories of my mom were of her sitting on the floor and playing with her, which I don't have any memories of my mom sitting on the floor playing with me. Honestly, I don't. My mom was so good at so many things as a mother. Probably prioritizing play with us kids was not the top of her game.
Speaker 1:No, she had to clean that house and cook that meal.
Speaker 2:She was so busy. But I think about that a lot and I prioritize playing with my kids in a way that I would not have known to do if that wouldn't have been Edie's best memories of my mom. So I think that if I could speak any encouragement to moms and dads out there who are a long ways away from considering grandparenting, I think the softness and the delight that comes with a grandparenting role is something that we would do well to actually pull into our parenthood season a little more, into our parenthood season a little more, and I know that that I look so forward to being someone for Livvy, who she remembers as full of delight, willing to play soft, warm, but it's. But I'm going to get to do that alongside my little children too, and I think that's a gift.
Speaker 1:It so is. I think the older you get, the more you realize that you're getting older. Yeah, and it is a beautiful, bittersweet, I think, realization. I'm actually really enjoying it, I think. Just the one where such young grandparents but we're old parents Speak for yourself. We are babe. When Edie graduates high school, I'm going to be like 60 years old, you know.
Speaker 2:That's only abnormal to you because you thought you were going to be an empty nester at 43. Well, and it's not young, old, you know. That's only abnormal to you because you thought you were going to be an empty nester at 43.
Speaker 1:And it's not. It's not young, young, you know it's not young, young, so but I do. I think just for me, when we realized, gosh, we're going to have babies around forever. We're going to have babies Cause, you know, edie's going to have, our kids are going to have babies, and then Edie's going to come and have babies, and then our grandbabies are going to have babies, I was like I have the best life, totally.
Speaker 1:I'm going to get to spend the rest of my life growing older and setting my grandkids up for success, supporting my kids and really just being there to enjoy the very best thing in life, which is family and building relationships and helping people succeed and being there for them in the tough times and you know we've had so many tough times growing up, so many, and not that those are done for us but now I get to spend so much of my life helping these other people that I love so much, succeed and really care for them, and I think that's the, that's the beauty of getting older is I get to take all the things that I've learned and all the things that I've built, which was my message to my son Like you, you don't just have me, you have my whole community and and everything that I have. Like, I want to help you and strengthen you, strengthen that baby, and really help our family grow as much as possible, and you know it's beautiful it is beautiful, it's this incredible blessing.
Speaker 1:Um, I just see the world is. The world is having less and less kids, just statistically, and I think we're going to see a shift in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because kids really are the most incredible, beautiful life-shaping. I was just thinking that when I was watching Lodge the other day. Having kids changes you because that's part of the bonding process. It's not like, oh, it's worse, or you have to let go of all these things. You get to grab a hold of something that is now helping you see and think about other people in a different way. He's thinking about his wife in a different way. He's thinking about his relationships in a different way. Coming home feels different, you're needed in a different way, and I just so love the importance of having kids. It changes you, it grows you, it shapes you and, more importantly, you get to invest in somebody that is the most important person that's ever walked this planet.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And so we are proud, excited.
Speaker 2:We are.
Speaker 1:Such thankful grandparents. And we just hope that you guys get to do this as well, for all those grandparents out there. What a gift Soon to be like this is the absolute best season.
Speaker 2:I know, dreamland. Yeah, whatever season you are in, whether you're raising littles or sending off your teens or becoming grandparents like us, uh, we would want to just bless your families and your relational health with connection and presence and the ability to think about legacy too.
Speaker 1:So it's true.
Speaker 2:We hope you guys have an incredible week. We are off to snuggle our grandbaby.