Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. Don't compare yourself to
Speaker 1: other people. Don't read mom blogs and look at moms
Speaker 1: on Instagram and think that they're doing it perfectly. People
Speaker 1: put out these false airs, and I think everyone struggles
Speaker 1: they do. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to Katie's Crib.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, I have the most amazing guest. Her
Speaker 1: name is Ashley Margolis. I have known her for years.
Speaker 1: I was first introduced to her through the amazing Kerry
Speaker 1: Washington and Ashley is the founder of The A List,
Speaker 1: which is a brand building agency that develops relationships in
Speaker 1: the entertainment, fashion, and digital industries to gain client celebrity,
Speaker 1: placement and development. It launched in two thousand one. Ashley
Speaker 1: lives in l A and New York and she currently
Speaker 1: lives in Beverly Hills with her husband and three sons.
Speaker 1: Three sons. I've been wanting to Ashley on the podcast
Speaker 1: for years. She's just a really cool mom. She says
Speaker 1: it like it is. She's so the real deal, and
Speaker 1: she's also incredibly environmentally conscious and I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to her so much about that. So welcome to Katie's Crib. Ashley.
Speaker 1: Ashley is here. She is such mom goals. So, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned before, Ashley runs and operates the A List. Ashley,
Speaker 1: how exactly did the company come about? So? The A
Speaker 1: List was born about twenty years ago when I left
Speaker 1: my old PR job. And when I left that job,
Speaker 1: I want to pursue a talk show career. Fred Durst
Speaker 1: was producing a show called All Access Ashley, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: we need that show now. It was really awesome. We'll
Speaker 1: bring it back. In the meantime, a friend of mine
Speaker 1: was went to run Global PR Coach and we had
Speaker 1: worked together at our old job, and she was obsessed
Speaker 1: with Rashida and Karata Jones. She called them Rashata and
Speaker 1: they had been long time friends of mine. And at
Speaker 1: the same time that my friend Raina who left to
Speaker 1: run Global PR Coach. At the same time, She's like,
Speaker 1: I'm dying to do an event of Coach with Rashata.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, that's funny because Rashida just said, Ashley,
Speaker 1: will you help me put together an event for my charity,
Speaker 1: Peace Games, And I said, actually, Coach wants to do
Speaker 1: something with you. It was the timing was perfect. I
Speaker 1: produced my first event at Quincy Jones's house. Coach sponsored it.
Speaker 1: It benefited Rashida's charity. And at the same time, Coach
Speaker 1: started sending me bags that lived in my trunk, that
Speaker 1: lived in my house up Lower Canyon, and I started
Speaker 1: gifting them out to friends from my trunk. Then my
Speaker 1: friend Raina, who was my client, said, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's start having you bring celebrities into the Coach store.
Speaker 1: We just opened a store at the Grove One in
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills. I started bringing celebrities into there and I
Speaker 1: started gifting celebrities Coach bags, and then she got me
Speaker 1: a showroom. Now, many years later, I represent about twenty
Speaker 1: two brands fashion, beauty, lifestyle, beverage, medicine, a vibrator company,
Speaker 1: Yes Vibes, and we have celebrities, taste makers, influencers, YouTubers,
Speaker 1: tiktoker's coming in the showroom and um, we gift all
Speaker 1: these people. We hope that we get the organic social tags.
Speaker 1: And then we also throw events for all of these
Speaker 1: brands and we get hired to what would be called
Speaker 1: talent procurement, but we can also call celebrity Wrangle for
Speaker 1: events around Oscar's Emmy Sundayance, super Bowl, Coachella, and be
Speaker 1: All Stars. So sometimes companies that are not our clients
Speaker 1: hire us to do talent procurement and get celebrities to
Speaker 1: attend events. And when Scandal was sort of like just starting,
Speaker 1: Carrie was like, we have to go hang out with
Speaker 1: Ashley and go to a list and it was so helpful.
Speaker 1: You work together, you can find an outfit for being
Speaker 1: on Kelly and Ryan or a red carpet or you
Speaker 1: know you're going to this thing and you're gonna be photographed.
Speaker 1: And in the same time of me meeting Ashley, I
Speaker 1: realized her running this business and being such a boss
Speaker 1: and your your own entrepreneur, and you started this thing
Speaker 1: off the ground and it's so wildly successful. You're also
Speaker 1: a mother of three. Yeah, and that's insane to me.
Speaker 1: And I want to know because I have to and
Speaker 1: I literally don't understand how you're doing this and also
Speaker 1: how you're doing it inside. I just think you're such
Speaker 1: a conscious parent. I think you're really good at multitasking,
Speaker 1: asking for help, juggling lots of things. But also you
Speaker 1: seem happy. Tell us the secret to your fountain. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean, I have to be honest. I
Speaker 1: am feeling like depleted and defeat it. So I'm glad
Speaker 1: that on the outside I look happy. I mean I
Speaker 1: am happy. I've always been a happy person. I really
Speaker 1: love being around people and socializing and that brings me
Speaker 1: a lot of joy, introducing people to people. I love working.
Speaker 1: I love being really busy, but the parenting on top,
Speaker 1: and by the way, it should start with parenting and
Speaker 1: work comes second. I'm having a totally hard time, so
Speaker 1: I need to hear about this. So take me back.
Speaker 1: Did you always know you wanted to be a mom?
Speaker 1: I always knew that I wanted to be a moment.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever thought I would have three kids.
Speaker 1: But after we had to, time went on and I
Speaker 1: was like, I feel like there's a third person that
Speaker 1: has to be in this mix. And my husband was like,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. We are so out of the clear. We
Speaker 1: could start traveling our kids now they're ten, eight and two.
Speaker 1: Oh ship, you were like done. We were out of diapers, yes,
Speaker 1: sleeping through the night, getting on planes, even having going
Speaker 1: to places with kids, clubs, are sending them off where
Speaker 1: we could do our own thing. I mean, really, in
Speaker 1: a great place and our marriage was in a great place.
Speaker 1: And he was like, I don't want this to fuck
Speaker 1: our marriage up, and I was like, I agree, I agree.
Speaker 1: So then I go back and talk to other people.
Speaker 1: Remember talking to this mom, this wise mom at burning Man,
Speaker 1: and she was like, if you don't have enough time
Speaker 1: for your two kids, now, don't have a third. And
Speaker 1: I was like, that's a really good point. That I
Speaker 1: went back and then I just kept saying, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't stop thinking about it. And I had heard
Speaker 1: from other people with three when you can't stop thinking
Speaker 1: about it, you gotta go for it. And I convinced
Speaker 1: my husband we went for it. I got pregnant immediately.
Speaker 1: You basically sneezed, had the thought and here he is.
Speaker 1: Were the first too pretty like run of the mill,
Speaker 1: boring like your labor, so that the third wasn't was
Speaker 1: anything out of the ordinary. Tell me they were all
Speaker 1: pretty great pregnancies. I barely smoked pot with the first,
Speaker 1: smoked a little bit more with the second, and a
Speaker 1: little bit more than that the third. And he's the chillist. Nice, Now,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on whether look like obviously, no
Speaker 1: one's gonna tell you it's allowed, what do you feel
Speaker 1: about this? About the pot? I mean, I asked all
Speaker 1: my health and wellness people. I even went to this
Speaker 1: top notch high risk doctor at U C l A
Speaker 1: who was like, I can't say his name, but one
Speaker 1: of the biggest and I had just gotten back from
Speaker 1: working Coachella, and I was like, I definitely smoked some
Speaker 1: pot this weekend with our party was Snoop Dogg, And
Speaker 1: he didn't say anything. And then again I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: detinally smoked a little pot at Coachella this weekend. And
Speaker 1: he didn't turn around and say you should do that.
Speaker 1: He just looked at me and didn't say anything. But
Speaker 1: I asked, I'm obsessed with health and wellness. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course I'm a pot smoker. This is like also
Speaker 1: a big part of this episode because I really want
Speaker 1: to be you in so many arenas, but so much
Speaker 1: in the wellness situation. I like, it's beautiful. I asked,
Speaker 1: like the alternative doctors who I trust. I asked a
Speaker 1: lot of people and they all said, honestly, it's fine.
Speaker 1: They said, make sure you're continuing to work out and
Speaker 1: get oxygen into your lungs and nothing in excess. And
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything crazy, a little hit there, here,
Speaker 1: a little hit there. But I had three great pregnancies.
Speaker 1: By the third, I was forty one or forty two,
Speaker 1: and I had more back pain, hearder to sleep, peeing
Speaker 1: all the time. I mean, by your forties, it's just
Speaker 1: more exhausting, more taxing on the body. But I pretty
Speaker 1: much love being pregnant. With all three, I felt really grateful.
Speaker 1: I had so many friends around me just constantly miscarrying.
Speaker 1: I really at one point felt like seventy percent of
Speaker 1: the girls that would come in the show room, we're
Speaker 1: telling me that they were couldn't get pregnant or miscaring.
Speaker 1: I was just blown away. So when I found out
Speaker 1: that my third was a boy and I really wanted
Speaker 1: a girl, I had one day of tears. And then
Speaker 1: someone in my office had kept miscarrying, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna feel sorry for myself. So it actually
Speaker 1: was better for me because I real quickly I was like,
Speaker 1: now this is You're not going to be an asshole
Speaker 1: just because you're having a third healthy fucking boy, and
Speaker 1: someone really close to you can't get pregnant. So you know,
Speaker 1: I was sad because I wanted to grow I'm so
Speaker 1: close with my mom, and I always thought i'd have
Speaker 1: that mother daughter thing, you know. But when I tried
Speaker 1: to rationalize why, I realized that I have a really
Speaker 1: short fuse and my boys are already giving me a
Speaker 1: run for my money. I don't know, maybe it would
Speaker 1: have been just too hard to deal with the girl
Speaker 1: emotion ends and the insecurity. I don't know. My friends
Speaker 1: with girls really talk about how hard it is dealing
Speaker 1: with the emotions. Such a funny thing, like, obviously you're
Speaker 1: going to have some relationships with one of two or
Speaker 1: three of your sons, that are They're all going to
Speaker 1: be so different. Adam is one of two boys, so
Speaker 1: his mom is a boy mom, and Adams like the chick,
Speaker 1: meaning like he's the one that would go shopping weekends
Speaker 1: and then go see musicals in Philly with his mom
Speaker 1: because that's what my husband likes. Like his older brother
Speaker 1: would go to the sport game and then Adam would
Speaker 1: be like, do I get a mom weekend where we
Speaker 1: shot and then I get to see like Joseph in
Speaker 1: the Technicolor Dreamcoat and like, you know, so like some
Speaker 1: of your boys, who knows like how your relationship will fare.
Speaker 1: But it will be super tight like you are with
Speaker 1: your mom. You know, one of them will have maybe
Speaker 1: an energy that's more something that connects to you in
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah. I get it though, because I was
Speaker 1: sobbing the night before when we just had to open
Speaker 1: the email if my second was going to be a
Speaker 1: groler boy. I sobbed when I found out my first
Speaker 1: was a boy. Yeah. Yeah, but yes, it's a great
Speaker 1: wake up call when you're like, it's one in four,
Speaker 1: it's one in four pregnancies are miscarried. And then that's
Speaker 1: not even to say how many people can't even get
Speaker 1: to that place. So many women can't even get pregnant.
Speaker 1: So the fact that you had three and amazing pregnancies
Speaker 1: and did were they all vaginal? Birds? Were they all different?
Speaker 1: They were all c sections? And I think that my doctor.
Speaker 1: Looking back, I realized I was like, whatever you think, doctor,
Speaker 1: and I should have said, no, I refuse, I want
Speaker 1: to have this vaginally. And I was so kind of
Speaker 1: nervous at the time, and I just went into it
Speaker 1: thinking it'd be vaginal. I didn't really. It's funny because
Speaker 1: as much as I like to think that I have
Speaker 1: hippie dippy ways, I don't because that side of me
Speaker 1: should have done a little more research. I was just like, whatever, okay,
Speaker 1: the water broke and the this is happening. Whatever you think, doctor.
Speaker 1: But looking back, it was Friday night. He wanted to
Speaker 1: get home, and I was saying, you were. It was
Speaker 1: also ten years ago, like you've changed a lot. I
Speaker 1: should have fought like, because there's other doctors that It
Speaker 1: turns out my doctor loves the C section like late.
Speaker 1: I later found out, Oh, he just loves c sections.
Speaker 1: He's great at them. And I just said to the nurses,
Speaker 1: what do you think, and they said, just do whatever
Speaker 1: the doctor says. But I really should have said, no,
Speaker 1: I want to wait. He could have delivered a healthy baby.
Speaker 1: The next kid, Isaac, shoot, I don't remember. For some reason,
Speaker 1: they also suggested a C section and I said okay.
Speaker 1: And then by the third I had heard that it
Speaker 1: was hard on the body to have it v back,
Speaker 1: and I went to this new high risk guy because
Speaker 1: I was a little older, and I just wanted I said,
Speaker 1: whatever you think, doctor, But you know, my sister had
Speaker 1: her babies in her bathtubs and I was always envious.
Speaker 1: At the end, it's fine, I have a great little scar.
Speaker 1: You can hardly see it. My badge is still tight.
Speaker 1: Nice girl, get it. I no looking back. It's all good.
Speaker 1: We're just moving forward now. You know, a lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners are so in it in that place where
Speaker 1: it's like they're either pregnant or they just had a
Speaker 1: baby and it might have been traumatic where they had
Speaker 1: a certain plan and it didn't go that way, either
Speaker 1: by choice or by not choice or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: So it's so great to listen to moms who have
Speaker 1: space and time, you know what I mean, Like you're
Speaker 1: looking back at this ten years ago, eight years ago,
Speaker 1: two years ago. Uh, and you're onto the next thing,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Not that you can't honor that
Speaker 1: something might not have been what you wanted it to be.
Speaker 1: But I think it's hopefully lessons, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like because you're too busy, like taking care of this
Speaker 1: ship exactly. I moved through my pregnancies as if I
Speaker 1: wasn't pregnant. I was like I have to work. I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm just running a business. This baby is
Speaker 1: just coming when it's coming. Otherwise, let's just keep moving right.
Speaker 1: And I think it's just my personality. I was focused
Speaker 1: on work, honestly, So tell me about what is it
Speaker 1: like raising three boys? And what is it like raising
Speaker 1: three boys this past year in a pandemic. God, I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm like the most amazing mom to model
Speaker 1: yourself after. So I just I wish I could say differently.
Speaker 1: I do, because I was just telling my hypnotherapist, I
Speaker 1: go to bed at night stressing and thinking all the
Speaker 1: things that I want to do with them and when
Speaker 1: when can I But in the pandemic, it was actually
Speaker 1: a great gift to spend more time with them because
Speaker 1: I wasn't around enough before and so now it's made
Speaker 1: me able to reimagine how I want to show up
Speaker 1: for them and be there. I mean I was getting
Speaker 1: home three nights a week when they were already in bed,
Speaker 1: and then went to having, you know, a little over
Speaker 1: a year, having every meal with them, lunch included, and
Speaker 1: that was amazing. Was it amazing and also awful? Or like,
Speaker 1: did you really love it? No? There were awful parts,
Speaker 1: for sure, but not rushing out of the door in
Speaker 1: the morning. The mornings are so hectic, yelling at each other.
Speaker 1: Did you prush your teeth? Did you do this? Did
Speaker 1: you eat? Did you pack your line. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: so crazy. Not having to rush out in the morning
Speaker 1: was huge. Being able to take our time. Some days
Speaker 1: we went on walks together as a family. We had
Speaker 1: breakfast together, then they go on their zooms and we
Speaker 1: and I go upstairs and then they would have a
Speaker 1: break For twelve to twelve thirty we had lunched together.
Speaker 1: I'm really lucky because my husband is really involved and helpful.
Speaker 1: I'm not the mom that's I don't even know how
Speaker 1: to cook, I don't do homework with them. I'm not
Speaker 1: proud of these things, by the way, It's just who
Speaker 1: I am. Yeah, but you're showing up in other ways.
Speaker 1: Like I always say on this podcast, like I fucking
Speaker 1: hate I don't craft. I do not kill it at
Speaker 1: this age, like I'm constantly running away. He's like, Mommy,
Speaker 1: can you play this? And then I'm saying in two minutes,
Speaker 1: I like to like plan the whole family, make sure
Speaker 1: everyone's got what they need, blah blah blah. But I'm
Speaker 1: not like to sit on the floor and play and
Speaker 1: be present, which I feel fucking horrible about. Like I
Speaker 1: feel so bad about it. But I think hopefully when
Speaker 1: he's fourteen and wants to like talk about real ship
Speaker 1: or smoke a joint when he's twenty and we can
Speaker 1: like talk about life. I'm down, by the way. My
Speaker 1: dad shoved a joint in my mouth when I was fourteen.
Speaker 1: Get at it here, But I'm gonna I'm gonna wait
Speaker 1: way later with my kids. Why tell me why? Because
Speaker 1: of all the studies, I think fourteen was a little young.
Speaker 1: Have you always been somebody who's super into the environment?
Speaker 1: How we treat our planet? Like? Were you raised like that?
Speaker 1: Totally not. My dad had a big fashion business. I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of waste. I did not become environmentally
Speaker 1: conscious really until my husband, just in the past couple
Speaker 1: of years has become a massive environmentalist. First he became
Speaker 1: a vegan, his dad dropped it out of nowhere, and
Speaker 1: then he read the China Study, which is like huge,
Speaker 1: and then we watched Forks over Knives. He stopped eating
Speaker 1: meet the next day and I beat very little meat.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the pivotabal moment was. We
Speaker 1: just started becoming really conscious and then he just became
Speaker 1: a super extreme environmentalist. He opened a grocery store and
Speaker 1: COVID on the East Side, and you bring your own reusables,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I just so we just started paying attention
Speaker 1: and then watching more documentaries and starting to care and
Speaker 1: starting to get freaked out about what we're doing to
Speaker 1: this planet. I don't think people even realize how dire
Speaker 1: it is. It's so scary. So I see plastic water
Speaker 1: bottles that kind of sends me spiraling, because recycling is
Speaker 1: not a real thing. I mean, you can recycle very
Speaker 1: little plastic, and they have to be lumped together, and
Speaker 1: there's no sorting system for this type of plastic versus
Speaker 1: this everything's kind of lumped in and goes one place,
Speaker 1: but no one's even probably sorting it. Very few places are.
Speaker 1: I work with a lot of fashion brands. I stopped
Speaker 1: working with fast fashion brands. Fast fashion is just like
Speaker 1: disposable product that after three or four wears, it just
Speaker 1: goes into a and phil you can't break it down.
Speaker 1: Like organic cotton, you can break down and reuse and
Speaker 1: make a new shirt out of it. But a lot
Speaker 1: of these synthetic fabrics, actually you can't do anything with them,
Speaker 1: and so they just go into landfills and then over
Speaker 1: time there's like a process where they're just submitting really
Speaker 1: bad toxins into the environment. So, since this is newer
Speaker 1: in your life and really becoming a true value in
Speaker 1: your husband's life for sure in his business, how did
Speaker 1: you change your household and also instill this into your boys, Because,
Speaker 1: like I look at my kids, fucking plastic toys is insane.
Speaker 1: So I started recently putting on my personal Instagram asking
Speaker 1: for toys and getting hand me down to toys and clothes.
Speaker 1: So my sister, who's like a cool shaman into Pega Canyon,
Speaker 1: who's incredible. If I buy something new for one of
Speaker 1: her kids, it's your debt. She gets. Everything is a
Speaker 1: hand me down. We teach our kids by talking about it.
Speaker 1: We try to not buy food packaged and plastic. It's
Speaker 1: really hard to be plastic free. It's it's like near impossible.
Speaker 1: It's really, really, really hard. I am trying to wear
Speaker 1: a lot of my client farm Rio, they planted farm
Speaker 1: Rio so much the best, they're so cool. Trying to
Speaker 1: wear conscious brands and trying just trying to be smarter
Speaker 1: about my purchases, trying not to buy anything that I
Speaker 1: know I won't have for a long time, trying to
Speaker 1: borrow clothes from friends actually and for kids that's really
Speaker 1: hard because kids out grows ship. If you can get
Speaker 1: in a lineup, like I'm in a lineup of hand
Speaker 1: me downs, that's the best. Like his best friend Rocket.
Speaker 1: I get close from Rocket, and then it goes from
Speaker 1: me and it goes to Will, and then from Whale
Speaker 1: it goes to Da Dada and we weed out the
Speaker 1: ones that like have the holes and the grass stains
Speaker 1: that cannot come out. But guys like it literally doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. But for a lot of first time moms
Speaker 1: think that they need their kid to be in the
Speaker 1: cute ship. Oh my god, my son doesn't want to
Speaker 1: get us ever, so he wears pajamas like all fucking
Speaker 1: day and he just wears the same ship. They don't
Speaker 1: need a lot of clothes, They need a couple of
Speaker 1: T shirts. But I think that a lot of first
Speaker 1: time parents get so excited, but then you realize they
Speaker 1: grow out of it so quickly, and then it's just
Speaker 1: sitting in a landfill, not going back to the earth.
Speaker 1: How do you have conversations with your kids about this
Speaker 1: where it's not scary. I don't have the vocabulary to say,
Speaker 1: like the earth is dying and it's our fault. I
Speaker 1: don't know. We just do the best we can. And
Speaker 1: again we show them documentaries and are they interested in that?
Speaker 1: Are they so bored? They are like a lot of
Speaker 1: beautiful animal documentaries. We try to tell the teachers what
Speaker 1: we talked about with them too, And right now, like
Speaker 1: my older one is talking a lot about the environment
Speaker 1: at school and the teachers told us he's really into
Speaker 1: it because he hears about it at home. And I
Speaker 1: brought them to a recycling center once. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think now coming out of COVID, we can bring them
Speaker 1: to other places to see firsthand. I can't to imagine
Speaker 1: it's not going to penetrate into their psyche some way
Speaker 1: or another. My son just opened up, you know. We're
Speaker 1: teaching him, helping around, like okay, now it's time to
Speaker 1: take your plate or this garbage and throw it out.
Speaker 1: And he opens up the garbage. He's like, what's this
Speaker 1: one and what's that one? And why are they different?
Speaker 1: And I'm like trying to explain to him, like lastic
Speaker 1: and cardboard and all that. But you're right, it's hard
Speaker 1: because there's a big part of me that's like, is
Speaker 1: this even doing anything? Like it's hard. It's hard. What
Speaker 1: are your kids eat for lunch? Now that they're back
Speaker 1: to school, It's been really hard. There's their picky eaters.
Speaker 1: They're not vegan, but they're kind of vegan adjacent. They
Speaker 1: eat very little meat, and they do like fish. There's
Speaker 1: always a ton of fruit going on and cucumber, avocado rolls.
Speaker 1: I make a smoothie for them. That is one good
Speaker 1: thing as a mom that I'm proud of. I make
Speaker 1: smoothies for them in the mornings and weekends. That's who
Speaker 1: it's fag. Tap yourself on the fucking back because that
Speaker 1: is a mess and annoying. And I always want to
Speaker 1: do the smoothie too, because I sneak in the spinach,
Speaker 1: but what a pain in the ass. So I pump
Speaker 1: in the spinach, blueberries, I've got even a little spar alina,
Speaker 1: be pollen, a little protein powder, couple healthy things or
Speaker 1: greens powder. It's all about getting that spinach and and
Speaker 1: then another thing that we've been doing because they do
Speaker 1: like bell peppers, they like carrots, they like cucumber. Is
Speaker 1: a lot of time. I put that on their plates
Speaker 1: first and then say finish that, and then we have
Speaker 1: the meal after. Because if it's all put at the
Speaker 1: same time, they'll go for like you know, kind of
Speaker 1: their process, fake hot dogs and fake chicken wings. And
Speaker 1: at a certain point that ship is not good for
Speaker 1: you either. If they want to eat meat, get it
Speaker 1: from Bell Campo. Like, get it from places where we
Speaker 1: know the animals are treated well. They're not shot up
Speaker 1: with all these hormones. They're kept happy. They're happy cows.
Speaker 1: And Bell Campo is a place where we like to
Speaker 1: get our meat from. We're doing some bone broth right now.
Speaker 1: Oh that's good because I was gonna say, if they're
Speaker 1: not eating cheese or any meat, is it easy to
Speaker 1: get their protein. There's actually more protein and vegetables than
Speaker 1: people realize. The whole circle diagram of you need this
Speaker 1: much dairy, this much meat, that's an antiquated old thing.
Speaker 1: You don't need dairy, you don't need cheese, you don't
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of protein in vegetables actually,
Speaker 1: So they get it from that. We add a little
Speaker 1: protein powder. They do eat eggs, whatever they want to
Speaker 1: eat when we're out, no problem. What we what is
Speaker 1: a big no no for us is cakes with dies
Speaker 1: with the desserts. We try to keep it vegan or
Speaker 1: with the cakes. Once it has the pink and the
Speaker 1: purple and all the colors, I think Dan and I
Speaker 1: both spiral out a little bit because to me, all
Speaker 1: those all that coloring, that's just cancer. Honestly, it's just
Speaker 1: things that aren't that it's not supposed to be in
Speaker 1: our body. And there's so many dark chocolate, they love
Speaker 1: vegan ice creams, and there's so many other great things.
Speaker 1: Did they ever say, why does in our house have
Speaker 1: cheese ites? Or like, why does in our house have goldfish?
Speaker 1: Or like they don't give a ship. Yeah, they we've
Speaker 1: got the vegan version of goldfish right now. Nice, It's
Speaker 1: that's really good. Yeah, they have case of dillas with
Speaker 1: our vegan cheese all the time. They're super into it. Again,
Speaker 1: they're obsessed with their dad and they follow what he does,
Speaker 1: and he makes great vegan sausage and we have vegan
Speaker 1: sausage pizza. It's still good. It's not as good as
Speaker 1: the real thing. But to me, I'm like, this is
Speaker 1: really absolutely. I had to go for the first time
Speaker 1: my entire life. Vera is five months and I had
Speaker 1: to start like a total elimination diet when she hit
Speaker 1: two weeks because there was blood in her poop, and
Speaker 1: so we had to figure out what she was allergic
Speaker 1: to in my breast milk. So I had to cut
Speaker 1: out dairy for the first time in my life, gluten, nuts, everything,
Speaker 1: and I haven't introduced anything back yet because I'm doing
Speaker 1: this big experiment, Like this is the first time in
Speaker 1: my life, five months of my life where I have
Speaker 1: not had dairy. I've never done that before. And how
Speaker 1: do you feel with having no dairy? Well? I feel good.
Speaker 1: And I was a dairy queen, like, yeah, dairy horn
Speaker 1: Like I grew up having a huge glass of whole
Speaker 1: milk with dinner every single night, like cheese on everything.
Speaker 1: And I don't have a problem digesting it, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, I have no lactose anything. But it's
Speaker 1: weird to see what I eat dairy. I see it
Speaker 1: the next day in my face. I love cream cheese,
Speaker 1: but we've got some amazing vegan cream cheeses. But I
Speaker 1: love a good goat, I love a good muster. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love cheese so once in a while, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, there's there's a lot of good alternative
Speaker 1: cheese is great cash FW cheeses. I just think it's
Speaker 1: so cool that your boys are like so down women
Speaker 1: who are watching this who just want to fucking grab
Speaker 1: the ziplock bag or lunches. Why why is that ingrained
Speaker 1: in us that that's like the thing? Like why is
Speaker 1: the sandwich bag, the snack bag, the gallon zip blocks?
Speaker 1: Like there are even on Amazon. There's so many options,
Speaker 1: you know, as long as you're read using them, those
Speaker 1: bags could be easily clean. We have a big plastic
Speaker 1: bag that goes with them, but we come home and
Speaker 1: clean it and just reuse it. That's the key. If
Speaker 1: you had Katherine McCord on your show, she's like a
Speaker 1: great mom with a lot of kids, you could follow
Speaker 1: her tips on how to package everything. But there's great
Speaker 1: little you know, carrying food cases where it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be repped and it all goes in that thing
Speaker 1: and then it closes. Albi just started nursery school for
Speaker 1: the first time two weeks ago, so I've just started
Speaker 1: to get really into like how do we make this
Speaker 1: situation reusable not throwing shit out? Like packing stuff Again,
Speaker 1: We've also all been home, a lot of us for
Speaker 1: a year and a half, and so I'm trying to
Speaker 1: look at what's the better way to do this, you know,
Speaker 1: and the better for our environment way. It is time
Speaker 1: consuming to plan out the meals and your days in
Speaker 1: a way that is responsible and healthier. It all takes time.
Speaker 1: And I have a nanny that lives with us, I've
Speaker 1: got two greatest sistems, i have a fucking village, and
Speaker 1: I'm still overwhelmed every day. I go to bed every
Speaker 1: night like it's the it's it's trying to find a
Speaker 1: lone time with my kids. That that I think is
Speaker 1: what I obsessed over, because I can't seem to find
Speaker 1: the time of between there after school schedule and my stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the thing we were talking about at the
Speaker 1: start of this interview, like, still you feel like there's
Speaker 1: never enough hours in the day. No, I'm still picking
Speaker 1: my nails and going to my hypnotherapist feeling stressed out.
Speaker 1: I'm still feeling guilty all the time. Last week I
Speaker 1: was trying to get in my therapy and my workouts
Speaker 1: in the morning. I didn't take them to school one
Speaker 1: day last week. I was like, I can't do that,
Speaker 1: you know. So refiguring that out, which means either waking
Speaker 1: up super super early for the workouts are doing them
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, and I'm too tired
Speaker 1: by the end of the day and and have to
Speaker 1: save that energy for sex also, which is exhausting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to see your fucking husband. I was just
Speaker 1: about to say, like where do you get that, and like,
Speaker 1: come on, I've got nothing for you. There is at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, there's nothing. There's nothing. Don't
Speaker 1: look at me, don't talk to me. Then you end
Speaker 1: up in a sexless marriage, and then you're in big
Speaker 1: that trouble. Like it's just Yeah. We just went away
Speaker 1: for our first time him together, the two of us,
Speaker 1: and it was life changing. We went to New York
Speaker 1: for a wedding. The second the second we dropped them
Speaker 1: off and left. It just felt like a huge weight.
Speaker 1: It was the best thing for our marriage. I was
Speaker 1: I remembered why I liked him. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: and had a great time. We rode bikes, we got
Speaker 1: those city bikes. We had drinks, We hit up all
Speaker 1: the fancy vegan spots, connected had fun. I have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends that won't that really don't like to
Speaker 1: leave their kids and and and have it, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: how do you even have a relationship that's not because
Speaker 1: this whole COVID, Dan and I were just as every
Speaker 1: parent was. We were just in it. There was there
Speaker 1: was like no emotion. It wasn't like I love you,
Speaker 1: We're in this together. It was like no, it was
Speaker 1: literally like roommates, like hot, hustling, trying to sustain. Oh god,
Speaker 1: I don't think we've even fully seen or realized yet
Speaker 1: the like trauma on relationships and that that this past
Speaker 1: year has done. Adam and I have our first trip
Speaker 1: away the two of us with another couple, like in
Speaker 1: a month, and I am already super anxious about leaving
Speaker 1: my six month old, like super anxious about leaving him
Speaker 1: with his parents, and how are they going to handle
Speaker 1: all the stuff? And I know the second I get
Speaker 1: on that plane and bring a bobbably beverage to my mouth.
Speaker 1: But you know what, your kids are going to be
Speaker 1: so fine. I mean, I know we had issues in
Speaker 1: the beginning leaving our kids with my parents. I mean
Speaker 1: there were times when we first started traveling, we come
Speaker 1: home and realized that they didn't give a bottle that
Speaker 1: the second bottle was were like, how are there? How
Speaker 1: is there? Here's the bottle bag and there's still a
Speaker 1: full bottle, and with the first kid, we would spiral
Speaker 1: out and like, well, how could you do that? They survive?
Speaker 1: Are they all okay? Then we're good. They're fine, They're resilient.
Speaker 1: The time with their grandparents is so valuable. The grandparents
Speaker 1: break the rules like that is just a gift for
Speaker 1: the grandparents, a gift for you guys, a gift for
Speaker 1: the grandkids. I did not ever think I wanted to
Speaker 1: send our kids away for that long a sleepway camp.
Speaker 1: And this Humer, my ten year old, is going for
Speaker 1: eight weeks. He comes home for one full day and
Speaker 1: goes back again, and I am so excited. But I
Speaker 1: never thought because of the way I work and how
Speaker 1: much I work, I'm like, no, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be gone from them, But you know what, he needs it.
Speaker 1: So he needs to be a wait for us. He
Speaker 1: needs to be away from the fucking iPad because when
Speaker 1: they get older, the fucking iPad is absolutely the worst.
Speaker 1: Out of control. It's awful, it's out of control. And
Speaker 1: in COVID, they got so hooked on their on their electronics.
Speaker 1: Of course, my son had never done TV that much before,
Speaker 1: and then COVID hit. He was all of a sudden
Speaker 1: gone from not much to an at least an hour
Speaker 1: a day. Then Adam started the fucking pretzel business, and
Speaker 1: we wouldn't let anyone in our house to fucking babysit
Speaker 1: because it was the beginning and we were so scared.
Speaker 1: I'll be was in front of the television for like
Speaker 1: five hours on a Saturday, and I was like, this
Speaker 1: is insane, Like I don't know what's happening, and now
Speaker 1: to try to pull it back. It's the thing he's
Speaker 1: the most obsessed with. Some mornings he wakes up and
Speaker 1: it's the first thing he says to me, what am
Speaker 1: I gonna get TV today? Mom? And I'm like, oh
Speaker 1: my god. And this brings me to also being with
Speaker 1: your kids in nature. I think you said you guys
Speaker 1: hike or take family walks and stuff like that. Do
Speaker 1: your kids like that or they just complaining that they're
Speaker 1: not on my iPads the whole time, both my middle
Speaker 1: kid and I. He's going through a lot of issues
Speaker 1: and it's hard. It's really hard. Sometimes we have to
Speaker 1: bribe them with the iPad and say we're going to
Speaker 1: go on a hike. And it's a fighting all right,
Speaker 1: I'll give me the eye pad later. But we've been
Speaker 1: renting bikes a lot, are actually bringing our bikes down
Speaker 1: to the beach parking in Santa Monica and riding to
Speaker 1: Venice and back, and it's been really great. And they
Speaker 1: get to see so much. I mean there's tons of
Speaker 1: exercise classes and people meditating and all the homeless drum circles,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot to look at, and it's fun.
Speaker 1: The scenery changes and the people change, and so that's
Speaker 1: been fun. And then I talked to them like, while
Speaker 1: we're riding, you know, when it's not too crowd, I
Speaker 1: could go next them right behind and to have that
Speaker 1: time because it's only in the car, really, I mean
Speaker 1: at home, they don't really want to talk. They're busy,
Speaker 1: they're doing things, and we don't do a good job
Speaker 1: of having proper dinners altogether. I feel like that's rushed
Speaker 1: and we need to figure that out. It's something that
Speaker 1: all these therapists and people remind us how important it
Speaker 1: is to at least try to have a couple of
Speaker 1: meals together. And even our new pediatricia was like, you
Speaker 1: have meals the other I'm like, what are they saying,
Speaker 1: like weekly, try a couple of nights a week, try
Speaker 1: to all sit together talk about the day. You know,
Speaker 1: they're just rushed because they're rushing to go do this,
Speaker 1: So they're rushing to do that. I mean, it's is
Speaker 1: it that you feel guilt, mom guilt about not spending
Speaker 1: time with them, or that you want to spend time
Speaker 1: with each of them individually both. I'm trying to find
Speaker 1: time to spend more time alone with them. So it's
Speaker 1: me and Dan with one of the kids, or just
Speaker 1: me and one of the kids. So I went to
Speaker 1: this thing actually down at the beach. They do it
Speaker 1: in Venice into Pegan Canyon Beach. It was kind of
Speaker 1: like a burning Man Vibe you rent for twenty dollars headphones.
Speaker 1: It's like ecstatic and dance l A that might be
Speaker 1: what it's called. And I may go again this Wednesday.
Speaker 1: And you dance on the beach and there's a DJ
Speaker 1: and everyone puts the headphones on and you dance. And
Speaker 1: it was a little hippie, dippy, a little vulnerable for
Speaker 1: my oldest son, but we just danced together. I ended
Speaker 1: up bearing him in the sand and he just kind
Speaker 1: of moved around. I mean, everyone else was dancing. You
Speaker 1: don't want to dance, but we still had a great
Speaker 1: time together. Then we went to dinner together and he
Speaker 1: had been so mean to me for like the week before,
Speaker 1: you so, and then we went and had a great
Speaker 1: night together, and for good four days after he was
Speaker 1: being really nice to me, he just started being mean again.
Speaker 1: What does that mean? How? What does he do? I'll say, Oscar, Oscar,
Speaker 1: make your bed, says the woman who never makes her bed.
Speaker 1: Everything is says the woman who And I'm like, what
Speaker 1: are you? Work is going on right now? God? This
Speaker 1: is my future. I'm terrified. Oh it's it's so bad, Oscar.
Speaker 1: You know, stop yelling, says the woman who taught me
Speaker 1: how to yell. He rolls his eyes at me. I
Speaker 1: mean you were saying something like fourteen year old boy,
Speaker 1: I'm talking. He's tent okay. He is so mean. He's
Speaker 1: like beating me down to a pulp and I'll cry
Speaker 1: so today, I can't tell you that anymore. And you're
Speaker 1: the toughest ship. You're like tough, no, because then you
Speaker 1: have the guilt of like I'm not around enough and
Speaker 1: like he's acting out and showing me he needs more
Speaker 1: of me, and how do I fix this? And I
Speaker 1: need to be alone with him. It's just it's really hard.
Speaker 1: And I think having the third was hard. Even though
Speaker 1: they're obsessed with him, the two year old gets the
Speaker 1: most of me and it's hard. It's really three is
Speaker 1: really hard. I'm so happy we did it, but I
Speaker 1: don't have a second for myself ever. Even when I
Speaker 1: get massages and treatments, I'm usually on a call during it,
Speaker 1: but I try not to be because it defeats the
Speaker 1: whole purpose. Yeah, you can't, Okay. In wrapping up any
Speaker 1: advice for parents out there from the incredible Ashley Margolis,
Speaker 1: tell me my advice would be, don't compare yourself to
Speaker 1: other people. Don't read mom blogs and look at moms
Speaker 1: on Instagram and think that they're doing it perfectly. People
Speaker 1: put out these false airs, and I think everyone struggles
Speaker 1: they do. I think that comparing yourself to what else
Speaker 1: you see in here, don't do that. I think knowing
Speaker 1: that falling out of love a lot of the time
Speaker 1: is normal and to just not feel shame in that,
Speaker 1: and to know that between working and parenting. That's so cliche,
Speaker 1: but it's so hard to be a working mom. When
Speaker 1: people say to me, how do you find the perfect balance.
Speaker 1: I don't think there is any such thing as the
Speaker 1: perfect balance. It's just doing the best you can, not
Speaker 1: beating yourself up for anything, and just moving forward and
Speaker 1: trying to do it better. This is all amazing. Finish
Speaker 1: this sentence really quickly. Parenthood is hard as a motherfucker.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, hard as a motherfucker. Hard and trying and
Speaker 1: emotional and has so the ups and downs and it's tough.
Speaker 1: But it's a blessing and it's amazing and I'm grateful
Speaker 1: every day for it. I would have it no other way.
Speaker 1: But I don't think people tell talk about it enough
Speaker 1: how hard it is. I don't think they've talked about
Speaker 1: how hard having babies are. This is why Katie's Crib
Speaker 1: exists because we're all like, this ship is so fucking hard.
Speaker 1: That is so fucking hard. Yeah, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on Katie's Crib. I think you are the coolest.
Speaker 1: I think your kids are so lucky to have you,
Speaker 1: And you better tell them to call me and I'll
Speaker 1: tell them that you are the mother who kicks ass. Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode,
Speaker 1: and be sure to subscribe. Tell your friends share it
Speaker 1: with all your mama's out there, and also I want
Speaker 1: to hear from you. What do you guys want to
Speaker 1: talk about, Topics you want to discuss, guests you'd like
Speaker 1: me to have on You can always reach me with
Speaker 1: your ideas at katie s Crib at Shonda land dot com.
Speaker 1: Katie's Crib is a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. You never know until
Speaker 1: you try Ride