One Little Happy Pill Is A Major

YOU try raising three young children at 66 without a nanny. This is about late-blooming anxiety, a tiny pill that softens sharp edges, and the daily negotiation between laughter, fear, and love when small hands find sharp drawers and open furnace rooms.

Transcript

Opening Banter And Sponsor Bit

Janelle 0:00

Hello, hello, hello. Hey, this is Janelle Hudson. And welcome to the podcast with a unique host with the special quality of telling it like it isn't. This is a skill very few have. Count how many times you end up thinking to yourself, that's complete BS. The show today is sponsored by Judd's Designs at JudSdesigns.com. Go Blade.

Anxiety, Pills, And Parenting Stress

Little Kids, Big Chaos

Memory Of A Broken Promise

Kinder Language And Consequences

Generational Worry And Big Families

Openness About Growing Up

Kids, Nonsense, And School Struggles

The Two Things To Worry About

Blade 0:24

Judd made me this one with nothing on it. I love a coffee cup with no logo on it. And he charges more for these with no logo on them. Gotta stop worrying. About my health. I suffer through anxiety. I have panic attacks, stress, because I have three kids. And I'm not talking about 18, 17, and 14. I'm talking about younger than 10 year old kids. I've never had any stress before. Panic attacks, anxiety before. No, I do. And they gave me this one little pill. And it's one little pill and makes me a nicer person. And you have to be when you got three little crumb snatchers running around the house getting in trouble. I got one that's four. Caught him with his hand in the silverware, you know, drawer the other day, you know, pulling knives out, running around laughing like this, like Chucky. You know, they're opening up the furnace room, sticking their head in. You know. God, one day the guy, kid, had my drill. You know, Daddy, it's a drill. Sure is. And you gotta be careful what you say about them. And the pills that make me nicer really help me out a lot. Because instead of saying, like I said this when they were one or two because, you know, they didn't understand me, I say, shut the hell up. I'm trying to watch TV. You know, now they're older and they start to remember stuff and they start to accumulate grudges at this point. And they get to be seven, eight, nine, ten, whatever, they remember stuff. I know because I do. I'll never forget the day. My dad says, I'm going to the grocery store. And I'm like, Daddy, can I go to the grocery store with you? And he said, No, Blade, I'll be back in, you know, an hour and a half, but I'll bring you surprise. So I sat there on that porch on the steps for an hour and a half, and he came back with a couple of grocery bags, you know, and I followed him into the kitchen without nagging, and he put down the grocery bags and unpacked them. No surprise for Blade. And I walked out of there with my shoulders shrugging, and I was so upset. And I'll never forgive the man for not bringing me a surprise that day. And I was nine. So that's the good thing about taking these nice pills. I'm a whole lot nicer. Now I say things like, Hey kids, would you please be quiet because daddy's trying to watch curling on the Olympics? You know, and if they're not, if they laugh at me like half the time they do, you know, because there's no emanating threat coming. I'll just take their tablets and hide them and they won't get them for a month. That's the worst I can do. Hope this phase passes and they turn into be nicer people as they get older. You know. All you do is worry when you got kids, man. I asked my mom that she had five. Worry, worry, worry. That's all she ever did was worry. You know, I'd ask her, Mom, why'd you have five kids? All you guys do is worry. You know, and I was the oldest one. And she'd say, Well, Blade, that's what everybody was doing back then. Two words, baby boomers, she told me. Everybody was having these big families back then. You know, I asked my dad that, Dad, why do you have five kids? All you guys do is worry. And he would just scurry off. He'd never talk about anything like that. Anything that even comes close to talking having anything to do with sex. Off he went. We didn't talk about that ever. Any at any time did we ever talk about girls? You know, I'm not like that. I don't care. I'll talk about anything. And I've told myself, I don't give a shit if girls are boys in the house, how old they are. I'll talk about anything. The other day. Look, you're starting to get boobies. I want it to be so that there are no secrets in this house. That nothing shocks anyone. That's training for the world, people. It is. They'll go out in the world and they won't be shocked and they won't be protected or sheltered. I ain't having no sheltered kids. I'm not. You know, and I found out they're nice kids. They are, and they don't repeat things that I say thank you Lord. You know, and I'm always nice to them. They don't get my nonsense yet. They will when I get older. That's all I'm good for is nonsense. I can't do math. I can't help them with their math. You know, I'm terrible at that. If they want to write a joke or a sentence, then I can help them, but that's it. Not even that good at writing jokes, but I can write a sentence. Fuck, worrying, worrying. Look at this guy. His name is Dappo Ibrahim. And he says that his grandma says there's only two things in life that you have to worry about.

Dapo Ibrahim 5:31

My grandma says there are only two things in life that you worry about. Whether you're healthy or whether you're sick. If you're healthy, you ain't got nothing to worry about. But if you're sick, you got two things to worry about. Whether you're gonna get better. Whether you're gonna get worse. You get better. You ain't got nothing to worry about. But if you get worse, you got two things to worry about.

Therapy, Dread, And Confidence

DVDs, America, And Desert Life

Nostalgia, Identity, And Promises

Legacy, Kindness, And The Perfect Yard

Blade 6:46

Kentucky fried chicken. I worry, you know, a lot about everything, and and and I have this therapist, and she asks me at the end of every therapy session. You know, we do it on the phone, right? And she asks me at the end of every therapy session, do you always or do you ever have this feeling that something very terrible is going to happen? And I'm like, Yeah. And she says, How often? All the time. And I tell her, look, there's a saying says, nothing good lasts forever. Something bad is going to happen. I'm telling it like it is to her. Yeah. I had this feeling that something bad is gonna happen. So what? Because something bad is going to happen. That's the way the world works. Why do they ask that question? People try to tell you not to worry. Don't worry, worrying is worthless. It wastes your time and it makes you feel bad. And worrying is just a complete waste of time. He said, Well, you can't just not worry. When you worry, you worry. You know, I hate it when people say, Don't worry, yeah, don't worry, don't worry. It's you there's no sense in worrying, it makes no sense to worry. What? That's like saying to someone, and I've always hated this, it's like, you gotta have confidence, son. I said, Well, how can you have confidence if you don't have any confidence? Just make yourself have confidence? No, you get confidence from doing the right thing for a long time, but then you get confidence. You gotta make confidence. You can't just have it. Listen, this is a phenomenon that listen to this. I have a buddy named Kent, and he is a former radio guy, and he sent me some DVDs. And I can't but believe it, but I've got a DVD player. I've got this new Dell computer, and it has and I actually ordered a DVD player just in case on it. So it's got a DVD player. No one uses those anymore, and no one has a DVD player on their desktops or their laptops anymore, but I do. So he burned there's a phrase we haven't used in a while, a couple of CDs for me from some concerts that he had seen. You know, three DVDs he sent over to me, um including America, my first favorite band, America, right? Because it was my first favorite song. My first favorite song ever when I was a child was Horse with No Name. It was his number one song with this fabulous guitar solo. That's why I loved it. It was the guitar solo in it. You know, not necessarily the singing. Been through the desert on a horse with no name. You know? But that was when I was nine. Now I'm out here and I live in the desert. Some 60 years later. And I have been through the desert on a horse with no name. There are horses everywhere around here. Ranches everywhere in the middle of the desert. The Mexican families, they'll take you out on a horse ride whenever you want. Have you ever ridden a horse? There's an art to it. You don't just jump on a horse and ride it. You know. I woke up the next day and let me tell you, my ass was killing me. Everything from here in was killing me. You gotta go with the flow in those horses, man. It's not that easy. Boom, boom, boom, boom. So I've been through the desert on a horse with no name. I live in the desert. You know, look at this album cover from these guys. 1971. Every song on it's an ass kicker. It is really. 12-string, two 12-string guitar players. They're down to one guy now, I think. One guy. And they go out and tour and he sings, and it's great to be there with them, and you just cry because it's just a chunk of childhood that you don't think about very much. You know, it takes you back to 13, 12, 11, whatever. But look at the album cover. I don't think I've ever really noticed that until now. Bunch of hippies sitting down there, you know, no shoes on, typical 70s thing. With the three Native Americans behind them. America. I was like, wow. And I the Native Americans live right next door to me. They're everywhere. The reservations are everywhere. And then others that aren't on the reservation live right next door to me. It's all right there. My life right now is right there on that album cover. Now, is that how it is? Is that what happens? The way your childhood is formed is where your life leads you. Is that where it is? And for that reason, to this day, whenever I tell my kids I'm gonna bring them a surprise home, I bring them home a fucking surprise. I don't want them holding a grudge against me when I'm when I go. That guy, he was an asshole. He I hate I will never forget the time when he, and I never forget the time when he, and I'll never forget that. I don't want that. I want them to say, yeah, he was a good guy. You should see his yard. Man, he had a hell of a yard. He kept our yard beautiful for the rest of the He was super old and didn't make any sense half the time, but woo, you should have seen our yard. I'm serious. I want my legacy to be that to my children. Yeah, he's a nice guy, but man, you should have seen our yard.