Ashlee: Welcome to my first live in person episode of Get Glaze with the one and only Lisa Bond. Longtime media personality and Long Island celebrity. gosh. As luck would have it, we've planned this out and now there's a lawnmower doing some landscaping across the street. But that's mom life. It's like you really can't ever plan anything. No, you literally can't plan anything. And we're sitting in front of the most beautiful pizza board because we're at Elisa's restaurant and we're in allergic with a glass of wine. This might be my only opportunity to have time with a friend in the foreseeable future. It's rare. It's rare. Mm-hmm. Wait, how do I get rid of this? Click the screen. See if it goes away. I'm sure it won't show up in the recorder, right? Okay, well, I'm really new to the software here. I'll edit that part. I give you so much credit for figuring this all out. Like my mom brain, I don't think learning new skills is is a challenge. It's not much. My mom brain is like the pizza board. It's a little bit of everything. yeah. Well, I think really To be honest, like I my mom brain is so focused on being a mom, and I stepped away from my lifestyle at work that my undiagnosed ADHD is like I have it too. Something that I diagnose myself. Every post is like, I take like the quizzes. I'm like, I have it. About the eating, there's always one that I see that's about eating, I'm just like crutch. crunch crunchy chips, something cold. I don't know. But my that brain is like, You need I need to focus on something creative that's not just my kids and I really miss chatting with people. So and I missed And I'm in Long Island, too, but I've been like cheering you on from afar. I think, you know, you are just so many people, I think, that are have always had like the T V dream or the freaking It's a MED mixer. Our kids would say. Don't don't you feel like the need to point it out now? They used to just drive by and I wouldn't think twice. now. It's a Matt Mixer. Yeah. I'm like, I hope they go past my house and my kids will get it. I love when the garbage men are there. But I give you so much credit because I feel like you made this very bold decision for the person, like the next version of yourself, like cheering you on. And I know it was a tough decision to make, but you like chose you and family and love instead of what I think a lot of other people would choose, this this goal that you had for yourself, maybe. a version of yourself a go if that makes yeah sense. Yeah. And I think that that is so brave and I'm so happy that you are embracing that but also not forgetting, you know, this part of you, this creative part of you. I feel like the desire and the dream it's it's still in there. No, I remember when we did a shoot at New Best a couple of years ago and we had this whole conversation about like how do you have kids like in this lifestyle and I had Like opened up and said that like if I want to have kids and be with the person who's now my husband, I'd have to move and I'd have to leave everything. And I was I feel like I really was like just getting it going and then I stepped away. But who knows, maybe this podcast is my way to get back in. I'm buying house here in Long Island. Yes, I mean that would be like my dream for you to be my neighbor and we can have pay dates all the time and do creative stuff. But I think what's meant for you will always be there. I believe like just in a different In a different way. Like I I hope you don't feel like you gave that up because I don't think that you did. No, I I used to think that and then I kind of reframed it in my mind like what could I get to do? Like look at and that's something that I feel like, you know, Hoda would always say on the today show she'd always say you get to do this or you get to do every day. So I kind of reframed my mind like in that in that way. But I mean you're speaking of living the dream, I mean you you own this restaurant. She owns this restaurant with her husband, it's an amazing pizza place, Italian restaurant. I've had my I had my 37th birthday party here, an adult pizza party, and I wished for literally to be married with kids, and then it came true. So it's just got the chill. If you want to have your birthday party here, blow out your candles here at Mona Lisa. And then I had my son's birthday party here. But you know, you're on TV, you have three kids, you own a restaurant, like how and you look you have lashes on. So I glued these on for you. I I'm like, I barely. There's no amount of concealer that can help me right now. It's just a hat. And sunglasses. That's the best concealer for a mom is a pair of sunnies and lashes. But I mean, by the way, I I'm in my son's my my little guy's room and I'm like, my god, it's a bug. It's a bug. It's a bug. And I'm like trying to figure out. I go grab a a toilet paper to get it. And I go and it was like a lash, crunched up lash that I probably when it's gotten bad at him, fell asleep and took it off. And do the kids like play with your lashes? Like how do they how did they view like mommy being on TV? Like how and how how old are your kids? I think my kids, my son will be ten in a few weeks. wow. My daughter is seven going on seventeen. And I c my baby, I call him my baby 'cause he is, is two and a half. He's not such a baby anymore, but he'll always be always be my baby. But I don't think that my kids because they see Mo on T V, my husband during basketball season, he's a college basketball analyst, And they see like their friends' parents, like Hoda on TV. And then in case you don't know who we're talking about. Yes. And they see like, you know, my their Aunt Carol, Aunt Elizabeth, the people who I, you know, grew up with worked with for so many years, like on T V. Okay. And when we go to get bagels and they see, there's Uncle Rich doing the weather on TV. So they're I think that they think like it's normal. It's totally normal. Totally normal. 'Cause it's normal for them. Yeah. Yeah that's I never th I never like viewed that as a kid or like a Hollywood kid or a kid growing up in T V or in the family business of people always being on camera. I mean my kids well my son is really little, he didn't he didn't really understand, but my nieces like think it's really cool that I'm on TV sometimes. But I like mommy's going in there. Mommy's gonna be in there. That's what I said to Miles, you know, Mommy's gonna be on that show. But Do you think any of them and we were talking before we started filming about social media, but and you said that now your daughter doesn't want you to host anything? Yeah, it just what happened was I picked her up from school one day and we were having like I picked her up a little bit early. Please eat. It might be your only chance to eat today. picked her up early and we were gonna have this like fun afternoon together, and she got out of school and had this like horrible, miserable look on her face. So I thought something happened. So I said, What's wrong? And she wouldn't talk until she got in the car and she started crying. And it was right after Memorial Day. I posted a video of her, like two seconds, and she had like sunglasses. She did something silly with the sunglasses. And it was like just part of like a carousel. Like I didn't think anything of it. Like there was nothing about it. And she said that the lady in the school office said that she saw her do that on her mom's Facebook. And that I didn't tell her and that that's her business. And I felt like really terrible about it because I never thought about it because they've always been like little and I would never post anything that was inappropriate. Yeah. Now she's seven and she has an opinion. And she's is she's starting to become aware of what she looks like. Definitely. Which I didn't expect. it's it's been a really I'm terrifying challenging for My daughter's only ten months and when they told me it was a girl and they cut her out of me, I was like terrified. I wasn't happy, to be honest. At first I was happy that the baby was alive, but I was like my God. Thinking about all of those things, the insecurities and the body image and the I'll the bullying that and the w the way you bully yourself. Which I was unprepared for. But I've gotta tell you, it really kind of reframes and makes you like look internally and like feel things within yourself. And I have been like so incredibly conscious of how I look at I used to look at a picture and be like, or my freckles. I've always been so Subconscious. Subconscious about my freckles and like I I always tried to hide them. And when I saw my daughter have freckles, I'm like, well, I need to reframe this. And I need to compliment her and say, look, you have a new it's a kiss from the angels. Like, it's you're so your freckles are so beautiful. And I ha you know, I had to reframe it because I'm like, I can't let my negative self-talk like in any way affect her and she like will say, I think I got a new freckle. And like loves her, but but I feel like okay, I did I did good there. I did good there. that's so great. I that's like I I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna remember that because I mean she's little she doesn't know yet but all the things like I'll get a picture. Mommy looks so happy in that picture, or I'll say like something positive. The first thing is always I just was on the beach with my nieces and I saw pictures and they're you know, they're seven, no, they're eight, eleven, and seven, eight, nine, and eleven, whatever. They're young. And I the first thing I went to go is, I I really gained a lot of baby weight, or that my miracle suit isn't maybe making as many miracles as I thought it was from that angle. And then I'm like, No, don't don't say that. Don't say that. Because then they're gonna think Why is she saying that? And then what's wrong with them in their bathing suits? And I'd like to preserve innocence, even though they're not even my kids, but I'm conscious I have bec started to become conscious of it around them. And then now with my with Tess, I'm like, okay, I wanna be, don't say any bad things. And they're watching. Like my daughter said to me this weekend, she said, Why do you always wear shorts when you go swimming? We were at our lake house. And I always wear shorts. I just always do. And I I never really thought about it. You know what I did? I took the shorts off. Which for me, like my w white as old white jiggly thighs. And I said, You're right, it is uncomfortable. Why why am I when I'm with my family what it's just natural. I always have. I never even to cover up. Do you do it? Yeah, I've always been self conscious. Like I always wear shorts. I took off. And I went in. Did you have a good day? Your day was ch not changed. I don't know that my day was not changed. That's great. My day was and my husband took pictures, which like by the way. I mean, no. I he I mean, not known for the most flattering pictures, but I appreciate when he takes one. No. And I saw and I was like, wow, that's a choice I made. But I was like, you know what? If then Like it gives her like that power to like be free in her bathing suit if she like takes that little nugget away. Like 'cause I didn't really have an explanation. I wasn't gonna it's trying to say it's more comfortable. 'Cause it's definitely not more comfortable. It's more laundry. By the way, I embraced like I don't know if you have if you own this, I embraced the swimsuits that had the attached little dress. I had them when I was pregnant. I see. I had a really cute one from Old Navy actually, it had like little apparel spritzes and it's of like a malfi. It was super cute. Mine aren't that cute, but I've It was a cute one. When you're a mom that's constantly bent over, like digging in sand and constantly like that. It does make it because I'm always bending over that to her because you are I think about that I've My underwear choices have totally changed since I used to just walk around with no underwear on. I would just go everywhere with no underwear of like wearing, you know, six layers of spanks to hold it in and then and then now I'm like, okay, how easily can I access my boobs and how can I cover my undercarriage? Because it's uncomfortable. Any everything is uncomfortable now with that underwear on and I'm constantly spreading my legs and bending over. So the things that you used to I don't want to have any cleavage or I don't want you know, I wanna just be feel sexy and now how unsexy can I feel and release my boob at the same time. I'm still breasty actually. I d I just stopped. congratulations my son's two and a half. I stopped Miles at two and a half. He was still breastfeeding at his birthday in December and I stopped around Easter because my goal was Easter because he started to say, Mommy, I want booby really loud on the airplane. We were we were No I never met anybody else who did it as long as me. We were there. That makes me feel less alone. By the way, I'm still going through it. He still has to touch it. It's constantly asked to touch it. And the baby's still breastfeeding. So in December, I will be breastfeeding for three straight years. I say this all the time. People always talk about how hard it is to start, but no one talks about, or at least no one that I know talks about, how hard it is to stop. No, I haven't. Because I think if I haven't equally emotional done it as long as me. They say, I stopped at four or five months. And the answer usually is because they went back to work. So I feel like that happens a lot. Yeah. For people who have full time full time jobs made from nothing. It's not. And I I mean, it's hard. It's so hard. It's hard. Like I remember like being on shoots and we had I look now, back now, I'm like, what was I like thinking? And we had Sheets and towels that I would bring with me and we'd clip it up in the cool car because I'd and I'd be pumping in the back with a computer on my lap, typing my script like to pump. that's so you're a good mom. I mean I mean everybody has their but I I look, I was like just determined. Yeah, to do it and I didn't want anyone else to be the one to tell me to stop. I was you need to I do think that is the thing when you're ready. Like I all of a sudden one day I was just like, I'm ready, I'm done, I can't do this. And this trip I'm getting like that with the baby because I'm like I just hold on, cement mixer. Cement mixer Doesn't feel how long did you breastfeed your other kids for? So Christian, unfortunately, which is a story for another podcast, I got really sick and I was forced to stop. at 14. Yeah, and it ended up spiraling out of control of it's terrible. for Elle I went let's see, a year and a half. And the only reason why I stopped is because she kept biting me and I was afraid of getting miscellaneous. I got I did get it again and then I and then I was like, Okay, I can't I can't do this again. And then for Anthony, my last You're so much younger. He's so much younger and I kind of just like I was like, you know. It was so hard for me the beginning 'cause he was lactose intolerant and I kinda eliminate, you know, all soy, all dairy. And I like was so like adamant that and he wouldn't really latch right and then and then we hit a then we hit the groove. Hit the groove and then I was just like, you know what? Like I know this is my last baby, so I'm just gonna do it as well as I can do it. And then I stopped pumping somewhere and I was just kinda doing it on demand and and then we went away. For the weekend and you know, my whole family was like, Okay, I hate it. Okay, maybe this is your chance. My whole family hates it, my husband hates it, everyone's over it except for me. But you have to and honestly, like I don't know if I wasn't going away that I I would probably still be doing it. So you just finished recently? a month ago. my god, congratulations. Yeah, and I still I don't know. It's it's it's sad it's emotional. It's emotional phase. Like he got a haircut. Reece Miles got his first haircut recently and I was just crying 'cause I was like, Okay, it's emotional, you look different, the curls, but I'm just like, But I'm breastfeeding, I was playing with those curls and I don't want breastfeeding him anymore, but I'm just still like, that's my those are my curls. Like that's my hair. I didn't know I was gonna be so emotional about haircut but I didn't know stopping breastfeeding was gonna be even more intense than starting breastfeeding. That's that's what I say too. My baby she's she's combo fed because it was just too hard because he was I always I I did both for every I should say I did both for everybody. So I breastfed all through my pregnancy. I didn't even know that you could do that. I didn't even know that you could do that, I don't think. Neither did I. My doctor was like, Yeah, it's fine. And then the body 'cause I was not producing as much milk when Miles was God your body has been through a lot in the last three years. My goodness. We don't give e s ourselves. We really we really don't. Because I'm so con I'm so focused on like, I don't look as good as I used to, where I see pictures of my friends who didn't have another baby right away and they're like, I had a whole nother year. Like you're having one kid is a lot easier than having two and having two within two years is really crazy and then breastfeeding continuously. So I really should give myself a little bit more more credit. Yeah. But I'll give you I'll give you credit. Thank And you're pizza. How do you how do you deal with that with like body image issues like on camera? Now I know we talked about feeling negative talk with your in front of your daughter, but feeling like the pressure to bounce back because I feel like social media Everyone why is everybody where why are their abs back right away? So I have to say, like everybody says social media, but before social media, what which I argue maybe was maybe worse, people we would have these I don't even know what you call them, on the station's website they had these like boards. Okay. Chat boards. Okay. Where people would go on and basically just rip us apart. Or groups. my god. Like it was like a chat board and they would go on and it say like all these horrible things before they set up. About all the reporters and about all the people that were on camera. Yeah. I yes. So look, I I always say like, you know, local news is is so special because you're part of people's lives and homes, especially, you know, really before social media, where people turn to their news so much for that. Like I feel like it was like the golden age of local news that I had the privilege of of being a part of where people literally watched me grow up, watch my stomach get bigger and bigger. On TV. My whole As far as I can remember, I started doing a like a news show in high school and then I worked, you know, in newsrooms during college and did work for a local news station in Boston while I was still in school. How old are you now? I am forty six. cool. I didn't know that. Yeah. wow. I'm I just turned forty in October. So what over twenty years you've been doing it. That's amazing. Almost thirty if you started doing I'm an older mom and I'm an older mom. Like I I you know, I I feel like I I did a lot. Did a lot. Yeah, 'cause your oldest is I feel lucky to have had that, like had it's hard to have kids later, but then I feel lucky to have had kids later. Because you had such a life and you got to have such a big career. I mean, in local news. In local, in very news. Not what I thought I was just watching your Blue Angel flight videos on your Instagram. my gosh. Would you have done that now if they asked you as a mom? I don't know. Someone else asked me that. and I was like, you know I do do every once in a while. I say you get like camera muscles and like as a mom I have done things that maybe I'm like maybe I shouldn't have like swung from the trapeze because now like everything hurts in a way like it's used to when I did it, you know, twenty years ago. But the camera like goes on and like some people have beer muscles. I really like camera muscles and I think like I could do these things. And I do do them. I do. And then I've suffered for them for days and weeks after and end up like in physical therapy. But anyway, I digress. Yeah, I think you question more about because there's this like fear of like something happening to you. God forbid, like how you ever you know, like you're so needed. Yeah. You know, whereas before I don't know that I ever thought about so much my health and my yeah, you know, life after effects. So it's constantly being an older mom, like it's constant mental math. Okay, Anthony's too. Like so when he is, you know, when he's graduating from high school, like it's not about like being like, you want to be like, you know, sixty at your college graduation. Sixty some but some people are you know, but some people are having kids at sixty. They're dabs but moms. Some people are having kids later. But it's about like for me it's like about sis it's not just about looking good. It's about like I wanna be able to like Go and walk up the steps of their college graduation. Like I want to be I want to have the same energy for Anthony as I do for Christian, who's 10. Like I want to have the same energy in 10 years for him going to his games and doing all the things and you know, at like the fun places, climbing up on the rock. Climbing up the rock. And doing all that stuff and being out in the water with them. And you know, we live on the water, being able to do that is important to me. And so I'm constantly like checking myself because I don't care for my body the way I do That was my next question. And so tell me how you do that because I can't find like two. I like squats while like doing brushing my teeth, which lasts for I don't know, with a happy birthday song. And then I will try and lift weights like this while watching the Today show in the morning and then it's over. There's no chance. So I'll tell you one way and I've never been really disciplined in meaning even before having kids. Me I've never found the thing. Yeah, I've never I've gone through like spurts of like a few months, even a year. I went through this really great like personal trainer time of my life where again I didn't have kids and I was really committed. When you're getting married, every time cutting married, that's exactly what it was. I was in great right. And you know, again, like now it's like I know I have to do this. So I had after I had Anthony, I had postpartum proclampsia. So that puts me at higher risk for any heart related issue for the rest of my life. Really? Yeah, anybody who has proclamation. No, I'm always at a higher risk. So I'm very conscious of that and I'm conscious about like walking and I do walk with the baby, but like what I've found is I don't, I'm not good at working out without my kids because I ooh feel like every minute I have that I'm not working, I want to be with them. The one great thing I did, and I have to get back to it. This is delicious. And as the universe good. As the universe, you know, I feel like gave me a nudge yesterday because I ran into the person who does it w did it with me, is I started working out with my daughter. So we booked my friend as a trainer and we would work out together. That's cool. It was awesome. We'd be a team, we'd be a circuit, and then I felt like, okay, I'm working out for myself, but also for her, getting her exercise and she's seeing how important. And it's something special together instead of just getting our nails done or going to get lunch, which is great too. Yeah. It's something like that we were doing together. But then you're instilling that exercise and health in her. So then as she grows up, she sees, my mom did this because Yeah. I know I love my mom and I'm very close with her, but she wasn't a big exerciser, so I wasn't didn't really grow up with that. We didn't go to work out classes together. We didn't I don't go play tennis together. We will do I don't know, maybe not how I I've seen a lot you know, I working in my wedding industry, the type of client that I would have, they're very, very wealthy, very privileged and they would always do these things with their moms. I'd be like never did that with my mom. I I did a lot of wonderful things with my mom but not that you're taking a golf. I didn't get my nails done until like my senior prom. Like that was like I would go get my nails done with my mom because she didn't have a really a babysitter for me. So it was kind of more of like come and get your nails done because like I have nobody else to really watch you. And my brother would just be like sitting there. But but I don't know. I I don't it's not in like her it's like Not in the culture maybe and then so I didn't grow up being really disciplined like that. And I have been saying like I want Miles will be like, mommy do exercise. I do exercise like mommy. And then I say I gotta get strong. And then he's obsessed with this. I have one of those golden books of Arnold Schwarzenegger biographies. So he goes strong like Arnie and I'm like, strong like Arnie, we gotta be strong like Arnie. And because I really want I think that will help with the negative talk if I feel strong. And then sh they'll feel strong. And then it's not about being skinny. It's not even though in my mind I'm like I wanna be skinny. Which I hear. I want to be skinny. Well, as we eat pizza. But okay, so tell me a little history about the restaurant because how long have you had it? How did you guys decide you're gonna do this from being coaches, being media personalities, like you don't have enough already on your plate? So my husband was a college basketball coach. Okay. Where most and Hofstra was his last I all over the country, but his last app was here, which brought us which brought him to Long Island. I grew up here. Okay. got fired, like most people do in college basketball coaching. And when he got fired, we were like just getting engaged and you know, taking another coaching job would have taken him away from being here. And my family's here and my career was here. and so his dad, also a college coach, had gotten fired and opened up a bar and a restaurant. And so that's basically we kind of wow. Like in theory, this is a very seasonal town. He could run the restaurant in the summer and do basketball in the winter and do both. In theory. Well had a big life pivot. Big life pivot. Huge. Literally basketball pivot. Yep. Yep. And so Mona Lisa, we had another restaurant first, which we've since sold. but this place we opened, you'll love this. well, I was literally recovering from a C section in the hospital with Christian. So it is our ten year anniversary. happy anniversary. Which is a lot in the in the world of a restaurant. Ten years is a long time. Ten years is a very long time. and yeah, we when Mo and I first started dating, I was single for a really long time. And and so when I had him as a boyfriend, it was like a big deal in my We were going to friend's house and my one friend said to the other friend, Moe Lisa, Moe Lisa coming, Moe and Lisa coming, Mo and Elisa are coming. And my friend goes, finally goes, Who names their kid Mona Lisa? Who are you talking about? And told us the story. They're like, No, it's no, it's Mo and Mona Lisa. So they told us the story, and this is when Mo was still coaching. And he jokingly said, Well, if we ever have an Italian restaurant, that's what we'll name it. And so fast forward, as the universe manifests, and here we are. And yeah. That's beautiful. I just literally got the chill. That's how it that's pretty cool. And my kids are like, Why isn't it we have to ask? Like you were in Born yet. Yeah, you are in Born yet. But you were in the hospital. I had C-sections also. So the opening weekend was when you had your C. So my C section ended up being earlier than what we thought. Okay. This took obviously as every construction project took way longer than we thought. So Mo was like, Okay, are you alright? Because I gotta go. Like two babies at once. At once literally, that's what I say. I look at the pictures. of when we did the ribbon cutting here, of me holding this newborn. And like I remember like I could barely up there, my kids. I could barely stand up. I remember like I had the wrap thing around me. And I had on a blazer to cover it. And I'm like It's so hard. When I you know, I went right back out there. It's really hard. To do this and Hi baby girl. this is like their second home, my kids. So so yeah, so it's been we've been through a lot here. And the restaurant industry is really hard. You're so lucky. Thank you. And I try to look at it like that because you know it's hard. Business is hard. I can only imagine it being hard. Owning a business, running a business is is hard. It's so hard, but like when I walk in there, like I think about gonna sound so cheesy, but like you know, I think about like what this place has meant to my family and so many families. Like I always think about you having special moments here. Hi. And I think about we're recording a podcast but I'll take you. Hi. That's okay. It's okay. That's okay. It's a mom podcast anyway. What's up, buddy? Hi okay we got our face painted. And then a face shirt. Bro, are you a lion? Well, we've had such special things here. We had grandma and Poppy's ninetietth birthday. Poppy the the clam sauce. Poppy is the clam sauce. Yeah. I like I All little notes so my friend, she works here, and she told me that you guys say a prayer before we say a prayer. We say, what do we say in our prayer? We say, we say, God bless the Look, he's a lion. I know he's a lion. What do we say? God bless the clip. And go. Yankee. That's how we end our land. Amen. And that's how we'll end it. Amen, right? Thank you again for being on the so proud of you. I love being with you. Thank you. And thanks for joining. We'll have to do a part two.