Shownotes Transcript
- Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dax Shepard. I'm joined by Lily Padman. - Hi there. - Happy birthday. Listen.
This prompt is worst parenting moment. Yeah. And one of these was particularly fun for me because I thought I was talking to myself. Yes. There's a lot of crossover. Yes. And then as I retold the whole story to my family, they too agreed this was something that could have definitely happened to me. Easily happened. Yeah. Yeah. These were fun. You know, it's hard.
I'm not a parent. Well, your parents are shit baby or what? What's his name? Shit bear? Baby? No, no. Shit bear. Liberty? Please.
- By his name, Liberti. - Okay. - Yes, you guys, it's hard out there. I see you, I see you, it's hard. I'm impressed. - This is very appropriate timing. Yeah, we had a two hour bang up last night. - Oh yeah, the doozy? - Yeah. We have a thing in our house, which is family square. Someone can call for a family square. - Oh. - And everyone's gotta sit down, especially me, 'cause I'm big. Yeah, let's make everyone the same size. And then we enter the circle of trust and we share pretty openly and we bring up whatever.
How often do they happen? Not terribly often. I'm going to guess maybe once every six weeks, maybe once every couple months. Okay. So I'm going to call a family square. Okay. And yeah, last night's family square was a doozy.
It went on and on and on and on. And you know, a lot of it is like all this stuff people have been telling us. Teenage. You know, there's changes happening. Oh, wow. And across the board, too. Delta's getting older. Everyone's getting older. It sounded like I started crying after I said they're getting older. Yeah.
So yeah, it can get really challenging. But I also love it. I love getting in there. Yeah. And trying to figure it all out. That's fun. Yeah. I like doing that with P-Baby. She has a lot of emotions. She sure does. We have one commenter that constantly brings up P-Baby and I thank them so much. I love them. It makes me so happy every time. It's almost in every one of the comments. There's something about P-Baby and I'm like, God bless you. Yeah. Yeah.
In fact, I think on my birthday post for you. They said something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Please enjoy.
worst parenting moments we have on with P-Baby where is she I mean let's be honest we've killed her I mean really I traded her in for a big house that's really bad that's bad parenting that's what happened alright love you love you all times come and go take them slow had them both remember one thing you gotta know I'ma keep on shining
Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Hello. Hey. How are you? Is this Stephanie? This is Stephanie. Oh, what a ding, ding, ding. Do you have a Tenacious D shirt on? I have a Tenacious D shirt on. Oh.
Did you listen to the Jack Black episode? You bet I did. This is gross to admit, but I listened to it because I'm just a fan of Jack Black and I wanted to hear it and not be inside of it. And I loved it. I was like, that's my favorite Jack Black interview. Not because of us, but just he was so wonderful. It was reaffirming how much we should all love that man because he's fantastic. You're right. He's worthy of worship. Where are you at, Stephanie? I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Ooh.
We love our neighbors to the north. And your closet looks nice. You are being very generous. No, it's nice. It looks... Spacious. Yes. Thank you. That's the word I was looking for. And you have some decorations on your arm as well, I see. I do. It's my beginning of my sleeve that I'm so pumped to finally get. It's my favorite video game. Call out to Hemlock Tattoo in downtown Calgary. They're fantastic. Oh,
Boom. Big shout out. Okay. You have a worst parenting story. I do. And based on my emails with Emma, I don't think she gave you my TLDR title. So I'm going to let this story unfold for you guys in real time. Great. Oh, okay. Wait, what's TLRDD? Too long. Didn't read. That's like the
blur, but we don't want to know. We don't like knowing. Yeah, yeah. We love not knowing. Okay, so here we go. It is spring 2022. We have a two-year-old boy named Tier, and I have just found out that I'm pregnant with our second son. Sidebar for Monica, the father of these children and my husband and partner in crime is my third year structural geology prof. Hell yeah.
Hell yes. You are living the life. Wait, structural geology? Yeah. So this is what the building blocks of rock and earth? What does that mean, structural geology? I wish I could define it for you better. He's in the other room right now and he's probably seething with me failing to define this for you. She wasn't learning. She was lusting. Clearly distracted, yeah. It was my best attended class. Worst grade. Yeah.
Oh, I love this for you. I'm glad someone's doing this. Yeah. Wow.
I'm just pregnant. I'm reading my son some books at night and I'm starting to realize he smells really bad. I brush it off and I'm like, you know what? First trimester hormones. What a weird evolutionary trait to think your kid smells bad when you're pregnant. Right. So I go away for a business trip and I come back and my husband's at the table and he's like, do you think Tyr smells bad? I'm like, oh my gosh. Yes, he does smell bad. Oh my Lord. He's like, I think it's his breath. Oh.
no. I'm like, yeah, you're right. It is his breath. And you know, we've been brushing his teeth, but like, maybe we need to step it up. We're brushing his teeth and like, you know, it smells better for a bit. And then it comes back. I want to remind everyone too, who doesn't have kids in the audience. I know this is intuitive, but at the same time, like you've not done it before. You don't fucking know. It's like your kids start smelling and there's quite a few days where you're just like, is this standard? I don't know. I've never done this before. Thank you for making
me feel better. A friend of ours is a family doctor and we chatting with him one day and I'm like, is there a reason why his breath smells so bad? And he's like, I don't know. It's probably halitosis. Go see a dentist. That's not tracking, right? We're looking in his mouth. There's no red areas. There's nothing that looks gross. His teeth are all where they should be. And more time passes. The smell gets worse. The smell gets worse. Can you tell me what time means? Time passes. Are we talking days, weeks, months? We're working on weeks here. And can we get a
little more detail about the smell rotting rotting yeah okay rotting death is what it smells like necrotic yeah one day his nose starts dripping and it's not unusual toddler daycare nose drips common it's brown and it smells awful oh wow and so we get him to blow his nose and the smell and it finally lands
There's something stuck in his nose. Oh, my God. And really quick when he blows his nose, he grossed out. He's not fazed by this at all. He's just living his best life. It doesn't even hurt. Nope. And so we call our family doctor and she's like, look, we don't pull stuff out of kids noses in the office. You've got to go to the children's hospital. I didn't want to go because this was 2022. World's opening up. Kids aren't vaccinated yet.
And so I don't know if this happened to your children's hospitals, but here the wait times were like 14 hours to get seen. Everybody had flu, RSV, COVID was running through everybody under five. And so we had nanny and grandpa visiting from Scotland to build on the professor. My husband's also from Scotland, has a super hot accent too. Oh, wow.
I don't know how you stay out of the bedroom. So we didn't want to go and bring COVID back and make Nanny and Grandpa sick. So we went to the urgent care facility thinking it wouldn't be as much of a hotbed. Doctor there restraining him. They're digging it out. They're pulling out sections of sponge. He's got a sponge. Stop.
It is nose. What? A sponge. Like a kitchen sponge. Yeah. Oh. We don't have kitchen sponges at home. I use dishcloths, so I'm not entirely sure where the sponge came from. Preschool? Probably. It is.
Ew, stinky preschool sponge. With bacteria. You know sponges, of course, are a petri dish. And he's pulled out three decent-sized chunks of this sponge. Was it so rewarding to see that come out? It was hard to hear because they're not sedating him. So I have to hold him down and he's freaking out. How far up was this? Well, we're not done. So he said if the dripping keeps going, you got to go to Children's because they have a whole department there.
that pulls stuff out of kids' noses. Okay, okay. All right. A division. Dripping doesn't stop. Did the smell get any better? No. No. Oh, fuck. We're like week three now. We go to Children's. The doctor looks at them. They're like, yeah, sponge is in there, but we're going to have to go and surgically remove it. No. Yeah.
Because it's too far in. Can I ask a quick question? Are they able to see that by visually looking up there with one of those scopes? Or did he get like a CT or something? They were using the scopes. He tried pulling a little, but he's like, we're not going to torture him anymore. We're going to have to take him for surgery. Okay.
And so they booked us in, but our worst fears came true. And he gave everybody in our house COVID. I'm down eight weeks pregnant with our second child, COVID. Husband's down, COVID. Nanny and grandpa down. Damn near kills nanny. Oh, God. Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. We finally get into surgery. The surgeon goes in. She pulls out, I kid you not, at least an inch and a half. Oh!
Of rotting sponge. Oh, my Lord. He's got like a weird version of Pico. Instead of eating things, he needs to push them up his nose. I can't believe it wasn't bothering him. He didn't care. What a warrior. And was the sponge all discolored and rotten and gnarly? Oh, please. Oh, is this the picture we have? Yes. Oh, my God.
Hopefully it shows. Oh, yeah. Guys, if you've ever seen a skull bandit, like the little pouch of tobacco you would put in, that's what it looks like. I don't know that that's a universal enough analogy. Go to the store, buy a pack of bandits and take a look. And that's what it was. It's brown as hell. Fully brown. Oh, I wonder what color it started. I want to smell it. Isn't that weird? Even though I know I would hate it. Oh, you'd hate it.
You'd hate it. I think you should let a mouse rot in a trap for a little bit in sun for like several weeks. And then I think that gives you a rough idea of what that might smell like. Think about how bad sponges smell anyway. Out in the open air, yeah. Thank God he didn't go septic from that. That's what I was worried about. When we found out that it was a sponge and they scheduled surgery and it was so far out, I was just like, is it going to grow into his body?
Is this going to spread? Is he going to become a superhero sponge boy? Get infused in his DNA? In these two, I can't really remember what it was like having conversations with a two-year-old, but obviously you're like, Tia, you can't put things in your nose. This is why you were in the hospital. You're doing that and is he getting it? No. No. What do you have to put a nose muzzle on him when you sit him in preschool? Oh my God.
I told his preschool that he probably stuck a sponge up his nose and they're like, oh, well, we don't have sponges here. And then literally two days later, the pictures from the preschool, he's painting with a sponge. Oh, my gosh. Sponge. Yeah, that makes sense for painting. Well, but also even scare.
Your paint up there is really not good in your body. Yuck. That is what we have dubbed Spongebob in this house. Spongebob. Do you think he watched Spongebob and then wanted to become Spongebob and thought that was how? I think that's likely. Yeah.
I see you watching a suspicious amount of SpongeBob. But it also is a fun thought that if there's no sponges at daycare and there's no sponges at the home, he has some portion of his life that's totally anonymous where he's like in contact with sponges that no one can figure out. Totally. Wow.
Oh, wow. Oh, that's a great story. It is. That's not a parenting fail. Not really. You did pretty good. You did everything you could do. But it took us a month to realize. How would you know? That's what I felt like. His nose is dripping all the time.
But that kind of level of smell, we even asked a family doctor. Right. It was definitely a moment. The fact that it took that long, because if you think about it, it only started smelling at that point. So how long was it in his nose before it started smelling? Those sponge painting sponges are a particular kind of sponge. They're very porous. The pores are huge and they feel good. You remember how those feel? They're a little waxy or something. They're heavier than a kitchen sponge.
And I now want to put, I bet that's a good sensation. I really do. No. I'll be much more careful. Can you not? I'll tie a string to it before I put it up there so I can pull it out. But I do imagine tactilely that it feels good. Okay. Okay.
Well, Stephanie, that was a great story. Thank you for having me. And I have to say, I have been a day one listener. This has been amazing to be here. Thank you for having me. And Monica, you hear this all the time, but you're my husband's hall pass. Oh, my God. I never hear that. And that is so nice. I can think of three guys off the top of my head real quick that I've told her that. But no one says that. They always say Dax is their hall pass. But that is very kind. Yeah.
No. Couples have hall passes. I've talked about this in the past. Kristen and I can't really have hall passes because we are likely to meet the hall pass. So a hall pass is a very fun, safe experiment because you're never really going to meet the person. But if the hall pass came true, do you think you would be fine with it because it was labeled a hall pass? No. Oh, that's a good question because I hate giving my word and then going back on it.
Right. I can tell you're a woman of integrity. I would be torn with that. But I know my husband well enough that even if he was presented with that option, he would politely bow out and say, thank you for the hall pass. I'm just going to settle for a picture. A pass on the hall pass. Yeah, that's the right thing. No one's really supposed to...
on their hall pass. I totally disagree. If you're in Missouri and your wife's hall pass is Brad Pitt and she bumps into him at Best Western, you should want that for her. You're a bad husband if you don't want that for her. You should hang your head in shame. You don't have to think like Dax. More people win the lottery than get to sleep with Brad Pitt. Whatever. Okay. Actually, that's probably not true. I stand down. I concede. Have such a great day. Be well. You too. Bye.
She was so fun. She was so fun. That was so flattering. And her husband's in love with you. And he's a professor. And he's Irish. Scottish. Scottish. This is all very exciting. Ew, that's awful. If my kids started stinking. Yeah. Not like poopy smell or body odor smell, but rot smell. You can't cute your way out of that.
Speaking of. Do you smell like rotten? My fingers smell. Oh, hi. Did you hear that Monica's fingers smell? Yeah, I sure did. That's okay. I teach kindergarten. You can't scare me. You're like a first responder, a frontline soldier. Yeah, you are. You're in the thick of it. Yeah. And do you find you're like me where you just have a great tolerance for it all? Yeah, I just kind of go with it. I could almost be a nurse. I feel like not all the way, but almost. I don't like the poop, but the rest of it.
Sure. I understand. It's not bad. So Amy, are we allowed to call you Amy? Yep. You can call me Amy. Where are you at, Amy? I'm in Michigan. No. Yes. Originally from Sterling Heights. Oh, I worked at 14 and John R for years. My husband and I have lived in a small town in West Michigan for 16 years. And you go to Sleeping Bear Dunes sometimes or Silver Lake, any of that stuff? Yep. We're actually going camping this weekend. Oh.
I'm so jealous. I was just telling my wife this. She doesn't have it like I do. I wake up generally this time of year in the summer and I start berating myself that I haven't gone back to swim in a lake yet this summer. It starts driving me insane. I can't miss a summer on earth without swimming in a lake in Michigan. And that's where I'm at currently. It's the best.
Yeah, it's so dreamy. Okay, but you're a bad parent, so let's get on to that. Yeah, okay, so in order to understand how this is a parenting fail, you have to understand when it's like living with a 13-year-old girl. Okay. So, you know you have that feeling or that voice in your head that will just remind you of something you did or said six months ago that was cringey? Yeah. So it's like living with that down the hall from you. And I'm sorry, my cat is climbing my home. I didn't wonder. I was like, what's
Yeah, my cat's trying to climb my fort. I'm so sorry. This could turn into like a real-time story attack by an accidental attack. It's probably going to be a disaster. So anyway, I'm constantly trying to like be cool, you know, and like make my daughter think I'm cool. So about a year and a half ago, she was about to turn 13 and wanted to get her second ear piercing. And...
Her first ear piercing was like an event because we did it at the American Girl doll store. So it was like special. So I thought, well, let's make this special too. We'll do it at a tattoo shop. It'll be a whole event. That's a rite of passage. Yeah.
It's a step. So I'm a tattoo girl. I love it. And I've always heard that's where you should go. It's the safest, cleanest. I also have crippling anxiety about making phone calls. So naturally, I have to find one that I can schedule online. Oh, that's an interesting hurdle. I get it. Truly, my last tattoo, my friend Missy, shout out Missy, she...
She had to call and make the appointment for me. I have anxiety talking on the phone too. And I think it's probably common. Can you explain a little bit more in detail? Is it the small talk of it? Is it the wrapping it up? What is it? I think they're going to like ask me questions that I don't know the answer to. Oh, interesting. Okay. That's very specific. I appreciate that. I'm 42. I should be over this, but definitely not. It's common, I think. Anyway, I go online.
And I'm looking at the options and I see that there's a piercer named Christina. And I'm thinking, okay, female, my daughter's probably already going to be nervous. So...
This will like help her be calm, you know, a nice girl, girl power, whatever. So I make the appointment on there and you pay online. And I remember thinking like, this seems kind of expensive, but I also haven't been pierced since 2000. So I pay online. I tip online. We show up when I'm checking in. I say, this is my daughter. She's getting her ear pierced. And I'm
The guy is like, oh, we don't have any record of that. And so I start like pulling out my email receipt and he's like, that's OK. That's OK. This guy, his next client's not here. He can do it. It's fine. And I'm looking around. I'm like, I don't see Christina anywhere. There's no girl working in this whole place. Anyway, we meet this guy. He's very nice. Pierces her ears. Fine. And then the guy at the front is telling me I have to pay.
I was like, nope, I already paid online. I tipped online. Like, I'm really good about that. And he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's fine. Just go. You know, they're artists. I don't expect them to be bookkeepers. So fine. So we're driving to Target to get the solution to clean it.
And the tattoo shop starts calling me. And I'm like, what in the world is with these people? So I answer in my car so my daughter can hear this. And the guy says, hey, are you coming in for your Christina piercing? You are late. Or do you want to reschedule? And I was like, no, my 13 year old just got pierced. And there's like this long pause.
And I'm like, I don't know what you want me to say. Like we just left my 13 year old got her ears pierced. It's all good. And at the same time, my daughter is in the passenger seat, Googling Christina piercing. And she shows me the search results and it is a very intimate piercing. And she goes, mom, you scheduled me for a vagina piercing piercing. No, it's actually where
where the labia majora come together. And it like goes through, I guess. So she's horrified. I'm horrified. The guy on the phone is like, oh man, you overpaid. Do you want to come in and get like a refund? And I'm like, if
if you think I'm ever stepping foot in this place again, I already feel like anxious that like I don't fit in. But there's no way I'm going back and they'll be like, yeah, I'm the mom that scheduled my kid for a vagina piercing. What if you had got there and they were to call Child Protective Services? A 13 year
old with mom going like oh this is gonna be great right the anxiety is just like going through my head and she's horrified so now anytime i'm scheduling anything like a hair appointment online she's like don't schedule it for a vagina piercing you know i have no credibility and then even today i needed her help with like the technology side of this and it's like embarrassing
I'm never going to live it down. This whole time, I'm assuming, and I'm still under the impression, you went to the wrong place, no? We were at the right place. But you were just early? Why wasn't Christina there? No, Christina's the name of the piercing. Oh! Right? It's called the Christina, but there is no piercer named Christina. I got you. It's called the Christina piercing. And then the bro that did the ears presumably does the Christina. Yeah. Wow. Oh.
My daughter loves to tell people that for her 13th birthday, I got her a vagina piercing. Wow. Wow, that's great. You have something to talk about at Christmas when she has a boyfriend over at 26. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. It'll be great. Is it okay if she says hi real quick? Of course. You can bring the cat in too. Get the cat in. Get your daughter. That's my daughter. Hi. Hi.
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Let me see your ear piercing. Let me see how this turned out. After all of that, they closed up. Oh, no. That might be on you guys. Did you leave it in long enough? Yeah. We're not going back. There was too much trauma around it. You had to get those out anyway. Just erase the whole thing. All right. Well, lovely meeting you guys. Thank you, too. Have fun at the lake. All right. We will. Thank you. Bye-bye.
I'm so jealous. Of a Christina? Well, that too, but going camping in Western Michigan. Yeah. So man is doing that, huh? Well, just think up until what, 20 years ago, every single OB was a man. Yeah, I don't like that. You know this story that my girlfriend in high school, I won't say her name, she was in love with her OB. She thought he was very attractive. Yeah.
Her gynecologist or her OB? Our gynecologist. Okay. Are they not the same obstetrician? OB is for babies. And then so most OBs are also gynecologists, but not all gynecologists are OBs. Wonderful. Learned something today. Laura, how to schedule. Oh, I forgot to tell people. The reason that my finger smells is because I've been touching my foot.
- Oh, that makes sense. That tracks. Mine could potentially smell because I cut my toenails this morning before I worked out, but I have washed my hands since then. - Okay. - If you cut your toenails, will you wash your hands? - Ooh, good. - Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Solid no. - Never. - Yeah. That's part of your charm. - Well, I just don't even think of it. - You're a dirty little monster. - No, I'm not. - You're a little creature. - They only smell kind of weird because it's so hot out.
And they've been in close- Make up your mind. Are you freezing or are you hot? No, outside is hot. It's hot outside. So my feet have been in closed-toed shoes all morning. And they smell. So they got a little sweat on them. And now I've been touching them. And so now they smell. Let me take a little hit off that one. Let's see how bad this is. No, are you sure? Yeah. No, they're pretty bad. This will make up for not being able to smell the sponge.
They're not that bad. But you smell it, right? Like a 3% hint. You're really getting into it. I want to keep smelling it. It's too hard to be a person. Why don't you bring your toes up to your nose and get it direct from the source? It's more fun when you get it on your finger. Transfer it. Yeah.
That's what Aaron does he farts on his fingertips and then smells his fingertips Okay, I don't have that with like most people wave a fart, but he'd like fart and then you go. Oh my god Yeah, yeah, I don't have that I will say and I know you're halfway there I don't know why some things are like that in some like I don't you like some things. Yeah Procedure was called Christina
Yeah. That took me a while. I'm still surprised they didn't. Put two and two together. They're probably like baked out of their mind or something. Yeah. A bunch of dudes in a tattoo parlor. Oh my God. He was baked and he was going to give her that? Sure. You can perform your duties. No, you can't. Sure you can. No. Well, at least she didn't just like send her in there for the piercing and then she came out. That's what I, I know. He walks in and he's like, drop your panties. Oh my God.
Hello. Hey, what's going on? Is this Steven? This is. What an artfully appointed room you're in. Thank you very much. Yes, it's very clean and very symmetrical. Is it an office? It's my home office. And these are all Pearl Jam concert posters. And or original photography from the band's photographer. So, yeah.
That's what I use as my office. And before I get into that, Monica, sorry, I'm not in a closet. That's okay. My wife has a wonderful walk-in closet that I think you would have loved, but the Wi-Fi is spotty up here. So I figured this was the best solution. We prefer the Wi-Fi. We have to prioritize Wi-Fi. You did the right thing. Vax, I like your chair. Thank you so much. When you're seen at real time, is it more impressive than the photos? I've never seen the photo. Oh, okay, great. You don't follow us on Instagram. Excuse me.
It's not a very exciting follow. You're not missing much. Maybe I should start. Yeah, you should start. You'll see pictures of that chair. Are you struck with how tiny I look in it? A little bit. Yeah, right? Like I'm only taking up about 60% of the actual seat part. And then that top is above my head and I'm 6'2". Yeah, it's a large chair.
I like to feel small, Steven. There you go. Now, even though we have the expert on, I don't know how to, I guess the word would just be, are you anal? Because there's not a single picture frame that's not perfectly level, which I appreciate greatly. So I think it's because my wife gets so annoyed with all the stuff I have that's Pearl Jam related that I have to make it look great in order for it to be acceptable. That makes a ton of sense. I was just going to ask how many times you've seen them and or Eddie Vedder. 98. Wow.
98? Is there like a message board where you know if you're top? I mean, that's got to be record. I don't think it is. But this summer, by the way, at Wrigley Field, I'm taking one of my kids who are part of the story to number 99 and the other one to 100. Oh.
Are you from Seattle? From the Bay Area. I live in Oakland. Okay. Who gets to go to the 100th? I'd be jealous if I was the other one. My 13-year-old, it'll be his birthday at 99. So it actually works out perfectly. Then my older one will go to 100. And they've been to a bunch of shows. I'm dragging them at this point. Yeah. And tread lightly on this question because this happens to me. There's things I love and then I'm doing them and I'm like, do I still love this? Oh, yeah.
Without a doubt. So here's what it comes down to though. This is so funny. I have this conversation all the time. I joined the fan club when I was like 13 or 14. It gives you insane priority. I work in sales and so I can travel wherever I want.
And so the majority of the shows have been because one, I can just do it for free, right? I can expense everything. And I've taken so many new people to see the experience that is now no longer about me. It's about watching somebody who gets to be in front row at Madison Square Garden and see Pearl Jam for the first time. I literally know what song they're going to play when they pick up a guitar.
When they like strum and I'm like, oh, Corduroy, song six off of this album. And so it really has become less about me and more about the experience of seeing it with other people who appreciate it. But I do love them so much. I deeply relate to that. For me, half of the Sand Dunes experience now is just sharing it with people who've never been out there.
And then we've both probably had bad parenting moments, and that's where we're at now. Yes, this has been a bad parenting moment for me. My wife and I have two boys, Luke, who's 16, and Kyle, who's 13. And so I feel like I just need to give a little bit of context or background before I go into it more so I can justify my actions. Of course. Of what happened, because I want you to be okay with this. One, I love my kids very much. They're the most important things in the world to me. Two, we are very, very close. And so as a result, we do...
a ton of stuff together. They're coaches for everything. I really enjoy them as people and hanging out. So I never really treated them like kids. I parent them for sure, but we mess around with each other verbally, almost like they're one of my friends. That plays into this story. Two is that we travel a ton with them. And so they've been all over the European continent, Japan, Mexico, you name it. So they're very used to hotel life, Airbnbs, traveling. That stuff doesn't faze them. Now
Now I have a disclaimer real fast. The disclaimer is my wife did nothing wrong. This is all my fault. So this story takes place in Paris. It's spring break. The actual date I looked it up on Instagram, March 26, 2019. So the boys were 11 and 7 and a half. We took a red eye, obviously, because it's on the West Coast, over to Paris. So we get there probably 1231. We go to the neighborhood St. Germain. And I rented this really awesome Airbnb. It was perfect. It's...
literally just cafes, bars, boutiques, all up and down the streets. The street right in front of where our place is was cut off to cars. So it's all walking distance. It's all umbrellas above and just exactly what you wanted in that Parisian experience. So we check in, we go
go and do all the stuff. We went to Luxembourg Gardens. We went to Eiffel Tower. They obviously didn't sleep well on the plane. They're little kids. They're just watching shows the whole time. I'm sure every time I woke up, I looked over. They're on their iPad. We roll around towards dinner time. It's our first night of vacation. I can't just sit
in the Airbnb. So I'm like, let's go to dinner. I'm out on the balcony. I'm like, look down there. Look at this. Look at this. And everyone's like, I'm super tired. Don't want to go. And I'm like, we have to go out. It's the first night. Even if it was the second night, I'm like, we're going out. Try to convince them as much as possible. Kids really digging in their heels. So I'm like, great. What if we just leave you here and mom and I will go right down there and get some food, get a drink. And they're like, absolutely. That's great. My wife's like, I don't really feel comfortable doing that, but she kind of goes along with it. Okay.
This sounds fine to me so far. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I go down to the street. I get them some crepes and stuff that they're going to love. I see a restaurant that was probably three or four blocks down the street that looked really, really cool. So I put our name in. They were like, hour and a half. I'm like, great. Go back upstairs. They...
are already in their pajamas. They are showered up. One has an iPad. One has my wife's phone. We're like, see you later. This is going to be awesome. We're like, hey, call us if you need anything. Text us. We stop at a wine bar right underneath the building, essentially maybe a half a block away. And it's just full of young Parisians. I was 40 at the time, but I just love being around like 25-year-olds. This is awesome. We're drinking wine. I might as well have been smoking a cigarette and wearing a beret at this point. Just super pumped about everything that's going on. Within like 25 minutes, my oldest son sends me a text and he says,
When are you guys coming back? Oh, my God. And I wrote, never have a good life.
So that goes into obviously the sarcasm that we all have, right? Yeah, yeah. My wife was like, oh, was that one of the boys? And I said, yep, that was one of them. She said, what'd you say? And I said, never have a good life. And she was like, why on earth would you write that? I was like, I don't know. I'm just messing around with the person that came to my head. And she was like, that's just not what you should have done. I'm worried. And I'm like, listen, if our 11-year-old at this point
in his life thinks that we raised him for 11 years, fed him every single day, took him to school, did all this stuff. And we're waiting until we go on a trip to Paris to never see this kid ever again. Bigger things to worry about. So she's like, all right, whatever. You're an idiot. And so it did sort of like stick with me for a little bit. By the way, all that, I got to pause you.
All of this is exactly what I'd be doing. It's very funny for me to hear my approach, not in the center of it. And yes, of course, that's exactly it. You make the great joke. Who's going to teach them to be funny? You think they're just going to learn? You got to educate them on this, right? And then your wife says something, you kind of convince her everything's groovy. And then your wife's voice is just rattling around in your head. Like, I think she might be right. That's exactly what had happened. And of course, I didn't want to admit it to her whatsoever. Yes.
So we get up to then go to that restaurant. And because she had said something, so she is partly to blame. It's because she got in my head. And I wrote to him and I said, I'll be there soon. I can practically see you. And I meant like we can practically see you from the apartment building. So we go down a couple blocks. We decide that we're not going to have full dinner, but we were like just going to eat some stuff because they had asked about coming back. We go and order a bottle of champagne, a dozen oysters, just in full on vacation mode, just super stoked. At this point, it's fully dark.
It is kind of cold because it's March 26th, wearing jacket coats, all this stuff. We're like three or four oysters in, clinking champagne glasses, just having the time of our lives. And
We were outside and I could kind of see somebody coming towards us and it wasn't the waiter. And it was some guy when I left and he was like, excusez-moi. And I was like, I won't do any French accent after that, I promise you. And it was this French couple, 25 years old, a man and a woman. Oh my God. And when I look closer, both of my children are with them. Oh no. They broke the cardinal rule. You cannot leave this place.
They broke the cardinal rules. So my youngest son is wearing like an oversized Frenchman's jacket. And my older son is in his pajamas. No socks. No shoes. Oh, fuck. My older one wasn't crying, but my younger one was crying. And the man was like, are these your parents? Are this your kids? And I'm like, oh my God. What are you guys doing here? Why are you with these stragglers?
Stranger. You're so irresponsible. Why would you do this? So they run into our arms and we're like all embracing like we've been away from each other for months. And I couldn't compute anything. But immediately, I don't know why, I went to trying to make sure that this couple knew that we were somehow responsible parents.
So I was just like, I'm so sorry. I don't know what's going on, but have an oyster. Take this bottle of champagne. Can I buy you a car? I didn't know what, I was just trying to do anything. And they're like, no, no, no, it's fine. You just wanted to go and find somewhere to eat. And we came across these
Two kids in their pajamas who were lost and looking for their parents. Lost? Oh, no. Anyways, tried to get them to eat dinner, hang out with us. They just kind of wanted to go. But when he left, though, what was really cool is he said, just so you know, you have really great kids. And I was like, oh, that's cool. I mean, you spent 10 minutes with them. What about them? And he said they were friendly and super polite.
And he said, when we couldn't find you guys within a half hour or so, the idea was the woman was going to stay with my youngest in front of the apartment building. And the other guy was going to stay with my son. And they were going to walk around in case we came home. They were going to cover each other's bases. My older son refused to leave my younger son. Aww.
Yeah, he doesn't want to get kidnapped. Yeah, he's like, if you're our parents now, French people, they're coming in as a pair. This is a two-for-one deal. Oh, that is good kids. Yeah. Made me feel super proud. So that was a fail, obviously, on our part. So when I found out, though, why this all happened is that when I said, never have a good life, he knew it was a joke, but it also kind of got into his head, which was so unlike him, that he was like...
I wonder if someone got a hold of my parents or stole my dad's phone and was like, you're never going to see your parents again. Have a good life. Yes. His imagination took off. He heard some noises because we were right above this whatever street. And then when I said, we'll be there soon, I can practically see you. He thought the man who was now either a phone thief or a
Someone who was abducting us was like, I can see you. We're coming for you. Oh, his imagination really took off. Yeah. So he grabbed his little brother and was just like, we're out. And so didn't change their clothes. Didn't grab socks or shoes. Didn't take the phone. Just left the apartment.
left the apartment building, and then got downstairs. It's a good instinct. Now, like, people will see them get murdered. You know, you got to get in front of some people. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. I do admire where he was coming from, but it was all because of what I had texted, actually. Oh, my God. That's
- By the way, I can so relate to this because particularly my 11 year old, she's so with it. I'm shocked so often with how developed her sense of humor is and how with it she is. And then yeah, once in a while I'm reminded, oh right, she is 11. There's some concepts she doesn't have.
And it can be misleading when they're really kind of precocious or mature. Yep. My wife was just like, I will kill you. This is the worst thing. We're never leaving them again. So she was super pissed. But I will say...
Three days later, we're in Amsterdam. Kids don't want to eat. Guess what happens? I was like, we really will see you. And they wanted to stay. We went out and had a drink. The point is, it didn't have any long-term effects. The kids weren't freaked out. They bounced right back. Yeah, you lost all leverage with your wife for a year. I did. We have a photo, though, from you. Yeah, so I just wanted to show you guys. Right when we got there, I took a photo. So you get to see it.
How crowded it was and what it looked like on the street. So how easily, even if you're a block away, it was kind of chaos. Oh, well, your boys are so fucking cute. Oh, my God. Oh, thank you. Oh, that's a great story. That's wonderful. I'm glad we got to tell you this. I'm glad you guys didn't judge me too hard. No. My wife was like, are you sure you want to say this? I'm like, it's not that big of a deal. And it was six years ago. I could be in this situation in seconds. This makes a ton of sense to me. Yeah.
I've been listening to you guys only for about a year now. So I want to give a shout out to my friend, Lauren Stern, who has constantly been pushing me to listen. And now once I started, I listen to you guys all the time, listening to syncs, listening on Mondays, listening on Fridays. It's been fun. Well, Lauren must be a genius if she's proselytizing. So thank you, Lauren. Keep at it. Keep converting people.
Well, great meeting you. This has been really fun. And I love that story. And we should co-author a book on bad parenting. Sounds good. Nice to meet you both. All right, take care.
Hi. How are you guys? So good. Is this Danielle? Yes. And you're in your closet. I'm actually in my daughter's closet, who this story is about. So it worked out. Very appropriate. And what state is this closet located in or country? We are in Texas, kind of right outside Houston in this precious little small town. Okay. So you made a parenting, what do we call it? Error. Error. I was not snafu, a gaffe. Classic mistake. Okay.
A little backstory. We have five kiddos. Whoa! Between the ages of 10 and 4. Wow. So we've got a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old, a 6-year-old, and then twin 4-year-olds. Oh my gosh. Okay. Whoa. The bad parenting moments abound because, you know, we're just hanging on for dear life. Yeah. Anyways, so, but this story only has two of my kiddos involved. So anyone who has more than one kiddo knows they are all so unique.
unique and they all have their own quirks and personalities and strengths and weaknesses. And when you learn parenting, the first one does not apply to the second one and so on, right? You think you figured it out and you're like, oh no, a whole new game plan for this one. 100%. And so our oldest daughter is eight years old and she is all the oldest daughter stereotypes. She color coded her closet at like six years old and has maintained it. She has all
all the rules down and she is making sure everything runs efficiently. She's a rock star, but she's very type A. And so our son who is our true middle number three,
is a wild man. He's inherited all of my ADHD quirks and qualities. And he's here for the party, man. And he is having a good time. So he's a lot of fun. But naturally, they butt heads a fair amount. And usually my daughter is the aggressor because she needs him to fall in line. He's not having it. So it's been a lot this summer. They've had a lot of togetherness, a lot of squabbles. Power struggles. Yes. And the funny thing is he's
he's not acknowledging the power dynamic at all. She is seeing the issue and he is just like...
I don't understand what the problem is. I'm just here. So we've talked a lot with her about, you know, I know you're struggling, but we can't talk to him that way. Or we need to make sure we're treating him with respect and love, just like you deserve respect and love. But at some point, it's like we're beating a dead horse. Like she's not picking up, but we're putting down. And so we're just rinse and repeat all summer long. And so this was about three weeks ago. We had been home all day. They'd been fighting just kind of off and on throughout the day. And it was getting to that witching hour. And my husband took
three of our kiddos outside to let them play. And I was like, I'll start cleaning up in here and start setting up for dinner. And the two middle ones were upstairs doing their own thing. And so I was like, I'll just let them be. So I'm trying to do my tasks. And I just hear from upstairs, our daughter starts screaming at my son. I can't tell what she's saying, but I can tell by the way she's saying it that she means business and that she is just letting him have it. And so I'm like, oh, great. Here we go again.
And then I hear our son just start this like really sad, heartbreaking cry. And I'm like, oh gosh, she probably him. And now she's yelling at him. She probably got physical. Yeah, those four kids just like taking it. So with him, I feel like I should say he's two years younger, but he's bigger than her. He is like...
Almost off the growth chart. He was like a 10-pound baby, natural six-pack. He's a beast. Yes. And she is not. She's petite, but she's fiery. So she holds her own usually. Anyways, we have worked with him since he was really little about you have these big muscles. You should use them to help protect and to help people. And we can't use them to hurt. It's kind of been this ongoing mantra for him. Like, we use our muscles to help. And so he's really...
Pretty passive. So sister is yelling at him and I'm like, oh gosh, she's probably hurt him. And I'm kind of at this point where I'm like, she's not going to stop until he finally defends himself. Like this thought occurs to me. Of course. I'm like, he's got to stand up for himself. So against my better judgment, I just holler up the stairs, hit her back. Oh boy. Okay. Okay. Okay.
- So we've now escalated the situation. - By the way, I haven't done it, but I'm telling you, I have been on the verge of saying that to the older one. Just take her down. Let her know you can't come at me like this. - And again, it's all like a split second decision. But my thought process was if he just gets like one good hit in, she'll back off. She'll realize she can't treat him like that.
So I yell this up and instantly silence. She quits yelling. He quits crying. And then I hear her take off. She's running out of the room, down the hallway, and she is flying down the stairs. And so I'm like, uh-oh. I can tell he's chasing her. So I'm trying to go head them off at the bottom of the stairs. And right as she gets to the bottom, I hear a thud. And then she grabs her head and screams. And so I'm like, oh no.
- Oh no. - Yeah. - And so I go to her and I'm like, okay, what happened? And she's still screaming. She pulls her hands down, are now coated in blood, like completely coated. - From the fall down the stairs? - She was standing.
Oh, I also thought that. I get her outside and I'm trying to like delicately see the wound. But the problem is she's bleeding so much that her hair is now completely matted to her head. Yeah. It is flowing down her back all the way to the ground. Oof, that's scary. Yes. And I've heard head wounds bleed a lot. But I knew with this one there was enough blood that I was like, we're headed to the hospital probably. I finally get a good look at it. I sent Emma...
I don't know if you guys can see it. Oh, let's take a look. We've kept it hidden. Let's see here. Okay. Oh, my God. Big, big gash on the bridal. Yeah. Oh. Well, first of all, she's so cute. There's also a picture of her smiling. Oh. Oh.
That's a big one. Dying to know what object hit that head. We head to the ER. She's calm at this point and the bleeding has stopped. It's been about 10 or 15 minutes. I'm mostly just apologizing to her in the car. I'm like, I'm so sorry. Violence is never the answer. I shouldn't have told him he could hit you. Yeah. And she's getting upset because she sees me upset. So she's like, no, you didn't do it.
do anything. So we're just a big sob fest on the way to the hospital. But we finally get there and I'm getting the story from her. And what I didn't know is that while she was upstairs and she was yelling at him and frustrated with him, she had picked up their white noise sound machine, which is roughly the size of a handball shaped like a hockey puck. So she is horrified
holding this over her head, yelling at him, screaming at him, threatening to throw it at him. So as soon as I told him he could hit her back, she dropped it and took off. He, in his pursuit of her, picked it up and ran after her and managed...
to hit her from the top of the stairs on the landing. She had made it all the way to the bottom before he made it. Oh, he threw it. He chunked it. Oh, my God. You almost chucked that thing thinking you're not going to hit the person. Having a brother and having thrown many things at my brother, I'm like chucking it at him, hoping he never fucks with me again. And I don't really think it's going to hit him. And then, of course, sometimes it hits him. Oh, I don't think he could have like
If he tried. He just threw it because he was mad and it happened to totally clock her in the head. Or he's a future quarterback. We're still deciding. Right. But yeah, so it ended up she needed five staples. She's so hardcore. She sat there and did not make a peep. She didn't move while the doctor gave her like three different numbing shots and did all the staples. Anyways, we've had a lot of good conversations.
- Something about like appropriate ways to deal with our anger. - Oh man. - I think it's kind of comforting for them to see their parents fuck up too and then own it. And go like, oh yeah, yeah, there's no perfection. We keep fucking up and we just own it and we apologize and we prepare and we move on. - 100%. I feel like I'm constantly like, I should have done that differently. I'm sorry.
unpack it all in therapy one day but at least you know I'm modeling repentance I guess yes that's all you can do again this photo of her is so cute with her little smile oh my god what's her name Dottie Dottie perfect adorable
You know, it's hard when you have your shit together and your little brother doesn't have their shit together. Here we go. Older sister. It can make you crazy. Did you ever chuck anything at poor Neil? I didn't ever get physical, but I was mean with my words. Very, very mean. Scathing.
But sorry. That's the thing. She gets ditches and she doesn't need any holding and she's fine. So she's kind of like looking at everyone else like, come on, step it up. Meet me here. Meet me here. You know, I can relate. I get her. I should have known. I'm the youngest of four and had a sister that totally tormented me all growing up. And there was one instance where my dad held her back and let me take a swing. And I just completely cold clocked her in the face. Wow. Run.
It's a rite of passage. Well, Danielle, that was a great story. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Hey, real quick. I have listened to you guys for thousands of hours. And the only person I know is obsessed with you guys is my Aaron Weekly, my nurse best friend. And she's here. Can she meet you guys? Of course. Please. What's her name? Marie. Marie.
Murray. Marie. Marie. Hi, Marie. How are you? We love nurses. Is that clear? Yes, I love it. Don't worry. No Munchausen's. Right. And anything you want to say about my vascularity? It's impressive. And honestly, I'm
I love veins. My husband hates this about me because I'll just be sitting next to him, like rubbing his veins. And he's like, stop. I'm like, but they're so good. I know. I love what a kink all nurses have for veins. I think it's so funny. We can't help it, you know. Well, it's so nice meeting both of you. We're delighted you're listening. The only thing I listen to really. Good. We're trying to keep it coming fast and hot so you can't wander or stray.
All right, ladies. Well, nice meeting both of you. Thanks for telling us that story, Danielle. Of course. Thank you, guys. All right. Take care. Wow. Well, those were fun. Do you think it'll make people not want to have kids or have kids? It doesn't make it fun. Everyone's been a kid, so everyone can relate to some extent. I think they're just good stories. Do you think anyone hasn't been a kid in the simulation? Yeah. I mean, there's been some glitches, but they haven't released those to the public. Okay. Love you. Love you.
Do you want to sing a tune or something? We don't have a theme song for this new show, so here I go, go, go. We're gonna ask some random questions and with the help of our cherries we'll get some suggestions. On the flyer, I'm dish. On the flyer, I'm dish. Enjoy.
