Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. To me, labor and
Speaker 1: pregnancy and childbirth is like booches and dust getting kicked
Speaker 1: up by a sacred dance and you have like shakers
Speaker 1: on you. That's like the real ish, its actually happening. Hi, everybody,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to Katie's Crib. I am so excited
Speaker 1: for today's episode because we have a guy on the podcast. People,
Speaker 1: We've got a guy on the podcast Father's Day celebrations,
Speaker 1: all of that. Although he's not really into Father's Day.
Speaker 1: You will know him probably before we are on the
Speaker 1: air together as TV husband and wife because I get
Speaker 1: to play his wife Jen Smallwood to his Tom's Smallwood.
Speaker 1: The one and only comedian, writer, actor, cartoonist podcast host
Speaker 1: Pete Holmes. His podcast is called You Made It Weird
Speaker 1: and it's a comedic exploration of the meaning of life.
Speaker 1: And on Fridays it's called We Made It Weird because
Speaker 1: it's a podcast with him and his wife, Valerie Holmes.
Speaker 1: I get to have both of them on the podcast
Speaker 1: today and we're talking all about their incredible daughter, Leela Jane,
Speaker 1: and we really get into it, guys. We get into
Speaker 1: the meaning of life, labor and pregnancy and postpartum and
Speaker 1: all of that, but we really get into the transformational
Speaker 1: shift that happens because of getting to be a parent.
Speaker 1: So here they are the amazing Pete Holmes, who created
Speaker 1: and started the semi autobiographical HBO show Crashing. You might
Speaker 1: know him because he executive produced it alongside Judd Apataw.
Speaker 1: He's hugely accomplished when it comes up to stand up,
Speaker 1: three hour long television specials, late night appearances. He tours
Speaker 1: regularly as old out crowds. Again, you're going to catch
Speaker 1: him very soon on CBS because we co start together
Speaker 1: on Smallwood. And his wife, Valerie Holmes. Val She's incredible.
Speaker 1: She's a mindfulness coach, and she is someone who I
Speaker 1: just want to be like my best friend. Starting yesterday,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, Vale and Pete. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: honest Pete Holmes, which I'm always only going to call
Speaker 1: you by your whole name. We even we don't have
Speaker 1: dudes on this show, like you're barely having one today.
Speaker 1: He's a great gateway dude. Yes, I feel really excited
Speaker 1: about this and I think it will be Father's Day,
Speaker 1: so we can talk about if that means anything to you,
Speaker 1: if you guys have any plans. But I was like,
Speaker 1: we're going to make the exception for Pete Holmes. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll throw you a quick No, it doesn't mean anything
Speaker 1: to you. Everything, Katie in society, that's that's built to
Speaker 1: give people attention, Karaoke, Halloween, birthdays, Father's Day is completely
Speaker 1: null for someone whose job is getting attention. So I
Speaker 1: would be I'm already associopath. I go on stage, I
Speaker 1: did a show last night, and they clap for me
Speaker 1: before I've done anything that does something to your psyche.
Speaker 1: It's I guess I've arrived. I'm here, I drove here,
Speaker 1: and everyone loves you already crazy is my brain goes,
Speaker 1: this is right, this is right. So like if there's
Speaker 1: anything we can turn the volume down on the specialness dial,
Speaker 1: uh it is thing now. For Mother's Day, we did
Speaker 1: nice things. We had pancakes and all those things. But
Speaker 1: I don't I'm not saying I don't need it. I'm
Speaker 1: saying I'm already flush in that category. So on Father's Day,
Speaker 1: all I ever want to do for Father's Day, Birthday,
Speaker 1: all those two it's the things that just kind of
Speaker 1: relax and hang out and just be home with everybody
Speaker 1: and chill. So val, do you already know this about
Speaker 1: your husband or do you go behind his back and
Speaker 1: do anything anyway or you're like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I I know that about him, and I it's it's
Speaker 1: really nice on my ends, like I just have to well,
Speaker 1: you're that way too, Like I didn't get you anything
Speaker 1: from mother's right not to put it down. But if
Speaker 1: I was like I have to get her a gold
Speaker 1: heart necklace or she won't know that I love her,
Speaker 1: then I'm not. Now I really sound on my high horse,
Speaker 1: but then I'm not doing a good God, I don't
Speaker 1: understand and and and it is the hallmark of it
Speaker 1: all also like there's something that it makes it you
Speaker 1: highlight other days as being shitty, like like I used
Speaker 1: to get upset where I was like, I'm confused why
Speaker 1: my husband only opens up the door for me, and
Speaker 1: look like not that that means anything, but it's like
Speaker 1: on a special day, it's sort of highlights like oh
Speaker 1: that he doesn't do it all the time. And then
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I don't give a ship that
Speaker 1: he ever does that. For me. Plus, we're both taking
Speaker 1: care of Leela, right, We're in this together, we co parent,
Speaker 1: we're in it together. And if I have a special day,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm the one that doesn't get up with the baby.
Speaker 1: And then that's pretty much in the morning. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: the end of it. Yeah, actually is you're reminding me
Speaker 1: that for Mother's Day you got up with her two
Speaker 1: days in a row, and that's like the best gift ever,
Speaker 1: because two days in a row sleep, it's so much
Speaker 1: better that one. Yeah. I've actually heard I think from
Speaker 1: a therapist that when I was like I was losing
Speaker 1: my mind after so and she was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: just getting one night of sleep without breastfeeding isn't like enough.
Speaker 1: I think you have to log like two nights in
Speaker 1: a row and now we're cooking with gas. Did you
Speaker 1: guys always know you were going to be parents? Did
Speaker 1: you always want to be a mom? That? Yeah, most
Speaker 1: of the time. There was a There was like a
Speaker 1: period of time in my twenties where I was like,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't maybe I could just party all the time.
Speaker 1: And then you know, like by nine I was totally
Speaker 1: exhausted and was like thinking about a family again. But
Speaker 1: I feel like when we first started dating, it was
Speaker 1: just very much like maybe we'll be one of those
Speaker 1: couples that just always travels and doesn't have kids and uh.
Speaker 1: And then we bought this house and we were like,
Speaker 1: there's two perfect little upstairs rooms for like two kids.
Speaker 1: And then we just started kind of talking about it
Speaker 1: more and more. Before that, even when we saw the house,
Speaker 1: we have a very cozy it's not modern. It's like
Speaker 1: what a kid would draw, if you like draw a house. Yes,
Speaker 1: a rectangle with a triangle on top, with a fute
Speaker 1: door and a little walk way up to it. There's
Speaker 1: like a flower with dolow blocks. And I remember looking
Speaker 1: at it and going, this is where you raise a family.
Speaker 1: They're like the houses that are like and we love
Speaker 1: these houses. We airbnb in a house like this all
Speaker 1: the time. You know, the heated floors and the white
Speaker 1: granite countertops and all that stuff. Everything's sleek and sharp,
Speaker 1: a lot of things for a kid to bunk into.
Speaker 1: And we stayed in a place with a hard cement
Speaker 1: floor and Leela fell backwards and bopped her head. No,
Speaker 1: that's not hoose for that's not a house for building
Speaker 1: a family. That's why you should see our couch now.
Speaker 1: Our couches just permise stained. Valmy not like that. I'm
Speaker 1: sharing that, I'm making peace with it. It was, yeah,
Speaker 1: we gotta let it all go, guys. I just for
Speaker 1: the first time, we just had someone come and steam
Speaker 1: clean our couch. Biggest, stupidest guess what, sparkly blue silly putty.
Speaker 1: It just fus your couch up and it's never coming out.
Speaker 1: It's just I mean there are huge electric blue glittery
Speaker 1: stains or whatever. And you know what my dad, My
Speaker 1: dad was like, just mess it all up. It's a monument.
Speaker 1: It's the kids being safe and bye bye to the
Speaker 1: white couch. But that's it's it's American beauty. You remember
Speaker 1: Kevin Spacey's going to spill the beer on the couch
Speaker 1: and he's trying to kiss his wife and she goes
Speaker 1: the couch and he's like, it's just a couch. That's
Speaker 1: just my style. One of our parenting things is like
Speaker 1: the baby is almost always right, meaning you're in the bathtub,
Speaker 1: she's splashing and I catch myself getting tight and I
Speaker 1: wanted to stop. And then whenever you just really look
Speaker 1: at it and say, like, what's really going on and
Speaker 1: kind of step aside from the role of parent. You know,
Speaker 1: you start almost like you're reading lines in a play.
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to tell you to stop splashing. Um And
Speaker 1: at a certain point I wouldn't let her. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: want her to drench me because you could that's legit.
Speaker 1: You could be like, oh, that makes me sad, I
Speaker 1: have to change my clothes. But she's just splashing and
Speaker 1: it's getting a little bit on the floor and I'm like, baby,
Speaker 1: stop Just is that's not normal grown up for me?
Speaker 1: I do this all the time where it's like your
Speaker 1: kid wants to splash, Like I don't know a kid
Speaker 1: that doesn't want to splash, Like why is why have
Speaker 1: we put that splashing? The floor is tile, and the
Speaker 1: reason the floor is tile is because it can get wet.
Speaker 1: So you just have this like you just get to go.
Speaker 1: You're right, life is joyful and that's what we love
Speaker 1: about kids. They're so free were I'm certainly not giving
Speaker 1: a tip, but something that was helpful for me was
Speaker 1: just going to give a tip. Here's a tip. Was
Speaker 1: just like looking at the child sort of like as
Speaker 1: a legitimate and dignified member of reality, not somebody that
Speaker 1: I have to like constantly be sculpting that we hear
Speaker 1: all the time. It's like, what can I learn from you?
Speaker 1: Just going like why am I stopping her from coloring
Speaker 1: on my books? All of my books have crayons and
Speaker 1: them who cares? You can still read him. One of
Speaker 1: my teachers was like, you know what, like a pen
Speaker 1: really isn't a great toy for like a two year old.
Speaker 1: He drew all over the table and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I could lose my ship that he drew all over
Speaker 1: the table. By the way, again, this table is a
Speaker 1: piece of ship whatever from my keya hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: It's who cares? But the problem was that I gave
Speaker 1: him the pen, and you know what I mean, it's
Speaker 1: not him. I'm like, why am I giving a pen? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like I could give him They make ship for kids
Speaker 1: now that's like they could draw all over and it
Speaker 1: comes right off like I gave him an adult pen. Okay, um.
Speaker 1: I want to hear two things. When you found out
Speaker 1: you were pregnant, what did you both feel and how
Speaker 1: was the pregnancy for you? So we knew we wanted
Speaker 1: to have kids early on, before we even really were married,
Speaker 1: and then the we first started trying, like on our honeymoon,
Speaker 1: and I'm really lucky that like we got mint. We
Speaker 1: tried three months, you know, and like the third try
Speaker 1: we got pregnant. So we got pregnant pretty fast, wonder
Speaker 1: but it was so like training for parenting and how
Speaker 1: like nothing goes how you expected to go. Meaning even
Speaker 1: though it was only three months, it was it was
Speaker 1: already hard on uh Val. Not to sound like I'm
Speaker 1: I'm so easy breezy, but it was less hard on me.
Speaker 1: I was excited, but I think Val was really as
Speaker 1: as I'm glad. You were like ingesting it and being
Speaker 1: like this is it. It's happening. And then you're the
Speaker 1: one that gets the period. You get the news, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, and you're like, yeah, so like
Speaker 1: you feel like it's something wrong, and it's just in
Speaker 1: us as women, it's awful, but also as people who
Speaker 1: have been careful your whole life. Suddenly you're having unprotected
Speaker 1: leave the greeto in the oven kind of sex and
Speaker 1: you're like, we're gonna get pregnant immediately, and then you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I was being way too careful. That's
Speaker 1: a joke by the way you can get pregnant on
Speaker 1: one try. But then are you remembering we know when
Speaker 1: we yeah? Yeah, so then we we I knew Like
Speaker 1: when no I just was using the copulation, we tried
Speaker 1: to do it minimum amount those ovulation sticks. We did
Speaker 1: the same thing. It was amazing. I feel like you
Speaker 1: and I are very connected. But once I decided that
Speaker 1: I was right I wanted to get pregnant, I was
Speaker 1: so fucking piste like when it didn't work out, which
Speaker 1: is what I understand. Like if you're at all, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, an overachiever, and all of a sudden you're like,
Speaker 1: I've made the decision to work really hard at getting pregnant,
Speaker 1: and now, oh, it's not happening. So the three months
Speaker 1: feel really long. And I think it's really relatable for
Speaker 1: people listening because you immediately go to I'm going to
Speaker 1: be one of those people. I'm going to be one
Speaker 1: of those people that it's impossible, where your brain is
Speaker 1: already going to IVF like you're already like something's wrong,
Speaker 1: something's wrong, something's wrong. Yet absolutely that's so true. And
Speaker 1: the waiting, there's so much waiting because you're like you're
Speaker 1: waiting until you ovulate and then you're waiting two more
Speaker 1: weeks to see if you get your period, and those
Speaker 1: two weeks feel so long. And every time I was
Speaker 1: like hungry, I was like, maybe I'm pregnant because I'm
Speaker 1: so hungry. That was just your That was just emotions.
Speaker 1: But who knows. Okay, so tell me that you guys
Speaker 1: like know when you can see. Yeah, So we use
Speaker 1: ovulation stick and we I do feel like this is
Speaker 1: significant with oh my god, pick more good mood. Don't
Speaker 1: look at you can only come out two hours every month. Um.
Speaker 1: But we cleared out the room that was gonna be
Speaker 1: the baby room. We like it was a jump room.
Speaker 1: And it was New Year's Eve and I was like,
Speaker 1: we're starting this new year. We're making this space for
Speaker 1: the baby. And I was ovulating. We obviously didn't know
Speaker 1: that it I was pregnant. Then what we did kind
Speaker 1: of try to conceive, and we had made plans to
Speaker 1: on New Year's Day. But you're what, you're skipping skipping what? Okay?
Speaker 1: We usually have sex during the day, Like I just
Speaker 1: like day sex. This is the detail I'm interrupting. I don't.
Speaker 1: I like to help people feel less alone. And I'm
Speaker 1: a person who at night. I like to unwind, but
Speaker 1: we would have sex on light at night for like
Speaker 1: date nights, like because that's very sexy to get dressed
Speaker 1: up and go on a date. And that's what happened
Speaker 1: is it was New Year's Eve. Yeah, and we dressed
Speaker 1: up and we went to this party and then we
Speaker 1: had sex that night and that's when we conceived. So
Speaker 1: it was all the other attempts had been day sex
Speaker 1: attempts or afternoon sex attempts, and now we're doing it
Speaker 1: like one in the morning. So funny to me that
Speaker 1: I'm like trying to give the key details to make
Speaker 1: this story quick, and you're talking so much about how
Speaker 1: we had sex at night instead of during the day.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but it's so great. I'm contributing people turn
Speaker 1: in for those juicy one am unwined sex because what
Speaker 1: were you doing? I was? We weren't. It was New
Speaker 1: Year's it was New Year's Eve, so we went to
Speaker 1: the party. And time is different on New Year's Eve.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, it's like a very time is weird.
Speaker 1: It's either because we knew it was that time. I
Speaker 1: think I'm pretty sure yes it was. We knew that,
Speaker 1: but we didn't know obviously that day that it had taken,
Speaker 1: so we had made plans for the next day to
Speaker 1: do mushrooms us together, and I had had like good
Speaker 1: experiences only exclusively with that, but for a lot of
Speaker 1: reasons and theories that I have, this was like a
Speaker 1: very bad trip. I don't know if it was the
Speaker 1: mushroom trip. I actually think it was like the spark
Speaker 1: of life that was happening in me. Like I like
Speaker 1: to think that Leela was like this light that just
Speaker 1: kind of shone in my light, my body and like
Speaker 1: shown all of this like trauma that I was holding
Speaker 1: that I didn't know I had. It's like that trip
Speaker 1: like reignited a trauma which then I was flooded with
Speaker 1: and incapable of dealing with, which kind of created its
Speaker 1: own trauma. So then in the following weeks, I was
Speaker 1: having like six hour panic attacks every day, followed by
Speaker 1: like the deepest, darkest depression where I felt like I
Speaker 1: was having the bad trip again. Um, but I wasn't
Speaker 1: on anything, and I was so scared because I've never
Speaker 1: dealt with anything like that, and and like nobody brought
Speaker 1: up trauma or PTSD or anything, So all I thought
Speaker 1: was I broke my brain with drugs and I might
Speaker 1: be pregnant, and it was truly the darkest time in
Speaker 1: my life, just the time before finding out that was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: in the two weeks between conception and now, that has
Speaker 1: to have been from that trip. It has do right,
Speaker 1: it was the trip. If I agree with your diagnosis
Speaker 1: that the trip opened up things, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say it wasn't the drugs. The
Speaker 1: drugs reacted to something that was repressed inside of her
Speaker 1: that did need to be cleansed. Again, mushrooms aren't for everybody,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't mean to say that they don't
Speaker 1: sometimes have terrible consequences. They absolutely can. But in this case,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you sort of see how they are these
Speaker 1: sacred medicines that are like, Okay, you're about to do this, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna look in the box that you don't want
Speaker 1: to look in. That being said, it was really rough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I actually had like I see this healer, raiky woman,
Speaker 1: and she was like, this stuff was going to come
Speaker 1: out anyway in your pregnancy, because that's just like what
Speaker 1: this soul that was in you was meant was here
Speaker 1: to do UM, but like maybe it just came out
Speaker 1: really way too fast and extreme um. And so by
Speaker 1: the time I was like peeing on a stick, I
Speaker 1: was in the lowest mental state I've ever been in.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like myself was really scared, but I
Speaker 1: also still wanted to be pregnant, and it was just
Speaker 1: all very confusing, and um Pete was asleep and I
Speaker 1: took the pregnancy test, and when I saw the word pregnant,
Speaker 1: it was like I just felt like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm making someone be alive. I am making I'm it.
Speaker 1: Just like the responsibility instantly hit me and I was
Speaker 1: like I just woke up a soul, like wake up,
Speaker 1: do you want to exist? Which is what that Chris
Speaker 1: Pratt movie. You know that Chris Pratt science fiction movie
Speaker 1: where they're on a long haul. I haven't seen it either,
Speaker 1: but they're in a spaceship. It's in a long haul
Speaker 1: and he's woken up and it's like he knows, he
Speaker 1: knows he's going to die before they get to the
Speaker 1: point passengers, right, Yeah, what's her name, Jennifer? Jennifer Lawrence
Speaker 1: Lawrence up. He wakes her up and then he breaks
Speaker 1: it or like I woke you up because I was lonely.
Speaker 1: That's sort of not only what parents are doing, like
Speaker 1: you're bringing something in even though you know it's complicated
Speaker 1: and and life involves death and all these things, but
Speaker 1: it's also what God was doing. Yeah, Like God was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to make creation and they're going to suffer
Speaker 1: and they're going to die, but it's worth it to
Speaker 1: commune with them in any way. That's I don't have
Speaker 1: to see the movie to enjoy its mess. It sounds
Speaker 1: like you felt massive amounts of responsibility. Did you feel
Speaker 1: like your whole pregnancy you struggled with that. I was excited.
Speaker 1: I just felt everything. It was like, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I felt so much about it. And I had bought
Speaker 1: like a little onesie that said the Adventure Begins or
Speaker 1: something like that, You're fucking I think, No, you're lucky.
Speaker 1: I mean, pete, I get it, Like, wow, thank you.
Speaker 1: So I like put that in a gift bag with
Speaker 1: the positive pregnancy test and I woke him up and
Speaker 1: he was like kind of sleepy but opened it and
Speaker 1: was like, are you serious? And then you can take
Speaker 1: over how you felt? And that did your I loved
Speaker 1: telling you. I actually I totally understand that. The story
Speaker 1: is that you had this dark thing the day after
Speaker 1: we conceived, and this very difficult thing that I remember.
Speaker 1: We were doing a press tour for for Crashing, and
Speaker 1: we had to leave, we had to go to the doctor,
Speaker 1: and she was having this basically this lingering, twenty four
Speaker 1: hour panic attack. I'm walking around with her and it's
Speaker 1: like she wasn't home. It was really scary, and I
Speaker 1: was trying, I could I was telling her all of
Speaker 1: my metaphysical woo woo, and it wasn't really helping. And
Speaker 1: I could tell it wasn't helping. And I know what
Speaker 1: it's like when someone's trying to comfort you and it's
Speaker 1: just not getting through. Yeah, And when you're having panic attacks, no,
Speaker 1: there's no getting in there. They have to end and
Speaker 1: you have to like go through it. They're the fucking worst,
Speaker 1: don't They're the worst. But what's funny is, even though
Speaker 1: all of that is what was happening, when I think
Speaker 1: of you telling me in that time in our lives,
Speaker 1: the headline in my memory is how how happy we were.
Speaker 1: I sort of I'm not saying I forgot about all
Speaker 1: the other stuff, but I separated them. It's almost like
Speaker 1: that was resolved, even though it wasn't. They bled into
Speaker 1: one another, but it felt sort of resolved. I know
Speaker 1: we were still fixing you. In fact, the worst was
Speaker 1: to come. Yeah, the coming back from the press tour
Speaker 1: was after we knew she was pregnant. That's why they
Speaker 1: couldn't give her anything, which was also a scene from
Speaker 1: a horror movie, like help, I feel like I'm dying
Speaker 1: but I'm pregnant. Well, we we can't give you anything.
Speaker 1: The doctor told me to take ben a drill just
Speaker 1: so that I would like sleep through it, which later
Speaker 1: I found out that like there are on antidepressants that
Speaker 1: are health that are milk thistle would have been great,
Speaker 1: Like there's so many homeopathic things that can help you
Speaker 1: calm down. So you were having panic attacks even after
Speaker 1: you found out you were pregnant. Yeah, did they end
Speaker 1: at a certain point? They did? Yeah. I did take
Speaker 1: a ton of supplements like five htp l f ain
Speaker 1: you know, Oh my god, who is the supplement person?
Speaker 1: I'm confused. So in San Francisco, which is where we
Speaker 1: were right, which is our love city, it's the city
Speaker 1: we met in and now we're having this horrible nightmare.
Speaker 1: Our wedding vows by the way, where me I told Val.
Speaker 1: I was like, I just vowed to keep Val Val.
Speaker 1: I was like, I love Val and I'll just I'm
Speaker 1: just here to help Val be Vale. Cut to like
Speaker 1: a month and I am dead on the floor. So
Speaker 1: then cut to four months into our marriage and I'm like,
Speaker 1: let's take mushrooms. And then she goes away and like, well, fuck,
Speaker 1: I really really is gone. Vale is gone east of vow. So.
Speaker 1: But long story short is like I was thrilled even
Speaker 1: when I was a kid I wanted to have kids.
Speaker 1: I was watching how I was being parented and I
Speaker 1: didn't have notes for them. I wasn't old enough to
Speaker 1: get that, but I was like, oh, I can't wait
Speaker 1: till I'm I think if there's one thing I can
Speaker 1: compliment myself on is that I really feel still in
Speaker 1: touch with what it feels like to be a kid.
Speaker 1: And it's similar to being with somebody who's on a
Speaker 1: psychedelic Yeah. I tried to do a joke about that
Speaker 1: on stage. It is like I feel like I'm a
Speaker 1: good dad because I have trip set people. You'd be
Speaker 1: a trip sitter, and like it's the same thing. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's that you're a superstar. My child's only ever been
Speaker 1: like comforted by um, what's his name? You know? Oh
Speaker 1: god guys, no no, keep going, no no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you know, super hot Philly Brad not Brad Brad goodbye
Speaker 1: Brad like per thank god. But Bradley Cooper held my son,
Speaker 1: and my son got lost in his soul. Yeah for babies.
Speaker 1: He slipped, he slipped him limitless and we you know, wow,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be the theme the episode. So um,
Speaker 1: there's perinatal depression and perinatal anxiety, which are real diagnosed
Speaker 1: things that come about during pregnancy because of the hormones.
Speaker 1: I one percent just had it with my daughter and
Speaker 1: I did nothing about it, and it is a massive regret. Um,
Speaker 1: it was awful. I had panic attacks, and again Val
Speaker 1: wasn't Val, Katie wasn't Katie. My husband was like, we've
Speaker 1: been together seventeen years. He was like, I have truly
Speaker 1: never I mean, I was gone. Um. The worst part
Speaker 1: was that I was that for my son, you know,
Speaker 1: and just pray, pray, pray that he's he's fine, He's
Speaker 1: all right, I think, but you know, it was panic
Speaker 1: attacks are absolutely horrible. How do you think you finally
Speaker 1: came to peace more they went away, Well, so it
Speaker 1: was kind of a long haul, they did go away.
Speaker 1: I the supplements I think helped in just letting my
Speaker 1: brain like recalibrate. Um, we spent like a lot of
Speaker 1: time in nature. Um really were we were able to
Speaker 1: have that time to like really just be home and
Speaker 1: together and kind of slowed down. And I was so sick,
Speaker 1: Like it really was literally like I was purging this
Speaker 1: stuff out. So I was throwing up multiple times a
Speaker 1: day for the first fourteen weeks and it really was
Speaker 1: like I was cleaning myself out. And then the rest
Speaker 1: of the pregnancy, I had a lot of anxiety that now,
Speaker 1: again my understanding of it was like trauma related anxiety,
Speaker 1: Like I had this trauma right at the beginning, and
Speaker 1: I was dealing with PTSD, but I come to know
Speaker 1: it as that until Leela was like a few months old,
Speaker 1: and I was dealing with that, but mindfulness, which now
Speaker 1: I teach mindfulness. So like, all of this led to
Speaker 1: kind of my career path and not to mention, an
Speaker 1: immense amount of personal healing. So it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where it's like, yes, it was the darkest time
Speaker 1: in my life, but now you're so grateful for it,
Speaker 1: exactly your whole life. That's that's the full the full
Speaker 1: range of the spectrum, right, It's like, oh my God.
Speaker 1: And I really felt like my A lot of the
Speaker 1: anxiety I was experiencing was the anxiety that my mom
Speaker 1: was experiencing when I was in the womb with her.
Speaker 1: Just basically, any kind of anxiety and depression and mental illness,
Speaker 1: just like still was not being really talked about by
Speaker 1: our parents, and especially if you have a baby, you're
Speaker 1: supposed to be happy you're pregnant, like what's the problem.
Speaker 1: And my mom had had a miscarriage before me at
Speaker 1: five months, and then at six months when she was
Speaker 1: pregnant with me, at six months, she started going into
Speaker 1: early labor and had to bed rest. So of course
Speaker 1: her body was reacting with so much anxiety. But if
Speaker 1: you ask her. I asked her, like, Mom, were you
Speaker 1: anxious during that time? That must have been so hard,
Speaker 1: And she was like, you know, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: just life is hard. And you're like, oh, you didn't
Speaker 1: do any processing of this. It was just living in
Speaker 1: your body with me. So when I was pregnant, I
Speaker 1: would just have these huge waves of anxiety, but I
Speaker 1: understood them to be like, Okay, but I am the
Speaker 1: bridge between my mother and my daughter, and I'm like
Speaker 1: filtering this stuff out. My god, you did so much
Speaker 1: work during your pregnantive, so much were rest Like that's
Speaker 1: a lot of work. That's very impressive, Like not only
Speaker 1: were your physically building a human being, but like mentally
Speaker 1: looking at your whole and you know the generation is
Speaker 1: before you and what kind of mom and pregnancy you
Speaker 1: were going to have unbelievable. La was a searchlight and
Speaker 1: it was all bright inside of her, and I think
Speaker 1: instead of resisting that you you went with it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just the labor, which is a whole other thing
Speaker 1: that was like a death and rebirth. It's like even
Speaker 1: the pregnancy was like a changing of who you were,
Speaker 1: because before Val got pregnant, I hope you don't mind
Speaker 1: me saying, she was pretty habitual weed smoker and I
Speaker 1: was a pretty habitual drinker. Um, and when you got
Speaker 1: actually when we got married, I quit drinking actually a
Speaker 1: week before we got married, which was I remember at
Speaker 1: the time, Val was like, really, your parents are about
Speaker 1: to come when we're are you sure, and she was
Speaker 1: really worried that it would ruin the wedding. Now it's
Speaker 1: for me, for me because you didn't know, you didn't
Speaker 1: know if it was just like another one of my
Speaker 1: i'm a tweaker, I'll be like this week, I'm only
Speaker 1: eat gluten or whatever, you know, like a trying new things.
Speaker 1: And she's like, yeah, I just want you to enjoy
Speaker 1: the wedding. And I know you know this. I enjoyed
Speaker 1: our wedding so much. And it's not a blurry memory,
Speaker 1: it's like a present memory. And that was so. But
Speaker 1: it started when you got pregnant. You stopped smoking weed.
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything for thirty days I was already
Speaker 1: or not, I mean for ten months, and then you
Speaker 1: went with that too. It was like the new val
Speaker 1: doesn't smoke weed. No judgment to people who smoke weed
Speaker 1: um at all, but it's like you were accepting feedback
Speaker 1: from the experience. You weren't imposing yourself on the experience.
Speaker 1: You were letting it impose on you, which really sounds
Speaker 1: similarly to your parenting style, but it's letting the baby's flash. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you know you were having a daughter early? Did
Speaker 1: you find out? Yeah? We found out early, and I
Speaker 1: really felt like she was a girl before that, which
Speaker 1: is like, even though it's like, okay, gender is complicated
Speaker 1: and maybe she isn't a girl, but but I really
Speaker 1: felt like she was going to be born with the
Speaker 1: female until she told you otherwise, she was born with
Speaker 1: And that experience became even though it was really hard,
Speaker 1: it became like this, I felt this deep connection to
Speaker 1: my mother on like a soul level. I had that too,
Speaker 1: because my second a girl, Oh my god, my first
Speaker 1: as a boy. And Pete and I talked about this
Speaker 1: when we first met, and I was fucking devastated when
Speaker 1: I found out I was having a boy. Um, but
Speaker 1: my daughter, I did feel immediate connection to my mother
Speaker 1: as soon as I found out I knew it was
Speaker 1: a girl. I knew the minute I conceived her that
Speaker 1: it was a girl. I felt her so strongly and um,
Speaker 1: and it made me feel very connected to my mom.
Speaker 1: So when you found out it was a girl, I
Speaker 1: want to know how you felt, and Pete, I want
Speaker 1: to know how you felt. And we could just yes,
Speaker 1: understanding that gender is a construct and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: but let's just go old school. How did you feel yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll go old school. Um. Yeah. I definitely felt like
Speaker 1: it was confirmation that the early connection that I felt
Speaker 1: to her was true and not just in my head,
Speaker 1: because I was like, I feel like I have such
Speaker 1: a sense of this being's energy, and I feel very
Speaker 1: strongly that she's a girl. So if she isn't, then
Speaker 1: I'm going to question everything. Everything. Yeah, even Pete. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're just like, we're very feminine in this house. That's
Speaker 1: why we've allowed Pete on Katie's That's right, that's why
Speaker 1: he's let in. How did you feel, Pete, Pete, you're
Speaker 1: such a girl dad to me, That's what I felt
Speaker 1: like too. And I feel like, for some reason, there
Speaker 1: are dads that are just like, oh, it's perfect. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it is like a really macho, like a bear of
Speaker 1: a man, and you're just like, yeah, but still you
Speaker 1: you need baby girls. And I actually had a dream
Speaker 1: before we knew Val was pregnant, that Val was pregnant.
Speaker 1: It was in the time after we had conceived, but
Speaker 1: before we knew I was pregnant. Uh huh, you had
Speaker 1: a dream. The dream was she was pregnant. Val had
Speaker 1: a big pregnant belly, and I it sounds it sounds dark,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't dark. Meaning I put my hands in
Speaker 1: her belly and I lifted the baby up, but the
Speaker 1: skin of val was still over the baby, but you
Speaker 1: could see it like a bed sheet, like like a
Speaker 1: top sheet on a bed. Lifting up the baby, and
Speaker 1: I looked at the baby and it was Leela like
Speaker 1: it was what Lela ended up looking like and being.
Speaker 1: So it was like piercing sparkling eyes, which she does,
Speaker 1: you guys in the photos. Leela's eyes, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I've ever seen them on like a human being.
Speaker 1: It's like she it is truly windows to like another dimension,
Speaker 1: you know. And anyway, I know it's tricky to sort
Speaker 1: of talk about gender, but Lela is actually has a
Speaker 1: lot of like powerful or for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: like masculine energy. She's very decisive, she's very strong, she's
Speaker 1: very fearless, and she's very cooperative too. She's very like,
Speaker 1: she's empathetic and she wants to play with you. When
Speaker 1: we went to this birthday party and it was me
Speaker 1: and her cousin and these other little baby girls, and
Speaker 1: I just got in the kiddie pool with my pants
Speaker 1: rolled up and I'm soaking wet and and just having
Speaker 1: so much fun holding two of them at a time.
Speaker 1: I'm throwing them on the slide, just having the best time,
Speaker 1: and everybody's collaborating. If they're saying something, they're like, you
Speaker 1: and me are on a team, or if Pete is
Speaker 1: a monster, we're agreeing that I'm a monster. And it's
Speaker 1: not so you can like hurt me. It's so you
Speaker 1: can sort of run for me and then splash me.
Speaker 1: And but if I go, okay, now Lela is the monster,
Speaker 1: like they listen to that, and now we're and then
Speaker 1: like one boy came in the pool, one fucking boy,
Speaker 1: this is mine? What do you do? What do you do?
Speaker 1: And I love these boys. I've known a lot of
Speaker 1: them since they were babies. They get in the pool
Speaker 1: and suddenly the game is just shoot Pete in the
Speaker 1: face with a constant stream of powerful super socer and
Speaker 1: I'll take a shot of super socer to my face
Speaker 1: and I'll go, ah, you got me, and I'll fall
Speaker 1: down and play with it doesn't stop. The blast just
Speaker 1: kept coming coming. And another boy gets in and this boy,
Speaker 1: by the way, was a sweet boy and had been
Speaker 1: playing nicely sees that he's shooting me in the face
Speaker 1: and now he's shooting me in the face, and I'm
Speaker 1: just you try to reason. I go like, okay, that
Speaker 1: that was fun like and I literally just said like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're ruining this, like I'm gonna leave. And you see,
Speaker 1: this is why none of the grown ups are playing
Speaker 1: with you. I'm the only one that's sing And if
Speaker 1: you've noticed, it's more fun when I'm playing and I'm
Speaker 1: offering other suggestions. I'm like, do you want me to
Speaker 1: pick you up and throw you on the slut blasts
Speaker 1: and the fact the whole time the blasts in the
Speaker 1: face is happening. And I just went okay, not even
Speaker 1: that frustrated, just went okay, and I just got out.
Speaker 1: It was like, dude, not all boys and not all
Speaker 1: girls girls and these boys, I was just like, fuck boys.
Speaker 1: I fucking hate this. And I can really appreciate if
Speaker 1: you want to wrestle. I I again, I remember what
Speaker 1: it was like being a boy. And you you have
Speaker 1: to make peace with these two sides of yourself. You
Speaker 1: are sweet. I was really close to my mom. I was,
Speaker 1: and hope hopefully still am, empathetic and kind, but like
Speaker 1: you also want to punch and roll and everything's a gun.
Speaker 1: And but these boys that we know in l a
Speaker 1: uh not to make a geographical but these boys that
Speaker 1: we happen to know here play better. They get that
Speaker 1: I'm on their side, and they don't just shoot me
Speaker 1: in the face with dead black eyes. Just they're not
Speaker 1: even enjoying it. Just dead. My sons go jet black,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, did I Berth satan himself? I am terrified.
Speaker 1: It's not just you. I go, this is a dark
Speaker 1: soul right now. But it's not. It's just like a
Speaker 1: weird One of the kids, one of the other boys,
Speaker 1: we were playing this game. There's a little kitchen. To me,
Speaker 1: it's it's and three girls and we're having so much fun.
Speaker 1: It was their idea, took me by the hand. Let's
Speaker 1: go play cooked. And I was playing a game where
Speaker 1: I would eat what they take what they said, and
Speaker 1: I said, now it's not spicy, is it? And they'd
Speaker 1: be like what, I'm like this, I don't like spicy food.
Speaker 1: And they'll be like, no, it's not spicy that I
Speaker 1: eat it, and I go, but spicy, it's spicy. They're
Speaker 1: dying lad. Now they're they're running back to the kitchen
Speaker 1: and then come up. Leela would come with a plastic
Speaker 1: piece of cheese and go, it's not spicy, it's not
Speaker 1: spicy that I'd eat it, and I'd go spicy pleading.
Speaker 1: They laugh. One boy, different boy enters the game. Now
Speaker 1: he's shoving it in my face. He's going, eat it,
Speaker 1: eat it, eat it. It's not spicy, like hurting me,
Speaker 1: eat it. I'm like, why are you making me feel
Speaker 1: so degraded? Now? It was a game where I'm kind
Speaker 1: of haplessly eating the spicy thing, and that's funny, piece
Speaker 1: of ship. Eat it. You know. I have this book
Speaker 1: next to my bed. I haven't read. It's called The
Speaker 1: Wonder of Boys. I've been people have told me to
Speaker 1: read it on this podcast for four years at this point.
Speaker 1: Still haven't touched it. Um. I think there's something I
Speaker 1: don't know, if it's like an impulse thing like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, But there is a difference, and we're making
Speaker 1: a sweeping generalization to boys and girls. We understand that
Speaker 1: there are girls that are exceptance to rules, there's boys
Speaker 1: that are exceptions to rules. Blah blah blah. But you
Speaker 1: guys were gifted a girl with feminine energy who has
Speaker 1: masculine energy to but is one to not throw a
Speaker 1: super soaker in your face? Do you guys have to
Speaker 1: discipline her for lack of a better word, and how
Speaker 1: do you do that? Yeah? Okay, Well I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you said that and that this came up, because this
Speaker 1: is what I was going to say originally when you
Speaker 1: were like, I feel like you guys are like such
Speaker 1: great parents, and I messed things up. Um, it's easy
Speaker 1: to look like you're good parents when you have an
Speaker 1: easy kid, Like so if we had a type of kid,
Speaker 1: I mean, you saw like Pete was like, okay, this
Speaker 1: is why nobody wants to play with you? Or I
Speaker 1: get Ben knows all the time. Like literally, the person
Speaker 1: who came to steam clean the couch saw what it
Speaker 1: takes for me to get my son into the car
Speaker 1: to get dropped off for preschool. She saw it. She
Speaker 1: looked at me. I've never met this person. She said, well,
Speaker 1: you better nip that in the bud. Now. I get
Speaker 1: comments like this ship all the time because my son
Speaker 1: is a negotiating I mean, because she had witnessed what
Speaker 1: our morning looks like, which is me how many times
Speaker 1: can to negotiate to put on your shoes, brush your teeth,
Speaker 1: eat something, you know, all of these things. And he
Speaker 1: loves a test. He loves to push boundaries. He loves
Speaker 1: to like, Okay, you said three, but can I have
Speaker 1: you know you said too, but can I have three?
Speaker 1: Let's bring three cars? And again my hippie self is like, sure,
Speaker 1: you can bring the toys in the car. I don't
Speaker 1: give a ship, like who cares? But my son is like, well,
Speaker 1: if I can bring car toys in the car, I
Speaker 1: want to bring. You know these about a card? You
Speaker 1: guys get it, you get it, you get it, you
Speaker 1: get it. But yes, my kid is a challenger like
Speaker 1: his dad. So yes, a lot of times I look
Speaker 1: like a bad parent. So it sounds like Leila is
Speaker 1: um for for also lack of a better word. Easy.
Speaker 1: She can be really strong willed. We can really relate
Speaker 1: to the like it takes forever to get her, like
Speaker 1: every day it's a battle to get her dress, to
Speaker 1: put clothes on. She never wants to put clothes on. Um.
Speaker 1: She is doing very much in that two year old
Speaker 1: thing where if you make it clear that you want
Speaker 1: her to do something, then that's enough for her to
Speaker 1: be like, nope, I don't want to do that same
Speaker 1: same So it is a lot of manipulating to be like,
Speaker 1: you know, do you want to take a bath or
Speaker 1: a shower? Like constant choices um or trying to word
Speaker 1: it in some way where it seems like it's her
Speaker 1: own idea. But then she's sweet, it's I wonder if
Speaker 1: your son is not like this. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: like she's resisting a tub. She's resisting a tub. She's
Speaker 1: resisting a tub. I get in the tub. She comes
Speaker 1: in with me, you know what I mean. There's always
Speaker 1: like playing with her power, which is great. But then
Speaker 1: like if I'm like, okay, I'm going to take a
Speaker 1: bath and she's like I'm getting the tub, I get it,
Speaker 1: and then she wants to get in because she does
Speaker 1: want to connect and play and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what what like we're trying to do,
Speaker 1: and then I'll tell you what we actually end up doing.
Speaker 1: I love you, love you because yeah, and I have
Speaker 1: a problem with I've had a couple of parents telling
Speaker 1: like making comments like the whole you better nip that
Speaker 1: in the butt, and I'm like, when your kid is
Speaker 1: being hard the only appropriate when like another person's kid
Speaker 1: is being difficult. The only appropriate response as a fellow
Speaker 1: parent is to tell a story about when your kid
Speaker 1: was also difficult to play. That's not the time to
Speaker 1: give advice. Don't don't tell me your methods on it.
Speaker 1: Maybe if I ask, you can do that later. But
Speaker 1: like we're in this together, we gotta give solidarity. It's
Speaker 1: it's hard and we all have like really bad moments.
Speaker 1: So um, thank you Val for saying that. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: well so we Um, we're trying to do kind of
Speaker 1: like it's hand in hand parenting, which is like one
Speaker 1: of the yeah in hand parenting something I haven't heard
Speaker 1: of it, and I'm what tell me when I know?
Speaker 1: And you I mean, I think it might be a
Speaker 1: little bit. I don't know if it's old school, but um,
Speaker 1: I don't know that much about it. I just know
Speaker 1: that we are doing like these sessions with this friend
Speaker 1: of a friend who specializes in it, and um, there's
Speaker 1: a lot that's aligned like I've seen you know, it's
Speaker 1: a lot like a whole brain child stuff and it's
Speaker 1: very light with that and it's very much like if
Speaker 1: there's off track behavior, Uh, that is your your child
Speaker 1: signaling to you that there's been a disconnect somewhere and
Speaker 1: that connection is the key, and that There are several
Speaker 1: ways to do that. The most common one is to
Speaker 1: set a boundary, let them have very big feelings about that,
Speaker 1: and you just sit with them while they're having those
Speaker 1: big feelings, and you're like, I'm here. I'm not afraid
Speaker 1: of your rage. You don't say this, but you're kind
Speaker 1: of showing like I see you, I hear you, and
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting here and I'm sitting here and I'm
Speaker 1: here for you, Like that's it, and likening them out. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: what would be an example of a boundary in that situation?
Speaker 1: So like, if she saw this pen, she would grab
Speaker 1: this pen and she would draw all over everything, so
Speaker 1: she would want the pen, and I would say, I
Speaker 1: would say, Leela, we can't have that pen. We can
Speaker 1: go have your washable marker. And then she'll say no, pin, pin, pin,
Speaker 1: And I'll go, I'm sorry, I know you want the pin,
Speaker 1: but you can't have it. Do you want to give
Speaker 1: it to mom? Or do you want me to take it?
Speaker 1: And then what whichever way that goes, She's gonna have
Speaker 1: a tantrum about it about not having the pin, and
Speaker 1: then I just sit there with her and go, yeah,
Speaker 1: you really wanted that pen. It's that's you really upset,
Speaker 1: sound really upset. You didn't want me to dry your
Speaker 1: legs getting out on the tub and you're like running
Speaker 1: around and you have to grab her like a little
Speaker 1: baby squid. She's flailing, and you just I learned that's
Speaker 1: such a great lesson. It's like, sometimes they just need
Speaker 1: to process feelings, and sometimes they need to process trauma
Speaker 1: that could even just be from being born, like the
Speaker 1: trauma they were basically born in a weird car crash,
Speaker 1: and there's still like ducks after a fight, they're still
Speaker 1: shaking their feathers from that. And that's why we it's
Speaker 1: really true. I'll see her do something, ask for something
Speaker 1: that she knows she can't have so she can have
Speaker 1: a meltdown. And that's really modern parenting to me, because
Speaker 1: you know, some of you know, we see other grown ups,
Speaker 1: meaning people are older than us, we're not grown ups,
Speaker 1: pick up the baby, but she shouldn't distract them and
Speaker 1: turn on the TV, and we're really like, let's have it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I have She'll be crying and you'll be like, oh,
Speaker 1: like I'll howl with her and you'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this secks. Can you tell me very okay? Leela the name?
Speaker 1: And also how was labor um for you guys both
Speaker 1: and how did you feel when you met your daughter?
Speaker 1: Both of you heat um? Well, her name. It's funny
Speaker 1: because both Val and I are are woo woo and
Speaker 1: as if you couldn't tell. Yeah, in our sacred mushroom
Speaker 1: ceremony where we invited a soul into her love exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: My passion is spirituality. I love at Cartole, I love
Speaker 1: Byron Katie. We talked about the sunset and I love
Speaker 1: around us, and we we were very deliberate with her name.
Speaker 1: She can believe whatever she wants and that's beautiful and
Speaker 1: valid and important and special and that's for her. I
Speaker 1: do think it's kind of fun that we named her Lela,
Speaker 1: which is one of the answers to the meaning of life.
Speaker 1: Whether or not she believes it is totally relevant or
Speaker 1: up to her, but Lela is. It's in both Buddhism
Speaker 1: and Hinduism, and it means the dance of the universe,
Speaker 1: meaning life is a leila, like fis a dance. It's
Speaker 1: all just one thing, sort of undulating for its own growth,
Speaker 1: for its own enjoyment, for its own all of it,
Speaker 1: even its own suffering. To use it in a sentence,
Speaker 1: which I do, if you're on shooting a show and
Speaker 1: it's going late and it's or it's traffic jam or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, you just go, it's all Leila.
Speaker 1: It's all just a dance. It's the other interpretation. It's
Speaker 1: it's all the play of God the dance or the
Speaker 1: play of the mystery. So that's Lela. But then we
Speaker 1: named her Lela Jane, and we did that very deliberately
Speaker 1: because I was like, if she doesn't want to be
Speaker 1: a hippie child, she can be Jane, which is like
Speaker 1: a smoky sort of dark purple dress artist. She can
Speaker 1: be Jane. Then if she's sporty, she can be Ljuh.
Speaker 1: And wow, you guys really gave her nice options. And
Speaker 1: then with Lela, we also call her Lee, which is
Speaker 1: really nice, and that's a little bit that's open too,
Speaker 1: and that's also like masculine feminine. It's like very if
Speaker 1: she's feeling here that way, it's like a Lee. But
Speaker 1: we call her Lee j We call her all those
Speaker 1: great things. So there's a lot of thought went into
Speaker 1: the name UM and a name with options, because I
Speaker 1: remember where I was when I somebody told me it
Speaker 1: was up to me if I wanted to be Peter
Speaker 1: or Pete, and I just thought that was a mind
Speaker 1: blowing revelation. It is the first thing that I remember
Speaker 1: feeling real agency over reality, meaning I can tell you
Speaker 1: the giant grown ups to call me Pete, Hello, Peter,
Speaker 1: it's Pete, Like that's up to me. So it was
Speaker 1: really powerful. So I wanted to give her like a
Speaker 1: Rubik's cube kind of name UM. Then when I met her,
Speaker 1: it was it was. It didn't disappoint the thing that
Speaker 1: I say, Val can tell the story of her. But
Speaker 1: like what I tell new parents is always like it's
Speaker 1: the realist thing you'll ever do. And it's the opposite
Speaker 1: of looking at your phone, like or watching a movie,
Speaker 1: which is literally fake and your phone is fake and
Speaker 1: Instagram is fake, and doing this thing like to me,
Speaker 1: labor and pregnancy and childbirth is like boop. It's like
Speaker 1: corches and dust getting kicked up by a sacred dance
Speaker 1: and you have like shakers on yours and that's like
Speaker 1: the real ish. Actually I'm thinking about every live like
Speaker 1: dance performance I've ever seen when I've been fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to like travel and see people like really doing something
Speaker 1: that's like that, that is the best. Yeah, that's exactly
Speaker 1: what it's like. If I could just have you, it's
Speaker 1: a drum circle. It feels like a Yeah, it's sacred
Speaker 1: and ancient, ancient doing something that they've all done. And
Speaker 1: if you can tap into that, and Val was so
Speaker 1: good at saying yes to it. Um, you know, there's
Speaker 1: pain and then they're suffering, and suffering is pain with
Speaker 1: a story. The story is usually this shouldn't be happening
Speaker 1: to me. Uh, this will never end. These are all things.
Speaker 1: These are all sort of lies that our brains cost
Speaker 1: that make pain in the suffering. And that was very
Speaker 1: good at feeling pain. But just one contraction at a time,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, you were very good at that.
Speaker 1: You can speak to that more the I'm gonna really
Speaker 1: give it to you. So I'm just gonna answer all three.
Speaker 1: I remember. I hope it's not an overshare. Lela's head
Speaker 1: was crowning and I we both touched her head, which too,
Speaker 1: it's like that time of day where it's not night
Speaker 1: and it's not day and we all love that in
Speaker 1: between space and here. It wasn't yet Leela, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't not Valorie, and it wasn't not Lela. It was this. Really,
Speaker 1: it's like touching. I'm not trying to be funny. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say a black hole, but like something cosmic.
Speaker 1: It was like touching a portal. It is a portal.
Speaker 1: It's a magical portal. It's an interdimensional Did you know
Speaker 1: that moment was going to happen, Like did you discuss
Speaker 1: like if this is happening, or did your doctor whatever
Speaker 1: say do you want to touch her head? Or you
Speaker 1: said you can touch Yeah, we didn't know about that book,
Speaker 1: and we had the mirror, which I also somebody was
Speaker 1: just like, do you want a mirror? And I was
Speaker 1: like yeah, and I hadn't even thought of that, So
Speaker 1: like I could see her head and I was touching it,
Speaker 1: and that really was I'm glad you brought that moment
Speaker 1: up because almost even more than the moment that they
Speaker 1: like chest like that, that was the first touch. I'm
Speaker 1: dying right now. It makes me kind of want to
Speaker 1: have another one. Not really, but I just like to
Speaker 1: get out there because it's really valuable to me as
Speaker 1: a parent, and I think it's valuable to kids too.
Speaker 1: One of the first things I said to her, and
Speaker 1: I said it to her literally last night, not to
Speaker 1: soothe her or anything. I'm just talking to her own
Speaker 1: holding her, I'm like, you're welcome here. I waited so
Speaker 1: long to meet you. And even when she's crying, You're like,
Speaker 1: I waited so long to hear this cry, I waited
Speaker 1: so long to be up too late with you and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But telling her on the day she's born, like,
Speaker 1: you're welcome here. We you're you're it's good that you're here.
Speaker 1: So that was the first thing after she was born.
Speaker 1: She went right on bel and it was just a bloody,
Speaker 1: very carnal mess. And and then I got to hold her.
Speaker 1: I took the first picture of her when she was
Speaker 1: on the little scale and it was and we sang
Speaker 1: to her. We sang um, sweet baby James, but we
Speaker 1: say good night, sweet Lee La Jane, which is what
Speaker 1: we would sing to her in the womb. And I
Speaker 1: sang all these other songs that I had played for
Speaker 1: her in the womb. A lot of them were like
Speaker 1: spiritual songs and stuff, just things that she would recognize.
Speaker 1: So she's laying again. It's it's like it's an out
Speaker 1: of body experience and she just showed up and we're like,
Speaker 1: let's just do the thing, get her on to Mama,
Speaker 1: no ego there. I did hold her topless a lot
Speaker 1: in the hospital, which people thought was maybe strange, no
Speaker 1: skinned skin. That's where let's let's not jump to my
Speaker 1: weird body. Let's keep you on mom on the space portal.
Speaker 1: And we just sang her and held her little hand
Speaker 1: and and was that planned or all organic plan? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And we were saying things like that, we each had
Speaker 1: songs that we wanted to play, like we it was
Speaker 1: very important to us that we communicated her right away,
Speaker 1: like we're the ones you've been hearing. You're not alone,
Speaker 1: We're here for you. Like really trying to imagine what
Speaker 1: it would be like to be born and just try scary, scary, scary,
Speaker 1: super scared. I always think about how traumatic birth is
Speaker 1: because like my daughter is not. She's very very peaceful
Speaker 1: in temperament, and she's not a croy like she she
Speaker 1: doesn't communicate through through loud crying sounds. She's five months,
Speaker 1: so I've yet to know her more. But the most
Speaker 1: she ever cried was the first day of her life.
Speaker 1: Like I when she was born, it was horrifying, like
Speaker 1: she was hysterical, crying, freaking the funk out and could
Speaker 1: not be comforted by me, by my husband, by by
Speaker 1: my boob, like nothing. And that first meeting is nothing
Speaker 1: like who she is. And I always think, my god,
Speaker 1: she was terrified. Yeah, well you just became too imagination.
Speaker 1: Imagine if right now the sky opened up and giant
Speaker 1: hands picked you up, Katie, and oh my god, how
Speaker 1: scared me? So yeah, saying some James Taylor, Katie, I
Speaker 1: can so relate because truly my first memories of her,
Speaker 1: like it was all of those that sweetness, But then
Speaker 1: like the time in the hospital, like for some memories
Speaker 1: of her was like why is she crying so much?
Speaker 1: Like is this a bad sign that she's just I was.
Speaker 1: I remember being so shocked at how much she was crying,
Speaker 1: and she wasn't really like a colice baby after that,
Speaker 1: but the time in the hospital, I was like, what's
Speaker 1: wrong with her? I don't even remember crying, But I
Speaker 1: also was Okay, So my labor very long, I think
Speaker 1: I read it was very My labor was fifty eight hours,
Speaker 1: and like you, I heard that you want You told
Speaker 1: your Duela you wanted to labor at home as long
Speaker 1: as possible. So I was at home for the first
Speaker 1: fifty hours, two full nights up, so so by the
Speaker 1: time she was born, I hadn't slept in nearly three days,
Speaker 1: and like that's the starting of when of your sleep deprivation.
Speaker 1: I just remember it being a very like almost like
Speaker 1: a dream, just so tired that I couldn't really feel like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I love her so much, I want
Speaker 1: to eat her. I want to It was more like
Speaker 1: I'm very tired, she's crying a lot, and I'm very
Speaker 1: obsessed with her, but not in this like lovey dovey way,
Speaker 1: like so interested in her well being. Right, I didn't
Speaker 1: believe that. They're like, okay, now, go ahead and let
Speaker 1: your guard down and sleep, And I was like, oh, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: I can. It's I actually think your body doesn't let you.
Speaker 1: I remember my body, you know those jold things when
Speaker 1: you like almost fall asleep and then your whole body
Speaker 1: like shakes away. I had that for the first bunch
Speaker 1: of days with Albi. I think it must be some
Speaker 1: primal thing of just making sure that everyone's alive and
Speaker 1: everyone's breathing or whatever the hell it is. Did you
Speaker 1: have an epidural? Did you not have an epidural? Did you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: As soon as I got to the hospital, I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're done, Like that's enough laboring. I'll take that epidural
Speaker 1: and not really And then I did actually like sleep
Speaker 1: for a couple hours, but even then I was like
Speaker 1: so wired, I couldn't really sleep. Um And that ended
Speaker 1: up being like my favorite part of the labor because
Speaker 1: we put put Beyonce on. He made the room really nice.
Speaker 1: He was making a laugh. I was pushing for what
Speaker 1: felt like an eternity, but I didn't care because I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't feel anything. Finally, I can't believe
Speaker 1: you did fifty hours at home, Like are you joking?
Speaker 1: That's like and also being that tired. I don't even know.
Speaker 1: So yeah, when the second, not that I was doing it,
Speaker 1: when there was there was a duelash shift, there was
Speaker 1: a duelash. That's when you know. That's when you know
Speaker 1: ship is really like dula. If if one Duela had
Speaker 1: already reached her max of no sleep and then another
Speaker 1: Duela shows up, that's long and that's really long. I
Speaker 1: think you might be the only person on Katie's rip
Speaker 1: that's ever reached that, So congratulations, never heard of that.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've experienced enough of labor to last
Speaker 1: a lifetime. If we have a second one, I'm getting
Speaker 1: a duel as quickly as possible. Yeah. We had Casey
Speaker 1: Wilson on the podcast UM and she said that she
Speaker 1: thinks she's the only person that showed up to cedars.
Speaker 1: She was at zero centimeters dilated and asked for her
Speaker 1: up a duel and they were like, but you haven't.
Speaker 1: It was an induction, They're like, you have a certain
Speaker 1: and she was like, oh I don't. I don't care,
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to feel anything at all. So
Speaker 1: just starting an I know you make any choice, but
Speaker 1: she doesn't care. She's like, I'll lay in this bed
Speaker 1: for three days and watch TV like I don't give
Speaker 1: a ship, Like I'm not doing that. Okay, before we
Speaker 1: um wrap it up, UM, I want to know how
Speaker 1: being a parent has changed you, Pete. Well back to
Speaker 1: sort of where we started, where there's so much of
Speaker 1: my life is being professionally special that can be really
Speaker 1: toxic and really ugly. Um, if it's left unregulated. And
Speaker 1: I'm not saying kids is the only way to sort
Speaker 1: of cut that off at the past, it is a
Speaker 1: great way for me. Um. There are balanced older comedians
Speaker 1: that never got married to that kids, but they found
Speaker 1: other ways. They found other interests, meaning I think it's
Speaker 1: really really important to have something that's not you, that
Speaker 1: you care about more than yourself. The Buddhists have an
Speaker 1: idea of the hungry ghost, meaning they have very thin
Speaker 1: necks and very big bellies, meaning it's never enough, and
Speaker 1: I think we can all sort of relate to that.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, we're doing the small Wood show, now
Speaker 1: I can finally retire. It's always it's the heist movie.
Speaker 1: One more job and I'll retire. But you know watching
Speaker 1: the heist movie, like these guys are never going to
Speaker 1: retire their high statics, where we can also be heistatics.
Speaker 1: So you need that disruption and having something the way
Speaker 1: that I look at my career, the way that I
Speaker 1: look at my life, that I take myself way less
Speaker 1: seriously because you have something external that you care about
Speaker 1: more than yourself is really really healthy, I think for me,
Speaker 1: especially when you're in show business. So that's been really great.
Speaker 1: It's been this great release value. I am so with you.
Speaker 1: I always like when I had my kid, I was like,
Speaker 1: do you know how ready and lovely it is to
Speaker 1: not be the center of my universe as more? It's
Speaker 1: not healthy become like the risk is. The mythology of
Speaker 1: dragons is very interesting to me. A dragon is usually
Speaker 1: in a castle alone on gold. It can't spend. It's
Speaker 1: always hoarding gold it can't spend, and it usually as
Speaker 1: a virgin. The myth goes like a princess that it
Speaker 1: can't have sex with. They don't explain that, but you know,
Speaker 1: the King Kong can't have sex with the good woman.
Speaker 1: Dragon can't have sex with a maiden, even though he
Speaker 1: steals one. So it's this, you have everything you need
Speaker 1: to experience, but you're a dragon, so you're unable to
Speaker 1: experience it. So you kind of have to send your
Speaker 1: own night into slay that dragon, and the baby is
Speaker 1: a really good dragon slayer, and then you do start, uh,
Speaker 1: spending money, spending time, actually connecting, actually being a human,
Speaker 1: you know, not a dragon. Anyway, I'm trying to always
Speaker 1: ingest this thing, like show biz is so like I
Speaker 1: remember when I was always like oh, just get the
Speaker 1: series regular. Get the series regular, get this series, get
Speaker 1: the lead and the lead, get the lead. And then
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, just get the lead of the episode.
Speaker 1: Just geta lead of the episode. And then it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: just get Jimmy Kim alive, just get whatever it was.
Speaker 1: And then I and then by season three I was like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: this is just and thank god I had people who
Speaker 1: had already learned this, let you know, carry, I had
Speaker 1: carry watching all these people who were like, oh, it
Speaker 1: became just like I'm so psyched with what is and
Speaker 1: it's all great. I am so with you on this
Speaker 1: being such a transform bitive, helpful identity shift. Really and
Speaker 1: then you didn't ask. But the spiritual thing that I
Speaker 1: find most useful is what you just said is making
Speaker 1: friends with the present moment and trying not to add
Speaker 1: a story to things. Because even when we were sleep
Speaker 1: deprived and rocking Lela bouncing Lelana yoga ball, that's that
Speaker 1: can be painful. It can be painful to not get
Speaker 1: enough sleep. But the suffering starts when you go, well,
Speaker 1: now i'm gonna be tired all day and that thing
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to cancel that thing your your brain
Speaker 1: really wants to build a story. But I do this
Speaker 1: all the time. You go, I'm sitting in a rocking
Speaker 1: chair holding my baby that at one point will be
Speaker 1: old and will not want me to hold her, and
Speaker 1: I'm sitting just us and I'm feeling her breath like
Speaker 1: you become embodied. Ah, this is so great. Also, since
Speaker 1: you're so spiritual, and I love that. Any tips for
Speaker 1: people listening when your daughter asks you, like what God
Speaker 1: is and things like that, because I just ran into
Speaker 1: that for the first time last week and was not prepared. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's should have done that worth. But so for telling
Speaker 1: children about spirituality. You get into trouble when you forget
Speaker 1: that these are metaphors. That metaphor is the only language
Speaker 1: we have to talk about the infinite mystery. There's no
Speaker 1: way to talk about it literally. You can't put it
Speaker 1: in an Amazon Prime box. You can only point at it.
Speaker 1: And stories are a great way to point at it.
Speaker 1: So if you ask me what happens when we die,
Speaker 1: I would say, uh, nothing goes anywhere. The whole the
Speaker 1: whole thing is one thing thinking itself, just an undulating
Speaker 1: swarm of molecules that is learning and playing so when
Speaker 1: you die, I understand it's like a drop of water
Speaker 1: going into the ocean. I'm sure you've heard that before
Speaker 1: the drop of water. It's gone, and we can mourn
Speaker 1: that that it's gone, But where has it gone? Where
Speaker 1: is there to go? You're just merging into the oneness.
Speaker 1: That's a little heavy. You could also just say when
Speaker 1: you die, you go to heaven and you re emerge
Speaker 1: with what God. That's usually a basic bitch heaven story
Speaker 1: and all the other dead people. But that's fine. But
Speaker 1: what I just said is just kind of another, I
Speaker 1: would say, more interesting way of saying, when you die,
Speaker 1: you merge into being God and go where all the
Speaker 1: other dead people are. And we don't have to take
Speaker 1: that literally, but that's a fine way to start. And
Speaker 1: even God saying I do not believe in another God.
Speaker 1: I'm a pan antheist, which means pantheist means everything is God.
Speaker 1: I believe that God is in everything. To God is
Speaker 1: looking out your eyes right now. You like to use
Speaker 1: the water thing. There's a drop of water in you
Speaker 1: that's giving you awareness, that's giving you consciousness, and the
Speaker 1: idea of God is the ocean is all of it.
Speaker 1: So you can be reverent to that, you can worship that,
Speaker 1: you can be humbled before that and say I am
Speaker 1: not that, and yet I am that. It's a paradox.
Speaker 1: It's fine to say. The danger again is when you
Speaker 1: take it literally. But you can say God is a
Speaker 1: man if you'd like, this is what a lot of
Speaker 1: people do. But if you want to say, God is
Speaker 1: like Jimmy Cricketer, God is sitting on a cloud. What
Speaker 1: is what is a cloud? It's above, it's participating, but
Speaker 1: it's above so it sees the big picture. That's a
Speaker 1: good metaphor. I believe that God is consciousness itself. I
Speaker 1: believe Leela has way more to teach me about God
Speaker 1: than I have to teach her about God. So I
Speaker 1: try to listen a lot of the mystery do you
Speaker 1: use that? Would you use that word god? Um? We
Speaker 1: might might. I feel like if Leela asked me, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, what is God? I would say the same
Speaker 1: beginning as if she asked me where do you go
Speaker 1: when you die? Which is no one knows for sure.
Speaker 1: It's this really great mystery and that's what makes life
Speaker 1: so exciting. A lot people will have different stories to
Speaker 1: help them understand that Nana and Papa are going to
Speaker 1: have this Christian story. So so I do want her
Speaker 1: to have this idea that like she's going to hear
Speaker 1: different stories and but nobody knows for sure, and that's
Speaker 1: what's so exciting about it. One of my favorite books
Speaker 1: of God is the name of the Blanket. We put
Speaker 1: over the mystery to give it shape, so it's like
Speaker 1: a word that we use to talk about life itself.
Speaker 1: A way to think about it is when you play
Speaker 1: with your toys, toy stories about God, that the child
Speaker 1: is God and the toys are animated by God. And
Speaker 1: we talked about this all the time on our podcast,
Speaker 1: where like the first awakening Buzz Lightyear has is that
Speaker 1: he realizes he's a toy. That's the first awakening. But
Speaker 1: that first awakening when you realize life is Leela and
Speaker 1: life is a play, can actually lead to paranoia and
Speaker 1: nihilism where you just go like, well nothing matters, I'm
Speaker 1: just a toy. I just get right. But the second
Speaker 1: and important wakening is seeing that the word andy is
Speaker 1: on the bottom of your foot. That's the more important wakening.
Speaker 1: Who do you belong to? Are you beloved? Do you
Speaker 1: belong does somebody care about you. Did somebody play with you?
Speaker 1: Did someone breathe life into the toys? Story is a
Speaker 1: great way to think about it, Like Andy is like
Speaker 1: God to the toys. He's what brings them life. When
Speaker 1: you play with your toys, that's like giving life to
Speaker 1: your toys, and God is what's sort of playing with us.
Speaker 1: Is one way to talk about it. I might just
Speaker 1: go full old school and be like, it's creation, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's God is like a man who's playing with toys.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go traditional. We're going to make her a
Speaker 1: woman because she created life. All right. She's been saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: But I love that. We're gonna have to have you
Speaker 1: back on the podcast because I'm really so excited. Also,
Speaker 1: we'll be talking about this at work all the time
Speaker 1: as we're trying to make a multi camp sitcom. But
Speaker 1: it's just like Katie, it's just as Lela. I'm excited
Speaker 1: to know you both, and I'm excited to be on
Speaker 1: this parenthood ride with you both because I'm I can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear how Leela asks and how you address
Speaker 1: her curiosities about big stuff. Um, you get so many
Speaker 1: fucking opportunities, you really can't suck it up because I
Speaker 1: really know that I can be casual about it because
Speaker 1: I know that the opportunity will show itself again so
Speaker 1: many more times. And it's not one a three hour
Speaker 1: long conversation, it's multiple, It's thousands of one minute conversations
Speaker 1: with him about God is really what parenting is going
Speaker 1: to be um and is So I will have this
Speaker 1: opportunity again next week, and luckily I'll get to see
Speaker 1: Pete at work and be like, what do you think?
Speaker 1: And I'll be like, oh, ship, good idea. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try that next time. Anyway, blabbing and boring about having
Speaker 1: the answers and to what you just said, it is
Speaker 1: just a process of being present. I really think the
Speaker 1: best thing you can do is be present with them
Speaker 1: and be be there, and even if you do it wrong,
Speaker 1: you can be honest in present and fast up when
Speaker 1: you were wrong or say I don't the best I
Speaker 1: messed up. I Yeah, I love saying when I like
Speaker 1: blew a gasket. This weekend, I said that I was like, Albie,
Speaker 1: I really blew against my parents said, and they were
Speaker 1: doing their own thing. If they had ever just been
Speaker 1: like I really lost my cool that didn't have anything
Speaker 1: to do with you. The reason I'm a creative person
Speaker 1: was because I was left in the backseat of Evolvo
Speaker 1: guessing what went wrong? You know what I mean, And
Speaker 1: that's why I'm writing scripts these days. I'm still guessing
Speaker 1: and we're grateful to them for that. Um. Parenthood is
Speaker 1: to me one word each parenthood is I'm gonna as
Speaker 1: Lela parenting is you? Guys both in Unison can agree
Speaker 1: that his parents would is Leela, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: jump on that as well, parents would parenting Well her
Speaker 1: name is. Isn't just for her to reminder to us
Speaker 1: you can't have a child named Leela and then be
Speaker 1: frustrated that it's taking too long to get her. What
Speaker 1: are you pajamas on? Yeah, that's just another thing to
Speaker 1: knock you into going like what am I taking this
Speaker 1: so seriously for? Yeah? I cannot thank you enough for
Speaker 1: your time and your energy and you're in your experience
Speaker 1: and sharing your experience and I just a big fan same.
Speaker 1: It's mutual and like Pete, I really I am so
Speaker 1: excited that I get to play your TV wife and
Speaker 1: val You're the fucking ship. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for listening to today's episode. Please share, like, subscribe, tell
Speaker 1: your friends, and also always feel free to hit me
Speaker 1: up Katie's Crib at Shonda land dot com because I
Speaker 1: want to hear what topics you want me to talk about,
Speaker 1: what guests we should have on any suggestions, comments, you
Speaker 1: know where to find me. Thanks guys. Katie's Crib is
Speaker 1: a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, visit
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Speaker 1: try me