This is the second episode of the Ask Dad Labs podcast. It was recorded March 4 2021. It's simple. You ask questions dad's answer. When we need actual answers, we find the experts. Our panel is made up of longtime friends. Clay is one of the founders of Dad Labs. He's in Austin, Texas and has one in high school, one in college. And one out sailing the seas literally, Nick is in Louisville, Kentucky. And he has kids who are six and 13. I'm Ben, I'm south of Detroit, and my kids are 11. And soon to be 13. We'll have a fancier introduction in the next episode. And of course, I said that in the last episode, so so one of these days it'll be true. So, got a COVID test the other day, and the nurse asked me if I'd had a sudden loss of taste. You know what I told her? I said, No, I've dressed like this for my whole life.
I get that a lot. That's also
That's true. I mean, that's both bad and true. Which is best Joe. Yeah, it is.
I agree. Well, guys, how are you doing? CLAY?
Um, well, we are we were thought we are past the crazy Texas freeze and have transitioned quickly into Texas political COVID insanity. It's, it's been a quick turn. But other than that, we're we're pretty good. We're pretty good.
How's COVID insanity in Kentucky.
It's not too bad. Actually. They've been beat, we were one of the first states to prioritize teachers. So that'll go into the school subject later. But COVID is not too bad here. As far as what I am experiencing with people. I'm not seeing a whole lot of anti maskers when I have gone out, most people are wearing masks. And I haven't witnessed any of the viral videos of people going off on people and coughing on people and all that crap that that Texas does. We're doing well here we were in what we normally call fall spring, they've got like, eight days 50 degree weather. And then that'll be followed by about three or four days of 20s, I'm sure. And then we'll hit real spring. And I'm looking forward to to getting out of this cold.
Well, up here on the Detroit River, it looks like broken glass, it was all white for four weeks. And it was it big shards of ice, they were just twisted and turned on all sorts of directions. And in the course of about three days, they went from a little streak of blue where they keep the channel open the Coast Guard at work. Go coast go coasties. And, and all of a sudden, no ice to be seen. It just disappeared real quick. So really, really great up here. So our questions this time. So the school situation everyone wants to know about school? So what's happening in your schools? And what do you like about it? What don't you like about it?
Well, our kids are about to start a hybrid in person and virtual instruction, we have the choice that we could stay in ti which is non traditional instruction or stay virtual, or go in person. My problem with it is with the in person part is it's the hybrid where they're only going two days a week in person, they go there go, they'll go Monday and Tuesday because of their last name. And then nobody goes on Wednesday and they clean the schools. And then the other half of the kids go on Thursday and Friday. That's really hard for the teachers to keep the same teacher for the kids. Because the in person teacher has to do, I'm assuming some type of virtual broadcast at the same time as what they're doing their in person stuff. And to me, that's way too much to ask for of teachers, especially for just a couple of months. To me, there seems to be no reason at all, to go through this frustration for everybody, for everybody, for parents, kids, teachers, and not just keep doing nti non traditional instruction, and then deal with the COVID after everybody's you know, most people have been vaccinated and get back to a lot more normal level of in person in the fall. But we're lucky that you know, we're both home right now Alice is working from home, and I'm not working. So I'm able to be here so I know it's a privileged position for me to be able to let them stay home with We wanted to, but particularly for Penny, the six year old, she needs, she needs some more interaction with other kids. She's a challenge right now. She She, I think she will do much better. She likes nti. But I think she'll do better with some in person stuff, being able to interact, even with the teacher, rather than having all the kids have to take turns and not be able to do any kind of. I mean, that's still do group things. Like they'll do them at the same time. And they won't be able to be together together. But she needs it more than he does. But we'll see how that goes. Clay your kids are all in college. Right?
Well, some of them are beyond college, you know? Yeah, yeah. So you know, COVID classroom here in our household is about high school and college. My middle child, my daughter, you know, shipped off to college did a week of in her dorm room isolation with her four dorm mates. And this week, she celebrated going back to school with two classes in person, two classes virtual she's at a small private college in Connecticut to in person classes to virtual classes. She's back at work in the coffee shop on campus. And they resumed practice for her sports team field hockey. So in a way, she's back to a pretty full college experience. It's very fragile at any moment, they surveillance test all the kids to college twice a week, if there's a significant outbreak, which has happened in the past, they could be right back bloom into stuck in their rooms. But the brilliant sign for me and my college daughter was I didn't hear from her. Today, she went back a week and a half ago, until today, she called me for the first time. And she was apologetic. And like Dad, I've been so busy. And so and i and i said that was the most beautiful silence I ever heard in all my Parenthood, because I knew you were in your zone, you were doing your thing. You're being a college student, you're hanging out with your roommates, you're busy with classes, you you've gotten reengaged with all these things that make a college experience a college experience. And you know, they're still wearing masks and their distance, and they can't go to parties, and they can't go off campus. There's still tons of restrictions. But you know, what I feel when I when she calls me is what you want to hear from your kid when they're in college, which is that they're just so engaged in that experience. And so busy and working really hard and trying to find the hours this week. And, you know, that's all you want to hear. So after all the frustration and sacrifices and losses, and that I heard while she was at home with us and missing those things, you know, finally, there is that, that just blissful silence where I knew she was submerged in in that world. And, and was getting that experience. So and I heard it, you know, today I finally got a report about the classes and the coaches and what they're thinking about and that but they might get a couple of games this spring, after having lost an entire season. So, you know, those college years are precious, you know, they go by really fast. And they've been hyped up so much that I was just, I was glad to hear it. And I guess the same is somewhat true of high school. Now, I've got to be very cautious about how I talk about how our high school is managing the COVID crisis. That is because my wife of almost 25 years is the head of the school where my children go. So if I'm to criticize that particular institution, I could be opening up the realm of potential outcomes. But here's what I'll say about what I've observed, which is, geez,
well, so how is it? It's a boarding school.
It's a boarding school, and we've lived on the campus of this boarding school for 25 years. It's our whole world. It's where we've lived our whole adult lives. And my wife who started as the assistant to the headmaster has risen to the position of being head of Upper School. We've got a resident community of, you know, about 80 kids that come from all over the world, including China, and we've got a student population that runs from grade 6012. It's a it's a big, busy, vibrant place. Kim instituted at the beginning of the year a kind of a hybrid model that has evolved and become a little bit more flexible. So the way that the school week works here at St Stephen's is that it is a a alternating 5050 hybrid model on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday is a half day, everybody stays remote, Thursday and Friday hybrid. However, any student that chooses to may come to campus every single day. And as long as the classrooms are not above the social distancing minimums, they can either attend classes in person, or if that's full, they can stay on the campus in the library in an open space, and attend classes virtually, but be at school. And so the, the genius of that is that you really can engage in a pretty robust campus life. Right? observe some distancing, be careful in the classroom when you're inside. And, and that's been the world for my son who's a junior in high school and pretty much a social creature. And he struggled, we struggled with remote class, it was not a good fit for him without the social reward of being with kids. And I'll just acknowledge, you know, this is all in the context of tremendous privilege that, you know, at home, I would have to wake him up every period, like, if there was a, there was a risk, every single class that he would sleep through, and he slept through a lot. So you've resumed sports, he's an athlete, that's the defining sort of part of his experience, he played soccer. And today, he played this sport, which he loves lacrosse, and had a great game and they won and, and there were no fans allowed in the stands. Because I live here and because I masquerade as a, as a film guy, and actually allowed to observe and that was, that was delightful. And I will tell a long story about my how bad camera man I am. At some point, when we have time and not talk for one.
You're one of those guys that only shows your kid even though you're supposed to film the whole team, right?
It's worse than that.
Well, we'll have to hear that someday, won't we? Yeah. So so my little island, we've got, we've got a township with, you know, 10,000 people, and we've got a school district. That's just our islands, on the side of the bridges. And we've been, it's been a hybrid since the beginning of the school year, Michigan, Michigan law makes it so that school districts are supposed to start the day after Labor Day. So from from the day after Labor Day, we started hybrid. And when when numbers are starting to rise in December, they they send everybody home for virtual, but it's been hybrid with two and a half days of red and gray teams. So no, no day off in the middle, or any half days like that. And it's, you know, we were preparing, I actually had gotten some screens and stuff to separate space, because we expected the boys to have to be at home working and have to separate them and kill down the noise. My wife works from home in the living room and, and who knows what I'd be doing at any given time. So so we were making up spaces. And then it turned out that my older son has autism. So he got an exception to the hybrid. And he had the option to go to school five days a week. And so that's what he that's what he's been doing. Now I've got one in fifth grade and one in seventh. So the seventh grader autistic and has that going the fifth grader, the elementary schools, we've got two elementary schools. One is for kindergarten through second grade, the other ones for third through fifth. They moved half of the second grade into the into the the upper elementary building. They moved all the fifth graders to empty space that they'd now made in the middle school and our administration building that's right next to it. So the fifth graders have their own classroom, they don't leave their classroom, at least that's what we're told as parents. I've learned since that they have to, they actually have to walk to the cafeteria to deposit their ticket, that they're having lunch, then they walk back to their classroom and the cafeteria delivers their lunch to their classroom, which is bizarre. Doesn't seem to be a reason for that. But, but generally he stays in that room, even though my other son's classes are all completely around the classroom that the younger son is in, they never see each other because they're because the younger is in his classroom all day and except for that trip to the cafeteria, where bathrooms, he doesn't he doesn't leave that room. So he's with one teacher that hire a bunch of new teachers for elementary because of that because they spread out the classes. They've got a lot more classrooms. In fact, our our teacher, the fifth grade teacher, still is not listed as a teacher on the district's website.
So, so I've always had to go to the website to find my kids teacher to remember what her name is when I call him Sick and late for orthodontic payments. And I can't do that because she's not listed. So it's kind of weird. But it's, you know, we we went through the middle of January, right after Presidents Day or Martin Luther King Day, we came back to verse to hybrid after being all virtual. And I'll tell you, it's, it's been pretty good. The worst part for us is that they did away with busing, the buses, they determined was going to take too many resources to put screens between all the seats. And then with the hybrid system, they'd only be picking up half the kids, and they wouldn't be picking up the kids from, you know, the the distribution would be off because it's by last name. And so you'd have more than one section of the island and others, we've only got like four buses, for the whole school district. And we've added an extra building, because the administration's buildings being used, they all have to go in separate doors, so you can have a general bus stop, drop off at the school. So there are all sorts of reasons for that. And I'll tell you, the parents are really, they're probably most upset about the busing. And I'll tell you, I wouldn't have thought that all these parents had dropped their kids off, that's or had let their kids ride the bus before. Because there are an awful lot of kids being dropped off every day at school. But parents are really upset about it now. So they're even even rumors that they were going to discontinue busing, that they were taking advantage of this to discontinue busing forever. And no one lives more than about a mile and a half from any of the school buildings. Well, maybe maybe two miles. So it's not it's not that bad. But But still, you know, the thing is, the schools are not built for this. Right? They're they're built to have some buses, and then they're they're built for a certain amount of cars, the parking lots are only so big. And we, you know, this is a small island, but we've got, we've got traffic blocked all over the place. You know, there there are people basically parking their cars in the middle of the street on our major thoroughfares, we only have three roads that go north and south through the island. And one of them is blocked, because the one of the upper elementary school and the one that's on the east side of the island is blocked because of the middle school. And so you've got, you know, UPS vans trying to get through, you've got dump trucks or whatever, trying to get through all this traffic, and they don't know that, that this is going to be blocked up. And it's going to be that way for the rest of the year. So it'll be interesting to see what happens from here. But But yeah, the bussing situation wasn't something I thought would would be a big issue this far. And so So do you have any predictions for what what school is going to look like the rest of this year things gonna change or stay the same? Or next year? Do you think we're going to start out under all these restrictions?
I think there'll be restrictions, especially in the classroom next year, hopefully, they'll get more teachers, and they will have smaller class sizes. That's that's my big hope that that's the big takeaway from this is that they will be able to spread kids, my kids weren't sick at all last year at all, never once, because they weren't going to the giant petri dish that is a school building. But as far as for the rest of this year, I have a feeling it's going to be a lot more battles with the boy getting work done. And getting up and going to school on those two days. But, you know, that's, that's the gig right now with everything virtual is the easiest school is ever going to be. I mean, for anybody, as far as features. Yeah, well, yeah, for for that for any student, it really is the easiest it's ever going to be do your you know, go to class, watch the class, and then do your work at your leisure, and have every resource available to you to do all of the work that you have to do. But on the same hand, I don't really want to scare him, that, hey, it only gets worse from here, but because the battles are already bad enough, and we're only halfway there. So it's gonna be tough, I think to to make the adjustment for the kids, it's not going to be an adjustment for me until I do get a job. And then I have to, you know, all of our normal logistics go out the window, and we have to apply new logistics and new plans and everything with my wife's job and my job and and their schooling. So it's going to be tough this year. The rest of this year, more than I think, I think, come fall it should be fairly easy, fairly normal.
The return to school issue, of course, incredibly complicated. You know, I don't know if it's the easiest it's going to be Nick. I mean, yeah, I see what you mean. But I think for a lot of kids learning this way is hard and with the compounding issues of COVID on family I think it's, it's for a lot of kids, it's just really hard to, to show up and have the energy to show up in the way that they have in the past. But for me, the big issue about what school looks like in the future is really about protecting kids. And his craziest things in Texas have gotten the one silver lining has been that they are adding teachers to the one B list, and my wife has gotten on, gotten an appointment to get her first vaccination on Saturday. And a lot of the teachers that I know that work at the school also have managed to get appointments. So you know, once you've got a school that is that has a faculty and staff that's immunized. That's a really different risk assessment for administration's given what we've seen in terms of transmission and danger to kids. And so, you know, I think that's just the smart thing to do. And if if our governments can get together and say, hey, let's just do that, if we get all the teachers immunized, and there's minimal risk to kids, then really, we can accelerate, we can lean into, you know, this, this notion that schools can become a safe place. And you know, there's there's a lot of complexity around that. But once all the teachers are immunized, it's a very, very different world. And that could happen quickly. I mean, you know, in the net, I predict that in the next three to four weeks, maybe even less, every teacher at the school where we live will be immunized. That's a completely different world. And that's one where you can start to say, hey, maybe in person for everyone is acceptable. And maybe we can start coming together in Chapel, we can start coming together in the performance Hall, we can start to choirs can sing again, and the kids can rehearse again. And you know, the teams can play again. And you know, so I think that's if you prioritize teachers getting immunized, all that comes into range.
Well, when I say easiest, it's good it's ever going to be I mean, the work, you know, the actual school work, the homework and all of that. The social aspects of it, I mean, are even tougher, because, you know, middle school, he's in middle school, and that's where you learn all of that how to deal with good friends and bully friends and you know, all of the different cliques and all of that. And he's not really getting that. I mean, he has to we have to neighbor friends that they hang out with, and they all hang out together sometimes. And that's that's it, they know that they don't. And he said he said he's in theater. And that's been really really tough to do a virtually they did a play. And it it was just so tough because some of the kids were able to do you know, they decorated their backgrounds and stuff and you know, as if they would for a set and then some people didn't and it was just it was a really tough production for all of them. Well, good for getting
a theater kid man. I tried tried. I just failed at that and just 100% fail. I was always a drama guy and I you know, drama, probably all of them. You know, my daughter did a little singing my son did some drums but really total?
Well, that's that's all Alice she was she was the fist being and and I'm not sure we have a theater kid with with him. I think it was one of those. I don't want to do these other classes. So he's like,
I don't even take that. Nick, I take that. 100%
right. You're right. I think that's kind of what, but I really think he would enjoy it in person on stage. And I know that I would, because I know I would love to be helping build sets and Alice could help with costumes and sewing and stuff. And I would just love to do that. For the school that just for him. So I'm not able to do any of that. And I can't. He had a science thing. The assignment that was about predicting distances and velocity and stuff. And the program that was using it was using skateboarding. And you know, I'm skateboarder and even. He didn't even tell me about it. And I was like, dude, I mean, I wouldn't do the work for you. But still, that's the kind of thing Hey, Dad, check this out, you know? No, so, but I also didn't get a kid that like Star Wars didn't get a kid like superheroes. So yeah, I tried the theater for that any day, but Alice won't.
So this is this is a great segue, we'll move on to the next question. But this segues to actually the night that we're recording. This is a big debut for one of one of our very own. Clay had a play debut tonight revision to when he wrote a while ago. Do you want to tell us a little bit about it?
This is this kind of crazy story. You know, I hope this won't bore the audience. But, you know, the crazy thing is that this is my senior college project, reemerging 35 years later, to come to life again. So literally, I wrote a thesis when I was a senior in college. I made this proposal It's hard to explain, but I proposed to my college for my senior thesis that I would research write and perform a one man show about a sort of little known but significant. Texas political figure a guy named Sam Rayburn. You've probably heard the Rayburn office building is named for him because he was speaker of the house for longer than anyone until Tip O'Neill. Okay. Well, anyway, he was witness to, you know, and, and core to sort of American political history from the Woodrow Wilson administration to the JFK administration when he died at age 79. And he was, you know, Speaker of the House. He's a colleague and best friend of Lyndon Johnson, the two of them, basically ran legislation in the 60s. And, you know, as a character had kind of fallen into obscurity. So I wrote this play, and I did it. And, you know, Rayburn, one of the things he's most known for is being completely bald, but at the time, I have long flowing locks. And I decided that Well, I'm not going to 22 I'm gonna shave my head to do the thing. And so fate did this to me. And now I am utterly bald, I think for just for the hubris of not willing to give me anyway, so the play went on to have a kind of an interesting life. It ended up being produced by a couple of different theatre companies, and of all things wound up and one of the craziest moments of my life on the stage of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, being performed in front of a crowd that included Mrs. Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, and a bunch of contemporaries and Sam Rayburn, in in, you know, this. I don't know how to describe it, you know, 1000 people in the audience, most of whom knew who Raven was. And, you know, I was sitting there as the, you know, 26 year old playwright of this crazy play, anyway, and that night, ended up resulting in me getting invited to have dinner with the first lady at the LBJ Ranch, but that's another story that would take another 30 minutes.
Wow.
The actor who played Rayburn was was fantastic in that production. And he ended up with his own Theatre Company in Austin, Texas, and COVID hit and he started to think, what could I do? And he said, Well, now that you know, now I'm in almost, you know, Mr. Sam's age, same reasons age. I think I should do the play again, except I can't memorize all the lines. What if we did it as a radio play slash podcast? We did it in installments. I can read it. And so he came to me with that idea. And I was just absolutely thrilled with it. Dave. Jared is his name. Dave Jared productions is a producing Theatre Company. And so tonight, the first installment of the speaker speaks An Evening with Sam Rayburn. It's basically being presented in three acts. And the first act is live now and you can go to David jarrett.com. And so that show the first episode is now live and and two will drop next week and actually the week after that.
That's awesome. That's so cool.
All right. So moving on to the next question. This actually comes from a new dad, he's, I think his his daughter is about six months old now. He's also my nephew. He asked me several questions. We'll pepper these in over the next episodes, but the one that really jumped out to me. And this is a really, really honest question. His he wants to know, how do you help children reach their development goals without being overbearing, and going overboard? So how do you get them to say their first words? How do you get them to walk? How do you get them to use, you know, proper potty etiquette,
all that sort of stuff. I One of the nice things, the silver linings of my, my oldest child was a premature baby. And he was born at 29, almost 30 weeks, and sped up many weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit. He's now an ensign in the Coast Guard. And I just saw pictures of him with his shipmates doing a CrossFit workout in celebration of some Coast Guard anniversary yesterday. So he is a he is a happy, fit, accomplished beautiful human being. But he was born as an orange, sticky, bent, weird headed, not cooked being. And it was the most tragic week in my life, my wife and I were traumatized. And, and you know, this baby was just not ready to be out and was in the ICU with, you know, every attachment and to possible and in and out scrubbing in to go into the neonatal intensive care unit and put this little sticky baby on my chest and do kangaroo care, it really was the defining moment for me in terms of being a father and deciding to be committed. But the gift that that hardship gave me was that we, we started to not pay attention to milestones. And you know, there was all kinds of, because anytime you have a preemie baby, they're going to miss their milestones. And there's all kinds of ways that you come and take to that, oh, you know, factor in with their birthday was supposed to be, and then, you know, figure that out. And, and, you know, I think my wife and I, although it was a battle, I think, finally, we gave ourselves the room to say, it's going to be different, it's going to be different. And it's going to be different for our son, and it's going to be different for every person. And if you go see your pediatrician, on the schedule, that you're supposed to see your pediatrician. Let that person worry about milestones, and you love your kid and show up and be there. And, and, you know, other than that, these milestones are things that are that begin your education, as a parent, you know, learning to deal with your self, your expectations and your anxiety, and it doesn't go away. But it's starting the conversation. It's the first moment where you can start to take control of that and say, I'm in charge of this, you're not in charge of this. And I'm going to be okay with what my kid is.
Yeah, I was gonna say the exact same thing. milestones are averages, they're going to be different for every single child, do not worry about them. Talk to your child. You know, some people say don't do baby talk. I don't care, do baby talk. But do it in a in a conversational pattern. I read bla bla bla, bla bla bla, you know, it's still that that interaction, interact with your child, read with them, play with them, read to them constantly. And those milestones will happen. potty training, the biggest thing there is when they show interest, then worry about potty training. If they are showing interest, it's going to be a battle. It's going to suck and it's going to take much longer. I'm a well aware of how that goes. It took forever with the boy with the girl. We didn't worry about it. We waited till she showed interest and we're like okay, and she started showing interest to him and then we jumped on board didn't take it and what it was not the battle that it was with the boy. Don't worry, like he said worry about let the pediatrician worry about the medical milestones. But as far as developmental milestones we've been worried about just either and and they will take care of themselves. They will they will meet them. guarantee
One of the things that's really interesting that happens as a parent is that you have the worry parent voice, that's just fueled by all your anxieties and the things you've read what other people have told you, that is ever present. And I think that the sooner you get in dialogue with that, with your more rational, like, okay, like, I know me self, and you start having a conversation with that anxiety, the better off you're going to be. And the first one, you know, those conversations, start immediately with these milestones, and that the external expectation of what your kid is going to be doing or what you're worried about, or where they're supposed to be doing, that anxious voice is going to be present throughout your entire Parenthood. And the quality of relationship that you have with your kid is going to have a lot to do with how successfully you get in dialogue with that part of yourself, and successfully talk that down. Such that anxiety is not the primary driver of the communication and relationship that you're having with your kid. So milestones great does a great job of triggering an anxious parent. And that means it's okay time for the more rational part of my brain to to have a dialogue with that anxiety so that I don't blow it and get pissed off at my kid or my spouse or whoever, because it's underperforming the expectations of the worried guy, you know,
well, and other parents too well, my kid was walking when he was six months old. Who cares? Great for you. It's competition with
every year we do another IEP for my older son. And that that IEP paperwork we have to fill out every year asks us about each of those milestones. So they want us to remember, like, how old he was when he was talking, and you know, all these things. And we've just started, just scratch them out. Because they don't care. I mean, he's in seventh grade, it doesn't matter, you know, when he used the toilet the first time anyway, I think we got that covered really well. And I'm sure there are lots of DadLabs videos on YouTube, that we can point to the talk about different milestones. And yes,
there are there if you if you Google will provide labs, milestones, there are multiple videos, we're gonna do exactly what
we'll pick out some episodes and put them in the in the episode description down there.
So taking care of yourself, you know, we've we've talked a lot about taking care of the kids and families and all that. So what do you what do you do? What have you done to make sure that you have enough energy to be able to keep up with your kids?
I haven't figured that out. I don't, I don't have enough energy to do all the things that running the household requires taking, getting them to classes and making sure all their works done, and then doing the things that I want to do. I don't have enough time in the day, and I certainly don't have the energy. I don't know if that's because I am fairly healthy. But I am not fit in any. You know it by any stretch. I don't know if that's a medical thing that I just don't get enough sleep or whatever. But no, I haven't figured out as far as energy goes. But I take time to do some of the things that I want to do. You know, like the laser stuff that the creative outlets and the Flow Arts, but it doesn't necessarily take priority or anything, especially the last year with with COVID. And all that, you know, it's just surviving each day is is the priority getting what has to be done, done, getting the dishes done, getting the laundry done keeping the household moving. And there's not a whole lot of extracurricular activities going on with anybody. So it hasn't been it hasn't been a To me, it hasn't been a disappointment that I didn't get to do this. I didn't get to do that. Nobody did, you know, nobody's doing these things. We'll get there and the things that are important to me, I will make time for and as the kids get older, they'll be much more self sufficient. And, you know, I have a six year old now so I still have to you know Still takes a lot of supervision. The 13 year old takes supervision for schoolwork. But that's about it. Everything else is is just is really it's just surviving and going through the motions for that for for right now. We'll get to a point where it's can be like deliberate actions and, and trips and activities and events. We'll get there. Yeah. How do you do it? CLAY you got you got a gigantic kid you're praying is just that kills me that he is just
Yeah, he's, you know, it's it's very strange having someone that's a full grown human doing their professional thing you know as a part of your parenting portfolio but yeah, we're there. I mean, the, for me when I was in my 30s, I had young kids at home. And if I got out for a walk, that was a big win. And so I think it's okay, if you're in the middle of it, you've got young kids, and, you know, trying to find time to carve out for yourself is hard, it's okay to say, you know what, not now, but in the future, yes. remind yourself of that. And then when I turned 40, you know, I decided on Valentine's day of the year that I turned 40, that I was going to get a and I started with a we I get home, we and I set it up in my living room. And it was this little step class, and I held the little handles and they were like, step up, step down step by step. And I did that, you know, and I decided I was going to do that every morning. And it took me about, you know, a month, when, at 40. Taking time for my health and fitness became a habit. And you know, that habit, then kind of went crazy. And for a lot of my 40s I was running marathons and half marathons and really got very quite focused on that and was finding probably a little too much time for mice. If you have time to train for a marathon, you know that you've got fewer domestic responsibilities that used to. So in my 40s, I was investing a lot of time, in that, obviously, with the advent of COVID, you know, I've gotten more treated. But I would say that, for me, that's been important in terms of, you know, my own health and well being setting example for my kids. And during COVID I found some time with my kids to do that. And and I think it helped enable them in a way that I've been very inspired by to stay committed to their sports and their training and to be ready now that that's over. And they're reemerging in in, you know, quite fit and ready to compete. It's a luxury, it's a privilege for me that they've had the time, you know, and access to we live at a school that had a gym that we had access to throughout the pandemic. I don't think that was true of 99% of families in the country. So that was an unusual situation. But I don't think if you find yourself in a, in a busy moment in your Parenthood, that you need to judge yourself, you just stay aware that there's going to come a time, you know, when you're a little bit older, you really are going to have to invest in that so that you're present and ready for grandkids and and to support your kids when when they need you.
Again, it's it's temporary. It might take it might be years, but it is temporary. They're only small for so long.
Well, I'll tell you that. It's been It was really tough for me to take the kids to school, you know, when last year when when the kids got on the bus in the morning. You know, it was it was always hard to be awake. Because it was it was very quick, you know, we got him to the breakfast made sure they didn't smell too bad. And got him out the door for the bus. Actually, yeah, so So there were two different bus times. But, you know, it was very limited contact I'm driving each of the kids to school and each of them even though they're in the same building, they start an hour apart. And so each of my kids I drive them to school way before I'm ready. So believe it or not drinking coffee has been something that's given me more energy for my kids. Because that's the only time I get with my kids you know on one on one these days. You know it's a they they go to their rooms to do schoolwork after school. or talk to their friends you know, it's all it's all through discord or tax. And that's the only time I get I get I get about eight minutes on the drive from our house to the school, and however long it takes for them to decide to get out of the car. And, and if I didn't have coffee in the morning, I I'd be completely dead to them and would have no, just no energy for that. And then I've also found I'm actually there's a there's a tic tac thing, but I have still haven't ever seen tic toc. But I have friends who've seen this challenge. It's called 75. hard clay. Have you ever heard of that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so it's 75 days, and you have to be on a diet, you have to read 15 pages of a book, you have to do two exercise routines of 45 minutes, each one of them has to be outside, which is kind of interesting when it's you know, below zero outside these like one thing a day, or is that you do all of those every single day. No, I'm out. If you miss a day you start over. Right? So I've got I've got several friends and oh, and the books you're supposed to read you're supposed to read nonfiction was to be like self improvement sort of stuff, or leadership stuff, or some people used it to read through the books for project management, this project management certification anyway. So it's all about self improvement. And doing that. Well, I decided I was going to do it, but not quite so intense. So I'm doing 100 days, which you know, is longer, but I have forgiveness built in. So if I miss a day, I add a day on to the end. I've missed three days, so so it'll be 103 days. But I've been doing that sticking to stick into I'm doing intermittent fasting diet, which is been interesting, it's been been good. For me, it also helps with my energy, I found that it really helps. And for whatever reason, I don't know why. You know, I take my vitamin, I, I go for it. And I really feel like I'm doing better and going for walks outside and like boys will go with me on the walks. And I feel like I'm more there for them. But unfortunately, you know, the times we're in, they're less there for me. So I have to steal my time when I can get it. So we'll see. But, you know, we'll end up going out i think i think pretty soon we went on some hikes. Got some nature areas down the road and, and we went out on a couple hikes and the boys really, really enjoyed that. And so I think we've got that in the future. Our family has doubled down. We bought a rowing machine because of course, our little high school has a rowing team. We always placed in the top 20 in the state because they're I think they're like 15 teams in the state. So we're always in the top 20
we don't want to get off on the whole tangent of college sports and admissions. That is key. That is a that is a major on ramp to college admission. here
we come.
My wife was a rower. So I know a little bit about that. But that's Yeah, that's great. That's good.
Remember sailing team to they're probably the top 100 in this in the country.
Sailing is also well as we know from
I would love to do
well. I don't know Texas and Kentucky probably don't understand just how bad the Ohio State Michigan thing is. But the Michigan State Championships for sailing are in Ohio. That's how few sailing teams that are in Michigan. They have to go to Cleveland for the sailing championship. Hey, I
learned I learned to windsurf in Arizona. So in the desert, so it I get it. I think actual sailing a boat would be a lot of fun.
It is I'll tell you play you've sailed, right.
I have and I've done some sailing. I'm not a particularly good sailor. My kids are and part of our our summer program is you know we we go to the east coast and the kids took sailing lessons. And it was you know, an important I think that it's it's an incredible life skill and just brings you into contact with nature in a way that other things do like pay attention to the tide, pay attention to the wind, pay attention to everything around you and then paste that into this really kind of cool experience. So I'm a huge fan of sailing and of course my my older son who just as a while he said Coast Guard officer. He was a he was in charge of the sailing waterfront at the Coast Guard Academy and he was in charge of instructing The younger cadets, the first year swabs in how to sail these very simple 422 sailed racing boats that they've got dozens of at the Coast Guard Academy. And those are some of my favorite photos of his whole Coast Guard Academy experiences him coaching. He's seeing young kids and their helmets and goofy looking life jackets and their shaved heads, and they're just looking terrified to try to teach them how to and you'd be amazed how few kids show up at the Coast Guard Academy with any experience on the water at all. You would think that, you know, and I think that's true in the Navy as well, that they show up, you know, and they're, they're from Idaho, you know, they never seen the ocean. And they've never been in and out for the few salty souls that show up there that that's kind of their God. Anyway, that's a long, aggressive way of saying that. I think sailings cool.
Yeah.
So hokey to say that it puts you in with nature. It really does. Because you, you get thrown from one of those little schooner and a little little sailboats or from a sail board, you get thrown pretty far just because the wind decided am done with you and just and you're 20 feet away from your, from your rig, and you're like, what the hell happened? It's a blast. It's something I wish I could I I've lived somewhere that I could teach my kids that we don't have anywhere really close. In Kentucky. So
yeah, well, I'm for Unfortunately, the the rowing actually, the last weekend before Michigan shut down was our indoor regatta that we had for our rowing team. And we had people from Canada, coming across, coming across the border to attend this Regatta, probably 300 people in our middle school cafeteria, doing rowing machines. They did try to sanitize those rowing machines between uses, but more like the way we used to, just to wipe the sweat off. Not thinking about that, but everybody was shoulder to shoulder. And we're so lucky that we didn't lose people because of that, you know,
indoor regard, like did they put the boat. So
it's really, it's really awesome. They take the rowing machines, they've got them linked together over a network. And then they've got these displays up on the wall. And they've got a virtual and every one of those rowing machines has has a display in front of it, too. And so if you're rowing, you see this display, and it's got, it's got a marker telling you, it shows you how far you've gone. So 50 meters or whatever. And then it's got, like a, it's got like a rabbit sort of thing that shows you how far ahead somebody is from you. Or, you know, where, where people are. And, and it sort of gives you a pace to catch up to. And then overhead. They actually have a board that shows all of the boats going across the going across the screen. So Atari with actual rowing machines. Absolutely. I mean, you know, may as well have been a week. But I'll tell you, so my kids, that was the first time they'd ever been on a rowing machine was at the regatta in the very first race of this regatta. And of course, they didn't have the stroke, they didn't have the thing. tristin Tristan was a fourth grader, right? This was a this was a open, you know, they had an open men's class, where you've got people who could have been, you know, competing for the Olympics, you know, doing this. And, and my kids who've never been on a rowing machine are competing in the first heat. That's all the middle school and younger kids. And of course, their last, they're competing against kids from Canada and Ohio and all over the place up. People come in from six, seven hours away. But they're the last ones on those machines. Everybody else is off the machines by the time they're getting to the like the last three quarters. And so everybody, like I said about 300 people cheering my kids on to finish the race. Because, you know, so their first attempted this was the most supportive environment you could ever be in. Yeah, absolutely amazing. And it really won me for rowing for these kids. Because I think the environments just so supportive. We don't have expectations that are going to do anything and and like you said, Clay it's like an automatic entry into college. With scholarships even right,
if you've got a kid that's tall and strong,
and they're there already.
Yeah, I mean, they they will skip those kids out. It's I mean, I think it's changing. I think a lot of kids have sort of, and we can talk about, I can speak endlessly to this issue of college admissions and athletics. There is no, there is no route into college anymore that is not being exploited and getting close attention from parents. If you have paid attention at all, to the recent, highly publicized college admissions scandals, that crew in sailing, both were were featured prominently in that I think people are aware that in, you know, just even six or seven years ago, you know, I think people identified that that crew wasn't, you know, that crew coaches would be, you know, going to registration day and walking up to every kid that was over six feet tall and said, Hey, have you ever thought about rowing crew? That's really not the case anymore. Now it's, you know, like, everything is competitive, but I do. I do think that that's a, there's significant opportunities there, as well. And it's great exercise.
So that's it. My goal is to get my weight down to where I can actually use our rowing machine. And then once that's on its game on, we'll, we'll have a whole family of rowers, we'll have our own boat. Terra quad. That's right. It'll be great.
You live on an island so I mean, do it.
Yeah, yeah. And we should have our own Lake freighter to
Hey, is it is it windy? Where you live?
around Chicago? That's, that's on the other lake. Okay. Well, I would be
okay. Because I i designated myself as the wind killer because I would go and take my cell rig to the lake and it'd be blowing like crazy and, and take it off the car and it's blowing around and I'm setting it up and I'm putting it together. And then I'm getting ready to take it into the water and it goes flat.
So we're also on a river so your boats going to go somewhere. There's no chance that you're not moving but you're
loading on a windsurfer, just floating around on a wind surfer holding the sail up yourself songs.
All right, well, that's great. Thanks to Nick and clay and their awesome families for sharing them with us. The Ask Dad Labs podcast is produced and edited by me Ben Folds, and fote Media productions. Like follow, subscribe, share and assimilate across the social media landscape. Wherever you find DadLabs Talk to you next time.
