Why Is My Toddler Screaming? – Ep. 106
July 13, 2020
Listen Now:
In the special segment “What I Googled This Week,” Laura and Shanna consult the internet for answers to their latest parenting conundrums, including unusual toddler injuries, soup, race horses and pop stars. Also, Laura reports on her toddler’s hilarious new habit of talking in his sleep, and Shanna bemoans her toddler’s new obsession with screaming at the top of her lungs. Finally, they reveal their BFPs and BFNs for the week. Shanna’s toddler is 18 months old, and Laura’s toddler is 17 months old.
This episode’s show notes – https://bigfatpositivepodcast.com/ep-106/ | Get social – Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/bfppodcast/ | Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/groups/bigfatpositivepodcast/ | Email – [email protected] | Our mom-tested ultimate baby registry list – https://bigfatpositivepodcast.com/registry/
Show Notes:
- Dreamtown Kids Toddler Pillow* Shanna loves this pillow for 18+ months, and CC loves it, too!
- About Nursemaid's Elbow It's a very common ailment for toddlers that you should be aware of!
- Hannah Gadsby's Douglas Great comedy special on Netflix
- Yookidoo Baby Bath Toy - Flow N Fill Spout Shanna's kids love this new bath toy!
(*denotes affiliate link)
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Episode Transcript
Shanna
Hi, welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. On this week's episode, we have our weekly check-ins, we have our special segment, What I Googled This Week, where we find out just how out of touch we are with current pop culture and also horse terminology. We wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFNs. Let's get to it. Hi, welcome to Big Fat Positive. This is episode 106. Hey, Laura. Hey, Shanna. How are you guys doing? How old's your toddler?
Laura
Oh, we're good. My toddler, he is 17 months and one week.
And so this week we had another really good week, just sort of new adventurers and new growth and, you know, just fun times. So like some stuff that's going on this week is he has started talking to himself as he's falling asleep.
What is he saying all kinds of random stuff like it's whatever is in his head I guess like sometimes it's just like babbling like he goes And his head is down I should say the whole time like if I didn't have audio just video I think he was fast asleep, but he's like head down going pica pica pica The other day when he was going down for his nap, which I think this is like the cutest thing, he was meowing in his sleep, like aggressively. Like he was loud and was like, meow, meow. Oh my god. Just thinking about cats and then he woke up meowing.
Shanna
Oh my God.
Laura
I know it's a cat.
Shanna
His transformation into a cat is coming to completion. It really is.
Laura
He chases lasers. Now he's meowing. I know. I know. It was cracking me up. I love watching the monitor and just watching him be weird. It's a super weirdo. So I think that's the sort of thing he's practicing, right? I think so, yeah. It's just so funny to watch. I just, it cracks me up. I have some videos, but the meowing is really funny. But he's also talking when he's awake or fully awake, I should say. One of his new things is he would sort of nod his head to things in the past, like if I asked him if he wanted something like more berries. He would sort of nod his head and he had said like, yeah, here and there. But now he's saying, yes.
Shanna
Yes. Yes. Very formal.
Laura
So I'll say like, oh, do you want some more berries? He goes, yes.
Yes.
Laura
He was like, oh my gosh, you're so, because you don't think of a little kid as saying yes. No, not at all.
Shanna
Much more formal than CECE's da, da. Oh yeah, her Russian, her secret Russian. It's so funny because Elle did the same thing. Really? Yeah. I don't know, it's so interesting in the family.
Laura
Yes, yes. But do you remember how a couple of weeks ago you were talking about how, I think it was a mom confession where you were like, one of them was like, I correct my kid's mispronunciations. Oh, yeah, that was a false one. Yeah, I don't because you love hearing your kids mispronounce things. Yes. Yes. Well, we have got to that point. I get it now because he has a little shirt that has some dinosaurs on it. And Cory was teaching him the names of the dinosaurs. And one day, like I came out and Cory was like, OK, you have to hear this. He's like, hey, baby, what's on your shirt? And he goes, tap, tap. And I was like, what's top? He's like, it's triceratops. Oh. Oh my gosh. So cute. And you know, when you have a boy, there's just dinosaur crap everywhere. So we have so many opportunities to ask him like, oh, baby, what's that?
Shanna
Oh, yes. I encourage the words too, you know, because it's so cute. Cici's thing is I've been trying to teach her to say watermelon because we've been eating a lot. It's summer and she loves it. And she tries so hard, but it's just lalalala. Her tongue kind of wags out of her mouth as she says it. I'm just like, oh my God, it's so cute. Yeah.
Laura
I just, of course, took a video and sent it to my family. And they were like, what is he saying? I'm like, it's triceratops. You can't tell. Clearly.
Shanna
Yeah, really, as parents, we are learning a whole new language with toddlers. I mean, I understand like things that CeCe says that no one else would. I'm just like, yeah, that's watermelon, obviously. Yeah.
Laura
Oh, me too. And it's so funny because I remember like when L was this age and I'd come over a lot and She tried to talk to me and I felt so bad because I'm like I have no idea what you're saying sweetheart you know like I really want to know but I just don't know what you're saying and you would just be like oh she wants this you know you just know I totally get it now because it's like it's just a little. you get the context clues and then there's just like a little intonation thing. What we have going on is that when he says grandma, it sounds a lot like mama, but I can tell the difference. So it's almost like for mama, he's like mama, but for grandma, he's like mama. It's like the tiniest little thing, but when we're on the phone or something, I'll be like, oh, he just said grandma. And my mom's like, I think he said mama. I was like, no, no, no, that's grandma. I can tell.
Shanna
You're the linguistic expert there.
Laura
Yes, yes, in her baby's language.
Shanna
Speaking of you not being able to understand Elle at that age, I recently came across a old voice memo of her and I talking in the car, like we would sit in the back seat and like, you know, chit chat. on our commutes. And in the voice memo, it's like, I totally understood she and I were having a full conversation, but now the me of several years later, I'm just like, I have no idea what she's saying. Like if I forgot everything, you know what I mean? Like I can't tell anymore what she was saying back then. That's so interesting. You've lost it. I've lost it.
Laura
I'm gaining a whole new language, a CECE language. That's so interesting. You would think you would know like it would just be ingrained in you.
Shanna
No, the only reason I know, because she would go, and in the voice memo, I would say, oh, yeah, there's an airplane. I would kind of repeat back to her what she had been pointing out. And I was like, oh, she said airplane? Wow.
Laura
Yeah, he loves trucks. He also loves rocks. And so like, There's a lot of, and it all kind of comes out sounding like cocks, unfortunately. Oh, that's great. And he loves running around a park going, cocks, cocks, you know? And he's like, yes, trucks, yes, rocks.
Shanna
Making sure everyone around you hears, yes, trucks.
Laura
Yes. Oh, well. But it is very cute. The one other thing I wanted to talk about this week was our little adventure we went on, which was we went to a new park, which is very exciting these days. And then there's this big park up by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is like in the foothills of Pasadena of LA, a north side of LA. I had no idea. I had seen it mentioned in my Pasadena mom's Facebook group a bunch of times and I was like, we need a new place to go. went there and it's just fantastic. There's like huge lawn area. And then there's all these nature trails that go up into the mountains.
Shanna
Oh, nice.
Laura
Which was really nice. Super easy to social distance because we're still in, you know, social distancing world right now. And the other bonus was that as you start walking on the nature trails, you come upon a horse ranch. Ooh, fun. They do horseback riding lessons and stuff, stables and whatnot, and oh my god, was that exciting. Oh, did he just love seeing the horses? Well, he doesn't say horse yet, but he says nay, and it was just like how he was aggressively meowing when he was falling asleep. He was aggressively naying. At some point, it seemed like he was bored of them, so we walked away. And the minute I put him down, he starts running back in the direction going, Nay! Nay! Nay! I'm like, okay, okay, we'll go back. We'll go back. You seemed bored. So that was a very fun trip and I was really into it. And near the horse stables, there's this little like enclosure.
It was actually a cowbird trap. I don't I'd never known about this, but there's what there's a type of bird called a cowbird. And got it. Yeah. And the cowbird is invasive and bad. So it's like a trap for these cow birds and then like whoever like some nature conservancy gets them and then releases them It's not like a death trap. It's a it's actually really cool because they're all flying around So you get to like look at these birds and they have a really cool song. It sounds like R2D2 Should I play it or I'm gonna play it. Here we go. This is from the all about birds.org Mm-hmm That's so crazy. That does sound like R2G2. That's crazy. So anyway, so we were looking at these birds that were so cool. And I was reading like the little label they had up to help explain what was going on with the trap. And my toddler was like running around looking at it.
And Cory and I were sort of both taking turns chasing him. He turned the corner to where I had just been standing and I had like walked around to the other side. And Cory looked down and saw a massive rattlesnake. No. Like a foot in front of him.
Shanna
Oh my god. Oh my god. That's so scary.
Laura
Massive. And of course my toddler did not care. But Cory like scooped him up and stepped back. And thankfully, thankfully, the rattlesnake like either didn't notice us or just did not care.
Shanna
Mm-hmm.
Laura
It was slithering underneath the cowboy trap. It was looking for shade So but we got to watch it like go into the trap, but it was like oh my god My I was standing right clearly like right next to one with my bear ankles And I was like letting my toddler run around you know We were on top of them obviously we were on top of him enough to Stop him from you know walking right on top of it But it was such a good reminder and like such a close call of like When you're out in nature, even if it doesn't feel quite like nature, you know, you just, you have to be on the alert, you know?
Shanna
You really do. It scares me to think of like, if I were to take L and CECE to a park alone and I'm trying to wrangle two kids at once. I mean, it is so hard. You know, I could easily see like L jetting off, you know, and stumbling onto that. This is like, oh my God, scary.
Laura
And then I realized I don't know what like I wouldn't have known what to do. Do you know what to do with a rattlesnake bite?
Rush to the emergency room? That's pretty much it, yeah. But you know, I was like, oh, do you put a tourniquet on? Do you suck out the venom? You know, all the stuff you'd heard? No, the answer is no. Basically, you get away from the rattlesnake. Try to keep, if it's like a limb that was bitten, you try to keep the limb above the heart if you can. Try to keep the victim calm because you don't want their blood rushing through their body. and then rinse it out with soap and water if you can. And then just get to an ER as soon as possible, basically. But I was also very heartened to learn that rattlesnake bite deaths are actually very rare.
Shanna
Oh, well, that's good. Is that because people are able to get to ERs or because they're not as deadly as we think? I think both.
Laura
Yeah. I don't know. Growing up, I went on a couple trips to the Grand Canyon when I was a teenager and I just feel like you get this lecture about rattlesnakes and how dangerous they are and all this stuff. And in my mind, I just thought like one bite in your toast and especially, oh my God, a little toddler that weighs like 24 pounds. Oh my God. But even with kids, apparently, you know, there are complications. You know, if it gets infected, that can be a problem. But it's not a situation where like you're going to die instantly. Like if you get to the ER within a couple hours, you're probably going to be fine. So.
Shanna
Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. Well, I mean, in the Grand Canyon, imagine you're hiking down into the canyon and you get bitten. That is scarier because it's hard to get out. Yes. It takes a while. So I could see why. Very true.
Laura
The warnings. Very true. But yeah, that night I kind of stayed up and I was like, oh my god, like I had that sort of after the fact anxiety where I was like, it could have been so bad. He could have walked right up to it. I was standing right next to it. Oh my god, you know.
Shanna
Yeah. Wow, you're running with poisonous plants and rattlesnakes. It's like you guys are living on the edge over there in Pasadena.
Laura
Oh my gosh, we're living in nature. The wild west.
Indeed. Right next to the jet propulsion laboratory.
But anyway, that was our week. It was, you know, had a harrowing moment, but in general was very fun and everyone's fine. And now I know how to take care of a rattlesnake bite. So good. See, it was an opportunity to learn. It really was. It really was. So what have you been up to this week?
Shanna
Oh, some stuff. Let me tell you. So CECE is 18 months old, a year and a half.
Just mind-blowing. So, okay, let's start with this.
The screaming. So much screaming. It's like, it's just always been a screamer, right? So I really shouldn't be too surprised. Yeah, you've been talking about this since...
Laura
She was newborn, I feel like.
Shanna
Yes, she would like that pterodactyl scream. She would shriek with pleasure. She would scream at the top of her lungs when she was crying. She has night terrors when she's screaming. This is an added element. to that repertoire where she just screams to express herself so she'll be completely happy, you know, sitting at her little high chair eating and the dogs inevitably come up and kind of stand there and stare at her and beg for food. And she just looks at them and goes,
And it is ear piercing. I mean, the girl, I've mentioned before, if she's not a soprano when she grows up, singer-wise, not part of the mob family, I will be truly shocked. It is just like, it makes my ears ring. It's crazy. The other thing is like, if she drops something off of her high chair onto the ground, she looks over at it.
Laura
That's her favorite pastime here, yeah.
Shanna
Yeah. She doesn't do it on purpose too often. It's more like if she accidentally dropped something. Yeah. She leans over, looks at it and goes, and I'm like, honey, I can help. All you have to do is say, mama, help. Yeah.
Laura
Yeah. Like this is not a proportional response.
Shanna
No, not at all. And of course she screams like that if I tell her, no, you know, if she's like trying to do something. I don't know, whack the dog in the nose with a little hand or something. I'm like, no, I can't let you hit the dog's nose. And so it is just, oh my God.
Laura
Your dogs must be like, their ears must be bleeding because they have such sensitive hearing.
Shanna
I think Chilly might be going deaf because he doesn't seem too disturbed by it. She was being so good with them, so gentle. She would go up and pet them and give them hugs and just, you know, just learning really good manners with them. And now to say hi, she walks up and just right in their face goes,
You know, I'm not doing it nearly as loud. You know, I don't- Oh yeah, because you know, podcast. Yeah, I won't do that to you guys. Just imagine like 90 decibels.
Laura
So what do you do about it? Is this like a thing you address or do you just let her screaming freak flag fly? Like, what do you do?
Shanna
I know it's hard because I'm like, what do I do? And I honestly didn't know at first. It's like disturbing everyone in the family, right? And I would be like, no screaming. Say, mama, help or no screaming. Say, hi, chilly. Hi. And try to teach her a different way of doing it. Or I'd just be like, if I'm exasperated, I'm just like, no screaming, please. Just no screaming. And just try to get her to stop. I almost always acknowledged it. And it's just not doing anything. And so finally, I'm like, I guess I got to consult the internet. especially Janet Lansbury. I'm like, what would Janet Lansbury do? I mean, WWJLD. And of course I'm like, ugh, her advice is ignore it. Because I know, because she's like, at this age, this is totally normal. I also read a little update about this age and the what to expect.
Updates you know about toddlers 18 months old now it almost came at the perfect time in my emails like at this age they start experimenting with their voice and they they know they have a voice and they want to hear how it goes you know hi low etc and screaming is a big part of that and so Jenna Lansbury says the same thing too and it's just like. The best thing to do is to ignore it. It's a phase. It's going to pass. Bringing attention to it is probably going to prolong it. So I'm like, oh my gosh, okay. But by the end of the week, I will say, you know, at the beginning, I was redirecting her when she was dropping things. I was like, say, mama, help. And I did train her to do that, except instead of saying help, she doesn't say help yet. She just goes, mama, mama, mama.
Laura
Which gets the point across.
Shanna
Yeah. So I mean, it's not dad, of course. But so anytime she drops anything now, it's like, mama, mama, mama, mama. And anytime she needs help now. So I thought that was a really cool learning curve. But the screaming at the dogs and all other situations is still not under control. We shall see.
Laura
Yeah, that seems real tough to me because I would hate to like, you don't really want to like hinder her self-expression. You don't want to stop her from feeling like she can express the emotions she wants to express. There's also situations where it's inappropriate to scream, right?
Shanna
Yeah.
Laura
And what age, I don't know, what age they can actually learn that that's, you know, I'm not telling you that your way to express things is bad. I'm just telling you that right now, it's not the right time. I don't know. Yeah. So be interested to hear.
Shanna
Yeah, I do feel glad that we are in the stay at home order with the coronavirus because all of this screaming pretty much is done at home outside sometimes too, which of course I'm like, I'm not hurting my child, I swear to God. You can get a visit. She's just excited because she saw a bug or whatever. Yeah.
But yeah, I would probably be a little more reactive if we were in public, like at the library or something, you know. I'd be like, I don't know, or we need to leave. So my ear, ear drums are ringing and hopefully this phase will be over soon. We shall see.
Laura
Yeah. You know, it's so interesting how different kids are. Cause I think at some point you were like, you texted me or asked me, you're like, does your guy scream? And I was like, no, not really. Like, you know, I was thinking about it. Like he makes, he squeals when he sees the cats and if the cats do something exciting, he squeals, but it's not a scream. So it just, you know, he isn't, either he hasn't gotten to it yet or You know, and I should say that when he kind of starts getting into a tantrum, he cries like he like wails, but it's not a scream in the same way. I've heard CECE screams, you know, they are powerful.
Shanna
very powerful. It even reminds me of a play date that our kids had back when they were, how old were they? Like, I don't know, six months, seven months old or something. And CECE, and your guy was standing at the little play music table. Oh, I remember this. And she just looked at him. She was excited. It was a happy, friendly thing. It was just like, right at him. And he looked at her and he goes, he started crying.
Laura
I know.
Shanna
I know. I was so sad. I'm like, I'm so sorry. It's just her personality, I swear. And so that really makes me think, like, God, that's just her personality, because that's what she's doing now. She gets excited and happy to see the dogs and walks up and goes, ah.
Laura
Hey, we all have those friends, you know? Everyone. And it's not a bad thing, right? Like, it's just some of us are louder than others. And some of us just react bigger too, you know? I love a friend that reacts big. So I think it's a good thing.
Shanna
So the other thing this week, just two small things. Since she turned 18 months, I didn't waste a minute introducing a toddler pillow into her crib.
Laura
Oh, yeah. Okay. Tell us about that. So the AAP. American Academy of Pediatrics.
Shanna
Yeah. So they say wait till the child is 18 months old to safely introduce pillow. And I was just like, she loves pillows. I can tell. She's been smushing her face in soft things since she was an infant. I had a really soft cushy nursing pillow and it was on the ground. She would crawl over and smash her face and just like, rest there. So I'm like, I know she'll be more comfortable in her crib with this. And, you know, sometimes napping is a problem. And I'm like, maybe it'll just be cozy. So just put it in there. She took to it immediately, has been sleeping great with it. And, um, it's awesome.
Laura
Is it like a specially made toddler pillow?
Shanna
Oh, yes. Yes, it is. It is something I got on Amazon for Elle when she was this age and still in a crib. So I'm just, it's like hand me down, still in good condition. But yeah, if you go to Amazon or Target or whatever and just search for toddler pillow, you know, it's a small little thing and you can get specifically made little pillowcases for them. and it's just the perfect size for the little head. Does she keep her little head on it like through the night? Well, you know, I don't know really because our camera is not positioned such that I can really see what she's doing in bed. It's more for me to just see if she's like standing up or laying down and crying. Got it, got it. So I don't know. I'd be so curious. I'm curious, too. She either sleeps on it or cuddles it or, I don't know, she likes it. When I lay her down, she just like goes right, you know, lays right down on it.
Laura
Because my guy kind of uses his little like stuffed animals as pillows, but he is all over the crib. Like, oh my God, we just laugh. We'll turn the monitor on to check on him before we go to bed and stuff. I mean, the monitor's on like the noise all the time, but we don't leave the video on all the time. So we'll turn it on and he'll just be like in the weirdest positions, like in the corner on his back, his legs up, like totally passed out. I have so many pictures of him in funny sleeping positions. So I'm just like, where would a pillow even and up, you know?
Shanna
Yeah, that's so true. Okay, you had one more thing. Yeah, yeah, one more little thing. This kind of makes the screaming a little bit more tolerable. I put her down for bed the other night and I said, good night, CECE, I love you. And I start walking out of the room, she goes, I love you, mama. Oh my God. I was like, come again?
What and you know I know she's kind of mimicking but it just you know it feels like really real and then it wasn't just a fluke because she did it again the next time I put her down how great is that so freaking cute so cute so just The crazy stuff is always balanced out by the just heartwarming, loving, amazing things.
Laura
That's so sweet. Oh, I love you, mama.
Yeah.
Shanna
I love you, mama. It's like, ah. So, yeah. That is our week.
Laura
Fuel. You're going to live off of that. Love it.
Shanna
Love it. Should we take a break and come back with our special segment?
Laura
Yeah, let's do it.
And we are back, so our special segment is what I Googled this week, where we talk about all the things we've typed into our search bar. Maybe they're shameful, maybe they're funny, maybe they're informative. Shanna, will you tell us what did you type into Google this week?
Shanna
This week, I Googled nursemaid's elbow. Is it like tennis elbow?
I'm not sure what tennis elbow is, but you don't get it playing tennis as far as I know. Okay. Okay. So what if you're a nursemaid who plays tennis? Then you might get nursemaid's elbow.
Laura
Okay.
Shanna
If you're a toddler.
Laura
Oh, okay.
Shanna
So this is making no sense. Yeah.
Laura
So let's clarify.
Shanna
Let's clarify why I Googled that first of all. So someone in my mom's group posted recently about her child was in severe pain at his elbow. And she didn't know what to do. And she was describing the symptoms, et cetera. And I was like, oh, I think I know what that is. Because Elle had that when she was a small toddler. And I think it's called nursemaid. It's such a weird phrase. So I typed that into Google just to make sure that I was telling this woman the right information. So it is called nursemaid's elbow. So that's why I googled it this week. But it reminded me that maybe I should share this information with our audience because when this happened to us, I was blindsided. It was horrifying. And I wish I knew it existed. So what do you think? Should I explain what this is? We're on the edge of our seat. So when Al was about two years old.
We were in her room and reading or something. And somehow she kind of just like rolled off of this futon that was in her room that we would sit. And it didn't seem to bother her. I didn't think anything of it. And then about 10 minutes later, I went to lay her down in her crib to put her to sleep. And she started screaming in pain. I was like, Oh my God, what's wrong? And I noticed that she's holding her right hand bent up like she couldn't move it, almost like it was paralyzed, right? Like flexed up? Yes, like flexed up.
Laura
Like you're going to do a push up or something.
Shanna
More like almost like you're holding your hand to your heart. Like she didn't want to move it away from her body. Okay.
Laura
Oh, I see she was holding. It's not that she was like kinking the wrist. She was like holding it towards her body.
Shanna
Yeah, bent at the elbow, holding it close to her body, her hand like near her chest. And I was like, Oh my God, what is going on? And I would pick her up and she would scream bloody murder. And then I would put her back down and like, if she could rest in a certain position without moving it, she could calm down a little bit. And she stayed in that position and eventually fell asleep and took a nap. And I was like, that's crazy. And when she woke up, same thing that armed hadn't moved at all. And every time I picked her up, she was screaming. So I was like, Oh my God, something happened to her. Like, I don't know. I thought her arm was paralyzed or something. And so we rushed her to the urgent care. We got into the waiting room and we're watching Moana or whatever on the TV and the children's urgent care. Yeah.
And suddenly like her arm like came down and she wasn't in pain and she was totally fine. So by the time we got in to see the doctor, she was normal. So I'm just like, what the hell is happening? And we explained to the doctor what it was. And he's like, oh, That's Nurse Maid's elbow. Yep, yep. What it is, is let me tell you specifically from, this is from Children's Hospital LA.org. Okay. It has a couple names. It's also commonly called pulled elbow. But basically when the elbow is pulled into a misalignment, I guess like the ligament gets like pulled out of place in the elbow and it kind of comes partially dislocated. Okay. That it causes extreme pain, but it's a super minor injury that if she had still been in pain when we went into the doctor's office, he's like, oh yeah, I could just like pop it back in. Like no problem.
He's like, I could even teach you how to do it if it happens again.
Laura
Oh, wow. So it's just like a little minor dislocation, basically.
Shanna
Yeah. A little minor dislocation that causes severe pain and terror for parents.
Laura
That must only be common in little kids, right? Because yes. So is it called nursemaid's elbow because like your nursemaid would like pick the kid up by his wrists or whatever? His elbows.
Shanna
Yeah. Let me see. So from a JAMA.org is called Nurse Maid's Elbow because when a child's nanny was inadvertently blamed for causing the injury, because the injury occurs when a child's outstretched arm is pulled suddenly. So yeah, maybe I guess the nanny picked them up a weird way or whatever.
Laura
Blame the nanny.
Shanna
Blame the old nanny, I guess, which we used to call nurse maids. So, and it happened to Elle again later on. So it can be repeated. Did you know how to fix it that time? No, I was too nervous too. So we took her to back to urgent care when it happened again and just the doctor just popped it back into place really easily and she's fine. It's totally fine. Like they can recover and it's most common in toddlers, more common in girls. The average age it happens is two, but it can happen from like one to three. And so we've really had to pay attention after this to not like You know, sometimes you want to pick your kid up by the arms and like swing him around for fun. You know, like, pick him up and swing him in a little circle. And we couldn't do that for a while. Yeah. So extreme pain, stuck elbow, looks paralyzed. It's just nursemaid's elbow.
Laura
Aw, poor Elle. I'm so glad that she got over it quickly.
Shanna
I know, me too. That was one of the scarier things I've been through as a parent. And, you know, second time it happened, obviously I knew what it was. It was much less panic.
Laura
Well now you know now we know listeners. Yes. Look out for that. Yeah.
Shanna
Look out for that. All right. So that's my first one. Okay. What's yours? Okay.
Laura
Mine is a little less dire.
Shanna
Okay.
Laura
But very important still. I googled how do you feed soup to a toddler?
Huh. Okay. Like it turns out because so my guy, he's pretty good with forks and spoons, except for he just, he like chooses not to use them. You know, like he can use them. He can stab someone with a fork and put it in his mouth. I've seen him do it. He's been able to do it for a couple months. How many times have I actually seen him do it? Like a handful because he's like, why am I doing this on? I could just pick it up with my hands. Yeah. And the other day, we were having like grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. And I was like, I like serving what I'm having, you know, for lunch to the kid if I can, you know, just to sort of simplify things. And also I feel like it kind of like makes a more cohesive mealtime, right?
Shanna
Yeah.
Laura
And who doesn't like grilled cheese sandwiches? But I was like, he should. He should. have tomato soup, right? Tomato soup is good. And I was like, how am I going to give this to him? And, you know, my first instinct was like, put in one of those pouches, those reusable pouches. Oh, there you go. But then I was like, that doesn't really teach him out like anything useful about how to eat soup. Like he'll get the soup, but also he'll probably squeeze it all over. And it doesn't teach him how to like, you know, he's not going to be 30 and in a restaurant eating soup out of a pouch, although maybe that'll be all the rage, you know, in 2050 or whatever. But so I was looking and some sources I really like admire like feeding littles and kids eat in color. They recommended that.
You know around 18 months which you know I'm just rounding up you start like using spoons and just sort of expect a mess so that's what we did.
He made a mess and he actually like ingested much soup but I felt pretty good about like. You know, trying to like do the bigger thing. Like not the easier thing, but the harder, bigger thing. And yeah. Good. Mom win. He pretty much like dunked his hands in the soup mostly. He was watching me spoon the soup into my mouth and then he would like kind of mimic it. He would end up dumping most of it before it got to his mouth. But like he kind of figured out that that's what he was supposed to do. Right. Now we're gonna just you know, I have to start thinking about how to have soup more often so that we can practice also something I learned which was interesting is that the like if you think about like a chicken noodle soup how it has like noodles and chunks of Carrots and broth and all that stuff that apparently that's really hard for toddlers to handle because
their instinct is just to swallow instead of like chewing like they don't understand like it's hard for them to understand the difference between a liquid and a solid and so like they can actually have problems with that food so it's better to introduce like pureed soups first. Well they get used to the spoon and then as they get older you know you can actually like give them a soup that has more chunky stuff in it.
Shanna
Good to know.
Laura
Yeah, I never knew.
Shanna
The only soup that we have given to Cici is like a chicken tortilla soup that my mother-in-law made. And we just don't do a lot of liquid. It's just like mostly the chunks. Yeah, yeah. That's the other thing they recommend.
Laura
You can just like separate it out, basically.
Shanna
Yeah. Yeah, I'm surprised he didn't like just pick up the bowl and try to drink it. I feel like that's what CECE would do.
Laura
Yeah. Well, we were using like a big, like we have those like separated mats, those easy peasy mats. Oh, right. And so, but I did, I put the soup in a little mini, like one of those little Pyrex mini cups. On top of that because I didn't I wanted him to have the option to like drink it sort of the way you do like miso soup at a Japanese restaurant, right? But he actually interestingly was not not interested in doing that.
Shanna
I was kind of shocked by that to be honest I wonder what would have happened if you given him a straw.
Laura
Oh, he probably would have sucked it right down I feel like that would have been my solution. Like, here's a cup and a straw, kid. If I was so worried about him, like, getting the nutrition, I would have done that. But it was just practice as far as I was concerned. I see. Yeah. Yeah. Fun. Yeah. Learn something new every day. OK. So that is actually all I have to say about Tofflers and Soup for now. OK. Shanna, do you have another one I googled?
Shanna
Yes, I do. This is one of the more random things I've googled. This week I googled Cool Beans Racehorse. Mm-hmm. OK. You mean the explanation doesn't instantly pop into your head what that is and why I googled that? Not at all. OK. Let me explain. So recently, Steve told me that he and Elle were talking about something and the phrase cool beans. And he asked Alexa, Alexa, what is cool beans? Like, because she defines stuff for us all the time. And you know what I mean? Cool beans, right? Like that phrase, it was like hot in the 90s. It was like, it's just such a dorky face.
Laura
Yeah, I mean, but it's just, yeah, awesome. Cool beans.
Shanna
Awesome. So I guess he thought that. Alexa was going to tell him that it means awesome. And instead, Alexa goes, cool beans is a racehorse. And that was so unexpected and cracked him up, cracked L up. They were laughing. And whenever anything cracks L up, she wants to do it over and over and over and over and just keep laughing until the funny is gone. So they did it multiple times. And I guess Cece was in the room. when this is happening and of course she doesn't understand what is going on. But she is so hilarious. One of the things I love about her personality is she just loves to laugh. If other people are laughing, she'll just join right in. She'll have no understanding why. So they were repeating this over and over. And so he told me about it later. And he's like, let's, you got to try this, right? Ask Alexa, what is cool beans? And then she'll say, it's a race horse.
And Cecile just started laughing. It like became almost like a, it's almost like a Pavlovian response, right? She's been trained. You hear this phrase and then ha ha ha. And so he did it. And she just started cracking up and like looking around at all of us, like trying to get it, you know, get us all in on the laughter and stuff. And so it's so cute. I'm just like, is Cool Beans a race horse? Like what? Usually Alexa gives like really good, like mostly too long of explanations. And then this was just so short and weird and vague. Yeah. So I'm like, what is that? And so of course I Googled it and Cool Beans is the name of a race horse who. You're dying to know, right?
Laura
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like contemporaries, this race was still running.
Shanna
Did it win any big prizes? Well, let me tell you.
Bloodhorse.com.
Laura
Bloodhorse.com? Yeah. That doesn't conjure up great images for me.
Shanna
I know, but I don't know. I don't know what I get.
Laura
It's like bloodlines, right? Yeah. Horse people are very into that stuff.
Shanna
Yeah, I think that's what it is. Cool beans is a dark bay brown mare born in 2015.
His trainer is Brad Cox, Jackie is Tyler Gaffiani.
Laura
Hold on, hold on. I think you are misgendering Cool Beans. Oh, do you? You just said Cool Beans is a mare. Oh. And then you said his trainer, Shanna. Come on. Wait, no. Well, what's the female? Wait, Philly. I don't know. Now I don't know. Now I'm questioning everything I know about horses. Now I need to Google what is a mare. Oh, shit. Now all of our listeners can make fun of me for not knowing if a mare.
Shanna
What is a mare?
Laura
There's mayors and fillies. Can you tell I did not grow up on a farm? Mayor is a female horse. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Shanna
So I was right. Oh, I was wrong.
Laura
I can't keep anything straight. OK. Wait, wait, hold on. Google one more thing. What's the difference between a mare and a filly? OK. Do you know why I knew that?
Shanna
What's the difference between a mare and a filly?
Laura
When you bring that up, I'm going to tell you why I know that because you remember there was a like, there was some kind of hormone replacement therapy that was called Pramerin for a while. And I've discovered that the reason it was called Pramerin is because it was a like since that it was a hormone that was manufactured from pregnant mare urine, Primeran.
I'm going to Google that to make sure I'm not spreading misinformation, but I'm pretty sure it's right.
Shanna
That is interesting. While you're Googling that, let me tell you that a mare is an adult female horse. In most cases, over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. So it's a toddler, a toddler horse, just like we have.
Laura
Oh, well, no, wait, this one's a mare. So you said she was born in 2015, right? So she's five. Yes, I was just telling you the definition of Philly. Oh, I get it. Okay, got it. Philly is a toddler, Mary is like a kiddo.
Shanna
Yes, exactly.
Laura
Okay, Primeran. It's got various, it's a vaginal cream. Oh, OK. What is Primeran?
Shanna
Oh, a male horse is called a stallion. Listeners, you are seeing our googling in action. In real time. In real time. This is, I'm sure, thrilling.
Laura
Yeah, maybe we should just, you know, move on.
Shanna
Let's move on.
Laura
You guys can look up Primeran if you want.
Shanna
Uh, okay.
Laura
There are some listeners who like know shit about horses and they're just so mad at us right now.
Shanna
I know. I'm sorry, you guys. I'm a city girl. City girl? Like twice. But Cool Beans has won. Okay. Here's a picture of Cool Beans winning in 2019 at Ellis Park. So I guess that's more important than the fact that Cool Beans means awesome in the 90s. I guess.
Laura
I mean, I think Cool Beans was probably named Cool Beans because of the saying.
Shanna
Oh, yeah, definitely. And what does Cool Beans even mean? And why does it mean awesome? Because beans are usually hot. I would think hot beans. Hot beans. Maybe I want to start saying that.
Laura
Hot beans. Hot beans. That'll be the new tagline of our podcast. Hot beans.
Shanna
Oh my gosh. So anyway, the point is it made my toddler laugh hysterically and it was so funny and cute. And that's why I Googled it. And now you know. Now you know. So Laura, should we take a break and come back with your last what I Googled this week? Sounds like a plan.
Okay, we're back. Laura, you have one more.
Laura
What I googled, I want to hear it. Okay. This one is going to be a mystery. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see. I googled, oops, whoops, wait, aha. Does that mean anything to you? No. Is that some kind of game or something? What if I did it like this? What if I did it like this? Oops, whoops, wait, aha. No. Is that like a Britney Spears song or something? No. So it's a song on freaking Sesame Street. You know how they, you know, they like replay, like they'll like do these little like pre-recorded things with celebrities and then they'll replay them in different episodes. So you'll see them multiple times. I don't know if you watch a lot of Sesame Street.
Shanna
I was going to say no, I don't really watch. My kids don't watch Sesame Street. So I don't know.
Laura
There's a song that showed up in a couple episodes, and it's of this woman who is singing. She's like, obviously I'm supposed to know who she is, right? She's like some kind of famous person, right? And the song, the song's cute. It's called like, it's called Oops, Woops, Wait, Aha, because it's about like how you have to like fail to learn, and then eventually you get it, right? Oh, okay, that's cute. That's cute and all the like, you know, there's she's trying to hula hoop and I don't know, big birds trying to jump rope or something, right? Everyone's trying to do something. And it's super fucking catchy song. It was stuck in my head for so long. And I was just like feeling so out of touch because I was like, I clearly am supposed to know who this person singing this song is.
Shanna
Oh, is it like a young celebrity that's hot now? Or is it one of those old episodes where it was like a celebrity back in the 70s?
Laura
No, no, no. It's like a celebrity that's hot now. And that's why I was like, oh man.
Shanna
Demi Lovato. I never recognize her.
Laura
No, I actually, I think I could ID her. I probably could. No. So then, thankfully, the internet is available and it showed me that there was someone named either Marin or Marin, M-A-R-E-N, Morris. I'm going to go with Marin Morris. Everyone right now is going to be like, oh my God, I love Marin Morris, but you say it wrong.
Shanna
I don't know who that is. I'm so old.
Laura
I had no idea. I had no idea, right? So I looked her up. And it turns out she is an American singer. She's like a country singer. And she's had a bunch of songs that I've never heard of on the charts and it just continued to make me feel old and out of touch. She's very beautiful. And it was one of those things where she's like, God, I don't know anything about what's going on in pop culture. She's 30. And she has a kid. And then when I was googling just now to bring her up, apparently she's recently been mom shamed. What? Which we are not okay with. No. Before. We're never okay with mom shaming, so I'm going to tell you. Okay, it says, Marin Morris defended by husband after getting mom shaved. Shaved. Mom shaved. Mom shaved. Mom shaved is a different thing. Yeah. Mom shaved is the thing that doesn't happen. No.
No, Mary Morris defended my husband after getting mom shamed over pick of son. So there's this picture on Instagram. It's like such an influencer pick. It's like she and her son who looks I don't know, maybe less than six months old, right? They're on this big inflatable floaty car. It looks like one of these expensive things you buy just so you can be a better influencer. And they're wearing matching swimsuits, looking very cute. And it's this giant floaty. And they're clearly in very shallow water on a lake. And she has him on her stomach. It looks very safe, right? But apparently the internet jumped down her throat and was like, where is his life vest? You never know what could happen in the water. He needs a life vest. Her husband, whose name is Ryan Herd, H-U-R-D, who is also a thing I've never... Who knows? I don't know, I don't know anything about pop culture.
He had to say, I just like to say, my wife usually doesn't need me to defend her, but she's a great mom and my kid was not unsafe on a float in one feet of water being held by an adult with five people watching so she could get a picture. Yeah. You know, it's like, yes, that is so true. So, so true.
Shanna
It is so true. Even like in a swimming pool, I remember last year, like CECE's swimming pool experience for the first time, it's like I held her. Like we got in the water and I held her and the other moms were holding their little four month old, you know, it's like,
Laura
People need to mind their own business. They need to mind their own business. But anyway, now I want to listen to her music. If any of you guys are like big fans, you know, you can just, you know, write in and tell me what I'm missing. Tell me what song to listen to.
Shanna
Yeah. Yeah. Please let us know.
Laura
But her little thing on Sesame Street is actually very cute and so catchy. Very catchy.
Shanna
I like it.
Laura
So that's it for this week. Should we take a quick break and then come back with our BFPs and BFNs?
Shanna
Yeah, let's do it.
We're back and we're going to wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFNs. Laura, you're up first. What do you have for us?
Laura
Okay, so I was reminded of this when we were talking about doing our what I googled segment and I found something I had googled. which was the pouch of Douglas. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, what? Okay, well, people who know what I'm about to say know what my BFP is, which is the comedy special Douglas on Netflix. It's Hannah Gadsby.
Shanna
Oh, I haven't watched that one yet.
Laura
So Hannah Gadsby, she did Nanette, which was like a smash hit, surprise hit comedy storytelling special.
Shanna
Oh, it was so good.
Laura
This is her follow-up. And we watched it the other night. And I don't want to give anything away. It's really great. It's a little different than Nanette, but just really, really funny and well done. And I really, really enjoyed it. And I Googled the pouch of Douglas. I'm just going to let listeners Google it if they want. I don't want to give away anything in the. in the show, but that's what the show is named after. Or actually, it's a longer story, but it's part of the show. And the pouch of Douglas is like an anatomical part of the female reproductive system. It's basically like negative space. I think it's like behind your uterus and in front of your colon, basically. And it's just like, there's some great jokes about like Dr. Douglas who named it, you know, who found the spot and stuff. But it's pretty funny.
And there's a lot of stuff in there that's actually very relevant to sort of like our topic. You know, she talks about some issues, some like issues she was having going to like a gynecologist and stuff. It's really good, really funny. If you need a distraction, you want to see something that makes you laugh but also makes you think, I highly recommend checking out Hannah Gatsby's show Douglas on Netflix.
Shanna
Oh my God, I'm definitely going to try it. I saw it come up. But I was working my way through Queer Eye and nailed it. And those are done now. So you need something new here at Com, baby.
Laura
And it's just like a single comedy special. I think it's like 90 minutes long. So it's actually fairly easy to get through. You know, it's not like a big commitment. Yes. Yeah. So I mean, mine's short and sweet, but I highly recommend it. Made us laugh. Yeah. So, Shanna, what do you have? Do you have a BFP or a BFN?
Shanna
I have a BFP. Oh, good. I wanted to share this bath toy that I recently purchased that is so good.
Laura
I love it. We need new bath toys in all ears.
Shanna
Okay, so it's called the YukiDoo Baby Bath Toy, Flow and Fill Spout. OK. And the reason I was looking for something like this is that both of my girls love the running water. Like as it's coming out of the spout, they'll stand in there, fill cups, and after I stop it, you know, because the bathtub's full enough to my satisfaction, CeCe is just like, you know, she does the more side and she goes, ah, ah, ah, ah. She says ah, ah, by the way, for water. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that.
Laura
You did mention that once. I think that's really funny. Did you teach her that?
Shanna
I think I did because that's how Elle said water at first for, you know, the first six months, but she picked it up from a friend of hers in the day. And so I was like, well, maybe it's easier. I don't know. It's cute. So she says, agua, agua. So she'll look at the spell, do the morse, agua, agua, agua. And she just wants to have running water. And I'm like, It comes out so hard, right? And it's a waste for her to just fill a little cup with this water pouring out and water noise.
Laura
The temperature, I don't know. For us, it's like we're always worried about getting the temperature right. It's going to be too hot. It's going to mess up the bathtub temperature. I don't know.
Shanna
Yeah. So just like a lot of things, they just don't really like running the spout for her to play in. And I was like, there's got to be a toy out there that just like recycles the bathwater, like pulls it up and like makes its own little spout. So I just looked up something like toy that recycles bath water and I found this thing. Yuki Do is the brand name. It's Y-O-O-K-I-D-O-O. And it's this adorable little spout that suction to the side of the bathtub. You put batteries in the main part of it and it sucks up water and pours out a spout. And it comes with a bunch of little cups, you know, that, have different things on them they can play with. And it's just, it's the perfect solution. And CECE loves it. She just sits there and plays with it, touches the water coming out of this bout.
Laura
Okay, we need this like ASAP. The minute we stop recording, I'm ordering this because. Yes, you have to eat it.
Shanna
Yeah. I had it in my Amazon cart for a couple of days. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. You know, I'm buying them so much stuff right now because of quarantine. And Finally, I pulled the trigger. And I'm like, I think I'm going to save money in my water bills. Probably. Just by using this thing, they both love it. So I highly, highly recommend this bath toy. It's already gotten more use than most of their bath toys. They don't really care about those squeezy toys. There's so many toys they just don't care about. But this one's a hit, so I highly recommend.
Laura
I am getting it. We were just talking about needing new bath toys. So yeah, that's gonna happen. Yay. Well, I think that's it for the episode. What a fun one. Yeah, so many things we talked about. So much Googling, so many snakes. Oh my God.
Shanna
So listeners, if you've Googled anything weird or funny or informative lately, you got to let us know. Laura, where can they reach us?
Laura
We are on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at BFP Podcast. We also have a Facebook community group, just search Big Fat Positive Community. It's a closed group. You'll have to answer two questions. You have to agree to our rules and tell us where you found out about the podcast. If you do that, I will add you right away. And you can join in all the amazing private conversations that we're having in there. We also have a website, BigBatPositivePodcast.com, or you can send us an email or voice memo to contact at BigBatPositivePodcast.com.
Shanna
Thank you everyone who's reviewed and rated our show. It means so much. And if you haven't done so yet, please review and rate us wherever you listen to the podcast. It really helps people feel confident in taking the plunge and listening to our first few episodes. So thank you so much. And if you know anyone who's pregnant or trying to conceive or a new parent, let them know about Big Fat Positive. Big Fat Positive is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Jinx. Bye. Bye.