Speaker 1: You're probably wondering why we're coming into your ears right now,
Speaker 1: but we have.
Speaker 2: A bonus episode with none other than Amy Owens, who
Speaker 2: you might know better as Aims. She is a TikTok
Speaker 2: mum sensation, and she's probably one of those relatable mums
Speaker 2: online on the line at the moment.
Speaker 3: I found her ash, I want to say two years
Speaker 3: ago I was fed her videos on TikTok and she
Speaker 3: is just hilarious. She's built a community of people who
Speaker 3: love to escape the chaos by watching her chaos.
Speaker 2: She's raising four kids. We've got Marley seven. It's like
Speaker 2: you're Maley, but a bit older, Indy five, Billy three,
Speaker 2: and little boy body.
Speaker 3: Like most kids, her little ones aren't all too keen
Speaker 3: on foods, so she often finds herself baking things with
Speaker 3: her kids. Leftovers, sinner, turn leftover toast into cereal.
Speaker 4: Believer it or not?
Speaker 3: Oh wait, how I believe that?
Speaker 1: She cut it up?
Speaker 2: She put it in the air fryer with some cinnamon
Speaker 2: and then she Adamson milk.
Speaker 3: You always get Vetter recipe videos.
Speaker 1: I do, Matthew.
Speaker 2: She's all about not wasting anything in her house. So
Speaker 2: I think I watched one once more than once, and
Speaker 2: now I get fed all of her cooking videos.
Speaker 3: Literally see when I get her videos, it's often about
Speaker 3: how she cooks for her kids because one of them, Marley,
Speaker 3: has recently been diagnosed with autism. And now I'm yet
Speaker 3: to speak to another parent who has a child with autism,
Speaker 3: so I'm keen to talk about how she navigates life
Speaker 3: with Marley.
Speaker 2: We also talk about her past and how it led
Speaker 2: to her sobriety, and Matthew, it has been ten years
Speaker 2: now sober, which is a huge achievement.
Speaker 3: She was quite vulnerable in opening up about her journey
Speaker 3: with alcohol, which led her to a moment where she
Speaker 3: ended up in rehab. It's a really amazing story, Matthew.
Speaker 4: Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to two doting dads and one doting mum.
Speaker 3: I'm Maddie Jay.
Speaker 5: And I'm Aims.
Speaker 3: This is a podcast that happens to be all about parenting.
Speaker 3: It is the good, it is the bad, and the
Speaker 3: relatable and Aims. We have to say every episode for
Speaker 3: legal reasons that we don't give any advice, but if
Speaker 3: you have advice, you're more than welcome to share that
Speaker 3: with us.
Speaker 2: In the world that'd be great because we could use
Speaker 2: some help. You've got twice as four kids.
Speaker 5: Yeah, four kids, we've got two.
Speaker 1: So you're twice the parent we are.
Speaker 3: We always talk about the parenting hierarchy and when you
Speaker 3: meet a parent and you go, how old are your
Speaker 3: kids and if they say, oh, mina like twelve months
Speaker 3: and you know I've got a newborn, like I know
Speaker 3: more than you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in charge of it.
Speaker 5: It's all relative, though, isn't it? Like my four could
Speaker 5: equal someone's one? Do you know what I mean? Like
Speaker 5: it's all about mannerisms and like the temperament and everything.
Speaker 2: True, very still very modest, I know so much. Essentially,
Speaker 2: you're still there's what for male? Yeah, yeah, there's how
Speaker 2: many fingers and toes. It's just like trying to keep
Speaker 2: an eye on two is hard enough.
Speaker 5: But they follow like little ducks. Honestly, when the more
Speaker 5: that you've got, the more behaved they are, or in
Speaker 5: my experience anyway, like if I'm walking in the shopping center,
Speaker 5: one will follow the other and the other will follow
Speaker 5: me the other. Like my two year old's so well
Speaker 5: behaved outside inside he's pretty like manic, But like in
Speaker 5: the shopping center, he's like such a well behaved two
Speaker 5: year old because he's just following his sisters.
Speaker 3: Did you have a turn around and go, fuck, there's three.
Speaker 5: Head count?
Speaker 1: The way?
Speaker 3: Is it that?
Speaker 1: It makes me think that we should all have like
Speaker 1: ten kids, because.
Speaker 3: I do obviously want to get into your kids in
Speaker 3: more detail. But before we do that, I read and
Speaker 3: I was very surprised by this that you're not born
Speaker 3: in Australia.
Speaker 5: No, I was born in Venezueter. That kind I used
Speaker 5: to be my line when I was in my twenties.
Speaker 5: It doesn't come out much anymore.
Speaker 1: So what do you mean by the line?
Speaker 5: Like, you know, well the pickup line, like you know,
Speaker 5: like you got to get it. Yeah, every time. It's
Speaker 5: just you got to be interesting, you know, like when
Speaker 5: you're out in the class. Venezuela was always my thing.
Speaker 3: No disrespect to like accountants out there, but if you like,
Speaker 3: I'm an accountant Zuela. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 5: My parents were diplomats, so they worked for the Australian Embassy,
Speaker 5: which is in Canberra. And then we're just on a
Speaker 5: posting and I just popped out in Venezuela. My sister
Speaker 5: and brother are born in Canberra.
Speaker 1: Oh, right, line a camera, get out.
Speaker 3: HS just something really dumb here. But if you're a
Speaker 3: diplomat in Venezuela, what are you doing?
Speaker 5: My mum had my sister because she older, so she
Speaker 5: just stayed at like the country club where the expats go,
Speaker 5: which it sounds really nice, but I reckon it would
Speaker 5: have been so isolating because like if you're not if
Speaker 5: there's no other expats there, you're literally just surrounded by
Speaker 5: people that don't speak English. There's not much TV back then.
Speaker 5: I was eighty five, so like everything's in Spanish, like
Speaker 5: she would have and she's got two under two or
Speaker 5: it would have been horrible anyway, my dad, I don't
Speaker 5: know what they did, to be honest, what does a
Speaker 5: diplomat do? I have no idea?
Speaker 1: When you said, I was like, the fuck is that?
Speaker 3: Do you know what I'm picking up on? He's a spy?
Speaker 5: I'm thinking that actually so fact the puzzle pieces.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of handguns in the living room.
Speaker 5: I don't actually know where he is now.
Speaker 3: While do you speak Spanish?
Speaker 5: Not because I was born in Venezuela, but my sister
Speaker 5: and I traveled to Spain in my when I was eighteen,
Speaker 5: But no, like Espanol is like what I know. I
Speaker 5: knew my lamego. I know, like my sister spoke it
Speaker 5: more than me, and she actually taught me Spanish lines
Speaker 5: that I didn't know she They were actually like you
Speaker 5: look quite sexy and like things like that. So I
Speaker 5: was just like talking to people thinking I'm saying, hey,
Speaker 5: how are you going? But I was like, you really sexy.
Speaker 3: So my mum speaks French and I was like, teach
Speaker 3: me something, and like the only couple of things I
Speaker 3: can say is like on par with that to a
Speaker 3: tobert leisure tem and it's like you're beautiful and I
Speaker 3: love you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I got nothing, honestly, that's it.
Speaker 5: But that works too, you know.
Speaker 1: It does work around here.
Speaker 3: You have a face like that, you don't need any
Speaker 3: any like accents or other language.
Speaker 1: Just the opera estrange charming enough.
Speaker 3: So when did you come back to Australia?
Speaker 5: I was like, probably, I want to say eighteen months,
Speaker 5: Like it wasn't like a journey. And my passport photo
Speaker 5: was actually really cute. I just I look like et
Speaker 5: because I had no hair, I had these ears that
Speaker 5: sort of flicked out and my eyes were massive, so
Speaker 5: it was yeah, I don't that, and that would have
Speaker 5: been when we came home, so that probably eighteen months
Speaker 5: back to Canberra.
Speaker 1: The spy returned.
Speaker 3: And then what kind of a child were you like
Speaker 3: growing up? When you speak to your parents.
Speaker 5: I was a good girl. I was like two, like
Speaker 5: getting ready. I got myself up and ready at like
Speaker 5: in KINDI had my hair braided, like I don't like
Speaker 5: breaking rules.
Speaker 2: Like wow, yeah, are you the youngest of three in
Speaker 2: the middle the middle of how many three three?
Speaker 5: I got a younger brother, older sister. I didn't like
Speaker 5: get high grades or anything like that. I didn't really try.
Speaker 5: I was more like I wanted to be social and
Speaker 5: like a sporty kid. That was sort of my thing.
Speaker 5: So popular. But like just because.
Speaker 1: I played sports, did you get into trouble at all?
Speaker 1: Do you if you were a really good girl and thought.
Speaker 2: Okay, if you look back now and you go, this
Speaker 2: one time that sticks out that I did get in trouble.
Speaker 5: I tripped up, guys, I'm sober in my twenties. Was
Speaker 5: just trouble the whole ten years. It was trouble long
Speaker 5: soberfore ten years. Wow, yeah, congratulations. Yeah, So I was
Speaker 5: a good girl until I could drink okay, and then it.
Speaker 2: Took a tur what what really, your parents would be like,
Speaker 2: oh my god.
Speaker 5: Look oh the party that I threw at their house? Yeah, no,
Speaker 5: that sticks out. Yeah, And actually was house sitting for
Speaker 5: my cousins and I threw a party there as well.
Speaker 5: That was really bad because they really bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: This is my twenties. So I was a gym beam girl,
Speaker 5: so I hung out with all that crowd and.
Speaker 3: Stuff gymnastics, like I used to gym.
Speaker 5: Definitely. Yeah, so like the Eagles and stuff like that.
Speaker 5: We used to hang out. But back when you could
Speaker 5: sort of mingle with the forty players, so it was
Speaker 5: it was fun. But yeah, we got a bit of trouble.
Speaker 5: So the party that you threw, someone went through the window.
Speaker 5: So we would have had it. We would have had
Speaker 5: it all clear. We were in the clear, like, we
Speaker 5: would have cleaned it up and it would have been perfect.
Speaker 5: No one would have known because my parents were away.
Speaker 5: But someone decided to go through a window floor.
Speaker 3: Was it your thinking of I'm going to throw this
Speaker 3: party or your friends being like, hey, Amy, you're the
Speaker 3: party girl, we should do it at your house.
Speaker 5: I was never really the instigator. I was more of
Speaker 5: a sheep to be honest when it comes to that
Speaker 5: kind of stuff. But like, we had the coolest house
Speaker 5: my parents lived in that was in bag Alla Heights,
Speaker 5: so we looked over Clontaft and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: So we we had like the pool and everything. So yeah,
Speaker 5: it was no brainer that it was going to happen
Speaker 5: when my parents left.
Speaker 2: But the fault it totally is you probably didn't the
Speaker 2: pool and shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it says you.
Speaker 3: Brought us upon yourself, know to that. So then when
Speaker 3: you got found out by your parents, like what happens?
Speaker 3: Then did you get disciplined?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Well it's more that like that shame and that
Speaker 5: disappointment that you've got to live with. Rather because I
Speaker 5: was in my twenties, I was working and doing that,
Speaker 5: they can't really ground me, like I still have to
Speaker 5: go and show up to my job. But like coming
Speaker 5: home and it was my stepdad as well, so it's
Speaker 5: not actually like my mom was disappointed, But then it's
Speaker 5: like letting down this man who's come into my home
Speaker 5: and made my mom so happy, and like they built
Speaker 5: this beautiful house and they were renovating and it's like
Speaker 5: the problem child ruins it for everyone, So it's like
Speaker 5: more like living with that. And you definitely learned my
Speaker 5: lesson from that point about having parties. But my drinking
Speaker 5: sort of went spiraling after that.
Speaker 3: Do you think because I look at my girls and
Speaker 3: I always think, gosh, like they're so as a whole
Speaker 3: well behaved right now, then I often get scared that
Speaker 3: it'll follow that same trajectory where they're really good. Now
Speaker 3: I hit teenage years and older go off the rails
Speaker 3: for you. Was it just the people you were hanging
Speaker 3: out with, or was it the fact that you've been
Speaker 3: so well behaved that you were going to go just
Speaker 3: against the grain.
Speaker 5: No, it's literally Alcoholism is like it can take anyone,
Speaker 5: you know, Like I was a private school girl, you know,
Speaker 5: really well behaved, as you said, the crowd, yes and no.
Speaker 5: But I put myself into that crowd because I wanted
Speaker 5: to be surrounded by people that would hide how much
Speaker 5: I could drink because they were drinking too. But when
Speaker 5: it started to get a bit older and they started
Speaker 5: to settle down and stuff, I really sort of went, wow, Okay,
Speaker 5: I don't want to stop. So I became like I
Speaker 5: hit it a lot more, and that's when it's like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is a problem, but it wasn't really an experience
Speaker 5: or an upbringing that was the problem. It's the alcoholism
Speaker 5: is like a genetic disease. So I have that same
Speaker 5: fear as well because I've got four, so I've got
Speaker 5: like chances are one of them.
Speaker 2: Is going to have Yeah, and moment think, if you
Speaker 2: like got kids and you don't, you've got it.
Speaker 1: At some point.
Speaker 2: I expect that they'll do things like that right where
Speaker 2: they'll go, They'll do dumb things. They might pick up
Speaker 2: a bad habit. You can't expect them to be completely perfect.
Speaker 2: So no, it's like when do they pick it up?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it just sucks though, because it's like it was
Speaker 5: so and it is so hard still, like seeing everyone
Speaker 5: drink and knowing that I can't, but like I'm over
Speaker 5: it now and I realized that if I drink it
Speaker 5: would just ruin everything. So I don't for that reason,
Speaker 5: but to think that one of them might have to
Speaker 5: go through that because it was a long process for
Speaker 5: me to come to that realization, and my parents had
Speaker 5: to sort of watch but take a step back because
Speaker 5: they're like the more we get involved, the less you're learning.
Speaker 3: The only benefit, I think would be the fact that
Speaker 3: you've been there so you understand, whereas if you're coming
Speaker 3: from a place of complete naivity, you might not know
Speaker 3: how to tackle it. Yeah, what was the trigger point
Speaker 3: for you realizing that you needed to get help in this?
Speaker 3: For serious?
Speaker 5: When I was like drinking every night and hiding it
Speaker 5: and I was living with a guy, it just like
Speaker 5: he wouldn't even know that I had to have like
Speaker 5: a whole bottle of wine before I went like skull
Speaker 5: the bottle of wine. I've never told anyone this by
Speaker 5: before because like, I don't want this to be.
Speaker 3: What defines you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right. The second I open up about it,
Speaker 5: people know that I'm sober and blah blah blah. I
Speaker 5: don't really go into it because that will mean that
Speaker 5: I'll be sober amy type thing, and I don't want
Speaker 5: that to be my content. But I'm not ashamed and
Speaker 5: it is a part of my story, so I do
Speaker 5: like to share it when I can. But yeah, I
Speaker 5: I was just coming home everything the night blind and
Speaker 5: I don't I would wake up, I wouldn't remember being
Speaker 5: with him, like being like watching movies or anything like
Speaker 5: what cooking dinner. I didn't remember. I was doing everything
Speaker 5: like just drunk, and then I started losing jobs and
Speaker 5: then it was like, okay, I need to get help,
Speaker 5: and then I would have I think it was about
Speaker 5: five years of just in and out of rehabs, in
Speaker 5: and out of back and forth with jobs. I moved
Speaker 5: to Newcastle at one point and then like it was
Speaker 5: just it was all over the place. But I think
Speaker 5: I've been to it like almost every rehab in Sydney.
Speaker 2: Wow wow, say like the anomaly quit straight away in
Speaker 2: the first time. It's a journey to get where you
Speaker 2: are now, like you go fall in and out, and
Speaker 2: everyone's journey is going to be different, and everyone's addictions
Speaker 2: also is different.
Speaker 5: So unfortunately for the people that I was seeing, because
Speaker 5: whenever I had a boyfriend, I seemed to pick the
Speaker 5: guys that would enable it as well. So the lovely guy.
Speaker 5: I've never had a bad experience with ex boyfriends and
Speaker 5: things like that. They've just been like ten out of
Speaker 5: ten guys. But I just messed it up because I
Speaker 5: was drinking. But I picked them because they were so
Speaker 5: naive to it all. Okay, but they're happy now.
Speaker 3: I want to say congratulations, yeah, because I know you
Speaker 3: talk about it's not the content that you put out.
Speaker 3: I had no idea, but I think it's incredible knowing
Speaker 3: what you've gone through to be where you are now
Speaker 3: sober for how long?
Speaker 5: Ten years? So I got sober about six months before
Speaker 5: I met Shae and I started nursing school then, so
Speaker 5: Shaye's never seen me drunk, and yeah, the life just started.
Speaker 5: Lafet started ten years.
Speaker 3: Do you think when you talk about going in to
Speaker 3: rehab multiple times, was there anything different about the one
Speaker 3: moment where you got on the road to recovery and
Speaker 3: you stayed there and didn't go back.
Speaker 4: Was it?
Speaker 5: The rehabs that I went to were all like private
Speaker 5: rehabs and I had my own room and blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: I don't think that really has much to do with
Speaker 5: why that didn't work. It was all a process. But
Speaker 5: the last one that I ended up in was involuntary.
Speaker 5: It was either go to this one or you go
Speaker 5: to jail because I I don't or die like that.
Speaker 5: They were my options, do this, do that, all that,
Speaker 5: And it was the like grubbiest rehab and I was
Speaker 5: like like shocked to my system. But they did AA meetings.
Speaker 3: And the others didn't.
Speaker 5: The other ones did. But it's like, you can go
Speaker 5: if you want, but you can stay at home if
Speaker 5: you want to and work on your mind. You breathe, breath,
Speaker 5: work and stuff.
Speaker 2: And I was like, that was ultimately it's up to
Speaker 2: you totally anyone else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it was it was You've got a choice.
Speaker 5: And I never had been like sat with that choice
Speaker 5: in front of me. Do you want to die, do
Speaker 5: you want to go to jail, or do you want
Speaker 5: to get this and do it? And I think that
Speaker 5: was also when my mum just goes, I'm done. The
Speaker 5: boyfriend that I thought I was in love with had
Speaker 5: also gone done. Wow. So and through that we were
Speaker 5: together for about two years. For that time, he was
Speaker 5: like he was like helping me. And when he just
Speaker 5: went done and my mom went done and my dad
Speaker 5: went done, and I was like, I'm going to I'm
Speaker 5: on my own. I've got to do this.
Speaker 2: So that was that, yeah, wow, so brave And like
Speaker 2: I do feel sometimes I struggle with alcohol, it must
Speaker 2: be such a big moment for you to.
Speaker 1: Go, Okay, well.
Speaker 4: This is it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just that finding happiness elsewhere. And I think
Speaker 5: the fact that now we live down in Kayama, and
Speaker 5: Shade doesn't like he has a beer when he cooks
Speaker 5: a barbecue type thing. And he used to like he
Speaker 5: used to go out with the boys and stuff. He
Speaker 5: played soccer and was pretty up in the soccer world,
Speaker 5: and they'd all have beers and stuff. But he barely drinks.
Speaker 5: And I don't really have friends that drink too much.
Speaker 5: Like they'll have some wine and sometimes I miss having
Speaker 5: the wine. But one wine, it's not a wine for me.
Speaker 5: Having a wine is like having metholated spirits in the garter.
Speaker 5: It's not just one cocktail for me. It's like it's
Speaker 5: like it's yeah, and I've learned that now.
Speaker 1: So did you Australia from school?
Speaker 5: So what I did my Diploma of remedial Massage out
Speaker 5: of college in North Sydney.
Speaker 3: It's funny say that because my right shoulder actually.
Speaker 5: The amount of times that's been so it was that
Speaker 5: was actually, yeah, that was pretty funny. When I was
Speaker 5: studying it, like the only thing that people could say
Speaker 5: was like, can you please give me so good to
Speaker 5: see you by the way.
Speaker 1: Forcing shoulders.
Speaker 5: And then because that was like hard work, I worked
Speaker 5: for a chiropractor and I was just massaging bodies all day.
Speaker 5: I was like, what else could I do with this?
Speaker 5: And then at the time, I had a boyfriend who
Speaker 5: was a personal trainer, and he's like, do this. So
Speaker 5: I did my sirt three and four of personal training.
Speaker 5: I worked at Willoughby Fitness First for a while as
Speaker 5: a personal trainer, but very quickly realized I was not
Speaker 5: like I'm not a business owner, head brain, like I
Speaker 5: can't and if you're if you're doing personal training, you
Speaker 5: need to own your own business. Like it wasn't me.
Speaker 5: And I was like this nineteen year old, like tiny
Speaker 5: little blonde girl in fitness first and like competing with
Speaker 5: like big bodybuilders, Like who are they going to ask
Speaker 5: to train them? You know what I mean? So I
Speaker 5: was like, okay, I can't do this either.
Speaker 3: And then you've got great delts. By the way, I have.
Speaker 5: Been out with my four children. It's a lug them around.
Speaker 3: Who got you into nursing?
Speaker 5: Because I had all those times in hospitals. I watched
Speaker 5: the nurses and I was like, I want to do that.
Speaker 5: I want to be on the other side. And then
Speaker 5: when I finally got clarity and I got sober, and
Speaker 5: I had about six months in me. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 5: just gonna do it. I've got nothing else. I was
Speaker 5: completely single, just had absolutely like no care in the world,
Speaker 5: and I just went, I'm just going to enroll in
Speaker 5: my degree, just straight out go for our ns.
Speaker 3: It's always interesting talking to people in a world where
Speaker 3: I have little to no experience other than the few
Speaker 3: times that I've been in hospital I've been in with
Speaker 3: my kids. I do want to ask, as a nurse,
Speaker 3: what would be the grossest thing you've had to deal with?
Speaker 5: We wounds are so cool, Like I love a good Okay, okay,
Speaker 5: maggot therapy. Excuse me, why maggot therapy? Maggot put maggots
Speaker 5: on a wound to clean it?
Speaker 1: Who does that?
Speaker 3: Which hospital you work?
Speaker 5: I'll just do that. It's like this new thing. Yeah,
Speaker 5: obviously your wound has to meet regulations and stuff like that,
Speaker 5: and it's maggots that have been trained like and built
Speaker 5: in scientific labs. Yeah, they get put on there to
Speaker 5: like clean the wound and baffled. Yeah, it's so exciting,
Speaker 5: is it?
Speaker 1: It's exciting? How do they?
Speaker 2: Okay, talk us, just talk us through the process of
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 5: I've only ever come and come onto a shift and
Speaker 5: had a patient that's already had them applied, so I
Speaker 5: just sort of had to manage it.
Speaker 2: Did you get there and be like this maggots on
Speaker 2: this person? Yeah, they're on maggot therapy, thank you. What's
Speaker 2: going to be next? Puppy therapy?
Speaker 1: Bring a bunch of puppies to lick the wounds.
Speaker 5: Oh, not to lick the wounds, but that is actually
Speaker 5: a therapy.
Speaker 2: I'm going to invent it. This is a zoo.
Speaker 5: It was quite shocked too, when I, like, you see
Speaker 5: it on your handover, I'm like, was that? Am I
Speaker 5: reading that? Probably?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And they just talked me through that actual Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's actually are real.
Speaker 3: How do you get the nuggots out of the wound?
Speaker 5: Well, they don't like kind of just kind of yeat,
Speaker 5: getting rid of the like bits around the side and
Speaker 5: all the sluffy bits.
Speaker 2: Surely there's something else that we can use, Like.
Speaker 3: This is the future?
Speaker 1: Was like, are we going back in time now?
Speaker 3: I want to talk about Shay. Yeah, you guys met
Speaker 3: in a very modern type of way.
Speaker 5: Yes, yea wipes. Was it left or right? I can't
Speaker 5: remember it.
Speaker 1: I am like pre tinder.
Speaker 3: I went pretty hard on Tinder because you lived in
Speaker 3: as in London, how many years? Four years? Do you
Speaker 3: remember your first date?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 5: I So he's funny, like he is like a typical
Speaker 5: non not tinder, doesn't like to meet new people, doesn't
Speaker 5: like but where his situation at the moment at that
Speaker 5: time was he was living with two guys who were
Speaker 5: pretty heavy on Tinder. Well just like that's just how
Speaker 5: they met and went on dates and stuff like that.
Speaker 5: That was just a really so they put him on
Speaker 5: and I think I was the only person that he
Speaker 5: was actually had spoken to. I don't even know, like
Speaker 5: now knowing him, I have no idea how he did this,
Speaker 5: Like he's like not like he's just yeah, it's it's
Speaker 5: it's crazy, yeah, like because he's in he was in
Speaker 5: Bulli as well, and I was in Northern Beaches. So
Speaker 5: I don't even know how our rating is.
Speaker 3: I don't even know.
Speaker 5: And I hadn't even I hadn't gone on that many
Speaker 5: dates because well I didn't really I just kind of
Speaker 5: liked looking to be honest, and he was just like
Speaker 5: this architect from Bully And I was like, I don't
Speaker 5: even know where Bla is, but okay, whatever, and I
Speaker 5: think it was just like I come home. I was
Speaker 5: working in a nursing home and doing full time UNI,
Speaker 5: and I was just started randomly messaging each other. He
Speaker 5: was very like one word and sentences. He's not interested
Speaker 5: in me.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, it's like he's playing hard to get. Actually
Speaker 3: just thought.
Speaker 5: I was like, he just doesn't think I'm.
Speaker 6: Pretty much, and you're like, I got to crack this guy.
Speaker 5: But yet he was hungover. No, he was out actually,
Speaker 5: so he probably had a few beers and he's like,
Speaker 5: I'll come to d Y tomorrow. And he came to
Speaker 5: d Y.
Speaker 3: That's a long drive by far, is that he was
Speaker 3: hungover to two and a half hours, like two hours.
Speaker 5: About one two hours to get here today, so another
Speaker 5: half an hour on that hungover. He was rusty. I
Speaker 5: haven't seen him like I actually have seen but yeah,
Speaker 5: we were at the beach and he walked over and
Speaker 5: I was walking to him. I was just like, that
Speaker 5: is the surfy dude that I need in my life.
Speaker 5: He's just like this cool, surfy dude. But then when
Speaker 5: you talk to him, it's just the modest, like so
Speaker 5: humble and just yeah he's cool.
Speaker 3: You like love at first sight, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Pretty much. But if we went to walk Bar. And
Speaker 5: this is another thing.
Speaker 1: I used to live on Parade there, so like right.
Speaker 5: And that apartment block opposite the petrol station there, and
Speaker 5: my mum's actually in d Way Parade.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, my parents got married on at surf on
Speaker 2: the roof, pool on the roof.
Speaker 6: That's you guys could have been like related, you wouldn't
Speaker 6: get it.
Speaker 5: He doesn't like walk Bar. He is a Snitzel, chips
Speaker 5: and salad kind of guy.
Speaker 1: Respect.
Speaker 5: But I was like, let's go to war. I didn't
Speaker 5: know any of this about him, and he just ordered
Speaker 5: what I ordered, and I just got. I got a
Speaker 5: luxA And when you like it, when you don't know
Speaker 5: how to eat a luxA.
Speaker 1: Yah, sippy sippy dish, I don't know how.
Speaker 5: I think he it's like a soup, but like it's.
Speaker 3: A noodle soup.
Speaker 1: He's not a meal, so it's a drink.
Speaker 5: No, but it's like chopsticks. You've got noodles and you go.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, okay ramen.
Speaker 5: Yes, basically, but it's like a coconuty, like more milky
Speaker 5: kind of it's beautiful. Try me try to try it.
Speaker 3: Write that down so we can have it's like hot
Speaker 3: laughter as well.
Speaker 1: So it's very when it comes in, when it.
Speaker 5: Comes out both, but when yeah, so when I can
Speaker 5: only imagine now again now knowing him, when that came
Speaker 5: what he was, Oh my gosh. And I swear he's
Speaker 5: probably had like two bites and that was it. And
Speaker 5: I didn't really notice because we were just like chatting
Speaker 5: and the conversation was flowing. But then when we went
Speaker 5: to leave, I'm like, are you still hungry? Are you?
Speaker 5: Do you want to eat it? Do you want to
Speaker 5: take it away? And he's like, I'm good, I'm so modestate. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He probably like got back in the car.
Speaker 5: I was like, fuck, he's got a three and a
Speaker 5: half hour drive, there's plenty of McDonald's on the way.
Speaker 1: Do I ourself the way?
Speaker 5: That was the thing. It was like it was lunch
Speaker 5: and that was done, and he's like, so what next?
Speaker 5: And I'd never really I thought, like, I've never really
Speaker 5: had that sort of comfortability with someone, and he just
Speaker 5: wanted to keep hanging out, and I was like, well,
Speaker 5: there's a bowling alley around the corner. Do I bowling?
Speaker 5: And we went to play bowling, and all I can
Speaker 5: remember is just checking out his calves because he's got
Speaker 5: like those surfer.
Speaker 1: I know, the ones, I know the calves.
Speaker 5: It was bowling. I was like, holy ship, did he
Speaker 5: have had all the all ticked all the boxes of
Speaker 5: the surf you d and the watchtown.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I watched him and then that was and we'd finished that,
Speaker 5: and then he's like, well, what next, and I was like,
Speaker 5: he's like.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 5: So we just sat by the lake and then we
Speaker 5: had our first kiss. And then I'll stop the.
Speaker 3: Beautiful first it's the first day, not the first day.
Speaker 5: Get this though. This is the clincher. I went. Then
Speaker 5: I was meeting a friend, so I just went straight
Speaker 5: to like the restaurant, and he went home. I sent
Speaker 5: him a text and I said, I think I'm going
Speaker 5: to delete Tinder and he wrote, I've already deleted.
Speaker 2: Well done, lock that down.
Speaker 5: Like we literally were camping the next weekend together. I
Speaker 5: loved to Probably I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend, but it
Speaker 5: was very sick like yeah it was safe. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: That's actually an amazing story.
Speaker 3: You guys had kids pretty quickly after you got married,
Speaker 3: like within the first twelve months.
Speaker 5: It was two Like, not's not quicker than anyone else.
Speaker 5: I don't think like we.
Speaker 3: Had we had kids.
Speaker 5: Well, what we did is like, because I was still
Speaker 5: doing my degree, I wanted to finish my degree, and
Speaker 5: then I timed that by finishing the degree, getting married,
Speaker 5: and then trying for Mali. It took us about probably
Speaker 5: about eight nine months because I found out I had
Speaker 5: a thyroid issue. So once I started taking medication for
Speaker 5: that and sort of adjusting my hormones, we felt pretty quickly.
Speaker 5: Then I had the next one, and then the next
Speaker 5: one the next.
Speaker 3: Did you always plan on having four?
Speaker 5: I would. I wanted three, Like I loved the dynamic
Speaker 5: of me and my brother, my sister and my brother.
Speaker 5: But then when Billy was a girl, it was like
Speaker 5: we weren't shutting off to another one. Not that not
Speaker 5: that it would have minded if the was a girl,
Speaker 5: but it was a very nice surprise that it was
Speaker 5: just going to have that gender dynamic. And I've always
Speaker 5: wanted a little boy too, but we didn't go for
Speaker 5: a fourth To have a boy. That he was a
Speaker 5: shock actually because they're only like thirteen months apart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a surprise.
Speaker 3: That's a good essay, because I know you've talked about
Speaker 3: always wanting to be a parent, Did the reality of
Speaker 3: parenting match up to the dream that you wanted it
Speaker 3: to be?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I feel like I have never been more happy
Speaker 5: and myself. Yeah yeah, this is always what I needed, wanted,
Speaker 5: wish for a dream for This is me.
Speaker 3: Like I most beautiful, my element.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I know it gets crazy and charaer, but
Speaker 5: like I like that act.
Speaker 1: My job like you reflects a new content. But you
Speaker 1: can tell that your aura that you love it, love it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just meant to be there and
Speaker 5: and just everything. When I think back by going back
Speaker 5: to rehab, when I was in that bed, I remember
Speaker 5: thinking to myself, I want, you know, house by the beach,
Speaker 5: kid's husband and not so much like I couldn't see it,
Speaker 5: but now I'm seeing and I'm like, this is this
Speaker 5: is what I was dreaming of. This is it?
Speaker 4: Wow?
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, So yeah, it's all just making sense and
Speaker 5: all coming together and yeah, it's good fucking love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I'm just absolutely stoked for you and like
Speaker 2: to say, especially like having four kids and we often
Speaker 2: complain we only have two, but like I said.
Speaker 5: It's all relative. Like my kids they all slept, they
Speaker 5: all slept. Body was like slept one of those ones
Speaker 5: that slept from like four weeks old through the night.
Speaker 5: The fourth one too, Billy was pretty similar to that too.
Speaker 5: So like if I wasn't getting eight hours a night,
Speaker 5: it would be a lot more difficult and I probably
Speaker 5: wouldn't have had four. And like I said, their temperaments,
Speaker 5: they're pretty chilled out. They can give it to me,
Speaker 5: trust me, they can like someone out there with one
Speaker 5: child with disabilities and stuff like that, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. It's so like my fork equals there one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you want to talk about Marlen?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: At what point did you think to yourself, you and
Speaker 3: your husband, we might need to get some professional help here.
Speaker 5: We didn't. We had no idea she actually had. She
Speaker 5: wasn't talking to her level and she wasn't eating. But
Speaker 5: I had no idea what autism was, had no idea,
Speaker 5: not even ever thought about it, never researched it, had
Speaker 5: no idea that that could be a possibility or our reality.
Speaker 5: She and then we went and got her ears checked
Speaker 5: because we thought, okay, that could be why she's not talking.
Speaker 5: Sure enough, she needed grammts.
Speaker 3: How old, roughly.
Speaker 5: Eh months was her first grammts and grommots. They go in.
Speaker 5: It's a full on general anesthetic process. It's like adenoids.
Speaker 5: Grummots tap tonsils and they put like a little hole
Speaker 5: where because she had fluid in her ears, so the
Speaker 5: grummots like a little like plastic things that keep the
Speaker 5: hole open to the drain out. Yeah, it's pretty common
Speaker 5: procedure actually, especially with autistic kids, but I didn't know
Speaker 5: that at the time. So once we had her ears fixed,
Speaker 5: we thought, Okay, well, now she's probably going to start
Speaker 5: speaking and like hearing us, because for eighteen months you
Speaker 5: couldn't hear us, and that made sense to us. But
Speaker 5: she always looked us in the eye. She didn't respond
Speaker 5: to her name like every single time, but just wasn't
Speaker 5: hitting them like the typical autistic things that people talk about.
Speaker 3: Even now, it's I'm going to say, there's moments where
Speaker 3: I'm like Marley and she's like, it's like I'm like
Speaker 3: the rooms. Other times where I say Marley, she goes, yeah,
Speaker 3: what's up. So it's so hard to know when they're
Speaker 3: just ignoring you because they're focused on something, and when
Speaker 3: it's something.
Speaker 5: More it's more like that awareness of people around you.
Speaker 5: I think that is and if obviously, if she's focused
Speaker 5: on something, and if my other kids are focused on something,
Speaker 5: like you said, they're not really going to look. But
Speaker 5: it's more like that, say my five year old, I'll
Speaker 5: walk into the room, she's clocked me, she knows I'm there.
Speaker 5: She's like, she's like kind of observing what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: Molly doesn't, she doesn't have that, she doesn't want that,
Speaker 5: she doesn't need that. She's sort of just like focused
Speaker 5: on her body and just trying to Yeah, we started
Speaker 5: seeing a speechy because that was our next step because
Speaker 5: speechy a speaks pathologists.
Speaker 3: It's such a hard word.
Speaker 5: Now that's what we say. That's hospital terms as well.
Speaker 5: Oh speechy. It was just a chick down around the
Speaker 5: corner from us. So completely trust her and she was
Speaker 5: highly professional and highly regarded her profession. She just said
Speaker 5: to us, look, there's a few areas of concern, and
Speaker 5: we're like, okay, that's it's good to know that there's
Speaker 5: like but but what does that mean for us? How
Speaker 5: they play? So it's not it's deemed not not appropriate playing.
Speaker 5: So instead of like like getting the baby, feeding the
Speaker 5: baby and rocking the baby, putting the baby down to bed,
Speaker 5: she would just like kind of play with the baby,
Speaker 5: like take the clothes off and then put like line
Speaker 5: the clothes up and like do different things that aren't
Speaker 5: like deemed appropriate. Or puzzles, Like she'd line the puzzle
Speaker 5: pieces up and she'd have like the blues and the
Speaker 5: yellows and the reds, and it was just like she
Speaker 5: is actually now she's showing signs of yeah she And
Speaker 5: that's it. Sometimes is the case with autistic brains, They
Speaker 5: just become genius. Yeah, they change the world. She will
Speaker 5: change the world. Wow, she's amazing. But yeah, you see
Speaker 5: I saw we saw pediatrician and she gave us a diagnosis,
Speaker 5: and basically it was like just everything that you thought
Speaker 5: you knew, like and you thought you and the hopes
Speaker 5: and the dreams and the goals and aspirations. You're like,
Speaker 5: is she gonna have friends? Is she going to go
Speaker 5: to school? Is she going to like be able to
Speaker 5: get married, have kids, like all.
Speaker 3: Those things, having an easy life, anything that might interfere
Speaker 3: with that, You go down to the worst case scenario.
Speaker 5: So we sort of once I sort of came to
Speaker 5: terms with that, I did a little bit of my
Speaker 5: own research with autism and stuff and you know, once
Speaker 5: you sort of open up to that community, it just
Speaker 5: like and especially today in today's age with TikTok and stuff,
Speaker 5: like everyone's talking about it now, so it's becoming so
Speaker 5: much more open. Yeah, yeah, and spoken about and like
Speaker 5: it is the new normal. I guess, but what is
Speaker 5: normal really? But anyway, it was, I wasn't like it
Speaker 5: wasn't a dis appointment feeling. That's not the right way.
Speaker 5: It's like more like a sadness and hopelessness because you
Speaker 5: just don't know what you can do. Yeah, but we
Speaker 5: did early intervention. From then, we were just like, Okay,
Speaker 5: she's got autism, can't go back now, Let's just do
Speaker 5: what we can to give her the best start in life.
Speaker 3: Like, so what is from that point with the speech yet?
Speaker 3: And then how how do they test at that age
Speaker 3: for autism?
Speaker 5: So we went to a pediatrician that specializes in like
Speaker 5: the mental mental side of kids. I guess we just
Speaker 5: spent an hour in the office and again they were
Speaker 5: just playing and she was trying to interact and she
Speaker 5: was trying to talk, and I guess they've got like
Speaker 5: a little checklist in their head.
Speaker 1: Yes, there's a lot of observation is.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's it, and she said, yeah, she's got autism.
Speaker 5: The level of diagnosis can can vary because they're all
Speaker 5: so different. Because back then she wasn't really talking or anything,
Speaker 5: because I think that sort of elevated her level. She
Speaker 5: was diagnosed as a three, but since I think has
Speaker 5: been rediagnosed as like a two. But that could be
Speaker 5: a lot of the early intervention stuff that we did
Speaker 5: too as well.
Speaker 3: How did it feel as a mom hearing those words
Speaker 3: or your child has autism? It was.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was like again because I just I didn't know,
Speaker 5: and I didn't have any friends that had it, had
Speaker 5: a child with autism, And I didn't have anyone in
Speaker 5: my community or close by to talk to about it. Well,
Speaker 5: I didn't think I did until it happened, and then
Speaker 5: it like friends just came like messaging me saying, yeah,
Speaker 5: like you know, Lucky's got like autism level too too,
Speaker 5: like let's talk about it together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it must be so amazing.
Speaker 1: I think there's some parents digna behind it.
Speaker 3: Is it your own stigma or do you think yeah, like.
Speaker 2: You might think, okay, well, it's such a world of
Speaker 2: unknown and every parent who it's going to be their
Speaker 2: first time hearing that and feeling that, do you think
Speaker 2: that there's something behind you that think, Okay, well are
Speaker 2: we going to be as a family like maybe looked
Speaker 2: as like our cast until you reach out and people like, yeah,
Speaker 2: actually us too.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I think at first I definitely had that feeling.
Speaker 5: My only my biggest fear was school, because like school's
Speaker 5: just tough for the kids, and then adding like a
Speaker 5: disability onto that, it's just like rough. As I say,
Speaker 5: it's so much more talked about. Even in primary school,
Speaker 5: they all know Maley she's in a special class because
Speaker 5: there is like a special little class in the school
Speaker 5: that she's in that has just extra support because she
Speaker 5: just needs that.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: I feel like she's going to grow to a point
Speaker 5: where she goes, I don't want to be in that
Speaker 5: class anymore, and then we'll just pop her into mainstream.
Speaker 5: But I think we're going to let her make that
Speaker 5: decision because right now she needs that extra support. But yeah, look,
Speaker 5: I it wasn't so there was a little bit of
Speaker 5: how I was feeling, but and how it looked. I
Speaker 5: guess sort of, I guess I'm not gonna lie probably,
Speaker 5: but it was very quickly shut down with like, let's
Speaker 5: just get this girl help and do the best that
Speaker 5: we can because she's ow everything. She was the only yeah,
Speaker 5: our only child at that point.
Speaker 3: How do you help?
Speaker 5: We did, so the speech pathologist speech she had connections
Speaker 5: and that you can do like quite intense early intervention
Speaker 5: therapies like OT behavioral theorish occupational therapy. Yeah, to just lucky,
Speaker 5: and they do stuff like sensory stuff because obviously with
Speaker 5: autism they've got a lot of sensory issues and they
Speaker 5: touch on that I don't actually know, and this speech
Speaker 5: is like obviously working with but at that age, speech
Speaker 5: pathology is also about playing and appropriate playing and taking turns.
Speaker 5: That's smartly as people taking turns. I think that's every
Speaker 5: kind child's one.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 5: Where we went had group interactions as well, so they
Speaker 5: would we we're like this place called the Kids UNI.
Speaker 5: So they had different therapists and they all had their
Speaker 5: own different like one on one child and then they'd
Speaker 5: come together and play as a group just to teach
Speaker 5: them that sort of social interaction also to.
Speaker 1: Like probably observe them in a group.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because like you're saying, like she's so focused on
Speaker 2: her her body, what she's doing that, you can think
Speaker 2: like if if they just were alone the whole time
Speaker 2: going through this, then they won't develop that.
Speaker 5: But she also would love to be alone. Yeah, yes,
Speaker 5: But it's funny though, because Maley's very good at masking
Speaker 5: and she's very excited to be around other kids. But
Speaker 5: it's very sort of when you watch her, it's really
Speaker 5: awkward because she doesn't really know how to interact, but
Speaker 5: she's so happy to be there and she's such a bright,
Speaker 5: beautiful kid that the kids just want her out there.
Speaker 5: So she and she's learning a lot from she watches
Speaker 5: people and then does like so having siblings actually because
Speaker 5: her home is her safe place, right and then I've
Speaker 5: got Indie and Billy who none none of my other
Speaker 5: children are autistic, so she actually watches their facial expressions
Speaker 5: and their mannerisms and stuff, and she learns so much
Speaker 5: from them in her safe space it makes any sense.
Speaker 5: So then she can go to school and she has
Speaker 5: sort of a little bit of back experience in how
Speaker 5: to deal in situations. So giving her siblings was the
Speaker 5: best totally.
Speaker 2: You can imagine, Like you can imagine like an only
Speaker 2: child going through that and not being able to pick
Speaker 2: up on other social cures, social cure kids cues.
Speaker 3: How often do you currently go to this speechee and
Speaker 3: the OT?
Speaker 5: We don't anymore. So we did intensive therapy from three
Speaker 5: to five, and then she started school at six, and
Speaker 5: because she's in that support class, they have support teachers
Speaker 5: who are pretty trained in those areas and to help
Speaker 5: her along. And then we have the speech befologers come
Speaker 5: to the school and do their session at the school,
Speaker 5: the public school.
Speaker 2: It is yeah, that, I mean, that's crazy, how far
Speaker 2: like we've come that God, our generation, imagine that like
Speaker 2: seven year old, she's in a class for extra support
Speaker 2: and they've also got an OT and a speech.
Speaker 5: And they do like they do mainstream interactions throughout the
Speaker 5: week where she she'll actually play in the playground with
Speaker 5: the mainstream kids and have sessions in there. Because our
Speaker 5: goal will not like as soon like when she's ready,
Speaker 5: but the goal is to get her, you know, to
Speaker 5: mainstream if she wants that, Like that's it's all going
Speaker 5: to be up to her.
Speaker 2: You mentioned before, she's sort of turning into a genius.
Speaker 1: Any anything in particular.
Speaker 5: And do numbers better than I can do. Wow, I'm
Speaker 5: terrible at numbers though, so anyone can do it.
Speaker 3: It's guilty.
Speaker 5: Numbers are not my fortee plus seven. I'm like, it's
Speaker 5: like twelve as I was going to say thirteen. No
Speaker 5: she yeah, so she can multiply subtract time stable in
Speaker 5: her head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just without writing it down.
Speaker 5: Yeah. She'll sometimes come up to me and be like
Speaker 5: for eight, sixteen and off. I'm a really incapable parent
Speaker 5: right now. But she watches like number blocks and stuff
Speaker 5: like that, and they're really good shows for her.
Speaker 3: Good luck when she starts high school.
Speaker 5: She's, yeah, insane, but her dad's like, Shad's like that too.
Speaker 5: She's pretty brilliant.
Speaker 3: Actually, I need to ask your advice, yes understarthing, because
Speaker 3: Ash and I are currently on the cusp of transitioning
Speaker 3: our kids into kindy away from daycare. As someone who's
Speaker 3: already experienced that world, what are the hardest parts of
Speaker 3: starting school?
Speaker 5: The thing is, my start with Marley was very different
Speaker 5: to your traditional kickoff to kinny, So I'm doing it
Speaker 5: to this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hands.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because with the support class, they they got your
Speaker 5: number and you have like a special like you can
Speaker 5: contact the teacher.
Speaker 3: So you're like asking your teacher like so.
Speaker 1: To go around the wrist is good to find out
Speaker 1: what my other kids are up to.
Speaker 3: Can we do that to head in Ye.
Speaker 5: So I feel like I've got a bit of a
Speaker 5: warped idea how it is. But like, honestly, and and
Speaker 5: in saying that, India is very different to Marley, She's
Speaker 5: very sensitive. So I feel like I'm going to go
Speaker 5: through a few rollercoasters with her. She's so ready. She's
Speaker 5: wearing she wears the uniform to daycare like she's got Mally's.
Speaker 3: Old unif bed.
Speaker 5: She she actually will the script to bed the other
Speaker 5: day waiting.
Speaker 2: For our uniform to turn up, for Oscar to never
Speaker 2: take it off. It's gonna be perfect in the morning.
Speaker 5: But just prepare for them not wanting to go, like
Speaker 5: because it's it's like you've got to go here now forever.
Speaker 5: So and they're like, Okay, mine only went two days
Speaker 5: to kindy, so it's like you've got to see this
Speaker 5: transition every single day. You've got to go here. I
Speaker 5: would just say walk them in for as long as
Speaker 5: they need to, Like you see other parents doing the
Speaker 5: kiss and drop and all that kind of stuff, but
Speaker 5: some of them aren't ready for that. Yeah, and you
Speaker 5: just just go with it, don't have to keep up
Speaker 5: with the Joneses, like if your kid needs you to
Speaker 5: walk to the door, pot the lunchbox out for them.
Speaker 5: Molly's just now doing the kiss and drop and that's
Speaker 5: amazing for her.
Speaker 3: Kiss like the front game.
Speaker 5: Don't even get out of the car.
Speaker 1: Oh what Yeah, yes that's going to be and they
Speaker 1: go in.
Speaker 5: And like what they do I don't know, And it's
Speaker 5: that's the that's the scary part, the unknown of Like
Speaker 5: they're going in there and it's like, you know exactly
Speaker 5: what these kids do every single day that you know
Speaker 5: when they're peeing, you know where they're pooing. They're going
Speaker 5: to this big like red brick building and you have
Speaker 5: no idea and you don't find out. You don't get updates.
Speaker 3: Yeah app of daycare.
Speaker 5: A cute little shot of them. Maybe they're triangle?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 5: Seriously, Like it's that's the hardest thing is probably you're
Speaker 5: letting go.
Speaker 3: Actually, you know what I think some people might want
Speaker 3: to know is the school that you're at. It sounds
Speaker 3: amazing for Maley. Was that by chance? Was it luck
Speaker 3: that you found that school and the support networks that
Speaker 3: they have to deal with the child with autism or.
Speaker 5: So, there's two schools in our area. We actually moved
Speaker 5: house to become the CA yeah to this school. I
Speaker 5: think she would have been considered anyway, because we were
Speaker 5: going for that specific class and we had to apply
Speaker 5: for it and everything. But we wanted the other kids
Speaker 5: to go with them. We want them to go together.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure.
Speaker 3: I do have one last question before we go, and
Speaker 3: we do ask this to a lot of our guests.
Speaker 3: I have forgotten a few times, not on this occasion,
Speaker 3: when your kids are all grown up and they're no
Speaker 3: longer living at home, what's the one thing you want
Speaker 3: them to remember about the house they grew up in.
Speaker 5: Just the fact that they could put stickers on the
Speaker 5: walls if they want to do, or they could just
Speaker 5: decorate their bunk beds with like they can just you know,
Speaker 5: within reason, it's a home, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: Like there's a thousand toothbrushes, there's like they've got backpacks everywhere,
Speaker 5: toys everywhere. Like it's clean. It's clean. I'm not a
Speaker 5: hold on, but like it's just it's so homey. And
Speaker 5: we've got this big buffhead dog out the back, and
Speaker 5: like we just go out the back and they.
Speaker 3: Just look like it's just home of fun.
Speaker 5: Yeah it is. It's nice and we're seconds away from
Speaker 5: the beach and we all walk down to the beach
Speaker 5: and just that, just that together, nurse, I think, And
Speaker 5: they do they they love each other. They do. They
Speaker 5: fight like cats and dogs, but like they don't know
Speaker 5: any different, Like what they know is like that. And
Speaker 5: children in the living room, everyone's you know, screened on everywhere,
Speaker 5: but like there's discipline, but they can still just have fun.
Speaker 5: They're just like it's just fun.
Speaker 3: You know, your kids are so lucky to have such
Speaker 3: an amazing mom.
Speaker 2: And we really appreciate you sharing your story the hard
Speaker 2: times of course all the good times.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 5: Us, Thanks for having me. It's been a boas I
Speaker 5: love it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much so much. Suregus. Podcasting has actually
Speaker 3: made me quite hungry, ravishing, And because we have ams
Speaker 3: here who is an absolute specialist in making food with leftovers,
Speaker 3: I thought we would just quickly do a little video
Speaker 3: about making I don't know, let's say muffins.
Speaker 2: There's nothing I love more than my kids leftovers. Trust me,
Speaker 2: try to trust you.
Speaker 3: So if you like to watch a video on us
Speaker 3: doing our best to make some muffins with aims. Head
Speaker 3: to our social media and you will see some chaos unfolding.
Speaker 2: And if you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a review,
Speaker 2: leave a five star review, leave a little note that
Speaker 2: would be great, or join us on socials our Facebook
Speaker 2: group which is two Doting Dads on Facebook, or our
Speaker 2: Instagram which is also believe it or not, two Doting Dads.
Speaker 1: What should we get our chef's hat on? Yes and
Speaker 1: get to it.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 3: Also, if you have any other guests it would like
Speaker 3: us to speak to, please send them away. And lastly,
Speaker 3: before we go.
Speaker 2: If any of the topics from today's episode have struck
Speaker 2: a chord with you, Matthew and you need some sort
Speaker 2: of help, we got some links in the show notes
Speaker 2: that could be really helpful.
Speaker 3: Ash Let's get cooking. Two Doting Dads podcast acknowledges the
Speaker 3: traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and the connections to land,
Speaker 3: see and community.
Speaker 2: We pay our respects to their elders past and present
Speaker 2: and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres straight
Speaker 2: onland the people's Today. This episode was recorded on gadigle Land,