Why Shawn Johnson & Andrew East Have a Plastic Surgeon On-Call

Shawn Johnson, Andrew East Share Why They Have a Plastic Surgeon On-Call for 4-Year-Old Son Jett

There's no doubt parenting has been a wild ride for Shawn Johnson East and Andrew East. 

Because while neither the Olympic gymnast nor the retired NFL long snapper, both 34, are strangers to sports-related injuries, they didn't necessarily expect their 4-year-old son Jett would so willingly speed toward danger. 

"When our kids are young, Andrew will pull up YouTube clips," Shawn explained in an exclusive interview with E! News, detailing their process of helping Jett and his siblings Drew, 6, and Bear, 2, find activities. "We'll look at every sport, we'll look at every hobby, we'll look at piano and crafts and baking and cooking and science experiments, just to see if something catches our kids' interest. And from the time our 4-year-old was, like, one, anything with two wheels lit him up." 

Now it's not uncommon to see Jett cruise around the Special Forces stars' new Nashville-area spread. 

"I'll see him walking around the yard with his eyes closed and his hands out," Andrew described. "I'm like, 'Buddy, what are you doing?' He's like, 'I'm dreaming about riding motorcycles, Dad.'" 

Their youngest, meanwhile, is game for basically any sport that involves a ball. "He'll just be in the backyard dragging the bat around," Andrew said of Bear, "and he'll put the ball in the tee and knock it. It's pretty fun." 

And for Drew, it's the climb.

"Our daughter right now is so obsessed with rock climbing, and it turns her into a different kid," shared Shawn. "She's such a naturally quiet, introspective kid, but if she's rock climbing, she comes to life." 

Able to scurry up basically any structure, marveled Andrew, "She's got all these muscles she's building!" 

Though it's not the only skill the kindergartner is flexing as of late. Cutting apart balloons to create outfits for her Barbies, "She's like a little fashion designer," shared Shawn, "which I'm like, I don't know where you got that from." 

The stick-to-itiveness, however, is definitely an East family trait. 

Knowing a bit about the dedication required to be at the top of one's game, they were inspired to pen their newly released guide The Courage to Commit: Embrace the Radical Power of Sticking with Something after noticing, explained Shawn, "that there seems to be a cultural narrative right now of keeping your options open." 

The days they did get to spend together "just felt beautiful," Shawn explained of their early long-distance days and she didn't feel all that connected to her job or life in Los Angeles.

So, she made the leap. "I said, 'What is there to lose?'" she detailed. "I just remember telling myself, 'If he's not the person, totally fine. I'll find somewhere else to live and we can start over and do it again." 

Reader, they committed. 

With the Couple Things podcasters celebrating their 10th anniversary in April, "The love that I know now is so much richer and so much deeper than I ever could have imagined on our wedding day," acknowledged Shawn. "I thought that was the peak. And it's just gone to show that with every year, with everything you get through, with every hardship you overcome, love just grows. It's been pretty beautiful." 

The proof is in their sweet family photos.