Best of James (Compilation)

This episode of Distractable is presented to you by T-Mobile 5G Home Internet. The folks over at T-Mobile have some big news for you. They now have the fastest 5G home internet, according to the experts at Ookla Speed Test. So if you want the fastest 5G speeds with a five-year price guarantee, visit t-mobile.com slash home internet to check availability. Price guarantee exclusions like taxes and fees apply. Fastest based on Ookla Speed Test. Intelligence data, second half 2025. All rights reserved. from mini me to paternal pride yes it's time for best of james you got a baby oh yeah that's right also there's a baby wow his name is james james i don't have to call him baby anymore he has a name now legally james that's a good name man what would you think if i said it wasn't a good name oh does james pay his taxes yet do you know tax season's only three months away little james Listen, Daddy takes care of the taxes, okay? James doesn't have to worry about that. Is that the whole point of having a baby to pay your taxes for you and stuff? I don't know what you've heard about babies, but no. No, don't even entertain them about this one. No, straight up no. I thought they'd change your diapers when they get old enough to get out of their own, and they pay your taxes for you, and I don't know, work so you can retire. So you had the critical ideas of old enough on their own, but what is that age that you think it is? After they emerge? You think that's old enough on their own? After the, what's it called? The great emergence. Yeah, emerging. That's why it's the emergency room. Yeah, they got all these pregnant ladies, and they're doing their emergencies. Yeah. The emergency room. I get it now. Medical jargon is so lost on me. I saw a turkey. Turkeys. That was so big that nobody believed that it was a turkey until they inspected it for themselves. Took James to a fall festival, like a farm. Like, right, you know, it's a big Midwest thing. It's like, oh, it's fall. Let's do a corn maze and go in the pumpkin patch and we'll have like, yeah, activities and stuff. And we went to this place. It was really fun. They had a bunch of cool play sets. The first moment we were there, I did have made a parenting mistake. They had this big thing that was just like a big hill and you could run. It was sort of like a hill where you were supposed to clearly run from one side to the other. And there was like a path. But then the sides were very steep. You were not supposed to go up or down the sides. You were supposed to go over the path like it. And James started going up that. And I was like, oh, that'd be a good picture. Because I was like, I'm trying to take pictures. We're doing this fun thing with James. I want pictures of James. And so I was like, he won't be fucking crazy for 30 seconds. I can let him run up or down this hill really quick. so I let him go and I'm like I'm just gonna go around and take a picture and I like have my phone out about to take a picture he's on the very top of the hill and he looks down at me and he just goes and tries to like run down the steepest fucking he took like two steps and then just and piled at the bottom and it's busy this is right by the entrance so there's a there's a bunch of other people doing the hill and people and just in the middle of all that james is just fucking eating so much just i just i put my phone away going to go and pick him up and he's like i'm okay let's do this stuff like because he doesn't want to like go home he was it was fine but it was so i was like he can do this right did you get any of it like a photo collage of god i fucking i wish i didn't even get all the way to like i was like trying to get the camera open and i was like huh no and then just anyway it's warm out now and that's really fun for james because it means we get to go back to the playgrounds and stuff and we did that yesterday and he had a hell of a time before it got cold when we were going to the playgrounds like the end of last summer he was walking but he was small enough that it was kind of like we had to chase him around basically because at any moment he might just like fall off an edge or do something crazy and so we would and he's like really independent now which is awesome but i forgot one important fact about the playground that we take him to a lot it's like one of those old school like wooden castle style playgrounds super fun there's an area with a really fun slide and he was i was letting him climb up on his own and go up there to go on the slide but right next to the slide they made this feature where it's like tractor tires stacked up and the middle of the tractor tires is a hole down all the way to the ground and you're it's meant for kids to like climb down the tires like their ladders and then there's like some chains and like it's for climbing but james is not tall enough or coordinated enough to climb on something like that so i let him go up there and then he he got to the slide and he was like slide big tires and i was like what do you mean big tires because it's like up on the second level and i'm like what big tire and he went and he's like leaned over the hole and i was just like i forgot that was there and I ran and dove under the bottom of it and was like face up under the hole and I was like, go down the slide! And he just looked at me for a second and was like, oh yeah, slide. Alright, I won't jump down the suicide hole yet. Oh god. Like it was, when we got to the playground I was like, alright, let's see how this goes and he started climbing on his own and I was like, this is cool, he's having so much fun and then he was like i'm gonna go on the slide and started climbing up and i was like oh man big tires like whoa fucking shit why did they put why they put a jump hole in this play set god anyway he's fine uh and he went down the slide about 20 times he would just but like half of the times i continued to let him go up on his own and like half the times he'd get up there and be like big tuners and i had to be like we're going on the slide buddy remember the slide yeah but anyway it was super fun and only twice did i almost think he was about to break his entire self jumping down a big hole for no reason onto hard ground below also he threw a lady her cell phone oh really funny this poor mom was chasing her kid around who was more in the needs adult supervision very directly staged still younger than james and she like went down the slide in front of james like frantically like ah where'd you go baby and her phone fell out of her pocket on the top of the slide and james is just sitting there with this stranger's phone in his hands just like mine now and she's at the bottom of the slide like give me my phone baby give me my he like contemplated and everybody eventually he was like oh okay and tossed it down the slide and it was very nice but i thought i was about to have to go wrangle my son from stealing a stranger's cell phone at the playground i think we're going to be like oh you found us a new phone thanks baby and then like leave with it now james ask for money for this oh yeah i'm gonna earn way more points i have a very funny update all right i can't wait sad updates aren't worth nothing okay James is refining his comedy and it's really fucking funny so James likes to tell jokes and a lot of his jokes are set up punchline something really quick usually he'll do like a fart or something or you know like whatever but he has realized he likes getting the laugh and he's he has learned like this is what got me the laugh right so he'll do a joke and he'll be like ah and then I farted and everyone's like ha ha very funny like ah and he'll be like mhm And then I farted because he's like, laugh some more, right? He's like working on it. But obviously you can't say the same punchline twice in a row. That doesn't work. We are comedians. We know that. So last night at dinner, we've seen there and James just is like eating his food. And he looks over at Mandy and he goes, mom, you're cheese. And Mandy is like, why am I cheese? And he's like, cheese can't talk. And I'm like, okay. I'm like, okay, what's dad? and he goes, Dad, you're crackers. And I'm like, oh, because crackers goes with cheese. And he's like, crackers can't talk. We're sitting there. I look at him and I'm like, all right, if mom is cheese and dad is crackers, what is James? And he goes, I'm scared. Because mom and dad are cheese and crackers. And we lost our shit. It was very funny. I had a good laugh and he was just like soaking it up like that's the funniest thing I've ever said he's right and I said and we've been trying to teach him about this right so we had the laugh it was good and I looked back at him and I was like okay James mom is cheese and dad is crackers what does that make James and he was like oh can't say the same thing what do I say I'm afraid and then he went through every word that he could think of that was like scared to get back to the same punchline it was so funny it's probably much funnier because i'm his parent like i get that that's maybe not the most genius comedy thing that's ever been crafted but he is working on he's like really actually working on his timing and he's like experimenting with how he's doing puns it's very funny to watch him like figure it out in real time it's actually super impressive too he's thinking of like synonyms and wordplay like that like that's crazy he did it a bunch i think he did i'm scared i'm worried i'm upset i'm oh what did he say i'm nervous i'm something he did like one or two other ones he knows a lot of words that's funny and impressive and he's just turned three yeah just turned three yeah when did we start rationing names was that in the 90s. Overpopulation. Please, sir, can I have some middle initial? I just want to name my daughter Dorothy. We don't even want to have a last name. I can give you door. Dad, just because there's a story doesn't mean I like my name. Why did you call me door? I'll give you door and a hyphen. Just talk to your brother, Jam. You guys are a pair. And no, Mandy and I are not going to name our daughter Dorothy. Don't worry, Chad. Also, we don't have a daughter. That's a hypothetical daughter. Do you have a secret daughter that we've never known about? No. Man, that would really prove some favoritism going on if you keep going on about your son and all these stories about your son. It's like, oh, yeah, also. There's a daughter somewhere in there. James is so great. James, James, James. Guys, can we count on the number of times we've heard James? What about Door? Oh, no. We'll go back and be like, oh, my God, he's been saying Door all along, and we thought he'd really into hardware. Oh, my God. Door wouldn't shut up last night. I'm like, man, this dude's doors talk a lot. What the hell? At 26 minutes, when we play James backwards, it's actually, door's the favorite well that's gonna start some funny rumors oh james is well it's not fair to say this james is almost potty trained james is wearing big boy underpants so that's pretty big that's huge and he went a whole day yesterday with no accidents or anything he's in the potty like a real dude he pisses everywhere about door door sucks i don't want to talk about that i think it was kind of an accident but it ended up happening on monday of this week we've been trying to potty train james for a while and it started with just like we'll just let him sit like we'll let him sit on the potty we'll try and catch him and there are a bunch of strategies that are really intense like one of the strategies is he just doesn't wear pants or a diaper and whenever he starts peeing or pooping you just grab him and go and run to the bathroom which sounds like the most insane shit i've ever heard But the strategy that we have gone with is set a timer for like, it started at 15, it's at 20 minutes now. You set a timer and you slowly lengthen the timer. And every time the timer goes off, James goes to the bathroom. So that it's like he hopefully doesn't have an opportunity to go in his diaper. You get in there and if he sits and if he goes, he goes. If he doesn't go, it's fine. It's like you make it fun and you have like books and you hang out and he gets rewarded for going and being good. Is this like Pavlov's dog in this when he goes to school one day and the bell goes off for next period and he's like, oh no, the timer! It might. Okay. We're unsure about the Pavlovian things that we're building into our son. But this is one of the methods that online people are like, it works. But I trained my kid in one week. But he's been doing really good. He likes it, generally, and he does generally what he's supposed to do. But he does not care if his pee is aimed into the toilet. and so if you're not paying close attention because like i sit him on there and i get him situated so it's good but he sits there and he wiggles and he does stuff and he might stand up and sit back down and by the time he actually does go to the bathroom a lot of times you're just standing there and all of a sudden it's just like ah get that aim it down but he's doing really good and he's making progress got to get potty trained so he can be ready to go to preschool because he's a smart kid and he's gonna need more mental stimulation he needs he needs to learn he he's pretty much only happy if he's learning shit which is awesome but exhausting when it's like okay it's 45 minutes till bedtime i'm exhausted and james is like tell me about every animal in the sahara and i'm like god i only know like five that's why you did so good on the animal part Yeah, no, I literally, the Quetzalcoatlus, I know, Quetzalcoatl, whatever, that dinosaur, I know so many more animals than I ever did in the rest of my entire life, because James will just be like, tell me about animals. And I'll be like, what about penguins? And he's like, I know about penguins. Keep new ones. God, I don't know. I got to go study. I wasn't ready for the pop quiz. That's delightful. Just make up animals. That's dangerous. Do you remember shit? That's true. I mean, authors do it all the time. Have you gotten into mythical animals yet? Not so much. That actually is an interesting thing. He sort of, developmentally, he's starting to get to the place where he, like, he understands that stories exist in, like, other worlds, kind of. But he really doesn't get that all stories aren't just, like, things that happen in real life all the time. So the Like we Mandy and I Both really like Nightmare Before Christmas Classic movie Yeah Enjoyable movie Terrifying for him He loves the music If you just play the music He's all This is It is a terrifying movie But like the The visuals of the movie And the characters of the movie Yeah He is immediately Just like Ah We had a thing where We just We showed him like Mandy showed him like The first minute And after Stuff started happening On screen At the very opening Of the movie He was like, it's scary. And for like a week afterwards, every time he went to bed, we do the whole thing. He's all happy. We read books. We put them down. We're like, all right, good night, dude. And he's all, I'm scared of Halloween. And we're like, it's not real. It's okay. It's a movie. Those guys can't hurt you. The timing's bad because Halloween's right around the corner. So that's probably going to work. But stuff he sees in real life that might be scary to other kids, he's actually pretty chill about. Like he thinks we go to like Menards and home stores and stuff and they have those huge witches and when we at the store he like ha giant witch And he thinks it awesome But in movies and stuff if it too creepy or like Nightmare Before Christmas is very stylized. But if that existed in real life, that would be scary. I would agree. I was scared of Billy, the guy with the sealed mouth. Oh, yeah. He was scary. Yeah. James turns three in December. Oh, so he hasn't achieved consciousness yet. True consciousness. All right, Bob, what's going on in your life? Who are you in debt to? Mafia? Oh, lots of people. So we recently visited a family in Iowa that we were discussing generally, and this is like a theme that comes up in James Likes Bluey, and there's several episodes in Bluey that deal with, like, pregnancy and stuff. And we were trying to explain to him, like, what a pregnant lady is, right? We were talking, and it just sort of came up. And so it was like, oh, who's pregnant? Is mom pregnant? Whatever. But we were trying to be like, no, no, buddy. When a person is pregnant, when a woman is pregnant, it means that they have a baby growing in their belly. And so you might not be able to tell, but if you see someone who's pregnant, you need to be careful, right? Like they have a baby in the belly. You need to be careful with the baby. It was just a discussion that we had. And it was going on in the way things do with kids, just trying to teach them stuff. So we got to the belly gets big because the baby gets big. And James looks at me and is like, maybe a dad's belly. And I was like, oh, no, no, no, dad. Dad's just fat. That's a confusing distinction for you. Sorry, buddy. But but it was like a funny moment, but it wasn't everyone was not in on it. So then after we get back from that trip, we're at dinner with Mandy's parents. and James is talking and they're like everyone's paying attention to James at dinner at a restaurant and out of nowhere he just starts talking about babies and he's just like da da da da da pregnant ladies da da da da da da babies baby in the belly no dad's just fat and Manny Sparrow did like a spit take it was the funniest fucking thing cause like out of nowhere unprompted He just like remembers the conversation that we had. And now he just does that. He'll just, he'll just walk up and hit me with the like, no, dad's just fat. And then walk away. And everyone's kind of like, you taught him that. I'm like, I know I taught him that this is exactly what I was hoping would happen. That's so funny. Anyway, he's going to be a funny kid. That also brings up the point of like, whenever you move out of someplace, what makes it difficult is the memories you have there. so one of the hard things about leaving our previous house we obviously have a lot of good memories there because we were there for like five or six years but um the last time we got to hang out with zombie who passed away and person was at the house and like i we remember like seeing him sitting like on our couch like on his laptop and stuff like that and it's like oh we're leaving that memory behind so like there's also the people like that have entered and left your lives if you have memories with them in a place that can make a place feel like home and it's harder to leave it behind um or just memories you make over time the longer you're in a place the more memories you have like the harder it is to leave that because that feels more like home than a new home can for a while no it's funny both of you brought up stuff that definitely connects with me well us so we we lived in california only for like four years basically but and we lived in two different places there so we weren't in the place we just moved out of that long but that was the house we lived in when james was born right like that's where we brought him home from the hospital to that house full of the grandparents were all in town that's the first place he ever ate you know food and like there's a very strong even though it's he's only yesterday he turned eight months old he's not even a year old yet like most of his life is connected to that place so like yeah okay i'm pretty good uh we finally don't have people in our house and i don't know what to do about it. It's like, can I sit in some peace and fucking quiet for a second? I don't know. I can come over if you want. Bring James. Yeah, sure. I like James. And James really likes Molly, so that's fine. Yeah, he loves Molly. And whoever Molly's husband is. That's pretty much the other. Dude, listen. He's gonna be a problem. He is a ladies man, and he can I wouldn't say he could barely walk, because he's like running now. He did full out loops around me. Yeah. No, he's got blue eyes, blonde hair. He's a big flirt. He's always flirting with girls that are older than him at the playground. His instinct, if he sees any, it's any kids, but he gravitates towards the girls. But especially if they're like five to ten years older than him, he immediately just walks up and is like, Hi, I'm James. You want to hold hands? He's going to be like eight years old trying to go to prom. Well, I think he had the day of his life one time. And we're at a park. It was mostly a little kids park, but there was a group of like high school girls that were like just hanging out off to the side, just sitting, talking in a circle. And he was doing swings and whatever. And he saw them and ran right over and sat down in the circle and didn't even introduce himself, just sat down. And they were all kind of like and just kept going and like included him because he was just a cute little kid. And he just sat there. It was like, it's working. my dreams are coming true and that's pretty much it for me well i have james small talk do you guys want to hear about more joys of having a child always fascinating times in the world of james he's he's uh he really loves mark you i think in one of the previous episodes you talked about uh the movie k-pop demon hunters in the weekend immediately following when we recorded that i uh happened to watch it and i uh i agree with your take it's pretty good movie it's just enjoyable because we watched the movie we were playing the music and we just like played it for james he fucking loves the music from that movie he uh he really likes golden and he really likes the soda pop he's like dancing more than he's ever danced before anytime it comes on he starts dancing and the there's like the drop in uh i forget which one but the one where it's like we're going up that's in golden he like when the drop is coming he's up and he goes ready ready we're going it's really funny and that's very cute and very fun and uh so to balance it out uh this is the other thing that he's doing a lot lately we were in the car and he was just screaming and not like angry or sad or anything. He was happy and he was just going, and like it was a lot. And eventually I reached a point where I was like, man, how do I stop that from happening for a minute? And I just sort of was like, hey, buddy, what are you doing? What? Hey, James. And I get his attention and I finally got his attention and he looked at me and I was like, yeah, okay. What are you doing and why? And he just goes, I'm buying because. And I was like, you know what? He fucking he answered me directly. I cannot fault him. He knows exactly what he's doing, and he's really committed to it. And so I've had a headache for about a week and a half. But it's still pretty funny. But that one is way more unpleasant because he really does just scream a lot right now. It's fucking loud. But he's having a great time So like it's hard to complain It's the Quetzal Quetzalcotlus Northropae It's a dinosaur bird You know what Quetzalcotlus is? Wait how did you know what that was? Cause I know what the fuck a Quetzalcotlus is Cause it's the kind of dinosaur thing And James likes dinosaurs I didn't know we had dinosaurs on this list I'm not gonna lie I didn't either As per usual we're gonna start today with small talk I wanna go first This morning James son one year old had gymnastics and i just want to say baby gymnastics pretty wild very cute though turns out one-year-olds are crazy like climbing on the walls doing somersaults balance beam backflips there were balance beams there's i like they have the whole rage there's a balance beam that just sits on the floor and there's one that's like six inches tall and then there's one that's like four feet tall that like looks super dangerous it's fine and there's like rings and they do somersaults And James ran face first into another child today. They clashed foreheads. They're fine. He was upset for a second, but then there were bubbles. So he's fine. But anyway, I was one of four men in the entire building, and it was an interesting experience. One of the men worked at the place. One of the men was a dad who left because they were in the class before us. And then I think there was one other guy there. Wait, how big is this facility? Because four men in a place seems like a reasonable number of people. In the class before James's class, because they're separated into like age groups, there were probably 20-ish kids. And each kid has an adult with them, right? So it's a kid and a parent. So there were like 40 people, 20 kids, 20 adults, all women, except for one dude in that class. And yeah, so in James's class, there was maybe more like 15. What is the purpose of gymnastics at one years old? I mean, it's not competitive, right? The point is you're teaching them how to walk around. It's a place where they can work on balance and motor skills. They learn things like how to do somersaults, but you help them do somersaults. And so he's learning how to control. He has to tuck his head. He has to stick his arms out. It's like helping develop motor skills in a more fun way. They just run around and climb on stuff. How is your day or recent week or recent life as you guys? Really funny today. James met Santa today. He did this last year, but he did not remember. And he was kind of scared of Santa last year, which is pretty common for little kids. He was two years old this year, and we took him to meet Santa, and we were like standing outside of Santa's area, and it's like a hole. There's Christmas trees all around, and it's decorated. We're standing outside, and he's all, Santa, ho, ho, ho, Christmas tree, Christmas tree. He would not shut up. He's in a stage right now where he's super chatty. It's adorable. And then it was like our turn. And we go through the line and we walk in and like he stands at the entry and we're like, it's Santa, James. Go meet Santa. And he does that kid thing where he's like. Like two inches at a time. Wouldn't say a damn word. Walked up to the guy. He was a great Santa. The guy who was doing it. I mean, Santa was great. And he's like chatting him and asking him questions. He had his zebra with him because he wouldn't put the zebra down today. He's like, oh, you have a zebra. I love zebras. maybe you could help me take care of my reindeer oh and james was just like and then it's time for the picture and we were like go hug santa and he like did that thing where he didn't move his body but he leaned in slightly closer to imply that he was like hug it was really cute the picture turned out pretty cute but he was he's just gets it's he's you've met you both have met him he's not particularly shy in general but what he meets like people in costumes or strangers he doesn't know who are you know but he knows from TV or whatever. It's a weird reaction. I can't tell if it's abject horror or he's just like, it's the celebrity I love from television. He's here. Oh, but it was very cute. And we have pictures. So we're sending everybody pictures. Like a Christmas story. Whenever Santa like kicks the kid down the slide. Shoot your eye out, kid. Has he seen that movie yet? Nah, he has no reason to fear Santa from the media we've showed him. We did accidentally show him some of the Santa Claus. so maybe he thinks Santa is Tim Allen and he doesn't like him it's an entirely reasonable response you walk into the North Pole and you're like I mean oh wait oh and then he brought you cookies Wade he did yeah I was gonna say James delivered cookies to me today he was really sweet he was like greeting me he and Ren came by and I forget uh what old words he said but he said hello and he said bye-bye he handed me the cookies and I was like thank you and she's like say you're welcome he's like welcome and i was like oh thanks and then he put his hands out like all right i'll give them back i was like oh uh it's awkward because i'm not gonna they're also very good cookies but no it was sweet seeing him i've been building stuff i built a i built a wardrobe a hardwood wardrobe i didn't cut the pieces it was it came through but i screwed it together god damn it uh but also i built a thing it's like a little tool organizer shelf thing that you're supposed to hang on the wall in the garage and like you put your drills in it and charging i included james in it james our almost two-year-old uh baby and he loved it because mainly it was just screwing things together which he could help with pretty easily and he liked he would put his hand on the drill and then i would and he'd be all ha because he thought that was the coolest thing ever he put his hand on the drill like on the back like on the safe part okay just like i held the drill and he like put his hand on it and then i pulled the trigger and it vibrated and he thought it was cool. But we got like 90% of the way done. And it turns out a shelf is just a baby sized couch. And he like literally the whole time he had been sitting on parts of it and standing on it. But then we got like 90% done. And it's just a little him sized like wooden bench thing. And he just sat in it and was like, Oh, you built me a chair. Thanks, dad. So now we have a work pro branded tool chair holder baby set up in our living room that I don't know if I'm ever going to get back. It was very fun. James is coming to a big dad era, which is fun because I feel like he was kind of all about mom for a long time. But now we're doing stuff. We're building things. Well, the toys they have for kids that are, you know, workshop based, they have that cardboard router table where you push the cardboard through. Oh, those are cool. We're getting one of those so bad once he's old enough. Those look awesome. Yeah. Dude, me too at the sleep deprived. Yeah. Why you? James is going through a growth spurt and is having growing pains. And so instead of sleeping, he just cried all night. I also feel sleep deprived. What important thing are you doing? We have dogs that have decided that their schedules are no longer to sleep at night. Their job is to go to sleep and nighttime. They're like, all right, Paul, we'll take a nap for like an hour. And then it's time to party. You know what it sounds like is you actually have a couple of outside dogs. Oh, you know. I really not that much. I'm still sick. I made James's life. I, we, I had to clean the hot tub and it got really hot. And so I was like, I emptied it, but then I didn't clean it. Then I filled it back up and James loves it. So now we don't have a hot tub. We have the world's smallest pool. His kids aren't supposed to go in hot tubs. It's not good for them because they're tiny. So we just keep it at like 90 degrees or whatever. Some like warm pool temperature. It's the fucking, It's the best thing he's ever experienced. Kid loves just going under the water, falling down, scaring his parents, thinking he's going to drown, coming back up, laughing about it, you know, kid stuff. You made James alive. That is true. That's true in at least two ways. You'd think that would be worth two points, but it's not. James is counting now. He could count the numbers one, two, and five, but he does them correctly. If you count 1 2 3 4 5 he be all 1 2 5 So he knows Wow he really does He just working on getting the other ones in there in the mouth situation Can't quite do a three and a four. Those are tough. It's getting closer, though. Three, I could see being tough. Four seems like it'd be the same as five to me. Listen, you wouldn't understand how toddlers work. Well, actually, of the three of us, he might understand the most how toddlers actually function. think. It's true. That's true. Four, five, four, ooh, ooh. Ours are hard, too. One, two, three, four, four, five, one, two, three, four, five. It's a really hard number. Are we unteaching Wade how to say numbers now? Is this what they call unschooling? Fui. Fui. One, two, fui, five. I enjoy that. Give yourself some points. Look, I got a new ring. Wow. James gave it to me for Father's Day. this is my father how the hell is he shopping that's crazy he's very sophisticated he's like he's like four years old mentally even though he's only eight months old physically that's pretty impressive it's made from a whiskey barrel it's very cool whoa that's a small barrel edit it so i turn invisible when i do this oh where did i go whoa now you can see oh he's back man you can only get this great content on spotify oh uh yeah so sometimes when i'm playing with james i'll pretend to throw something and then actually i didn't throw it and he hasn't figured out yet that i do that and so i'll just mess with him and be like oh let's throw the ball to you whoop and then he freaks out for a second because he's like what the fuck and i'm pretty sure I've convinced him I'm some kind of wizard. I do that with the dog sometimes. So I'm going to see how long I can keep that going. Lexi's worked that out. Lexi is no longer fooled by that one. I've done it too many times, but James is still figuring it out. So that's pretty conniving, right? That's very conniving. Yeah. You know, I just don't need anyone knowing that I poop. I just don't need people knowing that. I got a book I think you should read, Mark. It's going to really change your life. Crazy Caterpillar? It's called Everybody Poops. Oh. and james is reading it a lot right now just check it out i've seen that book that book is fucking disgusting i've ever seen potty training potty training in general like i don't know what i thought it was going to be but it's it's more concerning than i expected like one method of potty training is your baby doesn't wear pants now your baby is just full winnie the pooh and if and when they start peeing or pooping while you're just doing like everyday life like you're in the living room and they just start going you just pick them up and run to the bathroom and be like in the toilet in the toilet in the toilet that's so terrifying it's a technique that i'm not gonna do and then like james is interested in the toilet now and the other day i was like oh dad needs to go to the bathroom hang on and mandy was like oh maybe james wants to see how the bathroom works and i I was like, oh, I wouldn't want to see that. That doesn't sound good. And I thought about it, and I was like, no, that's actually what I'm supposed to do, isn't it? I'm supposed to bring my son into the toilet so we can talk about how toilets work. And I can, it's, I don't like, it's concerning. It's good that he'll be able to use a toilet at the end of it, but all the rest of the in-between parts, I never thought all the way through how that works, and I don't care for it. Make it less concerning. Get one of those things they use to bypass drug test, the Wizinator. and you can use that to demonstrate interesting that sounds worth it probably uh so i've been uh i got a thing off of facebook marketplace as per how it usually goes it's either a drug deal in a parking lot or someone leaves on their porch and you tuck the 20 under the the mat right it was one of those this was one of those they were like it was a it was a thing for james it was a little toy thing he was getting really into hot wheels it was not a valuable thing and this lady was like i'll just leave it on the front porch i'm really busy today and i was like that's totally fine i'll just swing by and get it sometime this morning i'm also busy that was the agreement and i was just gonna stick 20 bucks under the mat and i got to the house the address that she sent me and i saw the thing sitting on the front porch but it was at the house which was down a very long driveway which was filled with several children riding their bikes up and down the driveway so i pulled up and i was like i don't really want to carry this i don't want to walk up the whole drive i'll see if i can pull so i sort of like pulled up toward the driveway and was like soft waiting to see if the kids would get out of the way and they looked at me and were kind of like and they went up towards the garage of the house like they were going to run away and i pulled very menacingly and slowly up the driveway the whole time the kids were increasingly concerned like wait he's actually coming oh god what did mom say about strangers wait a second hang on there's something we're supposed to do here and and and i literally like i got up there i parked and i got out of the car with like my hands up like an officer was was detaining me and i was like no it's okay i'm buying the thing from your mom kids the thing on the porch did she tell you did she and they were like oh yeah she totally said a guy in a car was gonna be here this morning to pick up the that's cool you're cool dude you're cool but that wasn't it was not cool they were clearly freaked out and they like ran away inside and i just went up to the porch and was like took the thing ran away all sketchy like it was really awkward i don't know if i've ever done a facebook marketplace deal that didn't end in some level of awkwardness but that one felt bad because it was kids didn't see the adult didn't get close to the kids barely said a couple sentences to them but they were definitely freaked all the way out and i still feel kind of bad about it i was hoping they all would come up mace you or something but james loves that toy that's his new favorite toy so worth it you do what you gotta do yeah yeah that makes sense all right yeah scares children but hey if it's for your own child scare all the children in the world yeah i scare all the other children moving god i fucking hate moving um you're moving yeah i don't know if you could see remember how all these shelves used to have shit all over them uh this i can only hope will be the last time i ever move for the rest of my life damn we'll see if that holds up because i'm pretty sure i said something like that when we moved to this place but uh we are moving the movers will be here in less than 48 hours um i will say this area like my desk is covered in all the same i haven't packed at all this is the least packed part of the entire house all the rest of our house is in like boxes and shit but we have been hardcore pretty much most of the day every day since saturday and today is tuesday moving packing carrying heavy shit up and downstairs i fell on the stairs one time totally fine survived but the movers actually show up and then will be moved over honestly as much as i despise moving this is lame because i always do this and circle it back to being a dad now that I'm a dad. But the most concerning part of all this for me is I'm curious how James is going to handle it, right? We've already moved once, but he was like a baby when we moved. We moved from California back to Ohio to be closer to our parents when he was like 10 months old, which was tricky because 10 months olds are tricky. But this is different now, right? He's old enough now where like his room is his room. He knows that that's his bed. That's his bookshelf. this is his we're like packing up his belongings and they're disappearing and he's kind of like hey didn't that bookshelf we're not full of books where all my books go and it's like he's being really cool so far but i'm curious the first night like we're gonna sleep in this house tomorrow night and then the next night we're gonna sleep in the other house and his bed is gonna be in a new room and it's gonna be smell different and i just don't know how it's gonna go he might be totally fine he's really chilly likes traveling he loves staying in hotels and stuff we've done that a couple times but i'm worried that it's going to be hard on him because he is so young it's hard to express how he's feeling or understand exactly how he's feeling and moving is weird and moving is difficult so it sucks and i hate packing but the main thing on my mind is james because i'm really curious and just want to make sure he does okay because it's a big change for a little kid who doesn't necessarily understand why all his shit is all moved around and not where it's supposed to be anymore but it'll be over soon said forgetting about the three months of unpacking that always follows a move from house to house are you like in a uh safe house or are you hiding from the government or is it actually vacation it's vacation this is this is a big family vacation it's like we're near the beach and james saw the ocean for the first time a couple days ago and he loves it he has no fear whatsoever we were literally like he might not like it it's big and scary and we walked him out onto the beach and we're like look it was the ocean and for half a second he was kind of like what the fuck's wrong with that pool and then he was like i'm going in and ran into the ocean at full speed and he does not know what fear means that's terrifying he wants to go swim with the sharks meet aquaman and all that stuff fun family memories terrifying but fun i want mark to babysit him at the beach now with mark's love of the ocean and james fear of the ocean i think those two combined this is a winning combination don't worry about a thing bob go to sleep you're in slumber james james gets into the three inch deep edge of the ocean and mark is like he's gone i'll call bob no everything's good james is real funny these days he started music classes this week having a good time with that what what is he doing in music class like they give him drumsticks or something or yeah it's a toddler music class so it's like uh triangle hit the triangle uh shakers i think he had a banana that he was shaking hitting hitting and scraping and shaking is the gist of it and like play like they did the big parachute where you everyone sits in a circle around the parachute i think that's fun that sort of stuff uh but fun stuff i'm sure listeners can tell i i sound a little sick because i am i'm going to talk about the baby so anyone who hates that sorry in the last week we have had possibly the worst night with james and also three of the best nights of sleep with him like since he was born so it's been a really weird mix of stuff he's teething right now and he has like three molars coming in all at the same time which is incredibly painful and so there was one night he could not exist without just screaming because it was like agony like constant agony didn't sleep the whole night it was just him it was trying to do anything to keep him from just screaming in pain but then three other nights around that he has slept for like eight straight hours without waking up or anything which is not he usually wakes up at least a couple times and he slept like he was a rock and it's been weird because those have been fantastic nights but also i've been sick so that didn't help me sleep very much but then the one night where he literally just didn't sleep was just absolute chaos and ruined the next week of everything because his schedule was all off he was crazy we didn't sleep um so anyway we're in a we're in a wild time with the baby right now but it's cute he's starting to talk he knows what sound a horse makes oh if you if you if you look at him you go james what sound does a horse make he goes nay it's amazing it's very cute oh that's cute wait when did he when did he say his first words well he's been saying like mama and dad f nine or ten months he started really saying stuff but in in before the new year he was talking and saying some stuff but like he's His speech is about to explode. He's going to start saying all kinds of stuff. A win goes in Mark's column of wins, but he doesn't win the episode. We spin again. There's a lot of different things on this wheel. Yeah, there's quite a few. James wins! James gets a win in his column. All right, that's pretty good. But it takes a village to raise a baby, so each of the three of us loses a win that we sacrifice to give James a win. I feel like he's basically a part of me, so I get his win, probably. I know, you should lose more than one, but I was trying to be fair. It's like a celebrity, he's like my celebrity child, right? I hold his win until he's old enough to use it responsibly. Yeah, but it's like in the bank gaining interest, so you can't really do anything with it. Yeah, in my bank gaining my interest. You can feel about it how you will, but it's James' win and we all three lose a win for him to get one. There's a supermoon yesterday and apparently tonight as well, and I'm like a very... very slight eclipse of it as well. Oh, man. James is saying three-word sentences now. Whoa. It's kind of one three-word sentence, but I'm not trying to undercut his achievements. But we were going to bed two nights ago. We were going to bed, and I was laying next to him, trying to settle in. And he just looks at me, and he goes, I see daddy. And I was like, what? And apparently no one has been teaching him this. I think he does watch Miss Rachel on YouTube, which is like a very popular kids YouTube thing. I think she does that. But like none of us people and his real people in his real life were teaching him that. He just started doing it. And then now he's like, I see doggy. I see moon. He really liked the moon last night. So like out of nowhere, that's pretty fun. I'm glad he's listening to real people, not like Miss Rachel. Points are at stake. James takes man poops. James is my baby. He takes man poops. like steals them or has big poops some of his poops smell like baby poops which which is not not one singular smell but there's like a it's like a vibe that baby poops give off like puppy breath some of his poops smell like a full-grown man took a dump into a baby's diaper it's horrific have you ever pranked him and taken a poop in his diaper and then tried to frame him for it once but i got caught i want to go on the record and say i've never stolen any poop in my life There's no poop stealing. There's poop giving. The sneaky giving away of poop, Mark. No, never done that either. It's like whenever you're stealthing in Skyrim or something and you try to place a poop on someone's person to frame them as the pooper. Like when they're sitting on the toilet? When is this occurring? You stealth up behind them and then you equip poop in your left hand and then you clap your left hand on their back so you smear the poop and kill them. Like the Jarl's giving his big speech about the dragons and you're like, poopy. The trick is you put a bucket on their head first and then you can cover them in all the poop. You I don't want to talk about that. James is talking a lot. He's good. Honestly, he's been sleeping pretty good this week and stuff. So, like, I think the biggest thing is he's getting stronger. Oh, he's getting stronger, but he's not getting better about understanding what violence is. So it's not really his fault. It was this is not even that recently. Just Wade's suffering reminded me of this. I guess we took him to an event and he got like a he got like a toy at this event. Basically, it was a dump truck toy and he loves dump trucks. We made the mistake of he got that right at the start. Like we got there, went to the first area. He got that immediately. He did not have any interest in doing any of the rest of this whole event we were at, where you could like sit in a helicopter and look at it was like trucks and things. It was very cool. It's like emergency vehicles, a fire truck. He had his little dump truck toy and we were like, look, buddy, let's get in line. You can sit in a tractor and you can and you can sit in this medevac helicopter and look at all this stuff. I was I was holding him and I was like, I'm going to take this toy and we're going to go get a picture of you sitting on a tractor. And I took that. I grabbed the toy and I pulled it and he was kind of like, yeah, well, and I was like, no, well, I'll give it back. Like I took I took the thing. I got it away from him. And he full body full length of his arm wheeled back and like right on like my cheekbone perfectly solid contact he smacked the shit out of me and even i was there uh with uh mandy and uh rin uh friend rin like even they he did that and they were like whoa are you okay like yeah that was a real man smack he's very strong and he kicks and smacks way above his weight class damn that's not exactly uh surgery but did he laugh afterwards did he like he was very unhappy he did that and was like kill you i know where you sleep he takes like a bottle off the table breaks it like holds it at you i can climb stairs now yeah no i he's uh it's wild he's talking more though now uh he learned in the last couple days he's learned how to fake sneeze so now out of nowhere he'll just be all it's really cute he's like what a year and a half now is that right uh 17 months. That's basically like a year and a half. This is not even the bad, isn't it? Like when they turn two, doesn't something terrible happen? He's getting into the terrible twos type stuff. It's more like terrible toddlers because they are learning how to regulate their emotions and they're able to do more stuff physically, but they're not aware of what they're doing. So yeah, this is like he's getting into the terrible, quote, terrible twos behaviors. Can't wait till he's a terrific teen. He's going to be just the best. No more problems. Going to be smooth sailing once he gets past two. tell you what nice excellent anyway i'm gonna finish james's table someday it's a six month project really and i'm only two months in so okay yep i got a lot of time he'll be like in college his third year of college like james i've been working on this your whole life it's finally ready it's like a fisher price size like table i'm gonna have to cut some parts out if i want to get it done by then but i think i can make it happen cool chainsaws and bears no i don't have a chainsaw. I'm going to keep bringing that up. Sorry. I'm trying to think if there's something that happened to me, but mainly the thing is James sleeps by himself this week. I don't know if it's going to last, but oh my god, we're making progress on the sleep training, and it's a miracle. He's so big now. He's so human and runs around and stuff. Whenever you guys came over to watch the football game, it was wild. No, he's a menace. He's smart enough now to really cause problems and really do some dangerous shit. And he loves it. He's good, though. His speech has developed. He's doing three-word sentences now. He's working on more. He was sweet. It was really awesome having him and Milo over. It's wild seeing the progressions of Baby. Yeah, Milo compared to James was a crazy, crazy reminder of how far he's come. For anyone who doesn't know, Milo is Patrick Static's child and is six months younger than James, I think. Not that far apart, but also basically two entirely different creatures because the development in that time is crazy. The first few years, six months is a long time. That's true. It's still like over a quarter of his life. And it's a third of Milo's life, I guess. So that's a lot. I was like, man, oh, man, I don't know how y'all can keep up because he's fast, too. Yeah, he's very fast. You know when he's real fast? When he sees the ocean. I think I talked about this, but man, is he fast when he decides he's going into the ocean. James is kind of walking now. Not on his own, but he has a little thing that he pushes that he holds on to. he can walk around with that. Is he already that age where he's supposed to be walking around? He's a little bit ahead of the game on that one, but yeah, he's in that area. He's nine months. Around a year is when I think my understanding is a lot of babies will start to stand up, lean on the couch and scoot around, or have a little walkie thing and walk around. So yeah, he's getting there. That feels like in my brain one of the most dangerous times for children is when they first start to walk and they're like stumbling around everywhere. It's very dangerous. he's already taken a couple pretty good spills but uh he'll learn from the pain we all do but he will he'll eventually learn from that we'll get there james walks now uh i think i've mentioned before i was like who is that it's your baby i know i've met we have a baby his name is james you definitely met him a few times uh he walks now he doesn't walk more than four or five steps in time but counts as walking and it's terrifying he also climbed up the stairs He did not walk up the stairs, but he climbed up the stairs with a person behind him, making sure he didn't fall and die. But he did it by himself for the first time. Everything's in peril, and all the childproofing we've done is pointless. This is, I don't know if I talked about this on the show previously, but James, splash tables, I think is what they're, I don't know. It's like a little table, you fill it up with water, and he plays in it, right? It's just like, you play with toys in it, whatever. It's a really good summer toy because it's not just running a sprinkler. It's like a set amount of water so you don't just blast water every which away. And last summer he got one of those, and I looked at it, and I was like, you know what would be really sick? There's like a top and a bottom, and if you pour water in the top, it rains, and it's really fun. But you have to physically take a bucket and pour it. And I was like, what if I buy, what if I get like an aquarium pump, and I'll feed a hose up to the top and I'll set the pump in the bottom and it'll cycle the water. So it's always right. And I did all this research and I bought one thing off the internet and it didn't work and I bought another thing off the internet and it didn't work for other reasons. And it was all that like literally my setup would be like, I have an external battery pack with like a USB cord running to the pump into water. It's all just the sketchiest shit. And I was like, I spent a lot of time trying to homebrew this thing. Never quite worked right. Eventually, I just gave up and whatever. On the internet yesterday, I was presented with an ad for exactly that product made in the simplest, most concise way possible. It's just a thing. You drill one hole. And I looked and I was like, this costs less than one of my multiple attempts at doing it myself did. Son of a bitch. But anyway, I bought one, so James is going to have the dopest water table to play on this summer, and I'm pretty excited about it. That's cool. Well, also, I'm an idiot, and I can't ever... I always am like, I'll just do it. I'll make it myself. I'll homebrew it. No, I should probably just buy it. Whatever I'm going to make, it's either not going to work, or it's going to be so fucking terrible that I just wish I would have bought it. Wouldn't want to put your child in the way of that. Like, it works, but the whole water table's electrified somehow, even though, like, I don't know. Maybe I should just let a company hold on to that liability for me. You know what power makes me think of? And the thing that I'm obsessed about right now, power wheels. This is the little racing cars. It's yeah. It's like the cars that like little kids can sit in. Oh, the drivable ones. I was thinking of hot wheels, right? Yeah, not hot wheels, power wheels. It's like the little, it's like a little Jeep or something that little kids can sit in and drive around the yard. I was never allowed to have power wheels as a kid. And I don't want to spoil James, but man, do I want him to be old enough to have a power wheels? I mean, this part, the TikTok update, there were people on the subreddit saying they missed TikTok updates. TikTok update, kind of. I'm in this part of TikTok where there's all these dads who are customizing their power wheels for their kids. Because most power wheels are six volt based on six volt battery systems. But if you put a 12 volt battery in there, you double the power. You might fry the engine or the electric motor, but it goes twice as fast-ish. It goes faster. And you can do, and there are guys who, like, add a trailer so their kids can, like, tow, you know, a little fake motorcycle or tow, like, yard waste or all this stuff. There was one where I saw a guy put, like, a backhoe-type thing on the front so you could, like, rake leaves but use your power wheels. All kinds of stuff. I'm giving you a point for child labor. Yeah. Have I told you guys about the fart story with James? Where he farted in a movie theater in Oppenheimer and everyone laughed? I wish he did. He probably would think of that. He's very funny. So we have this place we drive frequently where there's rumble strips on the road, which is that thing where you're driving and you drive over it and it goes. We drive over there all the time. And we were driving there with James in the back seat. And we went over the rumble strips and out of nowhere, and he's never said it before, at least to me, really. out of nowhere he just goes huh farts because the rumble strip sounds like farts uh anyway he's hilarious he's gonna be the funniest kid i know well not as funny as me but like he'll be second you're not a kid so you're kind of in a different class all right you're not the funniest adult i know either but don't be offended i know a lot of adults you could say that it's just not true james is hilarious also he calls the movie sing dance animals and that's his current favorite move pretty accurate is he like getting old enough now where he's branching out of a lot of like the baby-esque shows like the blueys and stuff or he still enjoys bluey he still enjoy it the thing right now is animals everyone is constantly surprised it's because we're like oh he loves animals he loves animals and people are like oh you like a horsies you like like no he knows what a yak is he knows what a flamingo is he can't quite say it but he knows what a hyena is he knows probably a few dozen animals in total and all day every day is i want animals i want animals and it means a lot of different things because it could mean he wants to watch a video of animals could mean he wants to stuff to animals but he's an interesting place very smart he likes to enact animals eating each other he'll get like a bear and a giraffe and then the bear will be chasing the giraffe trying to bite it and it will succeed at some point and he's literally just running around like oh no oh no oh no or he'll stage like accidents he has like trains and stuff he'll put an animal in front of the train on the track and then just slowly like oh no oh shit he it's uh that's probably good right i mean i guess it's better than taking like barbie dolls or like army dudes and being like oh no at least they're animals yeah they don't have souls james has learned that he could scream real loud so that's fun i've never been made dizzy by a scream before uh but that can happen now last night we were getting ready for bed and he was like it was he gets two books and then we go to bed and it's like oh we have a whole routine and we got to the i think to the end of the second book and like close the book and mandy was like okay put the book on the shelf and we're gonna do this and he just was like no no more stories and we're like no man it's bedtime this is we do this every night this is the routine and he did that sort of like shake of rage and then proceeded to scream louder than anything has ever been in human existence and i actually like it made my head vibrate and when he stopped screaming i was kind of like, ah, ah, ah. So I never had that before, but I'm sure that he'll only do that the one time, and that's not going to be all day every day for the next three weeks of my life. How do you stop that? Wait, bad advice. What you do is you give him a megaphone so he can be even louder to the point where he makes himself paralyzed from the noise. You're right, you're right. There we go. Yep. You give him headphones and a microphone and make him scream into his own ears. You know how Homelander went up to that one superhero and went thwing on the sides of the head? and then made him deaf, now that he'd scream louder. And this is horrible advice. Put him in a bit of a stupor, stupor hero. I see what you did there. Yeah, I should definitely do whatever Homelander does. He's a good guy, right? He's a father. I haven't watched the show. I haven't watched the show. He's like the Superman character in that universe, right? He's a good guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He is America. Yeah, okay. He is America. Yeah, and he's a father. He's raising a child. I think his first act as a father was to throw his son off of, like, a roof or something, wasn't it? Spoilers? yeah kids are dead now james has entered a new era which i have not named yet but i'm gonna just say that it's very destructive and it's mainly of his own self he's entering a mark era really let's call it that okay all right i sort of hoped eventually he'd gain like a fear of getting hurt because he's not afraid of anything he'll just like climb up on the back of the couch and you know like he could fall and break his neck and all he just does stuff like that and he has started falling off of things now he started falling down he fell off the back steps on the patio because he just wasn't looking and ran off the steps you keep he keeps doing that but he doesn't act like he gets hurt like he falls he the other he fell onto his face he missed this last step fell onto his face off the back deck onto a concrete patio and we were like oh oh and he just stood up and was like i thought kids cried a lot he does cry when he gets when he like hurts himself sometimes but when he really eats it nothing he doesn't get scared he doesn't he's just like oh that was cool and then just continues it's like he's just gonna keep doing crazier and crazier shit he's not learning to be afraid for his safety at all like the next evil knievel i don't know it seems bad but also he's like he's fine like he's getting scraped up but otherwise man he's fine i'm gonna trust him it's two and a half now pretty trustworthy guy It feels like a cop-out, I guess, but I'm excited for more James. I feel like, I mean, we have fun. He's been fun. It's not like he's been unfun up to this point, but it's been tough. We moved from California back to Ohio, and then we just moved again, and he's handled it like a trooper, but it just throws off all your routines, and it makes it really hard to really get in and do all the fun stuff because there's no time for shit. It's like it gets to be evening time and we're like, okay, buddy, let's do something fun. You want to bring boxes back and forth between houses? You can hold the door open. You want to be a little helper? Be a little doorstop? Hey, he likes it. But I'm excited for another year, like a new year where he's going to be older. He's talking a ton. And we're going to start doing stuff, I think, together this year that's a little more complicated and fun and i'm i'm also i think personally i'm excited to put more tools on things i gotta do a good stretch there when i had the subaru where i was like working on the car and i was doing stuff with my hands and that was really fun and then i got rid of the subaru and i lost that completely i want to get back to like i'm excited to work on stuff and one of the things on this new house that was such a big selling point for me is i have a huge garage and i have like a work a dedicated like workshop area it's just a little side part in the garage but i have like a workbench and a toolbox and i can like have projects where i don't have to pull the cars out of the garage to work on them and then clean it back up and pull the cars back into the garage every time i'm it's like i have an area i can just have a little project if i have a glue up it can just sit somewhere and dry and clamps and i don't have to like i'm excited and james is getting the age where he's going to be able to help me do that maybe we'll build a birdhouse or you know who knows what but like That's awesome. That sort of stuff. Hey, baby. Hey, guys. I have a baby. Oh, wow. Is this his first appearance on the podcast? I think it is. It might be. How are you doing, mister? Who's supposed to be taking a nap? Who's not right now? Well, this is interesting. I'm assuming this means he's being a problem. Dad's not busy. Sit him in there. Lock the door. How could it possibly be a problem? No, no. Whoa, hey Now we're here And we're still in the same episode Watch new episodes On Spotify