Latest / Relatively Functional Dads / Episode 001 - Being Fathered By God

Transcript

Episode 001 - Being Fathered By God · Relatively Functional Dads

• The Boys And Audio: Hey, welcome into the podcast. So happy to be here with you. ⁓ buddy joined as always co-hosts Reese behind the camera is the handsome producer Noah. ⁓ episode one, here we go. We've been talking about this, prepping for this, praying about this for about a whole six weeks. Maybe, ⁓ speak for yourself. So way less than that. is, This is a day that we're really, really thankful. So, ⁓ Reese, we got some really good things this episode. We're going to do the obvious, have a lot of fun. welcome to the Relatively Functional Dads podcast for fathers doing their best and learning every day. We're just three relatives walking through faith, fatherhood, and real life together. That was me. ⁓ experts here, just honest conversations about the wins, the struggles, and the moments that shape us as men and dads. Some days we've got it together, other days we're just trying to get to bedtime, but we keep showing up. And if you're dad... ⁓ In the middle of it too, you're in the right place. Let's journey through this together. tell some stories, ⁓ laugh at my pain situations, celebrate some dubs as dads. ⁓ But then at the end of this segment, really the second half of our segment, we wanted to share with the world a little bit of our fatherhood journey, how we became dads, not the physical act. We're pretty familiar with what led to ⁓ our children, but yeah, the circumstances surrounding it, a little bit more about why we wanted to have this podcast, and then really just land on the importance of for us to step into being the dads that we know God wants us to be, we have to allow God to father us. And what does that mean to be sons before we can be fathers? So yeah, really looking forward to that. Before we have a little fun together, I got a trivia question for you. Hit me. It's kind of more of a fun fact, but do know what rhymes with prescription? Excuse me, prescribed. Hit me again. Subscribe. Subscribe to the pod. So episode one would actually mean the world to us if you took a moment to subscribe and either leave a comment or review. I think we can all say you don't have to feel guilty if you just go ahead and do it. Don't be that person that hears the people in intro ask for you to subscribe to the pod and then you don't do it for five, six, 10 episodes. So yeah, it would actually genuinely mean a lot to us and we would love for you to engage with us. Like I said, whether it's through comments on YouTube or leaving a review so we can know where we're screwing up, how we can get better, or maybe if we're doing something well. then tell five of your friends. Tell five of your friends to take their phone, pull up the YouTube app, go ahead and hit subscribe. We need as much feedback as possible. As much as we can get. anyways, gentlemen, I'm really glad to be here with both of you guys. And thank you guys for joining us. Reese, let's jump into it. Let's have a little fun. What is our first segment for today? First segment. starting off with for the win, just something that we're gonna share from the week. I'm gonna be honest with you, could be last couple weeks, just depends on when we're shooting this, but sharing a win from the week as a dad could be anything from sticking to a healthy rhythm, despite the crazy lifestyle as a dad, helping your kid with a new skill and making it anywhere on time. So you wanna go first or you want me to dive in? Yeah, I think I got one. We did our pilot episode a couple of weeks ago and it was on the eve of eve of potty training. So we're a week and a half into potty training and the win is my son pooped on the potty for the third time today. I mean, golf clap anyone? Sorry, you know what? That was too fast. Slow clap. Slow clap. And here's why it's a big deal. Potty training in and of itself is not easy. We have two kids, a four and a half year old, two and a half year old and one on the way. So really knowing how it went with the first one, we knew pooping was going to be difficult. So my son is more of a cat when it comes to peeing. It's like you point the cat to the litter box. Cat knows where the litter box is. Sure. Goes to the bathroom. I got a tiny potty right here. He's been crushing it. 90%. I mean, like the type of free throw percentage you're going for at 90 plus percent when it comes to urinating. Pooping is different. And I knew this with Naomi. It's just weird something that size leaving a little person's body. The human body is ⁓ all sorts of complicated. Let me tell you how complicated it got. We are on Tuesday night group. I don't think you guys were there that night. And ⁓ I know this is when we're three days into potty training. So we do the whole no pants. You stay home for the weekend. You get off started on a good note. Really the first time leaving the house. So he had pants on and when the kids have pants on, they just don't have any control over their bowels for whatever reason. and when the kids have pants on, they just don't have any control over their bowels for whatever reason. I'm knowing this, I'm watching him kinda casing the joint. I'm talking to our friend Zach and I'm like, hey, I need to go check on my son, hold on. As I'm walking over there, I smell something a little funny, but all of our friends have kids under four, so that's not unusual. So I said, Grayson, do you need to go poopy? And he looks at me and he says, daddy, look. And he holds out his hand, of which I'm like, I don't know what it is. Turns it over, it's a nugget. Sure enough. Sure enough. This is Had a gift for you. Gift wrapped and everything. I said, ⁓ here we go. I'm knowing this, I'm watching him kinda casing the joint. I'm talking to our friend Zach and I'm like, hey, I need to go check on my son, hold on. As I'm walking over there, I smell something a little funny, but all of our friends have kids under four, so that's not unusual. So I said, Grayson, do you need to go poopy? And he looks at me and he says, daddy, look. And he holds out his hand, of which I'm like, I don't know what it is. Turns it over, it's a nugget. Sure enough. Sure enough. This is Had a gift for you. Gift wrapped and everything. I said, ⁓ here we go. ⁓ Sorry, this was a Tuesday night group. Yeah, which means we are in essentially a children's ministry classroom in a church for our listeners and ⁓ we all start laughing. I said, I need some help over here. Madeline, my wife looks, everyone starts laughing. Naomi starts crying because they think we're making fun of her brother. This homie shakes out his leg and two more roll out the bottom. ⁓ Sorry, this was a Tuesday night group. Yeah, which means we are in essentially a children's ministry classroom in a church for our listeners and ⁓ we all start laughing. I said, I need some help over here. Madeline, my wife looks, everyone starts laughing. Naomi starts crying because they think we're making fun of her brother. This homie shakes out his leg and two more roll out the bottom. ⁓ Man. ⁓ yeah. So Noah did see my face and it was one of those like more like just disbelief. And it was hilarious. Dude, it was hilarious. So ⁓ the progress we've made since then, that is the win. It's a group effort. I'd like to take all the credit. It's mostly going to my wife because yeah, she just spends more time with the kids being a stay at home mom. But for the win, bro, pooping on the potty. I'm sorry. I missed it. We're on our way, dude. Probably the highlight of my month. It was actually freaking hilarious. That's pretty amazing. mean, I, the shake in the leg at the end, mean, I will, I will share this story at his wedding. It's good idea. I mean, if he gets married, there's no telling at this point. Uh, well, good stuff. What you got, man. I'm gonna dress the elephant in the room. Haven't figured out where I'm going to set my hands yet, but I'm gonna get it figured out. I'm going to slow sip this coffee for the next 45 minutes. Cause we're going to keep it on an hour. That's a good idea. I'm not going to eat any of this food. So y'all don't have to listen to that. But ⁓ my for the win for the last couple of weeks, this is not like a typical thing for me. Ellie was hanging out with some friends who also have husbands and kids and all that stuff. And she lets me know after spending time with them that their husbands had called, kind of frantic, taking care of the kids. While I stay home with Roman every Tuesday. Locked down. capital D for dialed. Dialed. I've got it down. No problems. Maybe I got it. And she said, I was bragging on you because their husbands called. Bro, your shoulders. Not here. Not here. mean, chest was puffed out. Everything was fine. He was probably OK. mean, he was doing well. But either way, the fact that she was bragging on me, that was my for the win. There's lots of things that I do that Ellie has to shake her head at and be like, can't believe he just did that in public. Understandably. Wow. Can't believe I actually chose to spend my life with this person forever. Forever. Forever. Covenant. to hear that she had been bragging on me about my skills as a father made me feel pretty sick, especially because, I don't know, I didn't even feel like it was that difficult just running the mill. But I also have a wonderful son who, for the most part, behaves himself, but he's been awesome for the listeners. ⁓ my nephew, his son stays at our house a couple of days a week and man, the last, the last few weeks he's seriously, he's brought a ton of joy to us. He's been a lot of fun. Makes me happy. He's a seven months old going on eight months for those who don't know. And he is, ⁓ just started teething, but man, is he just a happy giggling, massive thied, chunkiest child, chunky kid. ⁓ and I just, I can't get enough of him. So yeah. And next time, he legitimately breaks his leg or something, no shot, you're calling Ellie. No, you're going to get that fixed before she gets home. I got that. Because the ego is there now. Get him wrapped up. I mean, we should be good, but kids bones are going to be made of metal. I'm proud of you though, man. For real. Thank you. That's a win. Appreciate that. That is a win. All right. Next one. Should have known better. One that we've tried before in a pilot, but first episode and probably one to happen regularly. Should have known better. situation where like the title insinuates should have known better at this point in your journey as a dad, husband, what you got for me? I love how you texted our group this week and you're like, fellas, I got at least one of these a week. So we need to keep this in the rotation as a regular segment, which I said, I understand. I do as well. And, I think you're going to learn a lot because I'm actively screwing up your four and a half year old niece. And, uh, hopefully since your kids are a little younger, you can learn from my mistakes. She is, ⁓ Naomi, again, four and a half struggles when you throw anything away. So it's been hard. She comes home from church, preschool. You can only have so many papers on the fridge. So you're throwing stuff away. We're now on our fifth Christmas. We've had four birthdays. There's a lot of gifts. We have a playroom. It's still overflowing. We have a den upstairs. It's overflowing. I get overwhelmed. I just start throwing stuff away, Reese. So I got to that point. She has a little hair extension for her ponies. It sticks on your sock when you walk around and it's always out and I'm always telling put your stuff away. Not anymore. Not anymore. Well, stuck to my sock. So I did what any dad does is I threw it away. Right. The problem is she came downstairs the next morning and threw something away in the kitchen trash can and said, ⁓ my gosh, what is my toy doing in the trash? To which I should have known better. that you always take a handful of garbage and you put that right on top of whatever toy you just threw away. Reese, this didn't happen just once, it happened twice in the same day. So, should have known better. The other one wasn't really my fault. It was a crown that we fixed a zillion times, this little plastic jewels that fall out. And she's got 12 other crowns for all the listeners who might feel bad for my daughter. has other toys. We had either myself or Madeline weeks ago throwing it away in one of the little trash cans upstairs. Later that day I was taking out the trash. It's a see-through Target bag or Meyer bag. To which she looks at me and instead of going to like dramatic starts crying. Cause I had a conversation with, ⁓ daddy's not throwing this away. He's just like, that was an accident. Don't know what happened. She said, ⁓ daddy, there's a, the crown is in the bottom of that trash bag. Silly daddy. You wouldn't throw that away. Not after we just talked about this. And I said, baby, you're absolutely right. Why don't you go play with your brother and I'll, I'll take care of it. took it out to the big trash. I mean these kids, they either remember everything or they'll forget about it completely. There is no in between. Out of sight, out of mind. That's right. So when you throw it away, fellas, put the garbage on top. When you're taking out the trash upstairs, put it directly in the bin. As a certified expert at this routine, classic one is a regular sized paper plate. Yep. You just put that right on top. From all the wrappers and stuff. I grew up in a household where there was a lot of sugar, but it wasn't encouraged to eat it. maybe you ate the last of something and you didn't want anybody to know that you ate the last of something or you want questions to get brought up. Yeah. Just, let's just not worry about it. Yeah. Paper plate and then basically just pile drive that thing down into the bottom. Make it seem like there's more room in the trash Because if people were looking through the trash at that point, there's something that's on them. Yeah. There's a problem. You know what? It taught me to think. three or four steps ahead in this life. So you're prepared. I am. Okay, now that we know how to hide the evidence, what you got for us? That's right. I also shared the segment. Got a blowout story from Roman. But I was, I think it was Tuesday this week. Again, I mentioned it, but I stay home on Tuesdays with Roman. Helps our, that's the kind of our childcare schedule. I'm a personal trainer, have a little flexibility with the schedule. So I have the privilege and the blessing to get to stay home. I've been told not to call it babysitting if it's your own kid. yeah, I've made that mistake. Taking care of my son. But we We were at the house. He's in a weird phase of his poop frequency. I mean, when he was real little, it was like he could poop seven times a day. You never really knew. They normally weren't like massive blowouts or anything like that, but he'd poop a lot. Well, around six months, again, he's about seven and a half now, we started giving him solids, and they've thrown his digestive system into a- In your nose. All out of whack. I can't remember the last time that I gagged from a smell. Yeah. It's different. It's different. My brain wasn't ready for it to register. You miss the milk poopies. I do. I do. And what's funny is he could be several days removed from eating a solid. Cause he's not eating much. No, he's barely eating anything. Half the time he spits it out. It infuriates me, which by the way, I experienced that this week. I'm really sorry to everybody who like doesn't like waste. I'm not eating my kids chewed up food. It's going in the trash can. I know you do. I've lived here. ⁓ but, but he's better than me. I'm not doing that. That's not for me. ⁓ there's a certain threshold for that either way. I've told, ⁓ both the fellas here, I will go on tangents, but he had a blowout gagged to my core. and what I like to do when Roman has a blowout is one of two things, change him and then leave the outfit that's in complete disarray with poop all over it either on the changing table. Yep. I've been there. Or. fill up a sink full of hot water, soak it, and just dunk it in there. It's like the dishes, you gotta let it soak, It's a soaker. mean, clear as day, it's a soaker. And my wonderful and amazing wife has asked me numerous times, hey, you mind, our sink has one of these settings where if you click it, the water comes out like a rocket from like 18 different spouts. ⁓ no. And it helps get some of the poop off of the stuff. Well. We had just had a conversation about a few days prior and I don't know what was going on in my head. I actually remembered our conversation and thought to myself, Ellie said distinctly, you're gonna make sure you soak these. Talk to you like you're the child. You're gonna make sure you soak these Reese. I'm like, man, I'm so, so on it. I'm not about to leave this on the changing table. I'm not about to soak it. No, Go and soak it. She comes home. She's like, Hey, I'm really trying not to take this personal. She's like, she's like, we just talked about this. Why is this soaking it by the way, it's either in our guest bathroom sink or our kitchen sink on the one side that we use for everything Roman. Yep. The Roman Roman side of the sink. And I looked at her confused. It was like you, I was like, I did, I did exactly what we talked about. You said specifically Hey, don't leave this here, soak it. And she looks at me and is like, I said, rinse it. You always soak it. I said, rinse it. Like get this, get the little handle out and like rinse all the stuff out. And I'm like, you did say that. I didn't remember that. I heard, I heard soaked. She's like, why would I say to soak it? You always soak it. I'm like, it's a great question. I wish that. So did you double down or did you apologize? ⁓ I definitely apologized. And you know, I did not hit the mark. Should have known better. Should have known better ⁓ than to trust my initial judgment. But also you can't reach out after you've had the conversation or, you know, pro move that I heard, I don't remember where it was, might've been for the dad's podcast. You don't ask, hey, what did you say again? You said, hey, can you remind me what you said again? If you have to double check on something, a conversation you already had, you say, hey, I think I got it, but can you remind me what you said? verbiage changes everything. The framework for their brains makes them feel heard. Yeah. And you know, my parents probably listening to this story or thinking to themselves, we've seen a similar routine with the dishes. Yeah. ⁓ because they used to pretend they'd be like, Reese, you, ⁓ left this in the sink and the magical fairy that you think comes and does the dishes didn't show up last night. Please get back here into the dishes. Same concept. So preparing you living and learning, but I also have a poop story about not soaking my son's poopy pants, but I'm going to save it because the over under I think is at two and a half for poop stories and we're at two. So I want to leave a little wiggle room for the rest of the show in case we want to smash the over. So, but Madeline, I know you'll listen to this and I will do better when our son poops his pants, making sure they at least start soaking. So let it be known. Okay. Cool. Wow. I don't think it gets much better than that. So if you're thinking these guys know what they're doing, cause they have a dad podcast. Now you know. Now, know, we don't. So, yeah, we're dads here and I know we got a lot of different listeners. We have biological fathers, we have stepfathers, we have foster dads, we have father-like figures, we have single dads, we got grand dads. We may not have all those, that'd be awesome. I hope we have all those listeners, but I'd love for us to share a little bit about how we became dads, the circumstances surrounding it, where we find ourselves in the season of fatherhood simply because Yeah, I know all of us have different journeys of how we become dads and I want to honor that, but I also think it just kind of our differences helps set up a little bit of history so people know where we're coming from. So yeah, share a little bit with the folks, Reese. Okay. ⁓ I have wanted to be a dad since I was like 14. What I did not just say is I wanted to become a dad at the age of 14. I just have been looking forward to being a dad since I was about 14. I don't know what's special about that number, but always looked forward to it, always thought it'd be a huge privilege and honor. And I don't know, just like the idea that I get to have someone who has a piece of me, it's a part of them that I share with the person that I love is just like super cool. So wanted to be a dad for a super long time. It's amazing if you really get into the weeds of like planning to have children, you're like, ⁓ there's actually a few more things to think about than just excited to be a dad. But, Roman was a joy from the moment that Ellie told me that she was pregnant. If this says anything about me, she showed me the pregnancy tests were both positive and I looked at her and I said, do we know how accurate those are? run it back. wasn't the response she was looking for or expecting because I've talked for a long time about how excited I am to be a But you can never, like, it's hard to know how to be prepared for that moment. I just didn't want to. Embrace and cry and then find out that it was a false positive and we're not having a baby Although that does mean we get to try more if you know what I mean. Absolutely. ⁓ but Was pumped that she was pregnant and then I'm gonna speed this up a little bit because I think that I could go into a lot of detail But didn't realize how not real it would feel for a while. Yeah Ellie would feel this attachment all throughout pregnancy and I I felt attachment from a like theoretical standpoint, obviously I knew my son was in there or at the time just baby didn't know the gender yet and was excited about it. But it became real for me once we started getting ultrasounds. Yeah. Come to find out at 12 weeks, they're about the size of like a bean or something like that. And their heart rate is- And they look just like you. Yes, exactly. Yeah, just like me. And their heart rate is at like 160. And I'm looking at the person doing the ultrasound saying, do we need to rush? Elliot to the emergency room, what's going on? zone four cardio. he over there just doing burpees for an hour? Like what's the, he's my son. So like, this could be the thing. I don't do burpees as much as I just acted like I did. But, son's about seven months old. First few months were incredible, exhausting. I have in-laws that blessed me enough. I've had multiple in-laws bless me with getting to live with them. We lived with you guys before we had Roman, while we saved up for a house and. then continued to live, or we moved out, got an apartment and lived with Ellie's parents for a little while while we built a house and got to just save up some more and also just got to have Roman at their house, have the help and all those sorts of things. So I've been blessed beyond belief as far as what my fatherhood journey has looked like, but it's been first few months, we're just tired, tired, tired, trying to do the middle of the night stuff, work. ⁓ make sure that my wife didn't feel like she was hung out to dry and just deal with this all on her own. That was one thing that I just really wanted to make sure, hopefully not from like an achievement standpoint, but just kind of like, want her to know me as someone who's gonna be there whenever we're in the trenches a little bit. The midnight screaming, the 3 a.m. screaming, the hour and a half feeds and then screaming because my son has gastrointestinal issues. I don't know if I said that word correctly, but we're gonna go with it. Yeah, just wanted to be there and present. And for those who don't know me, I'm a night owl. So my favorite thing that everyone said to me before having kids is, oh, this is going to be a breeze for you. Let me tell you. Nope. It's different. Staying up to recharge your batteries by watching a great show or playing video games until three in the morning is very different from. Do you remember when Grayson? He was a few months old. I came downstairs to make a bottle for him and it was probably 4 a.m. and I just looked at you and I said, please tell me you got up early to play video games. I do remember that. And you said, I said, nah. I quietly got the bottle and went right back up to bed. Now, before everyone talks about my dysfunction, I'm aware. So we're good. We're working on it in progress. We're working on it. This is why you get married. to weed this stuff out of you. You don't have to act like a dad until you're a dad. You weren't a dad, bro. No, I wasn't. ⁓ But either way, I don't know how healthy video games till 4 AM is for even the non dads. Eventually you're going to get to share about being a dad, but I like to think this is my time. It's absolutely your time. But where was I? ⁓ You have ADHD. I have ADHD. Yeah, you know what? We said that in the pilot episode. It's going to come up more often, both me saying it and you realizing it. ⁓ have ADHD, we're gonna go on some tangents, take you for a ride. Might enjoy it, might not, but three or four months in, that's when the compound interest hits you, or at least that's when it hit me. I was cruising, I actually enjoyed my job, so that helps. Not dreading getting like the end of the day scaries or Sunday scaries about work the next day was super helpful. I actually enjoyed my work and still enjoy my work. But about three, three, four months, I was like, holy cow. I'm ready to fight everybody. Like everyone's irritating me. ⁓ my son is still super, I'm still super excited to see him. ⁓ still super pumped to come home after work, but also, just gear in up, gear in up for what the evening is about to look like. Because right now is awesome. The evening means you'll get to hang out with Ellie and Roman for a couple hours after work. And then he goes down. and he sleeps for 12 hours. When you get that sleep routine, you get your life back in a lot of ways. Goodness gracious. So I wouldn't say that I had a lot of people really do right by me by preparing me both for as best they could for what to expect getting married and what to expect having a kid. So I wouldn't say a lot of it was like unexpected or anything like that or just hit and bash me over the head. Can't believe nobody mentioned this. But even if you know about it, it's still tough. But you just kind of take the hits and you just keep going because it's so much fun. I get to see this kid change every day. So last thing I'll say, we did sleep training at five months. Did about a week of it. Just kind of increased the time that we let him cry until eventually he just learned to self-soothe. Not every baby adapts and takes that super easily. We have friends that have had a really hard time with their kids really learning to self-soothe and go to sleep. So it's not like that for everybody. But I was blessed to have a son that took sleep training really well. And after about a week, he was figuring out how to just cry for a few minutes and then put himself to sleep to where we didn't feel like we were causing permanent damage by letting him ⁓ just blood curdling screams. Did you ever have to almost sit on Ellie? ⁓ Because Madeline, like we like took the course and we had a plan where you let them cry for five minutes and you know, you don't pick them up, but you check on them and then 10. And a lot of people here have probably sleep trained or you're going too soon. But I remember the first time looking at Madeline and like she just like almost instantly wanted to break what we pre-decided on. And I almost had to hold her down. About two days in, it got a ton better, but it was tough for a couple of days. First day or two was definitely tough to watch. Watch him. We live in the digital age. We've got a monitor with volume and a clear picture of what he looks like, which I think is super helpful. But it hurts sometimes. I have to, I wouldn't say I had to sit on her. I had to take the monitor out of her hands and be like, it's a good call. And you know what? It was hard for me sometimes too. But I will say that in the back of my head, I kind of just had it running that to love this kid well is to not go pick him up right now. is a weird concept because the Sometimes loving people doesn't mean, and we're going off a little bit, but loving my kid well doesn't always mean. coddling him. And I realize it's a super young age for that. He needs coddled most of the time. But you're beginning to see the years to come that's going to be true in different ways. It's an analogy already, a metaphor for later that truly they give you a kind of an idea. We have a lot of information today. You can get on the internet. You can use AI. There's a lot of different information about how to sleep train your kid, do this, that, and the other. You can get caught up, lost in the weeds. But if you do a little bit of research, Get an idea of when you think it's healthy to let your kid cry. Everybody's comfortability is going to be a little bit different. ⁓ No judgment here if you're like, I just can't do it for a little bit, but set parameters around. But by this time, we're going to make sure we're letting our kid kind of cry it out a little bit. ⁓ I think it's super healthy because, I now feel like my kid is equipped to. fall asleep without me. And you get evenings with your wife back. Yes, and it's healthy for the whole family. Morning routines back. I mean, you get a lot of your life back. And not to be dramatic, but it is a little bit of a survival mode. Yes. You're kind of operating in fight or flight because you're just, man, you're just always kind of on edge. And babies are loud, dude. everybody has this to a certain extent. It's not the same for everybody. But I have sensory issues. I've learned to cope with them. You just kind of have to because life doesn't care about your sensory issues or your ADHD or anything that you got going on. Life will just be like tough, figure out how to adapt and get with it. But noise is coming from all different directions or a certain type of noise. Baby's crying. Not something that gets me to relax and calm down and feel like, you know what I'm really ready for is to walk in there and just be real gentle with this kid. Second. time I've said last thing I'll say on this. ⁓ well yeah, you're fine. Don't shake your baby. Don't shake the baby. Never understood that, heard it a million times. I'm like, what idiot would shake their baby? Ryan on the office. Ryan on the office. ⁓ don't shake the baby. And everyone looks at him like he's an idiot. That was me for the longest time. I now have a kid, have never shaken him on purpose. I used to do jumping lunges with him because he, he for some reason would stop crying whenever I would do it. Roman, if you have long-term issues, I'm really sorry. But dude, your quads are looking ⁓ my goodness, but man, am I looking good. I mean, come on now. I understand why you would want to shake your baby. That was my favorite Friday morning group where almost all of our guys have newborns or recently had newborns and hunters about three or four weeks in. And we all looked at them. We're like, Hey man, you wanted to shake your baby yet? And then one of our guys, Stingray, who doesn't have any kids is like, what are you guys talking about? And Hunter's like, ⁓ yeah, it hit me three nights ago. You know, best piece of advice ever was someone telling me, hey, your baby is going to be okay if you set them in a safe spot for a couple of minutes and you go shake uncontrollably and scream into a pillow. Scream into a pillow. mean, I, in the middle of the night a few times, I've learned you don't really want to display that with your spouse around. maybe tell them about that in the morning. Let them know it's controlled. Let them know it's controlled. Yeah. There was one time where Ellie watched me and she goes, I didn't realize that you had that dog in you. ⁓ was like, well, you should. You've been married to me for a few years now. But she was like, it was a bit alarming. I'm like, well, I didn't take it out on him. She's like, well, just the thought that you could. Yeah. Just got to see what you were capable of. But it is like you have to know when to ask for help, when to step away. man, it's a wild time because you are, you're just not at your best. You're you're functioning in a different way. So cheers to you for getting through that. Thank you. What about you fatherhood journey to this point? Yeah. So Madeline and I, got married in our- Let's keep this quick. Cause I only have four extra years of being a dad on you. ⁓ Madeline and I, we got married in our early twenties. So we knew we wanted, she had one more year left of undergraduate at Milligan college or university now. We knew we wanted to have some time to be married. And unlike some people, we didn't want to have kids and we didn't have kids for four or five years. then also in a non-joking way, unlike some people, when we tried to get pregnant, we got pregnant very fast. It's a blessing. So that's just not a lot of people's stories. So I don't take that lightly because we've had a lot of friends with infertility. We've had a lot of friends with miscarriages and family as well. So yeah, that's a really hard thing. So we obviously don't joke about that. The blessing was we had four years of being married under our belts before Madeline got pregnant. My fatherhood journey started actually as a foster father. So we were married a little over three years, decided we wanted to foster and we wanted to foster a teenager. ⁓ And we wanted to have a temporary home placement. This was not a foster to adopt situation. We want to foster in order to, you know, provide some temporarily. ⁓ Support so that they can be replaced with biological family, which is always the ideal situation for foster care It's just not always what's available. So ⁓ Yeah, we fostered for almost a year an awesome 15 year old named Kylie who we are still just so proud of and love as she is ⁓ Walked through so many difficult life circumstances, but it's just such a beautiful incredible young woman But it was awesome first first time I ever met you and Madeline. I also met Kylie at the same time. I learned so much man about how blessed I was growing up just because of some of the challenges she faced. But dude, was like, God made me to be a dad of a 15 year old a lot easier than a 15 day old or 15 month old. Man, if that ain't true, I feel the same way. could rip off some ⁓ Drake or J. Cole or Kendrick ⁓ lyrics with her in the car on our way to dropping her off to church. I just was vibing with her, man. ⁓ It was just easy for me there. It was not as easy. I didn't have any nephews or cousins that were babies. I didn't have any younger siblings, but I always wanted to be a dad. yeah, so we have baby girl Naomi's four and a half, Grayson who's two and a half. My wife at the time of this recording is 30 weeks pregnant and we are expecting our third at the end of April. No idea of the gender. We're going to wait to find out. So yeah, man, it's going to be, it's going to be great. But yeah, just to all the dads out there, no matter how you stepped into fatherhood. We're glad you're a part of this community and we just honor and respect whatever God brought you through to get you here. Reese, I'm curious, the biggest shock, just one or two things, man, no one warned me about this. This is one of the biggest shocks of being a dad. Yeah. And I think I mentioned it. I feel like people prep me pretty well to be a dad. So don't know if there was anything groundbreaking, but there are a few things that I couldn't pick one. So there's going to be a couple naturally. Sure. One of those was teething. I knew what teething was. I had context clues from the name, but every time I heard someone mention teething, it was always in reference to like the mom being in pain or the baby getting fussy. And I remember thinking to myself for years, keep using this term, absolutely no clue what it means. Have a few ideas. Now that I'm in it, now I've connected all the dots and it makes a lot more sense. But when I was... thinking about it, I was like teething. It's gotta have something to do with teeth, check. Had no idea why it was causing the mom pain. Now that I get to see it firsthand. Makes sense. Just wanna let you guys know, all the moms out there praying for y'all, I don't know how you do it. Wild. I would have, formula for the rest of, for the rest of that kids. Honestly, sometimes it be like that soon after. Never again. And it's funny because when Roman was first born, It caused Ellie a lot of pain and he didn't have any teeth at the time. Latching and all that. Yes. Did we know all these words? How awesome is that? Yeah. Latching. Two years ago, thought it was door thing. number of times that I have said to Ellie, never thought I'd say that sentence in the last seven months. You've so much. been insane. But teething, watching my kid's teeth come through also is insane. Pretty young. He got them early, dude. Every episode we're going to talk about how ahead he is. The curve, kids crazy. He's a, had a few scouts come, come to the place just to get a look at them. They're like, Holy smokes. Big thighs. Legs like tree trunks. The Cardinals, both sports, football, baseball, just the Cardinals are there. He's the man. But, ⁓ other thing was, ⁓ sleep regression. People kind of mentioned it to me when you're not a dad, you don't really care long enough to have anyone explain something. I'm like, yeah, great. Where are we eating? When I, that's where are we eating? That's exactly right. Or just like one of the beauties and biggest flaws of my personality is I'm a we'll cross that bridge whenever we get there personality. God's sense of humor is Reese, you're going to marry someone who has never said that once in their life. We're going to figure out how to cross that bridge several thousands of miles back that way. Just go ahead and meet So by the time we get there, we won't even need the bridge. We'll have figured out some other way to get across the whatever the chasm, the chasm, whatever that word The plane is built. The English language is tough. Difficult. Last thing, SIDS. I think it stands for sudden infant death syndrome. Come up with a better name. That's terrifying. All encompassing. We live in a culture today where fear is just kind of like widespread, or at least that's how I feel. ⁓ I wouldn't say I'm a naturally fearful person. I don't mean that from like a, I'm this big courageous person. just, I don't worry a lot about stuff. But again, your biggest strength can be your biggest weakness. Aside from that, I haven't really worried a whole lot that my kid's gonna just die out of nowhere, but knowing that there's something called sudden infant death syndrome. And first time somebody mentioned to me, I'm like, what is that? And it's kind of just this horrible situation where your baby doesn't exhibit any signs that something's wrong, but when you get them in the morning, the worst has happened. Terrifying. It's funny because the sorry it's not funny, but like the the way the information is put out is I had heard of Sid several times Without any details about how frequent it is how common it is So it's real easy if you hear that you just think this happens to lots of people or like this happens ever like this is this might not be A super rare thing come to find out. It's a fairly rare thing. That doesn't mean that it's not scary But yeah, I would love to get some numbers attached with that not that you need to put your faith in numbers, but boy does it feel better to hear one in 10,000 than to hear one in four. Because it feels like that. Yes. And then I skipped over something, so I apologize. Sickness lasting for months. That is not something that I was ready for. just winter. I don't mean for us necessarily, although we know some people who have multiple children, lots of people who have multiple children, little kids, that the whole household is sick for a long period. cycles. Just cycles for everybody. But when Roman had his first cold, it lasted a month and a half. And it was just like, is there something wrong? Should we be calling somebody? You're getting ready to hang out with your family and the cousins are getting together who's also young and like, well, is he sick? Is he contagious? You're looked at like the plague. Well, I'm not a freaking physician. I don't do it. Is this snot green? I haven't checked this But do you not want to see us for the next month and a half? Because we can do that. I'm introverted. You need me more than I need you. Roman's sick today. He's under the weather. That's right. classic Jim Halpert quote, ⁓ this kid gets me out of everything. And I also love them very much. ⁓ So I would say those are probably my biggest shocks. How about you? Yeah, I relate to those and I'm about to relive a lot of those. So I took a bunch for the third time. Yeah. Yeah. Really. And you'll relate with this. ⁓ How on edge I would be because kids just keep you on edge, whether they're about to knock over their milk. or whether one of them screamed and now we got two that can scream and they're always just at each other and they're just loud. ⁓ know, man, like you leave a knife on the counter and they just want to grab that. So that's happened once in four and a half years in a way that scared me. So I'm always just kind of on edge. ⁓ Yeah, there's just all these things that like your nervous system is like a heightened state of arousal. ⁓ So, I mean, the cool thing is you get like spidey senses. My daughter can like knock over something and I will grab it midair sometimes. Yeah, you will. I'm like, okay. It stinks. It is sick, but also there's something wrong with me. Cause I, just feel like you can't relax as much. So I, and I know when you lived with us, you had the noise canceling headphones. Like you would like, uh, like you were at the fricking airport, like directing a plane. Uh, you would wear it dinner rifles. Yeah. Those types of, this is the kind of grade headphones that we're talking you going to the range? No, I'm having dinner at the Gozi's. My niece is here. Yeah. And um, She, know, when you're two and a half, you have tantrums and ⁓ so yeah, it's no one really prepared me of how to, I work from home most days come down during lunch, which I love to eat with my kids. And you're already kind of, you know, stressed out for work. It's true. You're already a little on edge from, know, getting off a call from work or stressed and, then boom, man, yeah, there's just no reprieve. ⁓ so I love being a dad, love being into this, but, ⁓ Yeah, I just wasn't ready for how affected my nervous system. That makes a lot of sense. I've experienced little pieces of that. My little man is not on the move yet. ⁓ Tries to be starting to plank and stuff like that. I would... He's got the rock going. He does. He's got the rock back and forth going. He's just so heavy. big boy. He a big boy. But I get that. seems like there could be a million things all over that. We're gonna have to baby proof a bunch more stuff once he starts moving. I literally read in a book today about box breathing, different episode for a different day. I've heard that about cooling down from a workout, but this is literally just to calm yourself throughout the day. And it's helping me, but I'm like, I never thought I'd have to box breathe, not just because I just did a plyometric workout, but because I'm trying to discipline my daughter in a calm, controlled state. You know the fun thing about breathing methods is that there's no way to do them without your spouse looking at you and being like, seriously? Or are you okay? Well, in our household, dude, it's normal because we tell our kids take a deep breath. Trying to emotionally regulate them. So we do that audibly. Yeah. So it becomes the norm because if it's not the norm, you're just like huffing. What is wrong with you? Ellie, bless her heart, looks at me and is like, is this your passive aggressive way of saying you're pissed? Yeah. So like establishing is like, no, this is actually a good thing. Like, I'm trying not to be so hard. Because you need to have some sort of release. anyways, we will jump into all those things, but hopefully the listeners see we're in the trenches. We're figuring these things out. We're really looking forward to sharing. know, thought leaders in this space in general, whether it's books we're reading, other podcasts we're listening to, bringing in other experts that we know personally that, man, they really have crushed this area of fatherhood. ⁓ But we're learning, we're learning together and we really looking forward to this process for the three of us as being a time that makes us evaluate the things we love, the things that are hard, the things we want to grow in. So, Reese, let's do this. The rest of our time together, what I really want to talk about is how we relate to God as father. and how that impacts ⁓ our ability to be fathers to our children. Someone shared with me, his name's Seth, part of the exponent group. I was in a cohort with him a few years ago. A simple fact that we primarily relate to God through image or metaphor. So it's hard to grasp who is God. So God is light, ⁓ God is love, the Lord is my shepherd, ⁓ Jesus is my friend. Whatever these things may be, he's king, he's judge. one of the most prevailing ones that we have is God as our Father. Jesus came to introduce that to the world. And, you know, that's a very important paradigm, but if you didn't have a great example of an earthly father, it impacts how you view God. And we're continually learning what it means ⁓ as sons of God to have God as Father. So I'm really curious how has becoming a dad changed the way that you relate to God as your Father? How has that kind of, what new insights have you gotten from, oh, this is what it means to God is my father or new things that maybe you're wrestling with or struggling with? Sure. It's so new. So I wouldn't say that it's like. I'm just starting to get a feel for it of kind of the way that he views me, the way that I view him. You always think you kind of have an idea of how God views you. You have awesome people in your life or maybe you don't have awesome people in your life telling you things about like how God views you. I remember... ⁓ somebody at my church growing up, maybe a youth pastor, ⁓ someone that I was close with, an adult basically, kind of walking us through a little Bible study and just saying, asking the question, and I've heard it several times since, when God looks at you, what's his facial expression? Or something like that. You find out real quick how people view God and how they view God looking at them very quickly with that question. And I remember that... The answer that the person gave was that he's smiling or just like with adoration and love and kindness and gentleness. And I always thought that was cool. It's helped me a ton just kind of view God not as this angry, vindictive person. I didn't grow up in a church that was shame culture based on how you performed or your level of obedience. Both those obedience to God were both valued and encouraged, but also they weren't disqualifiers for... They didn't manipulate you into behavior modification. I had great people in my life growing up that taught me about who God was and let me eventually make the decision to follow him for the rest of my life. But Romans specifically... When I look at Roman, I get to see for the first time how much I love him and all the stuff that I would do for him, despite how much he makes my life harder. He makes my life awesome. But I'd be lying if I said he didn't make my life more difficult. ⁓ He does. You've written a book, you jokingly, but also in a kind of playful way mentioned that children are the family parasites. They do. They contribute. They suck the life out of you. They contribute. In a fun joy, they give joy and playfulness, most of them, and give this little extra spark and energy, but they also suck the life out of you, your resources. It's not like they're going to work ⁓ at seven months old. So I get to see that Roman doesn't really contribute anything to my life other than he's just joy. He gives me a lot of that, but Roman more so takes than he gives. Yeah, to me, if you can't quantify one on a scale, what joy is worth, just like at the end of the day, he takes a lot. And he does things that make me angry. I'm not really at him, just dysregulates me, gets me all fired up and I get to love him anyways. And I just get to see that if I can, if I love him like that and that's an imperfect love, my love will always be imperfect. And God is love and God is perfect in the way that he loves. I can only imagine how much I, there's nothing I could do to separate myself from God's love because I don't, I can't think of anything that Roman could do to separate himself from my love. ⁓ It's kind of an unexplainable love. Yes. There's no formula. It's kind of like asking, ⁓ like, I don't think Ellie can even fathom someone loving Roman more than she loves him. She carried him. She cares for him to this day. few hours. ⁓ He hurt her when feeding sometimes. She works full time, still loves him whenever she gets home. There's just like in her mind there's no way that any being could ever love him more than her. So to think that there's someone even just like watching Ellie love him knowing that there's someone out there, God, that loves Roman as his dad more than either of us do. is an insane concept to me and knowing that he loves me the same way. ⁓ As you get older, at least in my experience, You mature in your faith, hopefully. It's really easy to lose that childlike faith. I used to think it was one of the things I exhibited the most was childlike faith, but it's amazing what happens when you get responsibilities dumped in your lap and you grow up and you suddenly just lose this concept that you're a little kid and God is your dad. I'm not saying that you have to identify as that or feel that way, but I... I am my most humble, most grounded whenever I get back to the point of I am a little baby and he is my dad, or I am a little toddler and he is my dad. Not so that I can go around not growing up and not taking life's responsibilities seriously, but just in the sense that like, I am just not a big enough deal or strong enough to do this all on my own. gotta lean ⁓ on dad. So whenever I find myself in a season of I've got this or self-righteousness of just like, figured this whole thing out and I've got it all down. Sometimes it's just nice to return by just and call God a million different names. Like you said, shepherd, father, just calling him for me, just like dad, Abba, something like that, meaning father. It just kind of regrounds me in that. So Roman, I would say, lets me see that even though I love him so much, God loves us even more as dad. And I think that that's a really cool concept. So, you. And you know that, but then you feel it, it moves from, I mean, the longest distance, the head to the heart, right? Yes. you need, thing is you, like, I read the Bible sometimes and you read it and you're like, I've read this a million times, but you need reminded. Yeah. Same way you need reminded that God's love is this immense and this steadfast and patient and all of the. all of those attributes. yeah, yeah. But yeah, for me, ⁓ I was thinking, I was, I was a very independent, ⁓ young adult. So I went to my, had a great relationship with my dad growing up, you know, there's always that certain age when you realize your dad's not Superman and like, ⁓ my gosh, like he doesn't know everything or he makes mistakes. And that's just, that's going to happen to every kid. ⁓ I would say, ⁓ younger than most, I began to be pretty independent with problem solving. I was a leader at a young age. So I probably stopped going to my earthly father, my dad, ⁓ earlier than most and just started figuring stuff out my own. What I've realized with having kids is I say, God, I need you a lot. Like I have to go to my heavenly father because I need some patience or I need wisdom or I need energy because I'm just gassed or... Yeah, I just, I need you. And I did not go to in my adult life often to my father. He passed away a couple years ago. That'll be another story for another day. But the last five or 10 years of my life, I didn't go off into him saying, I need you. It was a lot of like, I want you. I want to spend time with you. I love you. I love this relationship. But ⁓ yeah, really being a dad has made me realize how much I need my heavenly father because of how incomplete I am. So it's humbled me, honestly. I thought being a dad would come a little easier. Now it's been way more rewarding. It's been way more purpose-filled. I've discovered layers of just the impact it can have in God's kingdom in a way that's way beyond what I thought, but it has been harder. So it's a lot of, need you. The hardest thing about probably trusting God as Father, because there's things that you learn that are beautiful and good, but then you also realize, whoa, there's man, that maybe I don't trust God as Father. Because again, Father comes with a lot of different connotations and feelings and experiences. is I had some pretty big unanswered prayers over the last five years and again, it's another podcast for another day of just prayers of healing for my biological dad, for some other situations that were really hard in the church that I led. ⁓ because of that, I've had to relearn to trust God as Father to protect my kids because there have been times I've asked Him to protect other family members. or other people I care about, my spiritual family, and he seemingly didn't come through like I thought he would or he should, if I was honest. ⁓ So I'm having to relearn, God my Father, ⁓ as Jesus says, if any good Father would give you a loaf of bread instead of a rock, or if he'd give you a fish instead of a snake, how much more will your Heavenly Father give you good things to those who ask? Man, like... I can't allow those previous hurts to keep me from asking and then trusting that he's going to help my daughter as she learns to emotionally regulate or help my pregnant wife deliver a third child to where both my child and my wife are healthy because those are things that I fear because I just don't trust God to protect and provide because of previous hurts. So I've had to confront that more. You have more to lose when you love more. And that's probably what I'm learning about my relationship with God right now, if I was honest with Him and with you. So. Thank you for sharing. Is that, when you feel the fear for those things, you know it's something you need to trust God with. Is that something that... What is your tendency to go to with that? it like control? Like try and figure out how to protect your kids on your own or try and figure out how to help your wife. stay emotionally healthy, spiritually healthy and stuff like that or? Yeah, I mean, so my tendency again was I don't need help, I'll just figure this out, right? So you joked about chat GPT, like there's AIs if we're not careful, instead of be a tool is gonna raise us as dads or I read a ton dude. Like I love to read about fatherhood and spiritual formation and. Just what's happening inside of me emotionally. That's why I don't read. Yeah, well, you can't be disappointed, you know, if you go to a book, you never go to a book for answers and they don't give it to you. So, so yeah, I would say it is it's defaulting like I do with my earthly father. I just I figured out myself. I'll be independent. Sure. The self-reliance is can be a God instead of allowing God to be. ⁓ So really, I just I wanted to highlight for some of us being a dad. Seeing God as dad as Abba as daddy as father it brings comfort And for others it brings pain or confusion or for for all of us probably all of those things But the important part is that we wrestle with that and we we confront that ⁓ a paper popper of a quote for you right here because we'll try and have one of these every episode but And Noah, producer Noah, I know you've read this book, Habits of the Household, Justin Early, and they have a ⁓ great, a great dad podcast, Intentional Fatherhood. So- You're saying you think I haven't read this book? Have you read this book? No. Okay. So, it's a really great, ⁓ great read, Habits of the Household, but, but the quote I wanted to share is, we cannot give what we have not received. ⁓ our children learn what we live, not what we say. I think we can agree that like we have learned from the people around us by how they live, not what they say to us. Do as I say, not as I do. Not good parenting advice. But here's the part of the quote I love, to father well, we must first be fathered by God. Experiencing His love, patience and grace so we can reflect it to our children. So as I was reading this book a couple of years ago and I've listened to some of their teachings on another fatherhood podcast, ⁓ Man, just understanding like I have to be a son first. I have to go to God to receive these things so I can be emotionally, spiritually, physically, because we can't separate those, well enough to offer them to my kids. How have you seen that to be true in your own life? Like you have to go first to God, to Father Ham, in order for you to be the type of dad you want to be. great question and it's a great quote. Run it back with me one more time. Just the last part. Yeah. Yeah. So like when you think of like, man, I have to go to God. I have to be a son first before I can, I can be a dad. How have you seen that to be true? Yeah. I, when I was reading this and whenever we talked about this, just, it made me think of something that I, maybe I heard it somewhere. I think that it was just something that popped into my head at one point. But when I think of going to God to them pour out on others, I think of like a cup with a hole in the bottom of it. And God is just the pitcher of water that's kind of pouring into the cup. And the hole is just the water coming out of the bottom. If you don't ask him to fill you back up, eventually you're going to run out of water. The water is all going to be poured out. And my experience, I have a lot of, I have a large tendency in seasons of my life to, because I grew up in the church and in knowing Jesus and what it looks like to be a committed follower of Jesus, or at least what the outward personality traits look like, I have a habit of attempting to force, ⁓ try and force those habits without going to God. So this analogy made a lot of sense to me. ⁓ Because once you know what it looks like, you kind of can force it. Yeah. But my argument would be that eventually you run out of the ability to force it. Or you run out of the suddenly you want to be kind and patient. But every time you're trying to be kind and patient, it's gritting your teeth because you're so angry you can barely see straight. outwardly, if you don't show anger a whole lot and you don't wear your emotions on your sleeve, people are like, ⁓ he's. But inwardly, you're dead, It's exactly like, you know what? I'm not going to say it's exactly like the Pharisees. The Pharisees did not hide their bitterness and anger super well. just like the outside of the cup is clean, inside of the cup is dirty. ⁓ So if I don't go to God regularly, I just don't have enough of that to give. I know what it looks like. I know what it should look like. But if I don't let God show me encouragement, ⁓ there's a verse. I'm not gonna remember what verse it is, but the gist is basically someone who's sinned much basically knows what it's like to be forgiven of much and then can give that to others. Do know how much easier it is to forgive people? Because I feel like I have let God, family members, friends, coworkers, employers, every person in my life, I have sinned against, I have let down, ⁓ and I try not to let it overwhelm me from a guilt or shame perspective. But I know what it's like to run to God and say, I got nothing. I got nothing left. ⁓ I did not stay attached to the vine, which is again, just another reference for those of us who don't read our Bibles that are listening to this. Sometimes that's me. ⁓ But didn't stay attached to the vine. not stay attached to Jesus, therefore ran out of... ⁓ Other analogy I've heard is when Jesus came to earth, he submitted to his humanity and basically acted like a laptop with the charger plugged in. Didn't need the charger, but just used the charger because he wanted to kind of exhibit what it would look like to be 100 % human and 100 % God. But when you try and do this on your own, it's like a phone battery. If you don't plug it back in, it's gonna run out. You're not gonna have it anymore. So I don't know if that fully answered your question, but that's kind of No, I really appreciate that because what I'm trying to get at and there's listeners are gonna be all over the place spiritually but we all go to something to be filled in order to give out and there's expressions of connecting with God through nature and rest and relationships and hobbies and we're gonna hit all those things but all of them have to get back to some sort of relationship that is centering, is consistent, is constant, that loves you more than anyone else in this world could love you like you mentioned. And I'll just, I'll share this framework. Go ahead. So just to be clear, there isn't like one perfect Bible reading program or spiritual discipline practices episode two that equals write with God. Just do this every day. It's not like a workout routine or anything like, or exactly like a workout routine. you'd like and subscribe, we'll send it to you. you know, I get your tongue. Can't give them everything on the first episode. That's right. Episode two. Yeah. Progressive overload or spiritual joking, but that's how we want it to be sometimes and a lot of times it's not even because we want God it's because we want what God gives us which is energy to be a dad or wisdom to be a dad which is Man, that's already confused the two sometimes. It's hard and that's not even that's not even what we're saying But I will say if you try it like God will show fruit in that way. ⁓ Sorry for cutting you off. You're good. You're good. I was reading whole brain child, which is ⁓ Dan Siegel who's a neuropsychiatrist he wrote this I'm familiar Really, it's a real easy to read book about 12 habits of how to help support your developing children. It's because a year ago I was looking at my three-year-old and I told Madeline, I just don't know what to expect from her because she's throwing these tantrums and she's emotionally all over the place and I'm frustrated. And if I could just know what to expect for a three-year-old, I would know how to parent her better. So my sister's a counselor. think maybe she recommended it. Anyways, I read the book. There's four S words that were shared. that, and I don't think Dan's a believer in Jesus, I don't know if he is, but have been so helpful for me in this area. It's safe, seen, secure, and soothed. So all of us as children, we start needing those four S's. It helps create, it's called attachment theory. It just means I feel safe in my own body, I feel regulated, I can trust you, I can trust where I'm at. Safe is just I'm protected, nothing's gonna happen to me. You're not in fight or flight. Seen is like I am known. like truly for who I am, that people around me notice me and are close to me. Secure is ⁓ you're not going anywhere. So there might be a fight or there might be something difficult happen or maybe you made a mistake. the relationship's secure. And then soothed is just like I can comfort myself. It's when you are swaddling Roman and you're laying him down at night when he's upset, right? ⁓ The thing is God is the one that's meant to provide all four of these things for us ultimately. And we can go to a spouse or a friend or ⁓ sometimes in a healthy way, ⁓ a drink or some food or other things that can help provide some of this. But ultimately, if we go to the creation of the creator, it's going to disappoint. So if we're not careful, what happens is ⁓ if we go to other things, we don't receive these from God, being saved, seen, secure and soothed. We often go even to our own children for this. I need to be seen by Naomi as a good dad. or I only feel safe whenever my kids are acting well, or when it's been a really tough day at home and my wife and I have had some conflict, do I feel secure? Like those are things like even our adult life we need and we cannot go to our children. And some people have had experiences as children where your parents, they asked you as a five-year-old to provide that. So ⁓ what I'm trying to say is if God's not our secure base, we will go to other things, our own children or even our own vices. the bad things in our life. We are not going to be soothed in a time alone with God or in prayer or in a healthy way. We go to pornography or doom scrolling or alcohol or whatever it may be. We want to be seen and because the unseen life of being a dad is not enough, ⁓ what do we do? We overwork. We become a workaholics. We can be seen by our boss. We post so much on Instagram or we create podcasts if we're not careful. This is a way to be seen so people see us. I'm just really curious because I don't think we turn to these things, Reese, because we're bad dads or bad people. think a lot of times because we're tired. Yeah. I need something to soothe me. So that's, that's why I go to doom scrolling or man, like I just, I'm sick of just like no one taking, know, everyone taking me for granted. So I need to continue to post or I need to continue to draw attention to myself and act out to be seen even as an adult. Which of those four S's safe, seen, secure, soothed? would you say sometimes you don't go to God for, you go to something else and because of that it has consequences? This season of life, and you know, probably the most frequent one in my life through all seasons is Soothed. ⁓ If I feel like life has started to go in a direction where I don't have enough time, for those of you who don't know, I'm introverted, or at least I like to think I'm introverted. I recharge my batteries by getting away from all of you crazy people. I'm saying love all of you, but gosh darn it, if I don't need. You know what? And that's the main thing. I will tell myself what I need. And if God doesn't. hit the mark. I tell I get, give it to him on my terms. You're going to go get it. I said, I'm telling him, listen, I'm going to need at least an hour at the end of the day. Half the time I'm, I'm setting terms higher than that. I need at least two hours at the end of the day to be alone doing whatever the heck I want to be doing. ⁓ as a leisure activity. This especially happens in the winter. Yeah. I'm like, it's tough in the streets. I'm looking at him. I'm like, there's no way you're making it. negative two degrees outside with a wind chill of negative 27 and telling me I can't go do anything outside that I want to do without freezing my butt off and then trapping me inside for three to four months. And I don't get, I don't get mine at the end of the day. So soothed. And again, I'll come to God on, on my terms and lay them out for him. And if he doesn't, if he doesn't hit the mark on my terms, then suddenly I'm like, well, just going to take matters into my own hands. ⁓ may touch on this on another, another episode, maybe not. I'm not sure, but struggle with pornography addiction since I was nine. That's definitely something I'll run to, but I used to think that was a great lie. If you, if you've ever struggled with pornography is that this is my one sin. Like this is my one pleasure. If, ⁓ if I didn't have that, mean, I'd basically be, be like Jesus walking around. It's not true. You have a lot of issues, but God loves you through them and is willing to work with you. I have firsthand experience with that, but it's not just that for me, it's pleasure and over consumption of any kind. I'm an over consumer. When I like something, I hyperfix aid on it. Some of it's tied into my ADHD, but I don't like to live in a victim mindset with that. ⁓ because let me tell you something. If you see yourself as a victim, I promise you, you will be a victim long time. You maybe never get out of it. So don't always do yourself as a victim, but view yourself realistically. So long answer to your question, but soothed. through any form of sports, watching sports, playing sports, hobbies of any kind. ⁓ The reason I mentioned the ADHD is ADHD, for those of you don't know, you can struggle with dopamine deficiency. It's not that you don't have dopamine, but your brain struggles to access it. So it searches for things that stimulate your brain, send dopamine to it, and then once it finds out what those things are, it wants a whole lot of it. So for me, that's what spurs the 4AM video game sprees. I love any outdoor sports. I will play spike ball until my legs fall off, disc golf, regular golf, you name it, I'm there. So I will happily tell God, I'm gonna go get it on my own. See you whenever I need to be. whatever the other three S's were. So. And the thing about that is when you go to be soothed in those ways and it doesn't actually soothe you, the dopamine hit gets you actually more irritable. It's a counterfeit. Yeah, man. does not last. And God knows your seven month old can't soothe you. There's times. I mean, there are a ton of times, just precious moments, you're rocking your kids to sleep and you're like, man, this is it. you can't go to them for that. And now you can't provide that because you're irritable or on edge or. You know, you're pissed off because man, how do fit in hobbies into this new season of life? We'll talk about that. I'm sure in an episode, but yeah, I relate to that. I relate to that. So yeah, I would say that's that's the big one for me. Big one for me, like being seen. And I mentioned this in our pilot episode of which we still don't know if we want to release or not. So drop a comment if you want to see it. But like, ⁓ you know, I was I used to speak to ⁓ a lot of people every week vocationally. ⁓ had somewhat of a platform as a pastor, which has a shadow side of that, you're really seen. And now that I'm in a place where I'm not in vocational ministry, I live a less seen life, and being a dad sometimes is you're seen by your wife and your kids and maybe your intimate circle, and sometimes that's not enough and it should be. So in those moments I have to go to God and be like, hey, He is the God who sees. He sees me. He says, well done, good and faithful servant. ⁓ And even though there's not hundreds of people that might be saying, hey, great job, or I love the truth you shared there, that was beautifully put. Or quite the opposite sometimes. Or quite the opposite. Just being seen in general. Honestly, dude. So yeah, there's times where, so this presents itself in overworking. So when people please at work, I want to not just do a good job, I want to have like a record setting month in sales every month. Sure. This can prevent itself in like friendships and like ⁓ if I'm alone, if there's no plans for the weekend, which... A lot of my friends have kids, I have kids. It's hard to catch a workout with someone or it's hard to schedule a trip to go watch a basketball game. You just feel unseen or lonely and going to God to say like, hey, you see me, you know me, you're proud of me, helps with that. So I don't have to go take that from other people. I can offer, I can say, hey, I see you, Reese, how are you doing? I don't have to seek to be the center of attention in conversations and talk too much like I am right now. Might make you a producer buddy. Have Noah get out here. Yeah, get Noah in front so they can see him and ⁓ we appreciate what he does man behind the scenes. Reese, let's wrap it up. We gotta keep it under an hour. keep it under an hour. So yeah, just kind of what should the people be thinking through this week? Yeah, this week each of us should be asking what does letting God father me look like in this season? And how can I go to him first to feel safe, secure, seen and soothed? Yeah, really good. For me, what comes to mind off the bat real briefly is getting up early in the morning before my family does and sitting in silence and solitude with God, ⁓ which is sometimes just breathing, knowing God is with me. It's tough. Reading some, going for a walk, whatever is helpful. ⁓ But I feel seen by God in that way. then if I have a harder time whenever the day starts ramping up, I had those 20 minutes very practically for me in this season to... to feel seen, to talk to God, to listen to God, things like that. Mine is going to be relatively similar to that. We love the word relatively around here. Absolutely. Mine is also to get up just a little bit earlier. Used to do it a lot. Life circumstances, I get up early for work sometimes, very early by my standards. Yeah. So getting up early is not something I'm super interested in. But I, uh, My time with God is very sporadic. It's not very intentional. It's not the way that I would meet with anybody else. Yeah. And it's not promised. don't just give it to him. I'm kind of like, I can fit you in here. So God's kind of a supplement in my life right now. And I don't love that. And if I want to be soothed by him, I have to go to him. So mine's going to be to get up, what did you say, 15 minutes, 16 minutes early? Yeah, just earlier than I. Just one minute earlier than you. and spend time with God in my Bible. Yeah. Yeah. That's the only way which makes you holy in the Western in the Western hemisphere. We we don't have time to get into that. But the joke is I'm a little I lean towards more prayer and he leans towards more Bible reading. So ⁓ yeah, we'll talk about the different ways to connect with God. So however you join, if you don't own a Bible or you haven't prayed in years or this is it's all good stuff. Yeah. This is like, man, I really want to push myself for challenge. My thing is this week, don't don't try and be a better dad. Don't be a better Christian for whatever that means. But try to be a present son. Acknowledge that your Heavenly Father is with you in your fatherhood journey. You have to be a son before you can be a father. And God's not asking you to father your kids alone. He's inviting you to do it again and again with Him. And if He fathers us first, we're going to be better equipped. He's not asking you to figure it out before you come and meet with Him. Not asking you be a better dad and then come meet with Him. Run to the Father, man. Hey, Reese, close us with a blessing. We're going to do this every episode. Bless the listeners as they go out this week. Absolutely. Hey, we love you guys. We appreciate you listening to the Relatively Functional Dad's podcast. If you haven't already, like or subscribe. Just want to let you guys know that you're doing great. And if you feel like you're not doing great, you're in good company. There's lots of people that are either going to be listening to this or the three of us that have moments where we're texting each other saying, just had an absolute fumble today. So don't beat yourself up too much. Progress doesn't have to be massive. just start making baby steps brick by brick, 1 % each day, getting a little bit better. You guys got this, we love you. See you next time. Peace.