The HoneyDew with Ryan Sickler - 337: Aaron Weber and the 48 First Cousins

Episode Date: June 2, 2025

My HoneyDew this week is comedian Aaron Weber! Check out Aaron’s comedy special Signature Dish on his YouTube, and you can catch him on The Nateland Podcast! Aaron joins me this week to Highlight th...e Lowlights of recently becoming a father, complications he and his wife experienced with the baby post-birth, and having to spend almost a month in the NICU. Audio today, video toozdee! BALTIMORE! I’m coming home! Catch me at the Horseshoe Casino on Saturday, June 28—one night only with special guest Justin Schlegel! Grab your tickets now! http://tixr.com/pr/ryan-sickler/142608 SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE and watch full episodes of The Dew every toozdee! https://youtube.com/@rsickler SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON - The HoneyDew with Y’all, where I Highlight the Lowlights with Y’all! Get audio and video of The HoneyDew a day early, ad-free at no additional cost! It’s only $5/month! AND we just added a second tier. For a total of $8/month, you get everything from the first tier, PLUS The Wayback a day early, ad-free AND censor free AND extra bonus content you won't see anywhere else! https://www.patreon.com/TheHoneyDew What’s your story?? Submit at honeydewpodcast@gmail.com Get Your HoneyDew Gear Today! https://shop.ryansickler.com/ Ringtones Are Available Now! https://www.apple.com/itunes/ http://ryansickler.com/ https://thehoneydewpodcast.com/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE CRABFEAST PODCAST https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-crabfeast-with-ryan-sickler-and-jay-larson/id1452403187 SPONSORS: Hims -Start your free online visit today at https://www.Hims.com/HONEYDEW

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Baltimore, I'm coming home. We're going to wrap the live and a live tour up Saturday, June 28th at the Horseshoe Casino. It's going to be a great night. I got Justin Schlegel from 98 Rock going to be out there with me. We're going to have some surprises. It's going to be a really big deal. Get your tickets now at RyanSickler.com.
Starting point is 00:00:25 What's up guys? Thank you for supporting the Patreon. We promised you guys some bonus content. We wanted to get you involved on the new tier. And after the Chelsea Lynn haircut thing, we were laughing so damn hard. Oh God! Okay.
Starting point is 00:00:41 Hold on, that's you? Where the fuck did you get this? This is my Chris Farley era. Ah! First, when I started talking about it, we were like, why don't we ask people to send in their worst haircuts? And I'm not gonna leave you alone, all right?
Starting point is 00:00:54 I got two up for you. How about this one? And this one. There you go. Those are mine. We'll clown them on the show, but submit your bad haircuts or your worst haircuts to the waybackpod at gmail.com. That's the waybackpod at gmail.com.
Starting point is 00:01:15 Send your name and any information you have. What year it's from, where you're from at the time, whatever. We'll show the pictures. We'll have fun making fun of all our worst haircuts. The Honeydew with Ryan Sickler. Welcome back to the honeydew, y'all. We're over here doing it in the Nightpan Studios. I'm Ryan Sickler, RyanSickler.com and Ryan Sickler on all your social media.
Starting point is 00:01:53 Thank you guys for supporting this show. Thank you for supporting anything I do. Make sure you're watching the way back as well. We've got two great shows for free right here on this channel. Check them all out, support everything. All right. That's the biz. You guys know what we're doing here. We're highlighting the low lights. I always say that these are the stories behind the storytellers. I'm very excited to have this guest on with me today here.
Starting point is 00:02:16 First time on the honeydew ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Weber. Welcome to the honeydew area. Excited to be here, man. This is where I throw some stuff out there. I plug some stuff right here. Didn't you say right away? You did. I was afraid to just go right into it and you'd be like, what are you doing?
Starting point is 00:02:31 So I just got to, I'll lead you to it. I promise. I won't, my bad. I'm ready. Could you imagine if I was like, everyone would be like, follow me on social media, but I was about to do. I'm glad I asked. Well, it's nice to, I've never met you before.
Starting point is 00:02:45 It's nice to meet you. Turns out I do know your wife. It's Anees. I had no idea you two, the two and two, because we were talking about what we're going to talk about. And now I actually know the lady who were, yeah. You got some context for it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:00 So it was nice to say hello to her. What's up, Lucy? Can I say to her before the show? She doesn't watch anything I'm on. Oh, I'm on. Oh. I'm kidding. She'll watch this. Well, before we get into your story.
Starting point is 00:03:10 Yeah, right there, brother. Plug it all. AaronWeberComedy.com is my MySpace page. I got all my tour dates on there. You can check that out. I'm going all over the country in 2025. I'm gonna be going to a lot of clubs I've never been to and pretty exciting at Real Aaron Weber on everything.
Starting point is 00:03:24 You can hear me every week on the Nate Land podcast and I have a special out now on YouTube called Signature Dish. 30 minutes, half hour. Just go put it on while you do the dishes. That's it. All right. I kind of trailed off there. You did good.
Starting point is 00:03:39 I had a good energy up top and then it faded out quick. You're also trying to remember everything too. Like a lot of people are going through that Rolodex and you have a different tone when you're thinking and talking and then just spitting it out. You did good, bro. Thanks, dude. Appreciate it. Let's get into, first of all, your background.
Starting point is 00:03:59 Where are you from originally? Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery. You're from the real South. From the real South. Yeah. Here's the thing. You don't have the deep southern accent. Okay. To my ear, you don't. Depending on- Also, people tell me I sound like I'm from the south all the time. I'm like, because you've never met someone or spoken to someone from the south. You do have a little bit
Starting point is 00:04:18 of- I have a drawl. I remember years ago listening to you going, I got to find out where he's at, because it might be something. You don't sound like you're from New York or LA is what I'm saying. No, I'm from Maryland. And that's a good thing, I think. Yeah. Well, depending on where I am, people will go, you have thick accent. And then like in Nashville or Montgomery, I don't at all. At all. Cause neither of my parents do.
Starting point is 00:04:39 I think that's where you pick it up from. Where are they from originally? My dad's from Mobile, Alabama, and my mom grew up in Montgomery. So they're both, I mean, deep south Alabama. Yeah, Alabamans. All right. About as Alabama as you can get, I think. And then I moved to Nashville when I was in high school,
Starting point is 00:04:56 and I've just stuck around since. So my whole family's gone, they've all spread out now, but I'm still in Nashville. How many siblings? I got an older brother and an older sister and then a younger brother. So I'm the middle of four for a big Catholic family. I think I have... Are we just looking at this?
Starting point is 00:05:13 I think I have like 48 first cousins, which I think is pretty high. How many... Well, then you also gotta have at least a... I mean, unless one aunt or uncle went ham over there. You gotta have a good set of siblings. Yeah. My mom's one of seven. My dad's one of five.
Starting point is 00:05:30 And they've all got kids. Wow. Yeah. Are you all close? Was everyone down that area when you grew up? They were all pretty close. And then as we've gotten older, we've all spread out a little bit. Even my siblings are all across the country now.
Starting point is 00:05:45 They're in Tucson, Arizona, Columbus, Ohio, and Dallas, Texas. But your parents, are they still together? Parents, parents are still together. And they're still in Alabama? They're in Dallas now. They've been moving around. They're about to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. Wow, good for them. Forever, man. But yeah, 48 first cousins. I was just thinking, I didn't even register
Starting point is 00:06:04 to me that that's like a high number. That's one almost one estate, bro. You got the continental U S covered, dude. You got the continental U S covered, bro. That's crazy. Yeah. Cause we were doing, when we were doing like the guest list for our wedding, it was like my wife, I think, I don't know, when we were doing like the guest list for our wedding. Holy shit. It was like my wife, I think, I don't know, like maybe 10 first cousins, and then I counted
Starting point is 00:06:30 out almost 50. She's like, what is going on, dude? So what do you do in that situation? Do you have to invite everyone or you have to tell everyone, look, man, you all have to, you'll get there one day and you'll understand. Yeah. Yeah. These is budgetary things are going on here. Uh one day and you'll understand. Yeah. These is budgetary. Things are going on here.
Starting point is 00:06:47 Yeah. Zoom in. You can zoom in. I think a lot of people did zoom in. Cause that was 2021 people were still zooming in. You can do that now though. Yeah. I'll zoom in.
Starting point is 00:06:57 Fuck that. Yeah. I'm no more. I'm done with your, um, exotic wedding and shit. I'm zooming, bro. I zoomed a doctor yesterday. Did you? Yeah, I broke my toe this week. Telehealth? Telehealth. I'd never done that. It's just a guy just talking to me. And what did he, how the hell is he talking? See, these are the things like I can get if you're
Starting point is 00:07:17 saying like I'm congested or whatever, but if they need to put hands on you. Well, I needed somebody to go, you need to go get hands put on you. Cause I would have felt dumb if I don't know, I got like an infection and I died because I didn't have a doctor look at it. So I'm literally with my laptop, like holding my foot up to the camera, some old man, he goes, yeah, it looks fine, man. You're like such a dude. He goes, yeah, old man, that's what an old doctor would say. He goes, yeah, it's gonna be, there's nothing you can do. Just deal with it.
Starting point is 00:07:48 Yeah. I was like, all right, thanks man. That's all I needed to hear. Could be in a pussy. All right, next. Exactly. Yep, I sit next. The old dude. Okay, so you mentioned you split high school to Nashville? Yeah, between my sophomore and junior year of high school. My dad is a high school principal. That's been his job my whole life. Real quick, what did mom do? She was a teacher. Okay. Is that how they met? Yes. That sounds like it. So, my dad got his master's degree and he was going to go get his doctorate. And somebody recommended, somebody recommended, go teach at a high school for a year or two and then go back and get your doctorate. He took a job at a Catholic high school in Montgomery, Alabama because it was close to where his parents lived and my mom was a teacher
Starting point is 00:08:37 there. They met and they got engaged within two months and then got married and he stuck around for almost 30 years after that. At that school? At that same school. Yeah, never went back and got his doctorate. Oh, good answer. No, he met my mom and he was like, all right, I guess this is what I'm supposed to do.
Starting point is 00:08:56 So he got a job at a different high school up in Nashville. I did not want to move. Nobody wants to move in the middle of high school. Okay, so the whole family's going. The whole family. Okay, I didn't realize that. Yeah, my bad. Yeah middle of high school. Okay, so the whole family's going. The whole family. Okay, I didn't realize that. Yeah, my bad.
Starting point is 00:09:07 Yeah, it was like, yeah, that was when I was 16. So you're just doing whatever your parents are telling you to do. So moved up there, did the last two years of high school in Nashville, and then I'm still there and everybody's gone. It's so funny, I put up such a fuss about moving, and now I'm the only one still there.
Starting point is 00:09:25 And they're all over the place. They're all over the place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Yeah. So, and now recently, what, six months, eight months ago, you've become a dad? Almost six months. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:37 Six months ago. Congratulations. Yeah, it is crazy. Thanks, dude. Appreciate it, man. It's crazy bringing a person into this world. It's so funny. All the things you hear before you have kids that sound so cliche and lame, they all make
Starting point is 00:09:49 sense. I remember hearing the days are long, but the years are short. And then it's like even just saying six months now, it's like, it's crazy. It's been almost half a year. I thought it was 10, and I'm telling you. You know. That's the other thing I hear a lot. If you really want to appreciate the passing of time, have a year. My daughter's 10 and I'm telling you, you know. That's the other thing I hear a lot. If you really want to appreciate the passing of time, have a child. And you're like, yeah,
Starting point is 00:10:10 shit, it's 10 years already. I was just sitting next to her in the car the other day. I let her sit in the driver's seat and I sat in the passenger seat and I looked over and I was like, this is going to be happening for real in 10 seconds. And I just play around. I'm like, for real in 10 seconds and I just play around. I'm like, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah with the birth and everything. Yeah, so it's interesting, watch it. The special that I just put out, there was so much going on at the moment I recorded that, that it's kind of fun to watch. So what happened was the morning we were recording
Starting point is 00:10:58 my special, which we taped at Zany's in Nashville, we had a routine ultrasound at our OB-GYN. I think that's what it, OB-GYN, yeah, the doctor. And baby wasn't moving in the ultrasound. And how far along are you at this? We're supposed to have about another month. So you're way into the pregnancy. Yeah, we're way, yeah, eight months.
Starting point is 00:11:22 And the baby had been measuring small the whole time. She was in like the one or two percentile and everything. We're like, it's just going to be a small baby. When she gets out, she'll start growing. We'll catch her up, right? But we went in for that routine ultrasound. And they couldn't find the baby with a heartbeat monitor or a movement detector.
Starting point is 00:11:44 So then we did an ultrasound, and the baby's's just still and they're trying to get it to move and it's just not moving. So I was like, oh man. Are you in the room for this? I'm in the room with my wife, yeah. Do you sense a little bit of panic from them or are they speaking out loud? Are they saying this so you know what's going on? She did a good job.
Starting point is 00:12:05 I wish I remembered her name because she was so great our whole pregnancy, but she did a really good job narrating it in a way that we weren't really panicking. She was like, we're just trying to get her to move. We were playing music on her stomach, couldn't get her to move. Our doctor comes in and goes, listen, we can't detect movement on this. We're going to have to deliver the baby right now. We're going to have to go to Vanderbilt Hospital downtown. We're going to go deliver the baby. Because their fear is… The fear is they thought maybe the placenta was no longer working. The baby is not growing and it's not moving. So, they're like… And
Starting point is 00:12:40 they don't sense a heartbeat? They can detect the heartbeat, but the baby's not moving, it's not moving at all. So I'm sorry, I should have made that clear. She's alive, but just not. I was worried that they were thinking she might not be, and maybe that's why they gotta get her out. Well, I was thinking all that stuff. Oh man, that's all I'd be thinking. I'm already thinking, it's not even my situation.
Starting point is 00:13:00 I'm already there, like, what's going on? So it's Brits, I remember going very selfishly, I'm like, all right, we're delivering the baby. I'm like, I'm recording there like what's going on? So it's Bruce I remember going very selfishly I'm like all right we're delivering the baby I'm like I'm recording a special tonight so I gotta I gotta figure out what to do with that right but I go let's go let's go make sure this is happening before before I cancel everything because this is like eight or nine in the morning so we head down to Vanderbilt and they came in with this device that like sends acoustic waves through the stomach and that woke the baby up and the baby's moving. So we're like, okay.
Starting point is 00:13:35 But now I got my wife's. They have, isn't it crazy that they have that? I know. Like what a crazy device somebody invented. How did anyone survive in the wagon wheel days? I know, exactly. How? Exactly.
Starting point is 00:13:45 I thought about that a lot through this whole process. Right. Me too. When we had our baby, I'm like, how did they ever do this? They didn't. I think a lot of them just died. Or they're dying at like 22 and shit. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:13:57 That's old age. That's an old man at 22. So, my wife's at the hospital and I left my wife at the hospital to go record the special. You did. That day. So Was she okay with it? She was, yeah, she was, here's what happened. She was bummed
Starting point is 00:14:15 because she was excited to be there. She ended up getting discharged between the two shows. And she surprised me at the club. She came right from the hospital. Yeah, so it was just so much going on, but I watched the special and there's like a section of it where I talk a little bit about the baby that's coming. What you don't know is I'm on stage thinking like, I could be having this baby today.
Starting point is 00:14:40 Like I have no idea. This could happen right now. While I'm on stage, I could be having the baby. It looks almost like a different person telling all those stories, but that's why all that was happening. Anyway, it all ended up being good that that happened because of that- I'm sorry, can I just ask you a question? Yeah, go ahead.
Starting point is 00:15:00 What was it? Did they tell you why the baby wasn't moving? My wife had pretty crazy pregnancy towards the end. She had two things going on. She had gestational diabetes, which means she couldn't eat anything she wanted to eat the whole pregnancy. And she had something called polyhydramios. She had high fluid level because the baby was not swallowing the amniotic fluid.
Starting point is 00:15:26 So, Lucy, my wife presented as like a month or two more pregnant than she actually was because she had a surplus of amniotic fluid. So, there's just a lot going on. We don't have a diagnosis or anything. We're just like, let's just get the baby out and we'll take a look. But because all that happened, that forced us to have the baby at Vanderbilt, which is like the best hospital in the state of Tennessee. So we're all really lucky that happened.
Starting point is 00:15:53 Because she was at Vanderbilt, that's where the NICU was and that's where she spent the first month of her life, was there at Vanderbilt. So it's all good that we did it there. How much longer after that incident does your baby come into the world? Two or three weeks. Naturally at that point then? No. Well, they ended up, ended up doing a C-section.
Starting point is 00:16:14 Uh, I guess I don't mean, I apologize for us asking that way. I don't mean naturally, like natural. I just mean they didn't have to induce or anything because of this incident. Like they weren't saying, Hey, we got to get her out of there earlier. I'm trying to remember. This was so recent. Or Lucy went to contractions and then like, oh, here we got to go. I think we did end up, yeah, I think we ended up inducing a little, like a week or two early
Starting point is 00:16:37 because they just recommended we should do that. Sorry, a lot of this is, I haven't really talked about this stuff publicly, so I'm trying to get the timeline of everything in my head together, but the birth process was brutal for my wife, dude. We kept losing the baby on the monitor, and they'd have to come in and rotate her so that we could hear the- Inside? Yeah. Because they got these- Where the fuck is she going in there?
Starting point is 00:17:01 For real? Dude. How are they losing her in there? They got these heartbeat monitors, and then they would stop. And so a nurse would come in and go, let's just turn her. And then it come back. And then once it didn't come back and they hit some magic button.
Starting point is 00:17:15 I remember it was like three in the morning. They hit some magic button like the Avengers showed up. Like 40 doctors just like swarmed in because they couldn't get the heartbeat back. How terrifying is that? Oh, it was like, I was like, like is that right swarmed in because they couldn't get the heart beat back. How terrifying is that? It was like I was like what is happening right now? God, it was such a blur. My wife was in labor I think almost 30 hours of just like continuous just like brutal pain
Starting point is 00:17:37 and I'm just there feeling as helpless as you can possibly feel. I've always said that too after that. You ever want to feel like less than nothing? Mm-hmm. Like you think you're a fucking man and you matter? Watch a woman have a baby. Yes. You don't even need to be there.
Starting point is 00:17:54 You don't matter at all. And it's all, I don't know if this is common, every hospital, it was all women in there. All nurses, doctors, everybody, it's all women. And I just feel like an idiot just in the way, just standing in the corner. We ended up doing a C-section. We had the baby. It was awesome.
Starting point is 00:18:13 It's awesome. It's still awesome. That night, we had the baby back in our room and my in-laws are there and it's all great. Then that night, I look at her and she's kind of like blue in the face. I was like, oh, God. I think she's like cold or something. So nurse comes in, they take her to the nursery. They can't really warm her up. So they take her to the NICU. That's just like a phrase you don't want to hear, right? The NICU, but she's there. like a phrase you don't want to hear, right, to nick you, but she's there. So, they determined she has something called hypotonia, which is like low muscle tone. Basically, she's just laying there, like no muscle strength, no flailing around, just kind of ragdoll syndrome is what it's referred to.
Starting point is 00:19:01 Is that right? Sounds kind of brutal when they put it like that. But yeah, yeah. She's got a little bit of – she's moving around a little bit, but she's not like she's supposed to. So, they put her in the NICU because she can't breastfeed or take a bottle because she's got no strength in her neck. She can't sock or swallow or anything. So, they have to get an NG tube, they put it down her nose and that's how we had to feed her for a long time. So she ended up being, we weren't able to take her home until we could feed her on our own, obviously. So yeah, it was I think 20, 23, 24 days in the NICU
Starting point is 00:19:42 before we were able to bring her home. So it was tough, dude. That first night leaving the hospital without your kids. It was awful, man. For men, dealing with ED can be uncomfortable, which is why HIMSS provides access to a comfortable solution with an all online process and personalized treatment options. HIMSS is changing men's healthcare by providing you with access to affordable sexual health treatments from the comfort of your couch.
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Starting point is 00:21:06 effectiveness, or quality by the FDA, prescription required, C website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. Now, let's get back to the do. So my wife had the C-section, so she's in the hospital recovering from that, right? That's what I want to ask. So you go home by yourself that first night? I did a couple runs to get stuff from the house, but I didn't do a night away from the
Starting point is 00:21:34 hospital for a while. But once Lucy's ready to go home, they basically are like, you guys got to go, baby stays here. Exactly. And you both together go home. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me what that is. Yeah, you get in the car and the car seats there empty. Oh, brutal.
Starting point is 00:21:50 Dude, it was awful. It was awful. Then you get home and you're like, I mean, we did like a little photo shoot at the house before we left like last day without the baby and now we're back, you know, without the baby still. back without the baby still. That was probably the toughest stretch was all the days after that, waking up in the morning, just driving to the hospital, staying there all day, and then just driving back. Then you're just home without the baby.
Starting point is 00:22:16 What are the hours? What are you allowed to get there? We're the parents. We can be there 24-7. Okay. By the end of it, we were leaving at like 7 or 8 PM and driving home and then getting there first thing in the morning. So it was a tough stretch.
Starting point is 00:22:36 How long is your daughter in the NICU when you guys finally go home? How long do you have to do this? Yeah, 20, 23 days before we're able to take her home. One thing being in the NICU for that long will do, and I'm realizing that just talking about this out loud, is it really puts your suffering in perspective because as tough as it was for us, it's like we saw so many horrible things in there. Like very early on, I walked out in the hallway to use the bathroom and a baby had just died and they were walking it with the parents
Starting point is 00:23:12 through the hallway. Oh. And I'm just standing there and I'm like, this is the same part of the hospital my kid's at. Like that was jarring to see. Or and some of the babies that we'd share rooms with, you know, we go over and look at them and read their write-up and be like Now we were also lucky, you know, I don't have a real job. I'm a comic and my wife I
Starting point is 00:23:36 Have a made-up job so I can just be there right? Yeah Yeah. And, and, and, and, and, and shit on you. They're like this fucking guy's doing nothing. Professional clown. Yeah. So it was, but dude, I was, you know, at first I was very naively, I was kind of judgmental of these other parents, these babies just in these rooms. And I'm like, they never even show up. Where are these parents at? And then you realize, dude, a lot of them live hours away. And the baby's been in there six months.
Starting point is 00:24:33 And at a certain point, they got to go back to work. So I started to be less judgmental of those parents once you realize that's going on. So all of that, having all that going around is like, you start to really be appreciative of the little, I was like, okay, nothing our daughter ever had was super life-threatening. There was never like, our daughter's about to die.
Starting point is 00:24:57 She was never on an oxygen tank or anything like that. Never had that heart surgery. All these babies around us are having all this. So that really put everything into perspective. Now it was tough not being able to take her home. And it's still, you know, we still got a lot of stuff that we're waiting to figure out. We got some testing that we're waiting to hear back. We don't really, we really don't know what the underlying cause of all this is. So that's another struggle is just. It's just the not knowing what the deal, the waiting, you know, yeah, yeah. What about, um, have they said like, um, I know the Nick user amazing these days.
Starting point is 00:25:35 Yeah. They're so incredible. Are there any, have they said, Hey, you might want to watch out for this or any of this down the line is she, where is she in her height and weight percentile and all that? Yeah. She was, uh, she was one percentile and weight, one percentile and height. Listen, I have a kid and I still don't understand what the fuck that means. And I talked to her pediatrician and she tells me, I look at her, I go,
Starting point is 00:25:59 it's still doesn't make sense to me. Yeah. 1%. What does that mean? There's for her, what, what do that mean? For her what? What do we categorize? For her age. For her age, only one percent of the babies her age are that weight?
Starting point is 00:26:12 Or smaller. Or smaller. Yeah. So 99% of babies are bigger than her. How much are we talking about? How much smaller? Are we significant? I think early on you're talking about a pound or two.
Starting point is 00:26:25 So it's not a crazy, it's not like she was a pound, I mean she was five pounds when she was born, but wasn't growing that much. And did she grow in the NICU enough? She started to graft after we figured out how to feed her. She started to really grow. So we ended up getting what's called a G-tube. We made the choice to have the surgery. She's got a little button in her stomach that just goes right into her stomach. Now still? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:52 No. They make you leave it in for at least a year. It comes out? Yeah. I can take it out. If you see it, they told me, I haven't been, but they tell me if you go to like a kid's pool, public pool, you'll see some kids. It looks like a different belly button. The last thing you and I need to be going is going to a kid's public pool and squinting anywhere near their belly button. It's the last thing we need to be doing.
Starting point is 00:27:19 Don't go looking for it. If you go to a public pool to look for one of these, I'm like squinting to cross the way, and dig right above the waistline. Yeah. So what? It looks like another belly button. That's what it looks like.
Starting point is 00:27:32 When it's removed. Now it's like a little plastic thing. You just open it up and you pump food right into the stomach. It's pretty amazing. How? When you say pump food, is it a little tube you put in there and you put liquid in? Yeah, you hook a hose up to it and you can just let it drain in with gravity or you can use an electric pump that just pumps the formula and breast milk right into the stomach.
Starting point is 00:27:54 That's how your daughter's had to eat? That's how she has to eat, yeah. What's it called? It's called a G-tube, a gastronomy. Like a gastrointestinal, whatever. Yeah, something like that. A lot of this terms are- And it goes where?
Starting point is 00:28:09 Right into the stomach. Right in like the intestine and stuff? No, right into the stomach. Get the fuck out of me. Yeah, you just drop it right in. So- And then her body from there is good to process it and everything else?
Starting point is 00:28:20 Yeah, the stomach treats it just like you swallowed it. So, yeah. Okay, in the old days, she would have died. Definitely died. 100%. Well, I think about when you mentioned that earlier, I was like, there's probably like nine different times where my wife or baby would have died. I mean, even like 100 years ago.
Starting point is 00:28:36 Yeah, easily. They weren't doing C-sections 100 years ago, I don't think. I don't know. If they were, they were pretty risky. Yeah, I would imagine they weren't. I don't even think they were washing hands 100 wrong a lot. They were pretty risky. Yeah, I would imagine they weren't what they are today. I don't even think they were washing hands 100 years ago. It's not doing C-sections.
Starting point is 00:28:48 And then, yeah, my baby would have just died because it wouldn't drink, and I wouldn't drink breast milk at all. So she can swallow on everything now though. Right. We're working on it. We've got like four or five different therapists that come to the house and help out with different things. How old is she? She's almost six months now.
Starting point is 00:29:08 Okay. So we've got physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. Speech is the one who helps with drinking the bottle. So we're working on getting her to- Why speech on that? I don't know why they call it that. I remember when they go, we're going to hook her up with some speech therapy. I think it's a little early.
Starting point is 00:29:24 It's a little early. It's a lot early. Yeah, it is. She's not even smiling yet. But speech is just the all encompassing term for everything with the mouth, I guess. So we try to do what we can through a bottle and then we give the rest through the G tube. So let's say how much of a bottle will she, a little baby bottle. Right now, half a quarter. Right now, 155 milliliters.
Starting point is 00:29:45 Yeah, you're on the milliliters. Yeah, 155 milliliters is what we're shooting for every feed. And then the rest goes through the tube. No, 155 total. So we'll try to, maybe she'll take 65 through the bottle and that's a good one. Okay. Then we'll give her 90 through the G tube. So the goal obviously is we get to a point where she can take everything just through
Starting point is 00:30:06 a bottle. Yeah. And we get that G-tube taken out. We never have to use it again. And then she just has a little like belly button. She's got a little third, a second belly button there on her stomach. Yeah. For the rest of her life.
Starting point is 00:30:16 But yeah, dude, it's a whole, these terms, it's like a whole world I knew nothing about. My family, we had no health issues Nothing, nothing like this growing up and now you're just dropped in this world of like medical equipment around the house and Changing dressing on her, you know all this stuff that you're just kind of thrown into It's it's become part of the routine now. We're in a bit of a groove right now, but dude, at first it was so much. It was so overwhelming, all the stuff being thrown at. Yeah. I mean, just being a new parent is overwhelming.
Starting point is 00:30:51 If everything goes perfect, that's overwhelming enough. And then you have to become a doctor now. You know what I mean? Again, I don't have a fuck. I'm not qualified for this. Yeah, I shouldn't be applying gauze on anybody. I shouldn't be doing anything medical to anybody. You know what the real tough part is now,
Starting point is 00:31:12 is it's tough to, we can't get, because of all that, you can't really get like a normal babysitter. Cause you'd have to train them on all this equipment stuff. Even a lot of nurses don't know how to use the specific. Is that right? Yeah, like G-tube and pump that we have. So, that makes it a little harder to find people to watch the baby. We've trained our in-laws and my parents know how to do it all. So, my in-laws are there right now in Nashville actually.
Starting point is 00:31:38 All good. Helping out Lucy, taking care of the baby. Good. Yeah, man. It's been, it's been a, I was thinking about this earlier. Um, cause we don't know what the underlying issue is, but she's starting to kind of miss some milestones, some stuff holding her head up, rolling over stuff like that she's behind on. Uh, but now like when she meets one of those milestones, it's unbelievable, it's like you really appreciate it, dude. You know, like we don't take anything for granted.
Starting point is 00:32:14 So obviously you wish, we wish our daughter was perfectly healthy and not in pain and everything, but it really makes you appreciate the little thing. I remember the first time she took any of the bottle. It was like a miracle. You're like, oh my god. Doesn't it also feel good to see it working too? Your hard work is paying off and helping this kid.
Starting point is 00:32:38 Yeah. You're not just like, it's not working. You know what I mean? You're feeling helpless and shit. Yeah, she wasn't holding her head up for so long and they're like, just keep doing tummy time. Keep doing tummy time. And you feel like nothing's happening. And then one day she just kind of held her head up and we were like, oh my God. They throw torticollis at you? What is that? Torticollis.
Starting point is 00:32:59 Torticollis. I used to make, I used to, only reason I remember what the fuck it's called is because they would try to tell us that our baby, when my daughter was born, like she would lean to one side and like, Oh, her necks. And I was like, Oh, this is where the insurance and stuff comes in. She's got torticollis. And I'm like, what the fuck is it called? And the only reason I remember is cause it was 50 bucks every session.
Starting point is 00:33:20 And I used to sing to her and I go cost $50 to fix your torticollis. I used to sing that to her all the time. So that's why I know what tortacollis is. I'm like, this is some bullshit. This is some bullshit. I'm just going to move your neck over here. That's all I'm going to do. And then I did.
Starting point is 00:33:36 And I got a circle pillow, you know, so her head didn't get the flat slope and all that, especially when your baby's laying a lot. Yeah, they say when your baby's in the NICU for a long time, she's just on her back the whole time. So they got these special pillows that they can like reshape. So they position her head to try to alleviate some of that. But it looks like her head's, she's got a little misshapen. And I'm like, ah, she's a girl.
Starting point is 00:34:00 She's a girl, dude. Just get long hair. Yeah, exactly. And I'm looking at my own head and I'm like, oh, this is rough. Yeah, dude, this is bad. Smooth, perfect. No, no.
Starting point is 00:34:12 Do your siblings have kids? Yeah, so. And do any of them have health issues? Yeah, so I'm just wondering if there's anything genetic that you just maybe skipped your parents. Maybe, and we talked about all that. Because once they call the genetics team in at the hospital, they ask you everything.
Starting point is 00:34:31 I'll bet. They ask you everything, dude. And then they'd get like a hunch. And they'd come. I remember the guy came in. They have a bit of a reputation around the hospitals being like kooks. Because the joke is like, oh, you met the genetics doctor, what he diagnosed you with.
Starting point is 00:34:46 Because I mean, if you go crawling through anybody's DNA, you'll find we all got weird stuff going on, right? Yeah, hell yeah. But like the genetics doctor would come in and be like, can I shake your hand? And like shake our hand and be like, hmm, okay. And then leave and you're like, what was that about? Like he wanted to see like our grip strength or something.
Starting point is 00:35:07 So my sister has five kids. My brother has four kids. So in the middle of all this, like not- How many fucking second cousins y'all have too? Shit. I don't really, what is the second cousin? I just watched the explanation on this. Okay. So our dad's first cousin. Yeah. What is a second cousin? I just watched the explanation on this.
Starting point is 00:35:25 So our dad's first cousin, our dad, just his son, our dad's first cousin is our first cousin once removed. That guy's cousin, or excuse me, kids are our second cousins. So it's first cousin once removed, then those kids are second cousins. It's your parents' cousins' kids? Yep, our second cousins. Okay, so it's first cousin once removed then those kids are second cuz your parents cousins kids Yep, our second cousins. That's the way it was explained on this. So removed is generations, right? It's still even though it's not our first cousin. Yeah, that guy is still a first cousin Okay, once removed a generation from us. Yeah. His kids are second cousins. OK, I probably got 300 of those.
Starting point is 00:36:07 I'm saying, you probably got a shitload. I need to sit down and add it all up. Have you ever done like an ancestry? No. No, not me either. I'm not putting my DNA out there and having anybody show up in my life all of a sudden. You know what, man?
Starting point is 00:36:20 That was one of the, I'm usually resistant to that kind of thinking, but that was one of the things, even in my brain, I go, I don't know if I want to spit into a thing and give my DNA to a company. I don't know. And then it came out that they were selling all of it and there was like a huge data breach. Wait, is that right? 23andMe, I think. I didn't know that was a thing. Oh, yeah. That's all I think when I hear this shit. I'm not giving you my DNA. Yeah, but I would like to do, I would like to sit down and like have somebody do it just like paperwork. Yes. Yes. Without having to get on a website and open yourself up to freaks and whoever out there. I would love, yes. What's that? No, I've had the genetic testing. So I know I've got two diseases. I've got one called Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.
Starting point is 00:37:01 Those are the doctors that discovered it. And I'm missing basically, it's pretty common, but I'm missing like a layer, and my brothers have it too, of muscle in our legs from the knees down. So my calves are a little bit twiggy. Instead of, I played soccer and sports my whole life. I should have tree trunk calves, but I'm missing a layer of muscle. And then also people who have it worse than me, like I have crazy high arches in my feet. My ankles sit back a little farther. So it's all related to that. It's all from that shit. And they say, you know what they say,
Starting point is 00:37:35 your legs look like inverted champagne bottles. That's exactly what they look like. Wow. You ever see that and you think, oh, that guy skipped leg day. He might have what I have. And then the other thing I found out at 42 that I have is a blood disease called Factor V Leiden, and my blood is prone to clotting. And I'm lucky because I've now clotted twice under 50 and made it. But my dad died at 42, my grandma was 69. But everyone back then in the 80s, they're just telling you, oh, it was a heart attack. Everything was called a heart attack when you were young back then. Now they're realizing that these younger people were probably actually victims of clots or something more like that. And I end up
Starting point is 00:38:16 making it through this ordeal and getting these tests done and family tests done, finding out that the dead guy gave this shit to me. And I'm the only one in the family that has it. Wow. So now I got to spread that to my daughter. Cause if she has it, then birth control is out. Cause that makes girls prone to clotting. Wow. Um, something like a bed rest, anything lying dormant will clot and kill. Have you done the testing on that? Do you know if you're, did you pass that? No, I haven't. I ain't passing it. Okay. Yeah, I got it. Okay. I haven't done it for her.
Starting point is 00:38:50 So it's sort of controversial. Maybe that's not the right word, but the doctor said like, look, you don't want to open that can of worms until we need to. So if you're considering at some point putting your daughter on birth control, I suggest testing. Then if she's going to be, you know, but also I want to know because if she gets into a car accident or something, is in bed for a month, that can kill her. All because we didn't test. So it's coming and she hates needles. So I'm not going to make her do it right now because I'm like, that's the only way to do
Starting point is 00:39:23 it. They're going to prick you or stab you? Dude, because we just had some blood drawn for my daughter to do some of this genetic testing. We get there, I'm holding her in my lap and they can't find a vein on her arm. So they go, sorry. What we have to do is we have to prick her heel and kind of squeeze her foot and get the blood that way.
Starting point is 00:39:46 So it takes like five minutes. She's screaming bloody murder in my lap looking at me. You know that look your baby gives you like you're just letting this happen and they're draining just drop at a time and they fill up one little vial of blood and I go are we done and I go we got seven more of those to fill up. So And I go, are we done? And they go, we got seven more of those to fill up. So it was tough, dude. Yeah, and she cried the whole time and they got eight. I think they ended up getting six or seven of these and they're like, that's it, we're good.
Starting point is 00:40:14 The next day they call and they go, the blood was damaged during transit. We gotta do it again. No. So my wife and I are furious, dude. We're like, come on, damage during transit? Like, you lost it. You forgot to on, damage during transit? You lost it. You forgot to label it.
Starting point is 00:40:27 Just tell us that. Anyway, so we have to go back in and do it again. About one vial in, they go, her heel clotted up. We can't get blood from it. The nurse goes, well, let's just go do a cheek swab. I go, that was an option the whole time. You could just take a little Q-tip, put it on her cheek. So that's what they did.
Starting point is 00:40:51 I mean, my wife and I were driving home. We were like, why is that not the first? First? It feels like what we did is the absolute last resort of what you have to do. And you had to go through extremes to get the blood. You didn't want even a regular vein draw. Exactly. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:06 And they just took a Q-tip. So we're waiting. That was their third option. Yeah. It's crazy. Uh, yeah, all that genetics testing stuff is. They said to me at one point, they're like, you know, we'll do a round of tests and we might get the results back and we don't have
Starting point is 00:41:26 answers and then you have a choice to make of like, do you want to keep looking or do you want to just chalk it up as like we're all a little bit different. So we're still waiting on the results back of that, the cheek swab that we did and then we'll go from there. But I've been, you know – I've read up on every possible genetic disorder that our daughter could have. I've read it all. Then one of the things they tell you is they go, stop reading this. Yes. Because your daughter is going to have 46 different diseases by the time you're by all that one.
Starting point is 00:42:02 That one. Yeah. I've been convinced of so many. I look at her and I go, oh, you've got it. How's our daughter? Yeah. And then they tell you, I got really good advice from my sister. She said, what you should never do is when you land on a diagnosis, actual or possible. Don't go look up pictures of kids with it. Because you're only going to see your kid as that. You know what I mean? You want to look at your kid as that's your baby. The disease is just something they have. You don't want to look at it as that's like part of them. So yeah, it's been stressful. I mean, you're still waiting to hear back about what it could be. It could be a range of things. Talk to me about the first day you finally get to actually drive your daughter home together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember it well. So we had to pass what's called a car seat test before we could take her home. We had to sit her in the car seat for 90 minutes hooked up to all the monitors and
Starting point is 00:43:07 stuff. And then, uh, they sat her in your car with monitors. We brought the car seat up to like, just out there like idling and shit like I didn't fill up enough for this shit. What about all the exhaust? We brought the car. That's so funny. Your doors open for 90 minutes. God. What about all the exhausts my daughter's freaking? We brought the car. That's so funny. I really sat there thinking your door's open and closed for 90 minutes, god damn. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:43:30 So we. You got a lot out back for that? We, I made so, by the end of it, when I felt like we were about to get her home, I was making a lot of jokes in the NICU. And I mean, I was bombing left and right in there. Nobody. I hated you.U. And I mean, I was bombing left and right in there. Nobody. I hated you.
Starting point is 00:43:46 The big joke I have, and I'm trying to talk about this on stage now, we brought the car seat into the room. We sat her in it. She passed the test. The nurse comes in and goes, oh, she passed. She's pretty comfortable in that car seat. And I go, yeah, she better be.
Starting point is 00:44:02 That's her crib, too. And she goes, I know you're kidding. Legally, I have to tell someone you told me that. It was like, oh, brutal. So she had to tell like the charge nurse and then they just came and made sure it was a joke. No, that's the kind of, by the, by the end of it, I was, I was feeling good. I was like, we're about to get her home.
Starting point is 00:44:20 So yeah, dude. There's a report. You said that somewhere. So yeah, dude, we're going to follow up from some agency soon to make sure she's got a real crib at the house. You just make my day harder. I gotta go tell the charger. She just said that shit. Uh, okay. All right.
Starting point is 00:44:42 All right. Uh, yeah, yeah, but it's, it's like, and I've heard it shit. Okay, all right, all right. Yeah, yeah, but it's like, and I've heard it from every parent, that moment where you're just like driving away with the baby was crazy. It's terrifying. It was insane. It's terrifying.
Starting point is 00:44:54 I'm slowing down at green lights. Dude. You know what I mean? Yeah, and I got my wife in the back. I go, is it too hot back there? I don't know. Is she choking in the car seat? It was crazy, dude.
Starting point is 00:45:04 Especially after we've been given false hope so many times, like you can take her home tomorrow and then we didn't. So by the end of it, I was convinced like, man, maybe this won't happen. And then about 10 minutes later, like she's just in the car. Driving home. Isn't it crazy, awesome. Even if again, your child's perfectly healthy,
Starting point is 00:45:22 whatever that is, they just give you this person. I know. And they're like, good luck to you guys out there in that world. Do you ever, this sounds like so mean, but you ever see like, you have people in your lives that are like idiots that have kids? And you go, all right, well, they can, I thought about that all the time. I've always lit mistested everybody that way. In my own mind, I'm like, if this mullet bar can do it, I know it.
Starting point is 00:45:46 In college, I'm like, this guy's doing it, I know I can do it. Yeah. And I'm like, this dumb mullet bar has got four kids? Yeah. He's actually like a good parent. I think I could be. I'll be unbelievable. He is dumb.
Starting point is 00:45:56 He's got 40s mullet bars. One of them's enough. Yeah. It was pretty surreal. And then we got me and I drove the most cautious I've ever driven and then you bring her in the house and finally got to put her in the crib and everything. It was pretty, it was kind of a triumphant day. It felt like a real, and that's what I mean. A lot of the stuff that would have felt kind of this is supposed to happen once that's taken from you or at least delayed.
Starting point is 00:46:25 Like when it happens, it feels like, wow, what a great thing we got our baby here. So how long were you guys together before you were engaged? Oh man, maybe three or four years. And then how long were you married before you had the baby? We got married May of 2021,
Starting point is 00:46:42 had the baby September of 2024. So yeah, about three years. It happened pretty quick too. That's the other thing is like, We got married May of 2021, had the baby September of 2024. So you're lucky. About three years, yeah. It happened pretty quick too. That's the other thing is like, I talk about all the time on the show, like you would think with the gazillions of people on this planet, it'd be so simple. And it is if you don't want that baby. But when you're trying, there's a lot of complications, and then other things happen, and it's just not as simple as you think it is. And also just the constant worrying and thinking about it.
Starting point is 00:47:11 Tell me about how you watch Lucy, first of all, just as a girlfriend and then a wife, but now you're watching her, just, I mean, do you marvel over like watching this lady put food in a fucking tube. I mean, that's crazy. Yeah, it's amazing. Cause you're signing on to something
Starting point is 00:47:28 you don't even know you're signing on to. You don't know you're gonna be doing that as a parent. We were thinking about that on our first date. But even when you're pregnant and you're having good times and you're thinking about being a parent and whatever that is in your future trip down the road, you don't think you're gonna be a nurse. Yeah. You know what I mean? whatever that is in her future trip down the road, you don't think you're gonna be a nurse. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:47:49 Or a fucking doctor putting a tube in your kid's stomach. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty special. It's pretty special. I remember I had a moment even during her pregnancy where she had the gestational diabetes and there was a point where like anything she ate would spike her blood sugar And it basically told her the only way to get that blood sugar back down You got to go on a walk or something, but she's in pain. She can't walk much
Starting point is 00:48:14 so what I did was I got a little walking pad a little treadmill and I put it up in the living room and I set it up in front of the TV and I put a chair on either side and then if her blood sugar spikes, she'd have to walk on this treadmill to get the blood sugar back down. And I did have a moment where I looked at her, she's super pregnant and she's struggling to walk on this treadmill to get her blood sugar back down. And I remember thinking like, I will, like this kid better not ever disrespect her in some crazy way. Because this is unbelievable what she's doing for this baby that we haven't even really met yet, but is still already so loved in all these ways.
Starting point is 00:48:53 Yeah, you have a lot of moments like that. I think a lot about your saving Private Ryan in the movie. You know at the end when Tom Hanks grabs Matt Damon and he says, earn this, earn this, earn what we've all done for you. I have that moment with my daughter at one point, earn what your mom did for you. Yeah. Because it was nine months of a tough pregnancy and then three weeks of hell for her essentially. So you got to earn this.
Starting point is 00:49:24 Think about that a lot. Now, how about your parents? Good grandparents, are they stoked on it? They're stoked. It's my in-laws first grand, first grandkids. Their first one. Yeah, so they're very excited. It's my parents 11, 12.
Starting point is 00:49:39 Yeah, exactly. What took you so long? Exactly. Yeah, my mom's retired now, so she's full-time grandkids. She loves mapping out the year going, I'll go spend a week with those grandkids and help out. She's hopping around. She's going to be at our house for a week or two coming up.
Starting point is 00:49:56 That's good. All right. Yeah, it's the best, dude. Just having them there to do, even just to like just hold the baby, let me go do something real quick, stuff like that. I know it's a lot. It's six months in and everything, but would you have another? Would you think of it?
Starting point is 00:50:11 Would you consider it? Would Lucy, I mean, it's her body going through this. Yeah. Yeah. It's easy for us again. We genuinely have not thought that far ahead yet because there's still so much up in the air about what our daughter's life is going to look like and what our life is going to look like moving forward.
Starting point is 00:50:30 So I think once we have a better understanding of that, we can start to talk about that, but we genuinely have not had a conversation. Um, but we love it. I mean, we've, we talk about all the time, like it's pretty great. You didn't know you could like love and care about something so much. Yeah. Also, that's what I wanted to ask you next is how impressed are you with yourself? You don't know you can love and take care of something either.
Starting point is 00:50:56 Yeah. Look, my daughter was healthy, but at one, I split with her mom and I'm a new dad still and I'm a new single dad. At'm a new single dad at one years old. I have this kid myself when she's with me for 50%. I'm doing it all myself. I look back now, like a photo pop up 10 years ago and I'm like, how the fuck did I do? How did I do that? How did I take that little tiny ass baby, raise razor, do right by her, feed her, clothe her, get her here on time, there on time? Like be this responsible person.
Starting point is 00:51:31 How the fuck did I do it? You blow yourself away with that. And then on top of it, you're doing all the medical stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks, man. I haven't, I haven't, uh, I haven't really taken a step back and thought about all that.
Starting point is 00:51:46 That's cause you're in it. You know, you're in it. We're in the thick of it. Yeah. For sure. But I don't, I didn't either. I didn't either. It was a, it took a photo pop-up thing for me to go, I did that. Yeah. Oh my God. You don't even realize how little they are too. And then you look back, you're like, Oh my God, dude, we're doing that for six months. Where we see old pictures and we're like, golly, dude. First of all, she's not as cute as I remember her being
Starting point is 00:52:08 the first week. I remember in earnest having a conversation with my wife being like, it's crazy. Our baby's like the cutest one in the whole NICU, these other babies. And now I look at her like, oh, she looks like any other baby. But I think about with golf, do you play golf at all? I don't, I don't really.
Starting point is 00:52:26 I play every now and then, but it was so intimidating to me to start because I knew I'd be horrible. And in your head, you think everybody at the golf course is good at golf. They've been doing this forever. And then I showed up to like a public course. Oh yeah. I've done that enough. I go, dude, everybody sucks. None of us know what we're doing out here. And that's what parenthood feels like to me. the course. Oh, yeah. I've done that enough. I go, dude, everybody sucks. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:52:45 None of us know what we're doing out here. And that's what parenthood feels like to me. There's nobody who's like, I know exactly what I'm doing all the time. I've got all the answers. Well, here's the thing I was going to say to you too. Like everyone's parenting is set. It's their set. How am I trying to say this?
Starting point is 00:53:04 It's what they have to deal with. You know what I mean? Like your parenting doesn't apply to my kid because my kids have the issue, vice versa. I always say to anybody, they're like, you have any wife, your family, your unit, your whatever you get. Some people work graveyard shifts. That fucking life is different for somebody. Like, whatever works best for you and your unit that is healthy and good for everybody is what you do. And that advice does not apply to every single parent out there at all. You know, like, that's what I always say.
Starting point is 00:53:50 Don't listen to anybody. Yeah, get through the day. Hear it all. And then, you know, figure out what works for you. And then someone's gonna be like, what advice do you have? And you're like, I don't know. Do you, you know, do you ever have to feed your,
Starting point is 00:54:03 does your kid have a second belly button? Have you been in a public pool staring at little boys' belly buttons from a distance intently? Have you done that? Yeah. Yeah. Great, you can only do it once. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:17 Twice is the problem. Well, my wife's in all, my wife's in all these Facebook groups with other moms. That's the other thing we didn't have back then either. You just knew a neighbor and you're like, well, Linda does this. You're like, well, fuck Linda, man. Linda don't know what the fuck she's doing.
Starting point is 00:54:31 I don't even, dude, that will, my parents will come to the house and there's just all kinds of technology and things that we have now that they did not. Oh yeah. And my parents are trying to wrap their head around this tech. I just got a baby monitor that will text me if something covers the baby's face.
Starting point is 00:54:52 I didn't even have that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, this is like, I think it's all pretty new even now. That's crazy. But explaining this to my parents, dude, I slept in a crib on my stomach with stuffed animals. And all the stuff they tell you not to do now.
Starting point is 00:55:04 I'll say, I found an old picture of me in the crib. And I'm like, there's 10 things in this crib that shouldn stomach with stuffed animals and all the stuff they tell you not to do now. I'll say I found an old picture of me in the crib and I'm like, there's 10 things in this crib that shouldn't be in here, it could kill my ass. Yeah, yeah. And I'm getting, you know, you can't have the mesh net or you got to, it was the bumper, baby bumpers. Can't have the bumper now. And it was meshed before so they could breathe through it.
Starting point is 00:55:18 Now it's no bumper, I believe, like no bumpers. No bumper. Yeah, they went mesh for a minute. No blanket, no pillow, literally just the baby. Yup. Yeah. So yeah, all that's new. My parents, they don't know about any of this stuff.
Starting point is 00:55:32 So that's kind of fun seeing them see all this stuff. But also too, what is it called that your daughter has again? A G-tube is the equipment that she uses. Imagine just in the 80s or the early 90s. You're the only people in the neighborhood that has a kid with a G-tube. Now your wife can go get on a Facebook group and there's 20 people that have dealt with this
Starting point is 00:55:52 and they already did and they can tell you this and this and this. And we've already in the area, we've already met up and met some of these other parents and stuff. And you would have, they could all, back in the 80s, they're all in the area. You would have never known it. And they're right there with answers and help and all.
Starting point is 00:56:08 That's great. Yeah, exactly. And we've had a couple, like we ran out of some equipment and I had to drive like 45 minutes outside of the city to go pick up like some special tape from this random person my wife met on Facebook. So there is this little community of like, we're all going through the same thing, which is kind of fun. I don't like being in those groups though. I don't like the reading. They put pictures of their kids and some of these kids are so banged up.
Starting point is 00:56:35 It's tough to look at. So I just, my wife's in there. Well, dude, I'm glad everything's going well. Yeah, we're getting there, man. I appreciate it. It feels like there are, we've had really great days. And it's like, I remember thinking, not knowing if we would have those days.
Starting point is 00:56:55 And now, it's like, things are going well. So it's awesome, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you for letting me. This is the first time I've kind of talked about any of this stuff. So I hope it kind of made sense.
Starting point is 00:57:08 It totally makes sense. What we're dealing with. Yeah. Before we wrap up, advice you'd give 16-year-old Aaron Weber. Let's hear it. Dude, I wish I would have not been afraid to take things seriously. What do you mean? Because I feel like, you know that part of you that I still have, and I think it's good to have
Starting point is 00:57:31 a little bit. Whenever you do something like sincerely, there's a little part of you that's like, this is stupid and lame. I had a lot of that in high school. And I think that prevented me from doing, like taking things seriously. I think about that sometimes. Because your friends are being fun, gay. 100%. Yeah. Oh!
Starting point is 00:57:51 It's a lot of that. Yeah. I'm, so over here when I'm thinking in my head, I think I know what he's mean. Yes. So I wish I would have just been like, Allowed yourself to be softer, kinder, and gentler without worrying about other idiots calling you.
Starting point is 00:58:09 But you need a little bit of that or else you become a nightmare. You need a little bit of a guy going, all right, shut up, you're being lame. And the other thing is like, I focus on, I was just thinking about this actually too. Like I worked really hard in high school to get to the college I wanted to go to. Which is what?
Starting point is 00:58:30 Notre Dame is where I ended up. Oh, wow. By the time I got to Notre Dame, I was not working hard at all. I guess I wish I would have focused more on relationships with people versus achievements and success in a lot of ways. I want to focus more on relationships because I've got probably only a handful of friends from high school that I still talk to that I'm close with or see once a year. I know that's not the case for a lot of guys.
Starting point is 00:59:01 They know a lot of – they still hang out with a lot of guys from high school. I wish I had to focus more on relationships. And not achieve. That's the first time I've heard that on here. Yeah, it's kind of a lame answer. I'm resonating with that a little bit. No, I mean, you're... Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Dude, thank you. Thank you for doing this.
Starting point is 00:59:18 I appreciate it, man. Thank you for having me. One more time. You're welcome. Please promote everything and anything you'd like. You're special. You got a special out now. It's fun. It's not like what I've been talking about. Signature dish, it's on Nate Bargetti's YouTube. He produced the special. He put it out.
Starting point is 00:59:33 So go check that out. Signature dish, at real Aaron Weber on all social media, aaronwebercomedy.com for all my tour dates. Thank you, dude. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Appreciate it, man. As always, Ryan Sickler on all your social media.
Starting point is 00:59:45 Come see me on tour. Tickets are on my website, RyanSickler.com. We'll talk to y'all next week. You

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