One of the more hilarious duos on the internet right now are getting off those tiny screens and heading to Vegas this week. Jen Smedley and Kristin Hensley are both friends and the creators of #imomsohard, producing videos and snippets on the challenges that normal women face. The pair have branched off from that, bringing their voice to books (their first children’s book, was released earlier this year), releasing their own wine, and doing comedy onstage. They appear Nov. 20 at Green Valley Ranch (tickets at ticketmaster.com), the last stop in The Getaway Tour, and chatted with Las Vegas Magazine recently.

Were you both in stand-up before you got together as #imomsohard? 

Kristin: We were doing a lot of like improv and we both did stand-up a very long time ago, but we kind of fell back in love with stand-up when we decided to go on tour with #imomsohard, which is sort of special in itself; it manifested all of our years of comedy into this twosome.

And when did you get this idea to start #imomsohard?

Jen: So, Kristin and I had been friends for, I don’t know, five years. And I think I was dating my now-husband the entire time and he had not popped the question. But Kristin met Colin   this one Thursday, and then by Tuesday, she’s pregnant. And they got married, so she had her son first. And I sort of felt like “OK, she’s busy having like important things in life. She’s got this living being she’s responsible for; she is not going to want to hang out with me at all.” But then, to my delight, I called her—you know, I called her a lot I’m sure probably too much, but I called her one time when Finn was about six weeks old—and I was like, “I just miss you and I want to hang out and can you please come over,” and the tires squealed, and she was at my house. Because she needed that, and not just like straight mom all the time.

Kristin: Well, so what happened was then, I had I met my husband, we got married, I had a baby within like four months. And then Jen was dating her husband, now husband for like four years. OK, got married and then had Dashiell but my daughter and Dashiell are six weeks apart. And then Jen went on to have Delilah. So, between the two of us, there’s four kids. It’s a 10, 8 and a 6. And Jen was deep into baby life with Delilah and a toddler, and I had Finn and a toddler, Eleanor, and we were having wine one night, and we were feeling I think both terrible and motherhood but also feeling like creatively like when would we get to do this thing again that we were doing before? How would we ever do comedy again? If we can’t go out past 8 p.m., you know, because you’re exhausted and your life changes when you become a mother your priorities change? And we’re laughing over the terrible night of motherhood, and she said, “You know, how can we show the real thing? This is the real part of it.” And she’s like, “Maybe we should shoot a video.”

And then we’re off to the races and we did our first video and we tried to be very happy. But instead, we were both feeling very terrible because she had been up all night nursing, and I had a terrible period, and we were introducing our kids’ names. Jennifer forgot her daughter’s name. And it was lightning in a bottle. I laughed so hard I peed through my pants—because it’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen your friend do, is forget their kid’s name. I think that was the two-minute clip we kept and then we posted that and it sort of lit fire. It just gave us the courage and the confirmation that what we were doing was working. And then we came out of the gate really hard, we did one about all the sexy stuff, which was breastfeeding, hemorrhoids, Spanx. And then about six months later, we did swimsuits, which was the big (one).

Jen: #imomsohard is like—being a mom is a verb. It’s not just, you know, your title. It’s also like, you can’t not be doing it. So like, a woman who’s a brain surgeon, still is thinking about her kid’s softball game coming up. There’s no escaping mom and you’re just doing it all the time. And it’s, it’s you kind of become unapologetic about it. In our comedy, there’s a through line of motherhood even when we’re not even necessarily talking about our kids and a lot of the time we’re not; we’re talking about stuff that’s (like) maybe how we became pregnant.

Kristin: But it’s fun stuff. And what we were very surprised about, and also delighted to see, is like, not only did (fans) like what we were talking about ... they loved our friendship ... it was became very multi layered and very fun for us. 

Did you ever think that you would find like this kind of big hit success, and especially on social media versus a traditional kind of comedy kind of path?

Jen: (The answer) probably is no. Kristen always likes to say that having kids is the ultimate career cooler for anybody who’s a performer. And the reason there aren’t more with probably doing comedy is you don’t have time to write it. Pop it in open mic nights at midnight. But we didn’t realize that like there was this void out there for women who are like us ... we just literally googled where were most women on the internet, and it was like Instagram and Facebook. So, we said, OK, that’s where we’ll put our videos. And because that’s where we were most of the time—when you’re up like late at night breastfeeding or trying to get a kid to go to sleep, you’re on your phone, and you’re just looking for something that makes you feel like sane and not alone and not depressed. 

How does the live show differ from videos?

Kristin: It’s so much more rowdy like this night out for you and your girls. And we don’t talk about the kids, not much. We talk about being a woman, we talk about what it’s like to be married. We talk about sex after marriage. We talk about hot guys, and wanting to do it and not wanting to do it. And like it’s all that conversation that you have, where you’re with, like some of your best girlfriends and you’re around a table and you’re laughing so hard that your stomach hurts because somebody has said something naughty. I think Jen always says it’s a monster truck show for women, and I think for moms, and I think that’s accurate. This is R-rated. It’s we’re not going to give you advice or try to make you feel inspired; we’re there to be part of a party and make you laugh your ass off. Hopefully laugh until you pee is our goal.

Did you rehearse it much?

Jen: Oh, it’s a very tightly written stand-up show. And then there are elements of the show that I think elevate it from just your regular stand-up ...There’s some improv with the improvisation with the audience. There’s you know, there’s a lot to it, but yes, we’ve, we wrote it for a very long time, and worked it, and we’re really proud ... the end result is that we love doing it and it’s super fun.

And you’ve written a kids book relatively recently. So, what’s your favorite form of expression recently?

Jen: I think we have so much energy from this new live show. It’s called the new show. It’s our third stand-up show that we’ve written and work with and it’s called The Getaway Tour. And because the last year and a half gave us so much like time and fodder to write comedy, it was such a great opportunity for us to come out like guns blazing with this show... We’ve had so many women who’ve been to all of our shows, and they’re like, “This is my favorite. “

What is next with you guys?

Jen: I think we’re really going to get into fitness.

OK!

Jen: No limit. We’re doing a podcast; we really love doing that. I think we both have hopes and desires to write more for television. To continue doing stand-up in every way we can. I think there’s there is a murmur of another book. We wrote a New York Times bestseller a couple years ago. I think we’re talking about getting up to bat again, which is really exciting. We started a wine line called Accomplice, which we’re very excited about. Very proud of. And, oh, it’s a big endeavor for us.

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