DOD187: Sleepovers!

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's got its sleeping bags and popcorn ready. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:40 Thomas: My kids' home. You ask? Well, I'll tell you, it's because it's President's Week. It's Present Week, I guess. They got more presents since we were kids or something. I don't, because they're just, it's a whole week, they're, they don't their school doesn't exist. It's it's a scam.

0:00:48 Tom: Yeah. Our kids got a four

0:00:50 Eli: Yeah. The whole week. Oh, you got the whole week?

0:00:56 Tom: -day weekend they got a Four-Day Weekend for Pre-, which, I mean, like, we just have to pause and remember what a thing to celebrate this year right, President's Day. God, don't you just feel it right in your heart how patriotic you feel about our president right now?

0:01:04 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:01:05 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, look, you know, everyone's been ragging on Google for removing all those holidays from the calendar a couple of years ago, even though people just noticed it this year for the first time. But, like, I actually feel way better that no one's going to remind me that Holocaust Memorial Day happens this year. I am living Holocaust Remembrance Day. I'm remembering it every day as I repeat the history of it. So yeah, maybe we owe Google an apology from a couple years ago, even though we just we just noticed this year

0:01:39 Thomas: We absolutely don't.

0:01:39 Tom: What do you bet Juneteenth gets wiped off the calendar this year as a federal holiday?

0:01:42 Eli: I think they'll

0:01:40 Thomas: Ah, here's the thing about Juneteenth. Objectively best name of any holiday. Like set everything else aside. Every time someone's like, Oh, Juneteenth. I'm like, fucking A that's awesome.

0:01:43 Eli: Do even more.

0:01:52 Thomas: It's a great name.

0:01:51 Eli: Can I say? Disagree? Kwanzaa

0:01:54 Thomas: Kwanzaa. I love Juneteenth. It's a good one.

0:01:55 Tom: Kwasa's fun to say.

0:01:56 Eli: Kwanfa Oh, guys, you coming over for Kwanzaa? Yeah, I'm fucking coming over for Kwanzaa? What's Kwanfa?

0:02:02 Thomas: Anyway, it's the 12 days of presidents. Now there's fucking fucking president's week.

0:02:06 Eli: On the first day of president,

0:02:07 Thomas: This isn't. And I had to ask, I had to clarify. I was like, so is this their spring break or something? It seems early. Nope. It's not their spring break. They just get a week off. Could you imagine if we, when I was a kid, if we just got a fucking random ass week off, I'd be like this. First off, do I have cancer? Am I dying? Like what's, is this a make a wish?

0:02:08 Eli: It's my first off -gate to me.

0:02:26 Thomas: It's just all the the time

0:02:26 Eli: Even the snow day experience. Kids these days, when Max has a snow day, three days beforehand I get all the fucking sirens and klaxons and a phone call and an email and the Boop app and the Scoop app and the Scribble app, all of which I am a member of, all which I gave my fucking blood to, are like, it is going to of snow in three days, just so you know. Two days before, they're sending me, they've got a Mentat hooked up to the computer showing me his visions of the snow. The night before, they were already delaying, they're already delaying. We have woken up, what, in the, in the two and a half years Max has now been in public school, we have woke up to a snow day once. Us, in our day, in

0:02:31 Tom: Oh, I've got to complain about this.

0:02:36 Thomas: Yeah, the premium you got premium

0:03:11 Tom: Oh,

0:03:11 Eli: My day, you, you fucking, you crawled out of bed. There were seven feet of snow on the ground. The president was dead and the White House has fallen, and you were watching the local news. It was Fox at three. Those bleary-eyed, coked-up news anchors were like trying to make small talk while they knew that the bottom of the chyron was just running with school names, and you was just praying to see yours.

0:03:11 Tom: Yeah.

0:03:28 Thomas: You're you were required to be one of Tom's Citation Needed essays before you were allowed to take school off

0:03:36 Eli: Yeah, and you're all, and when your school name scrolled across that screen, Is there a better feeling you can have under the age of 18? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It's

0:03:37 Thomas: Oh man yeah

0:03:43 Tom: Oh, no it is the world's greatest joy when you saw your school called on that. I, I will say here, I don't know if they're doing this elsewhere in the country, but, like, we have, like, we're done. There are no more snow days. That's it. It's over. We'll never do another snow day again. What they do instead is they, they move on days that, where they would have a snow day, they move to the remote learning model, which, let me explain to you what that means. Means that the kids are required to take attendance and pretend that they had. So they, they changed the school day, the remote school day, from a regular-sized day to a snack-size day. So, they already cut it down. Oh, it's snowing tomorrow. Tomorrow, we're going to move to our remote learning mode. The day will be from 8:30 a.m. to noon. So, they just like cut it in half. And then the kids don't do anything. All they're required to do is wake up and log in to take attendance, and then pretty much they just play Minecraft the rest of the day. That is what

0:04:15 Eli: Not Correct.

0:04:51 Eli: And

0:04:51 Tom: I, they don't, the teachers don't do like online Zoom teaching of any. They do nothing. There's literally nothing to be like, I work on your assignment from Tuesday or fucking whatever. So whenever we have a snow day, I'm like, all right. So we just have a non-educational nothing day that doesn't count, but counts. It's the worst. I cannot fucking stand it. It is the only issue that has ever motivated me to be like, I'm carving time out of my schedule to yell at the school board ineffectively.

0:05:18 Tom: And I think I'm really going to do it.

0:05:18 Eli: For those of you who are new, Tom doesn't carve time out of his schedule to fall asleep. So when he rings the complaints department He fucking means it.

0:05:26 Thomas: Can't work it in oh his whole nervous system is like, maybe just a little, I'm seeing a lot of just red on this calendar. Can't. No, no sleep

0:05:30 Tom: So mad about this. I'm just so mad. You know what? The body will shut the fuck up if you keep, if you keep not listening to it you know

0:05:41 Thomas: Hey nervous system should have made an appointment, you know. Should have been, can I

0:05:44 Eli: You can drink enough cold brew concentrate that it will override, right? Yeah.

0:05:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:05:51 Thomas: Tell you guys, um, reality of parenting hit me perhaps harder than most in this way because my mom was a school teacher at the high school, my dad didn't work, so I did not fucking comprehend that when kids got school off, the parents don't work. I didn't understand that. For me it was, oh, Mom's off, and Dad doesn't ever work, so that's, like, that must not be a big deal for us. It's like, oh, if school's off, we're, we're fucked. Like, we're, the whole thing is fucked. It's, it's impossible. And the minute I realized this, I was like, I've been going around my whole life not thinking of this thing because it just never occurred to me. You, I thought of it, I was like, everyone's been managing this somehow. Like, everybody would fucking forget my job, which, yes, my hours are, you know, zero to 24. But, like, other people, at least I can finagle stuff, you know, but like, yeah,

0:06:16 Eli: Yeah.

0:06:42 Eli: What do you do if you're a fucking nurse, just, hey, um so people are still getting sick today, uh, don't don't use the stove, please.

0:06:44 Thomas: I don't understand it. School calls, I'd be like, no, no thank you. Keep them.

0:06:52 Tom: Well, do it, that is like, as a, like, growing up with a single dad, that's yeah

0:06:53 Thomas: Boy,

0:06:53 Eli: Yeah you had, you were badly parented. What happened?

0:06:58 Tom: That's pretty, like, my dad had always, when we were little, my dad had arranged for preschool, like, like school, like, at, like, care for us before school started with a local family and then care for us after school and before or after he got off of work with, with a local family, but that didn't mean that they had infinite availability during the day for, like, random snow day or whatever. So there were definitely times it was literally like, all right, I gotta go to work, don't touch the stove, that is what would happen. You just be like, all right, we won't touch a stove, and you're just like, I'm home you know, and you're like 8 or whatever whatever.

0:06:58 Eli: Yeah watch TV oh

0:07:33 Thomas: It's a different world my kids don't know we have a stove. I don't think it's a whole different back then I love that time, the 80s. That was the one thing that was any interest. Boy,

0:07:35 Eli: Yeah the the of worry I put in to Max running an extra five minutes on his iPad or fucking finishing a Pixar movie versus an entire generation where it was like, okay, so the porn is above channel 99, don't, don't watch that unless it's after 8 p.m., then all the channels above 70 are softcore porn, there's nothing your mother and I are going to do or even are gonna do to stop that all right, I'll be back in 11 hours, try not to learn fascism from the TV.

0:08:06 Tom: We didn't have cable.

0:08:10 Thomas: Oh

0:08:16 Tom: Yeah.

0:08:17 Thomas: Uh, gotta say, Arlo discovered the part on the Switch where it tells you how many hours you put into games, and I had to, um, that in a bunker because I'm going to be arrested if anybody saw how much hours are those. I, I think it's more hours than he's been alive. I gotta do the math like he's not been alive that many

0:08:32 Eli: He's been alive. Yeah, no. Lydia got a few hours in before he was born just to keep him up there in the charts. Yeah. No, why, it's the auto ads. Yes, I assume we've been recording for 11 minutes, you've heard 20, 25 of the auto ad spots by now, but you can make those go away over at patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads where get an expanded commercial-free version of every single show plus bonus episodes. We got all sorts of fun stuff. Monthly bonus episode comes out every single month. You can get all of that over at patreon.com/dearolddads. Clack into it, that

0:08:36 Tom: A

0:08:38 Thomas: Oh thing worse. Oh, a month, baby but Gents, uh, Phoebe had her first sleepover, and now I, we host it, so I keep trying to find a, a way to phrase this. Cause, like, first sleepover usually implies other, you know, her going somewhere, but exactly.

0:09:20 Tom: Right.

0:09:20 Eli: Somewhere. Yeah, and a child slept over at my house last night raises all kinds of questions you don't want. Yeah, fluffing

0:09:25 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, No, we had two children that weren't ours for the sleepover and it was a big deal. Phoebe is exactly who Phoebe has always been. And so she was stressing about it and talking about it for quite a while and making plans, playing what she was going to to wear, yeah just all this like she just Oh boy.

0:09:42 Eli: The pillows and re -popping the popcorn, picking

0:09:45 Thomas: She's so her, there's um But it was super cute. I told him I'd set up the tent one time. I, like, I got a tent for them to set up inside sometimes because I was like, oh, that'll be super fun, you know, they do like the Kids love Tents, and so I, uh, I'd set it up for them too to sleep in, and so I did that. Um, oh, Tom, you'll love this. Um, turned into a massive house project because I discovered the cats had had found a creative place to put their piss that is not in the boxes they're meant to put it in. Go

0:09:46 Eli: Out the burned kernels with chopsticks.

0:09:57 Eli: Yeah, kids love tents. Tents, fuck.

0:09:58 Tom: Yeah. Oh.

0:10:12 Eli: Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah,

0:10:12 Tom: That's So fun. God. Okay, but real quick, I've

0:10:17 Thomas: Ahead, go ahead.

0:10:18 Tom: Also discovered this week when I went downstairs into my gym and, like, I was like, oh, you know what, there's this little bin that I have, have of, like, you know, like weight belts and things along those lines that I don't use all the time. Know what I need new of all the stuff that was in that bin.

0:10:18 Thomas: Oh. God, oh. Tom. And and a face and a nose, God.

0:10:36 Tom: I so mad about it. Like I just, I put it in the garage and I have to sort through what I have to repurchase now because it all smells like fucking cat piss. I love having pets. It's the best. I want more pets, not no pets, which is the number of pets I actually want now.

0:10:52 Thomas: At I don't try to salvage fucking anything anything anymore. Like back in the day when my dad was the cheapest person alive, there was no throwing anything away that mattered. So it was like this, I had a backpack that got peed in and I tried to get the pee out for, I don't know, still to yesterday, like just cat pee. It doesn't need to be that strong. I don'T know what, what do they need to do with that to mark their territory or whatever? It's just fucking insane.

0:10:55 Tom: No.

0:11:15 Thomas: But anyway, I just throw everything away. If I could throw my house away, I would, I Would just toss it in the house garbage and get a new one. They ruined it. So I was doing that all day. I was like fucking, you know, vacuum, shampooing the carpet and shit, trying to get out because it was, it was in their room behind some stuff. And I, you Know, took it out to do the tent. Anyway, it Was super cute. So these kids just didn't sleep though.

0:11:14 Eli: Yeah, of

0:11:35 Thomas: And I didn't know how to handle this because they're not old. Like I didn'T do that until I was like, I don'T know, like high school. I don't think I like had friends and stayed up super late until literally high school, but they're eight.

0:11:35 Tom: Oh yeah. But

0:11:48 Thomas: Eight.

0:11:48 Tom: That's what a sleepover is.

0:11:48 Eli: That's what a sleepover is for.

0:11:50 Tom: A sleepover is to stay up the whole night.

0:11:49 Thomas: Yeah, but they're eight.

0:11:51 Eli: This is, you're Tom -ing You're Toming right now You know how Tom will describe a thing And then you realize he lived through a Lovecraftian horror And we have to be like, hey buddy So no, the darkness shouldn't speak back Just a mirror The mirror's just a reflection of you all the time It's always you, it never moves on its own

0:11:53 Thomas: Am I tomming? Yeah, that's fair.

0:12:09 Thomas: Know what? That's a good point. I might be misremembering. Now that I think about it, I did have a friend. We'd stay up and play video games. Okay. Maybe I did. Okay, nevermind. Because I was really surprised. I was like eight years old. I thought that was still the age where I'd have to, like, they'd just pass out or whatever, you know? Because when they're young enough, they can't stay up that late. They just just absolutely pass out.

0:12:11 Tom: Well,

0:12:27 Thomas: But oh my God, they were up at midnight. And one of them is the girl that calls, calls Lydia, which is, you know, that's alarming. I know I'm still, I still don't know how to handle it.

0:12:25 Eli: Oh yeah, no The sleepy baby thing, that's cute, it's fun Ugh I'm in it, I'm it It happened to me literally yesterday. We had a group of our baby friends over for President's Day and one of the kids was like, "Eli," and I was like, "What can I do?" And then here's the worst part, because I love this fucking kid, he's the best kid, he goes, "Hey, I don't want to bother you, but can I please have some of these animal crackers?" And I was like, oh, he's so polite. It's not even a rudeness thing.

0:12:46 Thomas: Nope.

0:13:01 Eli: He's just been taught that I'm not some kind of special grown -up which I'm not. I'm

0:13:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. I want to acknowledge this is one where I just can't get past the insanity. I went a hundred, a 100%.

0:13:09 Eli: Wrong. Yeah. No, I'm totally wrong. Yeah.

0:13:10 Tom: What are the other kids? Well, hang on. Just so I have a point of reference. What do the other children do? What do other kids call Lydia?

0:13:15 Thomas: They politely completely avoid addressing us in any way, which is, that's the way to go.

0:13:18 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. Never.

0:13:20 Thomas: Now here's the thing. Here's the next thing I was going to say is I don't think she knows my name yet. So I'm like, this is perfect. Just never tell her my name because that way I don'T have to have these complicated feelings of like, no, I can't, no one, no one says my name. I don't. I actually saw a study the other day that somebody did a science on it, loosely related, which Is like calling your partner by their actual name and how like off -putting it is, you know? And like, it's, it's really interesting. So I, all I am is at home all day working with Lydia. She doesn't use my name. The kids don't use my game. As far as I'm concerned, I don't even have a name. I don't need one. And so

0:13:20 Tom: Wait,

0:13:28 Eli: Name. It Yes. Yeah.

0:13:55 Thomas: Having a little kid be like, um, Thomas, I'd be like I'm dead. Sorry. I died.

0:14:00 Eli: That's Mr. President to you. Go.

0:14:02 Tom: I'm just curious. Don't refer to Lydia Lydia by her first name at all. Like if you want to like get her attention or something,

0:14:06 Thomas: Oh, here we go. Here we go, sweet Tom. Please give us some insanity. Give us, give

0:14:10 Eli: On Tom talk to us about this

0:14:11 Tom: Wait a minute for real.

0:14:12 Thomas: Us, give us a duh.

0:14:13 Tom: Do you not Eli? You don't, you don't ever just say, you don'T ever say Anna's name to Anna. Like, if you wanna get her attention or something, I

0:14:18 Eli: No.

0:14:20 Thomas: If you're in a crowded room or something, sure. Of course. Like, there's the duh, you're in the house with no one there. Net, literally never, we never say each other's names ever. What?

0:14:29 Tom: Do it probably 15 times a day. I do IT all the time. I don'T know.

0:14:33 Eli: They're business partners. It's not you. Know. He

0:14:36 Tom: Like names.

0:14:36 Eli: Said they're not on a, like, a

0:14:37 Tom: No, no, no. People love, like, names are, names are important and powerful and people respond differently to them. So like, if I want to just, like, say, like, something nice to my wife, like, if I want to, like, say "I love you" or whatever, I will very often preface it and be like, "Hayley," and then she'll look over and I'll be like, I Love you.

0:14:32 Thomas: The fuck, I just barfed. Sorry. Yeah.

0:14:54 Eli: Nickname. That's the "to whom It may concern" of relationships.

0:14:56 Tom: Like no. No.

0:14:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:58 Tom: It's not formal at all. It gets, promise, it's, it's not, it doesn't come across that way. At all.

0:15:02 Eli: The The Only situation in which, which I use my wife's name, is I have been politely saying "darling" for the last, I'm going to say 97 minutes, right? And now I'm doing, this is a thing that you master as a woke dad, the not yell yell, right, which is I'm not yelling out of anger. I'm raising the volume because you're upstairs I'm downstairs.

0:15:03 Thomas: That is I for 70 minutes. To

0:15:03 Tom: Oh.

0:15:29 Thomas: Become an audio engineer. No, I'm not. It's not peaking. It's not peaking. It's just louder. It's just, I've had compressor on.

0:15:31 Eli: Yes, So it's about, it's about

0:15:35 Thomas: It, it's just yeah.

0:15:36 Eli: It's about clarity, so you need the

0:15:39 Thomas: The EQ.

0:15:39 Eli: Most, the sweet Oh.

0:15:41 Thomas: On It was perfect. It was not.

0:15:41 Eli: The softest. The gentlest. The most southern, a silk glove on a handmade, a milk putty of yells. You need just, oh, you just need, you need to call that beautiful kitty back home in the sweetest, softest way you ever done heard. So

0:15:43 Thomas: Oh. Boy. Yeah. That's so funny. This is Why I'm broken can never be fixed, because my default is so not that. Like, I'll be like, if I didn't hear something, my default asshole voice goes into, like, yelling in a way that's not the tone. I don't know how Lydia is still with me, to be honest with you. Like, I'm not sure how she deals with it. That's impressive that you do that, by the way. But no, Tom, back to this. I don't understand this. My had pet names until the kids came into existence. And now she's just mama. Like, it's just because they all say that 400 ,000 million times a day. So it's like impossible to not be influenced by the kids being like, mama, mama. And then I'm just like, hey, mama? It's just what we do.

0:16:03 Tom: My God. Oh.

0:16:41 Tom: No.

0:16:41 Thomas: Like dad, mom, dad, you're just like, they're little kids. I'm hoping when they're bigger, we can grow sanity back. But that's just what we do, because it's just, it is. I don't know.

0:16:42 Tom: No. I know, I know. Yeah. I

0:16:51 Thomas: I alone in the sea light? That's not how you approach it?

0:16:54 Eli: I don', don't call Anna mom or mama. I will talk about her as mom or mama but she is, she is always darling or sweetheart to me, or a more flowery term if I am angry. Yeah.

0:16:58 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. When the kids are not there, importantly, I don't still do that. We have three kids all saying that over and over. It's just hard to not fucking slip into it.

0:17:09 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. Oh.

0:17:11 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I So you don't know what you want to be called, because evidently in your house names are are verboten.

0:17:18 Thomas: True. Ooh,

0:17:20 Eli: No. I actually do. I actually do, because there's one that I like and is not, it's an honorific and it's not a weird Mr. Bosnick thing where I've, I've done a weird power dynamic to a child, and it happens, it happens by accident sometimes and I love it. It's Max's dad. I love that. I love that because that

0:17:36 Tom: Oh.

0:17:37 Thomas: That's a good one. I thought it was going to be, Hey, Mr. Only Funny Comedian in the World. I thought it was going to be like this.

0:17:42 Eli: That's that's the name tag I wear, and they're not reading yet, so it's, it's stuff I have to sound it out for them. I don't let them in the door. There's a lot of body blocking.

0:17:51 Thomas: Oh, Max's dad. That's fantastic. I like that. I'm going to, they're going to call me Max's Dad.

0:17:56 Tom: God. I The kids' friends are welcome to call me Tom. That's perfectly fine. I would hate, I would certainly not want to be like Mr. Curry or Mr. Tom or something like that. I, I aggressively do not want that. Yeah.

0:18:07 Thomas: There's just no right answer. It's one of those life's conundrum, you know, life, sometimes there's no right answer. Mr. Smith would be horrible. I'd be like, nope, that's not it either. That's why I just, I don't have a name. Can I, if

0:18:16 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:17 Tom: Mr. Thomas would sound insane for for some kid To walk around and have to say, "Right?"

0:18:19 Eli: Tizzle Smizzle. Yeah.

0:18:23 Thomas: Someone just said Phoebe's dad, I do think that is the way I think that's the way

0:18:27 Eli: That's the way, or cool nickname that is respectful, right? It can't be "bitch tits." I need, like, "Laser Knife." What? Sorry.

0:18:35 Tom: Knife.

0:18:36 Eli: You call me, you call my "Laser Knife." Yeah, you know, I just, you just seem like the kind of guy that would, like, in a post-apocalyptic future, like, have a laser knife and be known for that. You are, first of all, you're welcome at my home anytime. You can marry my son. You can marry my daughter.

0:18:48 Thomas: Here's all the candy.

0:18:48 Eli: You know. Yeah, exactly. You can have everything in my home because I'm Laser Knife. How cool would that be?

0:18:48 Tom: Oh my God. All right. So how did the, how did

0:18:55 Eli: So

0:18:49 Thomas: Yeah. Oh

0:18:55 Tom: This sleepover go? Let's, let's talk about the sleep. How did the sleepover.

0:18:57 Thomas: It went pretty well. I this is a really proud of my kid moment because, um, Been worried and I've expressed those worries, uh, the show, I think from the beginning about Phoebe is controlling nature with Arlo, you know, and just the, the domineering, uh, and all that. And so I, my natural worry was like, is that going to mess up her friendships? You know?

0:19:15 Tom: Right?

0:19:16 Thomas: Cause like, I just, um, and I just think she's doing such a good job at finding pushover friends who don't care. No, I'm just kidding. I think she does such a job of, from, from what I witnessed, like she's pretty good. She does do, huh. She does have a little bit of her Phoebe -ness, which, which know we deal deal with, which like trying not to her be domineering and interrupting, but she did great. It was a, it was a treat. It was fun. Stayed up all fucking night. And then I was like, well, thank God they'll, you know, naturally they've stayed up whole night. So they're going to sleep in, right? Right. Like you'd think just you'd have to like wake up at fucking five.

0:19:49 Tom: Nope.

0:19:49 Thomas: They slept for like four or five hours. I was like, what are you talking about, kids? Go to sleep. Why do you have to make them sleep? It's the best thing.

0:19:49 Tom: Nope.

0:19:59 Tom: Right. Did you structure, I'm curious about a few things. So like, first of all, I think it's hilarious that you're like, they were up all night and they were up till midnight. Like I, do you guys do bedtime in your house, like I know, I'm just curious. Like, do you do structure and not everybody does even even at eight. Like, yeah, not ever. Okay, all right, so that's a big, that's even on weekends. So

0:20:07 Thomas: Eight, Tom. She's 8. They go to bed at 9, 9, 15. I know. Even on weekends. It is. No, you're

0:20:18 Eli: So fucking late. 6

0:20:19 Tom: Late what time do you guys go to bed at the Bosnick house? Hang on a minute, we're gonna derail this whole train.

0:20:21 Thomas: Right.

0:20:24 Eli: 45 Yeah.

0:20:25 Tom: You fucking do not 6

0:20:25 Thomas: God, that's, you, you doing it right. You're doing it, right.

0:20:29 Tom: 45. Well,

0:20:28 Eli: 6 45 6 45 is the start of bedtime, or

0:20:32 Tom: How long does bedtime last? Four or five hours? The

0:20:36 Eli: Wait, sorry, are you asking about the adults or the children? Children? 6 45 because

0:20:39 Tom: Children. Holy

0:20:40 Thomas: You Children, man, I need to do that.

0:20:41 Tom: Mother of God.

0:20:42 Eli: Bedtime takes at least an hour. Yeah. We go upstairs. Well, first of all, he doesn't like to poop during the day, he only wants to poop at bedtime, uh, and a whole other issue that we can discuss at different time. So he's gotta sit on the potty and poop, and then he's got nine insane games he wants to insist on while he's taking a shit, which, can I say, like, should be upsetting, but are so funny, because he'll be like, one of the things is he wants us to blow up a balloon and let it go around the room, so he'll be like, "Blow up the balloon and let it come around the room!" It's so funny. So, we do that, then we gotta brush our teeth, right? We gotta use the water flosser, if we're using the water flosser that night, right, we're working on our toothbrushing

0:20:43 Tom: Okay.

0:20:45 Thomas: Okay. Well, that is. That's a lot.

0:21:15 Thomas: This is insane. You

0:21:21 Eli: Skills,

0:21:21 Thomas: Got him using a water flosser. I would think that would freak out. Oh, OK.

0:21:23 Eli: I'm trying. I'm trying. Yeah, so

0:21:26 Thomas: How

0:21:26 Eli: That's what we're working on. His teeth, then he goes into the bed, then we get his jammies on. We got a whole bunch of games around the jammys that are insane and I won't bore you with. Then he picks out three bedtime stories. We read the three bedtime stories, he gets to choose who reads them, and then sometimes he reads them to us, and then there's two lullabies at least, and dann we have a whole bunch of like see you later alligator back and forth.

0:21:47 Thomas: Many podcasts have you released in that time, though? Because I'm trying to figure out how I would even fit that into my schedule. There's no way.

0:21:48 Tom: I Yeah. Well

0:21:49 Eli: Yeah. Exactly. Truly. Eleven. Yeah so we do that whole thing and then by the time we're done it's like 7 .45

0:21:55 Thomas: You're good, parents.

0:21:58 Tom: It's fucking midnight. Are You fucking serious? Of course you start bedtime at 6:45. You just described a, a bedtime routine that takes, like, from, from lunch punch forward. Holy fuck.

0:21:58 Eli: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

0:22:08 Thomas: I think, yeah, I would do that on the last day of my life. I'd be like, all right, I'm set to die. I'm going to put the kids to bed for an hour tonight. But every day? I don't know how you do that.

0:22:12 Eli: Yeah. Single day. We actually have a much longer routine than that that's, like, unofficial, but those are, those are just daddy being crazy, like, that's the ones I won't defend. Is, like, well, then there's dinner and there's bath and then there is reward Nintendo. You don't need, I don't need to go into the insanity that is the schedule of my life or how well equipped my son is with that schedule at this point in his.

0:22:43 Tom: So what time does he wake up in the morning?

0:22:45 Eli: Wakes up at 7.

0:22:46 Tom: Okay. Wow. All right. Good for him. So he's putting, he's put in the hours and

0:22:47 Eli: Yeah.

0:22:49 Thomas: Putting in hard 12 hours of sleep.

0:22:50 Tom: Wow.

0:22:50 Eli: Putting in the work. So he wakes up any time between 5 .30 and like 7 .30, 7 .45.

0:22:56 Tom: Well, that's a big difference.

0:22:58 Eli: He knows he is allowed, but he mostly wakes up around 6.30. 6.37 o'clock. That's the consistent wake-up time. He knows that, first of all, he's allowed to call us into his room any time he wants. He's allowed to go to the potty anytime he wants. He's allowed to get up, read his books, play with his toys, do whatever he wants inside his room. The time that I come get him and the day starts 7, so anytime after 7 he gets to go open the door, which he does every day.

And what's so funny is I'll often be watching him on the baby monitor, and I'll see him, like, look over at the clock, and he'll be like, "I don't get to yell at the fat man yet." And then he'll lie back down and, like, roll around or read another other book, toss a stuffed animal over the bed or whatever, and then 701 comes around, open the door and say, I run up there and get him, and we do our. But yeah, we are regimented in this house with flexibility, which means that there is a structure available for him at all times, and we are always open to changing that structure.

0:22:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:16 Thomas: What Oh, that's great.

0:23:53 Tom: Makes a lot of sense since he's, you know, he is autistic and everything. I can see how that That would be like necessary and like really beneficial to everybody. So,

0:23:56 Thomas: Yeah. Can

0:23:53 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. Right. And, and also, like, he is learning, like, hard lines versus soft line, which is really important. Like, sometimes he's like, "Can I have five extra minutes?" And I'm like, "Fuck yeah, absolutely you can, man." Then I shoot his mom in the leg, and I'm not like, see, see this is about how rules are arbitrary and you don't have control over people's reaction to those rules.

0:24:09 Thomas: I have six extra minutes. No, fuck you see what happens when all that matters is power. Hey, guess what? I got a slight majority of the votes in this house, so I do whatever the fuck I want. All in all, not, not a ton of weirdness. I will say, is this just me? Is this just me? I felt like when the parents came to drop them off, I felt an obligation to be like, okay, I gotta look as normal as, you know what I mean? Like, hey, no, I haven't met these parents. Like, this is just a, you I think they come across Lydia, but not much. These aren't, she has friends she's had for a long time, but these are, these are newer ones from the new school, so it's a, we haven't, like, hung out with them, and so I just was like, fucking, I'll put on a tux. I'll probably, something, I just wanted to not, you know, I

0:24:23 Eli: Yeah. Do whatever I want. Yeah, exactly. Oh, Yeah, for sure. No.

0:25:02 Tom: Yeah,

0:25:02 Thomas: Just want, want to look like, oh, this is a, I

0:25:03 Tom: I'll put on tux like normal people do in their house. Hello, I'm a normal person.

0:25:06 Thomas: Greased up my hair, you know?

0:25:07 Eli: I totally get because I'm a garbage monster.

0:25:10 Tom: Before the kids got here, I greased myself up. I'm an normal person, man.

0:25:14 Eli: I walk around my house in pug t-shirts and pajama a pants. I don't want, if I walked into a house and I was in that house, I would walk out again. I'd be like, "Oh no, sorry, honey, they killed a fat man in this house, and there's sort of like a demon ghost, not a ghost ghost where they can't interact with the environment, it's sort of like a demon got in a ghost situation. We'll explain it in the car in the ride home. Point is, you're not sleeping here with with that rabbi who starved to death underneath his basement or whatever. No, we're we're headed home. Yeah."

0:25:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Oh boy. Yeah. And I just, and then there was a moment where I was watching hockey, one of them came and I was like, you feel like the vibes of me, because here's the last thing you want. If I was dropping my little girl off at a sleepover, the dad was like, "Hi, hey, yeah, I'm excited for the girls to be," I'd be like, "Yeah, oh shit, there's a hurricane called and we're, bye, you know, like I was like, no, I feel like I just had this weird thing in my head where I was, I don't, I haven't had any time to meet or build trust with these people, and I just want them to feel comfortable, you know? Like I don't want all this math that I didn't need to do in my head of like, how do I, how did I like not creep these people? But it was fine. They were totally normal. I was normal. This all happened in my brain. This wasn't a, yeah, this wasn't real thing.

0:26:02 Tom: No," but I actually think that's like because I'm curious, like these are people that didn'tt know you, these are people that didn' that you didn't know well at all, so like that's a scenario where we would never ever let our kid go to a sleepover like that, like not in a million years would we allow that

0:26:33 Thomas: No, nope.

0:26:43 Thomas: Specifically us, if it was us. Yeah, no, I'm just kidding.

0:26:44 Tom: Yeah no like if we just don't, like we host most sleepovers for sure. But we don't let the kids go to sleepovers, um, unless it's family or like, I would say somebody that we knew really, really well that had kids, but we don't know anybody that has kids. So like none of our, none of our close friends have kids. So we're, not go to sleepovers people. Like we, we don't, we have a rule. We DON'T do it.

0:27:02 Thomas: And that's interesting because I don't know if I am either. I wasn't, so Phoebe's, I've been banking on Phoebe being so anxious that I don't know that she could, you know? So like, like I hadn't even thought about it yet, but then the sleepover here, I was like, oh, somehow Phoebe got introduced to the idea. I don't remember how, but that's another thing about having a Phoebe is once she gets an idea, like a fish tank, like asleep over, then she just wants that until forever. And it's good. Like we want to give her these things, but she gets set on these ideas.

You know, she's not an Arlo who will forget whatever we were talking about five seconds ago, unless it was a video game. Like she'll, she'll be set on that forever.

And, and her friend, like, she had gotten her friend these little friends, kind of set on it, and so all the parents were kind of like, yeah, no, they want to do this, and it worked out. But, but I'm glad you said that, Tom, because I, I felt like I was being kind of dumb, but I was like, I really do want to give these folks an impression of safety here somehow, and I don't, I don'

0:27:04 Tom: Yeah. Right.

0:27:53 Thomas: T know how to quickly do that You know, I was uh, Hey, normal guy here, just, uh, you know. Yeah.

0:27:53 Tom: You 'VE GOT to do that, man. Yeah, look, like, what's the alternative? Because here they're taking, like, what, a second grader, third grader, somewhere in that neighborhood, right? An eight-year-old human being that, like, it's a super vulnerable human being, and you're like, I don't know you at all, have my kid overnight like, just no way. Like

0:28:01 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Tom, the alternative is I could just be a normal person, but since I'm not, that's out. Like, I think other people have the option of like, Oh, this is just like a dad with a job or whatever. Like that's normal. I don't have that option. So I have like, Ooh, get a disguise, you know, like I have something.

0:28:18 Eli: No, that's not possible.

0:28:22 Tom: Right. Yeah. No, I feel that, man. Like, I, because, like, we, we host sleepovers and I'm always like, oh, I've got to make sure I'm, like, I'll make sure that, like, yeah, I'm not wearing, like, pajama pants walking around the house. Like, if the kid is going to be dropping off a kid, I am going to meet a parent for the first couple of times. Like, yeah. I'm going to make the house is tidy.

0:28:41 Thomas: Well I wore my formal pajama pants. Does that count?

0:28:43 Eli: I

0:28:45 Tom: But yeah, like I'll tidy up the house, make sure like dishes are done. Like, so the house looks like, you like savages. That kind of stuff. Like I wouldn't do it like in the reverse, in the inverse, there's literally no way that I would do it.

0:28:52 Thomas: Yeah. I was going to ask you guys that. Okay. So what's the age that you are comfortable sleepover for in some ways like being younger is like there's like a middle age, you know, where being being too old, then you're worried about drugs and alcohol, whatever. Being, you know, younger, I don't know what's what's that the age where you're actually starting to feel comfortable and you're going to do it? Zero.

0:29:12 Tom: Where we, yeah zero Age. Like, no.

0:29:13 Thomas: Wait. Forever? What?

0:29:13 Tom: Yeah. Well, Aislinn's 14 and we still would not let her sleep over at someone's house.

0:29:18 Thomas: What?

0:29:18 Tom: Yeah. There's no way.

0:29:19 Thomas: Oh. Okay. Well, this is insane, Eli. Am I back me up here?

0:29:19 Tom: Yeah. No, there's No Way there's NO WAY that I would

0:29:23 Thomas: Is it was no

0:29:23 Tom: Let Aislyn sleep over at somebody's house that we're not like really really really friends with, yeah.

0:29:29 Thomas: No, pretend you're close to. Well, okay, like, I would say just to make it like regular, to give basis of comparison, it's it's a friend that you've known, like she's known a friend for a while, you're familiar with their parents, you're not like family or really what

0:29:38 Tom: Would not let er do it no 0 % there's a 0% chance I would do that, yeah, 0 % or lower, maybe negative.

0:29:39 Eli: I shot yeah yeah I have a yeah I

0:29:45 Tom: Negative percent? Yeah.

0:29:41 Thomas: Yeah

0:29:45 Eli: Would stop other people from having sleepovers with their children, so

0:29:49 Thomas: You're familiar with I that variable, that's the root of a negative, yeah.

0:29:53 Eli: Have very close, I've talked about this, I have a very close group of parenting friends, um, I trust with a sleepover at this point or at any point, uh, this age I wouldn't trust because Max has certain needs that I wouldn't expect another parent to meet when he gets old enough and sort of self-confident enough and all that stuff, uh, would absolutely trust them. That's really going to be, I'm going to let Max take the lead on that. There's not like a number, it's more about like, will having my kid in your house be like having a kid in your house, or will it be like, oh hey, I need you to take care of my kid's like mental, social, emotional needs in a way that I haven't prepped you for. But I will say this, even as close as I am with that group of friends, we will sit down and I'll do a bit, right? I'll be like, I'm so sorry to make you have this conversation. There can be no

0:30:04 Thomas: That's That's fair, yeah.

0:30:39 Eli: Guns in your house at all. There can't be any guns in your house.

0:30:44 Thomas: I'm Fair.

0:30:45 Eli: If you'd like to keep guns in your house, you can, but they can't in a house with my kid.

0:30:45 Thomas: Oh. Good point a good point Yeah, no, that's

0:30:51 Eli: Statistically, That's how he'll die. Your uncle can't visit, even in an emergency. Anyone I haven't met can't visit in an emergency. If there's an emergency and your uncle needs to be there you should call me and I'll come get my kid, because if your uncle fucks my kid, I'll kill everyone you know, and then I'll save you for life, and you'll be at the bottom of a hole, and you're hungry, and you'd be thirsty, and you bring to God, but God is not real, and I'm at the top of the hole and I pour in water down the hall. Like, that's the thing, is you need, first of all, you need friends who don't stand up from that table and be like, okay, well, I'm sorry.

0:30:51 Thomas: Fair.

0:31:01 Thomas: You should have Anna work on this song. It's I can tell that you wrote it. I

0:31:10 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:31:13 Thomas: Like that part. Memorized the whole thing. Wow, this is Yeah.

0:31:31 Eli: I didn't realize, because here's the things, if you don't know people well enough to do that bit, don't you well enough to take care of your kids.

0:31:37 Tom: Thousand percent,

0:31:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well People don't react well to not being trusted to a degree. Like, I get, like, to you it's going to be at a certain point, they might react like, well, what the fuck, man? Like, I'm not insane.

0:31:38 Tom: Man. Yep. Up if somebody that I don't know really intimately didn't trust me with their kid, I'd be like, that tracks, I appreciate you more. I actually would, I'd be like, yeah, that's fine. Like, I would agree, I don't trust you either. Like, we don't know each other well enough that it is a sane thing in my view, that it's a sane thing to do, yeah. Like a hundred percent.

0:31:46 Thomas: Oh.

0:32:02 Eli: The examples from my end because I am the weird, am weird version to a lot of my friends. So I'll you the three things that I do with people is I often have a pretty blunt conversation about how they feel about swearing if they're going to come over to our house, and if we need to clean it up, because Anna can't help it, but I can. So if someone is like, a we don't swear in front of our kids family, I do not swear in front of their kids. That's a choice that they get to make. Um, I will also put all my drug stuff away, um, because I just have like pipes and bongs and like not drugs themselves that the kids could access, but like stuff that a kid could point

0:32:04 Tom: I would actually think more of

0:32:21 Thomas: Wow, boy.

0:32:36 Tom: Paraphernalia.

0:32:36 Eli: At and be like, what's that, and I'm like, a crack pipe, right, and we don't need to get into that, right? Because I'm not going to get down and be like, oh no, don't worry, it's for DMT. You really need a crack pipe for DMT. You don't seem comforted by this. So like, I'll talk to parents about whether or not they're comfortable with like alcohol being out, because we have like a little corner of our kitchen where the bottles are, and And we will put those away if parents are uncomfortable with it.

0:32:58 Thomas: This is so much effort. I, yeah, is your is this like the filibuster, like your goal is to be like, never mind, we can't do this? Oh, thank God. Good, we win this. Is Wow. But

0:33:07 Eli: But then the other thing is all my parent friends believe in some version of God, almost all of them. And so I will also do like a, so

0:33:09 Thomas: Oh. Okay. I'll be like, oh no, God in the house that you can't, you have to, you have you have

0:33:18 Tom: Leave your deities outside. Yeah, it's like.

0:33:20 Thomas: A good

0:33:18 Eli: I'm not going to pretend. My chat is like, I'm going to do this. I'm, I'm not going to pretend God's real, but I will not talk about it. Right. So that if your kid, like, prays over his food or begs God to release him from pain or whatever the case may be, I won't be like, "That's not doing anything. I'm at the top of the hole and you're at the bottom." Like, that, yeah.

0:33:25 Thomas: Point Boy, you're bringing up a lot of things that I haven't had time to think about, and now I'm like, we should undo this sleepover we did, because now I feel, because feel weird. So you host. Okay, Tom, do you feel weird?

0:33:47 Tom: Well, Yeah.

0:33:50 Thomas: Hosting. Is it a contradiction that you host, but you're never, huh?

0:33:53 Tom: Oh, no, not at all. I would not be surprised if if one of like the kids friends were like, yeah, we just don't sue sleepovers. I'd be like, Yeah, I totally understand that position. That makes a lot of sense to me. I don't think that sleepovers are best. I don't know. I think that you can put preconditions in place unless you're intensely familiar with the person that is caring for your kid that really makes sleepover safe. And that's in part because, like, I know people who've had really disastrous experiences at sleepovers. Cause like, like Eli's song is funny, but like, it's like, you don't know that uncle, you don't know this kid's brother. You don't know, like the parents can be cool, but like, there are other people in that house that like, you can't really vet. And it matters that it's nighttime. It matters that everybody's asleep. It matter that like there's

0:34:01 Eli: The

0:34:19 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking that.

0:34:40 Thomas: Yeah,

0:34:41 Tom: A Different layer of vulnerability. So like, yeah, I'm comfortable having kids in my house. 'Cause I know me, I vetted me out for 46 years. I have vetted out my behavior and I feel comfortable with it but

0:34:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:52 Eli: Mirror that moves on its own has never told him to a kid, not once, not once, of

0:34:54 Tom: If somebody else was like, "Hey, like, sorry, no offense or anything, but like, we don't do sleepovers," I would be like, "Yeah, I try, I fucking, like, we can bond over that.

0:35:03 Eli: Course." Absolutely.

0:35:04 Tom: Like It's not that you don't trust me, it's like you don't trust this whole thing and like, you're right, like, I'm like, yeah, I don't either. You know what else I don't like? Cell phones. Let's be best friends, like Like, you and

0:35:05 Eli: Yeah.

0:35:15 Eli: Do you think the AI is talking to those robot dogs too? I think they're talking behind our backs. I think that they're teaching them flips.

0:35:26 Tom: I want to be super clear that, like, I don't think I don'T THINK BADLY OF PEOPLE THAT DO SLEEP OVERS. LIKE, I DON'T. LIKE, IF YOU DO Sleepovers, YOU JUST HAVE A DIFFERENT VIEW ON THAT. MY VIEWS HERE IS NOT MEANT TO BE, LIKE, JUDGING. I DONT, I'M NOT JUDGIN' OTHER PEOPLE FOR IT. BUT FROM OUR SIDE, LIKE MAN, IM NOT, LIKE NOT ENDORSIN' THAT SHIT.

0:35:35 Thomas: Yeah. Guys are kind of convincing me, honestly. I'm like kind of worried. Dude, I hope we didn't commit to anything yet.

0:35:43 Tom: YEAH. Yeah,

0:35:49 Eli: Only combination of judgment that goes on in my mind is if I was like, "Hey, we're not comfortable with a sleepover," and someone else was like, "No, you have to have a sleepover." Because then I then I know you wanted to fuck my kid.

0:35:57 Thomas: Yeah then, no, that's the test. Yeah actually, Actually, maybe,

0:35:59 Tom: Yeah,

0:36:02 Thomas: Maybe that's the test. Do a quick, oh, we're not too comfortable. And if they're like, no, you got it. I'm like, yeah, that's a right decision. If they're, like, oh okay, I get it. I get, it then I'd be like, hmm, you passed the test, oh

0:36:12 Eli: I look, look at that parent, I'm like, "Look, I love the Sandman comics, and I liked Norse Mythology. I thought that was a great book that you wrote, but I'm not gonna of

0:36:21 Thomas: Boy, yeah boy, you might have convinced me. I don't know about like no age though. I feel like there's, I think there's an age where, man, it's so hard with Phoebe because we've had this conversation on the show and it might be worth revisiting. But if I felt like Phoebe, if I felt like my kid, just generically, if I had a kid who I felt confident was going to be able to speak up if something happened or, or whatever, then it might be a slightly different story, but I am so worried that I will have a kid that won't say anything if something happens.

0:36:47 Eli: Course, none

0:36:48 Tom: Let me, let me tell you this real quick, and I don't mean to, like, shit on that idea too hard, but I'm gonna shit on it, I'm gonna shit that idea pretty hard, Yeah, like it's kind of like, you remember that, like, episode we did about Where the Wild Things Are, where, like, there's a lot of stuff that kids, that even kids that will speak up about many, many other things, there's still a lot of kids that don't speak up about this kind of stuff, even if they, even if, in you, even if all of the other experience is like, "No, that kid's a fucking fireball and would say something."

0:36:53 Eli: Of the kids I've abused have ever told anybody."

0:37:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah.

0:37:16 Tom: You can't know in this, in these, in these specific instances. I'll also add this, like, my experience with sleepovers as a teenager was that's when I did the worst shit, so to them well, that's when, that was shit that happened to me, but like I would go, I would go and

0:37:20 Thomas: Fair. Carwash begs to differ. No, Yeah.

0:37:31 Eli: When you became strong, it's when the mirror started to talk back because he was worthy. This

0:37:35 Tom: Fucking mirror will not shut up. Like just

0:37:38 Thomas: What is, sorry, what's the mirror joke? I don't know.

0:37:40 Eli: Just A thing I made up earlier in the podcast.

0:37:41 Tom: Something he's making up right now Yeah.

0:37:42 Eli: Gas.

0:37:40 Thomas: Okay. Okay. I was I was once again, I was like, did I miss another fucking reference?

0:37:42 Eli: Yeah,

0:37:44 Tom: I'm just rolling with it. I'm just rolling But like, when I started having, when I was, when I was a teenager and I started sleeping over at my friends' houses, we would, like, do all the things everybody does. We would wait for the parents to fall asleep and then we'd go raise raise whatever kind of hell we were going to raise. So I'm like, yeah, that's not, or like, we'd be like, "Hey, I'm sleeping over at, like, Dave's house," and David would be like, "I'm sleeping at Tom's house," and then, like, we just be out all night, 'cause, like, you know, that's how that worked. So yeah, for me, I'm like, yeah, my personal experiences, the experiences of other people I know, tell me, like, there's nothing a kid needs to be out at three o'clock in the morning, not in my house for.

0:37:45 Thomas: Okay. Burn.

0:37:45 Eli: The

0:37:55 Thomas: Down, the house, yeah, man, No.

0:38:21 Tom: I'm sorry, dude.

0:38:22 Thomas: You're right, you're convincing. Oh, that's what I'm saying, it's like, man, I maybe I just haven't had time to consider all the different levels of doom. Yeah.

0:38:25 Tom: Yeah.

0:38:29 Eli: Thing about that I think is important to consider is the promise that I consider to be made by a sleepover is, "I will keep your kid safe, loved, and happy while they're here," right? So like, if I don't know a kid well enough or a family well enough to make that, if it's weird to make that promise, that child should not sleep under my roof, right? Oh, look, a strange child comes over and is like, "Hey, man, let me get some graham crackers." Fuck yeah, here you go, kid, have some graham crackers. But I would like to be unconscious in your living room, I better fucking, I better be able to love you for a 24-hour period, right? That's the promise I'm making. I'll call 911. I'll get you safe. I'll get you medicine. I'll make sure you have dinner. Like, those are all things that matter, right? Because that's what I expect, right? I'm not willing for Max to stay in a house where he's tolerated. My son will never be in a place where he is like someone

0:38:42 Tom: Oh, I just promised they'll stay alive.

0:38:51 Thomas: That's fair, yes.

0:39:10 Tom: Yeah,

0:39:26 Thomas: That, 100.

0:39:26 Eli: Else has their own shit going on, and like, I'm kind of great, right? It's the dads we grew up with where they would yeah.

0:39:27 Thomas: Yeah. I was gonna say because that was every house we

0:39:34 Eli: Every dad was just this fucking looming bear and they'd be like, "No, no, no, no, he's here, he's there, he's hear it," right? It's like, I don't want my son to ever feel that way about another dad, and he'll never be, he'll, long as I have access to a motor vehicle, he'll ever be in a place where he which may

0:39:34 Tom: Which

0:39:35 Thomas: Were scared of every day, every time." 100. of dads.

0:39:51 Tom: May which may come to an end shortly if the New Jersey Department of Motor Vehicles has anything to say about it.

0:39:53 Thomas: Shit.

0:39:54 Eli: Come to an end, right? Exactly. Has their say, yeah. Exactly. We

0:39:58 Tom: Yeah?

0:40:00 Thomas: Fuck, now I, I feel like, I had no, no, I, I've got a lot to think about. I feel like I had something to say, but now I'm just distracted by that thought of, like, I also now I feel this weird guilt, like, damn, I feel like, I like, parents just trusted us, and I feel weird about that now, you know, that's

0:40:01 Tom: We ruin it?

0:40:02 Eli: Did, yeah. You should. Yeah.

0:40:15 Tom: Did you kind of should, like, a little bit, I don't know. We've hosted a, we've hosted a fair number of sleepovers, and, like, I'll even go so far as to say, this is terrible, but, like, with Aislinn specifically, she's a little more social than the other kids were at the same age. And she has asked, like, "Hey, can I do a sleepover at so-and-so's house?" And, like, I would, we have, and this is maybe shitty, but we've been like, "Hey, you know, like, you remember, like, you have a hard time, like, eating foods, and, like, you won't be comfortable."

Like Like, you are going to have a hard time being happy and like, you need certain preconditions to sleep, and they may not be, you so amenable know, to that. So why don't we just move that sleepover here? And that's worked 100% of the time. So it's a way to, like, not disappoint the kid. I realize that maybe it's slightly manipulative, but it's also true. Like, we're just saying true facts about her safety and, like, her comfort. But, like, then we just remove it to our place. Because, like I said, like, you've already vetted you. You

0:40:44 Thomas: Fair though. I mean that's yeah. Yeah.

0:41:12 Tom: Know that like there's no weird uncle or no creepy older brother or no guns in the house or, you know, all the rest of that.

0:41:19 Thomas: I struggle with special rules for me. I can't do that. Like, just struggle with that. Like, if, if they were like, "Well, we're gonna do the sleepover at one of the other kids' houses," and I was like, "Oh no, no," not kidding, I would feel like an asshole now, and, like, I think that's what's causing me some, some trouble now, is like, "Oh shit," because now am I gonna have to do that? But here's the thing, it was such a a sweet sleepover, though.

0:41:36 Tom: But think about it. It's the same rule, but it's the same. But hold on real quick. I just want to, I just wanna like, let you think about this differently if you want to. It's the same rule. The rule though is in order for me to feel comfortable hosting or letting my kid attend a sleepover, that person that is hosting that that sleepover needs to be vetted in an incredibly intimate and personal way. That's the rule. So with you, you can, you meet that precondition automatically, right? Because you know the operation of your mind and your heart. So that's done. And then that rule then extends out like, oh, okay, well, in order for that person to host a sleepover that my kid's going to attend, that would have to be somebody I know intimately and personally, you know, in this really profound way. Like, does it meet that precondition? No. Okay. But having one at my house meets that same preconditions. And I don't think that's cheating the question. I think that is just like saying, look, my ground rule here is very high. I just happen to meet my own standard.

0:41:38 Thomas: Sure. Sure. Sure, yeah.

0:42:33 Thomas: Gonna have to think about this. Oh.

0:42:34 Eli: I would also, I'm more of a garbage person than my parent-friends. So I'm thinking of my four parent-friend group, there's, right? Two sets of parents in my parent-friend group that are like obviously significantly better parents than I am, right, like it's just so obvious, right? And they don't ever rub it in my face, but they'll just be like, "Oh, did you not set up a fun weekend? So this is arts and crafts weekend where we all dress up in different costumes. We've been saving glitter throughout the year. And then Friday, of course, is Funfetti Day." And then I'm just like, "Oh god, Jesus fuck, okay, you win," right? It's that kind of thing. If those parents in that dynamic were like, "Hey, we don't really, you do drugs during the day," I'd be like, "Yep, you're not wrong, during the daytime when everyone's awake."

0:42:49 Tom: I don' t.

0:43:22 Thomas: It was so sweet though, it was, it was such a sweet thing, and I'm glad. I mean, in a way I'm glad I didn't't think about it, and I didn't think about, I didn't think about this because it, I'm glad we did it, and it was really cute. These, these, the, the girls too, like the types of friends as a parent, like you kind of know the types of kids that are, you know, are the friends, and it was, it, it was ones, it was like really nice. You know, like, like, like they were, hey, they were spazzy. They were kids. They weren't like, or something. They were a kid, but like in a nice kind of more positive way.

0:43:44 Tom: Yeah.

0:43:51 Eli: Didn't drink the smoothies. Oh.

0:43:53 Tom: We just take a minute to, like, appreciate, and genuinely so, like, appreciate, like, how much joy and fun and, like, energy kids can bring to nothing at all just being together like you want to get adults if you want to get adults together and like have them just have a good uninhibited time, like where they're just free to be themselves, and like that energy and that excitement, it's fucking impossible. It's

0:44:03 Thomas: Oh, it's the best. Oh, It's the Best. It's The Best. It's half of why I'm alive or more.

0:44:05 Eli: It's the best, yeah.

0:44:21 Eli: Drugs are fucking, that's it, that's what you can do, well,

0:44:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:44:23 Tom: But kids, like, they're so excited, they're excited at a level that, like, I don't know how to replicate that level of excitement in my own life. It is so So wonderful to look at.

0:44:26 Thomas: It's so cute. It's THE Best.

0:44:33 Eli: And also the

0:44:35 Thomas: It really is.

0:44:35 Eli: Instant forgiveness of the bump. Like I was saying, we had all our friends over yesterday for President's Day.

0:44:39 Thomas: The bump you did while...

0:44:40 Eli: Uh, yeah, and they're just like, "Oh, I thought we were only doing lines," and you're like, "No, no, I'm saving it for the weekend." No, but like, so we had all our friends over, which is two, four, six kids, seven, seven kids.

0:44:53 Thomas: Braggy.

0:44:53 Eli: Right, so they're just smashing into each other, right? But forgiveness of, oh, he has my toy, I want it. Okay, well, you got to share it. Okay. And then they just fucking, they fly away and they fly back again and they're playing together and hysterically laughing and they're coming up with games. And the delight as a mutual parent group to be like, our kids are safe, this is okay.

0:44:56 Thomas: Your one friend has seven kids. Jesus. Nah.

0:45:17 Eli: Such a wonderful thing.

0:45:16 Thomas: Best, it's the best and perfect cap on it was she, you know, like I said, they didn't sleep, they were still in the morning, one of the friends had to leave, another was staying for a while, and it got to the point where it's like, when is this gonna end? This is you know, it was a lot. Oh, that was the thing I meant to say this Remy, completely different person when the friends were over. Completely different. I think we just have to either abduct people or just ask him to come over all the time because Remy, he, he all, he's like, he is Phoebe, but times 10 in intensity. And he just needs this stimulus and he needs this stuff going on. And she and Phoebe have this interesting thing where they're always doing the pretend games.

They're always dealing with the stuff. And when her little friends came over, he was happy as could be the entire time that it was so funny because at one point he came over saw the iPad and was like, iPad, iPad. And started trying to get Lydia to turn it on. And then I, I just went to him. I was like, Hey buddy, weren't you playing with Phoebe? And he goes, Oh yeah. And he just drops it and goes back to play.

So he just like, he's, he just needs that distraction. And I do think there's, there's probably some ADHD. We'll see. But like the fact that he just looks at a thing and is like, I need that right now, you then the, the little girls were distracting him and he loved it and they loved it. And it was, it was so perfect.

And in the, in the morning when the friend finally left, it was like, uh, I said it was fine, but like, when she left it was like probably noon, and Phoebe sat down, passed out, like on the spot on our couch, passed out, slept on my shoulder for like the whole afternoon. I

0:45:27 Eli: Get out of my house.

0:46:45 Thomas: Was like, there it is, there it is, that makes sense. You're gonna do your job, Eli. You want your job?

0:46:46 Tom: I bet.

0:46:58 Eli: All Right, I'm doing it. I was looking it up. All right. Right, gentlemen, before we go, why don't bald people read the news? Because they just skim the headlines. Oh,

0:47:08 Tom: Oh, my God.

0:47:09 Thomas: Stupid.

0:47:10 Tom: Oh, My God. Terrible.

0:47:16 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:47:56 Thomas: Eli, his biggest fan, yes, but does he make up for it by being utterly silent whenever anyone else is trying to do comedy? Yes.

0:48:03 Eli: Yes, yes, there's a perfect. I would never interrupt you with laughter while you were telling a joke or afterward, because I don't know if you have a tail, if you have a tail, I would hate to interrupt by reacting In any way or acknowledging yeah No, it's a, it's stony, stony respect that I have for everyone who isn't me when they tell jokes. Yeah.

0:48:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe there's more there's more to it, that's very respectful. I feel so respected and

0:48:08 Tom: Yes. Yeah

0:48:24 Thomas: A creative place to put their piss that

0:48:27 Eli: Silk glove on a handmade, a milk putty of knife. What, sorry?

0:48:30 Tom: It's uh the kids got here, I greased myself up. I'm a normal person, man. % or lower maybe

0:48:38 Eli: I'm so sorry to make you have this conversation. There can be no guns in your house at all. There can't be any guns in Your House. If you'd like to keep guns in You House, you can, but they can't in a house with my kid. Statistically, that's how he'll die. Your uncle can't visit, even in an emergency. Anyone I haven't met can't visit in an urgency. If there's an emergency and your uncle needs to be there, you should call me and I'll come get my kid, because if your uncle fucks my kid, I'll kill everyone you know, and then I'll save you for life, and you'll be at the bottom of a hole, and you're hungry, and you'd be thirsty, and you bring to God, but God is not real, and I'm at the top of the hole, and I pour in water down the hall.