The Real Dad Podcast
Each week, these four fathers cover a wide range of "Dad" related topics, from the joys of watching your child grow up to the challenges of balancing work and family life. With their unique blend of humor and authenticity, Dave, Joey, Brian, and Mark provide a refreshing perspective on what it means to be a dad in today's world.
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The Real Dad Podcast
Cottage Chronicles: Finding Moments That Matter
I had a great brawl in the kitchen with Joey's son Cooper, josh's son Kian and then my son Ben. It was a 3v1. In case you were wondering yes, I could dominate three children and beat the crap out of them if I needed to.
Speaker 3:Your son gave you a shot, though you saw that, yeah, I did. I came in.
Speaker 1:I had to look him in the eyes and be like you're lucky.
Speaker 3:I flexed before that because it could have winded me.
Speaker 1:Because he was playing cheap. He was letting the little two distract me and while I'm taking them down. Then he would just find the opening and just wham.
Speaker 4:Full punch.
Speaker 3:Full punch. Full 12-year-old punch.
Speaker 1:Joey's son Cooper's got a freaking hammer on him, though For a five-year-old, no a punch Like a punch hammer punch.
Speaker 3:I've changed his diaper every night for a long time. Kid's not packing uh, he's packing a punch. Yes, showman, come on make this work.
Speaker 1:The Real Dad Podcast. Welcome to the Real Dad Podcast. I'm Dave and I like fishing, that's nice, just something you like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm Joey, I like getting tattoos.
Speaker 2:My name is Brent and I like being invited to Mark's wedding in my dreams. Because I was not invited to Mark's wedding. And just for all the listeners here, I think I've only ever turned off one Real Dead Podcast episode and it was the one about Mark's wedding because I was so pissed, Ouch, that I was not invited. That, yeah, I'm just, I'm pissed.
Speaker 3:Mark, I'm pissed and I know you probably are too busy and don't have the time to listen to episodes that I was not invited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just pissed, mark. I'm pissed and I know you probably are too busy and don't have the time to listen to episodes that I'm on, but just know this there was real hurt and there was real tears, so anything you like or don't like.
Speaker 4:Thanks for that, Brent. I'm Brian.
Speaker 3:I didn't say I was done, brian, I was free that weekend.
Speaker 4:And Jeff.
Speaker 2:Gill is a real prick, yeah thanks. A lovely real prick. Yeah.
Speaker 4:I love when my kids say really random shit, like tonight, okay, sitting down at dinner, and all of a sudden my daughter looks at me and she's like dad, I just want you to know that when I'm done with you, I'm gonna throw you in the garbage. Oh wow, she said it with a big smile on her face, like she's been working on that when you're done with me. What are you talking about, okay, I?
Speaker 3:have so many issues with that statement top to bottom.
Speaker 4:I didn't like any of that. Uh, she couldn't have been more adorable, so I just had. A good laugh makes it okay, true story.
Speaker 2:At dinner tonight the kids were talking about making bracelets for christina. It's her anniversary coming up on Friday. Oh, congrats, thank you. 11 years, all right, 11 years, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, golf club. It's true, applause is needed 11 years.
Speaker 3:Being married to me is one hell of an accomplishment.
Speaker 2:So the kids being very sweet, they wanted to make us bracelets. No-transcript we will remember you mom number one kids are dark, man they are, I was at.
Speaker 1:I was at a friend's house.
Speaker 4:Um, we were like family swim day at their house. Yeah, and uh, their one daughter, she just like she was swimming beside me and then all of a sudden she grabs my neck and starts like shoving me under the water and she she going the last time. The last time she had a toy and she was like I'm going to kill you and she like whispered it in my face same kid, yeah, yeah, you all know how old is this, you all know her how old is this kid?
Speaker 1:Four, oh wow. Four or five, okay.
Speaker 4:Four, four Turning five.
Speaker 1:And you already are her nemesis.
Speaker 4:She's hilarious, but she's scary.
Speaker 2:Does this girl have two siblings?
Speaker 4:Yeah, twin siblings, yeah. Yeah, Twin siblings yeah. She's trying to piece together who her mother is yeah, yeah, kids are dark yep, they just give it to you straight, no filters.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what we love about them we do.
Speaker 1:That's also why we love brent. No filters. Just gonna let mark know what he needs to know. Uh, we're glad you could join us again, though. Thank you very much. Mark decided to drop a bomb on us last night. We send out a Sunday night text Like hey, everybody, good for tomorrow. And Mark's like no, I'm in Cali. We're like cool, like where's Cali on Like is that what you're calling Campbellford now.
Speaker 3:Like are you really and?
Speaker 1:then he's like yeah, he forgot to tell us. He might have mentioned it and we might have forgot. I don't think he did and we might have forgot. I don't think he did, I don't think so either. Seems like a pretty big thing. He's filming some stuff in. California for a brand that he's been working with, which is like a huge thing for him. So kudos to you, mark, and we're glad that Brent could jump in here.
Speaker 2:I came at him a little hot and I was actually thinking he has to regret he's not getting married again so you can say what you need.
Speaker 2:No, no, he's still a dick, um, but I uh, I was actually thinking I'm like I I get this call and I get so excited, but it's always to replace mark and since I was rude to mark, I'm gonna say something nice to mark. Okay, mark is unbelievable on the show and he is an unbelievable storyteller, and I say this with the most love. But I would love to replace one of you.
Speaker 4:That's fair so that I'm not having
Speaker 3:to fill in for the guy. I see one day that's okay. No, no, your silence is beautiful.
Speaker 2:I mainly mean dave, but, but genuinely I'm like fuck. Like mark is a really good storyteller, like I feel, like I gotta go in and I gotta tell all these things and I gotta swear a lot and tell people that I black out and I can't remember anything and then ask Joey that his kid is eight years old again and her name is Murphy and he's like, just for reference. At this point if you don't know who is whose kid on this show, cut it loose.
Speaker 3:Start over One week.
Speaker 4:We'll just say we need you to cover for Mark, and then Mark will be here. When you get here It'll be a great surprise.
Speaker 1:Brian loves a surprise.
Speaker 2:Like being prom king.
Speaker 1:As a teacher and a wife of a teacher. You're home, Kids are home. Do you have your kids in camps. Are you the camp counselor? How is it going, you?
Speaker 2:can't see my face, but I have dead in my eyes.
Speaker 4:Yeah no, there's tears I have dead in my eyes. How many camping trips in are you so far? So we?
Speaker 2:are two camping trips in leaving for a third tomorrow and a fourth the following week, oh wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we've gone a little.
Speaker 2:We go a little overboard. Now, for those of you that don't know what it's like to camp in Ontario, you have to book five months in advance and you are buying, you're getting campsites like concert tickets. So you are clicking on the exact site you want at exactly 7am and most of the time you don't get it. But we live in this panic state where it's like, well, if we don't get it, then you end up missing like weeks at a time, because that Monday everyone ends up booking for those four or five days, Right, so we end up overbooking. It's really, it's a really bittersweet thing because camping like you camp Bri, you two are more cottagers. I don't know if you really camp with the kids. Have you camped with the kids?
Speaker 3:I have haven't in a while, though. No, my wife is not a camper.
Speaker 4:We've talked a lot about a dad camping trip, though, like dave and I have talked about it. Yeah, yeah, oh, I'd like that. My wife would have serious fomo, but yeah, that would be awesome, so we'll do it for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah sorry, we'll circle back to that.
Speaker 2:Just mark if you're listening, you're not invited, uh, so no, so camping is amazing, um, but summer is is really, really hard, like I like when you asked me, uh, if I could make it tonight to just get to be around you guys, uh, and to get out of the house for a little bit. It's very refreshing, it is a very you're on every day, the kids are together every day, and I think that's the harder part is?
Speaker 4:I think it's these siblings together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they hate each other, like they're trying to do what brian's little friend is doing and just slowly drown each other, right?
Speaker 2:um so if I was actually talking to chris about it today, we need to start finding a way to like distribute the kids, not so that we don't have any kids, because it would actually be quite nice to only have like some one-on-one time, yeah, but the three of them together, and it's like we're going from home into a pickup truck where the three of them are beside each other, into a pop-up trailer where they're beside each other.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of, yeah, a lot of together there's not that separation and we talked about it like even just pre-recording, about like separating between husbands and wives and getting that time alone or getting that time away from the other person, and how it can be healthy for a relationship. I think that, like it definitely applies to siblings. Like you imagine having your annoying brother or your brother that you like beside you and you're having fun and then they turn annoying, like too much of anybody is going to be a lot, except for joey that's your sibling.
Speaker 3:You never have enough.
Speaker 2:Joey, talk to meg, she would never speak but summer has been going really well, but it's. It's funny when, um, we I was coming here, I was just thinking about the show and it was you. Did you this friendship that we have here, number one, as I was thinking about my anniversary, I realized I don't believe any of you were at, uh, my wedding with them. No, so I was just thinking how it's. It's interesting when you look back at your wedding and you look at the people that are a part of your life now yeah, um, number one.
Speaker 2:I wish that all of you could have been there to share in the day um. But it's just funny how life changes and change can be healthy and change can be good. So I was thinking about just kind of friendships. But we know that hockey is wrapped up and we might not be golfing as much, or some of us play baseball and some of us don't together. That like when you're not together in friendship, you don't realize how much you need it or how much you enjoy it until you don't have it yeah, right like during during the hockey season or whatever we have.
Speaker 2:We you know that weekly you're going to get to see most guys yeah and I think it's only been, let's say, three weeks, um, since school ended, but I don't know. The last time I would have actually seen you guys. Like you said, maybe the last recording yeah um, which is what two like six weeks ago yeah, oh wow, close to that maybe either way it's.
Speaker 2:It's when you go for a long time without seeing the people that mean a lot to you. Yeah, you don't realize how much that you've missed them yeah so I have missed you miss you. Buddy too, buddy, yeah, I, I actually I was like, oh my god, maybe they miss me, because when I said I'm in, I actually got three heart emojis back and I'm like, oh my God, all three.
Speaker 1:That's so good I was like do they work?
Speaker 4:I was like they were very quick responses.
Speaker 1:It wasn't even lunchtime we were excited. We know what, we know how much it means to you and we enjoy having you here with us because, I don't know, I think you bring a great different dynamic and I got like brian and joey and am I like our lives are very intertwined through work, so we're seeing each other more often. We know what's happening in each other's lives where you bring in like that fresh new dynamic. So it's fun. It's very fun to be here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sorry that more people can't be a part of such a fun guy.
Speaker 3:We didn't talk about that, even with the, specifically with the weddings and friendships that you have now and the ones that weren't incorporated in your wedding. We sorry to bring it up, but we chatted about it at Mark's wedding because it was the same with us and Brian and us and Jordan. We're like we didn't know them. Me and Brian and Jordan all got married in the same year, but we didn't even know each other that year, where it's like one of those I can get why I don't think people do it enough.
Speaker 2:It's money.
Speaker 3:But to do like the renewing of the vows or whatever, but to like have the wedding with the people that are in your life now, to have a celebration of your relationship or whatever. But yeah, I guess that costs money and that would be a reason not to do it, Sorry just, yeah, I guess that costs money and that would be a reason not to do it.
Speaker 2:Sorry, just for the record and Jordan was at Mark's wedding, that is correct and do they know each other?
Speaker 3:I mean they've seen each other a couple times. Yeah, they do love each other. They're acquaintances.
Speaker 1:So Joey and I were at a cottage last week.
Speaker 4:Tell me about it.
Speaker 1:Which was a lot of fun. We did our annual family cottage trip my family, joey's family and his brother josh's family, and brawls any brawls? Uh, I had a great brawl in the kitchen with joey's son cooper. Oh yeah, josh's son kian and then my son ben I. It was a 3v1, in case you were wondering yes, I could dominate three children and beat the crap out of them if I needed to.
Speaker 3:Your son gave you a shot, though you saw that, yeah, I did. I came in.
Speaker 2:I had to look him in the eyes and be like you're lucky I flexed before that because it could have winded me.
Speaker 1:Because he was playing cheap. He was letting the little two distract me and while I'm taking them down. Then he would just find the opening and just wham, Full punch.
Speaker 3:Oh, just find the opening and just wham, full punch, full punch, full 12-year-old punch.
Speaker 1:Joey's son Cooper's got a freaking hammer on him, though For a five-year-old no a punch yeah, no a punch.
Speaker 2:You said it and I was like good for him.
Speaker 3:I was like he does. I've changed his diaper every night for a long time. Kid's not packing, he's packing a punch.
Speaker 1:Yes, every night for a long time, kid's not packing, he's packing a punch. Yes, he does pack a punch For a five-year-old. His shot. I was really impressed.
Speaker 3:It hurt. That was the Muay Thai.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he knows how to put the weight behind it, but it was honestly such a fun fight. We were literally in the kitchen and I just kept tripping them and taking one kid down and then another kid down and then another kid down and then another, and but they're just relentless they don't stop, and then you're like okay I
Speaker 3:need a break, I'm tired. I need to take five. That's the thing with cooper. He does that kid's an energizer bunny. He will not stop until you tell him to stop. I have not reached his point where he gives up before and to say you kept up with him very well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I didn't see you stop very much. You, I feel like there's like the inner challenge for you to not let them win and you're like I'm gonna keep going, I'm gonna yep, there's a bit of that and that's the thing, right, like I.
Speaker 3:I see myself in him too, like I was like that with the kid as a kid, where I always wanted to play with the older people and I didn't want to stop playing. Yeah, or like, and I remember especially some of my older siblings were like they didn't want to play, they didn't have that in them as much, yeah, so then I remember those feelings of like just wanting people to play with and then having nobody to play with me. All right, well, I'll go off by myself. So then it's like I want to be that, for him to be like. When he comes up he's like dad, what are we gonna play? I'm like, all right, what are we gonna play, especially that week? Like that week very much, I take as that like I'm going to be fun dad, fun uncle, I'm here to play, yeah, and whatever we're doing, I'm in, let's go yeah, and it was a ton of fun.
Speaker 1:Honestly. Like we got great weather, there weren't many fights amongst cousins or siblings that lasted longer than a second, like I think. Again, you have so many different people to be able to jump around too, so if someone's bugging you, then you can kind of redirect people and redirect kids or you're like you're not going to want to go over there for a little bit stay over here, come play over here, come do this, and you can kind of direct them, but I think, just them being another year older.
Speaker 1:Every year we go back to this cottage. It just seems to get a little bit better each time because the kids are getting a little older, a little more self-sufficient, they're playing in the water so much more, and I don't know if I was just more present this year, but I just I found these little pockets of like precious moments throughout the time and even just like some direct one-on-one time with my kids. That meant a lot to me and I wrote a little bit to our patreons about that this morning, just about how I think it was. In the book the subtle art of not giving a fuck by mark mason I think his name is okay I read a book, um, where he talks about people wanting to immortalize themselves, and that's why you put so much pressure on trying to accomplish these feats in life.
Speaker 1:Whether that's like getting that statue on Maple Leaf Square or being in the history books or having something leaving a legacy behind that can be remembered is something that people hold so important to them and you might not even know that you have that, but it is subconsciously there and I realized in a few moments with my kids that I'm immortalizing myself in their memories and through them. So I had these like special moments with my kids and even with my nieces and nephews, where it was like they're going to remember this moment forever. So like one of the special ones to me was in the last night actually went a few nights I'd been going out canoeing with my youngest daughter. She was the only one that wanted to go out with me and she would let me fish, but she didn't want it because she was a little too nervous. The last night she's like I'm gonna bring my fishing rod too. I was like, all right, sure, let's go, we go out there.
Speaker 1:And she caught a little perch and she was happy about it. And then she caught a bigger rock bass and was like, oh, this one's heavy. And then she caught a smallmouth bass, so like she had been catching these little fish off the dock all week long, every time so exciting. She loves to see the fish touch, touch. The fish gets excited by the moment. But this is just the two of us alone in a canoe, the sun setting, the lake is completely calm, no boat, nobody else out there, just the two of us and we're going around to these different spots on the lake. She casts her uh rod out there and she's like I think this is the spot, I think I'm gonna get one here, and then boom hooks on to this smallmouth bass and it was like finally a decent sized fish, and you can hear the drag on the rod you got this really
Speaker 1:scooped it up with the net and then she got to hold it and take a picture. And it's like she is only seven and a half years old, but that memory of fishing with dad in the canoe will be something that will be with her forever and when she's a mom, maybe she takes her kids out fishing in the canoe to relive those moments. And it, like it, had me emotional because it was just like it. It's so simple and like you don't have to necessarily go away to create those special memories. It's something that could be made in the backyard, but by going away it gives me the time to be intentional about it, without the distractions.
Speaker 4:You're away from work.
Speaker 1:It's really hard to do it at home, and especially being in a canoe, away from everybody, you're away from technology, you're away from everybody, you're away from technology, you're away from distractions, right, so you really are just one-on-one and on the water together. So it was just such a special moment of that that I hope that we can continue to build on and again had a bunch of different moments as we went. My son swam across the lake and back the one day and it was just like no floating. There was a moment where it was like, all right, I think my wife might have been like telling him to put on a life jacket. I'm like why? Why is he in a life jacket? Like I'm gonna be right beside him in the paddleboard. He can, if he gets tired, I can help him out. And he was like, okay, fine, go for it. And he was like pumped and then him coming back and just seeing that confidence in him of like I did it, like I, I swam across the lake.
Speaker 1:yeah, like there was this like I don't know he was very proud of himself, and just seeing him in that moment was like really, really cool.
Speaker 2:That's cool yeah, I genuinely I love that story because if you were to ask me and I'm actually planning like my next tattoo, I want something like this, but your memory is my genuine happiness. So when we go camping and all of the craziness to get camping.
Speaker 2:Each morning I take a different kid out and we go out while they're still missed on the water and I have my coffee at my feet and I have one of my children in front of me, yeah, and we are fishing and I am at complete peace, and it is very rare that I will be at complete peace and happiness, and that is genuinely one of one of those moments, and one of the greatest things that can happen is when your kid wants to paddle you around while you fish this is my greatest thing. I'm like hey, listen if you don't want to paddle, it's like don't fish, babe. Like you want to paddle, just paddle away.
Speaker 3:Just just go that way.
Speaker 2:The lily pods are over there and then you end it, but then they're back and then the good dad turns bad so quickly, because then they're like banging the paddle against the side, like you know, I'm like well, there goes that fish thanks for that one.
Speaker 3:Clean it up, kid elbow out.
Speaker 1:I find it fun and, like I, fishing was something that I kind of got into once we started going to these cottages. I had never really fished growing up. Um, we had gone to lakes in the past when I was a kid, but fishing was never really a thing. Um, but I had inherited my grandpa's fishing rod. So it was like when I'm at the cottage I'm gonna go fishing. And it was like special moments at the beginning, when my kids were still like babies and toddlers, where I'd go out fishing by myself with my grandpa's rod and, like you have that moment of feeling like your grandpa's near type thing, who was like a very big part of my life when I was younger. So doing that and then gaining this kind of love for fishing and just doing it every time I was out there, the kids would always see me doing it. So we went from having like one fishing rod at the cottage to now there's like all of the fishing rods because all the kids have their own little one.
Speaker 1:It's awesome. There's points where there's like three rods, four rods going off the end of the deck.
Speaker 1:Parents are just like watching hooks left, right and center Like someone's going to get hooked for sure um, but like I became the fishing uncle where it's just like I would be out there fishing on the dock and then my little nephew kian would come and like hey, can I fish? And like, yeah, sure man, like you hook, set him up and he's sitting there fishing with you and it's just the two of you on the dock and you just have that moment and I'm like I never did shit with my uncles like I don't I don't remember my uncles ever doing anything with me and I'm getting to have this and make this like special memory with my nephew and it's just like I don't know.
Speaker 1:It was very special. Yeah, I think it was just those moments that I got throughout the week, or even like even if it was just sitting back watching right, like sitting in the chair and watching the kids just play on the water, like just create their own worlds, their own imaginations building and like sand castles, and just getting to sit back and watch, and it was just yeah it was beautiful.
Speaker 3:Those are special moments. I found a lot of cool moments too of watching Meg, my wife, with the kids and like appreciating a few of those moments too Right. Or it's just like when you see somebody else living a moment where it's just like, right, yeah, you may don't necessarily get a ton of those again in the hustle and bustle of being at home and routine and everything it's all. Just get them food, get them out, get them back, get them food fed, washed and to bed, Right when. Yeah, there were just a couple of cool moments, but one was, yeah, when they were out on we had this like floating dock thing and she was playing with our daughter and Dave's daughter and then my nephew as well on the other side and the three of them were just playing together on this dock and she came up with this game that they were playing together and just laughing and having a good time, and so it's just one of those cool little you're witnessing somebody's moment too.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly kind of drink that in too, to be like man.
Speaker 3:That's so fun and I find it interesting for like almost where you kicked it off, brent of like being around people and friends who mean a lot to you and like I don't know the way why we do this podcast and like appreciating fatherhood and like that's what allows me to actually see these moments and like live them in a way where I find it hard and I never want to harp on somebody else, but like we would gone out for ice cream the one day and just seeing another dad there with his two daughters and they were having a bad day and everybody's got bad days with their kids, but you could just tell this guy for the whatever reason in this day, this mood he was, just everything was setting this guy off and everything his daughters would do he would react to and it would be very negative about where it's.
Speaker 3:Like you took your daughters out for kawartha ice cream. Like this should have been a fun time to be able to go out, make some memories. One of them drips ice cream on their shirt and he's losing it because now she has ice cream on her shirt, it's 35 degrees and you brought them to the kawartha drink ice cream buddy, they're gonna get ice cream on their shirt.
Speaker 3:Talk to leo but that's the thing, it was the dad leading it, like the girls, like his two girls they were a little older too and like they weren't having a tough time, like they were laughing with each other and he was just. Everything that happened was very debbie downery, where it's like I don't. I doubt that he has other men in his life that talk about how good being a father is and can be and should be in those moments when you can kind of carve them out. So that kind of makes me sad, but it also makes me happy that we are doing this and we do have a circle of guys who talk about this stuff and the importance of being a present dad and what it can be and the joys that can come out of it. And also, yes, most of the time it can suck, but those moments are worth every little bit of I'll call it suffering when you can just pull out even just a little bit of time with your kid where you just you're at peace.
Speaker 1:I mean, that being said that, that ice cream trip, there was another great dad that was right there with us here, we got to go out on a special little ice cream date with Jeff Ryan, one of our longtime podcast listeners and Patreons. I have been trying to connect with this guy for so long and it just keeps we keeping a day off or something happens and we can't get together. Yeah, he lives up in the area near where we were cottaging, so that was like should we do this? And I was like Joe, should we? You know, it's like sometimes if you're at the cottage and you have some more rain days, if you have a good day, then it's like no, you gotta. You gotta stay there, you gotta enjoy the lake.
Speaker 1:You can't leave that to go get ice cream you can do that anytime, but we had had such great days in the sun it was like sure let's take them out. So take the kids for a drive, go have some ice cream. It was freaking hot as balls but. Jeff is a fantastic guy. We were joking because his daughter was like who are we going to see?
Speaker 2:And he's like uh, my, my friend, friend they're.
Speaker 1:They're kind of my friends, like I think we're friends, I just we've never met in person she's like wait, don't you tell us not to do that?
Speaker 3:these are friends you've met online that you've never met in person, that you're just meeting up with.
Speaker 1:We could be walking into a catfish situation, but it was great, so we got to hang out he ordered a milkshake, though through a little wrench in the plan I was wondering what is the dairy milkshake?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, it's great I think an orange, orange cream that's what I got on our way out, because we always hit that core at the place on the way when we leave the cottage. So I followed up with the orange cream milkshake, just like he did, and minden, or bancroft, or is there a different minden, yeah, yeah yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So I asked his daughter, who is 12, when we were there. I said if you had to rate your dad out of 10, what rating would you give him? I'm looking for some dirt here. She says 1000 yeah, 1000, 10 instant. What a brown nose. Yeah, he claims that. Uh, he claims that he paid her off which we know, he's just a good dad.
Speaker 1:He sent me a picture after of her doing his toenails and he was like this is why I'm 1000 at a time I endure these if you have a 12 year old daughter that rates you that high, you're doing something right as a parent because I I feel like when a kid turns 12, 13, they're just going to revolt against their parents.
Speaker 3:It just feels like a roll of the dice. It feels like when it gets to that age, they're going to roll a die and you're either going to come out on top or on the very bottom.
Speaker 1:My son was playing a little shy, though I was hoping maybe they would chat and hit it off or something.
Speaker 3:He's 12, trying to set up a little. He wasn't picking that up, I don't know. Do you remember being 12?
Speaker 2:so you had never met him, so this is just a guy who you know as a listener yeah, so he was messaged about we've chatted a lot.
Speaker 1:So he's a paramedic but he also does renovations, so he has been a fan of ours since we did all the deck shows.
Speaker 1:He said that he had like used to watch us on hgtv all the time, so then getting to meet us in person was like almost a celebrity moment to him, which I'm like you're ridiculous, like we're just two dads um, do you want to list the deck shows though, because I know you're right, but we we've chatted a bunch about whether it's dad stuff or he's asked a lot of work related questions too um, running his own like small business on the as a little side hustle, like how to do things, and I've sent him some of our contracts because he never had a contract with a client and I was like, dude, you might want to protect yourself a little bit, like you might want to put something on paper, but up north.
Speaker 1:They just do like handshake deals and stuff like that. Um, and he's asked a bunch of questions on like how we do some of our finishes and stuff. So we've been chatting back and forth for a long time, sending videos, pictures, and he's commented on our instagrams. So we've have created like a legit friendship um online which is interesting. And then we get to join together. So I think it's one of the perks of the patreon I was telling them is uh getting some of the free uh bonus, bro laws, content of uh business advice.
Speaker 4:Yeah yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 1:It was nice to meet him. Great, great person. Hope we get to hang out more and hopefully we have him out on the show to replace brent one day. You know, I mean just for an episode, he's right here.
Speaker 2:You just told me about jordan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just told me like let's, let's take it easy but so, coming back from the cottage, noticed the difference in the kids. So we got home Saturday and we just chilled the rest of the day. We just like chill vibes only Do whatever you want to do. It was fine. Sunday same thing Kind of very chill day. My son gamed probably all day long Today same thing. He was in his pajamas till like three o'clock and we're like dude touch grass like this is ridiculous, literally.
Speaker 1:And then he was supposed to have soccer. It got called off because of the quality, air quality concerns and stuff. So he had all this built-up energy and they were just so annoying and I said to my wife I'm like man, they were so much better at the cottage. It's like yeah, because they were just in the water all day playing and then you would have the quiet times and then play again and then you'd go to bed and they were all exhausted right, it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the best just being in nature and like feet in the grass, feet in the sand, in the water it's very powerful it really is, because when you get home and you're stuck inside and you're just on screens, you think it's what you want, but it's not like yeah, yeah, it's not what you need, right yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, that was like our kids, which I was very surprised with, because we got back, obviously the same time, saturday afternoon, and, uh, my mother-in-law messaged us to say, hey, we're over at the pool at my brother-in-law's house. So if the kids hey, we're over at the pool at my brother-in-law's house, so if the kids want to come over, they can, they can pop over. And I'm thinking like we just drove home for two hours. These kids are clearly exhausted. We get in the door. We're like listen, grandma said you guys go.
Speaker 3:Murph was like the whole way home was complaining about everything that was happening, that could happen. We walk in the door. She's in a mood something like all right, this isn't gonna happen. As soon as I say, hey, grandma message to see if you want to go to the pool, face lights up, let's go. Right now we going and I was like. I told her. I'm like so, murph, how did you just go from? You hated the world. And like immediately she starts to grin because she knows where I'm going with it, do this now and she's like I don't know, I'm excited to go to the pool.
Speaker 3:I'm like you know what?
Speaker 1:fair enough I think joey's daughter wins the fish award, I think, for most hours spent in the water. Yes, she would cycle. So like one of my kids would be down in the water playing with her, yeah, and then my kid would get cold and want to go out and get dried off, and then one of my other kids would come in and murph would just stay there the whole time and just cycle through my siblings to join in playing with her she's got the ear infection to prove it oh no
Speaker 4:really oh no, oh yeah, she always gets it.
Speaker 3:No, I shouldn't say she always gets it. She had it more when she was a kid and she hasn't had in a while. But my son literally finished his eardrops on the friday or the saturday of the cottage week and then we got home and took murph to the walk-in on sunday and got her eardrops for this week.
Speaker 2:Have you taken, like the toilet paper rolled it up, really like to like a point where you can just gently insert it and it can pull some of the water out.
Speaker 3:No, we don't know if it was swimmer's ear. It is just a minor infection at this point, so I don't know if that could have done it.
Speaker 2:Just a bunch of dirty like water just sitting in there Sounds, though yeah, it's just you lay down and you just roll up like a tissue, up to like a point, and then just really gently, and then it'll just soak up yeah, some of the water. I don't believe it will clear up any sort of infection.
Speaker 3:No, but it maybe clears out the water during right, like that's something we could have done with her during the week, likely because she does spend so much time in the water, like she's always been a fish and like yeah yeah, she's always loved the water.
Speaker 3:That's why we definitely made sure we got her in swimming lessons and did the private lessons with her, because we're like, if you love water this much, you need to be able to swim on your own without us worrying about you. So, yeah, yeah, that was uh, that's money very well spent in my life swimming in water.
Speaker 2:Is that one kind of, at least in our relationship, the non-negotiable right? Like you're doing swimming lessons, we're not messing around in water, um, and but when you have kids and I we just witnessed it, I just took the kids to the pool the other day and when you see them, um, being confident in the water, no, it's so cool, it's awesome and it was the first time excuse me, uh where when we go to the pool they have to do a swim test.
Speaker 2:So basically they have to swim from like the width of the pool. Put their face in at least once, don't touch it, swim back. So my daughter and my oldest son are stronger swimmers. They both have been doing it for a while. My youngest son hadn't passed before and it was. It was one of those memories again that you hope that you never forget. And he's swimming and his twin sister is like, running beside him, cheering him along like in the water.
Speaker 2:And the other two had just passed and the pool was so quiet and I'm cheering him on and we're all like literally. You would have thought that this was like.
Speaker 1:Rudy in the water and it was unbelievable.
Speaker 2:And he turns and he's going and I'm like, go, preston, go, and I'm yelling and he finished it and the joy on his siblings' faces who have hated him all day long, that want nothing for him.
Speaker 2:And when you see that, the genuine joy and love you, you can kind of take a step back to think they don't actually dislike each other. It's just kids learning how to cope with being around each other that much Because when one of them gets genuinely hurt there's real concern, Like they'll actually like cry themselves because they're so worried about their sibling who an hour earlier they said they hated because of a lego piece but like the joy they had for him and we, like, took pictures with his little bracelet on and we made a whole thing about it.
Speaker 2:But it was the greatest day as a dad, because I no longer had to be within an arm's reach of any of my children and it was like less work for me and pure joy for them. It was like the greatest two for one of all time and I was like wow like fatherhood can be awesome and then we got in the car
Speaker 3:to go home, and I was like what a move it would have been by that lifeguard, though, to witness that entire family moment be like nah, you didn't make it.
Speaker 2:I said eyes in the water. Yeah, read the room man, I literally I'm not even lying. It was so. It was so dicey that I looked at the lifeguard and was like, don't worry, I'll always be close.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just give him the break, give him the damn there was a psychologist talking about the sibling rivalries and their competition and they were referring to it as like they are subconsciously doing it because they're competing for the parents attention. So you, when you just have one kid, then there's no competition there, but the second you start having more than one kid, they are legitimately competing for your competition, like for your attention, right? Um? And when one of them gets praised, then it is hard for the other one to just let them enjoy and see that praise without feeling like you're gonna choose them over me, especially like it's like a I don't know primal primal, yeah, primal instinct thing between them or something I'm always, I'm always trying to like coach cheer, like we're each other's biggest cheerleader, like yeah.
Speaker 4:So I try to like make sure that doesn't happen as much as possible, cause I, I don't, I hate that. I don't know if it's because in, uh, I feel like a competitive element with my siblings and I don't even know where it comes from. So it's like there's just and it's't even know where it comes from. So it's like there's just and it's not even sports related necessarily okay it's just like I don't I, if something good happens to somebody else.
Speaker 4:It's like there's like a little bit there where it's like you're not like fully happy yeah oh, it's like, it's not, it's and it's not. Uh, it's not, it's and it's not. Uh, it's not something that I want to be there, right, it's just like. There's just a competitive element there that's like and it still exists to this day.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:And it's something that I have to like, like actively, tell myself to like like change Right, interesting, interesting. Yeah, I don't know what it is or where it came from, but uh, probably you need to talk about that.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you've ever been on a hockey bench with the jensen's.
Speaker 1:There's there's some competition there, but it, but because of that you really are working hard with your kids to try to not have that exactly.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah because I don't like I can't point to something like right, because I don't think we were like competitive in unhealthy ways when we were younger. So I don't, I just don't. It's weird, I don't know where it comes from, but yeah, and do you all feel the same way? I think so because like talking to my sister, she notes like she can, yeah, see that as well like she doesn't know, and she would basically say the same thing that I do so it's.
Speaker 4:It's very strange. Yeah, I don't know if you guys experience that with your siblings, but trying to think if I know I'm the youngest, so like I I, there's big age gaps too, so it's yeah, but I do.
Speaker 1:I mean my brother listens to this, so we'll see how he reacts to it or not, but I definitely feel some of that from my brother.
Speaker 1:Okay, me not necessarily the same way, yeah, but I would understand from his point of view that, like me, being the youngest, I did a lot of things before my older siblings. I got married very young and I was the first one to have kids in my family, so I didn't really see it as me competing with them. They chose their own paths in life, um, but I think there was a little bit of that feeling for them being like shit, my younger brother just got married and he's having kids like what am I doing here? Kind of thing, right, and then like having my parents involved in my kids lives before they had kids, right. So I think there definitely was, or could be, some of that from the other way, but I haven't necessarily felt it the other way, but I see that dynamic for sure.
Speaker 4:I think I wonder if too part of it for me is just like I'm a bit of a worrier, a bit. Maybe, Maybe I'm projecting to like, if I'm not getting a response that I would like to get, that I worry that there's like a a negative element associated to that right. So that could be part of it too, where I'm, where I'm creating something that's not actually there.
Speaker 1:So, over analyzinganalyzing it yeah, it's probably true as well, and it's hard because I think like, even as you're saying that, like I'm thinking of my kids and like my middle child, aria, is very competitive with her siblings, but it's it's very much that fight for attention and that fight for quality time. And my wife had a really good chat with her about it the one day because it felt like any time we would do something she would have this big reaction.
Speaker 1:But then she finally explained it's like well, it feels like you keep choosing abby over me, choosing her way to make it easier, or she gets her way all the time and it's like it's hard because the kid can't see when they get their way, they just see all the times the other kid got their way but good that she's able to communicate that yeah but it's definitely like something that we have to continue to work on with her so that that doesn't become a thing and, like she's always been, like whatever my brother can do, I can do like she has been competing with him all the time and I think we've probably unintentionally egged it on by praising things that she had done ahead of him, even like learning how to tie her shoelaces.
Speaker 1:She learned at a stupid young age where he was playing soccer and she was just sitting on the bleachers practicing tying her shoelaces and then nailed it and it's like I know how to tie my shoelaces and like we kind of like pretty much give him the finger, be like you don't know how to do yours, you suck and he's like, I'm just a boy, I don't care give me velcro, like whatever.
Speaker 4:I wonder if there's a bit of second child thing to that I think so my second like, uh, my daughter, who's the middle child, any like anything where she's she can be first to do it like getting ready for bed, right, she'll like announce it after she's. Just so you know, like I'm the first one.
Speaker 1:Literally same here, and like I can, like I could be brushing both of my other kids teeth and she'll still beat them Like she is just like the. You tell them to go get ready for bed and then it's like okay, and she just does the thing and is like so proud of herself for being done, and the other two are still just picking their noses. Or my son, just like staring at himself in the mirror Like dude, just put the freaking toothbrush in your mouth, what the hell? Yeah, but she's she very much like prides herself on being the easy one too with those things of like oh, oh, you know who your favorite is, don't worry, she's saucy like that she likes to lean into that, yeah, you get to witness it well, she's aware of it too.
Speaker 3:Right, like she's saying. Her and her and my wife mag like they had a discussion about it the one day where she talked to her about it she's like oh yeah, no, I'll do these things just intentionally because I know I can get the attention for it. Well, you know it.
Speaker 2:So question for you when you and your spouse were choosing to have kids and planning your family.
Speaker 2:So, dave, you have three kids, joey, you have two, two, then Brian has three and I have three, brian has three and I have three. Was there ever conversations about like and this is mainly looking for Joe, because he comes from a really large family but was there ever a conversation about like the more kids you have, the less attention or love you're able to give to that many kids, like? With three kids, I feel very stretched to give my kids the time and the love that they need. But to have more and more kids like you only have so much of yourself, and then you also have, like, your marriage that you need to worry about on top of it, and then you have the energy that you need to give to your career. So when we, as fathers, are planning on becoming fathers or choosing to have more kids, are planning on becoming fathers or choosing to have more kids, how do you navigate the amount of love or attention that you think that you're able to give to what you think your kids will need? It's such a juggling act.
Speaker 4:I find with three it's just like you're just kind of like it's triage so would you just like more like could do you think that your family could handle more? No, I mean we would if we had to, but I think that I don't see how you would be able to give. I don't want to speak because I'm not a part of a big family like Joey.
Speaker 4:It's still a relatively big family, yeah, but I don't see If you get up into like the bigger numbers right, like I don't see how you could give each child the same amount of like that you do, that you would if you had three kids so I was talking to a dad who, I believe, has three kids, um, and he was saying that they wish they had more, but his youngest is now, I think, 14.
Speaker 1:So they're like 19, 15, and 14 or something like that and he wishes he had more. And I think it's because when we are in this age group that are younger, it is and it feels impossible to give so much of yourself to them or that one-on-one time. But even noticing at the cottage as your kids get older, it allows for more one-on-one time because, again, you're not feeling guilty necessarily leaving your wife with the other two or um, because they're self-sufficient and they're doing their own thing too so you're, but their development years have still already kind of happened though, like so.
Speaker 1:But that's where I don't think it's all necessarily happened like I think, like we have this life to live, right like, yes, when they're young, they need attention and you can only give so much. How far back do your memories go, like I know?
Speaker 2:I know that you can't remember.
Speaker 1:No, I know that there's a lot forming at that time, but there's not those formative memories necessarily. I think it just meaning like life and parenting is a marathon, like you've got a long time for things you can screw up and you can recover and you can repair and you can gain friendship and trust and love with your kid at any point in life. So I think, yes, I definitely agree that it is very hard to be able to give that attention to them at that young age, but I don't necessarily think that that is necessary. Like is everything. I think you have time to continue to grow and establish those relationships as they get older. So I think that's where, if you did have a bigger family, I think that's where you would have to put in the time where, like, yes, the younger years are, like brian said, triage, you were just an emergency dad picking off fires, putting out fires like helping kids, putting band-aids on, turning off fights and getting kids to bed.
Speaker 1:But as they start to get older is when you get that time in the canoe, when you get that time swimming, when you get that time just driving to one of their sports just the two of you. And that's where you have to be intentional, at that time.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Would be my thought. I agree.
Speaker 3:And like that's the thing, have to be intentional at that time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my thought I agree and like that's the thing. Coming from a larger family, I saw that play out and obviously I have a different kind of story with the way that life happened when I was a kid and us having to move around a bunch in those extenuating circumstances. Um, but yeah, there was definitely that where, to your point, dave, when you have kids, the way that my parents did, where they were having a kid every two to three years for nine kids because there was one in the middle, that didn't make it, that's a lot of years of having kids to where, when I come around, my oldest sister is 14. So now she's at that age where they could have had more of a building of a relationship. She's a teen. That age where they could have had more of a building of a relationship. She's a teen. Um, it can be, uh, I want to say like easier in a way to parent and build a relationship because you're dealing with a human. Now, the way that we're learning with our oldest kids, we're like you're actually having a conversation and being productive, but because they had so many kids, she's got me as a baby and then eventually another one on the way with my younger brother. So now someone's going through their teens, they could be building a relationship, but she's still very much in new mom mode, that triage situation where there's still fresh babies that you're dealing with.
Speaker 3:Um, so that is, I think, the difficulty of a big family, where you're never getting out of that, or it takes you a lot longer and then once you are once me and my brothers again extenuating circumstances, with my younger brother being disabled so he still has not come out of that baby phase. But even if he did, we're whatever. That is eight years. I'm out of that. Now my oldest sister is in her 20s. So now, yes, to a point, you can repair that relationship whenever you can with your kid, but once they're in their 20s, those formative years are gone.
Speaker 3:Relationship whenever you can with your kid, but once they're in their 20s, those formative years are gone. And those years when they, when you are their mom in that kind of traditional mother child kind of way, those are gone. So now it's. It looks a lot different on how you can repair that um. So, yeah, I don't, I don't think I consciously thought about it, but I don't. I never had a want for a large family, which is think, kind of interesting since I was seven of eight, like if my parents didn't want one, then I wouldn't exist.
Speaker 2:But yeah, but you also weren't the opposite. You also weren't like I just want to have one and devote all my love to one kid, as if you might not have gotten enough love when you were a kid.
Speaker 3:No, and this was also pre-therapy Joey. So pre-therapy Joey didn't put any expectations or wants, because he didn't want to get let down. So I never had any. This is what I want my life to look like, because I didn't want to set an expectation that would get not met, um. So that was just one of the parts of me that existed back then, where it was just I wouldn't think about the future cause I didn't want to Um. So I never did kind of picture how many kids I was going to have.
Speaker 2:Hindsight never did kind of picture how many kids I was going to have hindsight.
Speaker 3:Current therapy joey, would you change how many kids you had? I think I would probably have wanted more kids theoretically, yeah, thinking about it now, just and again. We're in that stage like my son is five, my daughter is eight, so they are at that kind of getting out of it. Coop's holding on to nighttime diapers for his life because he just doesn't want to switch to underwear, um, so we're not quite out of diapers yet technically, but we're out of all those other stages. We're not worrying about them anymore as much and they're not as needy in that same way. Like they, the. What they need from us is just to be their parents and, like, be around us because they want to play with us, right, um, so I think being at this stage allows for a bit of yeah, we could have another kid.
Speaker 3:Like we've had that conversation, meg and I. Obviously I am not able to provide her with child, uh, in my current state, but uh, yeah, we have talked about it. So I would think I would have wanted more, but I also never would have put that pressure on meg, because I very much took that into our relationship as well, where it's like it's her body, she's the one going through these pregnancies like I, kind of would lean to what she wanted to do I think the only looking ahead that we did was um, I knew that I wanted, like when I was older, I wanted a big family table, like I wanted a thanksgiving dinner table full of kids and like, yeah, full of my like a big family didn't really.
Speaker 4:I don't know whether that meant like initially we thought like four kids probably, but yeah, I knew that I wanted that like to be the long-term goal it's like to have a lot of like a big like, as they maybe choose to bring their own families and your grandkids, etc.
Speaker 3:Exactly yeah I think I'm having an interesting thought here. I think if I knew how hard it was, I might have been more apt to have more kids. Let me explain, because nobody really tells you how hard parenting is going to be when you go through it for the first time with blinders on and you just have to experience raw parenting as we all have it's really, really hard, and I think that's something that played out for Meg and I where it was a lot harder than we thought and we had two kids that were relatively easy in a sense.
Speaker 3:We did not have colicky kids who screamed and cried throughout the night of all night.
Speaker 3:Um, they had their idiosyncrasies about them, as all kids do, but we had relatively easy kids in comparison to what some people can experience with babies. But I think it was so much harder than or just because we didn't know, we went into it, I guess with some naivety, because I have so many nieces and nephews. I'm like, oh, I've seen it all. You haven't seen it all until you've had your own kids. It's a completely different animal, just the way that you feel about them and what it does to you when they are sleeping and they are quiet, but what's left that you're thinking about and the anxieties that are on your chest even when they are quiet. So I think that's the stuff that I think played a bigger part than I could have ever anticipated, where maybe, if I had have known and been more prepared to those different difficulties that I had no idea about, I could have been more apt to. Okay, at least I was prepared for it and I was prepared to walk through it, right.
Speaker 1:I think it's one of those questions that if you're asking somebody in the storm, do you want to keep walking in this storm? Or when you're talking to somebody on the other side of it and be like, ah, that storm just passed by, it wasn't that bad Cause. Like, speaking of that guy that I was talking about with the older kids and he wished he had more, and it's like when you get to that stage when your kids are grown up and potentially going off to university and leaving the house, then like you miss the moments you had. But it is something that's hard to acknowledge inside the chaos of it all. Right, I think for us, the biggest choice to stop was financially, where you start to realize how much you can provide for so many kids because it just it gets expensive. Like even just going through a drive-through now as a family of five is stupid expensive, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:So like I think that became a big role just because my wife and I both grew up in lower middle class families, like, like we didn't have a lot growing up. I don't hold that against my parents or regret my childhood or upbringing, but I definitely saw families that were smaller and more successful or more well off and what they could get and what I couldn't get. My wife as well, like she grew up getting hand-me-downs from her sisters and never really getting the things that she wanted or being able to be involved in things, because, like it would just be way too expensive to to send all those kids into different programs, right. So for us that was something that played a huge factor into it of, like, how much can we provide for them?
Speaker 2:what can we be financially able to to do for our kids, but is there, like, also the worry about the amount of guilt that you would feel yourself if you felt like you weren't able to give your kids what they need and, whether or not the kids say it or not, you have an expectation on yourself of what you think like I'm just, even in my own current state, like I still feel like I'm it's summer as a teacher. Is this really interesting thing where you're so blessed with having the time, but then, like, even during that time between stress and kids getting along and trying to make sure that everything is going as planned, you, you still feel guilty when you can't give the kids what they need yep I don't know about what they need, though, because I'd say you are giving you what you think thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just want to challenge that thought because I don't think that's a as a productive good parent thought, because you are you're a great dad, brent, so I think you're not in the walls?
Speaker 3:no, but I know you right and I know that you and Christy genuinely love and care about your kids, so you are giving them what they need, and that's just why I wanted to make that clarification. I think the guilt that we put on ourselves is we think we're falling short of what they want or what they need. Where you are providing what your kids need, which is love and support and a present parent like that's what they need through these formative years, and then the big thing is like man, how can we stop putting so much pressure on ourselves, even though we are doing the job correctly, I think and I hope anyway? Um, but being a good and present parent is difficult or maybe it's not so much about that.
Speaker 2:It's about just always doing our best. Yeah, like and maybe it's not like like dave saying, maybe you do come up short at certain times, yeah, and you do have time to work on repairing relationships or building relationships, but is it just a matter of being aware that you're just doing the best that you can? Each day, and that might be less one day our best.
Speaker 1:Our best is almost never a hundred percent yeah exactly and like you go through so many different phases and whether your kid wants to be around you doesn't want to be around you. It's like you got to hold them as a baby and like were you present as a parent then? Like did you snuggle your kid as a baby and get to hold them and have that skin to skin time or whatever it is Right. Like they don't know that, like we said, you're putting in those moments. They know that, like we said you're putting in those moments, they know that they're safe and in safe hands. They know your heartbeat, they know the sound of your voice talking to them in the belly. Like there's all those little aspects that you're putting in those little tiny phases. And then, yeah, they grow up and they turn into little shits and little hellions and they want to rebel, they want to find boundaries, little hellions, and they want to rebel.
Speaker 1:they want to find boundaries, they want to push back and give that kind of space and discover who they are for themselves. And you got to let them sometimes and then they know that you're still there and that you're still that person for them and they might come back around and then you get to have those moments with them again right.
Speaker 3:It's that realization too, that they have a kid brain, and that's something that I find so interesting that we forget as adults, like they don't see, the things that we see.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're looking at I'll just use you an example you're looking at the whole summer and what you're going to do with your kids and how much time you're able to spend with them and the quality of all that time with them. They're thinking about that moment. Right then, right there, meg found a. That's an interesting one that popped up coming out of the cottage and I think it rang true to the cottage, but I almost wish we had found it before where it was. Don't get so caught up on giving your kids a good life that you forget to give them a good day where it's like your kid is already worrying about too much pressure right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you're just, you're always thinking, we're thinking grand picture because we're adults and we think all of these things. What is my kid gonna be? What friends are they gonna have? Are they gonna go to college or the little kids don't care about that right now. Right now, they just want to do whatever it is they just want an applesauce. They just want a freaking applesauce but we have all of these things on our heads right, like all the pressures and all of the things, and then they ask for the apples.
Speaker 2:How often I think that my kids have an adult brain. And then you realize like no, you're just a dumb little kid your brain hasn't developed.
Speaker 1:You don't even know how to process shit, yet, like you are, you have a kid brain.
Speaker 3:That is such a good point to hold on, and it lasts a long time too, right like, yeah, yeah, your kids are 12 and 10, it's still 42, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, but I feel, like you don't get that point.
Speaker 3:Well, you, legit, you don't have your adult brain until you're 25. Right, like there's so many of those years and even through your late teens, right like there can we talk about it a lot on here those dangers when your kid isn't to their later teens that you just think, okay, I'm all done with parenting. It's like, nope, that's still a kid brain. Yeah, like we all know the dumb decisions we made in our late teens, right, like those weren't made with any kind of constructive reasoning, that's for damn sure. So, like just to not forget that, like sometimes it's just about that day in that moment and realizing, okay, what do you need right now? Not what do you need right now for your future? It's just no, this moment, right here yeah, yeah, take that to the bank take that to the bank and get yourself some regal ideas.
Speaker 3:That's all at the bank I don't know it just popped into my head we'd like to thank the good people at regal ideas for sponsoring the podcast as they always have. They have been our number one sponsor since day one and they continue to support us. We love them. Any railing that you need, even if you're just getting into it for the first time with your project. You don't have a huge budget. Get yourself some Urban Rail A lower grade aluminum, but a quality product. Regal Ideas the 123, the original aluminum component railing or crystal rail, if you've got a little bit more in the pocketbook.
Speaker 1:It's great weather to be doing railing right now, absolutely Railing.
Speaker 2:You heard it Railing, and it's also the summertime. The railings come super handy when you have wet bathing suits, towels, life jackets, oh nice, and you lay them out on there, beautiful. The railings are so sturdy they can bear all the weight of soaking wet material there you go. Drip down the glass and clean it up all night.
Speaker 4:I can tell you First hand. Well,