Best of James (Compilation)

There's baby fever floating around The Distractible Vault as we share some highlights from the last few years of Bob raising his son, James. Get set up quick and connect to their fast speeds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode of Distractibles is presented to you by T-Mobile 5G Home Internet.

• 0:05Speaker 01

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  Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Fastest based on Ookla Speed Test. Intelligence data, second half 2025. All rights reserved.

• 0:28Speaker 03

  From Mini Me to eternal pride.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  It's time for Best of James.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  You got a baby!

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that's right. Also, there's a baby.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Wow!

• 0:42Speaker 01

  James. His name is James.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  James!

• 0:44Speaker 01

  I don't have to call him baby anymore. He has a name now, legally.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  James. That's a good name. Man, what would you think if I said it wasn't a good name?

• 0:51Speaker 02

  Oh, does James pay his taxes yet? Do you know tax season's only three months away, little James?

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Listen, daddy takes care of the taxes, okay? James doesn't have to worry about that.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Isn't the whole point of having a baby to pay your taxes for you and stuff?

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't know what you've heard about babies, but no. No, don't even entertain them about this one. No, straight up no.

• 1:10Speaker 02

  I thought they change your diapers when they get like old enough to get out of their own and they pay your taxes for you and, I don't know, work so you can retire?

• 1:16Speaker 00

  So you had the critical ideas of old enough on their own, but what is that age that you think it is?

• 1:23Speaker 02

  After they emerge?

• 1:24Speaker 00

  You think that's old enough on their own?

• 1:26Speaker 02

  After the emerg- what's it called? The emerg- the great emergence?

• 1:29Speaker 00

  The emergence.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Emergening! That's why it's the emergency room. Yeah, oh, they got all these pregnant ladies and they're doing their emergencings. They're in the emergency room. I get it now. Medical jargon is so lost on me.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  I saw a turkey. I hate turkeys. That was so big that nobody believed that it was a turkey until they inspected it for themselves. Took James to a fall festival, like a fa- like a farm, like, right? You know, it's just a big Midwest thing. It's like, oh, it's fall. Let's do a corn maze and then go in the pumpkin patch and we'll have like a, yeah. Activities and stuff and we went to this place. It was really fun. They had a bunch of cool playsets. The first moment we were there, I did have made a parenting mistake. They had this big thing that was just like a big hill. And you could run. It was sort of like a hill where you were supposed to clearly run from one side to the other. And there was like a path, but then the the sides were very steep.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  You were not supposed to go up or down the sides. You were supposed to go over the path like it. And James started going up that and I was like, ah, that'd be a good picture. I would, because I was like, I'm trying to take pictures. We're doing this fun thing with James. I want pictures of James. And so I was like, he won't be fucking crazy for 30 seconds. I can let him run up or down this hill really quick. So I let him go and I'm like, I'm just gonna go around and take a picture. Well, and I like have my phone out about to take a picture. He's on the very top of the hill and he looks down at me and he just goes.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, and tries to like run down the steepest fucking. It took like two steps and then just.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  And piled at the bottom and it's it's busy. This is right by the entrance. So there's a, there's a bunch of other people doing the hill and people and just at in the middle of all that James is just fucking eating so much. Just. And I just, I put my phone away, go to go and pick him up and he's like, I'm okay. Let's do this stuff like, because he doesn't want to like go home.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  He was, he was fine, but it was so, I was like, he can do this, right? Did you get any of it? Like a photo collage of.

• 3:46Speaker 01

  God, I fucking, I wish I didn't even get all the way to like, I was like trying to get the camera open and I was like. No, and then just, anyway. It's warm out now and that's really fun for James because it means we get to go back to the playgrounds and stuff. And we did that yesterday and he had a hell of a time. Before it got cold, when we were going to the playgrounds, like the end of last summer, he was walking, but he was small enough that it was kind of like we had to chase him around basically. Because at any moment, he might just like fall off an edge or do something crazy. And so. And he's like really independent now, which is awesome. But I forgot one important fact about the playground that we take him to a lot. It's like one of those old school, like wooden castle style playgrounds.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  Super fun. There's an area with a really fun slide and he was, I was letting him climb up on his own and go up there to go on the slide. But right next to the slide, they made this feature where it's like tractor tires stacked up. And the middle of the tractor tires is a hole. Dowd all the way to the ground. And you're, it's meant for kids to like climb down the tires like their ladders. And then there's like some chains and like it's for climbing. But James is not tall enough or coordinated enough to climb on something like that. So I let him go up there and then he, he got to the slide and he was like, slide. Big tires. And I was like, what do you mean big tires? Cause it's like up on the second level and I'm like, what?

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Big tire. And he went and he was like leaned over the hole. And I was just like, I forgot that was there. Oh, and I ran and dove under the bottom of it. And was like face up under the hole. And I was like, go down the slide. And he just looked at me for a second. It was like, oh yeah, slide. All right, I won't jump down the suicide hole yet.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Fucking like it was the, the one, cause when we got to the playground, I was like, all right, let's see how this goes. And he started climbing on his own and it, and I was like, this is cool. He's so, he's having so much fun. And then he was like, I'm going to go on the slide and started climbing up. And I was like, oh man, big tire. Like whoa, fucking shit. Why did they put, why did they put a jump hole in this place? God. Anyway, he's fine. And he went down the slide about 20 times. He would just, but like half of the times I continued to let him go up on his own. And like half the times he'd get up there and be like,

• 6:14Speaker 00

  Big tires?

• 6:15Speaker 01

  And I had to be like, we're going on the slide, buddy. Remember the slide? Yeah. But anyway, it was super fun. And only twice did I almost think he was about to break his entire self, jumping down a big hole for no reason, onto hard ground below. Also, we threw a lady her cell phone. Oh, really funny. This poor mom was chasing her kid around, who was more in the needs adult supervision very directly staged still, the younger than James. And she like went down the slide in front of James, like frantically like, ah, where'd you go, baby? And her phone fell out of her pocket on the top of the slide. And James is just sitting there with this stranger's phone in his hands, just like, mine now. And she's at the bottom of the slide like, give me my phone, baby.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Give me my, and he like contemplated and everybody, eventually he was like, oh, okay. And tossed it down the slide and it was very nice. But I thought I was about to have to go wrangle my son from stealing a stranger's cell phone at the playground.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  I thought you were going to be like, oh, you found us a new phone. Thanks, baby. And then like leave with it.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  Now, James, ask for money for this. Oh, yeah.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  I'm gonna earn way more points. I have a very funny update.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  All right, I can't wait.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Sad updates aren't worth nothing. James is refining his comedy and it's really fucking funny. So, uh, James, James likes to tell jokes and a lot of his jokes are set up punchline, something really quick. Usually he'll do like a fart or something, or you know, like whatever. But he has realized he likes getting the laugh and he's, he has learned like, this is what got me the laugh, right? So he'll do a joke and he'll be like, ah, and then I farted. And everyone's like, ha, ha, very funny, like, ah. And he'll be like, mm hmm. And then I farted? Cause he's like, laugh some more, right? He's like working on it. But obviously you can't say the same punchline twice in a row. That doesn't work. We're comedians, we know that.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  So last night at dinner, we're sitting there and James just is like eating his food and he looks over at Manny and he goes, mom, you're cheese. And my, and Manny's like, why am I cheese? And he's like, cheese can't talk. And I'm like, okay. I look at him and I'm like, okay, what's dad? And he goes, dad, you're crackers. And I'm like, oh, cause crackers goes with cheese. And he's like, crackers can't talk. We're sitting there. I look at him and I'm like, alright, if mom is cheese and dad is crackers, what is James? And he goes, hmm, I'm scared.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Cause mom and dad are cheese and crackers. And we lost our shit. Like, it was very funny. We, I had a good laugh and he was just like soaking it up like, that's the funniest thing I've ever said.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  I mean, he's right.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  And I said, and we've been trying to teach him about this, right? So we, we had the laugh. It was good. And I got, I looked back at him and I was like, okay, James, mom is cheese and dad is crackers. What does that make James? And he was like, oh, can't say the same thing. Oh, what do I say? Ooh, I'm afraid. And, and then he went through every word that he could think of that was like scared. To get back to the same punchline. It was so funny. It's probably much funnier because I'm his parent. Like, I get that that's maybe not the most genius comedy thing that's ever been crafted.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  But he is working on, he's like really actually working on his timing and he's like experimenting with how he's doing punch. It's very funny to watch him like figure it out in real time.

• 9:55Speaker 02

  It's actually super impressive too. He's thinking of like synonyms and wordplay like that. Like, that's crazy.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  He did it a bunch. I think he did. I'm scared. I'm worried. I'm upset. I'm, oh, what did he say? I'm nervous. I'm something. He did like one or two other ones. He knows a lot of words.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  That's funny and impressive. And he's just turned three?

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, just turned three.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. When do we start rationing names? Was that in the nineties? Overpopulated.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Please, sir, can I have some middle initial?

• 10:25Speaker 01

  I just want to name my daughter Dorothy. We don't even want her to have a last name. I can give you Door.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Dad, just because there's a story doesn't mean I like my name. Why did you call me Door?

• 10:35Speaker 00

  I give you Door and a hyphen.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  Let's talk to your brother, Jam. You guys are a pair. I know, Mandy and I are not gonna name our daughter Dorothy. Don't worry, Chad. Also, we don't have a daughter. That's a hypothetical daughter.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Do you have a secret daughter that we've never known about?

• 10:48Speaker 00

  No. Man, that would really prove some favoritism going on. If you keep going on about your son, there's all these stories about your son. It's like, oh, yeah, also, there's a daughter somewhere.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  James is so great. James, James, James. Guys, can we count on the number of times we've heard James? What about Door?

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Well, maybe we'll go back and be like, oh, my God, he's been saying Door all along, and we thought he was really the hardware. Oh, my God.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Door wouldn't shut up last night. Like, man, this dude's Doors talk a lot. What the hell?

• 11:16Speaker 02

  At 26 minutes, when we play James backwards, it's actually Door's the favorite.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Well, that's gonna start some funny rumors. Oh, James is, well, it's not fair to say this. James is almost potty trained. James is wearing big boy underpants. So that's pretty big.

• 11:30Speaker 00

  That's huge.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  And he went a whole day yesterday with no accidents or anything. He's in the potty like a real dude. He pisses everywhere.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  How about Door?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Door sucks. I don't want to talk about that. I think it was kind of an accident, but it ended up happening on Monday of this week. We've been trying to potty train James for a while, and it started with just like, we'll just let him sit, like, we'll let him sit on the potty, we'll try and catch him, and there are a bunch of strategies that are really intense. Like, one of the strategies is he just doesn't wear pants or a diaper, and whenever he starts peeing or pooping, you just grab him and go, and run to the bathroom. Which sounds like the most insane shit I've ever heard.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  But the strategy that we have gone with is set a timer for, like, it started at 15, it's at 20 minutes now. You set a timer and you slowly lengthen the timer, and every time the timer goes off, James goes to the bathroom. So that it's like, he hopefully doesn't have an opportunity to go in his diaper. You get in there, and if he sits, and if he goes, he goes. If he doesn't go, it's fine. It's like, you make it fun, and you have, like, books, and you hang out, and he gets rewarded for going and being good.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Is this like Pavlov's dog in this? When he goes to school one day, like, the bell goes off for next period, he's like, oh, no, the timer!

• 12:49Speaker 01

  It might. Okay. We're unsure about the Pavlovian things that we're building into our son. But this is one of the methods that like it's online. People are like, it works, but I trained my kid in one week. Uh, but he's been doing really good. He likes it generally and he does generally what he's supposed to do. But he does not care if his pee is aimed into the toilet. And so if you're not paying close attention, cause like I sent him on there and I get him situated. So it's good, but he sits there and he wiggles and he does stuff and he do, he might stand up and sit back down. And by the time he actually does go to the bathroom, a lot of times you're just standing there and all of a sudden it's just like it's like, ah, ooh, ah, get that, aim it down. But he's doing really good and he's making progress.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Got to get potty trained so he can be ready to go to preschool because he's a smart kid and he's gonna need more mental stimulation. He needs, he needs to learn. He, he's pretty much only happy if he's learning shit, which is awesome, but exhausting when it's like, okay, it's 45 minutes till bedtime. I'm exhausted. And James is like, tell me about every animal in the Sahara. And I'm like, God, I only know like five.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  That's how you did so good on the animal part.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I literally, the Quetzalcoatlus, I know Quetzalcoatlus, whatever, that dinosaur. I know so many more animals than I ever did in the rest of my entire life because James will just be like, tell me about animals. And, and I'll be like, oh, what about penguins? And he's like, I know about penguins. Keep good, new ones. God, I don't know. I gotta go study. I didn't, I wasn't ready for the pop quiz.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  Uh, that's delightful. Just make up animals.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  That's dangerous. Do you remember shit?

• 14:37Speaker 00

  I mean, authors do it all the time. Have you gotten into mythical animals yet?

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Uh, not so much. That actually is an interesting thing. He sort of developmentally, he's starting to get to the place where he like, he understands that stories exist in like other worlds, kind of, but he really doesn't get that all stories aren't just like things that happen in real life all the time. So the like we, Manny and I both really like Nightmare Before Christmas. Classic movie, enjoyable movie, terrifying for him. He loves the music. If you just play the music, he's all, this is

• 15:12Speaker 00

  It is a terrifying movie.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  But like the visuals of the movie and the characters of the movie.

• 15:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  He is immediately just like, ah, we had a thing where we would just, we showed him like, Manny showed him like the first minute. And after stuff started happening on screen at the very opening of the movie, he was like, scary, it's scary. And for like a week afterwards. Every time he went to bed, we like do the whole thing. He's all happy. We read books. We put him down. We're like, all right, good night, dude. And he's all, I'm scared of Halloween.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  It's not real. It's okay. It's a movie. Those guys can't hurt you.

• 15:46Speaker 00

  The timing's bad because Halloween's right around the corner. So that's probably, probably gonna work.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  But like stuff he sees in real life that might be scary to other kids, he's actually pretty chill about. Like he thinks, we go to like Menards and home stores and stuff and they have those huge witches and things. And when we're at the store, he's like, ha, giant witch. And he thinks it's awesome. But in movies and stuff, like if it's too creepy. Or like Nightmare Before Christmas is very like stylized and, but if that existed in real life.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  Oh, no, Hocus Pocus.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  That would be scary.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  Cause I would agree.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Pocus, but I was scared of, was it Billy? The guy with the sealed mouth?

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  He was scary.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Wait, how old is James?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Uh, James turns three in December.

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Oh, so he hasn't achieved consciousness yet. True consciousness.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  All right, Bob, what's going on in your life? Who are you in debt to? Mafia? Oh, lots of people. So we recently visited family in Iowa that we were discussing. Uh, generally, and this is like a theme that comes up in James Likes Bluey and there's a several episodes in Bluey that deal with like pregnancy and stuff. And we were trying to explain to him like what a pregnant lady is, right? We were talking and it just sort of came up. And so it's like, oh, who's pregnant? Is mom pregnant? Whatever. But we were trying to be like, no, no, buddy. When a, when a person is pregnant, when a woman is pregnant, uh, means that they have a baby growing in their belly. And so you might not be able to tell, but like if you, like if we, if you see someone who's pregnant,

• 17:12Speaker 01

  you need to be careful, right? Like they have a baby in the belly. You gotta be careful with the baby. It was just a discussion that we had and it was going on and the way things do with like kids, just trying to like teach him stuff. So we got to, the belly gets big because the baby gets big. And James looks at me and is like, baby in dad's belly?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  And I was like, ah, no, no, nah, dad, dad's just fat. That's a confusing distinction for you. Sorry, buddy. Uh, but, but it was like a funny moment, but it wasn't, everyone was not in on it. So then after we get back from that trip, we're at dinner with Mandy's parents and James is talking and they're like, everyone's paying attention to James at dinner at a restaurant and out of nowhere, he just starts talking about babies and he's just like, da da da da da, pregnant ladies, da da da da da, babies, na na na na, baby in the belly? No, dad's just fat. And Mandy's parents did like a spit take. It was the funniest fucking thing.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  Cause like out of nowhere, unprompted, he just like remembers the conversation that we had. And now he just does that. He'll just, he'll just walk up and hit me with the like, no, dad's just fat. And then walk away.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  And everyone's kind of like, you taught him that. I'm like, I know I taught him that. This is exactly what I was hoping would happen. That's so funny. Anyway, he's gonna be a funny kid.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  That also brings up the point of like, whenever you move out of someplace, what makes it difficult is the memories you have there. So one of the hard things about leaving our previous house, we obviously have a lot of good memories there because we were there for like five or six years. But, um, the last time we got to hang out with Zombie, who passed away in person, was at the house. And like I, we remember like seeing him sitting like on our couch, like on his laptop and stuff like that. And it's like, ah, we're leaving that memory behind. So like, there's also the people like that have entered and left your lives. If you have memories with them in a place, that can make a place feel like home and it's harder to leave it behind. Um, or just memories you make over time. The longer you're in a place, the more memories you have, like the harder it is to leave that because that feels more like home than a new home can for a while.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  No, it's funny. Both of you brought up stuff that definitely connects with me, us. So we, we lived in California. Only for like four years, basically, but and we lived in two different places there. So we weren't in the place we just moved out of that long. But that was the house we lived in when James was born. Right? Like, that's where we brought him home from the hospital to that house full of the grandparents were all in town. That's the first place he ever ate, you know, food and like, there's a very strong, even though it's, he's only yesterday. He turned eight months old. He's not even a year old yet. Like, most of his life is connected to that place. So like, yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  I'm doing okay. I'm pretty good. Uh, we finally don't have people in our house and I don't know what to do about it. It's like, can I sit in some peace and fucking quiet for a second? I don't know.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  I can come over if you want. Bring James.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, sure. I like James and James really likes Molly, so that's fine.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he loves Molly and whoever Molly's husband is.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  That's pretty much the other, he, he, dude, I, listen, he's gonna be a, he's gonna be a problem. He is a ladies man and he can, I wouldn't say he could barely walk because he's like running now.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  He did full out loops around me.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now he's got blue eyes, blonde hair. He's a big flirt. He's always flirting with girls that are older than him at the playground. His instinct, if he sees any, it's any kids, but he gravitates towards the girls. But especially if they're like five to 10 years older than him, he immediately just walks up and it's like, hi, I'm James.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Do you want, you want to hold hands?

• 21:09Speaker 02

  He's gonna be like eight years old trying to go to prom.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think he had the day of his life one time. We're at a park. It was mostly a little kid's park, but there was a group of like, high school girls that were like just hanging out off to the side, just sitting, talking in a circle. And he was doing swings and whatever, and he saw them and ran right over and sat down in the circle and didn't even introduce himself, just sat down and they were all kind of like.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  And just kept going and like included him because he was just a cute little kid. And he just sat there. It was like, it's working.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  My dreams are coming true. And that's pretty much it for me. Well, I have James Smalltalk. You guys want to hear about more joys of having a child? Always. Fascinating times in the world of James. He's, he's, uh, he really loves, Mark, you, I think in one of the previous episodes, you talked about, uh, the movie K-pop Demon Hunters. In the weekend immediately following when we recorded that, I, uh, happened to watch it and I, uh, I agree with your take. It's a pretty good movie. It's just enjoyable. Because we watched the movie, we were playing the music and we just like played it for James. He fucking loves the music from that movie.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  He, uh, he really likes Golden and he really likes Soda Pop. He's like dancing more than he's ever danced before. Anytime it comes on, he starts dancing and the, there's like the drop in, uh, I forget which one, but the one where it's like, we're going up, up, up. That's in Golden. He like, when the drop is coming, he stopped and he goes, ready? Ready? We're going up. It's really funny.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  And that's very cute and very fun. And, uh, so to balance it out, uh, this is the other thing that he's doing a lot lately. We were in the car and he was just screaming and not like angry or sad or anything. He was happy and he was just going, bah, bah, bah. And like, it was a lot. And eventually I reached a point where I was like, man, how do I stop that from happening for a minute? And I just sort of was like, hey buddy, what are you doing? What? Hey James. And I like get his attention and I finally got him his attention and he looked at me. And I was like, yeah, okay. What are you doing and why? And he just goes, I'm buying.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Because bah bah and I was like, you know what? He fucking, he answered me directly. I cannot fault him. He knows exactly what he's doing and he's really committed to it. And so I've had a headache for about a week and a half. Um, but it's, it's still pretty funny, but that one is way more unpleasant because he really does just scream a lot right now. It's fucking loud, but he's having a great time. So like, it's hard to complain. It's the Quetzalcoatlus, Quetzalcotles, Northropi. It's a dinosaur bird. You know what Quetzalcotles is? Wait, how did you know what that was? Cause I know what the fuck a Quetzalcotles is. Cause it's a kind of dinosaur thing and James likes dinosaurs.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  I didn't know we had dinosaurs on this list. I'm not gonna lie. I didn't either.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  As per usual, we're gonna start today with small talk. I want to go first. This morning, James' son, one-year-old, had gymnastics and I just want to say, baby gymnastics? Pretty wild. Very cute though. Turns out one-year-olds are crazy.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Like climbing on the walls, doing somersaults. Balance beam, backflips.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  There were balance beams. There's, I like to have the whole range. There's a balance beam that just sits on the floor. And then there's one that's like six inches tall. And then there's one that's like four feet tall that like, looks super dangerous. It's fine. And there's like rings and they do somersaults and, uh, James, uh, ran face-first into another child today. They clashed foreheads. They're fine. He was upset for a second, but then there were bubbles. So he's fine. But anyway, uh, I was one of four men in the entire building and it was an interesting experience. One of the men worked at the place. One of the men was a dad who left because they were in the class before us. And then I think there were, was one other guy there.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Wait, how big is this facility? Because four men in a place seems like a reasonable number of people.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  In the class before James's class, there's, because they're separated into like age groups, there were probably 20-ish kids and each kid has a, each kid has an adult with them, right? So it's a kid and a parent. So there were like 40 people, 20 kids, 20 adults, all women, except for one, one dude in that class. Yeah. So in James's class, there was maybe more like 15.

• 25:47Speaker 00

  What is the purpose of gymnastics at one years old?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  I mean, it's not competitive, right? The point is you're teaching them how to walk around. It's a place where they can work on balance and motor skills. They they learn things like how to do how to do somersaults, but you help them do somersaults. And so he's learning how to like control. He has to tuck his head. He has to stick his arms out. It's like it's like helping develop motor skills in a more fun way. They just run around and run around and climb on stuff.

• 26:14Speaker 00

  How is your day or recent week or recent life as a you guys?

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Really funny today. James met Santa today. He did this last year, but he did not remember. And he was he was kind of scared of Santa last year, which is pretty common for little kids. He was two years old this year and we took him to meet Santa and we were like standing outside of Santa's area. And it's like a whole, there's Christmas trees all around and it's decorated. We're standing outside and he's all, Santa, ho, ho, ho, Christmas tree, Christmas tree. He would not shut up. Like he's very, he's at a stage right now where he's super chatty. It's adorable. And then it was like our turn and we go through the line and we walk in. And like he stands at the entry and we're like, it's Santa, James, go meet Santa. And he does that kid thing where he's like,

• 27:02Speaker 01

  like two inches at a time, wouldn't say a damn word. Walked up to the guy this, it was, he was a great Santa. The guy who was doing it, I mean, Santa was great. And he's like chatting him and asking him questions. He had his zebra with him because he wouldn't put the zebra down today. He's like, oh, you have a zebra. I love zebras. Maybe you could help me take care of my reindeer. Oh, and James was just like,

• 27:26Speaker 01

  and then I saw for the picture and we were like, go hug Santa. And he like did that thing where he didn't move his body, but he leaned in slightly closer to imply that he was like hug. It was really cute. The pictures turned out pretty cute, but he was, he's just good. It's he's, you've met, you both have met him. He's not particularly shy in general, but when he meets like people in costumes or strangers, he doesn't know who are, you know, but he knows from TV or whatever, it's a weird reaction. I can't tell if it's abject horror or he's just like,

• 27:56Speaker 00

  It's the celebrity I love from television. He's here. Oh.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  But it was very cute. We had pictures. So we're sending everybody pictures.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  Like a Christmas story, whenever Santa like kicks the kid down the slide.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Shoot your eye out, kid.

• 28:09Speaker 00

  Has he seen that movie yet?

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Nah, he has no reason to fear Santa from the media we've showed him. We did accidentally show him some of the Santa Claus. So maybe he thinks Santa is Tim Allen and he doesn't like him.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  It's an entirely reasonable response.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  You walk into the North Pole and like, oh, I mean, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Oh, and then he brought you cookies, Wade.

• 28:31Speaker 02

  He did. Yeah. I was gonna say James delivered cookies to me today. He was really sweet. He was like greeting me. He and Ren came by and I forget what all words he said, but he said hello and he said, bye bye. He handed me the cookies and I was like, thank you. And she's like, say you're welcome. He's like, welcome. And I was like, oh, thanks. And then he put his hands out like, all right, I'll give them back. I was like, oh. This offer, because I'm not gonna.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  They're also very good cookies, but no, it was sweet seeing him.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  I've been building stuff. I built a, I built a wardrobe, a hardwood wardrobe. I didn't cut the pieces. It was, it came through, but I screwed it together. God damn it. But also I built a thing. It's like a little tool organizer shelf thing that you're supposed to hang on the wall in the garage and like you put your drills in it and charging. I included James in it. James, our almost two year old baby. And he loved it because mainly it was just screwing things together, which he could help with pretty easily. And he liked, he would put his hand on the drill and then I would, and he'd be all, ha. Cause he thought that was the coolest thing ever.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  He put his hand on the drill?

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Like on the back, like on the safe part. Just like I held the drill and he like put his hand on it and then I pulled the trigger and it vibrated and he thought it was cool. But we got like 90% of the way done and it turns out a shelf is just a baby sized couch. And he like literally the whole time he'd been sitting on parts of it and standing on it, but then we got like 90% done and it's just a little him sized like wooden bench thing. And he just sat in it and was like, oh, you built me a chair. Thanks dad. So now we have a work pro branded tool. Pool chair holder baby set up in our living room that I don't know if I'm ever gonna get back. But it was very fun. James is coming into a big dad era, which is fun because I feel like he was kinda all about mom for a long time.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  But now we're doing stuff. We're building things.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Well, the toys they have for kids that are, you know, workshop based, they have that cardboard router table where you push the cardboard through.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Oh, those are cool. We're getting one of those so bad. Once he's old enough. Those look awesome.

• 30:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  Dude, me too with the sleep deprived.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, why you?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Uh, James is going through a growth spurt and is having growing pains. And so instead of sleeping, he just cried all night.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  I also feel sleep deprived.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  What important thing are you doing?

• 30:47Speaker 02

  We have dogs that have decided that their schedules are no longer to sleep at night. Their job is to go to sleep and nighttime they're like, "All right, Paul, we'll take a nap for like an hour." And then it's time to party. Woo!

• 30:59Speaker 01

  You know what it sounds like is you actually have a couple of outside dogs. Oh, you know,

• 31:08Speaker 01

  I, really not that much. I'm still sick. I made James's life. I, we, I had to clean the hot tub and it got really hot. And so I was like, I emptied it, but then I didn't clean it. But then I filled it back up and James loves it. So now we don't have a hot tub. We have the world's smallest pool. Cause kids aren't supposed to go in hot tubs. It's not good for them because they're tiny. So we just keep it at like 90 degrees or whatever, some like warm pool temperature. It's the fuck, it's the best thing he's ever experienced. Kid loves just going under the water, falling down, scaring his parents, thinking he's gonna drown, coming back up, laughing about it, you know, kid stuff.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  You made James alive. That is true.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  That's true in at least two ways.

• 31:54Speaker 00

  You'd think that would be worth two points, but it's not.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  James is counting now. He could count the numbers one, two and five, but he does them correctly. If you count one, two, three, four, five, he'll be all one, two.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Five. So he knows. Wow, he really does. He's just working on, he's working on getting the other ones in there in the mouth situation. Can't quite do a three and a four. Those are tough. It's getting closer, though.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Three, I could see being tough. Four seems like it'd be the same as five to me.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Listen, you wouldn't understand how toddlers work and it's a.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Well, actually, of the three of us, he might understand the most how toddlers actually function, I think.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  It's true. That's true.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Or five, or, oh, maybe it's the, oh, oh.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Ours are hard, too.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. It's a really hard number.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Are we on teaching Wade how to say numbers now?

• 32:51Speaker 00

  Is this what they call unschooling?

• 32:53Speaker 02

  Fwee.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Fwee.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  One, two, three, five. I enjoy that.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Give yourself some points. Look, I got a new ring.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  James gave it to me for Father's Day. This is my father.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  How the hell is he shopping? That's crazy.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  He's very sophisticated. He's like, he's like four years old mentally, even though he's only eight months old physically.

• 33:14Speaker 02

  That's pretty impressive.

• 33:15Speaker 01

  It's made from a whiskey barrel. It's very cool.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Whoa, that's a small barrel.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  I did it so I turn invisible when I do this. Uh huh. Where did I go?

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Now you can see me.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Ah, he's back. Man, you can only get this great content on Spotify.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Oh, uh, yeah. So sometimes when I'm playing with James, I'll pretend to throw something. And then actually I didn't throw it and he hasn't figured out yet that I do that. And so I'll just mess with him and be like, ah, let's throw the ball to you. Whoop. And then he freaks out for a second because he's like, what the fuck? And I'm pretty sure I convinced him I'm some kind of wizard.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  I do that with the dog sometimes.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  So I'm gonna see how long I can keep that going. Lexi's worked that out. Lexi is no longer fooled by that one. I've done it too many times, but James is still figuring it out. So that's pretty conniving, right?

• 34:13Speaker 00

  That's very conniving. Yeah. You know, I just don't need anyone knowing that I poop. I just don't need people knowing that.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  I got a book I think you should read, Mark. It's gonna really change your life.

• 34:23Speaker 02

  Crazy Caterpillar?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  It's called Everybody Poops.

• 34:26Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  And James is reading it a lot right now. Check it out.

• 34:30Speaker 00

  I've seen that book. That book is fucking disgusting.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  The grossest book I've ever seen.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Potty training, potty training in general, like, I don't know what I thought it was gonna be, but it's, it's more concerning than I expected. Like, one method of potty training is, your baby doesn't wear pants now. Your baby is just full Winnie the Pooh, and if and when they start peeing or pooping while you're just doing, like, everyday life, like, you're in the living room and they just start going, you just pick them up and run to the bathroom and be like, in the toilet, in the toilet, in the toilet!

• 35:03Speaker 02

  That's so terrifying.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  It's a technique that I'm not gonna do. And then, like, James is interested in the toilet now, and the other day, I was like, ooh, dad needs to go to the bathroom, hang on. And Mandy was like, oh, maybe James wants to see how the bathroom works. And I was like, oh, why would he wanna see that? That doesn't sound good. And I thought about it, and I was like, no, that's actually what I'm supposed to do, isn't it? I'm supposed to bring my son into the toilet so we can talk about how toilets work, and I can, it's, I don't like, it's concerning. It's good that he'll be able to use a toilet at the end of it, but all the rest of the in-between parts, I never thought all the way through how that works, and I don't care for it.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  Make it less concerning. Get one of those things they use to bypass drug tests, the Wizinator.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  And you can use that to demonstrate. Interesting.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  That sounds worth it, probably. Uh, so, I've been, uh, I got a thing off of Facebook Marketplace, as per how it usually goes, it's either a drug deal in a parking lot, or someone leaves it on their porch and you tuck the twenty dollars under the mat, right? It was one of those, this was one of those. They were like, it was a, it was a thing for James, it was a little toy thing, he was getting really into Hot Wheels. It was not a valuable thing, and this lady was like, I'll just leave it on the front porch, I'm really busy today. And I was like, that's totally fine, I'll just swing by and get it sometime this morning, I'm also busy. That was the agreement, and I was just gonna stick twenty bucks under the mat. And I got to the house, the address that she sent me, and I saw the thing sitting on the front porch, but it was at the house, which was down a very long driveway, which was filled with several children

• 36:32Speaker 01

  riding their bikes up and down the driveway. So, I pulled up and I was like, hmm, I don't really wanna carry this, I don't wanna walk up the whole driveway, I'll see if I can pull. So, I sort of like pulled up toward the driveway and was like, soft, waiting to see if the kids would get out of the way, and they looked at me, and were kinda like, hmm. And they went up towards the garage of the house like they were gonna run away. And I pulled very menacingly and slowly up the driveway. The whole time the kids were increasingly concerned like, wait, he's actually coming. Oh God, what did mom say about strangers? Wait a second, hang on, there's something we're supposed to do here. And, and, and I literally like, I got up there, I parked and I got out of the car with like my hands up.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Like an officer was, was detaining me and I was like, no, it's okay. I'm buying the thing from your mom, kids, the thing on the porch, did she tell you? Did she tell, and they were like, oh yeah, she totally said a guy in a car was gonna be here this morning to pick up the, that's cool, you're cool dude, you're cool. But that was, it was not cool. They were clearly freaked out and they like ran away inside and I just went up to the porch and was like,

• 37:40Speaker 01

  took the thing, ran away all sketchy like, it was really awkward. I don't know if I've ever done a face of marketplace deal that didn't end in some level of awkwardness, awkwardness. But that one felt bad because it was kids, didn't see the adult, didn't get close to the kids, barely said a couple of sentences to them. But they were definitely freaked all the way out and I, I still feel kind of bad about it. I was hoping they all would come up and mace you or something. But James loves that toy. That's his new favorite toy. So. Worth it? You know, you do what you gotta do.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, that makes sense. All right. Yeah. Scares children, but hey, if it's for your own child, scare all the children in the world.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I scare all the other children. Moving, God, I fucking hate moving.

• 38:21Speaker 00

  You're moving?

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know if you could see, remember how all these shelves used to have shit all over them? This, I can only hope will be the last time I ever move for the rest of my life.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Damn.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  We'll see if that holds up because I'm pretty sure I said something like that when we moved to this place. But, uh, we are moving, the movers will be here in less than 48 hours. I will say this area, like my desk is covered in all the same, I haven't packed it at all. This is the least packed part of the entire house. All the rest of our house is in like boxes and shit, but we have been hardcore, pretty much most of the day, every day since. Saturday and today is Tuesday, moving, packing, carrying heavy shit up and downstairs. I fell on the stairs one time, totally fine, survived. But the movers actually show up and then will be moved over. Honestly, as much as I despise moving, this is lame because I always do this and circle

• 39:20Speaker 01

  it back to being a dad now that I'm a dad. But the most concerning part of all this for me is I'm curious how James is going to handle it, right? We've already moved once, but he was like a baby when we moved. We moved from California back to Ohio to be closer to our parents when he was like 10 months old, which was tricky because 10 months olds are tricky. But this is different now, right? He's, he's old enough now where like his room is his room. He knows that that's his bed, that's his bookshelf. This is his, we're like packing up his belongings and they're disappearing and he's kind of like, hey, didn't that bookshelf, wasn't that full of books? Where'd all my books go? And it's like, he's being really cool so far, but I'm curious, the first night, like we're

• 40:03Speaker 01

  going to sleep in this house tomorrow night and then the next night, we're going to sleep in the other house and his bed is going to be in a new room and it's going to be smell different. And I just don't know how it's going to go. He might be totally fine. He's really chill. He likes traveling. He loves staying in hotels and stuff. We've done that a couple of times, but I'm worried that it's going to be hard on him because he is so young, it's hard to express how he's feeling or understand exactly how he's feeling and moving is weird and moving is difficult. So it sucks and I hate packing, but the main thing on my mind is James because I'm really curious and just want to make sure he does okay because it's a big change for a little kid who doesn't necessarily understand why all of his shit is all moved around and not where it's supposed to be anymore.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  But it'll be over soon, said, forgetting about the three months of unpacking that always follows a move from house to house.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  Are you like in a safe house or are you hiding from the government or is it actually vacation?

• 40:58Speaker 01

  It's vacation. This is, this is a big family vacation. It's like we're near the beach and James saw the ocean for the first time a couple of days ago and he loves it. He has no fear whatsoever. We were literally like, he might not like it. It's big and scary. And we walked him out onto the beach and we're like, look, it was the ocean. And for half a second, he was kind of like. What the fuck's wrong with that pool? And then he was like, I'm going in and ran into the ocean at full speed and he does not know what fear means.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  That's terrifying.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  He wants to go swim with the sharks, meet Aquaman and all that stuff. Fun family memories, terrifying, but fun.

• 41:35Speaker 02

  I want Mark to babysit him at the beach now with Mark's love of the ocean and James fear of the ocean. I think those two combined.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  This is a winning combination. Don't worry about a thing, Bob. Go to sleep, you can slumber.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  James gets into the three inch deep edge of the ocean and Mark is like, he's gone. I'll call Bob. No, everything's good. James is real funny these days. He started music classes this week, having a good time with that.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  What, what is he doing in music class? Like they give him drumsticks or something or?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a toddler music class. So it's like, uh, triangle, hit the triangle, uh, shakers. I think he had a banana that he was shaking, hitting, hitting and scraping and shaking is the gist of it. And like play like they, they did the big parachute where you, everyone sits in a circle around the parachute. I think that sort of stuff, uh, but fun stuff. I'm sure listeners can tell I, I sound a little sick because I am. I'm going to talk about the baby. So anyone who hates that, sorry. In the last week, we have had possibly the worst night with James and also three of the best nights of sleep with him. Like since he was born, so it's been a really weird mix of stuff. He's teething right now and he has like three molars coming in all at the same time, which is incredibly painful.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  And so there was one night, he could not exist without just screaming because it was like agony, like constant agony. Didn't sleep the whole night. It was his him, it was during the do anything to keep him from just screaming in pain. But then three other nights around that he has slept for like eight straight hours without waking up or anything, which is not. He usually wakes up at least a couple of times and he's slept like he was a rock. And it's been weird because those have been fantastic nights, but also I've been sick. So that didn't help me sleep very much. But then the one night where he literally just didn't sleep was just absolute chaos and ruined the next week of everything. Because my schedule was all off. He was crazy. We didn't sleep. Um, so anyway, we're in a, we're in a wild time with the baby right now.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  But it's cute. He's starting to talk. He knows what sound a horse makes. Oh. If you, if you, if you look at him, you go, James, what sound does a horse make? He goes, nay. It's amazing. It's very cute. Oh, that's cute. Wait, when did he, when did he say his first words? Well, well, he's been saying like mama and dad, uh, nine or 10 months. He started really saying stuff. But in, in before the new year, he was talking and saying some stuff, but like he's, his, his speech is about to explode. He's gonna start saying all kinds of stuff.

• 44:03Speaker 02

  A win goes in Mark's column of wins, but he doesn't win the episode. We spin again.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  There's a lot of different things on this wheel. Yeah, there's, there's quite a few.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  James wins. James gets a win in his column.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  All right. That's pretty good.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  But it takes a village to raise a baby. So each of the three of us loses a win that we sacrifice to give James a win.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  I feel like he's basically a part of me. So like I, I get his win probably.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  I know you should lose more than one, but I was trying to be fair.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  It's like a, it's like a celebrity. He's like my celebrity child, right? I, I hold his win until he's old enough to use it responsibly.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, but it's like in the bank gaining interest. So you can't really do anything with it.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. In my bank gaining my interest.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  You can feel about it how you will, but it's James when we all three lose a win for him to get one.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  There's a super moon yesterday and, and apparently tonight as well. And I'm like a very, very slight eclipse of it as well. Oh, man. James is saying a three word sentences now. Whoa. It's kind of one three word sentence, but like, I'm not trying to undercut his achievements, but he, we were going to bed two nights ago or go to bed. And I was laying next to him, trying to settle in and he just looks at me and he goes, I see daddy. And I was like, what? And apparently no one has, no one has been teaching him this. I think he watched, he does watch Miss Rachel on YouTube, which is like a very popular kids YouTube thing. I think she does that, but like none of us people in his real people in his real life, were teaching him that. He just started doing it. And then now he's like, I see doggy.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  I see moon. He really liked the moon last night. It's big. So like, out of nowhere, that's pretty fun. I'm glad he's listening to real people, not like Miss Rachel.

• 45:47Speaker 02

  Points are at stake.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  James takes man poops. James is my baby. He takes man poops.

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Like steals them or has big poop?

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Some of his poops smell like baby poops, which has, which is not, not one singular smell, but there's like a, it's like a vibe that baby poops give off.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Like puppy breath?

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Some of his, his poops smell like a full grown man took a dump into a baby's diaper. It's horrific.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Have you ever pranked him and taken a poop in his diaper and then tried to frame him for it?

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Once, but I got caught.

• 46:17Speaker 00

  I wanna go on the record and say I've never stolen any poop in my life.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  There's no poop stealing, there's poop giving. The sneaky, sneaky giving away of poop, Mark.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  No, never done that either.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  It's like whenever you're stealthing in Skyrim or something and you try to place a poop on someone's person to frame them as the pooper?

• 46:34Speaker 00

  What, like when they're sitting on the toilet? What, when, when is this occurring?

• 46:38Speaker 01

  You stealth up behind them and then you equip poop in your left hand and then you clap your left hand on their back. So you smear the poop and go.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  Like the Yarls giving his big speech about the dragons and you're like, poopy.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  The trick is you put a bucket on their head first and then you can cover them in all the poop you, I don't wanna talk about that.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  James is talking a lot. Uh, he's good. Honestly, he's been sleeping pretty good this week and stuff. So like, I think the biggest thing is he's getting stronger.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Uh oh.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  He's getting stronger, but he's not getting better about understanding what violence is. So it's not really his fault. It was, this was not even that recently, just Wade's suffering reminded me of this, I guess. We took him to an event and he got like, uh, he got like a toy at this event, basically. It was a dump truck toy and he loves dump trucks. We made the mistake of, he got that right at the start. Like, we got there, went to the first area, he got that immediately. He did not have any interest in doing any of the rest of this whole event we were at, where you could like sit in a helicopter and look at, it was like trucks and things. It was very cool. It was like emergency vehicles and fire truck. He had his little dump truck toy and we were like, look buddy, let's get in line. You could sit in a tractor and you can, and you can sit in this medevac helicopter

• 47:50Speaker 01

  and look at all this stuff. I was ta, I was holding him and I was like, I'm gonna take this toy and we're gonna go get a picture of you sitting on a tractor. And I took the, I grabbed the toy and I pulled it and he was kinda like, yeah, but, and I was like, nah, well, I'll give it back. Like, I'll, I took the thing, I got it away from him and he, full body, full length of his arm, wheeled back and like, boom, right on like my cheekbone, perfectly solid contact. He smacked the shit out of me.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  And even I was there with Mandy and Rin, friend Rin, like even they, he did that and they were like, whoa, are you okay? Like, yeah, that was a real man smack. He's very strong and he kicks and smacks but way above his weight class.

• 48:36Speaker 00

  Damn.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  And that's not exactly surgery, but.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Did he laugh afterwards? Did he like?

• 48:43Speaker 01

  He was very unhappy. He did that and was like, I know where you sleep.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  He takes like a bottle off the table, breaks it, like holds it at you.

• 48:50Speaker 01

  I can climb stairs now. Yeah, no, he's a, it's wild. Talking more though now. Uh, he learned in the last couple of days, he's learned how to fake sneeze. So now out of nowhere, he'll just be all.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Really cute.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  He's like, what, a year and a half now? Is that right?

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Uh, seventeen, seventeen months.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  That's basically like a year and a half. This is not even the bad, isn't like when they turn two, doesn't something terrible happen?

• 49:17Speaker 01

  He, he's getting into the terrible twos type stuff. It's, it's more like terrible toddlers. Cause they're learning how to regulate their emotions and they're able to do more stuff physically, but they're not aware of what they're doing over. So yeah, he, he's, this is like, he's getting into the terrible quote, terrible twos behaviors.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  Can't wait till he's a terrific teen.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  He's gonna be just the best. No more problems. Gonna be smooth sailing. Once he gets past two, tell you what.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  Nice. Excellent.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Anyway, I'm gonna finish James's table someday. It's a six month project really, and I'm only two months in. So.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  I got a lot of time.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  He'll be like in college, his third year of college, be like, James, I've been working on this your whole life. It's finally ready. It's like a Fisher Price sized like table.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  I'm gonna have to cut some parts out if I want to get it done by then, but I think I can make it happen.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Cool. Chainsaws and bears.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  No, I don't have a chainsaw. I'm gonna keep bringing that up.

• 50:07Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  I'm trying to think if there's something else that happened to me, but mainly the thing is James, James sleeps by himself this week. I don't know if it's gonna last, but oh my God, we're making progress on the sleep training and it's a miracle.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  He's so big now. He's like so human and runs around and stuff. Uh, whenever you guys came over to watch the football game, it was wild.

• 50:29Speaker 01

  No, he's a menace. He's, he's smart enough now to really cause problems and really do some dangerous shit and he loves it. He's getting, he's good though. His speech is developing. He's doing three word sentences now. He's working on more.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  He was sweet. It was really awesome having him and Milo over. It's wild seeing like the progressions of baby.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, Milo, Milo compared to James was a crazy, crazy reminder of how far he's come. Cause my friend who doesn't know Milo is Patrick Static's child and is six months younger than James, I think. Not, not that far apart, but also basically two entirely different creatures because the development in that time is crazy.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  The first few years, six months is a long time.

• 51:08Speaker 01

  That's true. It's still like over a quarter of his life and it's a third of Milo's life, I guess. So that's a lot.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  I was like, man, oh, man, I don't know how y'all can keep up because he's fast too.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's very fast. You know when he's real fast? When he sees the ocean. I think I talked about this, but man, is he fast when he decides he's going into the ocean. James is kind of walking now, not, not on his own, but he has a little thing that he pushes that he holds on to. He can walk around with that.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  Is he already that age where he's supposed to be walking around like?

• 51:38Speaker 01

  He's a little bit ahead of the game on that one, but yeah, that's kind of, he's in that area. He's nine months, around a year is when I think my understanding is a lot of babies will start to stand up on the, like lean on the couch and scoot around, or you have a little walkie thing and walk around. So yeah, you see it in there.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  That feels like in my brain, one of the most dangerous times for children is when they first start to walk and they're like stumbling around everywhere.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  It's very dangerous. He's already taken a couple of pretty good spills, but uh, he'll learn from the pain.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Hmm. We all do.

• 52:08Speaker 01

  But he will, he'll eventually learn from that. We'll get there. James walks now. Uh, I think I've mentioned before.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  I was like, who is that? It's your baby. I know I've met.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  We have a baby. His name is James. You definitely met him a few times. Uh, he walks now. He, he doesn't walk more than four or five steps at a time, but counts as walking and it's terrifying. He also climbed up the stairs. He did not walk up the stairs, but he climbed up the stairs uh, with a person behind him, making sure he didn't fall and die. Uh, but he did it by himself for the first time. Everything's in peril and all the childproofing we've done is pointless. This is, I don't know if I talked about this on the show previously, but James, uh, splash tables, I think is what they're, I don't know. It's like a little table. You fill it up with water and he plays in it, right? It's just like, you play with toys in it, whatever. It's really good summer toy. Cause it's like, it's not just running a sprinkler. It's like a set amount of water. So you don't just, you know.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Blast water every which away. And last summer he got one of those and I looked at it and I was like, you know, it would be really sick. There's like a top and a bottom. And if you put, if you pour water in the top, it like rains and it's really fun. But you have to physically like take a bucket and pour it. And I was like, what if I buy, what if I get like a, like an aquarium pump and I'll feed a hose up to the top and I'll set the pump in the bottom and then, and it'll like, oh, cycle the water. So it's always right. And I did all this research and I bought one thing off the internet and it didn't work. And I bought another thing off the internet and it didn't work for other reasons. And it was all that, like literally my setup would be like, I have an external

• 53:43Speaker 01

  battery pack with like a USB cord running to the pump into water. It's all this, just the sketchiest shit. And I was like, I spent a lot of time trying to homebrew this thing. Never quite worked right. Eventually I just gave up and whatever. On the internet yesterday, I was presented with an ad for exactly that product made in the simplest, most concise way possible. It's just a thing you drill one hole, you set, and I looked and I was like, this costs less than one of my multiple attempts at doing it myself did. Son of a bitch. But anyway, I bought one. So James is gonna have the dopest water table to play on this summer and I'm pretty excited about it.

• 54:27Speaker 00

  That's cool.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  But also I'm an idiot and I can't ever, I always am like, I'll just do it. I'll make it myself. I'll homebrew it. Now I should probably just buy it. Whatever I'm gonna make, it's either not gonna work or it's gonna be so fucking terrible that I just wish I would have bought it.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  Wouldn't want to put your child in the way of that.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Like, like it works, but the whole water table is electrified somehow, even though, like, I don't know, maybe I should just let a company hold on to that liability for me. You know what power makes me think of and a thing that I'm obsessed about right now? Power wheels.

• 54:59Speaker 00

  This is the little racing cars?

• 55:01Speaker 01

  It's yeah, it's like the, the cars that like little kids can sit in.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  Oh, the drivable ones. I was thinking of Hot Wheels, right?

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Not Hot Wheels, Power Wheels. It's like the little, it's like a little Jeep or something that little kids can sit in and drive around the yard. I was never allowed to have Power Wheels as a kid, but I don't want to spoil James, but man, do I want him to be old enough to have a Power Wheels. I'm, I'm in this part, the Tik Tok update. There were people on the subreddit saying they missed Tik Tok updates. Tik Tok update, kind of. I'm in this part of Tik Tok where there's all these dads who are customizing their Power Wheels for their kids. Because most Power Wheels are six volt, based on six volt battery systems. But if you put a 12 volt battery in there, you double the power. You might fry the engine or the electric motor, but it goes twice as fast ish. It goes faster.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  And you can do, and there are guys who like add a trailer so their kids can like tow, you know, a little fake motorcycle or tow like yard waste or all this stuff. And there was one where I saw a guy put like a backhoe type thing on the front. So you could like rake leaves, but use your Power Wheels. All kinds of stuff.

• 56:08Speaker 00

  Giving you a point for child labor.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. Have I told you guys about Jane, the fart story with James?

• 56:17Speaker 00

  Where he farted in a movie theater in Oppenheimer and everyone laughed?

• 56:19Speaker 01

  I wish he did. He probably would think of that. He's very funny. No, so we have this place we drive frequently where there's rumble strips on the road, which is that thing where you're driving and you drive over it and it goes. We drive over there all the time and we were driving there with James in the backseat and we went over the rumble strips and out of nowhere. And he's never said it before, at least to me, really. Out of nowhere, he just goes, huh, farts. Cause the rumble strip fucking sounds like farts. Uh, anyway, he's hilarious. He's gonna be the funniest kid I know.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  I know it's funny to me, but like he'll be second.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  You're not a kid, so you're kind of in a different class.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  All right.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  You're not the funniest adult I know either, but don't be offended. I know a lot of adults.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  You could say that. It's just not true.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  James is hilarious. Also, he calls the movie Sing Dance Animals, and that's his current favorite movie.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Pretty accurate. Is he like getting old enough now where he's branching out of a lot of like the baby-esque shows like the Blueys and stuff, or?

• 57:17Speaker 01

  He still enjoys Bluey. He still enjoy it. The thing right now is animals. Everyone is constantly surprised. It's because we're like, oh, he loves animals. He loves animals. And people are like, oh, you like horsies? You like, like, no, he knows what a yak is. He knows what a flamingo is. He can't quite say it, but he knows what a hyena is. He knows probably a few dozen animals in total. And all day, every day is, I want animals. I want animals. And it means a lot of different things because it could mean he wants to watch a video of animals. Could mean he wants to stuff to animals. But he's an interesting place. Very smart. He likes to enact animals eating each other. He'll get like a bear and a giraffe, and then the bear will be chasing the giraffe, trying to bite it, and

• 57:59Speaker 01

  it will succeed at some point. And he's literally just running around like, oh, no, oh, no.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Oh, no. Or he'll stage like accidents. He has like trains and stuff. He'll put an animal in front of the train on the track and then just slowly like, oh, no.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  He, it's, uh, that's probably good, right?

• 58:23Speaker 02

  I mean, I guess it's better than taking like Barbie dolls or like army dudes and being like, oh, no. At least they're animals.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't have souls. James has learned that he could scream real loud. So that's fun. I've never been made dizzy by a scream before, but that can happen now. Last night, we were getting ready for bed and he was like, it was, he gets two books and then we go to bed and it's like all, we have a whole routine. And we got to the, I think to the end of the second book and like close the book and Mandy was like, okay, put the book on the shelf and we're gonna do this. And he just was like, no, no, more stories. And we're like, no, man, it's bedtime. This is, we do this every night. This is the routine. And he did that sort of like, there was shake of rage and then proceeded to scream louder than anything

• 59:12Speaker 01

  has ever been in human existence. And I actually like, it made my head vibrate. And when he stopped screaming, I was kind of like.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  So I never had that before, but I'm sure that he'll only do that the one time. And that's not going to be all day, every day for the next three weeks of my life.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  How do you stop that? Wade, bad advice.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  Uh, what you do is you give him a megaphone so he can be even louder to the point where he makes himself paralyzed from the noise.

• 59:39Speaker 00

  You're right. You're right. There we go. Yep.

• 59:41Speaker 01

  Give him headphones and a microphone and make him scream into his own ears.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  You know how Homelander went up to that one superhero and went doing on the sides of the head? And then made him deaf now that he'd scream louder. And this is horrible advice.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  Put him in a bit of a stupor stupor here. I see what you did there.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I should definitely do whatever Homelander does. He's a good guy, right?

• 59:59Speaker 02

  He's a father.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  I haven't watched the show. I haven't watched the show. He's like the Superman character in that universe, right? He's a good guy.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He is America.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 00

  He is America. Yeah. And he's a father. He's raising a child.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  I think his first act as a father was to throw his son off of like a roof or something, wasn't it? Spoilers.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  I didn't even.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, kid's dead now.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  James has entered a new era, which I have not named yet, but I'm gonna just say that it's very destructive and it's mainly of his own self. He's entering a mark era, really. Let's call it that.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  Okay, all right.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  I sort of hoped eventually he'd gain like a fear of getting hurt because he's not afraid of anything. He'll just like climb up on the back of the couch and you know, like, he could fall and break his neck and all. He just does stuff like that and he has started falling off of things now. He started falling down. He fell off the back steps on the patio because he just wasn't looking and ran off the steps. You keep, he keeps doing that, but he doesn't act like he gets hurt. Like he falls, he did, he fell onto his face. He, he missed this last step, fell onto his face off the back deck, onto a concrete patio and we were like, oh, oh, ah, and he just stood up and was like.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  I thought kids cried a lot. He does cry when he gets, when he like hurts himself sometimes, but when he really eats it, nothing. He doesn't get scared. He doesn't, he's just like, oh, that was cool. And then just good continues. It's like, he's just gonna keep doing crazier and crazier shit. He's not learning to be afraid for his safety at all. Like the next Evel Knievel? I don't know. It seems bad, but also he's like, he's fine. Like he's getting scraped up, but otherwise, nah, he's fine. I'm gonna trust him. It's two and a half now. Pretty trustworthy guy. It feels like a cop out, I guess, but I'm, I'm excited for more James. I feel like, I mean,

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  he's, we have fun. He's been fun. It's not like he's been unfun up to this point, but it's been tough. We moved from California back to Ohio and then we just moved again. And like, he's handled it like a trooper, but it just throws off all your routines and it makes it really hard to like, really get in and do all the fun stuff. Cause there's no time for shit. It's like, it gets to be evening time and, uh, and we're like, okay buddy, let's do something fun. You wanna bring boxes back and forth between houses? You can hold the door open. Uh, you wanna be a little helper? Be a little doorstop? Hey, he likes it. But like, I'm excited for another year, like a new year where he's gonna be older. He's talking a ton and we're like, we're gonna start doing stuff, I think, together this

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  year. That's a little more complicated and fun. And I'm, I'm also, I think personally, I'm excited to put more tools on things. I got into a good stretch there when I had the Subaru where I was like working on the car and I was doing stuff with my hands. And that was really fun. And then I got rid of the Subaru and I lost that completely. I want to get back to like, I'm excited to work on stuff. And one of the things on this new house that was such a big selling point for me is I have a huge garage and I have like a work, a dedicated like workshop area. It's just a little side part in the garage, but I have like a workbench and a toolbox and I can like have projects where I don't have to pull the cars out of the garage to work on them and then clean it back up and pull the cars

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  back into the garage. Every time I'm, it's like, I have an area. I can just have a little project. If I have a glue up, it can just sit somewhere and dry it and clamps and I don't have to, like, I'm excited. And James is getting to the age where he's gonna be able to help me do that. Maybe we'll build a birdhouse or, you know, who knows what, but like. That's awesome. That sort of stuff. Hey baby. Hey guys, I have a baby.

• 1:03:44Speaker 02

  Oh wow. Is this his first appearance on the podcast? I think it is.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  It might be. How are you doing, Mr. Who's supposed to be taking a nap? Who's not right now?

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Well, this is interesting. I'm assuming this means he's being a problem.

• 1:04:00Speaker 02

  Dad's not busy. Sit him in there. Lock the door. How could it possibly be a problem?

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  No, no. Whoa, hey. Now we're here and we're still in the same episode.

• 1:04:15Speaker 03

  Watch new episodes on Spotify.