Chasten Buttigieg (3:54)

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Zibby Owens (3:56)

It's my pleasure. I am going to feel inferior literally every time I get to the airport from now on because this is what I could be getting. And instead maybe a car service or something, but probably not.

Chasten Buttigieg (4:08)

I mean, I think the hug at the end of the day is the best thing.

Zibby Owens (4:11)

I know. That's true.

Chasten Buttigieg (4:12)

Yeah.

Zibby Owens (4:12)

But I'll take the cake. The cake would be nice. I wouldn't turn it down.

Chasten Buttigieg (4:16)

Yeah.

Zibby Owens (4:17)

Okay. Give a little rundown of what the book is about.

Chasten Buttigieg (4:21)

Well, I actually wrote the book on an airplane. I was thinking for a long time about the kind of story I wanted to tell. I really just set out to find books that looked like our family. I had been searching for a book that I could read to my kids. This was about two years ago. It's wild to think my kids are about to turn four and when they were about two, I was looking for a book like this. And I just wanted it to be a fun day in the life story of a family that looked like ours. And while I was on the airplane, I thought about how excited I was to get home to them and how excited the characters in this book might be to welcome their dad home. And that's where it came from. And my kids sort of helped me write it along the way as I went through draft after draft of the book. And here's where we wound up.

Zibby Owens (5:07)

Wow. So what you don't find out in the book, I have some questions about where was the dad? How long was he gone? I. I need to know.

Chasten Buttigieg (5:17)

I want the itinerary, actually well, let me see.

Zibby Owens (5:20)

Oh, is there a clue somewhere that I missed?

Chasten Buttigieg (5:22)

I think on the refrigerator. You know what's really funny is this actually isn't the book that's funny.

Zibby Owens (5:29)

Oh, you're right. Okay.

Chasten Buttigieg (5:30)

Just a fake cover.

Zibby Owens (5:32)

Oh, I see. So he's been gone 13 days. Okay, thank you for that.

Chasten Buttigieg (5:38)

I think they have Michigan. Yes.

Zibby Owens (5:41)

Michigan. Yes. Michelle.

Chasten Buttigieg (5:43)

Yeah, obviously. Any chance I can get to brag about Michigan or slip Michigan into the narrative? I'm going to see.

Zibby Owens (5:51)

This is my grown up brain reading and skipping some illustrations and focusing on words. Shame on me for losing my children.

Chasten Buttigieg (5:59)

Well, Spitter has so many good little Easter eggs hidden in the book. I loved working with Dan on hiding little things throughout the book, like the number of their house. That's my birthday.

Zibby Owens (6:10)

Oh, I'm like, what did I. What is hidden that I'm missing?

Chasten Buttigieg (6:15)

Now I'm going to the cute little baby pictures on the wall. It's all these tiny details. You know, what. What makes the house a home and all the little.

Zibby Owens (6:24)

Your birthday's 23.

Chasten Buttigieg (6:26)

Yeah, June 23rd.

Zibby Owens (6:27)

Oh, wow. Okay. Well, now I'm looking closely. The illustrator is amazing, by the way.

Chasten Buttigieg (6:35)

He's great. He did such a beautiful job with the book. And when we first got the art back, Penelope, right away, my daughter, she was like, hey, that looks like me. Hey, that's Gus. Yeah, it was really deep.

Zibby Owens (6:48)

I feel like you could maybe sell all these flowers. You know, you have this gorgeous bouquet here, which you could almost pair work with a florist for, like, a Father's Day gift. Oh, man, wouldn't that be fun?

Chasten Buttigieg (7:01)

Well, actually, here in Traverse City, I partnered with a local coffee company, and they're selling Rosie and Jojo's java.

Zibby Owens (7:08)

Ooh, that's good, too.

Chasten Buttigieg (7:10)

We're doing a Father's Day blend, and it benefits the local library and the Up North Pride organization here in Michigan.

Zibby Owens (7:17)

That's amazing. Oh, that's great. Okay, so forget my flower idea, but.

Chasten Buttigieg (7:21)

I still would love the flowers.

Zibby Owens (7:22)

Yes, would be cool, too.

Chasten Buttigieg (7:24)

Fictional aspect of the book. I do not have a beautiful flower garden at my house half the time. I don't want to kill it. All of it, you know?

Zibby Owens (7:31)

But the stinky cheese and the robe. Check.

Chasten Buttigieg (7:33)

Love my robe. And it's my husband who's a fan of stinky cheese. And when I was working with Gus and Penelope brainstorming, like, ideas that the papa might have missed, Stinky cheese came up.

Zibby Owens (7:44)

Wow. When we last talked, you were thinking about writing this book. You were like, it's some sort of Story about the two dads, but it's not about the fact that there are two dads, it's just that the dads are in it. Da, da, da. And now here it is. Were there other plots that you investigated or was this the main thing?

Chasten Buttigieg (8:00)

I really liked the idea of a travel story, and it kind of, you know, this is a pretty watered down version of some of the different versions that I liked. But I think maybe there's room for a sequel then, you know, the adventures that Rosie and Jojo get up to. But you're right, it was really important to me at the end of the day that we just had a story that looked like our family, that I don't always want to be reading books to my kids that discusses difference. I think there's a room for. There's room for those books and we should have those books to have really important conversations. But I don't want to read a story to my kid at the end of the night that might prompt larger discussions when we're just trying to get them to go to bed. Right. Like, everyone's different. It's okay to be different. You're different, your family's different. I just wanted a, you know, an everyday life story. And so I'm really happy where we landed.

Zibby Owens (8:47)

Yeah, it's really lovely. Really lovely.

Chasten Buttigieg (8:50)

Thank you.

Zibby Owens (8:50)

Tell me some stories about trips that you've taken and who has picked you up. Like, has there been a moment where someone really exciting picked you up or you wanted someone to pick you up and they didn't show up? Do you have anything like that?

Chasten Buttigieg (9:03)

You know, I just came home from a big trip a couple days ago, but I got home at midnight. And I think one of the best parts about coming home is that big hug. The way we see it in the airport at the end of the book, but just the fact that someone missed you so much. And so my kids actually woke me up the next morning. You know, they get up at like quarter to six right now. It's pretty tough, but the way they run into the bedroom and they jump up on the bed and they're so happy to see you. And I think about when we would bring the kids to the airport to see Pete, my husband, when he would come home from a trip, and how I would get them out of their car seats so that they could run up to him on the sidewalk. And that is just. As a parent, you know, it is the best feeling in the world to have those little arms wrapped around you and for them to tell you that you Were missed.

Zibby Owens (9:53)

That is nice. A hug can never be underrated. Underrated? Yeah.

Chasten Buttigieg (10:01)

Yeah.

Zibby Owens (10:01)

The best.

Chasten Buttigieg (10:02)

We call them tight squeezes. And, you know, sometimes I'll say, tighter, tighter, and they just keep squeezing tighter and tighter and you just never want to let them go. And I think I'm very conscious of it because so many people always tell you it goes too fast. It goes so fast. You know, parenting goes so fast. And I always think about how I'm going to want those types of hugs one day, you know, when they're. I was an 8th grade teacher, so I'm dreading the teenage years when they might not want to hug you as tightly.

Zibby Owens (10:31)

My teenagers still hug me very tightly. And they're. My twins are going to be 18 next month now my son is like, could crush me, he's so strong. But their hugs are the best. And it's different, but it doesn't go away.

Chasten Buttigieg (10:46)

Good. I hope so.

Zibby Owens (10:48)

And I mean, I don't know the pressure to enjoy it all when a lot of it is really, really hard. I mean, it's okay. Like, it's not all going to be great, but, yes, one day it will be over. But that doesn't necessarily mean it went fast. It just mean. It just means it went right.

Chasten Buttigieg (11:04)

I'm always conscious of this idea someone gave when. When you're in one of the really tough moments, one of the really, like, tricky moments where you're, you know, sometimes they don't go to bed till like 10pm like, you put them down at 7 and they just for hours and you want to pull your hair out, like what I do to get you to go to bed. And someone told me once, like, one day you're going to wish that you were able to talk them into bed, like, one more time. Or when they're. My daughter especially, she'll cry like, I need one more hug. Or she'll say, you didn't give me a hug good night. It's like hour three. Like, I've given you so many hugs. Good night. Like, one day you'll wish that they called you in to give them one more hug or one more kiss good night or one more story. But yeah, in the moment, you're like, okay, I get it. One day I might want this, but I'm also so tired and I still have to do the dishes.

Zibby Owens (11:50)

If you want me to live to that day, you have to let me go to sleep right now.

Chasten Buttigieg (11:54)

Now you need to go to bed right now.

Zibby Owens (11:56)

One More Hug is a children's book. I've had the author on. I'm trying to remember who it was. I think it might have been Megan Alexander, but that's the whole premise of the book. It's like she doesn't want to. She's tired and da, da, da.

Chasten Buttigieg (12:08)

But is it helpful? Do I need to get it?

Zibby Owens (12:10)

You should get it. You should definitely get it. One more hug. I'll send you the link when we get up. I'm sure I'll be able to find it. But I do think that hanging on to the sense of joy that you have in the book, like, your whole book is so joyful. The colors and all the festivities and anything with sprinkles is just, like, fun. Right? It's like that kind of joy is not necessarily correlated with airline travel these days.

Chasten Buttigieg (12:40)

Yeah.

Zibby Owens (12:41)

So if there's a way we could sort of meld them. Did you see, by the way, I saw this on Instagram last night, that there's a Duncan, like, takeover is the wrong word, but when you like it, like, wrapped the plane, a JetBlue plane in Duncan to, like, make it fun. And, like, they give free. Free coffee on this one airplane in the whole line.

Chasten Buttigieg (13:03)

I mean, I have my questions about coffee on airplanes anyway. You know, my kids are. They're really good travelers, knock on wood. They really love airplanes. They. They love traveling. And I'm wondering how long it's going to last for the tablet rule to play, because we. We gave them tablets this year and we told them they only work on airplanes. And so working, like, they go back in the closet, and they got them out of the closet like, a couple of weeks ago. And my daughter was like, oh, we can't play with those guests. Those are just for the airplane. Like, that's right. They only work on airplanes.

Zibby Owens (13:41)

I am so impressed. That is good. That is a good trick. They're going to be very upset one day, but it's a good trick.

Chasten Buttigieg (13:47)

Airplane tablets.

Zibby Owens (13:47)

Yeah, airplane tablets. Oh, my gosh. Brilliant. Totally brilliant. Yeah. How I raised the older ones without iPads, I don't even know. But anyway, somehow you get through.

Chasten Buttigieg (14:00)

Oh, yeah. I mean, I wanted, you know, they needed to be quiet for five hours, so just, you know, it's crazy to watch how their brains work on those things, which is terrifying for me. But, you know, for five hours, it worked.

Zibby Owens (14:14)

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Chasten Buttigieg (19:47)

How did it go for the YA book? I had incredible conversations around the country. We went to so many cities and particularly in the sort of red and purple states, talking with these parents who would show up to the book event just because they didn't really know what to do and they might have had a kid that came out of the closet. And I remember specifically some of the conversations I had in Texas and Florida where these parents were Contending with their politics and their religion. But they loved their kids so much and they saw themselves sort of in the story of my parents. Parents who had to put, you know, prior beliefs and prejudice aside to keep their kid alive. They loved me so much that they were willing to transcend what they had been taught or believed just to support their kid. And it went really well. It was really inspiring. At the end of the day, I always come back to this idea that our country is full of really good people. There are such good people in this country and you just don't read about them or hear about them every day. Especially if you're online a lot, you know, in certain media platforms, it seems like it's really dark and scary out there. Which is not to say that some of what's happening right now isn't, but when you get out on the road and you're sitting in these libraries with, you know, parents and community leaders and teachers, you're just reminded of how good people are, that they want to do well by others and, and they want to support the people that they love. And I believe that most people want to find a way to cross the bridge to acceptance. I think that people are trying to find a way to be bigger hearted and more loving. And I hope that this children's book is also a way to help every family have that conversation, that this too is an American family. And I think the YA book specifically was really helpful for teenagers, but also really helpful for parents. In the YA book, I was able to sort of expand on what I went through during childhood, all the way through college, before I met my husband and before the crazy political rollercoaster happened. And a lot of that had to do with my upbringing and the conversations that we didn't have. I hope that it's helpful for parents to think about how you might talk to your kid and tell them how they are loved unconditionally. If we have that conversation early, then when we're growing up, we don't have to question whether we'll lose our parents love because of who we are. And I think the children's book is just another example of what happens when you love your family unconditionally.

Zibby Owens (22:09)

Well, that's beautiful. Where are all these good people? How do I find them? How do I. How do I reach them on Instagram? Where are they hiding?

Chasten Buttigieg (22:17)

I mean, you travel so much too. You must see this when you're just talking to someone. Even, you know, even here in, in Northern Michigan. We're what I like to call, like the, the blueberry and the raspberry jello. You know, like little liberal city surrounded by, you know, much more conservative surroundings. And I still think people like adhere by the rule in public, in person, face to face, that if you don't have anything nice to say, you don't say it at all. And then I'm also surprised. Some of the conversations I have with people at the coffee shop or at the grocery store, especially at the grocery store, I have learned that it's going to take me probably an extra hour to grocery shop. They talk to so many people. But I think people, when you're face to face, have to contend with your humanity talking to another human being. They're not just hiding behind a keyboard. So that's why I like to spend more time offline and not let the online discourse replace my idea of what reality is.

Zibby Owens (23:16)

That is tough. That's a tough one.

Chasten Buttigieg (23:18)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, step one, I delete it from my phone because I could always sense my finger going back to the icon. I just wanted to see what people are talking about. But that's not people talking. That's just some people talking about. That's not everybody.

Zibby Owens (23:34)

Wait, what?

Chasten Buttigieg (23:34)

Did you delete all the social media platforms?

Zibby Owens (23:37)

All of them?

Chasten Buttigieg (23:38)

Yeah, just get rid of them. Sometimes I have Instagram on there because I find like, I can follow my friends lives more closely. And I like the pictures, but Twitter especially, I don't need it. I just, I don't need it. And as a parent, the scary thing is the power those devices have over your attention. And the one thing I want to be focused on when they're home from school is them. And I know when you're really tired, you know, it's just like I'm just gonna sit down and drink my coffee and scroll through Twitter. Like the best things in the world are right over there, you know, waiting the train set or waiting to read another book. And I know sometimes it's exhausting not saying you have to play with your kids all the time. Everyone deserves a break. But what you do with that break, I think is so important. Like what's restorative, sitting down and reading some of the darkest commentary in the country, or sitting down and maybe staring out the window or just drinking the.

Zibby Owens (24:31)

Coffee in silence versus reading a novel, perhaps.

Chasten Buttigieg (24:35)

Yeah, yeah. It's tough to read these days with, you know, them around.

Zibby Owens (24:39)

But that's true. That's true.

Chasten Buttigieg (24:41)

Yeah. I think it's important to take those breaks.

Zibby Owens (24:44)

No, you're right. You're right. I don't I'm not really on Twitter either. I went on for the first time in like a month. I was like, I gotta get in and get out. It's like I poked my head in a store and I was like, not for me. I'm out. I'm back on the sidewalk.

Chasten Buttigieg (24:58)

I think it's got a place. I mean, you know, I Sometimes you post work stuff there updates, but I just don't feel like I'm in conversation with anybody there. And I think when we're talking at one another and we're not talking with one another, what's the point? You know? When have you ever seen someone on Twitter say, oh my gosh, you're so right. I see it from your perspective now. Real.

Zibby Owens (25:19)

Yeah. Very true.

Chasten Buttigieg (25:20)

Yeah.

Zibby Owens (25:21)

Okay, so more children's books. What is the secret sequel and what else might be coming next from you?

Chasten Buttigieg (25:28)

I don't know. I'd love to hear what people think. I love these characters. I don't know where they go next. Maybe they get on the airplane next. Maybe they're going to visit someone. I just love how dedicated the parents are in the book. I love how excited they are to sort of follow the hijinks of the twins.

Zibby Owens (25:46)

Yep.

Chasten Buttigieg (25:47)

And how it sort of models like a. Yes. And parenting style. That might not always be real, you know, in real life, but I love that the parents love their kids and love their creativity.

Zibby Owens (25:59)

Maybe it's Jojo's going away.

Chasten Buttigieg (26:01)

Oh, where do you think he's going?

Zibby Owens (26:03)

He's going on an airplane.

Chasten Buttigieg (26:05)

Maybe he's going to. I don't know if it's like Rosie and Jojo are going to visit their grandparents.

Zibby Owens (26:12)

Maybe it's weird just having one of them go somewhere. That's true. They wouldn't do that. I was trying to do the G sound that like Jeff going, I don't know, Nevermind. Forget alliterations. But it didn't even work because it's j. We'll have to workshop it a little more.

Chasten Buttigieg (26:26)

Yeah. I do love the idea that they're going on another adventure. They're really excited to go on that adventure because I think that's a universal experience as well, when you're not only getting ready to welcome someone home, but you're getting ready to go on the adventure yourselves. And I can see that being really fun.

Zibby Owens (26:44)

Yeah. Little adventure kits.

Chasten Buttigieg (26:46)

Yeah.

Zibby Owens (26:47)

Right.

Chasten Buttigieg (26:47)

Survival backpacks.

Zibby Owens (26:49)

Survival kits. Well, keep the blue. I love the color. I love the color. Anyway, this is a perfect Father's Day gift, obviously, but also just ongoing because it's a good if you feel guilty going on a business trip. Book as well. You just, you know, store this away. Bring it to the gift. Yeah. Lots of uses.

Chasten Buttigieg (27:10)

Thank you. Yeah. I'm excited for Father's Day and I think this is just a great example of how kids miss their dads when they're gone.

Zibby Owens (27:18)

Yeah.

Chasten Buttigieg (27:18)

And I'm so tickled that, you know, now I'm a dad. And here I am getting to read about being a dad and it's pretty exciting.

Zibby Owens (27:25)

That's awesome. I hope you keep that enthusiasm, you.

Chasten Buttigieg (27:30)

Know, while I'm doing this interview when I'm home alone with coffee. So.

Zibby Owens (27:33)

I know.

Chasten Buttigieg (27:34)

Be enthusiastic right now.

Zibby Owens (27:37)

Cut to chest in, like crying in the bathroom, you know, kids banging on.

Chasten Buttigieg (27:42)

The door, vaping Mac and cheese off the ceiling. Yeah.

Zibby Owens (27:47)

Oh, my gosh. All right, well, congratulations and I'll be cheering for you.

Chasten Buttigieg (27:52)

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Zibby Owens (27:54)

Okay, take care.

Chasten Buttigieg (27:55)

You too.

Zibby Owens (27:56)

Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Siby, formerly Moms don't have Time to read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review. Follow me on Instagram at the Iippyowens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.

Chasten Buttigieg (28:19)

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Zibby Owens (29:19)

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