Bedtime Banter

The kids are down. The house is quiet. Let’s talk about it.

Three and a half years ago we traded the mountains of northern Nevada for a state where the highest point is an overpass. We expected sunshine and the occasional alligator. We didn’t expect it to become home this fast.

This one’s a love letter to the Sunshine State. Waving at every car that passes, or you’re a monster. Neighbors who skip “do you go to church” and go straight to “which one.” A grocery store with produce that looks like it came off another planet, and the day we found out romaine actually has a taste. Humidity, the shower after the shower, and the cold snap where Drew wouldn’t turn on the heat. Frozen iguanas falling out of trees. Rocket launches from the backyard. A pond gator named Armando. A daughter who relocates turtles and tree frogs as a full-time job.

And the part we didn’t see coming: what this place did for all four of us, and whether we ever thought we’d stay.

Pictures of the rocket launch are going up on Instagram.

We’re not experts. We’re just awake.

New episodes Sundays.

Have something we should talk about? If something’s been rattling around in your head all week, send it to [email protected]. We read every one.

bedtimebanter.com

@bedtimebanterpod

The kids are down. The house is quiet. Let’s talk about it.

Football, lacrosse, volleyball, sewing, horseback riding, disc golf, and an orthodontist appointment for good measure. We swore we’d never be these parents. This week we barely looked at each other.

So Christa needed to vent before anyone got to the silver lining, and Drew met her there. Coaching a team of eight-year-olds that was more like herding cats. Dinner at 4:30 or 9:30, nothing in between. A Celsius at 8 PM and a movie that took three nights to finish. Telling our boy no on basketball, and why saying no protects the whole family. Caddying 36 holes in the Florida heat while he took third place against a field of grown men. And the hotel washcloth that never seems to make it back to the hotel.

Then the part that makes it worth it: watching them love every minute of it.

If you’ve got kids in sports, we see you. Keep the snacks coming.

We’re not experts. We’re just awake.

New episodes Sundays.

Have something we should talk about? If something’s been rattling around in your head all week, send it to [email protected]. We read every one.

bedtimebanter.com

@bedtimebanterpod

The kids are down. The house is quiet. Let’s talk about it.

We set high expectations. For ourselves, for each other, for pretty much everyone in our lives. Lately we’ve been learning which ones to hold onto and which ones to hand back to God. So we made a game of it.

Rapid fire, expectation versus reality. The family vacation that’s really just a trip. Finally getting to stay up late, and being mad if you’re awake past 10:38. Forty-five minutes of scrolling for a show one of us sleeps through anyway. Cuddling all night versus the wall of pillows. The new couch that turned into a whole new living room, and the one that showed up in 27 boxes.

Then it gets real. Marriage being 100/100, not 50/50. Why friendship as an adult is so hard. Almost six years without a drink. And why 440 square feet was the happiest we’ve ever been.

Turns out the messy, ordinary version is the good stuff.

We’re not experts. We’re just awake.

New episodes Sundays.

Have something we should talk about? If something’s been rattling around in your head all week, send it to [email protected]. We read every one.

bedtimebanter.com

@bedtimebanterpod

The kids are down. The house is quiet. Let's talk about it.

Two episodes of our story were heavy enough. This week we lightened it up and went back to the '90s, and we're pretty sure they were better.

Calling the movie theater for showtimes. Blockbuster late fees and the shame that came with them. TGIF, Topanga, and JTT. Finding your friends by the pile of bikes and drinking out of whatever hose was closest. Christa the rink rat versus Drew and his pogo stick. Starter jackets, Dunkaroos, Pizza Hut with the chandeliers, and a Surge and Jolt doubleheader. CD binders that held 750 discs, the toothpaste trick, and the songs that still take us right back. Plus the settled debate over whether Die Hard is the greatest Christmas movie ever made. It is.

Then the real question: if we could go back, would we?

What business from our childhood needs to come back? Send it in. We're serious about this one.

No tears this time. Unless you miss Dunkaroos.

We're not experts. We're just awake.

New episodes Sundays.

Have something we should talk about? If something's been rattling around in your head all week, send it to [email protected]. We read every one.

bedtimebanter.com

@bedtimebanterpod

The kids are down. The house is quiet. Let's talk about it.

Last time we left off at the wedding. This one fills in the sixteen years since.

A surprise pregnancy test we had to buy twice. A loss that almost convinced us to stop at one, and the baby girl who came after. A kindergarten class of 46 that turned us into homeschoolers overnight. Selling the house, buying a 42-foot fifth wheel neither of us knew how to tow, and hitting the road with two kids and Louie, the wiener dog. Then the phone call that brought us home in five days, and the six months we got with Christa's dad because of it. And finally, the move to the furthest corner of the map.

It's a long one, and some of it is heavy. There's also a grill that melted straight through a picnic table on New Year's Eve.

We're not experts. We're just awake.

New episodes Sundays.

Have something we should talk about? If something's been rattling around in your head all week, send it to [email protected]. We read every one.

bedtimebanter.com

@bedtimebanterpod

The kids are down. The house is quiet. Let's talk about it.

Before we get into everything else, we figured we should tell you how we got here.

This one goes back to the beginning. How we met, what we each thought of one another, and whether those two accounts match. Dating. The proposal, which was a repeat of history. The wedding, and the endless humor behind it all.

Everything after the wedding is a whole other episode.

We're not experts. We're just awake.

New episodes Sundays.

Have something we should talk about? If something's been rattling around in your head all week, send it to [email protected]. We read every one.

bedtimebanter.com

@bedtimebanterpod

The kids are down. The house is quiet. Let's talk about it.

This is a quick preview of what Bedtime Banter is going to be.

We're Drew and Christa. Married, in our forties, raising our family in Florida. Every week we sit down after bedtime and talk about the day, and somewhere in there we end up on whatever's going on in the world, because at this stage of life those two things don't really separate.

No script. No segments. Some nights it's parenting, some nights it's the news, most nights it's both and a few things in between.

We're not experts. We're just awake.

New episodes Sundays.

Have something we should talk about? If something's been rattling around in your head all week, send it to [email protected].

bedtimebanter.com

Instagram: @bedtimebanterpod