Our Favorite Mom Hacks – Ep. 129

Laura

Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week we have our weekly check-ins. We have a brand new special segment called What the Hack where we share some hot tips on the newborn phase, potty training and bath time and so much more. And we close with our BFPs and BFNs for the week. Let's get to it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. This is episode 129. Hi, Shanna. Hey. I want to know what's going on with you this week. What is your check in? How old is that toddler?

Shanna

Well, she is 23 months and one week and a couple of cute little things to report and then a little update.

Laura

Okay.

Shanna

Yeah. So the first thing that's new this week, it's just so delightful. She's always liked like little like little back scratches and like little like tickles and stuff. I think I've talked about that even when she was like an infant. She forgot about that for a while and now her interest in this is back in full force. It's so cute when we put her to bed at night. I think I've mentioned before she doesn't really want us to hold her and sing or anything anymore. She's decided the new routine as we Both lie on the floor, on the rug, and look up at her stars. And now what she's added to that routine is she takes off all of her jammies because she wants back scratch. And she goes, back, touch, back, touch. And so then she'll come and lie on her tummy with her back up. And then you have to, like, little tickle, scratch her back. And then she'll go, legs.

Laura

That's so cute although I don't know about you it's hard for me to get my guy into his jammies in the first place so it's like oh you want to take them all off now.

Shanna

I wouldn't recommend it. Sometimes it's easy for her to get them back on, but lately she has been protesting and throwing a fit. So if that, you know, once she starts to do that, I'm like, no, we're not going to do jammy list back scratch tonight. And, you know, just scratch her back through her jammies with, I don't know, extra hard pressure or something like that. But I just love how she has dictated so many parts of her routine and her life, and we just go along with it. It's like, okay, CECE does CECE, we're long for the ride. Yeah, she does. She appears to be in charge. Yes. Along that same note goes into my next little check in with her. Sure is that she's been working on this for a while But it's kind of come to a head this week. She is completely dressing and undressing herself from head to toe Wow. Yeah, it's great because it's one less thing I have to do for her, right?

Laura

Yeah, I mean, we're nowhere close to that. So I almost feel like she's just a little precocious on that one.

Shanna

Yeah, I think so. Is it the big sister effect again, probably? I think it is. Yes, she watches her do it and just wants to do everything that Elle does. Yeah, I think so. So if you're listening and you too, Laura, don't feel bad if your toddler is not dressing themselves yet. I think that's just... One of those things that's her interest. She's like, I'm interested in doing this and I'm going to master it because no one's paying attention to me right now. So I'm going to do what I want to do. I make it sound like I neglect my daughter. I don't, I don't, I don't.

Laura

I don't think anyone thinks you neglect your daughter. Yeah. The thing is, I feel like if my guy had this physical ability, like the ability to take his clothes on and off, he would just choose to be naked all the time. He has this weird obsession with going down the slide completely naked, which doesn't work, right?

Shanna

No, it's bumpy and sticky.

Laura

And not the one at the park, I should say, the little indoor one we have. That would be inappropriate. That would be inappropriate and very cold. No, he just like whenever we're getting ready for bath time or whatever, if we take his pants off, he'll like just sprint out to the living room, try to climb up on the slide. And he just thinks it's the funniest thing that he's like eh eh eh like scooching down it. And yeah, so I feel like maybe it's the thing that maybe you shouldn't learn till he's a little older anyway, because otherwise we would just have a fully nude child and we'd have to crank the heat up to unnatural degrees.

Shanna

You have to accommodate. That reminds me of this book, Naked. It's a kid's book. It's so cute. It's like about a little boy. It's like, ah, Naked, Naked, Naked. naked naked and he's like sliding down the banister and like eating cookies naked and just like just being a naked little kid and it's just I think it's very accurate for a lot of little kids. It's really cute book you should check it out by David Shannon.

Laura

The problem is it will probably help reinforce. I don't have a problem with him being naked, but like it is. It does get chilly. Our house is very poorly insulated and it's starting to get cold. And, you know, he just he just wants to run around naked. And I'm like, well, like it's fine. It's your body, your choice. But you're going to he's like gets all modeled. Oh, my God. It's cold. So anyway, kids don't care.

Shanna

I swear to God, half the kids in elementary school wore shorts to school during the winter in Phoenix to be fair. I know my my terrible Phoenix winters. Anyway, we did grass. Yeah. My little baby is growing up, you know, and we're not using the changing table anymore. She's out of diapers, except for sleeping. And she's getting herself snacks, you know, she'll open up the fridge and like open up the bottom drawer and get an orange, a little orange and be like, orange, orange. I'm just like, okay, you're growing up. I get it. I get it. I gotta get that kitten.

Laura

You better get that kitten. Or this pandemic needs to be over so you can just come over and snuggle my baby.

Shanna

Yes. Oh my gosh. I can't wait. It's going to be so nice. So that's it that and then the last thing is an update I've been complaining for a while about super early wake-ups. Yes, yes like 4 30 a.m.. And it's been very trying and I had a little success with a couple things and then it backfired and nothing had worked really yet and This time I think I actually found the solution and I'm really excited.

Laura

Oh my God, I'm like so wanna know.

Shanna

Yeah, I don't know if this is gonna help anyone else unless your kid listens to Enya for 10 hours every night.

Laura

Oh, interesting. So it was just some something stimulating at her least what do they call it? Like there's like the least sleep pressure at that point.

Shanna

Yes, that's what it is. Mm hmm.

Laura

Yeah.

Shanna

So I think it might have been bothering her.

Laura

Who knew Enya was so stimulating? Literally, nobody. Nobody. No one was ever like, man, that Enya just really riles me up. It jazzes me up and gets me ready for the day.

Shanna

Do you think all our listeners know who Enya is? Probably not, because I think Enya really had her burst of fame in the 80s, 90s. I'm not sure. She's kind of just a soothing, semi-new age, you know, calming singer from, I don't know, like Scotland or Ireland.

Laura

Well, if you don't know, just search Spotify or whatever, YouTube for Enya. The Ori Noko Flow is the one I remember from like, I think I was 13 and on a vacation with my parents and I distinctly remember that album being played all the time for some reason. And that would have been 1995-ish.

Shanna

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I know that song very well. I've heard it probably 18,000 times.

Laura

Well, my toddler is 22 months and two weeks, and well, we're having a rough week with the sleep. You know, it's so funny. Our kids' age difference is like almost exactly a month, right? And I feel like they are almost exactly a month apart on certain things. And the thing this week is what I think is the same sleep regression you guys kind of went through. about a month ago, like a nap regression. So he's been taking longer and longer to fall asleep for his naps. And the upside is that he's not upset about it in general. It's just that he will lie in his crib for 45 minutes singing to himself, playing with his little toys and just rolling around and talking to himself. And this earlier this week, two out of three days, he just didn't nap at all. He did that for like, I think we left him in there for 90 minutes because he wasn't upset. He wasn't crying or asking for us.

Shanna

Yeah, I get that. Has it been affecting his sleep or energy or mood after this quote-unquote nap time ends? Like, what's your concern with him absolutely needing sleep in the middle of the day?

Laura

Yeah, that's the thing. He is wrecked by like 4 or 5 p.m. He ends up just melting down at every little thing.

Shanna

It's too bad that that really has kind of a crazy association to it, doesn't it? Like putting foil on your windows is like, oh, that's the kooky neighbor.

Laura

Yeah, totally. Although now I'm like, it makes so much sense. It totally blocks out the light. It's lightweight. It conforms to the shape, right? Cheap. Like it's kind of perfect. And it's great for keeping heat. Like if you're trying to keep heat out of a room, like it's great. Right. But yeah, it does make you look like the person who's, you know, thinks the aliens are coming and you've got to protect your insulate your house from like the gamma rays or whatever. But I got to say, so that worked. It worked well for blocking out the light. It's like pitch black in there. It actually was to the point where like the first day we did the nap in there and I close the blinds. My toddler said, too dark, too dark. He did. He did. I was like, that was just the right amount of dark, don't you think? And he slept.

Shanna

He was in his crib when he was crying.

Laura

No, no, no. I'm sorry. This is just like in the middle of the day. We were just playing and he was just like, Chuck, Chuck. And he just starts bawling. And I was like, the truck's right there. It's just, are you crying? This is not right in front of you. And then I noticed a massive stream of drool coming down his cheek and his chin. And I was like, And I made him open his mouth wide and low and behold, his bottom left molar was popping through.

Shanna

Oh, poor guy. Who can sleep when that pain is is in your mouth?

Laura

But, you know, it's so interesting to me because he didn't he never really indicated much, you know, and his nighttime sleep was OK. So anyway, then on so on Friday, this this was Friday morning, I was like, OK, I'm going to give you some ibuprofen before your nap. And I gave him ibuprofen and he slept for three hours.

Shanna

Oh my God. Well, that's good. I'm really glad that he was able to get some rest and some relief.

Laura

Me too. Me too. And you know, I need to remember that he's, I think he, he's a pretty tough little kid, you know? So I need to sort of be a little bit more in tune with him. to see if he's maybe showing signs of pain. You know, because then I look back that maybe the grumpiness in the afternoon when he didn't nap wasn't so much the no nap as it was the, my mouth hurts, but I don't know how to tell you.

Shanna

Yeah, that's so hard. It's so hard. Sometimes I wonder, well, all the time I wonder if CeCe's teething because she, you know, she's kind of cranky a lot and puts her fingers in her mouth a lot and I'll be like, oh, how's your, how's your mouth? Does your mouth hurt? And she always says, yes, yes, yes, yes hurts. I'm like, I don't know. Maybe you just like taking medicine. You know, my kids love the taste of medicine. They will take it at any turn. So, but I do give it to her sometimes because I'm just like, well, I don't know. Like you said, they can't really communicate. And I don't know.

Laura

Yeah, I figure, you know, as long as you're not going overboard. But he's the same way. If I say, do you need some medicine? He goes, medicine. And then like runs to the bathroom. I'm like, oh, God.

Shanna

They love it. So they make that stuff so tasty. I was like, what's the deal? I stuck my finger in it the other day and licked it. And I'm like, oh, that is pure sugar. And I'm going to touch a medicine. It's so good.

Laura

So anyway, that was what's going on with my toddler. And then with the pregnancy, I'm 28 weeks now and I had another doctor's appointment this week. And the head is still down.

Shanna

Good.

Laura

So we'll see what happens there. And this week, I remembered to ask my doctor about the COVID restrictions at the hospital that I'm planning on giving birth at. And, you know, because the logistics of it are kind of tricky. I was trying to figure out how to have Corey there for the birth, but also be able to have him go home and see the toddler, you know, because my guy's never been away from me ever, which is probably going to be like, who knows, that's another thing for another day to talk about. But like, I didn't want him to be away from Corey too. for too long. And my mom's gonna be there. But originally I thought, okay, what I'll do is if they allow this, you know, I was pretty sure they only allow one person at a time, which is what they're allowing, right? One visitor at a time. But a lot of places weren't allowing any ins or outs.

Shanna

But like, yeah, do the partners or whoever's going to be in there with you have to take a COVID test ahead of time? I don't know, I don't.

Laura

think so based on the fact that they were allowing other people to come in. So it didn't sound like it. But we'll see. So we'll see what happens. But it sounds like they might actually be able to allow Cori to go home for the night, have my mom stay with me, or even, I mean, she can just stay home and I can have the nurses help or whatever. And then Corey could come back in the morning. So yeah, that's optimistic for me. That seems like it would be a little bit easier than like, you know, I was sort of thinking worst case scenario. I just sort of do everything after the birth alone, not alone, alone with the nurses.

Shanna

Yeah, so I mean you've been there you've done that it's if you were a first-time mom I think that would maybe not be what you would want to do.

Laura

Yeah, it would be a lot harder as a first-time mom and you know who knows if I'll have complications this time or what but. You know, I think I, you know, this time hopefully I know how to, you know, I know how to breastfeed. I have absolutely no problem with asking the nurses to take the baby away for an hour or something. Last time I was like, I don't want to be away from the baby. And then I finally gave in and let the nurse take the baby for like 90 minutes. And it was like the best 90 minutes I had ever had in my life. It was so amazing. So this time I'm just like, here, take her, take him to the nurses station. I need a rest.

Shanna

Yeah, good.

Laura

But yeah, so we'll see. We'll see how that goes. Okay. But that's about it this week.

Shanna

Good. All right. Well, sounds good. Should we move on to our special segment after this break?

Laura

Yes, our new special segment. Yes, I'm excited. Me too. Stay with us.

Shanna

We are back and this week we are so excited because we have a brand new segment that we call What the Hack? And this we have to give a huge shout out to our listener, Morgan. She basically came up with this idea for us and we are bowing down. Thank you. Yes, it's an amazing idea. And it came from our community group. Someone had asked something like, what was the hack when like a pig gets stuck in your baby's nose or whatever. And I answered, it's the mother's kiss. And Morgan chimed in and said, oh, I read that as what the hack? And then she's like, that would be a great segment. And we were like, yes, it would be. Let's do it.

Shanna

Here we are and what we're doing in this segment is just sharing some of our best mom hacks, our tips, tricks, what have you for dealing with babies, toddlers, kids, etc. So Laura, you're up first and I'm dying to know what your hacks are because I think I could definitely learn a thing or two from you. So what do you got?

Laura

Yeah. And also, in the future, we're going to be opening up this up to our listeners, because we will run out of hacks eventually, I think. So start thinking now about all the hacks you can help us with, and we'll let you know how to share them at the end of the episode. But OK, here's my first one. So I'm going to start with the baby stuff, the newborn and that phase. OK. Here is something I did not know. Hack revelation, I'm not sure. But I did not know. So when you get a new like pacifier or bottle or like nipples for bottles, they always say like sterilize before first use, right? And you're like, OK. And they of course sell these fancy bottle sterilizers that you can buy. But what I didn't realize until my baby was like about six months old and like didn't need sterilization anymore is that If you run your dishwasher with the heat cycle, like the heated dry, it is a sterilizer.

Shanna

It is? Like without water or anything? Just like put the dial to the end of the cycle?

Laura

No, no, no, you run the whole cycle. But as long as the heated dry is on, like you can't just do the air dry. You have to have the heated dry at the end. Uh-huh. You sterilize what you have in there. Ooh, that's great. So if you don't want to buy a freaking, like, bottle sanitizer, steaming, doohickey, you don't have to. You can just run your dishwasher.

Shanna

That's great. What if there's other stuff in there, like, plates with caked on mac and cheese and, you know, all that jazz? Do you think that would still work?

Laura

I mean, it did for me. I mean, I think the thing is because, you know, it's supposed, you got to rinse, it gets rinsed out and it's really this heated steam at the end. It's like the temperature and duration, I think. So I would do your own research, especially if you have a kid who's like immunocompromised or something, make sure that this is still okay for them. But everyone I consulted said that Yeah, running the dishwasher with the heated dry is good enough. And the only downside is that if you have like, you know, only a few bottles left and you don't have a full, you know, cycle to run on the dishwasher, it can be kind of annoying. Like it's much faster to have a sterilizer, but if you're like me and don't have a lot of counter space, it's really helpful.

Shanna

So that is. And can you also boil the items? Because I remember getting new nipples and pacifiers and like sticking them in a big pot of boiling water for five minutes.

Laura

Yeah, that's another way to sterilize, for sure.

Shanna

Dishwasher is easier, and it's definitely a hack, though. So thank you for sharing that. Yes.

Laura

So that's my first one. OK, what's your first one?

Shanna

My first one has to do with newborns, too. And this is the witching hour, where it's around 4 or 5 o'clock in the evening, and the baby's just losing it. I really, really struggled with that with Elle, first time around. And we would try anything and everything to get her to quiet down and relax, including like the white noise machine, noise on our phones, et cetera. And the one thing that ended up working for us was running the vacuum. And the other reason this is a hack is because it's a two for one. You like could get to clean up your house while also calming your newborn. So I would just be holding her and walking around, running the vacuum cleaner. It's so loud. They love that really, really, really loud. sound and that worked well for us.

Laura

That sounds like a very like 1950s mom hack. This isn't meant as a dig, it's a good one. It's like a classic, I feel like.

Shanna

Yeah, it's totally a classic. It's like put your baby in a seat on top of the washing machine to give him a vibration. Now they have so many doohickeys that you can just buy a seat that vibrates, but I think back then, that's what you do, just put them on the washing machine.

Laura

Before the Mamoru, yeah, you just did that.

Shanna

So, okay, do you have a mom hack where you're not tapping back into the distant past? for us?

Laura

Well, I don't know. I'm not sure how long this has been going on. But I learned from a friend right before I had my baby the proper way to hold a car seat. And I had never encountered this before. And I want to make sure everyone knows. So it's really hard to explain on the podcast. So I really encourage people to like Google

Shanna

You know hold a car seat with your elbow base like hold on hold on before you go any further for some reason when you said hold a car seat I'm like picturing myself walking around with an empty car seat in my arms like cradling What do you mean like when the babies in it or when the babies in it?

Laura

So you know when like they're really little and you click them in and out of the base or whatever and you're walking around with them in the car seat I feel like the natural way you think is you just sort of like grab the handle and at the top, right? Which it's called a handle for a reason. And you lug it around and your shoulders all hunched up and you're like swinging the baby around.

Shanna

And it knocks your knees because like the handle doesn't really, I don't know, I remember it just like didn't work in the right direction or something.

Laura

So the hack is you stand. So you put the car seat down next to you like on the ground with the baby facing back, like facing behind you, right? OK. So like you would be face to face essentially with the baby. Then you slide your arm through the side of the handle and hook your hand around the circular base of the handle, the part where you press on to tilt it. The way you do that is when you do that, your hand is holding that big knob and the inside of your elbow and forearm are pressed against the whole weight of the handle, like the arched handle.

Shanna

Okay, I could picture this.

Laura

And it's so much more natural. It distributes the weight better. And it's just, it's a genius way to hold the car seat. So maybe I'll try to demonstrate it if I can get my car seat out of storage in time for this episode. And I mean, I need to get it soon anyway.

Shanna

Yeah.

Laura

And demonstrate it. But there's a lot of videos, too, online about, like, how to hold the car seat more ergonomically. If I can't take a video, we'll find something on Instagram and re-blog it. What do you call it on Instagram? Repost it? Repost, yes.

Shanna

Yeah, re-blog. That's cool. That's a cool hack. I never ever did that. What? I definitely held it a weird way that just, like, would bang me in the knees and I'd get pissed off and everything. How did I not teach you that?

Laura

I feel like I failed you. Maybe I just assumed you knew.

Shanna

I don't know, Laura. I guess you just failed me on this one. I am sorry.

Laura

OK. That's OK. Well, I'll try to redeem myself in future hacks, but I want to hear what your next hack is first.

Shanna

Okay. All right. I have a few hacks for bath time for when your kids don't want to take a bath or they're feeling resistant to it. A couple of them require some advanced planning. Okay. So if you want to have these kinds of things on hand, I think that might be cool. A few things my girls have loved when they're like, I don't want to take a bath. I'm like, oh, do you want to take a candlelight bath? And all of a sudden it transforms bath time into something so magical. I just pull out some old candle from the other room and put it in there and turn off the lights. And they just have a bath by candlelight. And they love that. It's really exciting. Have you ever done that with your guy?

Laura

No, I have not. But I'm putting that in my back pocket for sure.

Shanna

Yeah. So another one that's really fun, which I was able to try because this was after Halloween one year and I had a bunch of glow sticks, you know, those little ones that you like kind of bend and they go crack and they become like this neon thing.

Laura

I love those things.

Shanna

I will be like, LCC, do you want to take a glow stick bath? Oh my God. Yes. They go crazy instantly into the bathtub. Again, turn off the lights if you have enough of these things. And they glow and illuminate the bathtub and they look really cool underwater. And it's just like a fun thing for them to play with in there that's out of the ordinary. That's very out of the box. I love it. And the other one is actually a product that I never knew existed until recently. It's called Mr. Bubble Foam Soap and it's kind of like shaving cream, but for kids it's just got a really like nice light mild smell and it's actually soap and they can like push in and come spitting out and it's fun. It's so fun. They go absolutely bonkers for that. They love it. And these are just different things than like, oh, do you want to take a bubble bath?

Laura

I'm definitely going to remember those. I need to get some glow sticks.

Shanna

Yeah, they're so fun, so fun.

Laura

Cool, cool. Okay, so I'm moving on to some potty training hacks that I've discovered recently. Oh, thank God, I need this. I need this help in my life right now. And this is one I took it straight from the OCRAP book, but it's worth repeating and remembering, which is never under any circumstances ask them if they have to go potty.

Shanna

I do that all the time.

Laura

Oh god. You know why? It doesn't work. It just doesn't work. Maybe you have a kid who is like some kind of vanguard ahead of his time. But like for me, if I ever ask, do you need to go potty? He'll say no every single time. No. No, no, no potty, no potty. So my hack that I got straight from Jamie Glowackie, the Pied Piper of poop or whatever she calls herself, is you never ask, you just say, if you think they need to go potty and they're not prompting themselves, you say, it's time for potty. It's a statement. It's just a thing that's happening. And it's not a question. And that's worked really, really well for us.

Shanna

Good. Does he protest it though? I feel like when I, on the rare occasion, I do say it as a statement, CeCe loses her mind. She's just like, no! It's really hard.

Laura

It depends. I have some tricks for how to get around that, too. Oh, good. But that's going to be my grand finale of my hack. First, I got to hear your next hack.

Shanna

Okay. This one is just so awesome. I love it. You know how I am with art projects with kids. Like I love art. I love doing art with kids, but the mess stresses me out a lot, unfortunately. So my hack for this is to use a cafeteria tray to present the materials and do the art project on. So you could put the painting paper on there, You can put crayons on there with the paper, glue, any little wily little arts and craftsy things, beads, sticks, feathers, you know, if you're making like a 3D art piece. And the tray has the edges. So nothing really rolls away. The markers don't roll away. granted, you know, stuff does get outside of the trace is not perfect, but it's better than everything rolling all over paint and mess all over your table glue everywhere if they like do a bad job gluing with a glue stick it goes on the cafeteria tray instead of on your table.

Laura

And I love it. Where do you acquire cafeteria trays?

Shanna

Great question. Amazon does sell them. And when I was looking into this, unfortunately, they sell them in bulk, I've noticed. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah, you don't really need like 300 cafeteria trays in your home. But I was just searching more and more and more. So I was like, someone has got to make either some kind of cute plastic serving tray for food that I could use and it can be the right size or someone's got to have done this for art. And so I just searched and searched until I found really cute blue plastic little serving trays and it came as a pack of three.

Laura

That's a lot more reasonable.

Shanna

Yeah, way more reasonable. It's so awesome. I love that they're plastic. So when they paint with watercolor, it just goes onto the tray and not through to whatever else.

Laura

That's amazing. This is making me think I need to do more art with my guy. We barely do anything.

Shanna

Oh, really? Yeah. Try it. It's fun.

Laura

Oh, I mean, we do markers. We've done some paint. But the level of interest, it just wanes very quickly. So, yeah. But maybe if I get those trays, he does love a container. He loves putting things into containers and taking things out of containers. So.

Shanna

OK. Well, that might just be the thing. Yeah.

Laura

So that's that, Laura, you have another one for us? I was thinking maybe let's take a quick break and then come back and do our last few.

Shanna

Yes, let's do it.

Laura

Okay, great.

Shanna

We're back, and Laura, I'm dying to know your grand finale of mom hacks that have to do with potty training.

Laura

Yes. OK, so you asked what happens when I say it's time to potty, and he's not into it still, right? I'd say it's about 50-50. Sometimes it'll just be like, mom says it's time to potty, so I guess we got to go. And I think part of it is because he does know he has to go. So he's like, OK, and we're further along in the process than you are. Don't forget. But on the times when he's like, no potty, no potty, because that does happen. He's so engaged in his play. But I know it's been almost two hours since he's had a pee and he's been drinking water. And I'm just like, this is going to be a problem. I stumbled upon a hack that was really helpful, which was I sat him down on the potty. This was straight out of my brain. I felt very proud of this. And I said, do you want to play a game? And the minute I said that, he was like, yes. You know, he was just like, yes.

Shanna

That's awesome. It also takes the focus off of the actual going and it puts it in some other sense in their body. So that's really, really good.

Laura

Yeah. So I really recommend that. And hopefully that works for CECE. I hope so. I'm going to try both of those, definitely. Cool. Cool. All right. So that was my last one. Do you have one more for us?

Shanna

Okay, my next one is a trick for getting toddlers and kids to blow their nose with a Kleenex. At a certain point, you kind of need to stop using the nose frita because they're not into it. Sometimes they'll do it themselves. You know, it's more convenient to just have them blow their little nose. Yeah. My friend, Jordan, taught me this. I saw her just do it with her child. And I was like, what are you doing? And she's like, this helps and blows nose. And I was like, oh, that's so great. OK, so you take the Kleenex, normal kid, you go up to their nose. They're like, nah, no. who knows, shaking their head. They don't want that thing to touch their snot or whatever. But her trick was, you bring it up to their nose and be like, how hard can you blow this Kleenex? Can you blow it across the room?

Laura

Yes, so the absolute best thing you could do is send us a voice memo to contact at BigVetPositivePodcast.com because we love to hear your voices. We love to hear it in your voice. We love to hear from our listeners. So please, if you can do it, send us a voice memo to contact at BigVetPositivePodcast.com. If you're not into that sort of thing, you can just send us a normal email to that email address or reach us on one of our social channels. We're at BFP podcast on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook or meet us on our community page. search Big Fat Positive Community on Facebook and request to join. And yeah, send us those mom hacks. I can't wait. We need them. I'm about to have a newborn again, guys. I need them.

Shanna

Yeah, you do. All right. Well, Laura, I think we need to move on to our BFPs and BFNs. Shall we do that now? Let's do it.

Laura

Okay, so we close every week with our Big Fat positives or Big Fat negatives of the week. And I want to know, Shanna, do you have a BFP or a BFN for us?

Shanna

This week I have a BFN.

Laura

Yeah.

Shanna

You know, there's a tail step on a bug. She used to be like, I died a bug. I died a bug. Oh no. You know, she didn't got it, but she didn't really get it. So yeah, as a parent, it's just like, crossing this threshold with your child of like, okay, you're not going to be like completely naive and carefree really anymore because life can be complicated. And here's this thing, you're crossing this threshold and I'm helping you do it. And, oh man, it can be, it was tough.

Laura

Yeah, you know, my mom has this thing she always says that she thinks that the true moment innocence is lost with a kid is when they first like understand about death, like when they learn about it.

Shanna

I can see that really because I felt like that was a big moment for her.

Laura

So how did she react? Like what did she say? How did it go?

Shanna

She was quiet, solemn, hearing the information. And you could see her little brain working. And we were like, it's very sad and disappointing. And she was like, that is sad. And then she looks over at Chili and Sasha, who are two dogs. And as she's looking at them, she says, so dogs die? And we're like, yep, yep, dogs die. And she goes, when did dogs die? And you know, it's like, oh gosh, okay. Well, when they get older, oftentimes they get sick and et cetera, et cetera. And so she's taking that in, and then she pauses and she looks at Steve and she goes, so does that mean people die? Oh no. I'm like gonna cry just. Thinking about that moment, I mean, oh my goodness, that's something I didn't want her to know ever, right? But that's impractical. You cannot protect your kids from that information. And she has known about death and the concept of dying.

Laura

For people who maybe aren't following along, Sasha is Shanna's other dog.

Shanna

Yeah, my little Chihuahua dog. Oh my god, Saul, you know, she's still childish about it, you know. It's just, it's a huge situation with so many emotions. But that made me laugh. And so we're just, it's still an ongoing thing, just helping your child understand what this part of life means. And CeCe will be there someday too, but probably a lot sooner because she's got a big sister. So he's going to tell her about all that stuff.

Laura

Yeah, I've worried about this because my older cat is old. And like, he's 14, which for cats doesn't necessarily mean they're that old, but he was like getting really skinny for a while. And I was just like, oh, crap, Magnus. Like Magnus might be sooner than later. Luckily, he's kind of turned around. I was like on Operation Fatten Up Magnus, and it's actually working really well. So I think. I think Magnus is doing better, but I was having that thought. It's like, how the hell am I going to explain this? Especially to a toddler, I think with Elle being older, she sort of can process it for longer. But yeah, that's a really hard one. I feel like it's also like you said, she's going to process for a while. I kind of feel like it just kind of never ends in a way. You just keep

Shanna

Yeah and as much as I wanted to avoid it I think it was really good especially Steve was so good about it you know just just dealing with it head on and being honest and being compassionate and giving her time to think about it and telling her that she's allowed to ask any questions about it. And I don't know, he modeled a really good way of dealing with a difficult situation. So that's kind of a BFP in that whole situation. So yeah, that's mine. I'm sorry. It's a little bit of a downer, but such as life, you know.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry for your mother-in-law. Yeah. And for you.

Shanna

Yeah. Me too. Me too. Big hugs. Thank you. Big virtual hugs. Big virtual hugs. All right. Let's move on to you. What do you have for us this week? I'll close with a BFP. OK. Yay. Lighten things up a bit.

Laura

Well, so this is a thing that I was reminded of when you were doing your check-in about the tickles.

Shanna

Oh, yeah.

Laura

We have a similar thing that we've started doing. It's a little different, but it's a similar like in that it's sort of a connection, a body, emotional connection thing you do before bedtime. And it's what we call the squeezes.

Shanna

Oh, God, that's so cute. OK, what's that?

Laura

Well, I learned it actually from my mommy and me class, the teacher. And I was asking her about like, what do I do about my incredibly energetic physically active toddler who just won't wind down before bed. And so she suggested this thing called progressive muscle relaxation. Do you know about that?

Shanna

Oh, yeah, I can picture that. I think I've done some guided meditations where they walk you through that kind of thing.

Laura

Yeah. And this is the thing that like much older kids or adults can do, right? Where basically what it is is you tense up your muscle groups sort of one at a time as you take deep breaths and you sort of go through your whole body and the ideas, you know, it helps you relax and activating your large muscle groups does something, you know physiologically that helps you relax too. I know that it's actually recommended in that book burnout that I've talked about a bunch by the Nagoski sisters where you like do progressive muscle relaxation while also like visualizing like defeating your

Shanna

Very cool. Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm going to try that on my kiddos. And I don't know if I can get away with it with almost five year old, but we'll see maybe.

Laura

She might like it. You might call it something different, you know? But she might be old enough. She might be able to squeeze it. Dude, like do it herself with a little prompting. So, yeah. But that's my BFP. And I think that's our show.

Shanna

I think it is. Yay. Listeners, like we said before, we would love for you to share your mom hacks with us. So please send them our way. And if there's anything else you want to share for us, please reach out. Laura, where can they reach us?

Laura

We are on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at the FB Podcast. You can go to our website, bigfatpositivepodcast.com, or send us a voice memo or email to contact at bigfatpositivepodcast.com. Finally, join our Facebook community group. Search Big Fat Positive Community. Request to join as a private group. Answer the two membership questions, and we'll get you right through to the amazing conversations and cute baby pictures that we have in there.

Shanna

If you love our show, please consider rating or reviewing us wherever you listen to podcasts. That's so helpful. your positive reviews and words about what you like about the show. Make new listeners want to take a chance on our show, so it's so so meaningful to us. And if you love the show, spread the word. Let others know about Big Fat Positive. Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thank you for listening everyone. Have a good one. Bye. Bye.