Transcript:  Interview with Jan by the Grandkids
Hi,
It's the Us and Kids podcast time, your time to absorb a bit of anything that will encourage you to stay married forever while you parent together.

I am Jan Talen, a marriage and family therapist, a wife, a mom, and a grandma. And I know, like you, the ups and the downs of trying to do it all.

This podcast is all about living your busy life as best you can each day and as you do, we know that you will avoid that ugly D word of divorce. It will not get in your way.

We write and post each podcast with a printable so that you can truly get the info you need so that you can have more joy and more connection out of each day, each kiddo, each kiss and each cry. 

I would like to introduce to you, in the podcast studio here with me, my three grandkids from one family. First of all, there is Maddie. Maddie, would you like to say hello? 

[00:00:53] Maddie: Hi, I'm Maddie and I am 10 years old.

[00:00:56] Jan: Thank you, Maddie. Jack, would you like to say hello? 

[00:00:59] Jack: Hi. Hi, I'm Jack and I'm seven years old. 

[00:01:02] Lucas: Hi, I'm Lucas and I'm five years old. 

[00:01:05] Jan: Thank you. And these kids are in a bit of an adventure because they have been around my house for almost a month, and then they are returning to their RV and they are traveling around the United States learning so many good things in so many different ways.

And this is one of their fun experiences is to figure out how to write good questions that their grandma can answer on a podcast and how to ask them well, so that I can understand their question and give a clear answer. So I hope that you enjoy getting to know me a little bit more via the questions the grandkids have written.

Maddie would just ask us the first question, please?

[00:01:50] Maddie: Of course. My first question is:  What was it like having four kids? 

[00:01:56] Jan: Yeah. So what was it like to have four kids? You're right. I raised four kids. Maddie, Jack, and Lucas's mom is my oldest daughter, and then she has a sister, Tammi, and then, oh, two and a half years later, she got another sister named Mindi.

And then a few years after that they all got a brother named Zach. And what was it like raising those four kids? Most of the time, for me, it was a lot of. But I also know that it was a lot of work. I know that I would fall asleep in bed faster than my head could hit the pillow. I know that I made list after list, after list, trying to keep track of everything that everybody was doing.

I know that sometime I would hold my head and I would say, to myself, “You haven't smiled all day. And then I would say, I gotta find something to smile about.”  'My kids were fun and funny. They weren't really naughty, but sometime I just got so intense about things I forgot to smile. And then I would smile.  I try to remind myself of that when my grandkids are all around too, is don't be so organized.  Just have some fun, for goodness sakes!. 

So that's some of what it was like. And let's see what's Lucas, are you ready to ask your question? What's your question. 

[00:03:25] Lucas: How did you meet grandpa. 

[00:03:27] Jan: How did I meet grandpa? That's a good question. I met grandpa when I was 18 years old and I was a freshman in college and we were living in the dorms apartments where the students lived.

We're doing a hay ride together and that's when I first met. Grandpa was playing on the hay ride. Now grandpa would say that he first caught his eyes on me when I was in the dining room, eating dinner. I didn't know he had noticed me at all, but he caught his eyes to me before I caught eyes to him. And you know what else?

I had braces, silver braces top and bottom - a whole mouthful. I didn't think any guy was going to want to look at me or be interested in talking with me because you're supposed to get your braces done, like in junior high, in high school, not in college. But you know what, he didn't care. And that was part of what made him so fun and made us decide to hang out together.

And we became good friends.

Jack, are you ready for your question?

[00:04:43] Jack: How did you get the piano? 

[00:04:50] Jan: That's a good question. Right now in my house I have a miniature baby grand piano that I got from my mom and dad's estate after both of them had passed away. I took that piano because I had spent many hours playing the piano for my dad. (It makes me cry). My mom wasn't in the house. She had long-term memory loss. So that was a different situation. But my dad was in his house and he couldn't speak well due to Parkinson's, but he loved for me to play the piano. And so I did.
Now the backstory to that is that when I was five years old, my mom and dad had a piano in the house. And I took lessons for over 10 years. Every week I played that piano for two or three hours a day. Now, not at that black one that we have at my house now, but a different piano. And so when I grew up and we had our kids, I said to your grandpa, we need a piano. And he said, “We do??” And I said, “Yes, we do!” . And so all of the kids learn how to play the piano.

Only one of them likes to play the piano. That would be which aunt? Who do you think? Tammi likes to play the flute yet? Mindi likes to play the piano. She does.  And Uncle Phil likes to play the piano. Yes, you're right, Maddie. It's your turn. 

[00:06:25] Maddie: My next question is what was it like being a kid?

It's kind of a followup question. I have a follow up question for that. Okay. 

[00:06:35] Jan: Do you want to ask me the follow-up question now or in a minute? In a minute. Okay.
Maddie: What was it like to be a kid?
Jan: You know, it was really pretty good. I was the third of three girls who were born in less than three years.

Me and my sister are both the same age for 23 days from January one to January 23. I am my age, but the same age as my sister, Kathy, because we were that close together. What I remember about being a kid does not seem very significant. I think that we just had a fine, happy family. I think that my dad worked a fair amount and he traveled for work.

So my mom was sometimes home alone with us overnight. And then my mom got really sick. And she was really sick for five years. And so she didn't have any more kids until she got better. And then she had Aunt Chris, Uncle Chuck and Aunt Ann over the next eight years.

So I am part of a family of six. There are five girls. And my brother, who is the second last being born. We had a lot of fun together. My mom and dad traveled. They bought property on a lake and we played at the lake. Yeah, that's true. We rode bikes. We road roller skates. We had a big backyard. I played baseball in our backyard a lot of the time after school.  I never learned how to play basketball. My dad took us skiing. My mom would sit in the lodge cause she wasn't as athletic. But dad took us skiing. So when we had a lot of fun as a kid, does that answer your question? 

[00:08:23] Maddie: Very nice. I just want to let you know that I am really amazed by your childhood and how you've been answering this question so far.

So thank you for doing this. 

[00:08:39] Jan: Yeah. Thank you.  Lucas
I think it's your turn to ask a question. Would you like to do that? 

[00:08:44] Lucas: What did you do at orange theory? 

[00:08:47] Jan: Oh, good question. Orange Theory is a workout place where I go to. They have not paid for this comment:)  And what do I do at orange theory? I work out - they do intense interval training.

And so it keeps my upper body strong and my back strong and my legs strong. I work out at Orange Theory because I'm no longer lifting children and most of my grandchildren are walking, so I don't have to lift them anymore. And that means I have to use something else to keep my body strong. I also do it because it clears my head.
When you're young, when you ride your bike a lot, you feel so good when you're done. And that's one of the reasons why I do it is because it helps my brain think really well.
Thank you, Lukie. That was a good question. 

[00:09:40] Maddie: I think that's super cool. Like how it clears your brain. I didn't think that workouts in a way would clear someone's brains.

So I think that's really amazing how you explained it. 

[00:09:55] Jan: Oh, thank you.
Jack, are you ready? 

[00:09:59] Jack: How did you learn to water-ski? 

[00:10:02] Jan: Ah, that's another fun question, isn’t it?
Well, you heard a little about that. I learned to water-ski because my dad and mom loved the water. Truthfully, my dad loved it more than my mom, because my dad knew how to ski and my mom didn't learn to swim until she was 32.

And not only that, my dad built a boat in a house that he was renting. He built the boat in the basement. Now let's think about this for a minute kids, because what happens if you put a boat in the basement and it doesn't have a garage door?

[00:10:41] Maddie: How would you get it out? 

[00:10:43] Jan: True. There's no good way to get it out. Right? Except for that, the basement was a walkout basement. So it still had a regular service door, but not a big garage type door. The walls were made of cement blocks. He took those cement cinder blocks out. And he pulled his boat out and then he put the cinder blocks back in! That's the boat I learned how to water ski behind. That's the boat I went out on Lake Michigan in. And so that was where I first learned to water ski. I was probably five or six when I first started to water ski.
Go ahead, Maddie. 

[00:11:26] Maddie: Wow. I think that's amazing. Your dad took the time out of his days to build that boat because he loved the water so much. And like when you use it and how much you use it and like it was hand-built. So I think that's really cool. 

[00:11:50] Jan: Yeah, it is really cool. And that boat never sank. Pretty good, huh?
Maddie: Yeah. That's super cool. 

[00:12:00] Maddie: How did you know that grandpa was the right man for you? 

[00:12:06] Jan: Hmm. Well, that's an interesting question.

One of the things grandpa and I did is we spent a lot of time playing and studying together. We just spent a lot of time together. So we got to know each other's moods. We got to know what we liked and what we didn’t. And grandpa, my husband Chip, was very kind. He was funny and he was fun. He was serious about doing a good job at his schoolwork and learning the stuff he needed to know for college.

He always paid for our dates even one time when we went on a date and I said, I wanted pizza and he had $2 in his pocket and didn't know how he was going to pay for the pizza. Thankfully the pizza came out burned. And so, you know what they did? They gave us a pizza for free. Grandpa was so relieved because he didn't know how he was going to pay for the pizza.

The other thing that I knew that grandpa was the right person to marry is because both he and I know Jesus and we knew that Jesus could help us be sure that what we were feeling when we were madly in love with each other was also what Jesus wanted us to do. And so that was another way I knew Chip was that right man for me.  I was very content when I talked with Jesus about it.

[00:13:21] Maddie: Well, I like, I like that story and I think that's super amazing. 

[00:13:28] Jan: Is it Lucas' turn? All right. Are you ready, Lucas? Will you talk right in the microphone? Okay. 

[00:13:34] Jack: How did you get your house? 

[00:13:36] Jan: You mean the house that I'm in right now?
Well, there's a little funny story behind it. We were living in a house, sort of just up the road from there on a different lake.

And we were driving home from visiting uncle Zach and Aunt Ann who had just had your cousin Olivia way down in West Virginia. So we spent 12 hours in the car on the way down there. And then we spent 12 hours in the car on the way home. So within three days we spent 24 hours talking with each other in the car and we agreed that the house we had was not working out for us very well.

So we said let's drive around that other lake and grandpa thought that was a great idea because he “knew” there wouldn't be any houses on that lake that we would like, and he didn't think we could afford any of the houses on that lake. But we drove down to the end of this street and there was a house close to the water and a place that had some woods.

And we said, oh, this really works. And so that's what we did. We sold our other house and we bought that house maybe six or seven years ago. Okay, go ahead Luc. 

Jack: That's really cool. I like how you explained it and how, how you got it. And 

Jan: Now, you know, the story. DSid you know the story that whenGreat Grandma walked in, she said, “You should just gut that house.”

And I said, “Wwe are not tearing this house apart.”
And a year later we moved out of the house we're in and we massively remodeled. Yup. That's what we did do. So this house that we bought does not look like the house that you guys know. 

[00:15:32] Jack: My mom told me. 

[00:15:33] Jan: Oh, did she? Yeah. You have a good memory. Luc. What do you think, Maddie?

[00:15:38] Maddie: I like that you had an idea to drive around the lake even though grandpa said it was not a good idea. And sometimes Jesus surprises us. 

[00:15:56] Jan: And that's very true. We were surprised and we are delighted. You are right!
Yes. Jack, is it your turn? Do you have one more question for me?

All right, let's hear it. 

[00:16:08] Jack: What did it feel like to buy your house? 

[00:16:11] Jan: What did it feel like to buy my house? It felt like a bit of an adventure. There were a lot of little legal pieces to this property that grandpa had to really sort through. When we got the house, we were really relieved. I was very tired because I had to move a lot of things.

But when we got in the house, we said, this is a really good house. So that's how it felt like: I was tired and I was very relieved. I knew this house was going to work better because we were closer to the water than our other house and because we had room to store our toys in the wintertime. Those were really a big deal for us to figure out and we were glad this house had the solutions for us.

[00:16:57] Maddie: So, um, I have a follow-up question real quick. So did you have any of your kids in that house. 

[00:17:08] Jan: Oh, goodness. No, all of our kids, your aunts and uncles and your mom, they were all born in California. You betcha. They didn't come to Michigan until Uncle Zach was about six and your mom was about 14 or 15. 

[00:17:25] Maddie: Oh, wow.

[00:17:25] Jan: Yep. Nobody there was born in that house. Did you have another question Jack? 

[00:17:31] Jack: So, um, I kinda like how you're kind of explaining it and also I liked that you thought it through in detail.
So I kind of like that you said, “I like this (house)”

[00:18:04] Jan: Yes. Remember we've spent 24 hours in the car talking to each other about what did we like about our house and what didn't we like? And so when we saw this house, the blue house, we said, oh, look, this works better.

Who's turn is it? Who's next question?
Is it yours? Maddie. 

[00:18:23] Maddie: Okay. Um, my next question is what was it like having siblings and like you being in the middle of them. 

[00:18:34] Jan: Oh, okay. So as you heard, I had four other sisters and one brother, and so we had a busy house, but also there was that five-year difference. So that when my sister Anne, the youngest was five I was 15.
So I was in high school. I was busy doing my own thing.
I don't remember having to babysit very often. Right.
I remember helping my mom with dishes. I remember we didn't have a dishwasher and so we would wash the dishes together. We had all had some chores around the house and I did those kinds of things.
We had to mow the yard. We all had a section of the yard to mow. But those were just normal things to us.
I always had a room with a sister because there were so many of us. We didn't have a crabby house. We had a pretty calm, you know, organized, mellow house. So there wasn't a lot of yelling or fighting or those kinds of things, which was fine with me.

I don't really like yelling and fighting. So it worked for me.
Yes. Okay. Maddie, you have another question. 

[00:19:54] Maddie: Yes, I do. I think I might know how you felt when you had to do the dishes. Like sometime, Jack and Lucas and I have to do the dishes all the time, because we don't have a dishwasher in the camper.

And then another thing is at least he (Uncle Chuck) didn't have to share a room with a brother. 

[00:20:19] Jan: That's right. I never shared a room with my brother:)
What do you want to say, Jack? 

[00:20:24] Jack: So also about the dishwasher thing is that we don't have a dishwasher in the camper, so we always have to get our hands messy .

[00:20:43] Jan: That's right. Sometimes dirty dishes are gross. Aren't they? I agree with you. I'm glad you're brave enough to do the dishes.
Who's turn is it? 

[00:20:53] Maddie: I have one more question. 

[00:20:55] Jan: Okay. Jack is going to ask his last question then Maddie's going to ask her last question.

Okay, go ahead, Jack. 

[00:21:03] Jack: Also about the dishwasher is the black tank. We have to do the same thing with the black tank and the gray tank.  

[00:21:12] Jan: Uh, meaning you have to help empty it into a special place that they have at the campground, right? Ah, yes. Yes, you're right. You have a lot of responsibilities.

Don't you? I had responsibilities when I was growing up too. It was ok.
And Maddie, what else do you have to ask? 

[00:21:36] Maddie: So my question is, did you live on a lake when you were a kid? If so, how long did you live on a lake or like that lake and then another lake? 

[00:21:46] Jan: Ah, good question. When I was probably Eight or nine my mom and dad bought a place with all of my mom's family on a lake. We all put our own individual, little mobile homes on there. So we had a single wide mobile home that all eight of us lived in, in the summer. There were three girls stacked on one bunk in one bedroom, two girls stacked on another bunk in another bedroom.

And my brother slept in the back room while my mom and dad slept on the pullout couch. And it was cozy, but I'll tell ya, It was a lot of fun! It's where I learned to swim, where I learned to ski. It's where I learned how to ice skate. It's where I learned how to play up in the woods and make Teepees and hide from my mom and dad and make campfires.

We have a lot of fun living on that lake and that's the only lake I lived on as a kid. And we would only live there in the summer. 

[00:22:52] Maddie: Um, wow. So, um, if you only lived on it on the summertime, how did you learn to ice skate on it? 

[00:23:01] Jan: Well, we learned to ice skate on it, even though there wasn't any place where we could go to the bathroom. We blew all the water out of the mobile homes iafter the summertime. After the summer was over, we still went out there for a couple of hours and we shoveled off the ice and we just ice skated on the lake on the ice. So we had a ball. It was a whole lot of fun.

Maddie: Wow. That's really cool.
Jan: Lukey, what do you want to ask?

[00:23:24] Lucas: Um, part of this question, orange theory, um, orange theory, um, I like how it's kind of... Orangish... 

[00:23:45] Jan: You're right. When you go by the orange theory place, it's orange, because they want you to work your heart fast enough so that it goes into the orange zone. And that's why it's called orange theory.

[00:24:00] Maddie: Oh, yeah, 

[00:24:00] Jack: How come it's called orange theory? 

[00:24:03] Jan: Oh, you know what a theory is: It is something that people think is true. And then they continue to test it out to figure it out. And the belief is that when my heart rate goes high enough to go into the orange part, that it will make my muscles stronger, but it will also make it so I will burn more calories throughout the day. 

So Maddie, you got one more question then? I think my listeners will be ready to move on to something else for the rest of their day. 

[00:24:31] Maddie: Well, I think that - looking back on all our questions -, I think it's super cool.to hear about all the history and stuff you've been through.
I think that's super cool. 

Jan: Jack, you have a question? 

[00:24:49] Jan: Thank you, Maddie. 

[00:24:51] Jack: So, what do you mean by calories... burn all the calories. 

[00:25:00] Jan: Ah, okay. What I mean by burning calories is that calories are part of your body that give your body the energy. If you eat more food than what you would need for your busy body, then you get fat.

And so burning calories is burning fat. And if you can keep the fat off from you, then often you are more healthy, but you also can often be more strong and able to move around and do things more easily. And that's easier for some people than for others.

I would like to say to Maddie, Jack and Lucas:  Thank you!!

You guys had great questions. I know your mom helped you with him. You guys did a great job asking me questions and giving me some time to answer. 

[00:25:51] Jack: Thank you. 

[00:25:53] Lucas: Thank you. 

[00:25:54] Maddie: Thank you. 

[00:25:55] Jan: And for that, let me just remind you, my friendly listeners, that this podcast is brought to you by Us and Kids. We will try to put a printable with this, although I'm not exactly sure what it will look like at the moment.

And, you will always be able to find other interesting podcasts on the Us and Kids website and your podcasting app.
Have a great day. And we'll talk again in a couple of weeks.
Bye-bye.