Hot Mom Sh!t

I'm getting a little heavy today, guys. I'm a year postpartum, I finally finished breastfeeding, I was feeling so good... and then my body said, "Not so fast." I've been spiraling for no reason, and the other night I was crying in bed to Matt when I finally heard myself say it out loud: I think my postpartum anxiety is back.

Lately everything is a worst-case scenario. A swollen knee turns into "what if it's infected and spreads?" An abnormal Pap turns into me planning how to tell my kids (it came back okay). My son brings...

I have been obsessed with Anjelah Johnson-Reyes since the nail salon video, so yes, I fangirled the entire time. Before she was a comedian, she was a Raiderette, and I was a Patriots cheerleader, so we had to settle that first. We could fight in the streets about it, but she would win.

Then we got into the part of her story I did not know. Anjelah and her husband never wanted kids. Their careers were the baby. Then COVID shut everything down, and for the first time in her life she thought, "If I never tour...

I recorded this one on my 39th birthday, with a lip I literally cannot move. I got a little lip flip, they did a little more than usual, and now I get to wait it out. Don't get a lip flip, guys. So if I talk weird or look funny on YouTube, that's why.

A couple of weeks before my birthday, I woke up with a swollen, red, warm knee for no reason. Off to urgent care on a Sunday, where the doctor looked at me and asked, "Do you still get periods?" Ma'am. I just had...

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, and I could not think of anyone I would rather spend it with than Abbe Feder. Abbe trained as an actress, moved to LA, married a filmmaker, and then spent the better part of six years trying to become a mom. IUIs, four egg retrievals, eight transfers, a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, and a lot of doctors telling her it was probably not going to happen. Now she runs InCircle Fertility, where she holds the hands of women going through exactly what she went through.

We got into the...

We have had Dr. S on twice in a row now, and every single time my DMs fill up with the same thing — where do I start with her, what was the first one, send me that episode. So this week I am bringing it back. This is the very first conversation I ever had with Dr. Sanam Shamtobi, before she was a regular around here, and it still holds up.

Here is the thing about this one: I came in with a breastfeeding question. That was it. I was six months postpartum, exclusively pumping with a to...

Dr. S is back, and this time we actually made it to the questions — which, if you heard the last one, is a genuine achievement for the two of us. I feel lighter every single time I talk to her, and I needed this one. We started with the question I had been sitting on for ages without knowing I was sitting on it: is it normal to feel rage toward your partner after having a baby, even when he is actually a good partner?

Her answer was yes, 100%, and it has almost nothing to do with hi...

Dr. S is back, you guys, and thank god, because you have all been taking my unhinged advice for months now and I am not qualified to give it. She showed up with barely a voice — her toddler had been in school for approximately two days and already brought something home — which is honestly the exact energy this episode needed. My son did the same thing to me. Two moms, both sick, both in it, finally handing you over to an actual expert.

I asked her the question I have been chewing on for months: is being a mo...

This was one of those weekends where I genuinely don't know how I'm still standing. Bruno Mars, two sick kids, a three-minute nap that somehow ruined my entire Sunday, and by Monday I was Googling how tall Bruno Mars actually is instead of sleeping. Anyway. You guys have been sending me questions since I started this podcast, so today I finally sat down and answered some of them — no script, no notes, just me and my opinions, which come with a very large asterisk: I am not an expert, I'm just a mom who's figured a few things out th...

I finished her book ten minutes before we hit record. Ten minutes. I have a two-year-old and a ten-month-old, and this is the second book I've read in three years — so understand what I'm telling you when I say I could not put it down. I texted my mom about it. I told Laura she's my new best friend, out loud, on the recording, like a normal person.

Laura Clery has 26 million followers, three books, and a new one called What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Hotter — which, if that's not hot mom sh!t, I don't know...

My husband is back on the podcast for the first time since episode two — and back then we were smack in the middle of the hardest season of our marriage. This time we're coming to you from the other side of it, and Matt brought receipts.

We start with the aftermath of my first colonoscopy, because apparently I told him he was my hero, gave him full permission to "take his pick," and got very concerned about a cartoon character while still under anesthesia. Naturally, I made him relive the whole thing on mic.

Then I...

So this week starts with me bleeding through a leopard-print romper in the vestibule of Mission Barbecue, and ends with me making one of the biggest decisions I've made all year. Only on this podcast, honestly.

Solo mom weekend, day one: I somehow convince myself Target has “farting pigs” (it does not), survive a public period incident with zero backup, and still manage to have one of the best weekends I've had in months with my boys. Then somewhere between the leftovers and bedtime, it hits me — the thing that's exhausting about motherhood was never the mothering. It's e...

I did a cute little shoot this week. Got my glam done, washed my hair for the first time in days, felt like I had my life together for about five minutes. And then I sat down with Tara Clark and immediately felt like the biggest hot mess in the room. In the best way.

You know Tara as Modern Mom Probs — the Instagram, the podcast, the book, all of it. She's been doing the good, the bad, the ugly, the real about motherhood since before it was a whole genre, and I've been dying to get he...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm almost 10 months postpartum, a month free of breastfeeding, and finally starting to feel like myself again — libido and all. But it's not all good news. I'm also opening up about something I've been putting off for over a decade: getting tested for Lynch syndrome, a genetic mutation that runs in my family and raises your risk for certain cancers, after my mom's own cancer diagnosis back in 2014.

I finally did the testing, got my results, and yes, I have the gene. I talk through the spiral I went into, ho...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm sitting down with Alyssa and Becca from Stepmom Side Chats  and I'm not gonna lie, I felt so seen the second I found their page that I had to have them on. I talk about my step kids, but I've never really gotten into the actual ins and outs of stepmom life, and these two go there in a way I've never heard anyone go there before.

We get into how they became best friends at a tiny Christian college in Texas, how a text thread about marrying men w...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm finally saying something out loud that's been sitting in my Notes app for a while: I don't love the baby phase. You know, when they're past the newborn stage but not quite a person yet and you're just kind of there with them, trying to figure out what to actually do all day.

As I navigate this season I share the guilt of splitting myself between Dimitri and Bram. I talk about the moment Dimitri told me he was sad because I wasn't playing with him anymore and how...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm taking you through the family trip to Florida that I thought was going too smoothly and then, of course, it wasn't. Matt and I had been in a rut, ships passing in the night with his travel schedule, and I went into this trip already touched out and running on empty. Then add two stepdaughters, a toddler, and an eight-month-old to a solo airport run, and somehow it still wasn't the hardest part of the week.

I talk about the guilt of feeling like I couldn't enjoy myself while...

I had the best conversation with Kail Lowry over on Coffee Convos, and I loved it so much I had to bring it to the Hot Mom Shit feed. Kail had me on to catch up since my last appearance on Barely Famous, and what started as a check-in turned into one of the most honest conversations I've had about motherhood since starting this podcast.

We get into everything from being a mom of two under two after three stepkids, the chaos of toddlerhood, and why I think the internet owes new moms a serious apology for...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm getting real about what’s been happening behind the scenes for this momma.  

I'm talking about weaning off exclusive pumping after nine months, the panic attack that came out of nowhere, and the sleep deprivation that has me wondering if every other mom out there is secretly a zombie too or just better at hiding it than I am.

In this episode I get real about:

Why I'm finally weaning off pumping after nine months of exclusively pumping for Bram, and why I wish I had...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm catching you up on my European vacation with Matt, our first real trip away from the boys, ever. I'm talking eight nights, two countries, and the kind of mom guilt that hit me so hard at the airport I was sobbing.

To add to my guilt, I get into the pumping disaster that had me standing over a sink in the Delta lounge with two broken pump sets and a true moment of panic, the text my mom sent me that I think every mom needs to read, and...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, Dr. S is back and this time we took questions straight from the community and went deep on three things that I think every mom is quietly carrying: screen time guilt, the permission to hide in the bathroom when you need a minute, and the mental load mothers carry. 

In this episode we get real about:

Screen time and how much is too much, what content matters, and why it starts with what we're modeling ourselves

The 90s TV method that eliminated meltdowns in my house 

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm going somewhere I've been stewing on for a while, because there is zero accurate depiction of real motherhood anywhere. Not in movies, not on reality TV, not on social media. Nowhere. 

I'm not coming for anyone. But I am coming for the beige outfits, the timestamped morning routines, and the 47th Amazon haul of the week because, momma, it's making all of us feel like we're failing, and we're not.

In this episode I get real about: 

Why The Valley might actually be one of th...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I get real about something I've been sitting with my entire life…the eye bags that have followed me since birth.

Yes, I am talking about my lower bleph surgery today.  But, don’t come at me and do not hear me say to fix your face. This is my story and something I’ve wanted to do for decades. But do hear me say, momma it’s time to stop waiting to do the thing you’ve been waiting to do. 

In this episode I get real about: 

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm introducing someone who is going to become a regular around here, Dr. Sanam Shamtobi or as we like call her, Dr. S, a maternal mental health psychologist and a mom herself. And we're jumping straight into the deep end.

I came in with a breastfeeding question. I left with a completely different way of thinking about mom guilt, identity, and why the mental load feels so invisible to the people we live with.

In this episode we get real about:

Why partners aren't clueless, they...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm bringing on my very first guest — my husband, Matt — and we're getting into one of the most honest conversations we've had about what postpartum and our marriage.

If you caught the first episode, you know about the Bluetooth incident. But this one is about what happened after. The conversation we had when I walked upstairs from the gym, three months postpartum, completely undone, and tried to explain to my husband that I felt like I was stuck at the bottom of a well.

And he said: I feel...

In this episode of Hot Mom Shit, I'm getting real about something I've been quietly carrying for three years: the complete unraveling of my identity.

It started with a single observation from my couples therapist — that somewhere in the middle of miscarriages, pregnancies, postpartum, and two kids under two, nobody stopped to acknowledge what I had actually lost. My career. My income. My sense of self.

The woman the world knew as Carmella — 12 years under contract with WWE, traveling the world, performing in front of thousands — walked away from all of it. And then became a mom...

Welcome to Hot Mom Sh!t — my podcast where nothing is perfectly curated and everything is real.

In this first episode I am introducing the philosophy at the heart of this show: living in the and. I can love my kids fiercely and need a break from them. I can love my husband and also want to lose my mind sometimes. I can be a devoted mom and have absolutely no idea who I am outside of that role. Both things. At the same time. That is what we are doing here.

I kick things of...

Hot Mom Sh!t is the podcast that lives in the AND — because you can look good and be a good mom. You can love your kids fiercely and still need to be more than just their mom.

Hosted by Leah Van Dale, this is the show for the mom who is done pretending to have it all together, all of the time.

Hear the real stories, honest conversations, and the moments Leah probably should have kept to herself but didn't. This isn’t a show about doing it perfectly.

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