Episode Transcript
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Mixtape navigating parenthood. I'm your host, Jim, along with my wife, Jenny. We're two parents born in the 70s, raised in the 80s. Love music from the raising kids in the. Just trying to figure it all out. Let's dive into the mixtape of modern parenting. This is modern mixtape. Listen wherever you get your podcast and on all the socials.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: Hi, Jen.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Hey.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: We had a couple of requests recently.
We're going to kind of do something a little bit different. Usually this is pretty well scripted for the most part, and we have a little thing we're going to follow. This one I dubbed unlocking us. Some people have inquired about the two of us and how we met and some of the stuff that obviously you guys hear about our parenting, but just some of the stuff that we've gone through along the way.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
We are not your typical family or your typical couple, and I think that really stems from how we met, for sure.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: It's funny. So looking at my notes right here, it says every couple has a story, and this one's ours.
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I think ours when you actually hear it and maybe why we're. I don't want to say we're protective of our story, but if you start to hear our story, it kind of sounds like the classic bar joke.
Ours is a widower, a divorcee, two kids on the spectrum, and a neurotypical kid walk into a bar. And that really sums up our story. And it sounds like a joke, but it does. That's our story.
When you say that, that's something like, I remember when we first went to church. Like, how do you introduce yourself to your pastor with that story? It's not something you want to lead off with.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Well, when we lived in a different state, we went to a big. I want to call it a megachurch.
Brunch was great. The services were great. We just didn't have to sit actually in the church. I don't think I ever met a pastor there.
Yeah, it was like church light.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah. But, yeah, we're now at a different church. But I just think when we meet people trying to start off with, oh.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah, you mean now?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't normally lead in with that, with kind of our joke. Right. Because it's really not a joke. It really is us. And that's actually how we met. We met at a park.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: So, for reference, our kids went to the same grade school.
I think they were separated by one grade or two grades.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: Two grades.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Okay, so two grades.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Well, our oldest, and so my oldest, because we're a blended family. So, our oldest, Peyton, and then Jim's.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Oldest, which would be our middle child.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Which is now the middle child.
They're separated by two grades, but what's ironic is our kids are all two years apart in age.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Oh, they're separated by one grade. The middle and the youngest are separated by one grade. We have a junior and a sophomore. Next year, it'll be a senior and.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: A junior and then a freshman in college. So we have a freshman in college, sophomore, junior in high school, and a sophomore in high school.
But when we met, they were all in elementary school, but Jim was really on the younger side of the elementary school, and I was on the older side of how it was laid out. So we never met each other.
And we met each other in between.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Our two houses, so we both lived in a condo.
We didn't know that we lived. Maybe I'd stress it maybe a little bit more than a half a block from each other. And in between both of our condos was the community.
So.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: And I was there with Peyton, and Peyton had a little dog, and our youngest came up to the dog and was petting the dog. She loves animals, and she asked if she could pet the dog. And I'm like, yeah, of know. And Peyton and our son were squirreling around on the jungle gym. It was like one of those spider web things. And when I say they were squirreling around, they were squirreling around. And I have to say this, because all of a sudden, I started to recognize Jim, but I was like, it can't be because it was one of those things you'd go through, like trying to meet people. And at that point, I had been on Facebook and mutual friends. Facebook had suggested people, and there was this guy who I thought was attractive. He had a beard and aviators, but I'm like, I don't know who this guy.
Not right?
[00:05:42] Speaker A: And the same thing happened with me is I was on Facebook, and I was like, oh, who's she? And that's her daughter. All right?
[00:05:47] Speaker B: But I wasn't putting it together. And so we started talking because our kids were playing on the playground, right?
[00:05:53] Speaker A: And for reference, when she says, first saw me, usually when we have grade school pickup, we'd stand outside of the gates, and then they'd dismiss by grade, like, each class by grade. So we've asked each other, but we never really never knew who we each.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: And we were just kind of casually talking. Our kids are playing, and Jim goes, oh, I got to like, okay, whatever. He's like, sorry. My kid's on the spectrum. And I said, well, mine is, too. And he's like, I'll be right back. And we've been together ever since. And it was one of those moments where you just realize you never know where you're going to meet someone and why they kind of come into your life. And I couldn't imagine doing this without you by my side because there's just a level of understanding to kind of what Peyton goes through on a daily basis. I think I understand what our son goes.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: Uh, well, funny enough, the fact that I ended up at the park was kind of a spite move on my part heart. The kids were like, oh, we want to go to grandma's. And I was like, okay. And they had just started getting rowdy, and I was like, you guys need to burn off some steam. They're like, no, we want to go to grandma's. And I was like, no, we're going to the park first. If you want to go to grandma's, we're going to the park and burn off some steam. You're not going to go to grandma's and act like crazies. Yeah. So I march them down to the park and tada.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Yeah. But then we kind of grew into our relationship because I've always worked. I've always been a working mom. I would not be a great stay at home mom.
And you had to get used to the fact that I was traveling and I was covering the western us for a company, and you had to kind of get used to the fact that I was traveling, and I think that was new for you.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah. You traveled on the weeks that you didn't have your daughter. Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: And I had to get used to the fact that there were more kids now because I think for both of us, we met with our kids, which I don't think either one of us in our dating lives, we wouldn't have planned that out. We would not have done that. I know that was not what I would have intended. So, yes, we met at the park, but that wasn't, like, our first date. Our first date. We.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Our first date. I took her to sushi. Yeah. Which, if I'm going to be totally honest for the listeners, it was not a date. It was a full on interview for both of us.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Well, that's why I brought up our kids, because at that point, our kids had already met, and it was like.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: And they were already little buddies, like, immediately. Yeah. Like, let's hang out, let's play Minecraft, let's do things.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: And so it was like, we're either going to be friends and our kids are just going to hang out, or.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: This is going to work.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: This is going to work. So why at that point, waste time?
We got a lot of questions out of the way quickly in that first date before appetizers came.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: I don't even think I got my drink and we were already in it.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah, but I mean, why?
[00:09:17] Speaker A: No, I understand it. And I think in today's age, if you're a divorcee, if you're older in.
[00:09:25] Speaker B: Age, though, why would you want to waste your time? You were managing two little kids on your own.
I had been through a divorce, and I don't think either one of us really wanted to kind of waste our time because we were focused on really trying to just be parents and learn how to be parents on our own.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah. For me, I was old enough to know that I didn't want to be alone for the rest of my life.
How soon is too soon if you lose somebody?
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: I don't think anybody can really answer that question. You have to just feel it. And I knew that I didn't want to be alone, and I sure as heck didn't want to raise those kids alone.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah. And I asked you that, and that was something you had to kind of figure out. And I knew for me, because I had been divorced for a while at that point, and I was still learning how to co parent. I don't think learning how to co parent successfully takes time, and it's something you have to work on. I was really lucky that I had models of what good co parenting looks like, but still, it takes time. There's no freaking handbook. It's like, when you have kids on the spectrum. There's, like, no handbook for raising kids on the spectrum.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a lot of book for raising kids, period.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah, there's no handbook. No, I mean, I remember when I brought Peyton home from the hospital and I literally was, like, staring at her, like there should have been some owner's manual, like, attached to the car seat. And I literally sat her on my dining room table, like, just looking at her like, shit, like, what now? And I just was like, so I.
[00:11:14] Speaker A: Was lucky growing up that I have a really big family. I mean, Jen will tell you, the first time I took her to Christmas, she had one of these what? What aunt belongs to what kid, and what kid goes with this aunt and uncle and blah, blah, blah.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: There was a ton of people. I didn't have that before.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: Oh, you didn't have it before?
[00:11:31] Speaker B: You said, you literally fed me to the sharks.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: They're all very nice.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: Oh, no, they're amazing. And we both come from great families. Crazy families, but great families. But after that, I was like, I need a flowchart to figure out this family and who goes to who because Jim's.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Jim has 75,000 cousins.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: No, Jim's dad is, I think, one of six, one of eight. One of eight.
And it's amazing. Group of aunts and uncles. I love them all and was fortunate enough to meet most of them and be welcomed by a lot of them. But then there's also this layer of cousins that Jim grew up with that are like brothers and sisters to him and he's very close to. And as you walk in and you know, you're getting judged and it's totally fine. My family is the same way. Especially they're going to veg.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: They're not super judgy, but they are definitely huggers. Even if they don't know you, they'll hug you.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: But I needed to know that flowchart, and that was part of it. As we were kind of getting to know each other's families. I'm like, okay, I got to get this right.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Well, when we did Thanksgiving at your dad's. Wow, that was intense. Yeah, same thing. I was getting judged.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I mean, we just kind of knew after that first interview that we were really going to give this a go. And I think we really did kind of just dive into it with both feet. I mean, the kind of test to see where this was going to go was our first trip with the kids. We went and took the kids to great wolf Lodge in Wisconsin. Let's put that in there in a minivan.
Let me add. Jim failed to mention that it was the kid's first plane flight. So I show up to LA with Peyton and tow, and she's got her little airplane, travel sacks, snacks, activities.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: We look like three raccoons that just filled the bag with cool stuff. And here we.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: No, no. You didn't even have bags for the flight to Chicago. And I show up to LAX and Jim has his backpack, and I'm like, where are the kids? Like, backpacks with activity stuff? And he's like, what are you talking about? So he had their iPads in his bag, and then I'm like, okay. Soon as we landed in Chicago, we found a Walmart. We got the kids backpacks and snacks and things, and we're still learning each other's idiosyncrasies. Like, we got a little family suite at Great Wolf Lodge so we could.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Cook for the kids, organized. I am not.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: And I go to Walmart to do the shopping. And at this point, our son would only eat certain color jellos, red jello, quirks of the autism spectrum, and they only had orange. And I'm panicking at this point because I know how this is going to go.
And I'm like, what do I do? It's late at night and I'm calling Jim going, they only have orange. And he's like, get the orange.
We're getting Jello. We're going to work through this. And I think that's what I appreciate about the two of us is that we will figure it out and problem solve.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: We kind of have to figure it on the fly, too. That's what we've learned.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Yeah, but we'll do it together. And that was one of my things when I was looking for someone to date and be with is I wanted someone who would be in the ship with me and be in the team, be on my team. And that's 100% what I found with you. Because Lord knows we have gone through it on a bunch of different stuff. But I saw it from the beginning and it was like the jello moment in Wisconsin. Like, we'll figure this out. And on that trip, there were so many moments of us just having to figure it out. I mean, the kids got car sick off the exit to.
So let me just add that know. That was so we took the kids to great wolf lodge. That was a really fun experience for the kids. But then Jim and I are also very much like, let's do stuff for ourselves. We are huge green Bay Packer fans. We decided to take the kids to Lambeau Field. Lambeau field? Why not? It's right up the road.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: We're here. We're in Wisconsin. It's fine.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: So we took the kids to Lambeau field. While on the exit pulling off, the kids got car sick. Learned that iPad detour to Walgreens.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Do a little cleanup, do a little.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Cleanup, no big deal. And we just move on. But that's what I appreciate about our relationship. We figure it out together. And that's when you kind of know you've picked the right person.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: So what Jen is leaving out, too, is I always joke that we have four kids, myself included.
She really didn't know what she was getting into and really didn't realize that I can be a handful at times. And I'll just go ahead and start out with the first time I got invited to Easter.
Got invited up to Easter at her parents house. You can't stay at the house, but you can stay at the Marriott down the way, by the way. To this day, Jimmy loves a Marriott guest, because that was the wi fi. It was the Marriott guest.
Anyway, she was getting ready to take the girls out to do something. Easter e. And her mom was coming by, and she's like, oh, my mom's coming. We're just going to come by and pick up the youngest, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay. So I was relaxed. And if you've never met me or never see me, I'm 61. I have full sleeves.
Most of my chest is tattooed. I have tattoos on my legs. I'm pretty well covered. Well, I came out in a pair of dickey shorts and what everybody would affectionately call an a shirt or a wife beater. So a little tank top, white rib tank top, and a flat brim hat, and walked outside, and Jen goes, oh, Jim, this is my mom. Oh, hi. Nice to meet you, blah, blah, blah. Hope you and the girls have fun.
Went about the rest of my day like it was nobody's business. I mean, it was fine by me. And then I got a call later.
Why would you do that?
You were meeting my mother.
You were on your way. I didn't know. I had to get dressed up. You could have at least put on a t shirt.
So I'm guessing she got grilled for that for a little bit.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: No, it wasn't even the t shirt. It was the flat billed hat.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: Why?
[00:18:21] Speaker B: I don't get it. I don't know what it was about the flat bill hat. I think what it was is my mom and I think my whole family wanted me to choose right.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Congratulations. You did.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Oh, and I did. I 100% did. Because I think at that point in my life, I don't know if I saw it in myself that what I was worthy of, and they wanted to make sure that I had a partner that matched what I was worthy of. And so they were being protective of me because I wasn't always protective of myself. That's fair, and I appreciate them for that.
But what Jim is leaving out of the story is, later that weekend, Jim was in the yard with my mom, like, helping with yard work and just taking the stuff out and really just blending right into the family without.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: You guys had a horseshoe pit.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: Yeah, without. And we cleaned up the horseshoe pit.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: So I went and cleaned it up.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: And it wasn't that he was asked, he just did. And he just jumped right in. And that, I think, really sealed the deal, especially for your mom.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: I mean, when it was cold, I was like, hey, can I cut firewood? She was like, yes, absolutely. That would be great. And I'd go out and stack it and they had a little carrier. Yeah.
I think I went down and got them another axe.
I don't remember.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: But every time we go there, if it's cold at night, the girls get a fire.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
So that's really how we met. And you'll hear more stories as we get going, but that's the early days of how we came together and started this crazy journey of parenthood. And I think we still laugh because when we got together, our kids were little and it was a whole different side of parenting. When you're parenting elementary school kids, to now where we're at, we're parenting young adults. And it's really been an evolution of our parenting.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: It's been interesting.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's been a lot of work and not only just with them, but working on ourselves and making mistakes.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Communication is a must in this family, for sure. We communicate ad nauseam. Yeah.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: And really learning along the way. And so I think that's partly why we wanted to do this, was because we've learned so much from starting this parenthood journey together with elementary school kids to now young adults, and we're still learning. And so hopefully you guys will learn some stuff from us and laugh with us because Lord knows, we laugh at ourselves constantly.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: All the time.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: All the time.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: So before we totally wrap this up. Yeah, you put it on Instagram.
We're going to leave you with one really funny story from this year. And we have laughed about it every time it comes up and people get excited about it.
These episodes of just Jen and I talking about ourselves. We are going to affectionately dub the Jim, Jim and Jan show.
Now, there's a reason behind that. So every year we do a Christmas card.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: We're still old school. We send out paper Christmas cards. Still. We're burning trees.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: There's part of me that's really like old school and traditional.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: Think about all the things you did for our weding. That was some crazy stuff. I was like, you do this stuff at weddings, so we'll get into that. We'll get into our wedding another time.
Gemma's doing Christmas cards and she was like, what are we going to do? And I said, I don't know. Let's just find some stock photos.
Our oldest had gone off to college. We're just kind of figuring it all out.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: I was in the middle of a big work project. Our youngest was in the middle of marching season.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: And you got to get it done before a certain time, because then you don't get your cards out before Christmas.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: I found some great photos of all of us in our respective activities doing what we all love.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: So that was great.
So Jen sent it all in, and she got them, and she goes, come in here. There's an error on our Christmas card. And I went, what? And she goes, well, while I was typing, I didn't realize that I had already typed this. And you're now Jim Jim.
Because if you got our Christmas card last year, it says, merry Christmas or happy holidays. I don't know what it says from Jim, Jim, Jenny, and on down the road. And I was like, oh, okay.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Well, I owned it. And guess what? I'm now at the space in my life. I didn't freak out. Guess who still sent out the Christmas cards. Yeah, they were still sent out.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: I know in my earlier days, I would have had a meltdown. I probably would have spent money and reordered them all. But I'm now in a place where I'm like, guess if you had tried to do those.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: I would have. Absolutely.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Jim Jim and the crew are saying, merry Christmas.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: I would have full on went, no, Jenny, no. You send the cars. You don't destroy them.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: But fast forward to the other part.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day, which I notoriously do nothing for.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah. He does not believe in Valentine's Day.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: That is a made up holiday.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: We cook dinner at home. And I know it's not that he does not love me. This man loves me. He does things for me all throughout the year.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: I still do stuff for you on Valentine's Day.
[00:24:19] Speaker B: I'm just wholly opposed to it.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: I'm not paying $160 for a bouquet of roses. Forget it.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: That's fine. I'm not doing it, and that's fine.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: But the podcast launched on Valentine's Day. He put up a picture of me and our dog. And our dog, because she is your best friend. Someone commented.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: About Jen notoriously wears ripped. Yeah. And gets teased about it constantly and gets the whole sentence of, hey, if you need some ripped jeans, I got a whole closet full.
[00:24:52] Speaker B: But someone called me Jan.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: And so now our alter egos are Jim, Jim, and Jan, which I think is very fitting, which is kind of fun.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Around the neighborhood, we've dubbed ourselves Jim, Jim and Jan.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: So I think we're going to have fabulous sixty? S, seventy? S inspired Halloween costumes. Jim, Jim and Jan and these podcasts that focus more on us are going to be the Jim, Jim and Jan show. So Jim, Jim and Jan are going to sign off and we thank you for joining us and we will see you next time on modern mixtape.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: All right.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Modern mixtape is produced and recorded by Jenny and Jim Pruden, edited and mixed by Grey Bear Erickson at the sanctuary theme song written and performed by Greybear Erickson.
