Episode 24: Homebase, which Parent is up to bat?!?

[00:00:02] Four parents, nine kids, two houses, Didn't really want to talk about this. Four parents, nine kids, I'm queer, One thing's clear, There's no dysfunction here. Four parents, nine kids, two houses, Didn't really want to talk about this. Four parents, nine kids, I'm queer, One thing's clear, There's no dysfunction.

[00:00:23] Hi guys! Welcome to No Dysfunction Here. Today we're going to be recording episode 24. Woop woop! Wow, how the time flies. It's crazy, crazy. Is that Michael Jordan's number? 23. Close enough. And Taylor Swift is 22. I think Kobe was 24. He started with eight and went to 24, or the other way around.

[00:00:53] I don't know what happened. For record, I got Jordan's number wrong on purpose. Oh! I believe it too. You're like a sports maniac. Honestly, I was really surprised you didn't know that. But what I am going to let you know... 23 of my pairs of Jordan's. He's a, what's it called? A shoe head? Sneaker head? Sure. I think it's a sneaker head. Sneaker head. Weirdo.

[00:01:22] He has a shoe fetish. And not just shoes, it's like... Feet and shoes. Nike's. Yeah. It's actually just the shoes. Like if feet have been in there, he's like, disgusting. Yeah. Just wants the shoes. Just the shoes. If my feet touch him, he's like, get away from me. That's weird because every time my feet touch him, he definitely does a little something back. It's like, I don't know if it's all the toes, but there's for sure at least the longest toe is connecting. Really getting in there. Watch with those razor blade toenails. For me or him? Him.

[00:01:50] I've got bad ones too. It would be a sword fight. When I was married to Jake, he used to pinch me with his toes and I would get so mad. That shit hurts. Does he pinch you with his toes? No. You fixed it. What's that all about? I put that in the divorce papers. Irreconciled differences and toe pinching. He does... That wasn't included in the irreconcilable differences. My God. He has really long toes. Separate paragraphs. It was that important. It was serious.

[00:02:20] But he does this thing with them and he's in bed. It was its own footnote. That's why he pinched me. My skin wasn't there. I am so genuinely sad I'm the only person who heard it. It sounds like they said some funny shit too. Yeah, you guys said funny stuff. You said some funny things. We said some funny things. Water under the bridge. It's funny. Okay, I have one more thing to ask you if Jake does it. Let's keep this going.

[00:02:48] He used to finish my drink a lot when we were on a date. Do you still do that? Man. Like I'd go to take my drink and it was gone and I'm like, no, I'm thirsty. And he's like, I was too. It's free refills. Yeah. So no? No, my drink is straight to TIFF. Wow. Okay. Do you not like my backwash? That's why you switched a beer, huh?

[00:03:17] You know when you touch it. That's true. There it is. Yeah. The truth comes out. Yeah, beer's, or Jake's the only one out of us that doesn't like a good cup of beer. Oh, and that lime, if that lime's not there, I don't even know if I want to drink it. Oh really? That'll change. Give it time. Put the lime in coconut, you shake it. You shake it. After the first two, just have a couple without the lime, you'll gradually get there. Yeah, I do like with the lime though, for sure. Unless it's like a heifer. Yeah.

[00:03:47] Some beer's not meant for the lime. Oh, you should take your glasses off. God damn it, she's right. She keeps telling me I look terrible with them on. Oh, that's mean. You're so angry. Just kidding, she never say that. So today, what we are talking about is not how bad AJ looks with his glasses on. I appreciate it. We can save it for another day. Okay. We're going to talk about home base with the kids. Like, how do you know which house for your kids to sleep at?

[00:04:15] Which parents responsible for transportation to and from school, doctor appointments? Like, how do you figure all of that out? Tricky one. Especially when you have 47 children. Uh-huh. Makes it trickier. Yeah. It does. Well, one thing that I think is extremely important is to, rather than trying to not do things, to be proactive about wanting to be helpful.

[00:04:42] I feel like all four of us really do our best to be available and say yes when we can and be a team player. You know? We're not out here trying to minimize our task and put it on someone else. We're all looking out for each other and doing our best to pick up the slack where we can. I think that was when we figured it out. I think that was when we figured it out.

[00:05:08] When we all started actually doing that instead of trying to keep tabs on whose turn it was to drop off from school. What's that? Honestly, and we went through years of the petty bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was a good thing to do. I mean, we do need to keep it on my own. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:05:35] I mean, we have to be on my own. is like it's an area where it seems okay to have structure and it is okay to have structure but it makes it easy to try and control that because this is a good thing it's helping it's whatever so we then again would insert ourselves early on or you know i've done this and i think it's very

[00:06:03] common insert yourself early on unlike well this is what i think is best so we it should be this this this and even if you do agree and you're working together and you're having but you're having this set thing and it's like well it's your turn you got to figure that out or you know whatever it is again it just takes away from kids and their happiness and their comfort and all those things so i agree it's it's all about being malleable and not rigid like just help where you can help

[00:06:28] and sometimes we can't it's again with all of us i think the benefit of the doubt like if someone's like i can't i can't i can't whatever no one's like they never can or whatever you know it's because we're we're i think all trying to do that like how can we help what can we do yeah i think it was the the stopping of taking score and everybody just trying their absolute best and everybody giving

[00:06:56] everybody else the vote for the doubt you know sometimes we're not able we can't do it and we just all believe that about each other instead of instead of uh having some back of our minds desire to go negative because the other one is not available for a ride or right or even like taking just waiting for for a reason to be able to pounce or to be able to justify why you're exactly upset in the back

[00:07:23] background and many times hurting a child because of it you know it's like they need something you're like i've done this five times the last one to whatever you know and it's like well i've done the last five times check with your dad or check with your mom or whatever it is you know and that's not helpful and like it's again it's all about that relationship with the ex instead of the relationship

[00:07:46] to children uh i would say another thing for me is that has been a challenge is where the kids sleep and for me jake and tiff's house and before it was just jake's house was definitely the more fun house

[00:08:07] and there was like you know better food better snacks probably and more flexibility less structure maybe you know like i would not allow kids to have phones in their bedrooms i would not allow kids to have video games or tvs in their room and so they naturally wanted to be at their dad's house more

[00:08:32] which was extremely difficult for me because i didn't want to bend on the things i felt were important but i also wanted my children to want to be with me and it was that was a really hard thing because i always felt like i was the boring parent or the no parent or the the less fun you know and and then eventually once they got old enough to choose where they stayed they all the older kids

[00:08:59] decided to sleep at their dad's house and i felt super sad and almost like abandoned even though that wasn't their intention and and so i've had to really fight to find new ways of staying involved in my kids lives when they live i'm very grateful they live walking distance so they they're here a lot but they

[00:09:21] still you know like i miss out on bedtimes and morning conversations and and those things now but at the same time i recognize that i had the kids the predominant amount when the kids were little and so i i absolutely see the beauty in the scales kind of balancing back out and and them having this time with

[00:09:46] their dad and tiff um but it's like when they're young and there's a more fun house what do you do about that and what if they don't want to be at your house that's really hard and how do you handle that with the other parent and how do you handle that with the kids that's another tough one that i don't think that we had figured out as we were going through it we're neck deep in it i mean you know

[00:10:17] one of the things you said there towards the beginning is that you knew that you didn't want to bend what you felt was right for your household right very rigid well i didn't want to bend what i felt was right for my household and they happened to be like opposite spectrums but if we actually could have come up with a compromise of what both of our households should more or less look like

[00:10:42] i think that would have been ideal yeah we could have done that with communication if we were not angry with each other prideful stubborn keeping score like you said you know if we could go back i believe we absolutely could have found that middle ground and so i hope that we can inspire other parents with younger children to have these conversations with each other to set their differences aside and and really come together for the kids and figure these things out

[00:11:16] let's see whose turn it is on spin the wheel with tiff spin the wheel spin the wheel with tiff my wife she was drawing her eyebrows too high she looked surprised

[00:11:59] she's like i think i drew my eyebrow wrong today or something like that and i was like i'm sorry what i didn't know that was a thing until just now in my life but yes this is a thing now what happened to your other ones oh man you can't make fun of cancer cancer patients that's that's right i maintain that you can they're actually some of the easiest people to go after i will say when they don't have

[00:12:26] any eyebrows right yeah how can you not really is the question when jake and i first started chit chatting he made a cancer joke and i'm like you can't make fun of people who have had cancer like i had cancer and he's like so did i and i'm like oh i didn't bring it it's okay it's okay honestly this is a conversation that we have been having a lot because somebody made a very rude and

[00:12:50] inappropriate comment about my body on a post on facebook but we're inappropriate with each other all the time and and that is the thing is like respecting this is such a subject change good but this man who made this comment didn't even know me and he's talking about my boobs you know but it's like we're not boring prudy people i'm not saying let's not make funny boob jokes you know i

[00:13:18] like it any kind of sex joke or whatever if it's not targeting someone you don't even know or like when there is trust in relationships and whatever that's a safe space but you gotta know the room no read the room and 100 and err on the side of caution and if you're i heard a quote today

[00:13:42] something about my sister brin sent me this video about this exact topic i showed it to tiff earlier and part of the video says men should only say to women what they would want a man to say to them in prison that's amazing that's a good rule i love that rule if you don't want a man to say whatever you're

[00:14:07] about to say to you in prison don't don't say it to me that's so great i really like that and i want to like sidebar prison because i think there's a show you guys would want to watch oh hey oh yeah is it called prison it's something about prison oh okay it's like a dating show oh we love a good dating show it sounds accurate just kidding are they dating people in prison it's my prison wife or

[00:14:30] whatever something like that amazing on the spectrum no but it's women we need a crossover of love on the prison spectrum yes but it's like women in the uk and australia and great britain are dating men pen pal like they're writing to each other and talking to each other on the phone and then when they get out they show up and meet wow and then go live and it shows like their lives i bet they all go swimmingly with no problem whatsoever

[00:14:59] i mean half of them get murdered yeah but it's a really interesting show yeah that's less than i would have guessed i was waiting to see if jake would do it i still don't know i was waiting for jake to do it i'm constantly deciding if i want to be the grammar police or if i want to have friends that's a real problem that should be on the shirt was there a period at the end

[00:15:28] i don't know i actually i think it's ricky gervais who talks about it this is like a subject i feel really passionately about actually because i am like he talks about in his comedy how people will like come up to him all the time after his shows i'm like you i can't believe you you can't say that you can't do this you can't whatever you know and he's his response is like you can joke about anything like that's why they're jokes like this is humor you know like for me i might find something

[00:15:57] personally offensive so i might not enjoy that somebody make maybe is making like transgender jokes maybe i don't enjoy that i believe with my entire heart that person should be allowed to make transgender jokes as much as they want as often as they want as terribly as they are as great as they are for the rest of their lives like it's so ridiculous to be like you can't joke about that because it hurts my feelings you know right anyway yeah this is a this is a sensitive

[00:16:27] topic humor like there are so many people who are saying who would say transgender jokes should never be made because they're hurtful you know or like for for me if it was something that touched my life specifically like lesbian jokes or whatever i don't know it's like i i completely agree i was in theater in high school and my theater director did not want to do the plays because the school wanted her to

[00:16:56] censor them and she was adamantly against censorship i think the audience can decide you know yeah we don't need to be told what not to do we can decide like if for aj and i we love stand-up comedy and we will turn it off immediately if there's a joke that is inappropriate in our eyes and a lot of transgender jokes are totally offensive to us so we turn it off and that sends a message to the comedian they can track

[00:17:23] that shit they see when people you know turn shows off and whatnot and but we don't want them to not be allowed to tell that joke we want freedom of speech and then you show you know like walk out of the movie walk out turn off the show walk away from your friend if you think the joke is enough is offensive but this whole like censorship thing is out of control in our country for sure but the hard part

[00:17:53] is i mean there's a lot a whole lot of hard parts to it but just like you know the rest of the audience you know i feel like when at our restaurant when we've had stand-up comedians in the past you know people are kind of looking around on whether or not it's appropriate to laugh just like come on be your own person yeah it's funny or you don't think it's funny yeah don't just laugh because other people may not be appropriate in this town to tell that joke

[00:18:20] like totally laugh if you think it's funny we went to a comedy show in this town you remember just a month ago or something two months ago and it was a one of the ladies was a lesbian and she was making jokes about her first vibrator and oh it was so funny and what was the crowd demographic people in their packed house that were laughing we're the only people laughing our heads off at

[00:18:49] that because our community is very conservative and they're looking around all shifty and awkward it's like chill out but those people will learn that those jokes probably won't be flying it kind of work for those guys that lady was great she was so funny but yeah i don't know i it is refreshing when people just think for themselves and laugh at what they think is funny and don't but

[00:19:14] i don't know it's an interesting town we live in but we love it i think those specific comedians had the skills to power through even with a really really really tough they did almost silent audience like they they were incredible just like keeping their own personal confidence of like i know i've got i've fucking got this yeah they really did i know it's funny i know other people that think it's

[00:19:40] funny it's not my fault these guys don't like it yeah then again you know i mean you are getting paid to do a job right you should switch your skit after three failed jokes that's exactly what yeah she's she's talking about with the like let the audience decide you know like if four people are like you can't make fun of people who are cancer patients and 996 people are out there dying like sorry but i think it's funny i think it's funny well four of them are dying with cancer the other

[00:20:09] 996 is having a great time yeah i mean i'm a sensitive person and i don't like rude humor and i don't like to target groups of people and humor or anything like that but i also don't want to stop anyone from doing it if they want to i'm just a big freedom lady freedom's good we appreciate that about you so thank you

[00:20:35] so does your community it's the one thing my community really appreciates my views i'm sure oh i thought it was freedom sorry big into freedom around real big into freedom america well this has been fun thanks everybody i think we need another whose turn is it to ask the question

[00:20:59] oh i think you answered the question last time yes yes it was phrase statements i'll take it you got this it was um it was about shit you know the people that raise chickens they're actually chicken tenders

[00:21:28] i saw that today where was it i really love that meme on facebook chicken tenders is wild also a word for money yes okay so when someone's paying for chicken it's chicken tenders there is a lot going on with these chickens that's great we should get into the chicken business yeah i'm gonna think about it i know a guy i'm gonna think about it

[00:21:58] okay question who is it oh i think it's technically supposed to be my turn but i told a joke so maybe let's pass to aj oh boy am i answering a question okay all right this that's the one i wanted so or it might be a corny joke from chat gpt i definitely don't get the punch line hold on how can parents raise children with a deeper awareness

[00:22:28] of emotional yes terrible joke i'm gonna try again how can parents oh it's a question you're right how how can parents raise children with a deeper awareness of emotional and spiritual well being easy answer just kidding there's no easy answer to that question i think though there are some things that could help one is living living your own life with deep awareness of emotional and spiritual well-being

[00:22:53] i think that like everything else our kids look to us you know whether they know it or not when they're growing up and they learn a lot there and a lot of it isn't great and a lot of it's great and we're trying to keep it all great so when you're talking about emotional and spiritual well-being just like everything else like if you are keeping yourself physically healthy by whatever you know eating a well-balanced diet and exercising or

[00:23:20] you know whatever it might be having a good sleep schedule blah blah blah it impresses on your kids to do the same without you saying a word and i think it's just the exact same thing it's if you're taking care of yourself emotionally and spiritually and that's going to look different for everybody i think but really self-care in those two categories whatever it looks like for you helps your kids realize that it's an

[00:23:44] important thing like for example i don't think i think i've always been someone naturally who my emotional well-being stays in a very like even kill place but spiritual well-being isn't something that i feel like until recently in my life i've really focused on and would just like you know power through power through i do do do do go get it done do do work this that whatever and as a result like i don't feel

[00:24:12] like my life has done a great job of impressing upon our kids like here's how you are spiritually well you know but i think that those are things i'm focused on now and trying to do now and it can change and you can you can do that so that would be my answer well said go thanks guys nothing to add that was amazing you guys stop okay all right making me uncomfortable over here

[00:24:39] or is that jake playing footsies with you no that i just wanted to say deeper several times that is true i've said it in my head four other times that you guys don't even know about jake wanted to go deeper with his big toe that's right that's the groove that's nope that's my not there that's what they said wait oh oh my goodness oh you guys are fun i sure do love you love you

[00:25:02] right back that'll be a long time thanks guys we'll see you what are we talking about next time oh next week is going to be something special surprise surprise yes we're so excited i know it's gonna be so fun jake's like what is it he's like wait what are we doing the wives are planning something oh love it just kidding we're not okay it'll be a good time okay bring your taste buds

[00:25:29] i yeah it's nine kids two houses nine kids some clear one thing's clear there's no dysfunction