Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - What We Would (and Wouldn’t) Have Done Differently as Parents

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

In today’s episode we looked back on those early parenting years, the sweet, messy, exhausting days, and shared what we’d do differently and what we definitely wouldn’t change. From little routines to bigger decisions, we open up about the lessons we’ve learned and the moments we’d do exactly the same all over again. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts and stories too! Love you guys! Shawn & Andrew ▶ Head to https://www.shopbeam.com slash beam kids and get up to 40% off while supplies last! ▶ Check out https://www.CozyEarth.com and use code EASTFAM for up to 40% off! ▶ Visit https://www.OmahaSteaks.com for 50% off sitewide during their Red-Hot Sale Event. And for an extra $35 off, use promo code EASTFAM at checkout. ▶ Click https://www.BranchBasics.com to shop their Premium Starter Kit and use our code EASTFAM for 15% off. ▶ Stop wasting money on brand names and start saving with https://www.Dupe.com today! Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletterFollow our podcast Instagram ▶https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnsonFollow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnsonShop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnsonLike the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnsonFollow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEastAndrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. They were talking about things we would have done differently as parents in the early years. Wow. Some ways say that we are still in the early years of parenting. We are. Very much so. We have a almost six-year-old, just turned four, and a one-and-a-half-year-old. Yes. Three kids. It feels like we're veteran parents now.

You know? It does. And I also feel like I have no idea what I'm doing every single day. I agree. And that's what makes us veteran parents in some ways, you know? So today we're going to talk about some of the things we learned. I think what I came to a realization of is when we sent Drew off the kindergarten, it was the end of an era. And so by the early years, we mean the zero to five-year-old child years. Because now that Drew is almost six, it's a totally different.

different deal. She can feed herself. She can go to the bathroom, dress herself, put herself to bed. She's like conversational, aware. She takes instruction. And zero to five, it's way more manual intensive as far as prepping the food, doing the diapers, et cetera. And you're like physically guiding them as well, holding their hand, carrying them, whatever. And so what I wanted to do is go through and just talk about some of the things that we would have done differently that maybe we did too much of too little of etc but first we have a comment of the day sean this is from lydia b says thank you guys for being so real on here a lot of couples would be afraid to really hash things out in front of people but you two aren't and it's refreshing just i respect it

hashing it out yeah we are currently in an argument we tried filming a podcast and it didn't go well So this is our attempt number two. No, we are not in an argument anymore, Sean. Let's talk about this. We resolved the issue. Really? And are you just in the afterglow of the saltiness there? How much salt is still left in your cup, Andrew?

I don't have much salt, Sean. None. I let it go, baby, like Elsa. That way you threw your phone down. It dropped when I stood up to click record. Really? Oh, my God. where are you at what are you answer that question how much salt did the new software you chose to use

the usual amount of salt which is just self aberration you know i've got some salt okay so intro to the topic is that over the years and over having three kids we've learned a couple things about parenting i feel like it's rather funny to look back on how much our parenting has changed, how much we have changed since having through. In 2019, we were babies in, having a baby. Parenting is honestly so hard, and it never gets easier, which is encouraging

and also discouraging. It's like as soon as you start to feel like you got the hang of it, your kid matures a little bit and things just completely start over. Which is really interesting. Yeah. And nothing can truly prepare you for it, but you aren't in it alone. And so if you are in the early years, here are some words of advice and things that we have learned as we are nearing the next phase where we know absolutely nothing again.

So we need to lean on you guys to tell us that part. Hopefully this comes off as encouragement too. But can I start? I'm going on a script here. by telling a story about Greek mythology, a story from Greek mythology. That feels like it makes sense. Do you mind?

Go ahead, babe. There's the old tale of Sisyphus who has to push a boulder up the hill. And it never stops. The work never stops. He keeps pushing the boulder up the hill. And I was thinking the other day about, that's kind of the meaning of life you know i thought that people say year seven of marriage is a pivot

point you kind of really hit hit your stride and it gets easier people say oh you have two kids by the third one you hit your stride and you got to figure it out that was not our experience for seven years of marriage or our third kid it's like you keep pushing the boulder up the hill And what I think is the big mind shift that I've experienced is once you embrace that, of like, hey, this is hard. Parenting is hard. Marriage is hard. But that doesn't make it bad. That's the meaning of life.

You keep pushing the boulder up the hill. It just is always hard. Yeah. You've got to learn to enjoy it. I think there's something there. I mean, I would probably paint the picture. more sunshine and rainbows than that. No, I love it.

Don't give me wrong. I love the boulder that I got. I think pushing a boulder up a mountain hill looks like it's not fun and there aren't sunshine and rainbows. And I feel like my life feels very much so like sunshine and rainbows. So does mine.

With a boulder. Oh, boy. Did I paint a grim face? Does that come off grim? It comes up very grim. I don't feel it grim. I had this thought either day. Wow, this is a tangent.

You've talked about this before. Your brain doesn't draw illustrations. Correct? Yes or no? Yeah. Like, do you see an actual Greek mythological character pushing a boulder up a hill? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but when I speak, I'm not.

like speaking from a picture normally. You know what I'm saying? Or when I hear. Isn't that what it is? How do you digest words? Like when you're reading a book, is it a movie playing in your head? Or is it just words?

Yeah. I feel like I, that's actually how I best retain information is if I visualize it. Okay. And then I, yeah. My brain is like a constant cinematic movie. Every interaction,

everything we're going to talk about I will go back to an exact period of time and it's like it gets to press play or like the Greek mythological character is like I can picture it in my brain my brain painted that picture very dark, rainy, cloudy, gray interesting, that's insightful

because for me it was literally a green pasture, green hill, yoked guy, wow, big boulder. No, mine was gray scale. Not good. Fascinating. Interesting.

We digress. Anyway, the first thing that we have learned from our early years of parenting is to worry less about doing everything the right way. There's a lot of takeaways from this. Let's start by saying, before we had Drew, neither of us had ever changed a diaper. Mm-hmm. We had not nannied baby sat. We had not been around a lot of babies. I knew nothing about how to take care of a baby.

So everything we did, we were learning from zero. And we were so worried about everything. I was worried about... And I was worried, I think, because I was like, if I don't do this right, I'm going to mess her up for life. And I feel like we've learned... kind of like it all kind of averages out

you're going to make some big mistakes you're going to do things the wrong way but for the most part if you're like trying to give your child the best is going to average out okay one as far as your motherhood goes I feel like so much of it was so beautifully intuitive to you yeah

that like never wants it I think she doesn't know what she's doing as a mom you know, I never even hit my radar. But I also think we were trying to optimize, like we were stressed about we have to feed them this food because it leads to the highest IQ. We have to give them this close because it has the least amount of suffocation or whatever, you know what I'm saying? Which is all good, they're all good factors to think about.

But what I think we realized is it's not about, it's kind of a futile game to play to optimize for what you're trying to force your kid to become into, the IQ thing specifically, right? But what we've realized is that there's a lot of good ways to raise children. There's a lot of good ways. What way works for you and your child in the early years, you know? I will say I spent a lot of time reading books, talking to experts, talking to pediatricians, everything.

and I will say a piece of advice in this area where it's like the worry is kind of like there's so many different ways to skin the cat as people would say and I did so much research and put so much effort in time into figuring out what felt right to me for our family

of how to raise our kids and I did that by not only doing all this research and stuff, but surrounding myself with a team, you know, a pediatrician, mentors, whatever it was, that I could lean on in times where I felt out of my depth. And I feel like I would still recommend that. I would still recommend doing the research and figuring out how you want to raise your kid. But once you get your team in place, you got to just kind of take a breather and be like, if I need someone, they're there and I can ask for their advice,

but you can't just constantly be living in the state of like, should I go to the other way? Should I try? Like, yeah. Like you kind of got to just choose a path. Yeah. That makes sense? That's good, yeah.

I feel like now we do have a little better footing and more confidence and handling different situations. We trust the people that we've deputized, if you will, and we trust our instincts more. and uh and also you start to see who your child has been made to be and you're not concerned about forcing them into this or that the other you know what I'm saying it's like okay well they are allergic to this okay or all right well they just didn't want to they don't like the color they like to throw dirt over everything okay let's go outside and throw dirt you know what I'm saying

um as opposed to like we have to have 30 minutes of educational time you know the optimization it's just like chill i will say there are so many different categories with a baby that you should quote unquote should be working on there's like the psychological educational uh sleep food outside time physical, I mean, if you were to follow every book to a T, you would spend every waking second of your day investing intentional time to, like, optimize your child's future. Does that make sense? Yeah, which I think it's kind of, on the one hand, good to be intentional, but on the bad, on the other hand, it's like, you don't want to make it about you. Well, and you can get so overly obsessed with like I got to check the box I got to do you know it says to do 30 minutes of

showing an infant black and white cards and then we have to work on our letters and then our numbers and we have to go work on motor skills and we should work on you know how they're eating and they're fine motor skills and should they they need to be sleeping so many hours a day and waking and like it can drive a person crazy to where it takes a lot of the joy out of just just raising a baby and enjoying a baby and not feeling like every single second of the day has to be like a teacher. Yeah.

Honestly, one of the hardest things about being a parent is trying to get our kids to eat healthier. We have tried so many supplements, but either they're missing something or the kids just can't stand the taste. Which is why Beam Kids has been such a win for us. I can't believe it's already been almost six months, babe, since we launched it, and it's still our favorite project to date.

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That's CozyEarth.com Code EastFam for up to 40% off. And if you get a post-purched survey, let them know that you heard about cozy earth from a couple things right here. But we do enjoy understanding and learning about all those guidelines, but I think viewing them as guidelines and not like necessities is good. Like, oh, hey, maybe we should buy the cards. And then when I'm present with my child in the playroom, oh, there they are. Let's do those. Yeah. It's not like a, all right, it's 10 o'clock.

Let's go. Do the cards. It's more of an overflow. number two sleep when the baby sleeps this is a classic i feel like his first time parents uh actually we did not do this no i feel like we spent every waking moment uh when drew was napping we were like i feel like trying to just catch up on some things you know but uh maybe we should have rested more what's your take on this i feel like i would just categorize this one as like sleep in general.

Which we've changed a lot on. We've changed so much on. With Drew, we were obsessive about sleep, making sure she was on a sleep schedule. We did like a modified sleep training system where we got her to sleep through the night beautifully well and with ease, but like we were so strict that we would give up any social engagement to make sure she was home in her crib with the lights off in the sound machine and the, you know, I, we didn't like nap together, not co-sleep, but like I didn't let her nap on me really at all because I was worried about her having a rejection to the crib or whatever it was.

We were so obsessed. Yeah. And I will say she is by far the best sleeper in our house. But But it took away some of like the joy of infancy. Yeah, so maybe we should retitle this part as embrace a new era or understanding of sleep. Where like I think with a newborn, things do get weird with sleep. Because like you're just with our first kid, I remember driving down the road and literally shaking. Yeah. because we're so sleep deprived. Your mind feels foggy.

You need to be aware of sleep. But now, sleep in some ways means less, or it's less of like a priority. I think that took us a while to get there, though. 100%. Because even with Drew, we still were like,

we're going to get our sleep. Yeah, we were kind of pretentious about it. Yeah. But now it's like you realize, man, you only get, it's crazy. And it's so hard for, people with young babies to like believe this but you only get a short window of cuddles like the midnight baby cuddles where they're just cooing and they're resting against you and they're breathing

and it's so easy to get frustrated and in the middle of the night I can't believe they're crying again but then that phase goes away you don't get it back and so now that I think that's a benefit to having multiple kids you're like oh we should not be stressed out about this or not be upset it's like let's just embrace this because it ends so i will say so with our second we were it was wildly different whereas with drew since we were learning everything we were still so pretentious about sleep i remember resenting having to get up in the middle of the night multiple times and like doing all of that, you know, the baby sleep stuff. But then Jack came around and I was in love with it.

We would fight over who, you know, got the baby that night and got to go have the cuddles and be sleep deprived. Yeah. And so I know it's all for a purpose and like I don't, you know, want to take back anything because we've learned how to be better parents with every child. But I wish I could go back and cuddle drew more. I feel like we have reprioritized our life. Mm-hmm.

And also we've changed our daily schedule. So we go to bed early now because usually the kids will sleep well for the first half of the night and maybe in the middle of the night to wake up. So if you go to bed late, then you maybe don't even get any solid windows of sleep. Anyway, so we've changed a lot, but we've definitely changed our perspective on sleep and what the nighttime looks like. Number three. Not buying so much stuff.

It is funny. We've gotten less and less stuff with each kid. And I think it's funny where with your first baby, you can go on all of the baby registry apps, and it says you need all this stuff. And I have continually told friends, because I think we had babies. We are the first to have babies with our friend group.

I have told friends that you're going to have a baby and you're going to get home and your baby is either going to be a spit-up baby or not spit-up baby. Yeah. And you're going to be like, oh, I have a spit-up baby. I need some more burp claws. And so you can get more burp claws then. Yeah.

You can maybe buy one or even use like a washcloth the first night when you start figuring out you have a spit-up baby. But all these baby registries will tell you you need all of this stuff, and you don't use it. Use some things a lot, but every baby is going to be different. So it's like... So those things will be different from baby to baby. Yeah. Yeah.

And you just don't need as much as you think. We try to like so over-prepare in all of these areas and then ends up being completely wrong for that child. Get a crib mattress, you know. This also goes back to the optimization. where it's like, oh, you should use this bottle because it's better for their palate. No, that baby's going to choose what bottle they are. Yeah, 100%.

And it's like, yeah, we've got more, we used to stress out about, oh, shoot, if they take this bottle, this is the one they like, but if they take it, then this bad thing's going to happen to them or whatever. It's like, all right, chill. Also, like, passies, they're going to choose which one they want. Yeah. Like, it all just comes over time,

and you're going to figure out what diapers you like the best. and it's just like a don't stress over it it takes time to kind of like figure that out but I might edit this title too because I kind of like trying all the gadgets and stuff I really enjoy that you know what I'm saying like it's actually fun to test this thriller versus that one this carry versus I mean that's what we talk a lot about when we talk about products on Instagram it's because genuinely we love to test and experiment and curate and review these different things so if you're into that go for it, but don't feel stressed that, like, you have to buy this whole portfolio of things.

And you're going to find the stuff that works for you. But it takes, that takes time too. Yeah. But I also, yeah. And I love having an eclectic toy room that's full of all the different things. And then they'll, now they're tearing through the whole thing and they're playing hot wheels with the big GI Joe. And it's just fun to, to a certain extent, it is fun to buy the stuff.

Yeah. It is fun, but it's also not necessary. Correct. Yeah. You shouldn't stress out about it. Next one. Ask for and accept help. I will say we were pretty stubborn about this for a while for the first, for Drew in a little bit with Jet.

And then by the third, we were just embracing it. But like, we were very anti-meal train with Drew. We didn't do any type of meal train. And we didn't have people come over. And we wanted, like, our space and our time. And we wanted to do things exactly the way that we planned it. whatever but babies are best done it sounds weird to say in communities and like people want to help you and people want to help people who have new babies or babies in general and if you

ask people will help and you need to like accept it let someone come over and do all your laundry your best friend or your neighbor like yes it might be strange to have that person there but Like, they genuinely want to help you. And the more you can have people help, the better. To buy our third, I was all for the meal trains. Those meal trains were amazing. Not having to stress about ordering groceries and finding, like, making food. And, like, that is a gift that people want to give you.

There's that saying, it takes a village to raise kids, right? And I think our understanding of that saying has shifted away from... oh my gosh, raising kids is so overwhelming and more towards it's a blessing to the village to raise kids. And so it's not a burden to ask them. I actually think it was Benjamin Franklin who like would intentionally employ this strategy of asking favors from other people because it's an endearing way to build a relationship. And if you help me out, now you're invested. And then also I get to help you out in some future tense or I'm more compelled to. I just I think we we used to feel guilty about that but now we realize it's more of a gift and I even think one conversation I know is tense throughout many of my friend's relationships including ours is like um the first time having a babysitter yeah remember I mean it took weeks of us having slow burn conversations of like all right are we gonna

trust this person or what's that look like and it was harder for you to let go of that but I think understanding that when you welcome other help it leaves room for yeah we got to pick back up on building our marriage or we got to pick back up on building our friendships or you know in different ways it's like help looks different and it's important to include a couple examples I have so something I hear a lot amongst all of my friend groups now when people have babies, I can name five or six different friends who sincerely will offer to a new mother.

If you want me to come stay overnight and help in the middle of the night, I would love to. Because they love those baby cuddles. Because they love them. And new moms will be like, oh, no, no, I could never. Yeah.

Because new moms, there is this thing. As soon as you have a baby, you start thinking that everything is a burden. and it feels like a burden at first because you're so overwhelmed and everything's new. But if someone is offering something like that, people don't offer things just to offer things. But if they offer it, take them up on it. It's, they would love to. They're going to care.

It's going to help. And then the other one, just as an example, is like, I was at an event, I tried not to get too many details in here so we can't pinpoint who it is. But I was at an event. My mom and dad were there. I was there. A friend came who had a newborn. And she's got a lot of kids. And I just remember my mom, like, extending her arms to her, almost like, I hold her.

And she happily passed to this infant over and didn't come back for the infant for a couple hours, like, the whole event. And my mom, I remember my mom telling me, she's like, I was kind of. a shock. And I was like, that means she really needed it. And like, if you can do those small little things, you get to hold an infant for two hours. You're giving that mother the greatest gift because she probably needed a break way more than we knew. Yeah. And my mom was obviously in heaven, but she was like, I can't believe she would trust. Like, she doesn't know me. And I was like, she saw something in you where she was like, I need this break. Yeah. So the more you can do that and the more you can ask or just hand over a baby or say, like, I really need help with my laundry.

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Stop wasting money on brand names and start saving with dupe.com today. Extend more grace to ourselves and to our spouse. Like when you're in the trenches of parenting, it's easy to lose sight of yourself, which is hard. I feel like I wish I would have given myself more grace and acknowledge that, well, it's just like there's a lot going on, you know, and you can and will drop the ball in many ways. you will underperform and household chores,

you will feel certain types of way that maybe you feel guilty about feeling, you know? And it's, we again have shifted our perspective less towards like, oh my gosh, I feel this way, and now I'm guilty about that. We've gotten better at shifting more towards, like, what a wonderful phase to love each other despite or because of each other's flaws or weaknesses or when they drop the ball.

It's like it's a great canvas to say, I love you unconditionally, you know? That takes grace, but we've gotten better at it, you know? You also learn very quickly that you are two very different people raising a baby who probably have different styles and you just got to have more grace because parenting brings out the deep deep style differences you know deep style differences i heard some a friend of ours say this the other day i was asking how it was going because they have a they have a young baby under the age of one and she said we've just learned that we say literally zero words to each other in the middle of the night and that's for the best and i was like

Like, you learned that a lot faster than Andrew and I did. Yeah. But you just have to, you have to figure out the new rhythms. And when each other gets stressed and just be like, you know what? It's okay. Yeah. It's going to be okay. Go with the six.

Go with the flow more. Hmm. We were, we kind of talked about this already. We were so incredibly strict and regimented with Drew, with our. first of sleep schedules, schedule for the day, who she could play with, who she couldn't play with, what she could eat, what she couldn't eat, what she, what toys, what, all of it. And just like, take a deep breath. We're now way more flexible. It's better for babies to have a little bit more flexibility and to be moldable, not so rigid. And it gives you more freedom

to just be a human. There's a certain agility, like mental agility that I think we've built where we're able to pivot. Like, I think we start off wanting things to look a certain way to make the best of a situation.

And then so many times they don't go that way and we've gotten better at still making it the best situation possible. So it's just like, going with the flow. Bruce Lee said, be like water, my friend,

where you just move and settle into whatever new container you have or Winnie the Pooh, you know, live like Winnie the Pooh. Where it's just like you're, you're just along for the ride. Happy, go lucky, content, and in whatever situation.

I will say if it's specific to us, we used to be very, very regimented. We would never miss a nap. We would never miss a nap. We would be right on time with every sleep schedule known to mankind, we wouldn't miss it by a minute. Now, we are still very structured.

We still follow sleep schedules and routines, but we're fine missing a nap every once in a while. We still will nap on a plane, we'll nap on a car, we'll nap on the go. We'll be two hours late to bedtime if we really need to want to go do a fun activity. We have that flexibility to enjoy life a little more. to get frustrated, I think, between each other and also with ourselves. And that's another thing

we've gotten better at is, like, communicating through that where it's like, hey, there's a state fair thing. It's going to be 10 to 5. Are you okay if bear misses that? Yeah. And it used to be like a contentious conversation in some degree where it's like, we can't, I can't believe you wouldn't ask that. We have nap, obviously. You know what I'm saying? It's like, now it's like, oh, well, I don't know. We've just flowed through that conversation more. So I do think flexibility is superpower. And so is communicating.

Number seven, the seventh thing we've learned. Is to invest more in our marriage when you're in the thick of it. I don't think anything prepares your marriage for bringing in a child into the world. Nothing. Also, it's the least talked about thing when it comes to a kid. Nobody tells you about it. Nobody tells you that your marriage is going to change. Right.

And it's easy to go into survival mode as a couple. And I'm so grateful that early on, even before we actually had Drew, we started the habit of prioritizing each other with the Thursday night date nights that are now Wednesday night date nights, six years into it. But, yeah, when I say nothing prepares your memory. marriage that can sound intimidating, I think. But it's like, it is such a amazing, I don't want to call it a test. It's like a, it's an amazing opportunity to grow closer together. I think, I hope you would say the same thing. Having kids has brought us closer together as opposed to pull us apart or like injected a ton of resentment in a relationship. It's like, no, there have been little

moments of frustration and annoyance and maybe resentment, but there has been a, maybe in response to those little moments, a vast flood and wave of grace and forgiveness and love, which then is met with gratitude that then creates this beautiful, like, oh, wow, I am so grateful to be your teammate. And you don't really get that in a marriage without the unique situations that parenting presents. Nothing prepares you for sharing your best friend with another human for the rest of your life. And though it's the most beautiful thing in the world to watch your spouse become a parent, you also are sacrificing a lot of like your soul to be shared with another person. You know, And I think if you can just plan ahead of time how to preserve that and protect that, it's really great.

So date night, we planned. We also, this was more reactive, but the counseling and therapy we have invested in, we spent a lot of time and money on counseling. Yeah. And it paid massive dividend. It did. And I'm just grateful that we have continuously made each other priority because there are really so many different moment to moment things that like if you don't have a established cadence can go by the wayside and then maybe it turns into resentment. And it's like, okay, no, let's set up weekly, daily routines to make sure we're able to air these out and move past them and understand each other better because of them. So I'm grateful for that.

Next up, stop comparing yourself to anyone. It's toxic. Mm-hmm, mm-mm, I feel this one. Especially as a new mom. You're on social media. Social media is going to show you every mom out there whose life looks so easy and so perfect. And like it was painted by an artist. They're cutting shapes out of, you know, their sandwiches and homemaking their baby food

and you know homesteading at the same time and just don't do it just don't look at it and don't compare it because you are doing your best for your child and that is reality and that is all you can do and nobody's life is perfect they just paint a picture that it is it steals the joy yeah it takes you out of the moment um also everyone's going to tell you how best to parent your own child and that is a dangerous lane a dangerous dangerous dangerous voices to let in your head I was thinking about this in a recent conversation

about what rubric are you putting together to like build your joy and I think if you're letting other people decide what goes on your your rubric like oh is my kid the earliest to walk or are they the best drawer are they the smartest are they saying the best words are they speaking the best are they the tallest are they

what all the things are they eating good are they sleeping through the night first or as early as my friend said there's the if you like that can all build the rubric of do i am i good parent am i successful parent am i doing this right am i able to brag about this and it's like no don't do that stay in your own lane there are an equal amount of things to say, wow, we're falling short in these areas, as there are, wow, we're excelling and so beautifully unique and different in these areas. And so it's just like shift your focus away from the comparison of like, Frick, this isn't happened yet or we're behind on this and more towards, wait a minute. What a beautiful thing we have here, you know? So stay in your own lane. we know how to parent best your own kids so be present stop comparing last two they can be quick ones get comfortable saying no even when it's hard life is going to look different with kids and get comfortable saying no to visitors to advice to pressure to scheduling to whatever it is

you've got the best excuse in the world, which is a kid. Yeah. Just protect your time and protect your sanity and protect your space and protect your kid and just get comfortable being like, nah, not today. We needed to say no to a lot of things so that we could resolve conversations. Like, hey, we need to have this. This is a thing that we're disagreeing on or not seeing on the same page. We're about to have a three-hour conversation.

Okay, I've got to say no to this other thing, you know? So there's a lot of those little things because it is an emotional time and your whole identity is shifting. There's just a lot that's going on. So anyway, boundaries are essential, and I feel like it was hard for us to navigate around those. But I feel like now we can say confidently that our boundaries have been so healthy for our family.

And those have been established through, counseling, through experts, through friends, through us acknowledging and seeing in our family what we need. And it's just a normal rhythm now. It doesn't even feel like a, oh, remember that boundary. Like it's just a, how do you feel about me going to hang with the girls tomorrow at this time and it's like, great. Or you know what, we've got too much going on with the kids.

Do you think we could do that a different day? like it's it's so natural that we trust our answers now yeah and two weeks ago we had to have a sit down kind of reorienting around the schedule because it was natural for us to want the amazing connection time with our kids in the morning and we weren't getting that so we had to change of schedule and so like you'll start to get better at identifying things knowing how to pivot them and that was a 45 minute conversation that we had that was like so obvious, yet needed a slight tweak in certain things. So anyway, and we're not perfect in this,

but we're figuring it out better and better as each day goes on. Our life can be pretty hectic between having three little ones, work, travel, speaking engagements, spending time with friends and family, you name it. On days where I feel like I can't keep up, I'm so grateful for Pachava. It is a whole body meal shake that keeps your body in mind nourished all day long. and they just launched a new strawberry flavor

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I like those. I know. You look good in them. They're the best. And the last one, kind of what we've been preaching this whole time, is like, trust that it's just a season and it will pass. And you'll be sad when it passes. Because having itty-bitty ones in the early years is so hard. But it's so amazing.

And you never get it back. Yeah, the season of sleepless nights, colic. lip and tongue ties, tantrum, feeding struggles, that's a season. But also, it's a season of your kid not knowing how to walk yet or not knowing how to talk yet and them just cooing and them being fun in the bath and splashing around and them staring at you in the eye, like the cuddles, that's all the season too. So the good and the bad is a season, I think the answer or the antidote to that should be in it, embrace it and pray your way through honestly but i wish i knew how temporary the good and the bad days

were you know but uh yeah what a time it is parenting i can't believe we're about out of this season i have to have another kid there's anything you would have done differently anything else you would have done differently i think that's a hard part of the whole episode is like if i sit here and think about it, there's so many things I want to say, well, I wish I could have done that different or better for them. But to have any regrets with how we've raised them and validates how much we've learned and how much better we've become as parents and how much more grateful and appreciative we've become, so part of me says, no, I wouldn't have done it different because now I

wouldn't appreciate it as much. It was all easy in sunshine and rainbows from the beginning. It's just like you don't, you don't grow. I just think of that movie Click. Yeah. It hits so hard where you're like, you don't want to fast forward through this. Yeah. This is the best days of your life.

Anyway, thank you for listening. I would love to hear what parenting lessons you've learned in the early days of having children if you're in that season of life. But also let us know if there's any other topics you want to to cover things that you're curious about how we do or else. And thank you for listening. If you made it this far and you haven't, please subscribe to the show and whatever platform you're listening on.

And we'll see you next time. I'm Andrew. I'm Sean. Out.