17. Parenting, Partnership & Embracing the Mess with Guests Sascha & Jonathan Schlossberg

In this episode of Caffeinated Chaos, we’re diving into the beautifully chaotic reality of parenting, relationships, and business. From the magic of noise-canceling kitty headphones to the never-ending debate about vacations without kids, we’re talking about the real side of family life—far from those picture-perfect Instagram feeds.

Joining me today are Sascha and Jonathan Schlossberg—TV and film actors, 2-Comma Club-winning marketers, and homeschooling parents of four (soon to be five!) kids under nine. These two are absolute powerhouses when it comes to blending marketing, mindset, manifestation, and mysticism to help their clients expand their lives and businesses in alignment with their values. In their spare time (yes, somehow they have some), they shoot family commercials, tackle arts and crafts projects, and Jonathan is training for his next half-marathon while Sascha is pregnant with their fifth (and last!) baby.

We unpack the challenges of balancing work, mental health, and ever-evolving family dynamics. We also share parenting hacks, AirTag tricks, and the raw truth about what it really takes to juggle business, kids, and everything in between.

Key Topics Covered: 
✅ Setting boundaries with extended family around childcare
✅ The ongoing debate: Kid-free vacations vs. full-family adventures
✅ Parenting neurodivergent, highly intelligent kids & adapting expectations
✅ AirTag hacks for keeping track of little wanderers
✅ Reverse psychology, gamifying chores, and other clever parenting tricks
✅ The reality of balancing work, business, and family without losing your mind

Resources & Links:

🔗 Connect with Sascha and Jonathan Schlossberg: 

Social Media Handles: 

• https://instagram.com/saschadoesthings 
• https://facebook.com/thesascha 
• https://instagram.com/jonathandoesthings 
• https://facebook.com/jonathanaschlossberg 
• https://group.whatsguud.co 
• Website or Business Info: https://whatsguud.co 

Cheers! Thank you for joining us for another episode. Have a chaotic moment, question, or topic you want us to cover? Drop us a message or leave a review! If you loved this episode, share it with a friend who thrives in beautiful chaos too.

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Transcript

1:10

Welcome back to Caffeinated Chaos. Today we are joined by Jonathan and Sasha. They are TV and film actors, two comic club winning marketers, and homeschooling parents to four kids under nine. With one on the way. They coach clients to expand their life and business in alignment with their values by blending marketing, mindset, manifestation, and mysticism. In their spare time, they do family commercials, arts and crafts projects, and Jonathan is training for his next half marathon, while Sasha, like I said, is pregnant with their fifth And they say they're last baby, so let's welcome them to the show. Thanks for joining us. We have Jonathan and Sasha. Say hi to everyone. Oh, hey, we're here. So how's your day going so far? Let's start with that. It has been, uh, it has been a bit of a day. It sounds like it's a really good thing that the podcast is caffeinated chaos and not like picture perfect tidy home. Oh yes, it is chaos. We woke up to chaos because the chaos didn't get taken care of last night. Yeah. One of those days. And navigating, uh, food schedule, ordering groceries, auditions, uh, kids doing school work. Literally all of it. But so today was one of those days when he's like, we forgot to get on top of the day. And I was like, we're just going to take the day hour by hour. She didn't say it so nicely. It's really big. He was like, I was like, hang on. If you're going to be in Tasmanian devil mode. We're going to take the day hour by hour and the house is not going to get tidy today. We're going to put that off till tomorrow. Which we did that yesterday too. So, you know. That's the real life of how it is right now. Yeah, and you guys have like double the amount of kids that I do. So. And we just know a little kind of yeah, we have four kids with one on the way and doing March so like four and a half, but we also like this time of year is insanity for us because all four of our kids apart, but all of their birthdays are between the second and the 13th so we Just wrapped up the first half on the second and the third and now we're prepping for the tenth and the thirteenth So it's like and there's been times when we have like housekeepers and we're in a big house But we just moved back to LA. So we're in an Airbnb. So it's like just us I mean we have occasional child care, but it's Us doing all the things all the time. We are living at the caffeinated chaos life You guys are like my perfect mascots, you know, so it's like, it's like so perfect that you guys are here and that you're one of the first couple, you know, interviews we get to talk to. Um, and what I love. about these interviews, um, is that, you know, I have, people have interviews where they're like, Oh, here's some business tips. And here's like some parent hacks and all that. I'm like, now tell me like the real stuff, you know, and you like, it's only been like two seconds. And y'all are like, there's this going on in the background, like the house. Our youngest will come barging in, there'll be a scream and a holler. Cause like, My son will annoy my daughter. Like, I mean, it's just gonna happen. Yeah. Yeah, it's that whole, like, Lilo and Stitch, you're touching me, you know, scene. And you're like, no one's touching anyone! Exactly, exactly. Separate yourselves by three feet, and then we won't even, it won't even be a consideration. It's like one of those times where it's like, you wish you had, like, the Like the UFC or the boxing like bell. It's like, all right, ding, ding, go to your corners, you know, way back recording. Oh, you were saying the bell. I literally met like the octagon where you just throw them in. You know, two men enter one man. I'm thinking the replay camera so I can be like, look, see, nobody touched you. That's Oh, yeah, we have ring cameras everywhere. The kids, but we just happen to have them. And so like, yeah. It's literally the threat of do you want me to go back and replay what went on on Ring? Who did this? Kind of thing. We don't even actually have the recording feature enabled. It's just the threat of them being caught for what they did will get them to then finally, uh, spill. Yeah, they don't know. Yeah. Bizarre parenting things because people are like, Well, you shouldn't do Elf on a Shelf because it teaches your kids that something's always watching. And then here we are with, like, cameras. Go figure. I mean, they are. I mean, that is like the complete opposite. Well, okay, before I tell you this part, first off, let me just say, I like how we said one analogy and all three of our brains went in different directions. I was like separation and you're like, fight it out. You're like replay. And I'm like, okay, yeah, it can be any like parents can fall into any one of those categories. And you know, there's gonna be someone out there gonna be like, now let's just let the whole thing play like beginning to start. They're like out there with the number cards like around one. But we had a baby cam for the crib, but we moved it out into the living room because our toddler likes to play in the living room. You know, she'll play independently, but she'll be like, she'll be like calling us, Mom, Mom, you know, and I'm like trying to put the baby to sleep. So it made more sense to put the camera in the living room because you can talk through the camera. And so she'll just be like, Mom, and I'll go, What? I'm like, Holding down the button talking to her like a walkie talkie and she was like, hi Like just wave to the camera and then I was like, okay, do you need anything? No, you know, I was like All right. For us, too, is the baby monitor. And then as our bigger two got older, they're eight and ten, and they share a room, they ask to have a camera in there. It makes them feel, like, more comfortable, but then our younger two don't like the camera at all. So there's, so there's also that part is like, we will respect, like, who wants the camera and who doesn't and that kind of thing. But yeah, definitely, it's, we'll pop on and be like. Get out, close the fridge. Please get out of the fridge right now. Why, this morning it was like, Why are you drinking out of the apple cider jug? Excuse me. I have kids and two of us, like, we gotta. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's not even just divide and conquer, it's like, can we clone ourselves and conquer? Maybe just like an au pair, or some sort of like, Oh, child care is life, or hey, it's like, There's been times we call them house wizards, when we have somebody that's in like 20 hours a week doing all the laundry, all the tidying, and I say all of it, 18 hours a week with this many of us, we still, you could have double. You don't even get to make a dent. I would say we've been trying to get the older two to start doing chores regularly. The most. Anybody I talked to is really impressed. Oh, well, okay. Yeah, we can hear another family that like that are friends of ours that had the kids like scrubbing toilets. So, oh, so like they're like, well, we just realized, you know, it's like, it's always refinement. Like we have them one day, one person doing dishes and the others doing laundry. And then it switches every day. And we realized today. It was like, they're not keeping track of whose day is what, and they're not fully doing it. So now we have to go to like, it's yours for a week, and yours for a week. So they're like, focused on it, and it can switch on a Monday. Therefore, you're responsible now for the whole week, and we'll see how that goes. I definitely get working from home and like having your kids around, you guys are homeschooling your kids, isn't that right? So we have three of them in a homeschool curriculum where we try to knock it out as fast as possible throughout the week. But so we're doing during the day with the kids while she's maybe working or we're both kind of like tag teaming it to knock it out as quickly as possible. And it's, that's a constant refinement of how do we get through it? Where it works. Like we were doing last year, we had them in school for the year. Yeah. It's always. Or like we were doing it like a regular school program where it's like we're gonna hit language arts, and social studies, and math, and, history, or whatever, you know, science, each day, and try to blow through it, and then we decided, she came up with like, let's just do it college style, and let's like, let's knock out language arts and maybe some math today, but like, let's do the whole week of language arts in a day, and then the next day, cause it's maybe not as much, we can do history and science and knock that out in a day, and then like, Your whole week is done much quicker and you're sort of, instead of task switching. Yeah. Funny, because when you consider that as entrepreneurs, we know part of why we homeschool them is because the school system is so flawed, right? We would never have our own work day by doing like five different subjects in one day because it's so ineffective. But it still took us a little bit of time because we're homeschooling through a charter program this time. Again, a new experimentation. It took us a while to go, this does not work for us. So breaking it down by day and then living, leaving space for rabbit trails and life and independent exploration. That fits better with our values. So it was a matter of working like. within the confines of this other system and then making it work for us and then who knows next quarter what the next evolution of how it all works will be. That's so smart. When I think of homeschooling, I, you know, and school for littles, I think of the like six periods a day, you know, type of thing. And it makes way more sense to do it the college way, you know, where You go to one class Monday, Tuesday, or like Monday, Wednesday, whatever. Um, and I didn't even thought about it that way. Oh, much better. And the thing is, is it like with math? I know they're supposed to do math every day, or a little guy needs more, more help with spelling, but that's fine. You can, I actually, I don't think that they need math every day based on how our kids learn, but you go so much deeper and master something in a day. And then move on to the next thing or spend the rest of the week doing other sorts of things and like, Oh, remember when we talked about this on Monday, or when you watch a movie, you're like, Oh, do you remember how that related, rather than we were running out of space for that when we were trying to jump between like, Five subjects each day, it just wasn't Yeah, it felt like trying to fit things in a trash compactor. Like, trying to be like, Well, instead of going, okay, let's just take an hour and do all the math you need to do, and then you've mastered it, rather than like, learning a piece of it and coming back to tomorrow and have forgotten the first bit of it, and then having to redo it and relearn it, or Hey, remember what we talked about yesterday? About like the exploration of the Vikings and they're like, well, we only spent 15 minutes, but then we jumped to three other subjects. So like, I'm not even sure what's in my, you know, so it's those kinds of things that like, and that has me going, why does the school system do it that way? I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of broken systems out there. Yeah, that's true. That's true. There's a lot more broken systems than there are correct systems out there, unfortunately, but yeah, I mean, just having that kind of flexibility to, to allow your kids to, like, really dive into a subject. I mean, my kid, She gets, she does like numbers and she's learned her alphabet already, but we're slowly trying to get her to work on writing. She's gotten her name down, which I feel like is every kid's first thing that they learn how to write is like their name, you know? Because obviously if they get lost or whatever, you want them to know their name and then, and then you want them to know your names. But yeah. She, it's so funny, she actually likes math. She calls them number blocks because we do like counting and subtracting with numbers. And then there's an actual YouTube, like show called Number Blocks that she's like really into. And they sing and they dance and I'm like, well, all right. If they want to teach my kid math, that's all good because I was always like the writer or the psych major, but in high school I was a newspaper editor and so math was never my strong suit. I was glad that I only needed statistics but if somebody else wants to teach my kid math I am all for it. The thing is now there's so many different philosophies and ways to learn that like homeschooling. We actually started off our kids in an online program this year that we thought like go online it'll be great they love to be on a device this will teach them how to do it and we found like They all hated it. It was so hard, and they, and it wasn't hard because it was hard math, it was just. It was like the top traditional math, and ours are really good traditional, they like the worksheets. And so we've, they've blown through it, now that we've switched back to worksheets, they're mastering it so much faster. But some of it comes down to teacher philosophy. I find that homeschooled kids tend to be better at most things because you get, then like, they don't have the experience of being in school and being like, I'm not good at this subject. Because the homeschoolers have the flexibility to always find a way where they can learn. Nice. And, your oldest is how old? So like, what grade are you teaching? Just turned ten. Uh, she's four. She's in 4th. Uh, so we have 4th, 2nd, and Kindergarten. Yeah, so you guys are teaching elementary and, yeah, God, kudos to you. Like, taking care of everyone and then on top also being teachers. Insane. Like how I don't like to use the word balance. I like to use more of a flow, but like, how do you guys like flow that into business and like other aspects of your life too? because you do have kids in different grades and you're homeschooling them and you're pregnant. So, you know, I'm always considering like, how can I integrate everything better? One of the things that I've tell clients is is that your next breakthrough comes as a result of integrating something usually that you think like you're ashamed of or doesn't apply but I realized this morning that like I don't integrate enough of our family stuff because I was considering First off, I think that, you know, when you've had this many kids, mom content is old and boring, and it's so, so, so surface level, but what I've been realizing is so much of why our marriage works, or our family works, or any work works, is because of the underlying values, and they are all tied together, and so it's, you know, I'll talk about, like 80 20 rule, but I do that with our household too, like, okay, let's, let's try to avoid X. 80 percent of the time, you know, and so I look at I, we allow room for imperfection, but it's like, what are the values that make everything run? And then it's not as segmented and it allows for things to flow better together. But there's, there's always room for improvement in that. Like. One of the things that I've figured out is the more that we master ourselves, the more everything else can work versus trying to attack things like issue by issue, always things. She's the strategic planner. I'm, I'm the, let's attack things like a whacker. You sound just like my husband, like, She's like, no, no, no, we need a strategy to do all this, and this is the system we're gonna do. Why are you talking about this one thing? We got a blanket in it. Oh my god, we are the same my husband same same like if you come to my house and everything's chaotic but then there's a calendar on the wall and each one says like clean office this this then that But it's all my handwriting. Nothing. It's all me. I think the thing that's we, we had, I think more structured organization when it was less children. Cause there's, there's hands down less chaos and it's easier to manage. We have put system after system in place that like, as you dilute the parenting ability. Amongst so many children and so many things done I feel like you put something in place and then you do it for a little bit And then it's like something else comes up and like which is kind of like scaling in business because they say it's what is it? The rule of I forgot three is ten something that every every so often the system is going to break. So right That exact same thing on the household side, and it breaks pretty much every day. And then it's like, if you don't do this, you're not going Give them rewards. Be like, I'm not gonna cook dinner. I'm like, you're gonna cook dinner? What are we doing? Apparently we were talking yesterday about like the phrases that we say the most and apparently I say, let me be clear, All the time. Um, But it's, I mean, but it's also knowing that like, they're kids, and I don't accept this, but they're supposed to be this way. They're supposed to make the messes, and they're supposed to cause the chaos, because that is what being a kid is. I don't remember doing that. But I also think like, it was me and my sister. There weren't so many. There wasn't like a whole, like, gaggle of them running around, playing, and doing the stuff. Like, one or two people leave something out. Big deal. Four people leave something out every day. That's a mob. Like if you and I, and we're like, oh, we're going to move to the next thing, but not clean it up. This mess is like a little mess, but we go on and we're making another little mess over there. And we have These creative kids who like to cut up paper and use glue and make all these things and four of them do that and then move on to the next thing and do something else. Every mess. It's not like a four. It's like exponentially larger each and every time. So it's constantly trying to put things in place that's like make our lives easier. It's like I'll come home at night and she'll be like, the cleanup didn't happen. Just let it go. And I'll come home and I'll try to do a couple things. But it's also like, yeah, it's also so, so what we value creativity and we don't parent through fear, which means there's a lot of creative expression. So for example, I have a feeling we're going to need to repurchase one kid's birthday gift. Because everybody else is using it. No, because I think this is how our four year old was entertaining herself through the fairy potion. And so I also believe that there's a Dye mess on a bed. Oh. Oh no! She's told me. Oh no. So, just leave. I'm leaving. But I accidentally Accidentally? So that's like That's the sort of thing. Rylan's side. Is it bad? She says it's not bad, but it's kind of a dye. How big? Oh, I can see it on her fingers. Okay, so, so listeners can't see it, but her kid has green fingers right now. It came in with a little jar full of blue liquid and glitter, so I figured there was either a dye mess or a glitter mess. And then yesterday, there was a a makeup mess where we got to go into the bathroom and she was naked fully green head to toe Except she put herself in makeup in her underwear. So when she took her underwear off There was skivvy, like skivvy lines. The record though, cause there are, there are, I've seen stuff where people are like, if a kid makes a mess that big, they're not being tended to. So at this point, I was cooking lunch, and our dog was having a seizure. So he's holding the dog, and she's awesomely I presume she's off hanging out with the other kids doing something and that was, she was doing a creative adventure. So that's a sort of, but I have friends who they don't allow crayons in their house, right? They would never allow some of these things. So as we want them to be creative and innovative, we're going to get a different caliber of mess. And because we're not parenting through fear, they're not scared to death of what if they die a mess. Yeah, exactly. And so also, we buy our bed spreads from target. So it's not not at that point of like, we're going to invest heavily in these certain things, knowing that there is a 97. 6 percent chance that it will need to be replaced. Bringing that same philosophy into the business, like when it comes to our tech, it's going to be perfect. People will always message, be like, oh, hey, this link didn't work or, or whatever that is. But then when it's time for something that say, we're going to drive traffic to, or get more visibility, then that gets perfected, right? We're going to a birthday party. The kids all have, she was earlier asking where her dress is. It's hidden from her for now. We all have like a perfect outfit. They're going to have their hair done. We're going to get Christmas photos, but usually they're all wearing each other's clothing. Yep. With our tech, we're going to duplicate a funnel. Something's probably going to be broken. When it matters, we'll perfect it. I think we looked at it in the beginning of all of this of like it has to be perfect, it has to look good, if there's a, if there's a spelling mistake in an email or a link doesn't work. Oh gosh, how unprofessional do we look? Oh no. Yeah. At a certain point you're like, man I am just Keeping my, you know, I'm keeping my head above the water, barely, you know? Same, baby. But the other thing is like, in the case of, uh, interruptions from kids, before we decided that, to allow ourselves the humanity within our business, we had to keep the house It was awful, it was stressful, I had to be quiet, I had to do my sales calls, and then finally it was like You know, everybody quiet! Like, you know? You had someone say something to you, and you actually snapped back. Yeah, I mean, I was on a sales call with a guy and talking to him, and one of the little, one of the older two now, but came into the room, and I was talking, you know, and he was like, I was so unprofessional, and I was like, you know what? I value my family and they're important to me and if that's how you feel, we're just not a good fit. And so I'm going to just take the time to like end this call. Yeah. And I think this was before COVID. I think COVID changed a lot of things for people in terms of like the acceptance of the imperfection in the home and all of that. But prior to like, not to like go into a COVID talk, but like when, when that happened, we were already homeschooling and doing all of these things where It was just a seamless transition and we just sort of continued in our experimentation was putting them into school and seeing what it was and we were like, so do you want to go back or do you want and they all were like we want to homeschool again and they all gave valid reason they gave valid reasons to go to school, and then give valid reasons why they didn't want to go back to school and do that sort of stuff so it's been, it's been really interesting I think the challenge. Does come down to, um, them not being at school. If they were at school, there would be three or four of them at school, which would give more focused work time, if that's what you would call it, uninterrupted. Right. That would happen, so I think that can be the biggest challenge of finding the time to do things to being uninterrupted. I totally feel that like, so I was pregnant during COVID. And at the time I still was working in the mental health field and we were meeting clients. On zoom and they would, you know, as we went on, because Kobe was so long and the closure was so long, they literally saw me from like barely a belly to like full belly. And then like one day we were having like a online gathering with everybody and they're like, Oh, Whitney's back. It was like for me coming back and. I come back and I'm like, Oh, look guys, no belly. And they're all like, wait, where's the baby? And I just like come up like lying King status. And I was like, look at the baby. And so, but it was like really great. Cause like my boss at the time was really like understanding and was like, say home, you can run zoom from home. Like you don't, we used to go into the office and. Because me and her had our own offices, we could zoom from the office. But she's like, just stay home, just zoom from home if you want. If not, like, just be backup tech support, you know? So that was really great. And having, you know, that flexibility, but, I don't work in that field anymore. I've decided, like, after double digits being there, I was like, I'm gonna retire. So now. having this podcast and starting this podcast, at least to me, it's like opening up conversations for real change and like show people that like, okay, if your kid comes in, you know, it doesn't matter to me. That's like part of the chaos. And that's what we can talk about. And like having this where home and, you know, I think I, I go where like heart meets the hustle, you know, And being able to talk about these issues with flexibility in the home life and in your work, professional life. Because if my kid wasn't, like, wearing her, like, kitty cat gamer headphones and watching, Bluey on her phone, she'd be in here too, our household, the adults are gamers, and so we were going in to get headphones for, um, my housemate, and they had these like little, like, Pink headphones with little kitty cat ears and she wanted it. and the great thing about it is that they're also noise cancelling. So, she's listening to her stuff but then she also can't hear me talking to somebody. Cause otherwise she'd be super curious. And would be right in here. You know? I don't know. Yeah. As they continue to grow, they're, they're, they'll go and do the thing and then we have one that now has an interest in coming and seeing what's going on because they know something. I think one of the things that we do is it's like when you look online and you see these families and doing this stuff. There's this whole presence of it looks perfect, and then there's a few people It's not really perfect or they show it and we just kind of try to show like the reality of it as much as we Can to degree like, you know, if I took the camera around this room You know, it's good but it's like you there's a certain point of presentational and reality So we talk about the mess and we talk about the difficulty and the stress and we don't try to be that like, you know Family of ten where everything is great. You know what I mean? Yeah Unrelatable. Well, for some, for some people though, like their kids are all well behaved, but that's because their kids are scared to death. Um, uh, you know, like there's, there's so many layers to it. And then it's funny cause on the flip side. Something that, that I've had to explain is like, or feature Oh, when I'm doing deep client work, I'll come to you in person, I'll go somewhere like there are times and spaces when it isn't all of the chaos when we're like, get a sitter and women will go and dress up and go out like it's not 24 seven chaos. It's like 23 seven. Yeah, yeah. I love that. Yes. Yeah, I mean, and then there's that just like, okay, everyone go to bed, like, and that's when you can like, just breathe and be like, Hey, so how are you like, I haven't seen you all day. that is, that is so nice, except when she's pregnant. Literally, I'm like, how are you? Good, good connecting, it's been, you know, we wake up and we get going and then by the end of the night, she is just out. I feel you. I'm, I'm happy to be past the morning sickness part where I'm like, it's just like trying to get through, you know? I, so I feel like I look at everything and like, it's just temporary. I think about like the first time when you move the baby to the next room or in our case like for the fourth we had her in Arizona, um, the houses are big and so you'll have walk in closets and so one of my other mom parents taught me she's like you put a monitor you put a the crib in the closet and you're walking and then you're Close to you, right? I've never seen that before. So when we moved baby out of our closet back to the kids room, you're like, oh, we have our bedroom back. We can like talk in the evening. Like there's always those, when it's a moment like this, where Jonathan is like, we need to connect. We need more help with the kids. Like he's like, And it's all true, but I'm like, it's temporary. It's like three months. He says it's temporary, but in this temporary starting time, we've now added almost five kids. It hasn't been temporary. Um, no, it hasn't been temporary. Which part? I don't know. Just it hasn't been temporary. Because it's always changed. But as soon as I'm like, okay, this, it's something else. Yeah. But we differ very much. I'm very much like, hey, I would love to go on a vacation with you. And she's like, I have no interest in going on a vacation without the kids. And I'm like, I think it's really important that, like, the two of us have the time together. And she's like, that's great, but we're a family. And so, like, navigating those things, but I understand where she's coming from. And then I'll look back at it in like 20 years, or maybe it's like 30 by the time my final kid comes out, that we get the house back to ourselves. And I'm going to be up there, but that like, I'll go, okay, thank goodness. We did it that way because, you know. I know I've gotten to spend more time with my kids in these ten years, seven, you know, all these years than most regular parents get to do in twice that amount of time because they've put them in stuff, or they've got a nanny taking care of them full time, or all of those pieces. And I'll also, I'll also say too that there are things, there are things that like, he does, he might, he is a vocal, I don't want to say complainer, but like he'll say, like this is his opinion, everybody will know his opinion, um, and at the same time, it's, good right but he'll also let me listen to whatever my instincts are like we had family when our oldest was a year old oh my goodness okay so this was yeah i mean i saw somebody had posted in a mommy group because they were like they're in the birth date group Their kids had asked their in laws were saying, when can our new grandbaby come spend the night and the baby's not even born yet. And the husband's like, maybe six months. I don't know. And, um, and she's like, I'm just not comfortable. And we went through the same thing when we moved. Our in laws really wanted our oldest to come spend the night, but like temperamentally she wasn't there. And I was like, sure, why not? Like, and I was like, they don't have a safety net on the pool. She's not the kind of baby. She wouldn't even let anybody hold her besides us. And it felt really weird because he was on that. Sure. Why not? Let's let him it's normal. And my gut instinct was such a no, but looking back, like it makes total sense. And it was that feeling of that need to like. Not listening to what we wanted to do more like, okay, let's set aside our values and feelings and things on about to be good parents. You know what I mean? So coupling that and not having our boundaries firm until we did. And like, once we finally said some things and there, there were difficult times in there where it was like, yeah. Or it was like, this is the way it's gotta be. If you want to have a relationship, this is how you have to show up. These are the things that are important to us. Like every hangout, like our kids would go to bed at four 30 or five o'clock. Like it was early to be dinner at four. Like bedtime at six. And like, every time we go to like my parents house, it would be like dinner supposed to be done ready at four. And it's not ready until seven. Oh, wow. That's a big difference. Like, like, cause they would eat really late. And finally we're like, we can't, we either can't come over here anymore or it's got to change because this doesn't work because we do it this one time. And then it wrecks our entire week trying to get them back on schedule. And that's the same thing though, is like, when I look at. You know, the idea of the, of like you and I going away and I'm like, oh, I, I think about like we went out for one night. It was heaven. Three days to recover. So some of it, it's, it's what are, what are priorities? I think that if we're in an, if and when we're in an identity, when we have full time childcare, full time, and you can kind of transition between these things. It's things like, in order to make things work, like for me to be able to work at all, right? Or for us to work, or things are always, the way that our family is always shifting, what works within our business is always shifting too. Right. So, in order for any of that stuff to go, like, everybody's mental health is a big priority. Over, over, I don't know, pleasing other people, for example. So, there's so many spaces like that, that That make everything work, but then it is also, you know, the constant conversations of, of, like, when I go, for me, going, it's all temporary, and he's like, it's not all temporary, and it's like, well, let's parse. Some things have to be taken apart, like, parsed, right? Like, we have our evenings back sometimes. Sometimes, but I'm tired. Right. But then there's like, then there's, then there's some, you know, there's always something else. And so I think, you know, I guess we also have different perspectives.'cause I'm like, look at this, we're winning. And then I think you tend more towards wanting perfection in like every area. What's wrong with that I mean, it's something to, to, to inspire, to but I think it also like. It's like it's shifted from no kids to one kid to like not many people have five kids not many people have four You know in LA across the country. Yes, but nice. I still I mean the average is 1. 7 kids Really? Yeah. Is that really the average? Gone down to like, from like 2. 2 to 1. 7 kids, people are having less children. I have heard that before. And so, even 3 to 4, it's just, it changes and it's different. So where I was like, I would love to go on a vacation, like that's like an idealistic, like that would be lovely. The reality of like, finding someone to watch 4 or 5, 5, I mean let's just say 4, because 4 kids to go on a, like, it doesn't make sense now. Plus it's like, our kids are, Like, highly intelligent, and like, neurodivergent, and like, all this, like, They're smart. They're extra smart. And so it's like, they don't just follow the rules, and you can't just tell them what to do, and like, putting somebody in place that like, in two seconds, like, my daughter and son would be like, And running the house over that, you know? So it's like, it's different than when, you know, when we had one kid or two kids. It's like, let's go away for vacation. Grandma can come and watch, I'm sure. Right. You can't really do that with a full team. But, but also these days, grandparents aren't retired anymore. All of our grand, all the kids grandparents are all still working now. Yeah. Mine too, yeah. It's, it's everything. Everything is so different now. And. They get to have, like, I think the, the things that we'll get to do, we'll get to have more experiences and have fun with them, and it's just, it's just different, and so I've had to change my, my expectations on it, and what my, my vision of what it could be is, and instead of, hey, we're gonna go on a week's vacation, we'll go on a family thing, and maybe get someone to watch them for a night on the trip, and have that time, which can be just as powerful. Wait, I haven't Did your parents go on trips together without you guys? My mom and my dad? Yes. No! You have this vision for something that you've never even, your parents, your parents didn't do. Of course not. I mean, I don't know if they did, but I don't, I don't think they ever did. Oh, that's interesting. I'm sure they didn't. Okay. But we didn't take a lot of vacations either. Oh. And I can remember like one or two. We always did, like, My dad always has, you know, Well, both of our dads had fancy jobs, But mine would, his would involve travel, And so we would make those into family trips. And then we would bring, um, Sometimes my grandma, But they did, you know, There was somebody else to watch us. So, that is, You know, but we've, we would take, when we lived in Arizona, we had like, at one point we had a team of up to seven sitters, and then we've had like full time nannies we've had, so we've also done the thing where it's like, we'll take them to an indoor trampoline park with a sitter. And that actually feels like we're on a date, we're still there, we get to see the kids, but we're not scrambling. The number one we teach is just like, if you get lost, this is the rendezvous spot. Or this, if you see somebody with this, like, name tag, that's who you talk to. I was like, or just go up to the nearest mom and just be like, I'm lost. I lost my mommy, you know? I was like, go, go to where other kids are and find a mom, you know? Our friend that we go with, she AirTags. She just puts an AirTag in her kid's pocket. Me too! Our first or second time going, our smallest one ran off, and we're all searching around this place, and she was just there. She just wandered off. Like, so it's funny because you're like, ask an adult for help. Our oldest, if she got lost, she would probably ask an adult for help. Our youngest would just be wandering, having the time of her life. So, so air tagging, air tagging. So helpful. You know they literally make shoes that on the bottom of the sole it pops off and you can put an air tag in there? No, I didn't. Oh yeah, I saw it randomly on, I don't know, one of the social medias, but like someone's like, this is a hack. And then, because it's not visible or whatever, it's in the bottom of their shoe and it You just pop off the sole and there's like a little circle that fits perfectly in AirTag, you know? What a wild time that we live in. Like, just thinking about the idea that it's like, cameras in your house and AirTags in your shoes, but yet it's like, it feels like basic life management, and not, it doesn't feel like we're insane or living in the future. I, I teach my kid that, like when she hears the air tag beep, that it's a, that it's a game. It's a tag mommy game. So when it beeps you have to run and tag mommy. So then she, wherever she goes, I beep me beep and she comes back and she's like, tag, you know, so smart. That's really cute. I like that a lot. Borrow that. I mean, I think the, honestly, with most things with them, it's how can you gamify it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I forget, I forget that all the time. And then it's like, I need something cleaned up. How many things can you do in 30 seconds? Ready? Go. And then knowing each child, because some of our children do better with, um, reverse psychology. Some of them don't, and you have to know the difference. Because the ones that do better with reverse psychology, I bet you can't clean it. Yes, I can. And then the ones that, if you said that to the ones that you're like, they'll be like, you're right. They'd leave. I bet I can't. I'm going to go make a mess over there that I can't go through. We do that with, uh, vegetables. She, if you put it on her plate, she won't eat it. But I'm like, oh, okay. This is mommy's plate. Cool. And I'm like, I'll start eating. And then, you know, she's like, what do you got? You know, I was like, oh, you don't want this. Like, yeah, I want it. And I was like, oh, okay. Here, take mommy's bowl. Just bring it back when you're done. When you're done eating my stuff. And I'm like, and then I'm in the kitchen, like eating out of the pot. Yeah. All about flexibility, like, and, and giving yourself grace to, to just be like. Things are not going to be perfect. Sorry, Jonathan, but like you'll, you'll get there. You know what? It's because me and her are very similar, but I feel like if my husband was here, you two would be vibing. Like probably. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's my, it's my Virgo. I was just going to say, like the thing I have to learn in life, you know. So it's a balance too, because I'll say like, if a housekeeper is coming, say, coming and the house is messy, who's gonna get it cleaned faster? This guy. Because I'm like, I don't have time to put everything in its right spot. He's like, an Intuit bag it goes. Like, there's benefits to the standards that you have and your ability to execute quickly. True. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, and also, it's harder to see your feet when you're pregnant, so. I can see my feet. Saying, oh, you can't do it because you're pregnant, because I'll ask them to pick something up off the floor for me so I'm not constantly bending down. And our four year old pulled a fork out of the drawer, she goes, you can't get a fork because you're pregnant. Oh, great. I see what you've done. It's gone in time. Like, that's not. No, but you're, you're going to enjoy it. You're going to take advantage of it. That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Go get mommy a drink. Cause I'm pregnant. Pull the pregnant card. The kids, the kids do a good job of taking care of me of trying to help. Plus they're so excited for the baby. They're like, can't you have seven kids? We're like, we're done after this. This is five is the last we're done. They're like, but how about, okay. How about a six? No. So they're very helpful because next time they ask you, you should just record it and hold on to that clip so that when later, when they have kids, you can be like. Two's hard? Remember this clip? Yes. Yes. Well, it's funny because my mom was like, why are you having so many more or less? And I was like, when I was younger, I always wanted a fourth sibling. And you told me when you, when I grow up, you do it. I was like, okay. So. We're doing it. We're doing it, but a little extra. I mean. I thought we were done at three. Really? I mean, that's what, that was what we were, that's what we were, had agreed upon. I don't remember. And then, as always, things change. And they've changed a lot. But it's, but here's the thing, like, it works for us. Not every family should have five kids. No, yeah, definitely. Five kids. I mean, it's an absolute And if you have, let's just bring them to hang out with us, cause we're used to the magical chaos. I mean, it means it's constantly a barrage of noise. It's very rarely ever quiet. I love my kids the most when I Come in and see them in their peaceful sleep. Because you're like, oh my gosh, you're the most precious things in the whole wide world. I can breathe and I can hear my own thoughts. Um, and she's a lot more patient than I am. Like, the noise, the all, like, when they all start, like, yelling and getting loud, like, I, my brain, like, shuts down. And she's like, she goes into zen mode. Like, she watches a horror film, though. And her aura ring says she's taking a nap. Not a horror, action. Action. No, but like I've seen enough. I don't watch horror films. But like Like dramatic scenes, like action scenes. Yeah, my body's just strange. Like the stressful, like, calms down. Me, I'm like How do you But it doesn't calm down with the kids. It's just like, I think that's just an anecdotal strange reflex that my body has. It doesn't, it doesn't put me in a chill state. Like if the kids are yelling, I just don't. Engage. I don't rea it doesn't cause me like an internal stress feeling, it's just more like, I don't know, noises? But I grew up in a noisy house. Yes, I did not. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and we're conditioned to it then. I'm 104, um, yeah. But I had two and we're only stopping because the second pregnancy was so bad that like, I'm just like, my body is, my body was telling me. This is where I'm cutting you off, Whitney, like, you know, um, yeah, oh my gosh, we've talked about so many things I like this is why I'm always like I love where these conversations go like listeners like we come in kind of with the game plan, but sometimes like these interviews just go like every which direction, you know, and it's it's so nice that you guys came on and you're sharing your story Where do you like pull all the key points? Because you guys had so many good key points on this. Like we talked everything like homeschooling to like multiple kids to like eventually ended up in theme parks, you know, and air tags. So yeah, and our different perspectives on it too, because it's not like we, I think in nearly every part of parenting business, everything, we have differing perspectives. And like all of it and so then complementing each other. I think the flexibility is probably the theme of this whole episode. Yeah. So much of even how we parent some of it is like I knew I wasn't going to parent based on fear, right? Um, but did I ever think that I would have a ring cameras in my house or air tag my kids? No. So there's the flexibility that we have. I think that's really. Yeah. A driving thing. I I would agree with that. And the willingness to experiment. And just knowing it's always going to change. It's, I mean, it's literally always in a constant state of flux. So, like, me knowing not to hold on too tight, because I can tend to do that, because today, tomorrow, next week, next year, it's always going to look different. And that's And we will go on vacation together again without the kids. Someday. This whole thing right now is worth it because she's never said that before. No, you did not! When? They could be like The youngest could be like 12 or something, but like someday, but now we know how fast time goes. She's like, we'll go on it when you're going over the rainbow bridge. No, you have to stay young and help each other. You know what, you can pull up this podcast episode and be like, remember when you said this at like 52 sec you know, minutes and three seconds in? Like, that's gonna be Jonathan's clip from now on. It's just gonna be like, remember you said. Someday, when that happens, they're gonna be so mad. Cause they're gonna be like, I wanna go to Switzerland too. They'll be, we can barely go to Starbucks without them being like, I wanna go. So yeah. Yes, they have a lot of FOMO. Well, thank you so much for joining me. Um, is there any last, like, things you want to say to our listeners? No, I mean, I hope, well, I say no and then start talking. I hope they see, maybe got some ideas. Maybe they're like, wow, Leah, I'm not, maybe, maybe listening to us, they feel more sane. Yeah, that they have maybe more together or, but here, I mean, I think it's like, Wherever you are in it, it's like where you're supposed to be. Right. And if you could just step, if anybody that's like too hard on themselves can step outside and just give themselves the grace or that they have a thing where they're like not getting the exactly that I want, give themselves the grace and all of those things, like. None of us are given, like, a roadmap to this thing, and we're all figuring, we're all trying to fix the things our parents screwed up on that our kids are all gonna have to rewire and unwind that we screw up with them, even though we're trying to do it different. So, like, I think that's the biggest thing, is like, your journey is your journey. Um, what are you supposed to learn, what are you supposed to take away, and at the end of it all, As, like, as hard as it is or frustrating or it's difficult or it's not going according to plan, you've got these amazing little, um, mini yous, mini humans that, like, Like as she says, is it going to matter in tomorrow? Is it going to matter in five days? Is it going to matter in five years? Like, yeah, those are the things you look at and go. No, it's not like it's the spending the time together. It's the laughing together. It's the, like those silly little things that that is where like it all comes down to. Awesome. Well, how can someone connect with you guys? Um, if they want to website, what's good. co with to use. Or, w h a t s g u u d dot com YouTube are at what's good, at what's good, w h a t s g u u d. Sweet. And you can probably, you can search it. I'll link that on the website. I'll add that link to the website too. Yeah, and we'll add it to the show notes as well. So you guys can, everyone can find it in the show notes. Um, well, awesome. Thank you for joining us today. And then I will catch everyone on the next episode of caffeinated chaos. Big thank you to our guests Sasha and Jonathan for joining us and all their cute kids who came in to say hi to me. And yes, if you love this podcast, thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Engage with us on Instagram. Reach out. We want to know your stories, too. And Also, leave us a review because your review helps us get in the earbuds of so many more people and we love reading them. I love reading them. I read them all the time. So thank you all. Have a wonderful day and I will see you all on Thursday. Bye now.