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The Baby One

The Baby One

Off Track with Hinch and Rossi May 13, 2025 24 min
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About this episode

Alex Rossi shares the heartfelt journey of welcoming his son, Benjamin, into the world, reflecting on the surprises, challenges, and joys of becoming a new parent. From the early discovery of the pregnancy during a vacation to navigating diaper changes and nursery setup, Alex offers candid and humorous insights. The episode also touches on balancing family life with pets and appreciating the support from friends and fellow parents. Along the way, the hosts discuss pregnancy cravings, name choices, and the emotional impact of this life-changing experience.

Topics: pregnancy journey new parent experiences baby gender reveal pregnancy cravings diaper changing challenges nursery preparation balancing pets and baby family life adjustments parenting reflections personal stories
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This is off track.
<inaudible>, is that, is that, is that a margarita?
That's a bold move for 10:30 AM on a Monday. Look,
Man, sometimes when you work weekends, may is here.
Mondays and Tuesdays are Saturdays and Sundays.
May. Mm-hmm .
This is a gorgeous green smoothie thing that my darling wife made. She makes smell
Latte pretty good actually.
So it's gorgeous. But it does, it tastes like
Well, no, it's margarita mix and tequila.
It's gorgeous. It tastes incredible.
No, it's, it's, it's apples and, and pineapple and ginger and spinach and kale and turmeric And, got it.
Okay, cool. Now it tastes pretty.
Are we doing, are we doing the Tuesday episode right now, or the Thursday?
Yes, guys, this is, yeah, we're doing Tuesday.
Welcome to Off Track with Hinch and Rossi.
We are both here on a special Tuesday episode.
Wait, is our guest here?
No. Is our guest able to make an appearance? ?
No. What?
We can't have, how can we have a Tuesday show without a guest?
I mean, he's around in spirit. .
Okay. Well, our, I mean, originally planned. Yes.
Like he's already, he's already at like a job fair. So
That's fair.
You know what? You can't let 'em,
you can't let them just be like, Lees too long.
Yeah, right. . Alright.
Well, on the weekend, I feel it's Monday.
It's like you need to start contributing .
I feel like that probably was the case for you growing up.
Alex . I feel like that is how Peter Rossi ran,
ran that ship at home.
No, No. It's a tight work ethic at the Rossi household.
Okay. Alright guys.
Look, unless you're living under a rock, actually that's not true.
Unless you don't follow Kelly on Instagram, you might not have seen the beautiful Mother's Day post.
That was also a somewhat of an announcement post.
So Alex, why don't you tell everybody what you've been up to for the last nine ish months?
I haven't been up to anything. Kelly, uh,
has been growing a baby inside of her, um, that's decided to, to join us, which is, um, it, it was as, I don't wanna say it was as awesome because I don't know that anyone, so going into, into the day of birth, right, there was a lot of friends that I had had the birthday, as you will.
Um, there's a lot of friends that I had had that were like, oh, are you ready?
You know, for what this is gonna be like and all this sort of thing.
I'm like, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm ready in the sense that I'm excited, but no, I'm not ready in the sense that I have no idea what's gonna happen.
They're like, well, I could try and explain, but words don't do any of it justice.
Right? Yeah. And you, you kind of hear
that about a lot of things.
Um, and it was, it, it was true times a thousand, right?
Like that was, I still have ingrained in my head the moment that you first like, see your kid.
Like it's, it's, it's like nothing else that I've experienced.
Um, so that was really, give it a Week that goes away. You get
tired, .
That was really special, obviously.
Um, and, uh, it was a, it was a relatively smooth process.
I mean, it's never, it's never easy for anyone.
Um, include meaning mom and and child through that whole kind of three, four days.
Um, you know, leading up to it and then during, and then after.
Um, but it went relatively smoothly and Kelly was able to come home, uh, on Saturday, uh, with little baby Ben.
And here we are a family now of five if you include the dogs. So, which we
Will pretty cool.
'cause we're dog people. Yeah. That's amazing buddy.
Congratulations to you both. Thank you.
Um, but we have to obviously go back.
We've, we've started at the end.
So let's go back to the beginning. Um, how,
What, what do we do? So when
A, when a man loves a woman?
Yes. Um, yeah.
Okay. No. So this, this is the questions
that you're gonna get asked because you and Kelly made a somewhat conscious decision to keep this kind of outta the public eye at least.
You weren't like hiding it from, she wasn't like locked in the house for the last nine months.
But I mean, outta the public eye, no more than normal anyway.
Right, right, right. So, so, uh, the questions
that you are gonna get asked from people, let's try to knock some of them out so that way you can just, 'cause we know you don't like talking to people.
Um, you know, I mean people, people different but people less so, so is Ben. People. People
Ben's people.
People. Oh yeah.
Checking. He's OG people. People.
So now when people come up to ask you questions, you can just point them to the off track link and say all your questions.
Can we answer here? Alright.
That's gonna increase your audience base, Which Oh, a hundred percent. Honestly,
It's about time he started Contributing.
It's good thing he starts contributing. Yeah.
I assume he already has an iPhone and has a Spotify account or a, or an Apple podcast account and can, you know, sign up for, uh, you know, subscribing and I Mean, Hazel would be working, working on, right.
The mine already started today.
Right. Good, right. Good. Yeah.
Lot of mines in la All the chimney, All the chimneys were already swept, so, yeah.
Okay. So, um, was this planned?
Um, were we trying to have a baby? Yes.
Was it planned to be in May?
No. ? Yes.
That, that's, that's actually a very good point to follow up with because a lot of people would be like, dude, we know the math on this.
That was probably a poorly executed plan. Mm-hmm . Okay.
So try to have baby the time.
I mean, every, doesn't get carried away by the romance of August.
You know, , One of those steamy August nights and Yeah.
And away we go. Um, uh, okay.
So then how did you, how did you find out and what was the reaction when you found out she was Pregnant?
So, so this is something that, um, I'm not gonna go into a whole lot of detail 'cause it's none of anyone's business, but, um, there were, there were a lot of pregnancy sticks that were, that were purchased and, and used for a period of time, um, leading up to, to the day where we found out.
And so, you know, there's, there's some things that happen that make, you know, someone go and buy a pregnancy stick and, um, they're, Kelly loves to Pee on stuff she does Big P honestly, like big peer.
Yeah. , this is a side note
and it's probably TMI and she'll probably yell at me.
I'm not sure where we're going with this.
No, but I wanna be Clear that I was joking.
She, she, she drinks an excessive amount of water because it makes her feel better.
And, and she was doing it for Ben and during the pregnancy and everything, and also when you're pregnant, you're, you have someone standing on your bladder essentially, right?
Mm-hmm. She was like my favorite part of this whole process,
minus of course, meeting my child was like, right period of time I had a catheter.
'cause then I could just drink all that I wanted with no consequence.
Funny. Like, I didn't have to get up every 30 minutes.
That's so funny. Like, I could just, I could drink all day
every day and it was totally fine.
Anyways, so That's so funny.
Has she considered getting one recreationally ?
Oh my god. Clearly.
Neither of you have ever had a catheter.
I have not. Um, okay. So no, but I
Pee a lot.
No, dude, she was peeing every 30 minutes anyways.
Um, you remember that trip where we were, um, in, uh, in Tennessee and taking a little kind of vacation mm-hmm .
Before, I think Milwaukee.
Um, and we were, we were at a little kind of b and b.
It's a little bit bigger than that, but we were, we were at a little place and we usually try and go somewhere for a birthday trip.
Um, but it just worked out the, the dates.
Um, we were a little bit before a birthday trip, and so we were kind of already on like a, a couple's vacation.
We had the two dogs there.
Um, and funnily enough, we had just kind of done like a, like a wine tasting thing, um, .
And so she was like, I think I, I need to pee on a stick.
And she did. And it was, it was the, the magic
of the two blue lines that, that you're so desperately hoping for, for However many times I thought we were telling a different part of this story.
They were on vacation together.
Oh my God. I thought we were getting a Yeah,
He literally, he literally, he literally asked how, how we found out.
I know we found out while, while we were, um, on vacation And amazing The dogs were there.
And it was, it was really cool. It was very, very special.
Um, and it was at the beginning of it too.
So for the rest of the time we kind of got to have a very early baby moon, if you will. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's very cool. Okay, so now you're, uh,
a big happy family to be altogether.
And you found out, um, did you want to know what it was as soon as you Could?
Absolutely. Have you met me?
I know, yes. I'm just asking the questions. Oh, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. I know the answers
to these questions, questions are, I just remember the whole thing.
This, this, this isn't like his usual announcements where James and I are in the dark .
Right, right, right, right, right.
Because, and I wanna point out how bad it was that how I found out was in Toronto when I walked under your bus and asked Kelly, Hey, you what an apple all spritz?
She was like, no, I think I'm not gonna drink this week.
And I was like, oh, you're pregnant. . .
Was that Toronto or Laguna? I think that was Toronto.
I wasn't in Toronto for a very long period of time.
Oh no, wait, it was, was it Nashville?
It may have been Nashville real good. It was Laguna.
I dunno. It was, it was, yeah, you're right.
You're right. Anyways, um, so did we want to find out?
Yes, we wanted to find out immediately.
Kelly hates surprises.
Like she demands to open Christmas gifts like on the 20th.
Like, she, she can't tolerate it.
I mean, I don't let her, that's so her move, but she is just like, she, she does not do surprises.
Um, I am a, a forward thinker.
I would like to know things that are happening.
Not sound, you're planner surprises. I just wanna plan.
Right. So we found out, um, it was funny.
I was actually in Vegas, um, at an event in November when the, um, the kind of genetic testing results came back.
And I made her swear like, you cannot open this without me.
So what we did was I let her open.
Like, 'cause they also test for, you know, some various different things.
Um, yeah, yeah. That could be going on.
So I was like, you can open that, but you have to keep the gender part of it, um, out of it.
So, um, I was on a red eye home actually from, from Vegas.
I got in at like five.
I got into the house at 5 45 and woke her up and, and we looked together and, and found out it was a boy.
Um, for me. I was, I was pumped Kelly, I think
Was Did did you have like a Oh yeah. Okay. So you
Both thought it was gonna be a girl?
We both thought it was gonna be a Okay.
Um, to the point where we had had like the girl name picked out, locked and loaded.
Toman. I'm surprised, I'm surprised the room wasn't painted
pink, if I'm completely honest with you.
And so when we opened it and it was like, you're having a boy, I was like, sick. And she was like,
oh, , .
But, Um, I love the honesty. I love the honesty.
'cause I hate when like, did you want a boy or a girl?
Like we don't care. As long as it's healthy,
obviously you want a healthy kid.
Like no one doesn't want a healthy kid. So like Don, no one, no one.
Yeah. Like, like be honest about it.
Don't for seven Toes, there's one you wanted more than the other, you know?
Mm-hmm . And, uh, so, but it's,
It's funny, she's, she's loved the, the process so much now and I'm sure it probably would've been the same.
I mean, I guarantee you it would have been the same if she had just had a, a girl, but she was like, the next one I wanted to be a boy too.
So like, oh, wow. It's interesting. Yeah.
She's super attached now to, to being a boy mom, which is pretty awesome.
Very, very awesome. Okay, so, so we,
we wanna know the kid, we know the kid's gender now.
She's few months in and, uh, I always find this part hilarious when friends get pregnant.
What, like, what were her cravings?
What, like what kind of fun?
Gimme some funny pregnancy stories or cravings or things that just were like, Man, okay, so, so there is one that is like, it's hilarious and I'm gonna end on that.
Um, the cravings she had for food were pretty there.
I wouldn't really say cravings.
There was just the, in the, in the beginning, the first trimester and stuff is obviously difficult with, you know, nausea and, and everything.
So she got super attached to like sourdough bread and peanut butter.
'cause it like helps settle her stomach.
And it was quick to make and easy to make.
And so like, she always jokes that this baby was made out of sourdough bread and peanut butter.
But like we got, we got three or four months in and she was like, I love Nugget ice.
And so for a period of time, like, yeah, like, you know, like the Chick-fil-A little Pebble ice, like not normal ice cubes.
Oh, okay, okay. The little, the soft in the little tiny,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so in, in typical me fashion, I bought like a home Nugget ice machine .
And dude, she, she literally would be walking, she would be walking around the house with just the little plastic scooper just shoveling nugget ice into her mouth. ,
like, so it wasn't, the craving wasn't food per se.
It was, yeah. Yeah. Nugget ice.
Um, and so she, she just consumed a crazy amount of frozen water for the last five months and she still is. It's
Weird that my takeaway is that I want to get a Nugget ice machine.
I'll send you the one. It's badass man. Okay.
Yeah, please do. Yeah,
I mean it's, it's obviously the top of whatever for one boss you've researched and bought is gonna be the best one on the market.
Yeah, It's fully aware.
That's why like, whenever I want to get into something that I know Alex is already into, I just ask him what he's got because I know that he's done the work and I can just slide right into the best of whatever it is.
Um, uh, okay, so ice nugget ice and we have a Nugget ice machine.
It's now a staple in the house, which is great. Mm-hmm .
Uh, did you guys go ham, like nesting in the, in the, in the nursery and like painting the room blue and getting all the stuff?
Like did you have fun building all the crib and all that sort of stuff?
Am I still mom and dad's favorite?
No. Uh, so we didn't paint the room. We didn't walk it.
It's very neutral. Okay. It's, uh, it's all, our house is
pretty neutral in general.
Um, so it remained kind of white walls, wood floors, wood furniture.
Um, We had to buy some blackout curtains 'cause that room didn't previously have that.
So obviously you need that for, for a baby.
Um, she had a lot more fun, uh, with her very good friend, Hillary Tobin of Tobin Interior Design here in Indianapolis.
Um, they had a great time with my credit card, so I for them than it was for me all big Hillary fans, you know?
Oh, yeah. Um,
and then, um, in terms of nesting, yeah, I think like obviously the, the girl and the mom gets pretty into it, but also like, so did I, because you just wanna make sure everything is like sorted and perfect before this little thing comes in. So Yeah,
I, knowing you, I imagine like there's a, like a closet or a, or a, uh, drawer set up that everything's labeled and placed in a certain way and like everything, like you could walk into that room blindfolded Yes.
And get all the stuff to change and do I Oh yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Um, are you good at changing diapers?
Yes. Not, not at all shocks.
Were you, were you good immediately or did you like take three or four poops and figure out your method and now you're just Dialed No, immediately, but I did practice for weeks leading up to it on teddy bears. What
Did you, did you on teddy bears?
Mm-hmm. Did you actually practice on teddy bears?
Yep. Good on you. Yeah, I'm, I'm impressed.
Now here's, here's where, here's where it's difficult.
Um, teddy Bears don't move real Babies.
No, no score. That's fine. No, I don't mind that.
You haven't had a, you've, you've been through this Tim, um, but you haven't had a boy.
And so when, when little boys, uh, get circumcised, they have to, for like two weeks, you have to put Vaseline on them as a barrier between them and the diaper.
Uh, which makes sense.
Little boys also are very temperature sensitive down there.
So in the beginning it was all really straightforward.
You know, you would just change the diaper, wipe 'em, put a new one on, good to go.
But now that he's like eating a lot and consuming a lot and everything, um, he's peeing as much as he is, uh, pooping, which is fine, uh, taken after his mom.
But the problem is I was expecting like to the point where we have little pee pee teepees is what they're called , uh, where you rest this little thing, pee pee teepee, where you rest this little thing on his, on his wiener.
Um, so it, it doesn't let it go everywhere. Yeah.
The problem is when they're circumcised, nothing can touch that area Right.
Until it's healed. So what I've been doing is like,
I've been prepared for this.
'cause it, I, I got peed on once for the first time.
I was like, ah, that sucks. I didn't like that .
And so, and just to be clear by, right by Ben, right.
And so I got, I've been more prepared, but this little <inaudible>, like I, so you take the diaper off and then you put, you put another one or like a rag or whatever over it and wait for it.
And then like, I don't know, two or three minutes goes by and you're like, ah, it's fine.
So then you change 'em and everything and then as soon as the Vaseline touches them, it's like a shower and you're like, girl, I, I can't, I don't, I can't, I only have two hands.
I can't be putting Vaseline on, on and a diaper and have a little cloth thing over you.
So anyways, um, that's been hard changing the diaper because Yeah. And he'll
Inevitably hit the point of all parents where p no longer grosses you out at all. He
Doesn't, he gross me out.
What, what's annoying is before, um, he came in our bedroom, we had never had a, had a tv, but I knew Kelly was gonna be spending a lot of time in the master bedroom and everything.
So I wanted her to have a TV in there so that she could entertain herself.
Right. Well, the only place
where we can change him was under the tv.
So this brand new TV that we bought is just gotten pissed on three times, which like, that is That is frustrating. But, um, other than that
Should have on an outdoor tv.
Right. Weatherproof, outdoor tv,
Waterproof tv, .
Other than that, um, yeah, I'm pretty good at it if I do say so myself. Thanks.
All right. No surprise there. No surprise there.
Um, Benjamin, Kenneth Rossi, how, how were the names picked And why was Timothy overlooked?
Well, we, we all know that Timothy is his second middle name, but Right, Right.
Yeah. Ken, Kenneth, uh, was Kelly's late father's, um, name.
Um, yeah. And that's better than
Timothy. That's a better reason.
So that, that, that's the reason.
Um, Ben, so it's Benjamin on the birth certificate, but he's Ben, he's baby Ben.
Yeah. Uh, honestly, the first name we came up with
and didn't ever find an alternative.
Like it was, you Mean like it was the first one that you were both like, okay, yeah, let's add that to the list.
And then there was like, No, no, It was literally the first one.
We were like, what, what about Ben?
And we were like, huh, I kinda like that.
And then there was some like, oh, what about Jack?
Or blah blah, no, no, no, no.
And then we just gave up 'cause we were like, it is baby Ben.
Like, it was, it was a week.
Just Quas over Santino.
Hmm. .
Um, and it's funny, it's funny 'cause like the list of girl names was like 60 deep, right?
So on her notes app, it was like girl 60 with like two in bold and then boys' names.
It was one bed Was like bad .
Um, one thing I, I always kind of found, maybe not frustrating, but interesting about, uh, like the early days of parenting is I felt like whenever I mastered something, whenever I got really good at something, we no longer needed that skill.
Like, I would be able to have Hazel in one hand and then like prep the formula the other hand and like 10 seconds flat.
And then as soon as I got that down, it was like, Hey, we're done with formula.
Yeah. Um, was there anything in, during the pregnancy
where you feel like you got it down maybe a little late and you're like, all right, but next one, like, here's what I'm gonna do different.
Did you have it? Do you have anything where you, you go in
and do things differently the next time?
No, no. It's just nailed it.
Knocked it outta the park. Like,
Yeah.
Again, it's Rossi.
What do you, what do you think, who do you think we're dealing with?
Here's, here's the other thing that was just a, and, and we should probably end the Tuesday episode on this little story.
So, uh, Diane, the golden retriever, uh, I thought it was a weekend for, for your boy.
So about two, no, probably three weeks ago.
She, um, had to have a little lump on her leg removed and get it sent off to get tested.
It was, it was benign.
Um, so that is not something we're concerned about currently, but it was a pretty big, you know, they had to remove a lot of surrounding tissue on her leg.
And so it ended up being a pretty big incision.
Um, and so on Wednesday, Thursday, sorry, so Ben Ben was born on Wednesday, um, on Thursday was in my calendar.
You can remove Diane's bandage and like the instructions that we got, I think on the Monday was she's free, no restrictions.
Um, basically she's good to go.
And so I, I got back to the bus 'cause I stayed in the bus Thursday night after staying at the hospital Wednesday night and cut it off and it was horrifying .
It was so bad. And so we have a, a, a, a very good friend
of ours who's also a vet, and it was late at night, so I texted her and I was like, Hey, what do I do like this?
I'm the, I can't be dealing with this right now.
Like, this is very bad timing.
Um, and so she was a star and called in a prescription and everything that a buddy of mine picked up Friday morning brought it to the track.
And throughout the past four days, like Diane's, it's improved massively.
And it's starting to actually heal and it doesn't seem to be infected and all this sort of thing.
Um, it's, it is crazy though because I was always the, the person that thought, oh, you know, it's gonna be super, like the dogs, the dogs are gonna be fine.
Like, it's, it's not gonna be an issue.
And that kid comes and all this sort of thing.
And it, it takes a conscious effort because when you, when you have the dogs, and people told me this and it makes sense, but like, when you have the dogs, they're your whole world, right?
And it was funny how one day into it, I felt like I was already neglecting the animal that had been one of my whole world for the past six years, right?
And I'm like, <inaudible>, like this sucks.
Like, and, and I had to make a big effort to like rebound with her and like, get her back to a place because all of your focus goes towards, um, Kelly and, and, and the kids.
So anyways, it was just an interesting realization that I had that like, wow, I, uh, have a huge amount of appreciation, um, for two things.
One kids with or, uh, parents with multiple kids, number one, um, don't know how they do it, who have like a three or 4-year-old and then have a newborn and two single parents.
Like, I, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to try and do this by yourself.
So shout out to all of those people.
Um, I'm happy to be a part of the Parenting Club and super pumped for the journey.
And thank you to everyone who's reached out and sent very nice messages.
I won't respond, but know that I saw Them and appreciate them.
Place. Dad , welcome to the Club Pal.
This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.
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