Dive into the world of modern-day parenting with Mark and Tyler, two dads who aren't afraid to get real about the struggles and triumphs of raising kids. They discuss the delicate balance between discipline and freedom, the significance of modeling good behavior, and the ways they're working to improve themselves as parents.

Listen in as they navigate fatherhood with empathy, determination, and a touch of competitive spirit.

Hello, and welcome to cock talk.

it is Mark and Tyler here today.

We're going to talk about being a dad.

What's up, Tyler?

This is,

how we doing?

this is our first

remote broadcast.

You got, I think this is your first remote broadcast, right?

yeah.

Got a new setup here, so we'll see how it goes.

What are you drinking over there, Mark?

I have to admit it is a little late for me to consume alcohol at this point.

So right now I have.

This blender bottle brought to you by blender bottle.

please sponsor us on your bottle.

and there is this like, uh, like fruits and veggie thing that I

got from Costco inside of here.

Tastes pretty good.

Tastes like a raspberry.

What are you drinking?

I'm, I got gin.

That's, you know what?

It's aviation gin.

Thank you, Ryan Reynolds.

It's very good.

I have been like a, like I'm not a big gin guy, and I got this bottle

for free after my brother in law's wedding, and I actually really like it.

Love drinking gin and just getting that little bit of juniper in there.

Yeah.

And gin is much more versatile.

you can put gin with anything, whereas whiskey,

I mean, you can put it with anything, but it's not gonna, it's

not gonna taste quite as good as

gin

So I have to ask you the question.

Why can't you drink alcohol this time of night?

Oh, it's not that I can't, uh, I just, I just prefer not to.

See, if I don't, if I drink right now, I just don't, I don't like falling asleep.

Having a lot of having any alcohol in me.

I don't know.

Just

Okay.

it ruins my sleep.

I like my sleep.

I'm, I'm regimented with it.

Okay.

I figured I had, I was like, I have to drink something.

Cause I know Tyler's going to come drinking something.

but yeah, me.

And I'll bet that what what time?

So it's 11 PM right now as we record this.

What, what's your typical, like I'm going to bed, like actually shutting

the lights off, going to sleep time.

I feel young saying this.

it's usually like one, one 30.

Okay.

I just can't shut

like I got so much going on that I need like time to decompress and shut down.

And, I can't do that with kids.

I can't do that with my wife.

I have to like separate myself and, settle down,

do you do to decompress?

I

What's your, uh, what's

like I make sure the schedule's all set for the next day for the guys

Yeah,

and and do

Sounds so decompressive.

but then I play some video games or like i'll browse youtube shorts

or watch our podcast on repeat,

Yeah, of course.

who doesn't?

Who doesn't that's where all 16 of those views came from.

Just

It's just

Uh, yeah, that's

How about you?

What are you doing?

Oh, for bed.

my wife and I, Katie and I, usually we watch a show we're

watching suits right now.

I don't know if you've seen suits, like a lawyer show, know So we're almost done.

We actually, we're going to watch the finale tonight.

So she was

like, of course you're going to do a podcast night.

It's supposed to watch the, like

the last episode of the nine.

It's the ninth season of this dang show now,

which I will say, for a show with nine seasons, I'd say 85

percent of it is fantastic,

which is pretty rare for a nine season show to say something like that.

there's a little bit of a lull, but that, that happens in every show.

but yeah, so we watch a show and then usually go to sleep or if I'm still

awake, I'll just do the same thing as you like scroll on my phone or whatnot.

But I know that's the best thing to do before you go to

sleep is just look at a screen.

Yeah, It's like the worst.

It's like the worst thing.

The worst,

all right, so let's get talking about being a dad.

tell me about what you've been doing this week with the kids, what

some ups or downs that you've had.

Oh, I'm going to tell you something funny that actually just happened tonight as

we were doing bedtime.

So I do this, I do this at any time as Meg it's hurt.

sometimes I'll say like, all right, time to do surgery.

like you hurt your foot

and pretend to cut the foot off and do stuff to it and then

sew it back on.

So tonight, and it's usually only ever like a foot or a hand

or a leg or something like that.

So Tonight, right before bed, I don't know what she did, but she

hit her head and she's Oh my head.

And I was like, all right, should we do surgery?

And she just laid down on her pillow, face into the pillow and

went, just cut off my head dad.

That's a riot.

I was like, Oh, I only take limbs

and she's no.

Just take the head off.

Just do it right here.

Yeah.

Do you have a toy knife that you use for it?

Or just use your hand.

Yeah, just your hand.

Yeah, that's cute.

We actually did the same with Holly tonight.

She was complaining.

She had a little rash that developed on her arm, like pizza sauce of all things.

She was helping make pizzas with Anna and, it popped.

She got pizza sauce on her arm and it just broke out in

a rash and she's ah, it hurts.

It hurts.

And I was like, all right.

And I was trying to get her to sit down at the table to eat dinner.

And she kept like walking around and complaining.

And I was like, all right, you got two options.

You can sit down at the table and eat your dinner, or I could take

your arm off so you feel better.

I was holding the pizza cutter out.

She's and my father in law is sitting next to me and my sister

in law is sitting, one seat over.

And they're like, yep, those are pretty good options.

So what?

So did you take it?

Did you take

the no arm option?

No, she said she sat down, but she looked at us, three adults.

She trusts like what?

Is this really going to happen?

Yeah, that's

So that was pretty funny,

what you got to be able to.

you have to be able to play with them.

That's the, and if you can, it's not that you're like making

light of them getting hurt.

It's just, you got to let them know that.

When you have fun, like anytime you're having fun, it means everything's okay.

you can use that fun and that humor to to really get through whatever

it is that you got to get through, which at this stage of the game is

very little, like a rash on the hand.

No big deal.

A bump on the head.

God, it happens every day.

Good.

I, Katie and I are convinced she's going to end up with some weird

disformed head because she hits her head so many times during the day.

Yeah, that sounds

I, I just, I'm, yes, I'm counting down the IQ points like, man, if we started at a

one 50, I think you're down to one 10 now

we got to hold on.

be at like a 30

The kid injures

dear.

Well,

hour Get

It's the worst.

Your kid getting hurt.

Like eventually you're, you become desensitized to it a little bit and

you're like, Oh, hit your head again.

Whereas the first kid, when your first kid, when they're first getting going,

it's a lot more Oh no, you hit your head.

Oh no.

And eventually you're like, just go.

Who cares?

know, when

you're fine.

Yep.

Yep.

So I, obviously we wanted, we're talking about being a dad on today's show and

we, I wanted to first before we get into maybe some of the, like the things

that you're really proud of being a dad and myself as well, and like maybe some

things that we're working on as well.

I wanted to talk about just any like method or like philosophical ideas you

have behind, parenthood, fatherhood, maybe Any books you've read or have

you followed something on purpose?

Uh, or is it just, just doing what comes natural, which I think is a method too.

Yeah, I think I'm more natural.

I do like to pick up stuff in conversations with my wife who

follows all these different accounts.

but my general take is I talk to them like an adult.

like they're a big kid.

I don't sugarcoat anything.

I just tell them how it is.

And they, I think that they end up turning out a little more responsible

and easier to communicate with, because there's, there's no heightened emotions.

It's not some soft, gentle thing that they think they can walk all

over you or anything like that.

It's like, all right, this is what's going on.

I'm going to do it, or I know there's a consequence, or, whatever we're

talking about, it's understood.

It's serious or funny, depending on the.

How it's presented, I guess.

yeah.

If I, when you say sugarcoated, I think of actually something that just

happened the other day with my neighbor.

we were over at their house just talking, I don't know about what.

They have a, they had two dogs, they left for Florida and

one of them died in Florida.

And.

Esme asked her, it was like, where's your other dog?

And she's oh, she's not here anymore.

And I was like, oh, Esme, their dog died.

And she was like, and it frazzled her that I was so upfront and honest.

As may knows what death is, she has killed a few chickens.

We've talked about that on the

show before she's done.

She's killed some chickens on accident, but like

she's killed some chickens.

And

he's also seen dead chickens.

Like she's seen what it looks like when a, some animal gets ahold of a

chicken and she's seen what it does.

Like she's come running up with a chicken in her hand going, dad,

this chicken doesn't have a head.

and that just, it is a cool benefit.

Of having animals is that it is really, it's sad when an animal dies and like you

always wanna respect the animal and you don't ever want them to die unnecessarily.

But it does teach about death.

Hey, that chicken's never coming back.

we had a name for that chicken.

That chicken

is gone now.

And she, she understands it, at least from an animal perspective.

I, we haven't had to deal with a person dying, that she knows, but, understands

it from an animal perspective.

does she bring up the dead chickens?

Oh, remember,

Yes.

Henrietta.

Remember Diane?

Diane's the one.

is it.

Holly does that with

Diane is the one.

tells everybody we had four

Was that the one that you ate?

yeah it is.

Because you ate one.

and then we ate one for Christmas.

I'd say at least that wasn't un, unnecessarily, with it.

yeah.

we planned it and we prepped her beforehand and I even asked

her like, do you want to help?

Me with it.

Do you any process?

And I warned her.

I was like, it's bloody.

It's going to be, gross.

And initially she was very, excited.

But when I started to go into maybe some of the details of what she might

see, she's I don't want to do it.

And it's okay, that's fine.

You don't have to.

Yeah.

That's yeah, it's, but that's the sugar coat, like you don't need

to sugar coat things for a kid.

And that's fine that she walks away, but it's the she knows, she understands that

all animals die so that we can eat and that's an awesome thing for a kid to know.

Uh, and I know I'm not sugarcoating things can go into all sorts of directions, but

that's just a little story I thought of

Do you have a, do you have a book or something that you,

you live after or follow or,

yeah, I try to follow the Bible.

That's really

the, that's my main parenting book.

There's a lot of really garbage dads in the Bible.

So I try to, I, I see those

and, and then at the same time there are, it's crazy.

I, for those of, our listeners, whether or not you know

anything about the Bible or not.

most people have heard of David, like David and Goliath and King

David was not the greatest dad time.

he definitely protected his family, but bad things happened to

his family a lot because of him.

there's even the person who the Bible says is a man after God's own

heart, struggled as a dad, which I think just goes to show it's not.

Being a dad is, and being a parent is a very difficult task and you will

never achieve perfection as a parent

ever,

that's hitting it right on the head is we're going to make mistakes every day,

and it's about how you, maybe confront those mistakes within yourself, within,

with your spouse and with your kids that makes a world of a difference.

I know I've had to come back and apologize to my girl and say, hey.

Daddy's really sorry.

Daddy should not have yelled at you or daddy shouldn't have said that or

something, and there's always that Good exchange of it's a time to apologize

and then they forgive And then the relationship is restored and then we can

keep living on and everything is good and that's our process of doing that Yeah

Yeah.

That's great.

Yeah.

Because you got, you have to model going and there is a certain element of,

lowering your pride to go and apologize.

and ask her forgiveness and say that you were wrong, especially to somebody who is

less than you, they're like on the totem pole of command, they are at the bottom

and to go to them and say, I need you to forgive me, but I want you to forgive me.

That's a, it's a very humbling.

I think it ultimately sets a good example for what they should be looking for.

they're young.

My kids are four and two, but I ultimately want to set the standard

now what they should be looking for in a man when they're older.

If they have a man that makes mistakes and never apologizes,

that should be a big red flag.

hundred percent.

Yeah.

My mom always told me, she said, if you can learn, and she told me this

when I was really young, she said, if you can learn to say sorry today, It

will be much easier when you actually have something real to say sorry for.

And I've always held on to that.

I bet she has no idea.

if I were to

tell my mom, Hey mom, I always remember this advice.

and and it's advice that I've, like I've shared with Katie.

My wife and and I've shared it with as may, like it's wisdom that I've

passed on because it is very true.

Like I I don't, I pride myself on being able to apologize.

Cause I've done a lot of stupid things.

So I gotta get real good at apologizing for things.

And it's, it's real, like it, it's a, it can be very humbling

to have to go and apologize.

Especially when you're like, I don't want to admit that I'm wrong

here and I'm pissed because I am,

Yeah.

Where do you see the most, conflict in your relationship with your kids coming

in at is there a time of day or a certain topic or, a reoccurring, for me, it's the

dinner table with Sophie, getting that kid to sit down at the dinner table while

we're eating is like an impossible task.

She is up probably at least a half a dozen times per meal,

like going and visiting Chloe.

She's getting up and wanting to sit on mom's lap, and then she goes and

tries to sit on my lap, and then she's stealing a bite of Holly's

food, and it's just sit in your chair.

isn't that funny that.

That it like, and it's not unreasonable because it's like a social norm,

but how much it bothers us when our kids don't go with the social norm of yes,

dinnertime or as man wants to, she'll, she sits next to me a lot of times we sit

on like our Island, we have a peninsula.

So Katie, you'll sit on one end and FIA stands in this standing thing on the edge.

And then as man, I sit next to each other and as man wants to lean on me.

And I am physical touch all the way.

I love hugging.

I love like cuddling up and, but while I'm eating my food,

I don't want to be touched.

Okay.

she's like leaning

up against me.

And it's dude, I like, I can't even eat.

Cause you're like your hair's all there.

She's got a lot of

got a lot of hair so yes, I can, I could echo the dinnertime.

I think for me, it's definitely bedtime is when I start to get, you're at that

kind of at the end of your wick there.

starts to boil in my stomach and my chest dude, you've got to get to bed.

It's time.

yeah.

I'm totally with it, too.

yeah, that's where I'm bedtime and I actually love bedtime.

I think there, there's actually a study and I can't remember exactly

how they came to this determination.

It was something in terms of what's what people remember years later that the

most impactful minutes of someone's day.

Are like the first three minutes of their day and the last

three minutes of their day.

And to me, that says like when somebody wakes up, it's how you initially begin.

Your day is going to, is probably pretty darn important.

And then the kicker for me was the last three minutes of the night.

that's a hundred percent me every single time.

Okay.

You do.

You do

uh, like with, as.

routine.

Yeah, with Esme, that's like me and her.

And so I'm like, the last three minutes, what do I do?

And so I consciously think about those last three minutes.

Cause like we have fun.

I tell stories and we have a great time, but those last three minutes, I'm like,

all right, what am I going to tell you?

Because if this is what you're going to remember for the rest of

your life, I better make this good.

Yeah.

I don't know where I can't remember what study it was or where I read that, but I.

It's conscious in my brain when I'm doing bedtimes.

at the same, that's why I'm like, don't screw up bedtime.

Yeah.

I would say that I struggle at bedtime, too.

it's like you say, your wick is right at its end.

It's again, it's like the same similar thing with, can

you please turn that back on?

It's a similar thing with the, the dinner time where I have to

ask the same thing over and over.

It's please.

I'm begging you

Yeah.

And those, it's, isn't it funny how those little social norms, they bother us so

much when really there are times where.

Legitimately, you have every reason for it to bother you.

There's

other times where I have to be like, this is fine.

they don't know, they don't know social norms and they don't care.

and are they hurting anybody doing this?

No, it's just, it's annoying.

But why you have to like, then you have to sit back.

Why is this annoying to me?

why are these, why do these things bother me?

And sometimes I go, they bother me because she could get hurt.

And I, that bothers me when she gets hurt.

So that's legitimate.

But there are other times where I just have to go.

I think what you're doing is stupid.

You're not going to hurt yourself.

messing anything up.

So go ahead, do what you're going to do in this moment.

And I guess my philosophy is I try to give freedom.

Where I can there's so many times during a day when you can go Oh my

gosh I hate it when I'm at the store or something and you hear somebody

going Oh, especially the park No, no

Yeah.

what?

do it just like looking for a reason to say yes is a So crucial because you

can tell your kid no all dang day and eventually they're going to resent you

for It's a guarantee because I did.

Yeah,

I Did not like being told what to do

Oh,

I did not like being told what to do So if I can give that freedom and

not tell my kids what to do all the time Then I'm gonna be intentional

about the times when I have to say no because it'll mean something

okay.

Yeah, I can see

that.

I'm perfect,

good.

Yeah.

I think I put a high amount of pressure on myself to create this ideal citizen,

like I want my kid, I don't want my kid to be the one that's always getting in

trouble or the one that's, I don't know.

I feel I take a, of a really strong responsibility to teach them how to be

like cohesive in society and be kind to others and, be generous and all these

things that I often maybe take it too far and that, like bedtime, Hey, we need to

obey because it's, ultimately the theory is if you have somebody in power over

you and they ask you to do something, You should be doing it and saying, yes, sir.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, boss, whatever it is.

Not that I expect my four year old to call me, sir or boss, but, the intention is

I learn respect.

yeah, they learn this level of respect where, they, of a higher authority,

and that, There's not going to be some conflict that, that happens.

Cause they've been taught from as early as they can remember how to interact with an

adult figure or a boss figure or whatever.

Yeah.

And it's important that they can talk to adults.

That is a big thing.

I, I know there's so many kids where they like clam up, and

that's not a lot of kids do that.

And that's okay.

It was their kids, but it's when they're like 10, 12.

And you're like, you have no idea how to talk to someone that's

not the same exact age as you

now, that's a problem.

I don't know.

I grew up being like, I grew up feeling like my parents, friends were,

Not my friends, but they were people that I knew and I could talk to.

and I, I want the same for my kids.

I want them to feel like my friends are people that they

have relationships with as well.

so so you know, we both talked about sleep.

Do you have a certain Theory or a system that you use it that you use at bedtime.

I do.

It is

not a.

It is not, I will say it's not a theory.

It is a method that works really well for my wife and I, because we work from home.

So if

is that your disclaimer?

It only works with stay at home

no,

it could, it could absolutely work for you.

It could work for you too.

But if you, here's the thing, if both parents work, this won't work because

you're going to, nobody goes into work the times that our kids, my kids wake up.

if you have to wake up at six or seven and take your kid to daycare, this won't work.

but we both work from home and this kind of began way back when my oldest

was little, when we said we were.

Like we're working from home.

So what do we do to be able to both work and take care of a kid and

not have to send her to daycare?

So what we did initially, we had a noon to midnight or sorry,

midnight to noon sleep schedule.

So we put her to get to bed at midnight and she didn't wake up until noon.

she slept her 12 hours.

And, for us, for our work day, we get up at eight.

And we work eight to 12 and then it's lunchtime and our kid wakes up.

And at the time she's a little baby.

So she'd be awake for a couple hours.

And, one of us could hang out with her and she could hang out nearby.

And then she'd go back to sleep until four or five.

And then we were done our work day.

And then we got the whole rest of the evening with her.

Uh, so now it's adjusted to 11 to 11, maybe 10 30 to 10 30 or so.

but we have largely kept that schedule and my oldest is three and a half now.

And she sleeps, you know, sometimes it's at 10 And

Fia does the same thing.

She goes to bed at about like 10, between 10 and wakes up between 10 every day.

and then just to remind people how old are your kids?

the oldest is three and a half youngest is one.

And yeah, it works really well for both of them.

It lets us have our mornings to work.

And then, mainly like Katie has a, an actual nine to five style job where

she has to be available for meetings.

And I don't, once they're awake, then they're there, I'm their

main caretaker, but she has little breaks throughout the day, so it

allows her to, like the kids are up.

when she's free and she's free for lunch and we all get to have lunch together.

So it's pretty cool.

Uh, it works really well.

And even if If you have one person who worked and another person who didn't,

it's, it's not the worst thing to have your kids be able to stay up late.

I don't know.

I love it because we can go to someone's house and we can

be there till 1030 and it's

Yeah.

No, that's a great benefit.

lot of people have to go.

They have to leave if they're like, we'll stay till eight,

but it's really pushing it.

Our kids are going to be a nightmare when we get home.

Whereas we're like, yeah, we'll stay till 1030 11 and And our kids will be fine.

It's pushing them past an hour pass where, you think about it.

Like we've hung out with people where the kids are still up at 11

and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this would be like my kid being up at three.

So I don't even know what it's like to have a kid that goes to bed past their

bedtime because I never need them to.

I'm always ready for them to go to bed.

that's probably the bulk of the American kids are going to bed slightly early.

Maybe that's a little presumptuous, but in my household, our

kids go down 7 30 to 8 30.

Sometimes that 9, just depends.

But.

think like

little kids.

That's pretty typical.

do, they would just cry.

They start crying and screaming and it's you guys are done.

we're not doing this.

You're going to bed.

We're not trying to push till 11.

The only time it really works is when we're at like your house or with Joel or

wherever where they've got other kids to play with, and they tend to do very well.

Once they're there, and then as soon as they hit the car, they're gone,

there's no fighting or arguing.

It's nice, honestly, when we are out late because they're so distracted,

they can't, they're not settled down enough to, start losing their

minds, and so they just crash.

yeah, yeah, and then I also think I also really valuable the night time,

because if the kids go down at nine at the latest, that means that I have

a couple hours, but it's just me and the wife and, cause she goes down, she

probably falls asleep like 10, 30, to 11.

So that's our only time where we get one on one.

cause the kids, they're just everywhere.

There's no, even during nap time.

Like my oldest.

the kids are,

My oldest doesn't nap anymore, so there's not even like a mid afternoon

break from that, I don't think I could ever see myself, switching.

Like, where do you find you and Katie time?

Or do you guys just both stay up really late?

that's usually from like 11 to one.

Yeah.

We stay

up late.

Okay.

Like

we're both, we're both kind of night owl people.

Okay,

It's basically everything's just shifted.

Cause yeah, that's like sometimes, if they go to bed at 10 30, then

we usually go, we go to bed or we watch a show, we do whatever.

And then, between 1230 and one, usually she's falling asleep.

it's still two hours together, which like, yeah, if you put your, if you put your

kid to bed at seven or eight and you go to bed at nine or 10, it's the same thing.

It's just all

shifted, which.

I always just look at it like these, there are people who are their stay at home

parents and their kids get up at six.

I'm like, Oh my gosh, that sounds terrible.

I couldn't do that.

I want to sleep.

And the other thing is that on a weekend, if I want to sleep in,

like if we're out late Friday or we're having fun and we have a

party at our house or something, we can sleep till 10 a.

m.

And there's still no kids awake.

I got to know there's people that are watching this that are like

You yeah, no seriously fuck you that's crazy Yeah, I couldn't, my, Sophie is like

me, she doesn't need any sleep at all.

she's up some mornings at 6, trying to crawl into our bed, I wanna snuggle

you, and no, go back to your bedroom.

So we have one of those little hatches, it's like a sound

machine, with the light combo.

And, you can control it through an app, it's wonderful.

And so we have it turn colors at 7 30.

It turns yellow and when it turns yellow, that's when the kids know

that they can come out and start the day because otherwise they

have no idea what time it is.

They have no reference.

So that kind

which fair.

Yeah.

it at least makes them aware of, this is when the day starts a thing.

and our way to get them back in the bed has always been like, what color is it?

What color is it?

It's not yellow.

Go back.

yeah, we love our hatch.

Do you have anything like sound machines or lights that you use?

we, yeah, we use a hatch too.

Okay.

Do you have that

we'll put a link in we'll put a link in the description.

yeah.

click our affiliate link down there.

Or,

um, yeah, we don't have it set up as the colors because I don't care.

Because I'm already awake long before they are.

Um, only time there was, there has have been a couple, I'll say like just

phases where Esme would get up at nine and I was like, bro, this is too early.

You go back to bed

and she'd be like, but the sun's out.

I know.

So you're like, but the sun's out.

I'm like, yeah, but you've only slept for 11 hours.

So you need to go back to bed for an hour.

Like, but she, that eventually it's you're up, just go to your room and and

relax a little bit and here's like a snack or something, for the most part

that, that'll happen for a couple of weeks and then she'll sleep straight

12 hours again, and then sometimes it's 10 and a half and 12 hours is pretty

much her, like her mo her whole life.

Always 12 hours, so I am not complaining at all.

Let's talk about some wins that you've had as a dad, I guess a better, maybe a,

an easier way to say it is like, what's something that you're really proud of,

uh, that has happened because of you being a dad or, that you've intentionally

done that you go, I'm super proud of this moment or this thing that my kid does

yeah, I couldn't.

Ain't good conscious claim anything, like

does it all.

my wife is a stay at home mom.

yeah, she's the boss of the, taking care of everything at the house.

I'm away or in the office locked away, for most of the day.

And then I come home and take over.

But.

she's in control of 80 percent of their day.

so I don't know if I can, honestly claim anything, but one thing that

I really love, that our kids do is they have, gosh, this makes me sound

really old and kind of corny, but I love how they have good manners.

like they, they're always very thankful there.

They say, please, they're just very conscious of how their

words, affect other people.

So they, they say, sorry, they apologize.

They hug.

They want to make sure that, everything's okay.

And I think that's really rewarding because if you've met my four year

old, which Mark, obviously you have, there's not a day that you're around

her that you don't feel loved.

that kid is just always hugging and kissing and telling people

how much she loves them.

And, gosh, that is just watching that is like, She's so captivating.

I told her that the other day.

I was like, do you know how captivating you are?

Like, you got to be careful because you could do some damage with this.

And she's, she should know.

But it's still fun to talk to her about that kind of a thing.

Because, she is, she's so kind and generous that, it makes me just so happy

whenever she interacts with everybody.

How about yourself?

I'll tell a story and this will, the story will help to tell

why I'm proud of, my oldest.

So we've obviously we have chickens and generally the rule is So we

have a, I have, we have a fence.

It's like an electric fence.

You got to turn the fence off and you can pull the gate in to

get, to get in with the chickens.

And then there's also, an egg box on the outside of the coop that you can access,

there's two little locks and you pull them off and then the top falls back and

you can get in and grab all the eggs.

I don't remember.

We were out there with her, with Fia as well, my youngest, and, I

had to carry her and something else.

And as may has this little Jeep and she takes off and drives that

thing all the way back there.

First thing I'm proud of is that she can drive that thing

like a fricking 16 year old.

She's an unbelievable driver already.

And she like wants to drive my actual truck

and I let her and she.

She drove up the fricking driveway, like not the pedals,

running the wheel, mean, it's

Yeah.

She's gotta

um, she's, she's a fantastic driver.

Like my 10 year old niece, she got into as may as a little Jeep with her.

And she was trying to drive and she was hitting things.

And she was like, Oh, the slightest way drive.

So

Let the 3-year-old

And she is just

Oh, that's a riot.

narrowly misses at all sorts of things.

She's just a ballsy little driver.

It's so

funny.

so she drives her Jeep to the back.

she knows she's not supposed to open these things without me, but.

sometimes she gets excited.

So she opened up the egg, Hutch thing that's there.

So she opens it up and I see a couple extra chickens.

Like we've got every now and then a chicken or two will get out.

We have one chicken that never goes into the coop and it just roams

everywhere and I cannot catch it.

I like need to get a net gun or something that I can just shoot a gun at it.

The

rocks go So it's, but I see five or six chickens.

I was like, Oh man, as May's back there, she's getting the, she's

let the chickens out or something.

So I'm like trying to hustle back there.

I'm carrying a kid.

I'm carrying like a bowl of scrap food running back there.

I see her first off.

She's.

Trying to collect the eggs, but she also recognizes that the birds have discovered

that it's open, and so the birds are trying to get out and escape as well.

So she's trying to get the eggs while stopping the birds from getting out.

But there's four that they can lay in.

So she's going between each four, holding one, pushing the other

one and has eggs in her hand.

And I just see like her run to the left side and then two birds jump out.

And she runs over to that side and got one more out.

And she's just, I was like, The chicken's got out.

I was like, at first I was, I, I'm like, no, dang it.

And then I, I realized this is fricking hilarious.

Yeah.

right?

you are like legitimately trying to for going and getting these eggs by yourself.

And so I was like, no, you did a good job.

It's okay.

The chickens got out.

That's fine.

We can get them back in.

And we did.

She helped me get them back in.

She like hustles them in and she holds the gate and swoops the, the netting around

them so that they have to get pushed in.

She made good on, on the accident that she did.

but.

I was super proud that she's she just takes control.

I'm like, she's Oh, I'll go back there and do it.

Like she wants to, she can do everything by herself.

I can

do it and goes and does these monumental tasks, like things that you wouldn't be

like, Oh, my three year old goes back on, does all the things to feed them.

Like she does things that.

Again, my 10 year old niece doesn't couldn't do It's just, it's cool

to see how she takes responsibility and like really grabs life by the

horns and she does not want anybody else to grab those horns with her.

She wants to just drive the bull.

Yeah, that's very fun.

I think that's very much like a firstborn child thing where they just

have this natural Tendency to just like dial in like my firstborn to Holly

I mean she dials it like got it and you can tell her, okay, we're gonna

do this We're gonna do that and then we're gonna do that and she's yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay And then I'm like, all right, go do it.

And she's she's so excited to go, all right, I gotta go put

the dry food in with ducks.

And then I gotta go, collect the eggs and throw in the food scraps.

And then she comes and she's daddy, I got two eggs.

She's so excited.

good

great.

Oh, Hey, by the way, how did your, how did your egg hatching go?

should I show them?

Should I show them?

Yeah, a hundred percent.

I'll be right back.

Okay.

All right.

Tyler is gone.

he's going to, he,

so Tyler's been, Oh, okay.

So you can hear, Oh, and we Can hear them?

This is fantastic.

I can, I, yeah, definitely can

All right, I'm coming back.

This is a fun reveal.

So we had five eggs that were viable.

We lost one because it accidentally could drop, and one of them didn't work out.

So we have three total khaki camels in our little batch that we incubated.

That's Great job.

are so cute.

They're so fluffy.

They're super small.

they're as big as my hands, right?

And how old

are those ones right now?

they are a week old today.

Yeah.

One of them's six days, one hatched the next day because

it got incubated a day later.

and my daughter named them.

We've got, Fluffy, Rolly, and, Baloova.

I don't know what that is, but that's, yeah.

Yeah,

a beluga whale and a vulva,

yeah, hopefully we'll get a couple extra egg layers.

These will lay, The two Hens that we have now have laid every single

day for probably two months now.

Oh, That is a lot for a duck.

That is amount of.

if we get two more girls, which we're hoping for, I haven't sexed them,

maybe we can get four eggs a day and, I'm gonna go put these guys back.

Yeah, of course.

Of course.

Yeah, that's really cool.

there you go.

There's a, you're a live homesteading here on cock talk the podcast.

Uh, yeah, cool.

I've always wanted to do that.

I've thought about doing it with chicken eggs.

Cause for sure.

we've, we have two roosters, so I know that I could probably do it.

Maybe I'll just, can I

No.

You can't because I'm an idiot and I put it in the dishwasher

and it just totally warped.

No.

Yeah.

Oh,

dear.

I mean they're cheap.

If you really want to do it, they're like, I think the one I got

was 40 bucks and it does 12 eggs and it really worked really well.

Okay.

you literally just went and collected the eggs and dropped them in there.

yeah, I collected about 10 of them.

And then put them all in the incubator at once, so that they

would all hatch at the same time.

and then I guess only one of my hens was fertilized, so we only got half.

and then we had the one that looked like it developed maybe

only two of the four weeks.

And then the one got dropped at that's about that same time.

by my oldest, which I have a

So if you, I, yeah, I know if you, if you have the egg, so you said you

put them all in at the same time.

So that'd be

like five days worth of eggs.

What did you do with the eggs while they, while you waited

to put them in the incubator?

Oh, they're just sitting on the counter.

Yeah.

We have a little egg holder.

Yeah.

All right.

So you don't have to keep them extra warm or anything.

Oh no, you wouldn't want to do that.

that would start the process.

Yeah.

You don't like, you could.

You could probably keep them outside and they would be fine.

But the kids love going and picking the eggs.

So we'd grab the eggs every day, so they just sit on the counter.

they won't progress on the counter even though they're fertilized.

so it's only once they get the humidity and the high temperature that they start

like actually developing and you'll get a heartbeat within five, six days.

It's exciting.

You can see all the vein structure like

All right.

I'm doing

egg.

It's fun.

It's really fun I think esme would love it.

I get 25 eggs a day and I get a lot of actually, you say

your ducks are laying a lot.

My mine are laying every day too.

Yeah, how's that peaking going?

the eggs are like this big, they're freaking huge.

Yeah,

I

will, I'll post a picture on our Instagram so

Yeah, I think you should post that picture that you had the chicken the regular

duck and then the peaking duck because The peaking was at least twice as big.

And, Katie's that's probably a double yoke.

And it wasn't, it was just a monster

a big duck

That one lays every third day,

Yeah,

but the other ones are laying every day.

That's a meat bird.

it's not an egg layer.

I think the khaki campbells are egg layers.

So they're supposed to be laying eggs.

I've even noticed mine have gotten slightly larger than they were

probably, when they started laying.

So that's cool too.

So we're getting a little bit bigger.

they're growing up.

let's close the show with, with something that we are doing to become better

Yeah.

what do you have for me?

What are you doing to become a better dad?

Gosh, where to begin, honestly, like I, I think I'm very critical of myself and

I always want to, I want to be the best at everything and that's impossible.

I realize that, but there's always areas of improvement.

and I think the biggest one for me is the whole patience with the kids.

where I just, I tend to, I have a whole crazy day with work.

I got employees that aren't communicating, showing up late, not showing up at all.

customers that, we had signed projects, found somebody else.

And, you have all this built up stress and then you go back to family life and

you want some level of order because your whole day was out of order.

And so you try to establish order and you can't do it.

because they're four, they're two, what, I'm an idiot honestly for thinking

that I would come home and have order like, and so I'm working on my own

heart to realize like coming home and having disorder is a level of bliss

and that it doesn't have to be perfect.

It doesn't have to be beautiful.

It doesn't have to be right.

We're all learning.

We're all trying to get better.

and there's a joy that can be found.

It can be funny.

like you said, where, the chickens got out and your initial reaction

is one of what are you doing?

But then, actually, that's hilarious because they're popping

out of all these holes and she's trying to keep it all a day.

taking that step back for me, I'm really trying to work on and realizing

in the moment, like, how much.

You can really experience without having to feel so uptight

patients for days with my kids.

I could have patients with a lot of people.

I always honestly prided myself on I'm pretty patient.

Like I always felt like I was patient with my wife and then I had kids and then I

wasn't patient with my kids or my wife.

It all fell apart.

It all fell apart.

Uh, yeah, and I, so I agree with you, like learning patience with your

kids, I feel is just a lifelong thing.

Like you're always trying to grow that wick of your candle

to be able to be a little more patient and a little more patient.

yeah, that's huge.

for me.

I have been, I noticed that, you get into those seasons where you like,

you're like, I really just want to take a peek at this and look here and I'm

going to just, and you're with your kids a little bit and you're like,

I'll just check this really quick.

and they're like, dad, come on, you, I, stop looking at your phone.

And She's at the age now where she notices when I'm on my phone.

Whereas when they're like one and a half, you can be like, yeah, okay.

Yep.

we're playing and you can play with the toys and you can do whatever and

put it back and take it back out.

It's not a big deal, but she notices and I've been trying really intentional to

not just put my phone away when I'm with her, but to also kick that laziness.

So I've been playing with you so much.

Like I don't want to play anymore and be like.

No, I'm going to be freaking relentless and I like that's my, in

my head, Mike, I will be relentless.

I'm going to beat you at playing.

And yeah, maybe internally it's a little bit of a competition, but it

helps me to be a better dad because I know if I can outplay you as a 38

year old dad to my three year old, then I'm doing something right.

and then your kids gonna be super competitive be like,

how did they get that way?

Oh, I don't

My my kid is gonna be competitive no matter what

Yeah.

Yep.

Yep, have you met my wife?

He's very and

I'm

we're both, we both have very similar relationships in that

both of us are competitive.

Both of us are athletes.

both pairs of us are the exact same in that manner.

Both very physical, tough, individuals, pairs, couples.

100 percent I love it anything that you want to add before we?

Get out of here and I'm going to go to bed and

watch my episode of sweets.

suits.

Yeah, go snuggle the wife, have your alone time.

I don't want to take any more time from her.

Oh, no, that's okay I know at this point no matter when I go back

to bed I'm gonna get a little bit like a oh what took you so long

huh.

and I'll say it's technology,

been over 50.

Dude, that is a thing be like, you said 45 minutes, like it was

our episodes, 52 minutes long.

Like I, it's not that bad.

you said 45, you should have said 55.

Oh man.

I know I'm working on that.

See, there's a lot of things there are.

I think there's actually way more things that I have to work on as a

husband that I need to work on as a dad.

I

actually think that being a dad is pretty easy.

Being a husband, especially while being a dad is very difficult.

It might be the hardest thing about being a dad.

Your dad is also being a really good husband on top of it.

let's do an episode about being a husband.

I think that'd be a great topic.

right.

All right.

I think that would be.

We'll get Joel in here for that one too.

Oh yeah.

He'll he'll help put us all in shame as he, as he renews his vows and like the

hills of Scotland right now, something

right?

You know who I would like to have is Derek back on for that?

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Let's get Derek on

let's have Derek

All right.

That sounds,

for that.

I love it.

all this has been.

I believe this is the ninth episode of cock talk the podcast.

So we're almost a double digit Styler.

We

almost made it.

Did you know that 80 percent of podcasts don't go past the third episode?

We're already there.

yeah, buddy.

Oh, baby.

Oh, all thank you so much to our listeners and our viewers for being here.

You can, if you're watching us on YouTube and you'll want to listen to

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