Easter Chocolate Confessions - NOT CHILD SAFE

Ever wondered how a chocolate egg could turn a pint-sized adversary into your biggest ally? Buckle up, listeners, as we unravel the laugh-out-loud shenanigans of family Easter adventures, including my niece's unexpected partnership and our kid's crafty attempts to keep the Easter Bunny's magic alive. Strap in for a rollercoaster of nostalgia with stories that'll tickle your funny bone and warm your heart, as we traverse the mishaps and mirth of parenting. From stealthy tooth fairy maneuvers to hilarious elf-on-the-shelf concerns, we're serving up a feast of chuckles and candid tales from the dad trenches.

Switch gears with us as we reflect on the evolution of our podcast—your go-to haven for laid-back dad banter and real-life parental escapades. This episode peels back the curtain on the dad life experience, offering you a seat at the table where we chat about everything from behind-the-scenes recording quirks to how we let you, our awesome Twitter community, steer the conversation. So, plug in, turn up the volume, and let’s share a few laughs and insights on the delightful chaos that is raising kids, while savoring the unexpected twists that our dad journey—and our social media algorithms—throw our way.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Turning off normal human male mode. Switching to dad mode. Welcome in to dad mode With your hosts Bearded, Nova and Morph.

Speaker 2: 0:17

I gotta tell you what happened last weekend at Easter, because it was like fucking hilarious. My niece she's five or six, she's got a good attitude like negative as hell, but she's decided a long time ago that we couldn't talk or be friends or she couldn't even be in the same room as me. And this has been going on for years, like years. It's a vengeful hate of me, for no reason, basically. And I told my sister hey, I'll get, I'll get them some eggs, I'll bring some chocolate over to mom's house for them. Um, she told me not to. I said look, I'm gonna keep buying presents for the events because it's kind of like a bribe. Eventually she might like me. I said I'm happy to reset whatever she wants to reset. She's coming to my mums and said, hey, can we be friends? Gave me a picture of it. Give me a picture. That's enough to talk, can't have a hug or touch or say hi, like anything more. But she said, can we be friends? Gave me an egg and a thing, because she kind of I think she got into a mindset of, hey, I've stuck my ground, I've got to stick to my ground because I've made it such a thing for so long now like I can't undo it. So I think I think my sister said, hey, uncle josh said we can reset things. He wants to be friends. So she's taking it, yeah, as an opportunity.

Speaker 2: 1:42

A few hours into the day she comes up to me and I'm asking her and her brother about the easter bunny. What happened? This is horrible for kids, by the way. If you have kids listening to this, pushing me out of the room, um, and my nephew goes oh yeah, the eggs were at the door. I said, cool, he goes. Yeah, we get, we get up sometimes through the night and play. I'm like, oh okay, so randomly through, not even just easter, but they were up at like easter. For example, they were up at 3 am. He'd woken up, seen the easter bunny came, came and told his sister, then they played around for a little bit and then they went back to bed before mom and dad woke up. In all this they've seen the eggs.

Speaker 2: 2:25

I queried whether they ate any eggs, because you guys been silly and eating eggs at three o'clock in the morning because he's like seven, uh, all right, and he's turned around said no, but we went to the kitchen because we left a carrot out for the easter bunny. Yeah, I said, oh yeah, he goes, easter bunny had come, but he didn't eat any of the carrot. And I'm like, well, I went, oh, okay, okay. And then his sister chimes in and goes oh yeah, so I've hit him over the head with the carrot and it broke. I'm like, okay, and then they, the kids, thought it'd be a good idea to put the carrot back on the plate and get rid of the broken piece, the other half, just so when mum and dad woke up they knew that the Easter Bunny actually came and had something to eat. Ah, so they've gone ahead and baked the Easter Bunny for mum and dad because the Easter Bunny forgot to eat.

Speaker 2: 3:27

My sister didn't know about any of this. I've only called her a day ago, yesterday I was. So about seven days, six days later, I've called to tell her about this story because I was on the. You know, it's a secret. I don't know if I can tell. I've just got friendship with my niece. I don't want to break my trust, but I can tell I've just got friendship with my niece.

Speaker 2: 3:45

I don't want to break my trust, but it was too funny not to. So I'm telling her this story. And she goes. Huh, I went. What she goes? I totally forgot about the carrot. I went. Oh yeah, she goes, and I thought my husband had just done a fantastic job, remembering to take a bite from the carrot. So she praised him and she goes. But the funny thing was she wrote a whole lot of letters for the easter bunny and put him beside the carrot, so it was weird that all the letters were there, but the carrot was eaten well little known fact that the easter bunny can't actually read.

Speaker 3: 4:21

He can't, he can't, he's illiterate.

Speaker 2: 4:23

No, it's sad, it's. Yeah, they didn't have school then, but she's been praising him. I said to my mom I guarantee you they both woke up in the morning. One of them looked at it and went, oh cool, I forgot. But the other one did, and they both probably didn't speak to each other about it and just assumed that the other one done it for a week. And that's exactly what had happened. My sister had been praising him for doing such a good job.

Speaker 3: 4:46

That's fucking funny, followed by that's funny.

Speaker 2: 4:49

And then her birthday was yesterday. That's why I was talking to her. The elves in the shell, you know elves, they come around for Christmas and then they go away. Nephew went into her cupboard because they woke her up for the morning and she was doing presents. Mom, why are the elves in your cupboard? So he's had to come in and talk about how he's been horrible. He's been playing up so the elves have been coming by to keep an eye on him. Um, but my nephew did bring up safety concerns. He wanted to know. You know, it's probably not the best idea that the elves are hanging out by the gun ammunition.

Speaker 3: 5:30

You know what I mean? Well, I mean you can file a restraining order against the elf and the shelf. It's a little bit creepy what they do. They just hang around watching you. I'm not comfortable with it. No, no.

Speaker 2: 5:42

No, but I just love that. I've got friendship with my niece and my nephews and that's what I get told is all these secrets that Mom didn't know. I'm like this is great, I'm in. Yeah, I'm in the circle.

Speaker 3: 5:57

Do you guys have the concept of a tooth fairy over there?

Speaker 1: 5:59

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:01

Yeah, mm-hmm, this will embarrass my kid when he hears it, but he believed in the tooth fairy until he was like 11, maybe 12.

Speaker 2: 6:11

Yeah, my two daughters have done that.

Speaker 3: 6:16

He lost the tooth a couple weeks ago and he's like, yeah, I put it under my pillow. I'm like, dude, you're almost 13. Do you really believe in the tooth fairy? He's like, yeah, I put it under my pillow. I'm like, dude, you're almost 13. Like, do you really believe in the tooth fairy? He's like thanks for ruining my childhood. No, I'm like here's a fucking dollar. Give the tooth to your mom. He's like why does mom want the tooth? I'm like I don't know, but it's creepy. She has a bag full of them.

Speaker 2: 6:47

They go off to go inside spray cans, um, and I think that was the one that my kids hanged on to the most. I think my kids are kind of grassy idea. If they say that it isn't real, then they don't get any reward for it anymore. So it's like, hey, I'll ride this puppy out as long as I can right. You know, we were kind of getting to I would say we're getting to the cusp of Christmas with most of the kids. But having Dakota into the scene now resets it basically, because I mean, I'm the oldest of a lot of siblings. There's 20 years between me and my youngest and basically, while anyone was still living under the same roof as our parents you're all in line with it and santa still came to you as a sibling up until you moved out of home because there was such a younger sibling going through it. Um, so we were almost out of it all. But now dakota's back. You know that's kind of reset, um, that.

Speaker 2: 7:42

So there's, you know, my wallet gone but um, he didn't really want it anyway no, I didn't want it to fairy, though one of the middle daughters, she, she was a pain in the ass to deal with. What a pain in the ass. A pain in the butt to deal with, because, yeah, she would like bury that fucking tooth to deal with. What A pain in the ass. A pain in the butt to deal with Because, yeah, she would like bury that fucking tooth underneath her pillow. And then she's an extremely light sleeper. Oh, so there was nights where the tooth fairy had done double runs at trying to get underneath there and, yeah, a lot of failed attempts and yelling at another two fairy to come in to do it because it's out of frustration yeah, you had to do a stealth mission I think, and then I think there was a couple of times the two fairy had to come the next day because two fairy just couldn't find the tooth and had to ask for the tooth to be relocated into a better position.

Speaker 3: 8:46

Yeah, our house could explode and my oldest son wouldn't wake up when he was younger. What I would do is he takes a shower before he goes to bed. So as soon as he gets in the shower I know he's already put the tooth under there, I just go do it. He doesn't check it, thank God and gets in the shower I know he's already put the tooth under there, I just go do it. He doesn't check it, thank God. And then in the morning, oh it came, and I'm like eh, eh, look at that. And then my younger son is a light sleeper. So what I would do with him is I would put it on his desk, I would put the dollar on his desk, and then he'd be like I got the dollar at his desk. And then he'd be like I got the dollar, but the tooth fairy didn't take the tooth. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. You got paid though.

Speaker 2: 9:30

You're good yeah, the it's just. Yeah, it's frustrating doing some of these things as a parent. You think it's going to be easy and it's all bells and whistles like the TV. They don't tell you about so many different obstacles and challenges that can come in between you and a simple goal as taking a tooth and leaving money.

Speaker 3: 9:59

There's a lot for the tooth fairy to handle I mean, even if we expanded that people when they before they have kids, you know, they see like a freaking hallmark tv special or something like a perfect, ideal, idyllic family and everything is great, and then they have kids and it's like this isn't, this isn't what I signed up for, like there are some really amazing moments as a parent yes and there's a really incredible amount of crap that we have to deal with as parents too, and hopefully the really awesome sweet moments outweigh the other stuff so you can have a sort of happy first 18 years with your child.

Speaker 2: 10:47

Yep, yep, exactly right. It's a lot more difficult. That's what I'm gonna say. It's just so much more difficult at times than you. Then you contemplate and get it into it and I I love watching new parents struggle. I'm not gonna lie, I I it's like a thick obsession of mine is hearing hearing stories. The first time parents say how this is how they're doing, and I love to laugh at their pain because they're hitting this wall going what the hell, no one told me this.

Speaker 3: 11:23

It's like, yeah, no one told me either, so I'm not helping you out and if you are a first-time parent, um, pay attention what I'm about to say. One thing I love seeing my first-time parents is how overboard they go, buying stuff all like the best clothes and like all the little gadgets around the house to stop them from hurting themselves, and all this stuff and you know, and the nanny cams, and, and like you don't. And then when you have your second kid and your third, you give them a razor blade to play with you. Just the standards change.

Speaker 2: 12:00

I will say yes to that, but then having the gap between our two kids Start over, start over. But then also both mine and my wife's salaries are massively different compared to when we first had children.

Speaker 3: 12:17

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Yeah. So there's part of it that there is a lot more streamlined, like, yeah, this is what I need, bumble, boom, we're not, we're not wasting money on this type of stuff. But then, at the same time, I'm a little more splurgy at times with other little things that I don't, I don't need to be splurgy with. But I'm like fuck it, buy it, it'll be good. Yeah, you know, we go to we go to kmart and walk a pass and she starts reaching for like a you know a small toy. I'm like fuck it, you can have that, why not?

Speaker 3: 12:49

yeah, and that's what I say too, as long as you know, they're just shopping with me. Yeah, because it's it's different, like I shouldn't say this. Never mind, that's uh, that's for a behind the scenes episode. Um no, so normally kids get candy at easter and uh, I surprised uh them by buying this remote control godzilla that like did like the whole door and then spread the fire and, and I'm sure people are like I thought you were gonna get candies, get candies. I'm like, yeah, but I have an adult with disposable income and I'm a big kid, so this is what my kids get.

Speaker 2: 13:25

But we Easter for us changes a little bit, because it's not just the chocolate, eggs and bunnies and all that. What did the girls get? They got some hot chocolate melting thing. It was kind of very evil. You heated up hot milk and then you dropped a rabbit into the hot milk and then it kind of terminated the end of Terminator 2, basically melted into blood and then into chocolate and then marshmallows started boiling out and it kind of looked a little bit like pus. Yeah, it was really disgusting At first I thought this sounds really nice.

Speaker 2: 14:05

This would be a beautiful way to have you know Saturday, Sunday morning, we'll do this and then we'll head off. And then I realized it was kind of sick but we did that. But then they get like.

Speaker 3: 14:17

Please tell me that when you dropped the rabbit in and was doing that, it was like a little, the hand came up, a little something, a little something to make it a little spicy.

Speaker 2: 14:29

But the girls get From my mother. They used to get pajamas, like a nice set of pajamas for some reason, every year. But this year they got jumpers, you know, hoodies etc heading into winter over here soon or no, few months time from now. And they also got some baking thing. It wasn't a waffle press but it was something like a waffle press I'm like, because they like, they like cooking, the older girls do for some reason. So just we saw like a ten dollar, that was char, it was some, some. It was just like a, a cooking machine of sort. So they got that just because it was cheap and added to it um, and the dakota, she just got books and toys, just can't really chocolate right right, Right, and then for me no sugar me.

Speaker 2: 15:22

That was great, Just sitting back.

Speaker 3: 15:26

I forgot how much your life sucks right now.

Speaker 2: 15:29

Yeah, but after, because you notice the grocery stores afterwards. They have the ridiculously cheap sales. Start the day or the afternoon, I don't know I was going there to go get some milk and some other things from down the road and I walked past the sale section yeah, where they're clearing it out and no one showed. I didn't see them before, but they had bags of like eggs with knee and nose sugar, but nothing. So I snatched up a whole bag, a few bags of them, and brought them home.

Speaker 3: 16:09

I got to have my Easter a few days later. They're basically healthy.

Speaker 2: 16:13

I think each egg had half a gram of sugar or something.

Speaker 3: 16:16

Yeah, we discussed. That was just a previous episode. It's good gram of sugar or something. Yeah, we discussed this in a previous episode when, if there's no real nutritional information, it's health food.

Speaker 2: 16:27

Actually they are health food, brain chocolate, but it tasted good.

Speaker 3: 16:34

I live off their sugar. We're not sponsored by Bullet, but I'm looking on the back of here and Servings per container. I thought, it said one for a second.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Oh, that would rank right?

Speaker 3: 16:49

No, I'd be dead. That's alcohol poisoning. There's only Zero grams of carbs, zero fat. It's healthy. That's part of a low carb diet, right?

Speaker 2: 17:01

there you mix, you mix that in with some like pepsi max or some other zero free drink, boom you've got water in it, so I'm getting my water intake.

Speaker 3: 17:12

No, no carbs, no fat. That's great, that's great stuff. I'm gonna put that in juice boxes for my.

Speaker 2: 17:19

No, I'm not the kiddies are for.

Speaker 3: 17:21

You call like department of children and families actually there was a.

Speaker 2: 17:26

I remember this years ago as an apprentice, listened to the radio and they were talking about a story and I want to say it was over your side of the world, it could have been over mine, but where they make? This little kid had gone to the vending machine and got a can of pepsi, yeah, and when they cracked it open and drank it at school, they were extremely drunk afterwards. And it turns out the same. It turns out where they do the cans for Pepsi was also where they did the cans of Jack Daniels and cola. Oh, that's bad. So someone's accidentally mixed the cans up. So you know, some poor kid got drunk, thinking they were drinking a can of Pepsi. Who do you feel more sorry for? I feel sorry for the alcoholic sitting at home cracking his can of of Jack Daniels, drinking Pepsi, thinking he's having a good time.

Speaker 3: 18:22

Yeah, that kid grew some hair in his chest. But the guy at home, he's trying to forget about his damn day and he's drinking Pepsi, come on.

Speaker 2: 18:34

Cruel fucking joke that is he's like. Why isn't?

Speaker 3: 18:36

my family Getting more tolerable you know, not mine If you're listening fucking jerk. That is why isn't my family getting more tolerable? You know, not mine if you're listening. Um, so I feel like this is an episode and I don't know how to wrap it up this is a little ass talk, but I think we're good.

Speaker 2: 18:55

We covered a bit of holiday here.

Speaker 3: 18:56

We covered a bit of it's like I really want another reaction, like they hear an intro and then it just starts into something and it turns into something else and then it ends.

Speaker 2: 19:09

I just want to make it very clear that while we're doing this, we've just hit record and we're just start talking about bits and pieces, and this is just where it's ended up. There's been no input on either of us that this is going to drag onto a half an hour conversation about whatever topic. And I mean I know I mentioned it a week ago when we were recording last that I said, oh, we should do something about Easter. That's did not plan for this this week either. But you know, here we are, we've done it.

Speaker 3: 19:43

I mean, that's the thing. A couple things. We've been recording this since October and this is what we do before we start an official episode, usually, as we just talk. And then it was like hey, you know, it's been 45 minutes, we should probably actually record something, you know, um, but today it was just started. It was kind of a structured in a way, like we're we're actually like in our podcast voices, if you want, if you will, and it's just like God. This feels like an episode, so I just keep talking. But when you are and this is like the dream right there's a lot of people, most people out there have like they have a focus for the podcast and they have a topic, and sometimes guests do your thing and then you talk.

Speaker 3: 20:24

We usually do that. But I think both of us always thought wouldn't it be cool if we got to a point where we could just have a conversation? People like our banter, people think that they like listening to the show, our back and forth. We'll just do that. It's dad mode. That doesn't mean it has to be every episode about kids, it's just dad life.

Speaker 2: 20:46

Yeah, dad, life in general. It's an intro really, but we've done this for ages. People have seen the behind the scenes over time. There's a a lot of the clips that go out on social media are purely from the extra two hours of recording we've done for a 30 minute episode because we've gone in and said something. I will laugh, though. A few weeks ago when I uploaded the extras yeah, we always say in it, you know we won't post this. And it was like, yeah, every clip for one of the extras started with, really one of the extras started with every clip had we're not going to post this, but and then went through like it's like so this went through and found every clip that it didn't need to.

Speaker 3: 21:32

I was uploading clips today from Opus and I'm just like I wasn't even editing them, because actually Opus has gotten a lot better lately.

Speaker 2: 21:44

It's 3.0 now. It's fantastic.

Speaker 3: 21:47

Yeah, and so one of them, I went to hit share to YouTube and it said it was talking about a particular company and who they sponsor. And we were complaining about the people and I'm like, well, no, no, we're not going to upload this one, we're not. You know what I'm talking about I do, but yeah.

Speaker 3: 22:07

And there's been other ones, like there was one a while ago where you were talking about you were changing jobs and you were talking about one of the jobs you were leaving, and I'm listening and I'm like I don't think he wants this out there. So I'm like I'm deleting this. No, no.

Speaker 2: 22:24

But I'll argue with you, Strap. I like to keep going with this. Like I said, we can't have structure.

Speaker 3: 22:32

It's a little bit of structure. It's so much easier without a structure.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:37

I just want feedback on it. Really, I just want to hear it. Personal social medias the dad mode social medias?

Speaker 3: 22:43

I don't care. Hit us up on our Twitter Dad mode podcast on all platforms but Twitter. That's probably the easiest way that we can both see comments easily is just hit us up on twitter. Let us know what you like, what you don't. No, sorry, what you like, I don't care what you don't. Um, now, if you have ideas for shows, if you have ideas for what you'd like us to talk about, we'd love to hear it. So, dad mode podcast on twitter, or x or whatever the hell you want to call it um whatever the kids are calling this year.

Speaker 2: 23:20

I don't know. I've been looking at fred's more but fred seems like have you? I see fred's because it's sound mixed into and I'm going to bring out boomer and me. It's mixed into facebook, so you scroll on facebook for something and then it pops up like highlights from fred's to do stuff now and every so often I'll click on it and fred's reminds me of like a first time male joining tiktok, where you're just spammed with only fans girls nope, don't know what.

Speaker 3: 23:50

I don't know what you're talking about. Nope, I'm a wholesome family man.

Speaker 2: 23:54

Basically, that's where Friends is right now. I'm sure it'll clean itself up eventually, but right now that's where they've all gone.

Speaker 3: 24:06

So speaking of that where they load you up with stuff because they figure, oh, you're this sex between these ages, so this is what you're going to like Basically.

Speaker 2: 24:18

So you're between 18 and 65. That's what you're going to like.

Speaker 3: 24:24

Yeah, TikTok, like you know, I've been going through some thoughts of my personal life, looking at some things, and so TikTok decides this is what we're going to show you. Every video is going to be about this, just to make you feel more miserable. Oh really.

Speaker 1: 24:37

Right.

Speaker 3: 24:37

And then, um, I'm, I'm messaging some people in TikTok talking about the situation and I'm like, and then I'm like, oh well, maybe this thing is turning around like part of the situation, and what do you think happens? Tiktok starts showing me that I'm sure it reads your messages and curates what you're showing, shown, based on everything you do comments you leave, dms you have and what you watch. I swear to god, they look at every piece of info you entered into that app and they curate your feed. I shit you not. Huh, right, they own it all. Right, I think it just goes into the algorithm app. And they curate your feed. I shit you not. They own it all. I think it just goes into the algorithm. Yeah, okay, okay, try it out. Start DMing someone back and forth about a topic you never look at, on fishing or something. Then watch. If you start to get fishing videos in your FYP, that's a good time to leave and let's see what we get back.

Speaker 2: 25:30

And then watch if you start to get fishing videos and your FYP All right, cool bargain that's a good time to leave and let's see what we get back.

Speaker 3: 25:35

Yeah, everybody listening. Try it out and then let us know on Twitter at dad mode podcast If it worked for you you've been listening to dad mode.

Speaker 1: 25:48

Our passion is navigating this wild journey of parenthood and modern life, from balancing family time to managing your career and still squeezing in some gaming and content creation. And no matter what the women say, they will never be able to pry the controller out of our cold dead hands. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, find us on Twitter, tiktok and YouTube at DadModePodcast and we can be found on every podcast site at DadModePodcast. Y'all be cool. See you next time.