Ep 5 : Parent Gamers

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• Mad House Podcast Livestream (https://www.twitch.tv/themadhousepodcast)
• Joker (https://www.twitch.tv/nlmp)
• Owls (https://www.twitch.tv/owlsareahoot92)

 

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Transcription by app.getwelder.com/transcriptions

Choosing the best modern router links for. I don't need a modem bait. Well, I mean, we probably could. That would help. Probably. Yeah. Because we are using the standard spectrum, home modems and routers. I mean, this all kind of ties into what we're talking about tonight. Yeah, it really does. So here we go. Go ahead and do your intro and then I'll push the record, I. E. Yeah, you do phenomenally on this. Why not? Oh, thank you. That's so sweet of you. Thank you, Schnuckums. I appreciate it. No problem, Boober. All right. Welcome to the Madhouse Presents Group Therapy where we talk about games. Are you about our different viewpoints? Dive into the strange and whatever you decide in the moment. I am Alex and this is Joker. Hi, I'm Joker or NLMP. If you find me on Twitch and today we're going to talk about being a parent and a gamer all at the same time, not a parental gamer. Because those are very assholeish. From what I've seen. That's different. We're going to be talking about being a gamer and a parent today. Yay.

If you are joining us on our podcasts that are available on iTunes, Spotify, Radio Public, GooglePodcasts and the Stitcher now. Also we have added I was able to add recently Stitcher and iTunes to the list of wonderful podcasts available. So if you are listening to us on one of those, if it is available in that particular platform, please leave us some comments. If you enjoy the episode, a positive review and a star rating higher than one would absolutely be appreciated. If you don't like it, I mean, hey, tell us what you didn't like about it because we can't get any better if we don't know what's going on. That's true. And also, I don't know, I wasn't quite paying attention completely because you do your spill so well and it goes so smoothly. If you do want to watch or be a part of the live recordings, you can join us on Twitch at the Madhouse podcast. Correct? Mundo. I didn't do that. But you got it. Yeah, I got it. Alright.

Well, don't worry, I'll let it this out. I'll find a nice little break in between topics here or I just might let it roll with it in the podcast. Who knows? Who knows, we're just going to go crazy. Yes. Also, before we get into the actual discussion, I want to put it out there for anybody listening one way or the other. Let me rephrase this. I am looking for someone willing to help us out in the podcast and it will be a paid position. It won't be like 50 $60 an hour, but it will be worth your time in the long run. We are looking for a transcriber to help in the posting process and making it more visibly pleasing to the listeners out there. Looking at the transcriptions of the podcast so that it separates myself and Owls in the text version of the podcast, just so that if anybody wants to kind of skim through. Yeah, follow along or skim through. Also, instead of listening to everything and just get to particular topics, that's what we want. Or I want really as a transcriber. So if you are interested, please hit us up on Twitter or also you can email@nlmp.org. There we go. Okay, I was going to say it. Oh, go ahead, Madhouse@nlmp.org. And we will try you out within the process. And if there's more than one, or if you do well, you will get paid for your efforts at the end of the trial. And as you continue to do great work, your pay will rise. So keep that in mind. Being a parent gamer. Yes, that's what we're talking about. So the reason why we're turning this into its own podcast is because we kind of left it out of the original Who Are We stream, which was official episode one, and it seemed like it was enough to be its own podcast to us. Plus, we can talk about some other junk in there too. But I kind of wanted to make this because we didn't really have a solid topic to go with for this week. And I was like, you know what? We didn't talk about that. So let's do that. Now, if you are listening or watching on Twitch, you will get a nice little teaser to next week episode that Alice has gracefully come up with, hopefully. And that will be at the end of the Twitch stream and will not be available on the auditory side. Yes, the auditory side. There we go. The professional name for the auditory. No, auditory. If you're only listening to us after it's been posted to one of the platforms, guess what? You want to come to the Twitch because we give you hints if we have them on the next week's episode. Sometimes we're just flying by the seat of our pants. Is that the phrase? Yes. We're just kind of like, oh, we didn't think about that. Oops. I was glad that I thought of something. I was like, that's a good one. So talking about gamers and parents or even adults in general like me, I didn't think about it because, one, I've got so much going on as a military instructor, I don't necessarily have time to think about much. It's like, okay, am I tired enough to just chill or do I want to stream tonight? Yeah, that's definitely a constant battle. What am I doing tonight? What am I mentally able to do versus what I can do with time constraints and everything like that? Managing like, just simply adding that record button. I've wanted to do it for two weeks now, and this is finally a thing. Yeah. So, Alice, since you were newer into streaming/gaming, how has the journey been for you, particularly being a mother and a streamer? Plus, of course, with your husband also playing games, but not necessarily streaming as often as we do. But what are some challenges that you have in your recent time? Streaming have come across a lot of it is when I can actually stream, when there's not going to be a lot of distractions. So I definitely have to think about, will the kids be here? Am I available first? Are the kids going to be here? And am I available to stream past that? It's kind of how long can I actually do it without, like, getting rid of all the other things? So I'm constantly struggling between the schedules of, you know, I work a full time job. I work at a credit Union in the back office situation where I file reports. So all day I work from home, but I can't game at home because, of course, I'm working. So I have to figure out all day working. And then there's a couple of hours that I either have to have the kids or I have some sort of event or something with the kids and then getting them to bed. So the biggest struggle has been making sure that I have a set schedule that the kids are not going to be a part of because my kids are loud. I definitely game during the day sometimes. And there's lots of screeching, hollering interruptions. So that's the biggest is making sure that I'm doing it in a situation where I'm not going to be distracted or have a lot of background noise. Yeah. And most of you that have watched my personal channels, of course, baby Mama and the toddler baby Joker are probably the stars of my stream more than I am. They tend to play well. I say play, but come in and out, and that can be a distractors. And last week, of course, the eleven year old still hasn't grasped the concept of this night versus normal stream nights where he comes in right before bed, which is 19 minutes ago now from the time of live recording and comes give me a hug and is off to bed. And then tonight, for me, was a fun time because, of course, baby Mama's been having a little not complications, but definitely difficulties throughout this pregnancy because the baby is very active and then coveted adding to the stressors on her body. So she was in the bathtub, the toddler was still awake. And that's right. As we were starting the stream. Oh, no. Yeah. So that's what took a little bit longer to get going this evening. But, yeah, putting him to bed. Putting the eleven year old saying, hey, get off YouTube and off your Xbox and go to bed. It's a school week. Get off the Internet. I need it. Get off the Internet. I need to make a phone call. Yeah, right. I remember that stuff. Oh, man. Definitely. And even tonight is a very different thing as well because it is so much geared towards the auditory side that I have to make sure that there's even more, that there's no distractions. And while my kids are asleep, I also have a cat that is incredibly loud. Yes. And we have heard him before. Oh, yeah. He's probably more distracting than all of the kids combined because he jumps up and meows, I don't even know what I could describe it. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. I actually have the cat in my mom's room. I told her she needs to keep the cat on Wednesday nights. Yeah. I'm lucky our cat is auditory, but he doesn't like me as much when I come into this room, so it's a different room. So I get lucky with that. The only time he really comes in here is when the baby or baby Mama come in. I got you. Yeah, definitely. That's another parent thing. Is an animal parent. Oh, yeah. Having to deal with those. Those absolutely count as well. 100%. So, yeah, it's like me. I didn't really start streaming until early or late 2019. I got back into streaming because I started streaming to YouTube. 2016, I think when I moved back to central South Carolina and it was really generic, I was on my own, streaming from a console straight to YouTube, because for whatever reason, Twitch didn't want to work on my console. So I was like, all right, I'll stream to YouTube. It works. It's easy. And I did that for a little while. And of course, I had nothing but a dog and no camera. Nothing. It was just gameplay. And from there, I took a very long break up until the end of 2019 when I started streaming on Twitch again, or for really the first time and got real deep into it. And 2018, I officially moved in or became a permanent fixture in Baby Mama's old house to help her out with Baby Joker before I adopted him. And now eleven year old because she was pregnant with Baby Joker. And I had a little computer. I mean, it was great. I actually was working off a laptop for a while. That's going to be rough. Yeah, it was interesting, but I had time on the weekend after I did chores around the house. So I played and then got a actual stand up PC when I think we moved here. Yeah, I think it was when we moved here, I got the stand up PC and actually started streaming through it from my consoles. But I mean, we had the babies, I was doing my thing, she was doing her thing. And it got progressively more interesting as time went on. And of course, the baby became a fixture. What was it two years ago when I got affiliated and the baby came in, did his little giggles and stole the heart? Everybody fell in love. Which, by the way, if you go to my channel, you can still see that clip. It is apparently still very available and the most viewed clip right now on my personal channel. I'll have to watch it. I love the baby giggles, but yeah, it's fun, especially like, what was it? I can't remember, but I think it was like a few streams ago when we were playing fast and Baby Joker was sitting here and he was moving the mouse around. Oh, yeah. I was trying to teach him the keys because he likes to talk. Just like Daddy, you like to talk. I know, right? You would never guess. So weird. I never would have guessed. He seemed so quiet all the time. I know, right? God, yeah, definitely. Your kids seem to have an interest in the gaming. I mean, that kind of just automatically happens. I feel like the kids see you gaming and then they want to be like mom and dad. So then, of course, then they start to show the interest. My kids love watching me play Dead by Daylight. I don't know what it is. They think it's so funny. Speaking of Dead by Day, or was it. No, it was Faz. I remember when we were playing and we had deaf girl playing with us and she screamed and scared herself. No, that was Secret Neighbor and scared the ever loving shit out of her kid. And there was crying in the background for like a good ten minutes. I was dying laughing. Oh, my God. Yeah. So to paint the picture for those that were not there or have no idea is we were playing Secret Neighbor, and I wouldn't say it's a horror game. It has some jump moments. Definitely has jump scares in it, especially if you're not expecting it. Yeah. So it's one of those kind of like those kinds of games where there's one person that's the neighbor and the rest of you are trying to find the keys to get out of the neighbor's house and into the basement to leave. Why? That makes sense. I still don't know. Yeah, I don't know. The deaf girl was playing and her kid was in the background, like taking off a sweater or something. And one of the jump scares got her. She screamed and as the kid is taking off the jacket or whatever is going on, scared the crap out of her kid. And then there was a lot of crying and noise in the background because she startled the kid. Of course. That was such fun. Yeah. That was a Secret Neighbor. Yeah. I couldn't stop laughing. It was so funny. I was like, I'm so sorry for your kid, but it's hilarious. I laugh at when kids get scared or cry. Yeah. Such a good parent. Well, I mean, our kids were freaking playing or turning into Jackass, like the TV show with Steve O and Johnny Knoxville. Oh, yeah. Their Mama said that to me. Yeah. All right. So my toddler and the eleven year old decided it was a great idea to tie a string to this large carrier tractor trailer with the car carrier trailer attached to it. So the baby was sitting on the trailer side of it with his feet tucked into the middle section, and the eleven year old was pulling him up and down the entry hallway, which is hardwood. So he was going pretty quick. Justin hitting the walls in the door falling off. And it's like, oh, my God. I mean, it's hilarious. It's absolutely hilarious. But that's when you realize your parents like, Be careful, please don't hurt yourself. I really just don't want to go to the hospital. Yeah, if you hurt yourself and you cry because you got a bump or bruise. Cool, whatever. But don't break. Please don't break anything. Are you bleeding? No, it's fine. I can even deal with blood. I just don't want to deal with having to go to the hospital. Yes, that's the worst part. When you have kids and they hurt and you're like, how bad is it? Because kids are pretty dramatic about everything. They could at least mine. Okay, maybe it's just mine, but they'll bump and they'll be like, I need a band aid. Band-Aids are like a hot item in the house. No matter what they do. If they bumped their elbow or fell down, but there's no blood whatsoever, they still want a band aid. Yeah, well, I'm thankful that the baby is not that dramatic. Like, he'll start the whimper and cry, and then I'll look at him and be like, you're fine, dude. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's fine parent. I don't have the patience for it. I'm not the comforting parent I try to be, but that's definitely not my role. Andrew is definitely more the comforting parent, and I appreciate him for that because he's got a lot more patience for them than I do. I'm like, Are you bleeding? No. Then you're fine. Go. Yeah. And I've noticed that being the solo gaming parent right now, the eleven year old, his autism kind of plays into the factor. But outside of that, there was a moderate amount of training that had to go into the family to let them understand, hey, I need you all to keep it down because everybody can hear everything. And it's like using personas. I had to teach the eleven year old, you can call me Joker, but don't call me by my name yet because I'm not ready for the world out there to be able to just access it like that. Yeah, it was a bit of training involved. It's definitely a struggle with Andrew because he just goes by Andrew, so he still will call me by my name. But it's a little more difficult to find me. I think. So I'm okay. Yeah. Because the spelling of your name is more traditional than most people would think. You're lucky it's harder to find you, but it's pretty damn easy to find private. Even if they did find me, I don't think they can get too much information from it. Yeah. But what sucks for me, because of what I do, I have to take an extra level of security and how I especially with how I present myself on stream versus my professional job, I have to be a little more careful. Oh, yeah, definitely. I don't let anybody know. Pretty much at work. I'm like, nobody needs to know what I do outside of here. I don't need anybody to show up to it on accident or on purpose. Yeah. Everybody at work. All my coworkers know what I do. It's fun. Hey, Joker's coworkers. No, they definitely aren't like that watching it. But they do know because I'm required to tell them, considering the fact that my outreach is Internet or worldwide now followers in the UK and elsewhere in the world. By the way, we have a listener in Bulgaria now. Hello, Bulgaria. Yeah. So from the last analytics that I saw, we have, of course, more than 90% in the US, Canada, Norway, and Bulgaria was the most recent one that popped up. Awesome. Yeah. We're talking to all the people. Hello, people around the world. People around the world join hands.

But yeah. So to me, that's awesome. And trying to teach the eleven year old about online gaming because he's now playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto. Such a good game. Yeah. Be careful with like, what he actually reveals about himself, too, as well. Yes, very much so. I haven't quite gotten to that point because I don't have kids that are old enough to play online games. They'll come over and try to play whatever I'm playing. But as far as actually having their own logins and games, I'm not there yet. So that particular scenario I can imagine is really not difficult. But you have to be very careful explaining all of that. Yeah. Not only are you having to teach them about how they address you when you're streaming, but also your eleven year old, how they're talking interacting with other people. Yeah. Because when we first allowed him to play online games, since he started to have friends, when we moved more into a city or into a neighborhood from the absolute country, we definitely had to let him know that there are people out there that are absolute assets and they will try to make your life miserable just for fun. Just for their fun. Yes. And him having Ashe Burgers, he gets rageful when he can't figure out how to place a block in Minecraft. At times it's overwhelming sometimes. Yeah. I can imagine. Especially when those damn blocks don't snap into place like you want them to. I feel that. But yeah. So we had to sit down with him and explain that. And he's gotten the understanding that there are people out there that do mean to cause you anger and frustration. And you just got to kind of not deal with it or go away from it. I haven't quite figured out how to get rid of you yet. Oh, you want to get rid of me? I'm kidding. Hey listen, you willingly participated in the chaos that is the madhouse. So I don't want to hear shit from you woman. I willingly was at a. I don't know, I'm trying to think of words. I can't. I willingly. I'm okay everybody. I don't need help.

For those of you that can't see a mouse, help me. Oh God, I did participate so I don't regret it most of the time. Most of the time. I mean if I didn't have some moments where man, God he's so annoying then would we really be friends? No we wouldn't. I'm sure you have moments. We definitely would not have a podcast together if we didn't argue. Oh yeah. I mean hell, me and Atari have argued. Who else? Death is just like this huge pothead that works all the time. I mean that's how he acts with the world. Yeah, that's his personality. He gets raged for long games and that's about it. I can understand that. Yeah, I can too. Especially with those damn flashlights and DVD. Oh my goodness. How damn survivors. Oh my goodness. The game is geared towards survivors. Oh, I still stand by that. 130%. 130%. Got it. Yeah. So I want to take a little bit of a turn. Well if I can remember what I was actually going to say now. Remember it?

Yeah, I remember now. So one of the other things that I was wanting to kind of talk about, especially for any younger audience that may be listening to us either or watching us on Twitch for the VOD as long as it lasts. I think it's like less than 30 days now until we get affiliate. But the idea of being an adult streamer, let alone a parent streamer has a lot of downfalls to it too because you have to separate yourself or to be successful. And if you're just listening I did air quotes there is because being successful with this type of thing has different meanings for different people. Correct. Twitch and YouTube are the two primary streaming platforms now outside of Facebook or Meta or whatever the hell they're calling it these days. I think it's still Facebook, but Meta is like the umbrella company. Yeah, but the reason why I say that is because when you get on Twitch, of course first milestone is to be affiliate and the next milestone after that is partner. And that's a very huge jump. That's an incredibly big gap. Yeah. I feel like being a proper adult. It's already going to be very trying on your mental health, let alone your body strain that you put yourself in. And Thankfully, I guess for quite a few people it has been very easy to get affiliate if you don't know the tips and tricks that you can do which there are quite a few that are very easy for anybody to get affiliate. It's just really difficult to get it, I guess, the honest way. And then same thing goes with the partner side, because it's 75 average viewers quite a bit. And yeah, that's very much so. I think my highest average view for one stream was 40 for all of 30 minutes. And that was a VR stream doing poker. I'm sorry, that wasn't my average viewer. That was my Max viewer. My average viewer for that stream was only 25. Yeah, I don't even think I've gotten to that point. But, I mean, I've also been streaming now consistently for two years. But the reason why I really wanted to bring this up was because, like I said, just being an adult, having a life away from this computer or away from your console is going to be trying on you because you want to do this. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a professional gamer because I wanted to make money making video games and playing them. And now I'm living the dream. I'm making money playing video games. It's not much. It's pocket change compared to what I thought it was going to be back when I was a teenager. I'm going to be a millionaire. Yeah. Because I'm so good at Call of Duty. I'm so good at this fun fact. Yeah. I mean, I can say I'm decent at Call of Duty before it went to shit because I was in the top, like 9% of the leaderboards for Activision in the world. And I just stopped playing it because honestly, the game turned to shit for me. But that didn't make me millions. And thanks to COVID, the marketplace for streamers and gamers has been saturated to the point where you are a water droplet in a Lake or in the ocean now. And what could have been Discoverability is no longer as easy as it was. That's why you have to do extra things like extra other social media accounts, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, on top of Twitch. Even if you want to be a primary Twitch streamer, you still have to get that discoverability. You have to do these other things, and that's taking more time away from relaxation if you don't have kids, but then it's also taking time away unless you schedule it properly from your family. Yes, that's definitely a struggle. It's constantly balancing real life versus your online life.

So, yeah, that's definitely a big thing. It's making sure that you have the time to do all of it. But yeah, I can definitely see, especially with Pandemic, that it definitely got a lot bigger. I feel like Twitch became even bigger than it originally was because everybody had time to stream, everybody had time to watch people stream. People work from home so they can watch streamers and then start streaming as soon as they're off for the day. I started streaming not in the beginning of the pandemic, but a little bit after I started streaming in what May of. So it was about a year after the pandemic started. Yeah, right. When all the major shutdowns and work from home started. I think is right about the end, beginning of 2021. Major ones for sure. Yeah. Cause I mean, I got and I'm not even going to lie to you. A lot of mine was timing and luck, because when I officially started consistently streaming was actually January of 2020. By the end of February, I hit my affiliate goal and got the email at the end of February of 2020. And by March I was having my first affiliate stream and good God, that blew up. It's like Holy. And it was all random. Literally random. One group of people came in, I was messing with them, like talking to them, they were temporarily consistent on my streams. And that's actually how I met death is one of those individuals that hasn't been around since went into Death stream and said, hey, you need to go check this guy out. And he came in reluctantly because I guess he had nothing else better to do like Death did back then. And between him finding out him and Atari were dating and seeing that I had actually been following her for like two or three years. Didn't even know it, I have no idea. But then of course getting with them, starting the Madhouse community. And now we're over almost 120 people deep just in the discord, let alone the outreach that we have on Twitch. Because there's quite a few people that now know that name and know that those symbols and it's like that to me is success. Like right now, I could honestly give a shit less if I'm a partner. But we kind of want to still push for that. Because between me and Atari, as I guess one of two of the closer ones, I guess, to that right now. But we want to push for that because now then we can make an actual Twitch stream team page and have everybody there versus just putting Tags in our About Me section under our banners. So that's really the only reason why I even care about that partnership at this point. Outside of that, I'm having a grand old time where we're at. And like with me, I suffer because of how I do things for myself and for everybody else in the community. I don't hoard viewers at all and I don't like to. I like to push that out to everybody else to help them. And I probably waste more money than I save. Actually, no, I do waste more money than I saved on Twitch and I'm okay with it. And baby Mama is okay with it. She actually encourages it at times. It's like do it, break them. That's the thing. If I come into a new streamer and I like them it's what we call breaking streamers while they're live. I think you did that to me. Did it to you. You gave me. I just remember going ten gifted subs. What? Yeah, I think I see. I did it to you. Did it to Vash. Did it to Jordan, Atari, all the people. Yeah. Literally just about every primary streamer that's within the Madhouse community. I think I've done it too. I mean, for God's sake, I have the record, the reigning record, in bits just in Atari's channel, let alone anybody else's channel that I was messing around with and said, no, I want the first place. I don't think I have the first place thing on there. I'm still trying to figure out how she kept it overall versus week to week or month to month, because I can't figure out how to change that on mine. Interesting. Yeah. I don't need it. It's been an adventure. Definitely some growing pains and struggles and figuring all the things out and getting the courage to do it definitely was something, too. I talked about it for a good amount of time before I actually did it as well. Yeah. And if you want to find out the story of how we got our start in the streaming more in depth, we talked about that back in episode one. So whatever podcast streaming platform you are listening to us on, you can go back and the old episodes are archived within there. So you can absolutely go back to episode one and listen to how we got our start in streaming individually as well. Somebody is doing something in the microwave or backing up a truck. Yeah, it was baby Mama feeding the crotch Goblin. That has yet to become a crotch Goblin. Got you, baby. Okay, so if we're going to switch back to being on stream or for the podcast part. Okay, go ahead and we're live back on. I don't know. So that's going to change a lot when you have the baby, because that's a whole new adventure because you didn't stream as much when you had the baby Joker. Correct? Am I correct on that? One was not as adamant to streaming or had a schedule or anything during the first year of Baby Joker. But I also did not have the following either. So this is going to be a new experience for you because it's going to be tiny little human. Not necessarily the having the tiny human, but now having to adjust things based off of a tiny little human that wants all your love and attention. Well, see, baby Mama seriously thinks that outside of feeding time, she thinks that I'm even going to let her interact with the child because I'm going to try to get as much time with that baby girl as possible. Oh, it's going to be your first girl. So that wrapped around your Pinky finger. I promise you. It's something about a daughter and a dad that just like, well, I'll put it to you this way. I was laying on her. Well, not on, but like, against her tummy. Just kind of cuddling up the baby Mama. And the baby literally sucker punched me right in the eye socket for the first time. Now, I can't really necessarily tell you from physical interaction if it was because of her punching me in the eye socket or the fact that I was emotionally unstable after the fact. But I cried in happiness for like five minutes after that because it was like the physical interaction. It's a feeling. You got to feel the baby regardless of if it was a punch in the face or not. It was still an interaction. It's an emotional time for sure. And then we got it up in the bed as the baby got out of the first trimester and she became more active. And we were laying in bed. I was half asleep and just had my hand on top of her tummy. Well, the baby started kicking in the lower half, so she just moved my hand as I was half asleep. And then I started to feeling instantly just woke up and I was like,

yeah. So I think there's probably going to be many streams where I'm going to be like, you got to keep it quiet. I got to turn down. That's going to scare me. The baby's right here in my lap. You're going to be like, oh, no, I'm probably going to end up with like, a little dog bed or cat bed in my lap with the baby. There a dog bed or a cat bed. Yes, but you got a Bobby. That's what I did. No, what are you talking about? Obviously, I don't know what I'm talking about exactly. Oh, my God, have you never seen a Bobby? So a Bobby is just like a curved pillow. It's like, how do I explain it? It just curves around your body and you just put the baby right there. I used to literally have a chair similar to this. I would have the Bobby around me and then baby right here. And I would be able to do this because baby would just be sleeping and leaning towards me. I did that all the time, as well as there's things like a Baby Bjorn, which my kids, Milo slept in all the time. He would knock out. It's like a backpack situation, tuck them in, walk around a little bit, fall asleep. And then I would be able to, like, uncomfortably sit, of course, but I would be able to sit kind of at the edge to let the feet dangle. And I would play games. You know what? Honestly, I probably am just going to have a baby Cam and have the other bassinet back here behind me with a very soft glow on her. And the other camera that I used to use pointed at her just to show her laying there, whatever. And I can kind of keep an eye on her, too, because I have my mom. I definitely have a swing. Baby swings are the best. Oh, yeah. I literally don't think we could have survived without that baby swing. We actually even had a thing called a Shusher. You ever heard of this? It's like a sound machine. Please teach me your ways. Yes. Okay, so we found this. I had looked it up before. It's almost like a white noise machine. Kind of the same concept where it just like it has a noise, but it's called a Shusher. It literally goes

like a shush because that's what you do as a parent. It's like an automatic reaction. You're like trying to comfort the baby. Go, it's okay, baby. So it's that sound coming from this little machine. And we would put Milo in there, strap him in, put the little bird sounds or ocean or whatever, and then put the Shusher on, and he would knock out for hours. Yeah, it's the greatest. And see, I got raised the old way. So when baby Joker was coming up and us living out in the country, like when he first started teasing, we did the beam on the passive dunk, the pacifier and Jim Beam.

We did my oldest. No, I'm sorry. It was Jack. Jack. I think we did the same thing or something because we didn't have anything else. And she just was so inconsolable. We just rubbed a little bit on her gums. Yeah. I mean, the doctor does not recommend Oral gel at all. Yeah. Because the numbing aspect actually can cause them to stop breathing, which I think is so weird. Like, why is that out there if that's a thing that doctors don't even want you to do? Yeah. And that was one of the things that I learned growing up from listening to the older generation. It's like all this newfangled chit is chemical, and it can actually harm that young of a child. But a little bit of whiskey on a pacifier, that's plastic. So there's not even going to be enough content to actually get the child addicted, let alone actually get them drunk. So it's not going to harm them. But the alcohol part of it, just enough of it will help numb the pain that they've received. That was the biggest thing. So don't put it in their bottles. But one little don't be giving your kid a shot in their daily. Not daily. You feed them more than once a day in their bottle for the time being. Yes. I will tell you all the tips and tricks that I've learned throughout everything. Bottle warmers are your friend. If you can do a wife warmer, that's great, because if it gets really cold in your house, it won't upset the baby. Oh, no, I don't let it get cold in the house. Not necessarily cold. Baby Mama suffers more than I let, and I suffer willingly before I let the kids suffer because I know the babies don't like to keep clothes on once they learn how to take them off. So I tell her we have to keep the house hot or warm, like above 74 if the baby was sick or is sick. Well, I'm not saying necessarily cold, but wipes are naturally just cold. Yeah. So if you're trying to change a baby in the middle of the night, that can upset them. So having a wipe warmer is a wonderful thing because it keeps them warm. And so it's less of a shock when you're trying to change the cyber. And I have all sorts of things. The swaddles I got you guys, those are amazing. Those are the best thing in the world because you don't have to think about it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I knew how to swaddle anyway, as far as wrapping. Yeah. But it just makes your life easier. Yeah. It's less turning of the child Velcro on them. Don't they literally put them in and just strap Velcro, snap, snap, snap, that kind of thing. Any onesies you can find that have the gloves, long sleeve ones that have the little thing that you can turn, those are better because mittens don't stay on babies. They don't. They're the worst. They can get them off. No problem. Socks are such a problem. I don't understand. You could literally duct tape it on the kids and somehow one sock is missing all the time. Oh, yeah. Or shoes once they start wearing shoes. Oh, my goodness. We're dealing with the amount of times a shoe is thrown in my car lately. It's a ten minute drive top from my house to where the daycare is. And almost always I have to re put his shoes back on when I get there. I don't understand it. It's so frustrating. Less than five minutes from the daycare to our house and baby Mama has the worst time with him. And I just recently had to ask her firmly to please stop letting the toddler have his tablet in the mornings because he takes it in the car and then she leaves it there because she forgets about it. That's honest. I get it. And when they come home, it's still in the car. Not charged. Not charged. And it's like, no, we can give it to him when he's home. And it shuts him up now like he's watching Kitty YouTube on his tablet and it keeps him occupied, which we're both very grateful for. But yeah, it's like the eleven year old I can't even tell him not to play games because that's what I do when I come home. For the most part, stop playing video games all the time. All right. I'm going into my room so I can play games. Yeah, exactly. So I can't necessarily do that. But when he has school, I'm trying to get him into the routine. That 09:00. He has to shut it off. Actually, I wanted to get him to 830, so he kind of mentally calmed down for 30 minutes before going to bed. So he'd actually go to bed. Yeah, that's important. I have a hard time personally with that in general. I'll get off of here and I'll go ahead and play games and then I'm like, I sit here and I want to play something else and then I go in my bed and then I just like open up another thing. I'm like, I've got to mentally stop everything to be able to relax. Yeah. So I can understand that, especially at his age, he needs to relax a little before going to bed so they can get up and go to school. Yeah. And I've noticed getting into a more consistent gaming routine, it was a little easier not to get on like, social media and stuff after a stream to go to bed. But even as soon as I hit end stream after we've rated somebody, I'm sitting here at this desk for another ten to 15 minutes, checking and balancing, watching, interacting. But I'm also checking to make sure that the next night the VOD posted like there's extra time that I'm involved in just this podcast that spans two or three days. Hence why I'm trying to, thanks to yours and Atari's recommendation, the other day is trying to find an alternative person to assist. So I'm not stuck doing it for roughly two to three days of editing and post processing before it's posted to the Interwebs and the Red Circle host for distribution purposes. Yeah, it's hard out there. Yeah. And again, for those that missed coming into the Twitch chat deaf girl, we did talk about your incident with your child when you screamed from a jump scare and terrified your child. We talked about that for sure, so might want to check that out later on. Yes, we did a shout out.

It's like just for me as an adult, it's hard for my brain to shut down. Regardless, most nights I'll lay in bed for good half an hour to an hour before I actually fall asleep. Unless I've done something physically strenuating during the day that's if I'm lucky, at half an hour I can't get to sleep until like almost 02:00 most nights. It's really difficult lately because I'll be doing, of course, through the day work. Then after work, I'm like, either it's dance, T ball, something that I've got to do personally, or just hanging out at home watching TV and having dinner. And then I have to put the kids to bed and then I stream. And so then after I'm done the stream, all the day is kind of coming at me. Like while stream is fun and I play games and that's fun, it's still a mental thing. So shutting that off, I have to kind of take myself back. Sometimes I'll play another game or I'll just sit here and just watch things or just sit here and sit at my desk and then I have to turn my brain off and then that's just difficult. It's like everything starts coming. I'm like oh, I'm trying to go to sleep and then it's like 01:00 and I'm tired but I'm not like sleep tired. Yeah. You're just exhausted versus tired, correct? Yeah. I was thinking about something and I literally had it and lost it. What was it my Alpha brain supplements for memory and focus have worn off from. Another thing about being an adult parent gamer is like our routines, even if we stream every day and we have a routine down, it is very trying, even if you only do it three times a week or less, because outside of this, which we only do once a week as far as the recording side of it, and then the post processing takes me two days because typically the day after I don't stream, my personal streams have gone down to about two or three days most of the time because of now the podcast adding onto it. But like for instance, my day today started at 03:00 this morning. I woke up because of my work, my professional job that I had to get up at 03:00 this morning. Granted, I went to bed at nine, I didn't stream yesterday, but I went to bed at roughly about 930. 10:00 woke up at three was at work because waking up I have to have a gap of about 2 hours from the time I wake up to the time I have to be at work. It was about two and a half hours because it takes me roughly about an hour to wake up and then I get up, do my business in the morning and get dressed and head out. Of course, baby Mama is still in the mindset, of course, of helping out with that and making my mornings easier by making me a lunch or a sandwich or something for the day, which helps out. And I am very grateful for that. Super grateful. I appreciate you. Yeah. So she was up with me actually. She might have actually gotten up a little sooner than 03:00 to start coffee because she'll bring me coffee in the morning while I'm still trying to just wake up in general to be able to sit up in bed and stroll all the social medias to kind of kickstart my brain. And I'll sit there in bed for probably once I sit up. I'll sit there for about ten to 15 minutes depending on the day and how urgent it is that I get ready and then I'll leave for work. And I was at work, literally standing at work at 530 this morning. I've been outside from 530 until roughly about two or 300 this afternoon, outside, mostly on my feet, and then went into the office, my indoors area for about 45 minutes before we left work, came home and then kind of sat down, relaxed, ate dinner and chilled out. Me and baby Mama watch a new movie to us called Home, which is absolutely hilarious. I recommend it because one of the main cars. Are you talking about Home Alien? Yes. I love that. Can we come to the out now? What is it? Yeah, can I come into the out now? Yeah, can I come into the out now? Yeah. By the way, the alien's voice in that is the same character who plays Sheldon on third row in Big Bang Theory. Yeah, Big Bang Theory. Why did I say third rock? What was I thinking about? Who was I thinking anyway? Yeah, Big Bang Theory. Sheldon is the voice of the little alien, so it's absolutely great. I recommend it for all adults to watch. It is awesome. Lots of kids movies are actually really good.

Yeah, that's actually really a great one. Another one that we've been watching recently or I've been watching again has been all the Monsters, Inc. Movies. Oh, those are fantastic.

We don't talk about Bruno. We don't talk about Bruno. Another downfall to being a parent is you watch all the kids shows. I've caught baby Mama watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse more than enough times without the child present. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, come inside. It's fun inside. You can't use that. Cut that out. No, it's going to stay in. Yeah. No, actually a funny moment that is still I have to think about my mom is probably here and will probably say something about it in just a moment is when we're potty training. My oldest kids don't wipe the best with number two. Trust me, we're learning that. Yeah. So I would always say call for somebody to help. And at one point, my mom was helping my daughter and she needed help wiping and she said, Come inside, it's fun inside. And I was like, no,

it's just funny because she definitely took a lot of that. It was a long span where we watched Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. But I will definitely I'll watch, like, Octonauts. I love Octonauts. I was talking about that today. That's a good show. You know what show I'm absolutely glad has not transitioned into our baby's generation right now. What? Fucking Teletubbies. Oh, my God. Please know that is actually one of the most terrifying things. Thinking about it is like, those are weird. No, what we watched growing up was fucking weird. Have you watched our old kid shows? I've watched Cat Dog pretty recently. Courage, the Cowardly Dog, Cow and Chicken is so weird. Rocco's Modern Wife, Ren and Stimpy. Those are all really bad. And I just remember, Holy shit, even The Rugrats. Have you seen the old episodes of The Rugrats? Well, I talked to my sister about this once, and it's like your viewpoint of everything changes. So as a kid, you're like, oh, they're just trying to get out and have fun. And Angelica is brat. She's not nice to her, the younger kids. But then I was talking to my sister. And as an adult, you watch it and you're like, Angelica is just trying to be a good kid. She's trying to be good. She's trying to be responsible and good. And we made her out to be such a bad person. And then you also, as a parent, you're like, where are these parents that their kids are just getting out and running all around town? These babies are just running around town. What are you guys doing? These psychos that are not watching your children. Oh, that. And then what was it? And then you're like, yes, my baby does that. Taking the diaper off in the middle of the play, pin with everybody else around. Yeah. Your perspective as you grow up changes on different shows. You might have enjoyed them at one point. And then you go, oh, wait a second. Let's see. AHH Real Monsters was very accepting of different viewpoints. I love that. But the one show that I love so much is so fucking racist in modern context. I mean, there's a lot of things like that because there's no think about it. I'll say the name and then think about the show. Okay, Doug. I haven't seen it in so long. Doug Skeeter. They are racially profiling these characters. Granted, they're not making them black and white, but, wow, I have to watch it again. But it still had a great context, too. Yeah. It's been so long since I've seen all these shows. Luxclus is still good, though. Oh, yeah. Blue’s Clues. Yeah. But Doug was definitely so real. It was like real life. And it didn't give you that imagination side as often. Now, of course you did with his little superhero character. Yeah. Those little side stories. Yeah. I have to watch some of these. It's been so long. Like, sometimes you don't want to go back and watch things over because you've got this idea in your head of how it was and how great it was. And then you go back and you're like, wow, this is actually pretty bad. This is awful. And that's the same with food or like a drink. I used to always say, like, oh, my God, lady and Son sweet tea. It was like the best thing ever. It was so great. And then I went back, like, a few years later, and I was like, this really isn't that good? And for anybody that doesn't know what lady and Sons is, that's actually Paula Dean's restaurant out in Savannah now talking about a drink that we consumed as kids. That to me, honestly, still taste as good, if not better now, than it did when I was a kid is surge. Oh, yeah. I don't think I've had it in my adult life. I know that we've seen it before. And I got Andrew one time

I thought, you're going to say something like, Tang, no, fuck that.

Trying to teach our kids things that we grew up on is definitely one of the fun parts because I came into a ready-made family. Really? Well, the eleven year old was my godson. He has been my godson since his birth. He was actually my first God child in my life. And of course, I knew baby Mama since she was 14. When did you meet? How old were you? I was 1819, okay. Because I just graduated high school, and I was going back to the ROTC program to help out, but I was going back to help out with the program because I had friends from previous classes, like the last two classes that I dealt with as a senior that were now leadership. And I was going back helping out, and she was a freshman in ROTC. Okay. Fun fact when I first met her scared the shit out of her when she first laid eyes on me because they were doing what's called a knockout drill. Oh, no, you jump back. Yeah, she jumped back, but she turned around listening to the commands of the eleven-year old’s biological father. And I was standing less than a foot behind her. Oh, no. So you were like, appeared? Yeah. She was facing away from me. And as soon as she turned around, I'm right here in her face. Yeah, it was great. So first husband was there. Looks like you introduced to the first husband. Yeah, he was one of my best friends growing up. When we were kids, his mother and my mother were Church friends. Church friends? Yeah. I mean, that's the best way I can say it. They were friends, period.

That's when you met and then first God sent through because you kept in contact throughout the years? Well, her first husband was active duty, so they moved around a lot after his first deployment. They spent a lot of time in Germany because she got married to him young. Like, young, pre 18. Okay. And then when they came back to the States, they were in Kansas and mostly central United States for the most part. And it wasn't until after they divorced that I saw her again in person. She actually turned me down in Vegas. So I just got back from deployment and she turned me down in Vegas. You're like, hey, baby. And she's like, no, no, actually, she came and met me and said, I'm sorry, I can't and disappeared again for another. Wait, hold on. Let me do the math here for another six years. She disappeared. Oh, disappeared for six years. That's really playing hard to get. Yeah. And then popped up six years later like, hey, what's up? What you doing? Yes. Can you come help me with some things? Yeah, I may help from you. Is that when you moved in? No, actually, no. She reconnected after baby Joker's biological father stepped out, and we kind of just hung out a few times. The first meal she made for me was absolutely burnt. But for some reason, I went back and I had a second meal that was better. I mean, she started off at the bottom just so that the next meal you're like, oh, my God, this is great. There were literally no expectations at all. What's the way to do it? She was pregnant and bland as steak. Like, it was drier than freaking Sahara Desert. Brisket was banging. But that's why I Cook the steaks now. You live and you learn. But I think they reconnected at that point. Yes. And I started coming over to help out because the house was falling apart because ex husband number two definitely didn't take care of it. So I started coming over on the weekends when I didn't work to help out, fix things up here and there, clean up the yard, mow the grass, that kind of stuff. And over time, it just became easier for me to stay there on the weekends versus traveling 35 minutes from my house that I was at to her house. So I was just leaving work from the road and coming and staying with her on the weekends and helping out. And then it just kind of just me ended up moving in. Yeah. At what point did it switch from like, I'm just helping you out to like, you know what, you kind of cute. I kind of like you. No, it's always been kind of cute. Kind of like you thing. Okay. Ever since she became of age and her and the kids, once she was legal, then it switched. Yeah. There was a little switch in the brain that went, you know what? Not too bad. But originally when I first moved in, it was me trying to help retrain her brain because she jumped from pretty much relationship to relationship. Sorry, Babe, I'm throwing out your business here and I don't want to be that next one. I don't want to be the one she jumps to because I'm available at the time. So I wanted her to experience life. How did that go for you? For a while, it actually worked. She actually listened to my recommendations and she did what I asked her to do because she wanted to be in a relationship with me so bad at that point. Finally, after 14 fucking years. But anyway, it's just a few years. Yeah. After a while, of course, it was pretty much after the baby was born and was stuck. You know what? I like this. I was willingly stuck baby is what really stole my heart. I mean, I still had feelings for her. I still cared about her and the eleven year old. The baby stole my heart. I love you still. But like the baby. Oh, and if you have access to my Facebook, there is a video that was recently reposted of the first time he giggled at me. I watched that. And I actually kind of tiered up with happiness when it was reposted, too. Yeah. Because it's like a moment whenever you see old things, you're like, I remember that. And then that feeling comes back every time I watch a video, I'm like, it takes me and transports me in time to that moment and just how I felt. So I get it. Yeah. It was that moment that I became stuck and realized. Willingly stuck. Willingly stuck. And now I definitely got myself stuck for another 18 years, on top of adding to when the toddler becomes 18 because I adopted him back in February of 2020. But, yeah, January, 2021. The adoption was finalized. So, yes, that was probably exciting. We're about to the closing time, aren't we? Yeah. I just was asking grilling you about all the things about your life. Yes, sir. I don't think I've heard your backstory as far as your relationship. So willingly stuck.

Willingly stuck. And happy tears are the mottos of this particular episode. When I met Andrew, he had just gotten out of a relationship or not met him when I started dating him, he had just gotten out of a relationship for like three maybe. I feel like it's longer. I don't know, a long time it felt like. And he's like, I don't want a girlfriend. Fooled him. It didn't take long before he was like, okay, I guess we'll stick around. And that was

almost twelve years ago. In July is when he decided he wanted to have a girlfriend after telling me he didn't want one. So it only took twelve years for you all. What do you mean, twelve years for what? To be the girlfriend. Oh, no, I'm more than the girlfriend now. Well, now, yes, I'm saying. But the time you all met to the time it became official Facebook. No, I'm telling you, we started hanging out in June, and in July, it was like a month and a half to two months before he changed his mind real fucking quick.

That's what happened. I don't know about that. Andrew don't let her lie. No, it didn't. It was either that or you're feeding him good or that head game is outrageous. He didn't like a lot of food when we first started dating, I made grilled cheese. I mean, maybe he liked the grilled cheese. He still to this day wants me to make the grilled cheese because he just can't get it right. It's grilled cheese. It's like one of the easiest things to make. Two slices of cheese, butter on the outside of the toast. Toast it and then put the cheese on the toast and close it up and flip it a few times. A few times you ruin it when you flip it too many times. Now you get to put the butter on the outside. One thing of cheese and a thing of Ham, and you only flip cheese. Yeah, but it's what he wants. And I make it just grilled cheese most of the time. But yeah. Anyway, that was one of the only things I can get him to eat because at the time, he didn't like ground beef. It's such a weirdo. And so it's like, you like chicken and I'm like, I'm not making chicken. I'm like a College student. I'll make you a grilled cheese. Yes, but I don't think I put the Ham in it. When I first started making the grilled cheese, it was like grilled cheese or like, I have a packet of ramen. A connoisseur of food knows how to Cook ramen and make it good. I like a good ramen. We went to a ramen place pretty recently, and I really enjoyed it. I made it really spicy, too. I've liked spicier food since meeting Andrew. Good. Now we just got to get you up to par on those last dabs. Last dabs. I don't think they'll ever be up to par on those. Those are really difficult. Yes. We need to get you better. I'm better at them. That's saying we need to get you some spicier sauces. What do you mean, spicier sauces? That's pretty fucking spicy for me. I still cry and have a hard time talking for, like, ten minutes. I'm like, I'm so sorry. There's just a lot of saliva in my mouth. I can't fucking breathe. You guys try to do the marshmallow and the hot dog. Yes, the chubby Bunny and the last half at the same time. The last shall be funny. I probably almost died. It's fucking awful. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and say that this will be the closing of our lovely podcast. If you want to check us out. We are on iTunes Spotify, Red Circle, primarily because they are our RSS host for the podcast audio files. And then of course, now we have Stitcher as an available option and Google Podcast. You can find us at any of those platforms at Mad House Presents: Group Therapy. There are currently six posted episodes, but five structured-ish episodes. The first one or the pilot was definitely us just working out the kinks and talking about everything and how we came up with the name as well. So that is in there. If you ever are curious how we actually came up with the name of the podcast and podcast channels and I don't even remember what I didn't want it to be. What was the one I didn't want it to be? I don't know. I have to go back and listen to myself now. Oh, my goodness. I was like, no, not now. I remember. It was outrageous. What happened? I was like, no, this cannot be the name of our podcast. I refuse. So Owls, where can they find you as far as socials that you are willing to share and your personal change so you can find me, of course, streaming on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 09:00 p.m. Eastern standard time at Twitch.tv/owlsareahoot92. Owlsareahoot92 is across all the platforms. I have Instagram and TikTok that I try to update pretty regularly and that's really I think it for me. I don't have anything else. Yeah, we're trying to get her a Twitter y’all, but she still is not jumping on that bandwagon just yet. So help me annoy the shit out of her to get her on Twitter. I have kids. You can annoy me all day but you can also find me at Twitch.tv/nlmp also on TikTok as what is my Tik Tok; on Twitter you can find me at nlmp_joker and of course the madhouse Twitter channel is MHPGroupTherapy. We have just recently changed it so if you listen to the, oh Official_NLMP on TikTok thank you. It's official NLMP on the Tok on the Tokyo. I posted some gaming more recently and not so much previously on Instagram, my gaming channel. You can find me at NLMP gaming and again we have the Twitter's channels for both myself at nlmp_joker and MHPGroupTherapy for the podcast Twitter channel. Any resources we use in the show will be added to our show notes. I don't believe we had anything this week though for that. No resources, not really. We'll do the show notes and put our links to our channels. Thank you to our sponsor, warrior X coffee, a local veteran owned and operated coffee company that donates a portion of every sale to the Gary Sanit Foundation to benefit veterans first responders military and St Baldwicks to combat childhood cancer in order to be placed through their website. Warrioraxcoffee.com. Yes. Also, by the way, there may have been an order in the mail for you and if there hasn't been, I have it on me. But they gave us a dark roast as the sponsor payment for this month coming up, so I may have to send it to you. I'll have to reach out to Bobby almond, who runs warrior ex coffee and make sure that that wasn't the case, that he sent it to me instead of just and mailing it directly to you. Okay. I like dark rose. I'm good with any coffee, honestly. Coffee? Coffee? Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. Coffee.

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