Speaker 1: We are very excited today to bring you this bonus
Speaker 1: episode with none other than Amy Girard.
Speaker 2: Yes, Amy Girard. You may know her from her escapades
Speaker 2: on Instagram as a mum influencer. Of course, I would
Speaker 2: say the most asked for mum that we've Oh my god,
Speaker 2: when we put a call out, they'd be like, who
Speaker 2: do you want us to speak to?
Speaker 1: The floodgates opened down and everyone's like Amy Girard. Amy Girard,
Speaker 1: My sister has been like annoying me for weeks, being like,
Speaker 1: when are you going to fucking speak to her?
Speaker 2: Same with my wife. So she's not just a mum
Speaker 2: influenced she's also an author.
Speaker 1: Author, podcast host as well, two podcasts being.
Speaker 3: Beyond the Likes and Beyond the Chaos.
Speaker 1: Only Chaos both brilliant and I would call her an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur as well.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, she's got a lot of fingers in pies, my
Speaker 2: friend pies.
Speaker 1: So here it is. Here's the episode.
Speaker 4: Enjoy.
Speaker 1: We are about to start recording it. Just as we
Speaker 1: press start. I don't know if people can hear what's
Speaker 1: in the background. It's a fucking Whooper Snipper.
Speaker 3: It's a full blown whip.
Speaker 1: Roonda my lovely neighbor. Her gardeners have arrived and they
Speaker 1: are getting stuck into the backyard.
Speaker 3: She saw a set malp and she was like wow.
Speaker 3: I was definitely like the neighbor on the other side,
Speaker 3: She's like, get it out.
Speaker 1: I can't control everybody buzzing noise. That This is the
Speaker 1: downside of recording at a home. You get whipper snippers
Speaker 1: in the background. You do anyway, Welcome back to two
Speaker 1: doting dads and one doting mum.
Speaker 3: Yes, my name is Mattie Jay and I'm.
Speaker 5: Ash and I am Amy Gerard.
Speaker 3: I really forgot you were.
Speaker 1: This is a podcast all about parenting. It's the good,
Speaker 1: the bad, and the relatable. And if you have come
Speaker 1: for any advice, it's not going to happen from myself.
Speaker 1: Maybe from Amy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, sure, take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 2: Yeah we always say that too, just to cover us,
Speaker 2: just so people they'd be like, you're not experts.
Speaker 1: Sam. Let's go straight into sleep schedules.
Speaker 2: The hard hitting questions, which is how do you get
Speaker 2: your kids to sleep?
Speaker 3: Melt okay, beautiful.
Speaker 1: That's what we have time for. Amy. I have to
Speaker 1: apologize one for the gardener's next door that's fine. And
Speaker 1: two for the fact that we've been talking to you
Speaker 1: about this. I know we spoke. First time was last year.
Speaker 3: Yes, we pushed it back, we did.
Speaker 1: I got sick.
Speaker 6: Yep, I got sick.
Speaker 1: People kept messaging me being like, where the hell is
Speaker 1: the Amy, but like that be deleted already.
Speaker 6: I'm always around, And to be honest, I feel like
Speaker 6: this time is better anyway, because last year I was
Speaker 6: like a headless chicken.
Speaker 2: I scattered if we were calling the podcast curse. He
Speaker 2: was like, ash, You're never sick. And then we went
Speaker 2: literally just.
Speaker 1: Like one of us was always ill. But Todd Wood, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a tickle Amy. Let's let's get right back.
Speaker 1: I kind of imagine that as a teenager, you would
Speaker 1: have been someone that was quite a prankster. Have you
Speaker 1: always been like the funny gal?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the class clown. It's cool.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was very much the tomboy. Didn't have a
Speaker 6: lot of female influenced. My mum also very big tomboy.
Speaker 6: Grew up with brothers. So I remember a guy asking
Speaker 6: me out for the year ten formal and I was
Speaker 6: quite flattered. But the way I said yes was by
Speaker 6: wrestling him to the ground and then touching him in
Speaker 6: the face.
Speaker 2: Now running races on, let's gop open and yes, and
Speaker 2: now you're married.
Speaker 5: I didn't marry that one.
Speaker 6: But yes, definitely a bit of a prankster, always the one,
Speaker 6: cracking jokes, very self deprecating.
Speaker 3: Self deprecating is always nice.
Speaker 1: Always, that's prizes me. I mean right now people can't
Speaker 1: can't see what you look like.
Speaker 5: But wouldn't be tomboy, not at all, full blown tomboy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, short hair, no, but I did got.
Speaker 5: Curly curly hair about to hear my mum used to
Speaker 5: brush it.
Speaker 6: I'd look like sideshow bob. I've been like putting forks
Speaker 6: into power points.
Speaker 1: Did you grow up with dolls at all?
Speaker 5: We not? No, No, I'm pretty sure that the chainsaw.
Speaker 1: Out there, he won't be He surely won't be the
Speaker 1: whole There's no grass down the side of the house,
Speaker 1: but he's just there by.
Speaker 3: The window, over the window recording through this. Did you
Speaker 3: have siblings?
Speaker 6: Though?
Speaker 3: I had two brothers, I might explain it a little bit.
Speaker 5: Two brothers.
Speaker 6: Spent majority of my childhood outside riding bikes, pushing each
Speaker 6: other down the hill in you know bins, discarded mattresses
Speaker 6: from council cleanups a proper.
Speaker 1: So did you have any thought at all of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to grow up and meet the man
Speaker 1: of my dreams and become a mum.
Speaker 6: Yes, I definitely always wanted to have children. I wanted
Speaker 6: to have six children. In fact, I had all of
Speaker 6: their names in a diary.
Speaker 1: No more, do you remember what the names were.
Speaker 6: My favorite name of all time has always been Charlie. Okay,
Speaker 6: So when I fell pregnant, I said to my husband,
Speaker 6: if we have a girl, her name is Charlie, you
Speaker 6: have no say And he was like.
Speaker 3: Whatever, whatever was a boy?
Speaker 5: No, I like Charlie for a girl only.
Speaker 1: Did you have any pushback on that? Or was he like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fine, you can have that. No.
Speaker 6: No, I was pretty arested as a pregnant woman, so
Speaker 6: he wouldn't dare push back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, I know how you like to wrestle.
Speaker 5: I don't want to split lips.
Speaker 1: You got Ryan, your husband, and head Charlie.
Speaker 6: Pretty much.
Speaker 3: So you were the class clown ish tomboy. We are
Speaker 3: very academic.
Speaker 6: I was very academic until I found, not found, but
Speaker 6: until I got my first boyfriend. Did really great in
Speaker 6: my school certificate. Then I got a boyfriend. I was
Speaker 6: in year eleven, he was in year twelve.
Speaker 3: Was he a bad boy?
Speaker 6: He wasn't a bad boy. He was really nice. I
Speaker 6: made him wait nine months and then I let him
Speaker 6: put his penis inside and then it was game over school.
Speaker 3: I did not want to from here.
Speaker 6: Oh no, they actually called my parents and he's got
Speaker 6: so much potential, and she was doing so well and
Speaker 6: we don't know what's happening.
Speaker 1: To her, just smells of cop.
Speaker 6: I was skipping classes. I was Yeah, anyway, there you go.
Speaker 6: Once you pop, you can't stop right it.
Speaker 1: Did your parents try and get you back on track?
Speaker 5: They tried desperately.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 3: What sort of methods did they try?
Speaker 6: Locking me in my room, that's surrounding me.
Speaker 3: They're all things that are known to work.
Speaker 6: Nothing really worked. I used to wait till they went
Speaker 6: to bed, and they don't sneak out.
Speaker 5: Of the house.
Speaker 3: No chastity bell, yeah like that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but well, my dad was really strict. He was
Speaker 6: a police prosecutor. I was his firstborn as well as
Speaker 6: a daughter.
Speaker 1: Do you remember then bringing your boyfriend at the time home.
Speaker 1: Did he meet your dad?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: How did he respond?
Speaker 6: No? He was fine, he wasn't. It's a two story
Speaker 6: house and his name was Darren. Dad.
Speaker 5: We used to call him Big Daz.
Speaker 1: That was his.
Speaker 6: Nickname because he wasn't big at all. He was beginning boyfriend. No,
Speaker 6: my dad's big b Oh, there's lots of bigs, right, No, Darren.
Speaker 6: His nickname was Big Daz or Tripod because he had
Speaker 6: a big dick.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I didn't want to say.
Speaker 3: It, so they called yeah.
Speaker 6: No. He had to.
Speaker 5: He had to be obviously very respectful.
Speaker 6: My dad is very big on respect and manners, and
Speaker 6: so he would have to sit at the bottom of
Speaker 6: the staircase while I went upstairs to get changed or
Speaker 6: do whatever. We dated for two years as well. I
Speaker 6: don't think he ever stepped foot in my bedroom that your.
Speaker 3: Dad knows of. Anyway, my dad knows was listening.
Speaker 6: But what happened, let's never tell my dad about this podcast.
Speaker 6: All that did was make me go outside of the
Speaker 6: family home to have sex. So I was in bushes
Speaker 6: and cars and places where you know, not as.
Speaker 3: Safe totally, well the bushes actually.
Speaker 6: But in his head he was like, ou out of mind.
Speaker 6: As long as it's not happening under my roof, I
Speaker 6: don't want to know about it.
Speaker 1: Well, then when did your now husband? Where did he
Speaker 1: come into the scene.
Speaker 6: I met Brian when I was twenty eight. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 6: he came over to my house. He met my parents.
Speaker 6: We were playing a game of winking murder around the table.
Speaker 1: What is w's winking murder?
Speaker 6: You divvy out cards and whoever gets I think it's
Speaker 6: the joker or the king, you're the murderer and then
Speaker 6: everyone It's quite odd, right, It's a weird game to play,
Speaker 6: especially when you're introducing your new partner and you're all
Speaker 6: just staring at each other and you got a wink
Speaker 6: on the sly right and not be caught by everybody
Speaker 6: else at the table, and then you have to pretend
Speaker 6: to die, so you have to wait a couple of
Speaker 6: seconds then go.
Speaker 3: Ah, and other people have to work out who did that?
Speaker 1: So why was Ryan in your house at a time?
Speaker 3: Who initiated that?
Speaker 6: So we had like a family dinner, Yeah, and he
Speaker 6: had come over to meet my.
Speaker 5: Mum and dad.
Speaker 3: Very daunting.
Speaker 6: Yes, So we had the dinner. My brothers were there
Speaker 6: with their partners. Ryan came over, We played winking murder.
Speaker 6: Ryan's fiercely competitive. Somehow managed to win Winking Murder, and
Speaker 6: he did this like.
Speaker 1: Interesting because your dad having a prosecutor, you'd think he'd
Speaker 1: be all over that, what.
Speaker 6: You would, but you know what, he was all over
Speaker 6: So Ryan, Ryan does this thing where he gets when
Speaker 6: he gets really nervous, he gets extra loud and boisterous,
Speaker 6: and he almost comes across like a bit of a
Speaker 6: cocksucker because he's over compensating for being really nervous. So
Speaker 6: he won Winking Murder and he's kind of picked me
Speaker 6: up and pretended to do this WWE wrestling move where
Speaker 6: he slams me over his knee. God like, it didn't
Speaker 6: hurt me, but my dad after he left was like,
Speaker 6: what was that about? What was that about?
Speaker 1: I never wanted to touch my daughter.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I'm comfortable with that kind of stuff. So,
Speaker 6: you know, got brought up in the wedding speech, he
Speaker 6: gets reminded about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, nothing like a good first impression. And so then
Speaker 1: at what point, how far into the relationship, after you
Speaker 1: guys had met it twenty eight did you think, Wow,
Speaker 1: this this is the one. Yeah?
Speaker 5: God, it was just really easy with Ryan.
Speaker 1: He's quite the hunk.
Speaker 3: Can say he's pretty hunky.
Speaker 6: He's. Yeah, look the dark hair and the blue eyes
Speaker 6: he is. He's getting a bit of salt and pepper
Speaker 6: in the beard, which I'm into. His dad is quite attractive.
Speaker 6: Listen to this, this is what we want, and he
Speaker 6: is and Ryan does look very similar to him, so
Speaker 6: I'm like tick right. Yeah, I actually think that Ryan,
Speaker 6: as we get older, is getting more attractive. So I've
Speaker 6: done well there. But it was just he's a good time.
Speaker 6: I have more fun when he's with me as opposed
Speaker 6: to have boyfriends. I just wanted to go out with
Speaker 6: girls and then you know, be with him when I
Speaker 6: was hungover on a Sunday, whereas Ryan kind of matches
Speaker 6: my energy. We love a dance floor and it's got
Speaker 6: good banter and he doesn't mind me taking the piss
Speaker 6: out of him and vice versa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's key.
Speaker 2: When you can take the piss out of each other,
Speaker 2: it's like makes everything else so much easier. It's when
Speaker 2: like you're too serious. I notice, like when I meet
Speaker 2: couples and they're, oh my god, they can't make fun
Speaker 2: of each other. It's like, how does that work at home?
Speaker 2: Is it like a library where does no one talks like,
Speaker 2: and I think it has.
Speaker 6: I think a big component of our marriage is we're
Speaker 6: really great friends. Yeah, and I think that definitely helps
Speaker 6: because like the last that fucked off real quick.
Speaker 1: I'm always a big believer in like having similarities with
Speaker 1: your partners. Some people are like, it's opposites that are tracked,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, you want to be on the
Speaker 1: same page, the same energy. And then when it comes
Speaker 1: to having a fan only that can be a tricky
Speaker 1: one because sometimes they tick all the boxes everywhere. Else
Speaker 1: then they don't want to you know, they don't want
Speaker 1: to have the same once is what you want. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want six kids.
Speaker 3: Also get values like values too.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like you could be happy, go luck,
Speaker 2: you're having so much funer. Then it's like, I don't
Speaker 2: want kids. I don't want I don't believe in that.
Speaker 2: I don't believe in that. I think it's really important
Speaker 2: that you do, even if it's not exactly the same.
Speaker 3: Fine some sort of.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and we also love the same things, like we
Speaker 6: love eating like we love but like eating out really
Speaker 6: good food.
Speaker 5: He's an exceptional cook. I'm a fantastic eater.
Speaker 2: I've seen your stories where You're just like, he's just
Speaker 2: like got to cook up this big thing for a
Speaker 2: couple of people coming in, and.
Speaker 5: He loves it. So I was like, that's great because
Speaker 5: I hate cooking.
Speaker 1: Do you remember kind of saying to Ryan at any point,
Speaker 1: let's start talking about a family.
Speaker 6: I'm pretty sure I spoke about it on our first date.
Speaker 6: I think he asked me like.
Speaker 5: I was like, I'm not fucking around.
Speaker 6: I'd just gotten out of a pretty hectic, shitty, toxic
Speaker 6: relationship and I was like, I'm gonna lay all my
Speaker 6: cards out. I think he actually asked, do you want kids?
Speaker 6: And I was like, yeah, I do, Victor. Now right
Speaker 6: now we can practice No. I think we discussed it
Speaker 6: on the first day. Wow, we did have a few
Speaker 6: new gronies so pretally like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah at twenty eight as well.
Speaker 5: Around thirty two, so like early twenties you were.
Speaker 3: Clog sticken pretty much.
Speaker 2: Did you plan this is when we're going to have
Speaker 2: or did it happen just along the way.
Speaker 5: This story is wild. No, nothing was planned.
Speaker 6: I I didn't make him wait as long as I
Speaker 6: made Big Das wait, Big Da.
Speaker 3: Just big Daer did have a decent sized cock.
Speaker 6: Yeah, No, Ryan did. I still made him wait a
Speaker 6: little bit. My thing is if you're into them, you
Speaker 6: don't give it up straight away. This is about three weeks.
Speaker 3: That's actually better than most people today.
Speaker 6: But we had gone to the city to serf, you know,
Speaker 6: the city deserf.
Speaker 5: I was living in Bellby Hill.
Speaker 1: For anyone who doesn't know outside of Sydney is what
Speaker 1: you run from the city to the serf to Bondai.
Speaker 1: It's like fourteen It's massive. Everyone runs and then gets
Speaker 1: ship faced.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it sounds amazing.
Speaker 6: It's yeah, I definitely don't do the running part. I'm
Speaker 6: just there to get And so I had been at
Speaker 6: a party in Bondi from like eleven am and he
Speaker 6: had been somewhere else. He was living in Paddington, and
Speaker 6: then we somehow met at Icebergs. It's all a very
Speaker 6: blurry and we went home together and then I I
Speaker 6: remember waking up in the morning and he was next
Speaker 6: to me and I.
Speaker 5: Was like, wow, like I am so hungover.
Speaker 6: And he was like yeah, same, and he goes, so,
Speaker 6: I think you've wet the bed. I was like, what, No,
Speaker 6: I haven't, and he goes, no, no, you definitely have.
Speaker 6: I actually thought it was me to begin with, and
Speaker 6: then I've realized, no, it's definitely coming from Amy's side.
Speaker 5: But I also was just too hungover.
Speaker 6: He was like, I kind of wanted to leg it,
Speaker 6: but I didn't. I'm still here, and I feel like
Speaker 6: in that very moment, it's all comes down to how
Speaker 6: I was going to play it right, Like if I
Speaker 6: wigged out and got really embarrassed and awkward, it would
Speaker 6: have just made the situation. It was already.
Speaker 5: Straight to him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, I was just like, oh, yes, pissed, did that
Speaker 6: really happen?
Speaker 5: And I just kind of made a joke about.
Speaker 3: It, like it always happens.
Speaker 6: It's a thing in our family, Like it's not in
Speaker 6: the med it's in the corner. That's what happens after
Speaker 6: a few drinks. And so that was the first night
Speaker 6: we spent together. And then the next night we ended
Speaker 6: up having a shower together, and I again after a
Speaker 6: few drinks, quite a few drinks after a big night.
Speaker 3: Out, so eat in the shower.
Speaker 5: I didn't we on the shower, but I actually didn't
Speaker 5: remember having the shower with him.
Speaker 6: And I woke up the next morning, I was like,
Speaker 6: when I go my hair, like I always think about
Speaker 6: the Bachelor. You know, you go on these dates and
Speaker 6: all these girls jump in the water.
Speaker 5: I'm like, how me. I'd jump in the water.
Speaker 6: Looking like this, and then I'd come out looking like
Speaker 6: Hagrid from Harry Potter, right, like full afro, curly hair.
Speaker 6: And I woke up and I've transformed into the.
Speaker 5: Real met and I was like, why the fuck is
Speaker 5: my hair curly?
Speaker 6: He was like, oh, we had a shower, and then I
Speaker 6: was like wow. So the first two nights that we
Speaker 6: spent together off to Flying Star Beautiful. Yeah, you try
Speaker 6: to get to the first time we had sex was.
Speaker 1: Going to lead to like getting pregnant.
Speaker 5: Oh, I didn't get pregnant the first time we.
Speaker 2: Had set I thought.
Speaker 5: That did get pregnant very early on.
Speaker 1: Though, But I'm enjoying the first Let's move to the
Speaker 1: third time.
Speaker 6: That's where I got pregnant.
Speaker 1: And so when you felt pregnant? Was that one planned
Speaker 1: with Charlie.
Speaker 6: No, We've been dating for about five and a half months, oh,
Speaker 6: very early five and a half maybe six months. We
Speaker 6: had thankfully had one trip over to America. He'd broken
Speaker 6: up with his ex. He was meant to go to Coachella,
Speaker 6: so he had these tickets which he couldn't get the
Speaker 6: flights refunded.
Speaker 5: So he was like, do you want to go on
Speaker 5: a holiday?
Speaker 6: And I was like, sure, with you, it's probably going
Speaker 6: to put our relationship into a blender, but why not
Speaker 6: test it out. Yeah, So we went to San Francisco,
Speaker 6: Santa Barbara, La, over to Mexico, Player del Carmen, onto Tulum.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you what best thing we ever did, because
Speaker 6: let me tell you, it's the only international holiday that
Speaker 6: we have ever had on our own.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 6: Right, okay, so we've had this incredible holiday which kind
Speaker 6: of just cemented our love for each other. Came back,
Speaker 6: moved together in Surrey Hills, went to the races. I
Speaker 6: had a big day there, somehow ended up at the stables.
Speaker 3: So, okay, fast forward.
Speaker 6: A couple of weeks and my girlfriend tells me that
Speaker 6: she's pregnant and I was like, oh my god, I'm
Speaker 6: like two days late as well.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't that be funny?
Speaker 6: And she's like, oh, I do a test and I
Speaker 6: was like, I don't even.
Speaker 5: Know Ryan's middle name, Like I'm not doing it.
Speaker 6: Oh wow, okay, And then I did a test and
Speaker 6: my eggs were fertilized.
Speaker 1: We've spoken about this before, very stupidly. Do you pee
Speaker 1: on the stick?
Speaker 3: That's what we said that don't you dip the stick in?
Speaker 5: So it depends how full my bladdery is.
Speaker 6: If I know that there's a huge amount of weed
Speaker 6: in there, I will run the goatland and just hold
Speaker 6: the stick there.
Speaker 5: But if I know do I need to pee? Do
Speaker 5: I not? I'll get a cup.
Speaker 3: Clever, then you can dip it.
Speaker 2: Look at these two white idiots try to work out
Speaker 2: you dip the stick or shove the stick up or
Speaker 2: shove it across.
Speaker 3: We were just like, fuck, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I put the stick in, and then you will, and
Speaker 1: then we are each other. Do you remember when you
Speaker 1: saw and again very naive here is it like two
Speaker 1: lines or what do you get from it?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 5: I got the digital ones.
Speaker 6: So told me that not only I was pregnant, but
Speaker 6: that I was also two plus weeks pregnant. So which
Speaker 6: makes me, I think, I'll say the two plus or
Speaker 6: three plus, which makes me the four or five weeks pregnant?
Speaker 2: When were you living a party lifestyle around then? So
Speaker 2: I sort of put a real halt on that real
Speaker 2: quick too.
Speaker 6: I bet my twenties were like a party lifestyle. Lived
Speaker 6: overseas for three years. He had a good ten years
Speaker 6: of partying as well. His ex was in music, so
Speaker 6: they did loads of travel, festivals and stuff. So whilst yes,
Speaker 6: we were in the honeymoon period and we were having
Speaker 6: a really.
Speaker 5: Good time, I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 6: I called my mom first, which was a huge mistake
Speaker 6: because I could have procreated with a wombat and she
Speaker 6: would have been like, she would like, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 6: I was like, before you rush out and buy me
Speaker 6: a bugger booth, I have to let Ryan know, and
Speaker 6: I'm going to call Ryan and I'll have a chat
Speaker 6: with him first, and so, you know, the normal thing
Speaker 6: would have been to like talk to Ryan face to
Speaker 6: face when I got home. But I just sent him
Speaker 6: a photo of the pregnancy desk and send it to
Speaker 6: him at work and then just waited mid meetings.
Speaker 5: Anyway, I was quite taken back. He was pretty excited. Yeah, so.
Speaker 6: That was basically how our first child was conceived.
Speaker 3: Did you get married before?
Speaker 6: It was after He proposed to me when I was
Speaker 6: nine months pregnant and looking like.
Speaker 5: A whale, a luga whale.
Speaker 6: I turned into like a rectangle, so not overly attractive
Speaker 6: engagement photos. But we had my daughter in December on
Speaker 6: Christmas Eve, and then we got married the following year
Speaker 6: in November, so she was at our wedding, which is really.
Speaker 1: Weirdly similar to me. And yeah, we got got engaged
Speaker 1: when she was like eight months pregnant, and then got
Speaker 1: married in Evan. But what that? Oh what it's just
Speaker 1: like looking into.
Speaker 3: It also mean on the Bachelor. Wow?
Speaker 1: And then the transition into motherhood was that beautiful? Was
Speaker 1: it elegant? Was it a fairy tale? Was it everything
Speaker 1: you imagined?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 5: No, No, I always loved kids.
Speaker 6: I love babysitting, I love babies, I love looking after kids.
Speaker 6: I was probably a small child myself until I had one,
Speaker 6: So I actually thought I was a bit of a
Speaker 6: I don't know, a bit confident over cold almost Yeah,
Speaker 6: I was like, oh sweet, But the pregnancy ruined me,
Speaker 6: and then the birth kind of ruined me. And then
Speaker 6: when she came out, she obviously arrived early, she was
Speaker 6: thirty seven weeks, she was tiny, she had jaundice. The
Speaker 6: midwife was like, you've got a breastfeed her every two hours.
Speaker 1: It's going to sound really dumb here jaundice is.
Speaker 3: When you're I was going to ever grow out of it?
Speaker 3: Yellow kid, I've got a really brown kid and a
Speaker 3: really white kid.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, I feel like you can be the
Speaker 6: most confident and prepared as possible, but it still hits
Speaker 6: you like a freight train.
Speaker 2: We always say that you'll never be prepared enough. No
Speaker 2: matter how much you read or you know or get advice,
Speaker 2: You're never going to be prepared. What's actually going to
Speaker 2: be in front of you when it happens.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think like there's so much contradicting feedback
Speaker 6: out there, Like you've got Save our Sleep that tells
Speaker 6: you to put them into a routine from birth, and
Speaker 6: you've got everyone else saying that it's bloody cruel to
Speaker 6: do that and to let them cry out. And so
Speaker 6: for everything that you come across, you've got conflicting evidence
Speaker 6: as to why you shouldn't do that way. And so
Speaker 6: I was like, I'm just going to lean into my
Speaker 6: mother's intuition and instinct. And I remember walking in the
Speaker 6: door when I got home and I was like, Hey,
Speaker 6: where is the manual?
Speaker 5: Like what do I do next?
Speaker 3: There's no manual, all instinct, right.
Speaker 6: It is instinct, and I think a lot of women
Speaker 6: probably do struggle with that because a lot of people
Speaker 6: are very heavy, routine based. I've never been routine based.
Speaker 6: I'm a bit of a fly by your seat kind
Speaker 6: of pants, no, fly by your pants kind of see. Well,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm trying to say, and just kind
Speaker 6: of go with the flow, which I feel like helps
Speaker 6: with motherhood because babies throw so many curveballs.
Speaker 1: When you're getting figured out one week and.
Speaker 2: Change it with that ongoing thing where it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I slept so good last night, Let's repeat.
Speaker 3: Exactly what we did last night.
Speaker 1: What time did I feed them?
Speaker 6: Yes, so it was it was hard. I feel like
Speaker 6: any mum who says it's easy would be lying. It's
Speaker 6: always a transition, but it does. I feel like the
Speaker 6: first six weeks it's just like you're getting used to
Speaker 6: your new role. The baby's like, what the fuck? Who's
Speaker 6: looking after me? You know, if you're breastfeeding, that can
Speaker 6: be quite challenging. Well, so it was intense.
Speaker 1: How can I ask eight years ago now? Yes, what
Speaker 1: was it like back then with men taking matt leave?
Speaker 1: Because it's changed quite a lot in recent years. Did
Speaker 1: Ryan get much time off? Work.
Speaker 6: He took about two three weeks off, but I mean,
Speaker 6: he wasn't that helpful that.
Speaker 3: Was going to be The next question was like how
Speaker 3: did he adapulate?
Speaker 6: Like I would rather have had my mom there, just
Speaker 6: because I feel like Ryan, he's a simple dude, right
Speaker 6: Like if I say to him, hey, can you do
Speaker 6: this for me, he'll absolutely do it. But he won't
Speaker 6: take the initiative and do it. He's better there, he's
Speaker 6: better now.
Speaker 3: Sounds like sounds like my house. It was like, if
Speaker 3: I'd ever told you to do it, that's right, you
Speaker 3: wouldn't do it, that's right.
Speaker 5: Whereas my mum would walk in the door and she
Speaker 5: just hits the ground running.
Speaker 6: She's putting on loads of washing, she's putting on dinner,
Speaker 6: she's making the beds, changing the sheets, blah blah blah.
Speaker 6: She just she's doing all the things that I.
Speaker 5: Need to do and don't need to ask her.
Speaker 1: So, if there's any dads out there who were making
Speaker 1: just about.
Speaker 3: To become a parent and clear, what.
Speaker 1: Would your advice be to them? What are the things
Speaker 1: they can do to help out with their partner around
Speaker 1: the house.
Speaker 5: Just stay on top of the washing for your partner.
Speaker 3: Just one thing.
Speaker 6: No, no, no, no, just get my list out I would
Speaker 6: be doing, especially if your wife is breastfeeding, because the
Speaker 6: onus is all on you. I breastfed Charlie, and again
Speaker 6: because she was small and she had breast milk jaundice,
Speaker 6: they were like, you need to keep pumping her with
Speaker 6: breast milk. So I was breastfeeding her every two hours
Speaker 6: and then burping, changing napp is, settling, and then basically
Speaker 6: breastfeeding again.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was like a dairy cow.
Speaker 6: And so for me, what would have really helped in
Speaker 6: that situation would have been if he had just kind
Speaker 6: of started, you know, helping around the house with the washing.
Speaker 5: And he was always.
Speaker 6: Pretty good with the food. He makes sure that we
Speaker 6: were always fed. But make sure you're fed, make sure
Speaker 6: there's always water nearby, stay on top of the the
Speaker 6: household judies.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Washing yea. Yeah, there's only like a split second,
Speaker 1: maybe like once every two or three months, where the
Speaker 1: washing is done, and then that shit just piles.
Speaker 2: Right straight away. April does two loads a day. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: I'm like, sometimes I feel like she's just doing loads
Speaker 2: for the sake of it to happen.
Speaker 1: She's just looking there and it's like two things. And
Speaker 1: then taking the washing out from the war drovee. I'm
Speaker 1: just leave it.
Speaker 3: If I stop now, I won't pick it back up again.
Speaker 1: With your relationship with Ryan, because you guys have been
Speaker 1: together for the five months five minutes. Yeah, obviously you
Speaker 1: then have that time when you're pregnant, but you can't travel.
Speaker 1: You can't you're not the same as you were before pregnancy.
Speaker 1: So you guys, so early on, how did you adjust
Speaker 1: to that change of being, you know, parents, when you've
Speaker 1: only been together for such a short period of time.
Speaker 6: Well, it's funny, you asked, because I feel like even
Speaker 6: now we've been together for what nine years, and I
Speaker 6: feel like I'm still getting to know him. I feel
Speaker 6: like only in the last couple of years have I
Speaker 6: been like, wow, like you are quite a slob. Like
Speaker 6: I feel like all of this stuff is coming out,
Speaker 6: and I think I don't know whether it was a
Speaker 6: blessing or a curse. But because I felt pregnant really
Speaker 6: early on, and because we had Charlie and then we
Speaker 6: got married, and then we had another child, and then
Speaker 6: we had another child, and I was just heavily balls
Speaker 6: deep in mum life and stay at home mum life
Speaker 6: and had all these kids that I was quite preoccupied with.
Speaker 6: Our relationship just coasted along. But now that I'm stepping
Speaker 6: away from that a little bit, I'm like, Wow, have
Speaker 6: you got irritable.
Speaker 3: Bout you're becoming his mum?
Speaker 6: I think I just missed all this stuff. So I'm
Speaker 6: kind of getting to still know him. He was a
Speaker 6: fantastic partner in terms of taking on parenting head on.
Speaker 6: After knowing him for you know, a year or so,
Speaker 6: I feel like if I had done it with anybody else,
Speaker 6: it would have gone tits up real quick.
Speaker 5: I think I knew that.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I would have had a baby
Speaker 6: with anybody else that soon after meeting them. I know
Speaker 6: that sounds cliche and corny, but I was meant to be.
Speaker 5: I knew that Ryan was my guy.
Speaker 3: Trying to make up for it after calling him a slow.
Speaker 1: It's pissing on the.
Speaker 6: Bed, that's like, and he stayed with me after that.
Speaker 1: If anyone wants to, it's like the easiest way to
Speaker 1: just like sense, check if they're a lifetime partner or not.
Speaker 1: Just piss on them and then wake up and be like,
Speaker 1: what's it going to be?
Speaker 2: Very good?
Speaker 1: And then with baby number two and number three. Obviously
Speaker 1: when you were younger, you wanted to have a family
Speaker 1: of six. After the trials and tribulations of baby number one,
Speaker 1: did you want to jump straight back into being a
Speaker 1: second time mom.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 6: Charlie was the Dalai Lama. She was a really easy,
Speaker 6: textbook baby. She slept pretty early on. She like, we
Speaker 6: breastfed for a year and I loved it. She was chill,
Speaker 6: she was a happy little girl.
Speaker 5: Well whatever.
Speaker 6: So then yes, we got married and I was like,
Speaker 6: let's go for gold. You know, let's keep pumping, you know, six,
Speaker 6: five to.
Speaker 2: Go, right, If you said five more, I'd be like, whoa.
Speaker 6: So then I had my second son, no, my second child, Bobby,
Speaker 6: and he was even easier as a baby. He was
Speaker 6: an absolute legend. Couldn't breastfeed him. He had a really
Speaker 6: severe tongue tie. And the first thing I said when
Speaker 6: he came out, he kind of like cannon balled out
Speaker 6: of me ninety minutes.
Speaker 5: And they like pulled him up and I.
Speaker 6: Was like, where is his chin? He's got a tiny,
Speaker 6: teeny tiny little chin and it's quite recessed.
Speaker 5: And it was the first I mean, I love him.
Speaker 5: He's gorgeous.
Speaker 6: But I was like, that was the first line that
Speaker 6: came out of my mouth.
Speaker 5: That I saw him.
Speaker 6: She was like, it's there.
Speaker 5: The fuck he's a beautiful baby.
Speaker 3: Amy nice chin man.
Speaker 6: So it's the family he's been born into. Like that's
Speaker 6: how we show our love with softly bullied.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So we had quite a lot of issues with him breastfeeding.
Speaker 6: I couldn't breasfeed him. He had his tongue TI revised, but.
Speaker 1: That fucking sucks. So I swear breastfeeding. If that's good,
Speaker 1: life is great. If it's bad, that can derail everything everything.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I think the biggest thing is if I
Speaker 6: had had because I really wanted to breastfeed and I
Speaker 6: loved breastfeeding Charlie.
Speaker 5: We had a great journey with it.
Speaker 6: But my thing is all that matters is that the
Speaker 6: baby's feded and is happy and I'm happy, and if
Speaker 6: that's through breastfeeding, great, And if it's not through breastfeeding,
Speaker 6: it's sure shit going to be formula feeding. So I
Speaker 6: tried with Bobby, and I tried, and I tried, and
Speaker 6: he was just screaming and he wasn't putting on weight.
Speaker 6: And my Titi is like volcanoes. They're angry, they want
Speaker 6: to be milked, and he just couldn't get it. So
Speaker 6: I was basically like milking myself into his mouth. Went
Speaker 6: to get his tongue tie revised, and they had like
Speaker 6: ultra sounded my boob and he was barely connecting with
Speaker 6: my nipple. Revised, snipped his tongue, brought him back two
Speaker 6: weeks later, and then he wasn't even connecting with my nipples.
Speaker 6: So it almost sent him backwards. And the lady was like, Hey,
Speaker 6: I'm just going to give you too, you straight. You
Speaker 6: will never be able to breastfeed, but his anatomy won't
Speaker 6: allow it. His chin is recessed, He's got a tiny
Speaker 6: time and so she was like, I mean, if you
Speaker 6: want him to have breastmeat, you'll have.
Speaker 5: To express every feed.
Speaker 6: I also had a twenty two month at home, so
Speaker 6: I was like fuck that, straight onto formula. Happiest kid
Speaker 6: on earth, slept through the night straight away from eight months. Great,
Speaker 6: loved having two kids, super confident, Mum went out, we
Speaker 6: did everything, started a mum's group. Let's go, let's go
Speaker 6: for gold with a third. We'd spoken about it.
Speaker 1: Ryan was on board.
Speaker 5: Ryan was on board.
Speaker 6: Kind of he Ryan's one of two. Ryan was like,
Speaker 6: do you want a third? Like two is great? My nan,
Speaker 6: who had six, was like, two is really good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got six.
Speaker 6: You had six, and she goes, but two is like
Speaker 6: you have a really easy life and you've got one.
Speaker 5: Kid's always got one. Parent got too strongly.
Speaker 6: I do understand what she's saying now, because three is
Speaker 6: I mean, I was one of three, but I do
Speaker 6: always feel like with three one kind of sometimes gets
Speaker 6: a little bit left out.
Speaker 3: Which one is it?
Speaker 6: It's always the middle child?
Speaker 3: Is it just you the middle child? You're bang in
Speaker 3: the middle of five? Though everyone forgot man, were you
Speaker 3: fourth or sex?
Speaker 5: Smack bang in the middle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's tough.
Speaker 5: You're right, you want to talk about it.
Speaker 3: I'm one of two and I'm the favorite.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was the first one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's like it's funny. Where at the
Speaker 1: point now Ash has had the snip where debating whether
Speaker 1: or not to go for a third Yep, And it's
Speaker 1: not me or I yeah, like is it good or bad?
Speaker 1: Give it to me straight?
Speaker 6: Well, listen, I had all three under four years, so
Speaker 6: my I did want four, but I also wanted four
Speaker 6: when I had one at school, so I only ever
Speaker 6: really wanted two at home.
Speaker 5: That was the game plan. It didn't work out like that.
Speaker 6: I mean, I know how babies are created, but I
Speaker 6: also am pretty in tune with my cycle, and I
Speaker 6: know when the danger zone is and wh're not.
Speaker 5: And I distinctly remember Ryan and I.
Speaker 1: Say that and you got pregnant accident.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know what the danger zone is.
Speaker 2: I think we all know where the danger zone is.
Speaker 6: But I distinctly remember Ryan and I having some adult
Speaker 6: fun one night and I said to him. He was like, oh,
Speaker 6: should I pull out? And I was like, yeah, just
Speaker 6: to be safe, and he was like, I thought.
Speaker 2: We were playing the winking I'm sorry, and then sure, shit.
Speaker 6: I was pregnant with Kobe. So when my third was born,
Speaker 6: Charlie was only three years old and three and eight
Speaker 6: months three at home absolutely pushed me over the edge.
Speaker 6: I do have girlfriends who have three when the first
Speaker 6: one or the first two are at school, and they
Speaker 6: love it. It's chaos, but it's good, like it's a
Speaker 6: I feel like it's a noisy house. I also feel
Speaker 6: like it's the boys like for me, Charlie again. Dalai
Speaker 6: Lama up fingerpainting in her room makes no noise. But
Speaker 6: my boys do not stop fighting. So it's like WWA
Speaker 6: wrestling all day every time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like as they get older too, it's just
Speaker 2: going to be like then they'll get like all sudden,
Speaker 2: all this testosterone. Then I'll go in to pubery and
Speaker 2: I'll be in the house beating each other up.
Speaker 6: Yeap, yeah, well they already do that.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: My kind of routine at the moment is the girls
Speaker 1: aren't in daycare on Thursdays, in daycare every other day,
Speaker 1: but sometimes like recently, Marley was six, so I had
Speaker 1: a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I absolutely love my
Speaker 1: children to dath, but Monday morning sending them off to daycare, I'm.
Speaker 5: Like, hellelujah.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I always think, like full time stay at home parents,
Speaker 1: especially to three kids, like when you're battling, when you're exhausted,
Speaker 1: when the kids are being a nightmare, how do you
Speaker 1: kind of pull yourself out of that rut?
Speaker 6: Can I tell you When I had Charlie and then
Speaker 6: I had Bobby and Kobe, and I was a stay
Speaker 6: at home mum. I had fully immersed myself into that
Speaker 6: and I knew no different, right. I actually feel like
Speaker 6: what I'm doing now is harder because I'm one foot out,
Speaker 6: but I've still got Kobe Monday and Tuesday. And then
Speaker 6: what I'm still doing is I'm still doing all the
Speaker 6: stay at home mum shit.
Speaker 5: So I'm still doing all the school lunches and.
Speaker 6: The dropping to school and then picking them up from
Speaker 6: school and the extracurriculum activities and all of that kind
Speaker 6: of stuff. But I'm also working. So all I've done
Speaker 6: is increase my workload. But when I was just a
Speaker 6: state at home mum, it is relentless, but I was
Speaker 6: so used to it, I knew no difference, So I
Speaker 6: was kind of just like, I made sure that I
Speaker 6: was always getting out play days, mums, group fucking rhyme
Speaker 6: and time as long as I had other moms there,
Speaker 6: and I was always trying to converse with adults, it
Speaker 6: was fine.
Speaker 5: Kids are always around house.
Speaker 6: Always looked like I've bin ransacked by bin chickens, but
Speaker 6: it was fine. Whereas now and I'm loving my work
Speaker 6: and I'm loving being able to jump onto the podcast
Speaker 6: and talk and be creative on socials and all that
Speaker 6: kind of stuff. But then trying to switch back into
Speaker 6: mum mode. It's that I find quite difficult.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, it's the balance, Like, yeah, I suppose
Speaker 2: that you're saying you're fully focused on one thing, it's
Speaker 2: much easier.
Speaker 3: But if you're half focused on something, that's kind of like, I.
Speaker 5: Feel like I'm doing everything in my life. Yeah, at
Speaker 5: fifty percent.
Speaker 1: But also it's like your work. The schedule is always changing,
Speaker 1: so it's not as if your work can be confined
Speaker 1: to just one day, like on a Wednesday, because it's
Speaker 1: always going to spill out to the other day. So
Speaker 1: if you're trying to hang out with your child and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, your phone's ringing and then
Speaker 1: you've got emails and.
Speaker 3: You tat Nash, you got to go and record.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well that's exactly right as well, like with Instagram
Speaker 6: and content creating, there's no structure and writing the book,
Speaker 6: I just had to write it around my kids and
Speaker 6: podcasting and trying to get guests on and the emails
Speaker 6: are constantly going off, so you're trying to be a
Speaker 6: present parent, but you're also like, I would rather be
Speaker 6: doing my emails because I don't want to play cafe
Speaker 6: with you for the.
Speaker 3: Time, and you really.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you catch yourself and you're like, fuck, I can
Speaker 2: do this later, yeah, and then ten seconds later your baculate,
Speaker 2: I could do this now.
Speaker 5: So here is cocomelon.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to ask about Charlie and her relationship with
Speaker 1: your husband, because I've spoken a lot about the fact
Speaker 1: that Lola, who's my second born, absolutely hates me, hates
Speaker 1: me so much, yeah, but will kick me in the
Speaker 1: face on purpose multiple times if I even look at
Speaker 1: her when she's in our bed. And you've mentioned that
Speaker 1: Charlie and Ryan don't quiet get along as well as
Speaker 1: the other kids.
Speaker 5: She's not as violent as Lola.
Speaker 6: But Charlie, even from birth, has just been a mummies girl,
Speaker 6: through it through. It's not even she has an aversion
Speaker 6: to her dad. She just doesn't. She kin'd of just
Speaker 6: not interested in men. Great, let's hold onto that.
Speaker 5: Let's be like.
Speaker 6: Ryan, so I think as well, because we are done
Speaker 6: having kids. Ryan when it had the snip after the
Speaker 6: third Ryan desperately wants to have a little daddy's girl,
Speaker 6: and the more he tries, the more she.
Speaker 5: Is just pushing back on him.
Speaker 1: You can smell the desperation she can a mile away.
Speaker 6: She's also start she's very switched on now, so now
Speaker 6: she uses it to her advantage. So if I am
Speaker 6: going out or something and she's like, you know, Lev,
Speaker 6: you're not going leaving me with Dad, and she is
Speaker 6: so familiar, and then Ryan will be like, but Charlie, Charlie,
Speaker 6: I'll let you stay up. Like you can have vice cream,
Speaker 6: you can have desperation, you can watch, you can watch YouTube.
Speaker 5: Kids are an extra hour.
Speaker 6: And she's like, if I say no to things, which
Speaker 6: I say no to her a lot of times she
Speaker 6: goes and ask.
Speaker 5: Dad anything she wants.
Speaker 6: Like the bribing of Charlie to to get her to
Speaker 6: love him is pathetic.
Speaker 5: And it doesn't work.
Speaker 6: I can say, only him, Ryan, it's not working, Like
Speaker 6: maybe just play it cool and let her.
Speaker 5: Come to you, but he can't. I don't know what
Speaker 5: it is. She's even like that with my dad, with
Speaker 5: her pa. She's a girly girl. She loves the girls,
Speaker 5: she loves the Army.
Speaker 3: What you're saying, keep working at it.
Speaker 1: But it's comforting to know there's other dads out there
Speaker 1: going through it, but also ship to know that.
Speaker 3: Also, just don't be desperate treated me and keeping keen.
Speaker 3: Maybe you've got to try that, said that to him.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but he's treated me and he he doesn't know
Speaker 6: how to quite do that. Like he'll get really angry
Speaker 6: at her and then she's hysteric, crying in tears, and
Speaker 6: I was like, oh.
Speaker 3: It just made it worse. Yeah, yeah, but you.
Speaker 6: Know what, I was a bit like that. I'm actually
Speaker 6: only close now with my dad and.
Speaker 1: I what age did that kind of start to shift?
Speaker 6: Shifted when I moved out, when I stopped living with
Speaker 6: You've got.
Speaker 2: A long way to go, But I have faith because
Speaker 2: I feel like she's she hasn't always been like this, right.
Speaker 2: She did used to love like I've seen footage of
Speaker 2: them together and it was like there was love there
Speaker 2: and just lately, so I think that you've got an opportunity.
Speaker 2: What Amy's saying is from day dot, girly girl, I
Speaker 2: think you've got an opportunity to turn it around.
Speaker 6: Did something happen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, yeah, did you drop her?
Speaker 1: I think the dummy well kind of similar to your situation.
Speaker 1: It was always a case of like from birth, I
Speaker 1: couldn't really settle her. It was always Laura. She would
Speaker 1: only and then she didn't sleep that well in the
Speaker 1: cot would sleep in your arms, but not in my arms,
Speaker 1: in Laura's arms. So it was always a case of
Speaker 1: she definitely preferred mum. But then the real changer was
Speaker 1: when we took away the dummy, and that was just like.
Speaker 2: It wasn't me, it was he got blamed though. I
Speaker 2: think it was kind of like I remember we were
Speaker 2: recording over that time. It was close to Christmas and
Speaker 2: like it was it was very tense about yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and then you had to give.
Speaker 3: It back eventually, didn't you.
Speaker 1: We folded, folded, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I was just with some friends on the weekend. It
Speaker 2: did the similar to you, like the Santa thing, and
Speaker 2: then they folded baby and they were like.
Speaker 1: Nah, dummies is one that was really really hard. Is
Speaker 1: it any part of parenting, like big transitions that you've
Speaker 1: struggled with?
Speaker 6: Charlie had a dummy, But this is probably where I
Speaker 6: went wrong as a first time mum. I had given
Speaker 6: her a dummy, not just for sleep, just for at
Speaker 6: any point on the day.
Speaker 3: I'd be like, yeah, for sure, it's kind of like
Speaker 3: a mute button.
Speaker 6: She would be sitting on the couch just watching the Wiggles.
Speaker 6: I'm like, dummy, I don't know why and so she
Speaker 6: was like a dummy addict. And then at about eight
Speaker 6: months I found I had I had put about forty
Speaker 6: dummies in her cot because she would wake up and
Speaker 6: she'd be looking for it.
Speaker 5: So I was like, here you go, here's forty of them.
Speaker 6: I'll scatter them around and she would just pick them
Speaker 6: up and she just throw them out of the cot. Mam,
Speaker 6: pick them up, throw them out of cot. And I
Speaker 6: remember ringing Chicillian and they were like, you're gonna have
Speaker 6: to wean her off the dummy k because she's playing
Speaker 6: with you now. Even when we were at Westfield, she'd
Speaker 6: put it in, she just throw it and so I'd
Speaker 6: be like, oh, he's another one. I've got forty of
Speaker 6: them in my back and just throw it. So I
Speaker 6: was talking to my mom about it, my mom mother Teresa,
Speaker 6: a but also very tough love. I said, I've got
Speaker 6: to win Charlie off the dummies.
Speaker 5: But I'm a massive pussy.
Speaker 6: Like and I love sleep, so I can't do the
Speaker 6: first night and she was like, bring around, and so
Speaker 6: I remember I was like perfect. I had a wedding
Speaker 6: to go to. Mum was already going to be babysitting
Speaker 6: and Mom was like, I'll do the first night for you.
Speaker 5: My mom was up the.
Speaker 6: Entire night and she was just settling her without the dummy.
Speaker 6: And I got there the next day and she was
Speaker 6: like bags under her eyes, and she said, don't you
Speaker 6: dare give her a dummy tonight. I've done the first night.
Speaker 6: I've broken the camel's back for you. You got a hold firm.
Speaker 6: And so the second night it was.
Speaker 5: My mom would have killed me. The second night was
Speaker 5: a little bit.
Speaker 6: Tough, and she did wake a couple of times, and
Speaker 6: I just went in and suited her.
Speaker 5: Third night she slept straight through.
Speaker 3: There you go it. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 3: that was it. You were more than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did.
Speaker 5: We did a couple of weeks and then it just
Speaker 5: a couple of weeks would have broken me.
Speaker 6: I would have been like, have all stiffy tape one
Speaker 6: to your mouth.
Speaker 2: I never had that problem. I thankfully. Once we just
Speaker 2: took them off, that was it.
Speaker 6: Well, it's funny because with the boys they were so easy.
Speaker 6: With Bobby, I was like, fuck, I'm not making that
Speaker 6: mistake again. So his dummy was only for bedtime.
Speaker 5: And then when.
Speaker 6: Bobby was about three, I was like Hey, buddy, it's Easter,
Speaker 6: and what happens tonight is Easter Bunny comes around and
Speaker 6: he collect every single dummy and he takes them to
Speaker 6: all the newborn babies, and.
Speaker 5: So let's go around.
Speaker 6: We collected every single dummy of his and I said,
Speaker 6: and we'll put it in the basket and then he
Speaker 6: might leave you some chocolate instead, and he asked yep.
Speaker 6: He asked for it once the next night, and then
Speaker 6: never again. And then Kobe again had the dummy for sleep.
Speaker 6: And then when he got a big boy bed at two,
Speaker 6: which was the worst mistake of my life, I was like, hey,
Speaker 6: they were sharing a room. I was like, Bobby's got
Speaker 6: a big boy bed. You've got a big boy bed.
Speaker 6: Now dummy's gone, and he was like, yeah, big boy
Speaker 6: threw the dummy at me, never asked for it again.
Speaker 6: The boys were surprisingly really easy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't even remember Macie having a dummy, to be honest,
Speaker 2: Oscar had it more, but like I only really young,
Speaker 2: and then he sort of I don't really recall.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't know if it was hard work.
Speaker 1: As I know, you have to head off very soon.
Speaker 1: I actually do have a couple of listening questions before
Speaker 1: you go, if I can just fire them at you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first one is one that I don't understand, but
Speaker 1: you might. I hope you can enlighten me, they said.
Speaker 1: Ask her about the pair?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, actually April. April asked me the same thing.
Speaker 1: What's the pair?
Speaker 6: Pair?
Speaker 3: We have a pair at home, do you what's the pair?
Speaker 6: Is an incredible Let's call it a sex toy, because
Speaker 6: that's what it is. But it's not like a big, phalic,
Speaker 6: pink looking thing that you ram up inside you. It
Speaker 6: could pass as a paperweight. It is in the shape
Speaker 6: of a pair. It's called the Essential Vibe, but I
Speaker 6: nicknamed it the Pair about two years ago.
Speaker 5: And it is stuck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of those suction ones. No, I've actually never
Speaker 1: used a toy.
Speaker 3: When you come over and excellent use my wife.
Speaker 5: No, it's not for you, although you could probably press
Speaker 5: it against.
Speaker 1: Your I've never used a toy with Laura.
Speaker 5: You need to get her a pair. You might become redundant.
Speaker 6: Though.
Speaker 5: It's a good time. Does April like it?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Loves it?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Do you use it?
Speaker 5: Yeah? So you use it together?
Speaker 3: How during during?
Speaker 1: Not on yourself?
Speaker 6: No? No, No, it's waterproof, so we take it in
Speaker 6: the shower.
Speaker 5: Is this appropriate for a parenting?
Speaker 3: Appropriate mums?
Speaker 5: All moms need the pair Amy fifth.
Speaker 3: Good guys, we'll put in the notes of the show.
Speaker 1: What's your biggest fear?
Speaker 6: My biggest fear is losing my parents because I am
Speaker 6: a small child all of a sudden, all over again.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I think when I had my own children, I was like, well,
Speaker 6: I was such an asshole to my mom and dad
Speaker 6: and I love them so much and they were so
Speaker 6: good to me, and I have I always respected them
Speaker 6: and I've always loved them, but I have so much
Speaker 6: more respect since becoming a parent myself, and I will
Speaker 6: perish when they pass on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It was like, now my mom is seventy three.
Speaker 1: She just left the house before we started recording, and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh my god, you're really old.
Speaker 6: Yes, my dad just had a birthday and I rang
Speaker 6: him to say happy birthday.
Speaker 5: Was it was like, do you know how old I am?
Speaker 6: I was like sixty one, sixty two and he was
Speaker 6: like plus six and I was like, what, you're sixty eight?
Speaker 3: All yeah?
Speaker 6: And I was like, oh, I felt weirdly anxious about it.
Speaker 3: Don't no one startle him?
Speaker 1: Very last question is from Madeline, and she says, what
Speaker 1: is the secret to successfully juggling everything? Fuck?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I would live.
Speaker 1: One of those parents who was nailing the juggle being
Speaker 1: a mum, but also then doing multiple other projects. For example,
Speaker 1: after this, you're going to go straight into recording the
Speaker 1: audio book.
Speaker 5: Yeah, for your book.
Speaker 6: No, I'm going to the podcast tomorrow. I actually don't
Speaker 6: think there is a secret to it. I actually don't
Speaker 6: think anybody knows the answer. I think every mum and parent,
Speaker 6: every dad out there as well. I think everybody's always
Speaker 6: just doing the best that they can. It's funny because
Speaker 6: Madeline is it. Maddie obviously perceives me to be able
Speaker 6: to like she probably thinks that I'm doing a really
Speaker 6: great job at juggling it. I mean, I sent my
Speaker 6: kids to school in the wrong uniform yesterday. I am
Speaker 6: constantly dropping balls, and I get riddled with guilt. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 6: I didn't you know. I didn't get back to this
Speaker 6: email in time. And I also didn't spend enough time
Speaker 6: with one of my kids, and one always feels left out.
Speaker 6: And I've seen with Ryan again, I have served nuggets
Speaker 6: for like five nights in a row, and there's no
Speaker 6: I'm definitely not juggling. I don't think anybody is. I
Speaker 6: think we're all just doing the best we can.
Speaker 3: That's all you can do.
Speaker 2: You're constantly working at it, right, and next year it's
Speaker 2: going to be completely different because your kid's going to
Speaker 2: be older.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Goes back to when you said if any parent out
Speaker 1: there says that it's easy.
Speaker 2: And Matt mentioned your book. You've got a book that's
Speaker 2: currently pre sale yourself in.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is.
Speaker 6: Myself.
Speaker 3: Although you can get no work done into that pair.
Speaker 6: Strap yourself in. Yes, that is my biggest achievement. I
Speaker 6: mean after having three children. Of course that was hard.
Speaker 6: That was a hard.
Speaker 5: Slog writing that.
Speaker 6: But I think it will be a good read. It's
Speaker 6: mostly for women, I'm going to probably say that. And
Speaker 6: it's not just a parenting book. It's all about the
Speaker 6: expectations that we have that we put on ourselves sometimes
Speaker 6: in life and what the reality of them actually look
Speaker 6: like and how they never fucking marry up right. But
Speaker 6: it's not just parenting and stuff. It's it's marriage. You know,
Speaker 6: what we thought marriage was going to look like versus
Speaker 6: what it really is like. And your sex life and
Speaker 6: your career and friendships and all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So and it's it's not out right now, but it's available.
Speaker 6: For pre It is available for pre sale. It is
Speaker 6: coming out on the third of April. There'll be a
Speaker 6: few little a huge pr schedule, which is wild Na
Speaker 6: will be there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you better be as.
Speaker 1: Two of your biggest male supporters.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm going to bring my par along, bring your.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and get ge Laura a pair.
Speaker 3: We'll add a link to the presale in the show
Speaker 3: notes for.
Speaker 1: Amy Gerard, thank you so much and sorry it's taken
Speaker 1: so long to sit down and get this interview done,
Speaker 1: but it's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Than you so much for coming. You appreciate it.
Speaker 2: If you've liked this episode, please of course leave a
Speaker 2: little review on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Do you know where We've started getting some really nice reviews? Spotify?
Speaker 3: Oh, you can do it there too, do it on both.
Speaker 1: I mean you asked my preferences is the old Apple podcast.
Speaker 1: But mate, some lovely reviews that I've read read through.
Speaker 1: You should have a look. They will fill your cup
Speaker 1: right up good.
Speaker 2: And we also mentioned in that episode that Amy has
Speaker 2: a book on presale, so we'll also put that in
Speaker 2: the show notes for you as well. Maybe we'll check
Speaker 2: that little pair discount play in there as well.
Speaker 1: Was keen to sink their teeth into pair for one
Speaker 1: of the ras?
Speaker 3: Very good And.
Speaker 1: If there's any other mums or dads you would like
Speaker 1: us to interview, please throw your suggestions waging. We'll do
Speaker 1: our best to make it happen and we'll see you
Speaker 1: guys next Wednesday for a normal f Thank Give F
Speaker 1: two Doting Dads podcast acknowledges the traditional custodians of country
Speaker 1: throughout Australia and the connections to land, sea and community.
Speaker 2: We pay our respects to their elders past and present
Speaker 2: and extend that respect to all.
Speaker 3: Aboriginal and Torrestraight Islander peoples today. This episode was recorded
Speaker 3: on gadagal Land