The Mother’s Kiss: Getting an Altoid Out of My Kid’s Nose – Ep. 156

Ep. 156: Frights, Farts and Fetch
Episode 156 | Published 2021-06-28

Laura: Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week we have our weekly check-ins, we have our special segment, Never Have I Ever where we experience some serious parenting scares, and we close with our BFPs and BFNs for the week. Let’s get going. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. This is episode 156. Hi, Shanna. Hello. Hello, hello. So I want to hear what’s going on with you this week, and how are your little ones?

Shanna: They’re good. This week, the struggle is with bedtime. I know we always talk about bedtime, but goddamn it, it is an ongoing struggle with little kids. It’s not one thing, it’s another, right?

Laura: Totally.

Shanna: So, Cece’s always been pretty easy to actually put to bed, right? I’ve talked about that before. But nope, not this week. This week, it’s like she decided that she needs to fuss with every single thing in her bed and nothing is right. Like, her pillow’s not in the right place. And like, whatever I do to adjust it, she’s like, no, no. and crying and I’ll, you know, I’ll leave the room but then she’s screaming for me, I have to come back in and it’s like the pillow’s not right. And then like, I’m like, okay, is it the blanket? And then, you know, it’s like, let me do your blanket like this. She’s like, no blanket. And I’m like, well, okay, no blanket. Then she’s like, I want a blanket. And then I’m like, oh my God, it’s spending like 15, 20 minutes like trying to get her calm and adjusted. It is so stressful. It’s so stressful.

Laura: Yeah, Auggie is the master of delays right now as well. And I think that might be what’s going on, right? With CeCe, it’s just like, it’s not about the blanket. It’s about getting you to stay in the room.

Shanna: Maybe. She’s so emotional about it too. Like she’s upset and mad. It’s not a fun little like, mama, do the blanket. And like, I don’t know. I can’t tell the vibe. Like it just seems like she’s so upset about every single little thing. Really? Yeah. So it’s really getting me riled up. And the other day I dealt with this for like 15 minutes, you know, this and then that and the crime and everything. And all of a sudden some thought came into my mind. And I was like, maybe she doesn’t know what else to do with herself while she’s in her crib before falling asleep. Because usually she goes to bed pretty well, she’ll fall asleep pretty quickly. And I was like, well, maybe she’s not as tired and she just doesn’t know what to do with herself. So I was like, you know what, Cece? You could sing to yourself after I leave. I’ll lay you down. And why don’t you sing some songs? And back in my mind, I’m like, good idea, Shona. Like, this is really going to work, right? Break. And so I laid her down, and I laughed, and oh my god, would you believe it? I hear on the monitor, ding-ga, ding-ga, little star, and like, ba-ba-black sheep, and this and that, and she just sang, and then fell asleep. I couldn’t believe it, so that’s been going on the last couple days. It’s like I gave her a new idea of what to do before falling asleep, and it worked.

Laura: Dang girl. Who are you girl? Dr. Becky Janet Lansbury. Come on. Oh my God, I got to write a parenting book clearly.

Shanna: I know all the tricks. Yeah, right. So that has been our challenge and success this week.

Laura: That’s amazing. We have had similar bedtime dramas. It’s so funny because I like talking to you nowadays to hear about your stresses with Cece, not that I want you to have stresses with Cece. But it helps remind me that not everything going on with Auggie is related to him having a new sibling, you know? Right. Like, he’s also just two, almost two and a half, you know? And that is a challenging time regardless. Right. Yeah.

Shanna: Yeah, exactly. Cece has nothing going on in life, right? Like there’s no sibling. She doesn’t go anywhere. She’s got nothing going on. Nothing going on. We go to the park. So there’s no outside stresses, I think that’s really causing this. I think it’s just being too. And whatever she’s got, whatever changes she’s going through being too. So yeah, I think you’re right.

Laura: Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Have we talked about the fact that Auggie like sings himself to sleep basically every night? Yes.

Shanna: You know what? Maybe that’s where I got the idea, Laura. Maybe it’s we had been talking about it somewhere in the back of my mind. I was probably like, why don’t you sing yourself to sleep, CECE? Like, like Auggie sings himself to sleep. That’s probably where the idea came from. Got it. So that’s so cute that he does that.

Laura: It’s really cute and like, I just don’t even know, like I think what happens is he has the same thing I have, which is like he has a song stuck in his head at all times, like all times. I actually asked him the other day, I was like, hey, Auggie, what song do you hear in your head right now? And he started singing Cement Mixer by 20 Trucks. I was like, yeah, there you go. So that’s what I think is going on with him. But yeah. Yeah, it sounds like it. It’s really cute. And you know what else is really cool? Like, I forget so often that they’re tiny and they like have no experience in the world. And you can tell them like things you can do. You know what I mean? Like I think maybe I’m so stuck in adult world that I forget that like it’s OK to tell kids to like mansplain to kids essentially. Yeah. Like if you said that to an adult like, well, you could just sing yourself to sleep. It would be super condescending and weird. But like it never occurred to her, obviously, because you told her and she was like, great idea, mom, I’m going to do it. Yeah.

Shanna: Who would have thought I would teach my child to sing themselves asleep? You just think that’s something that people would automatically know how to do, even children. But she didn’t. She needed to hear it. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a good point. And in general, she’s singing a lot more lately. I think it’s because her language development is getting better now. Singing is tricky, I think. I’m seeing that now from her perspective because it’s not just the tune of the song. It’s also her brain is putting together what word goes where in the song. I can really see her working hard when she’s singing. to put these songs together. But her new song, Laura, you posted a video on our TikTok recently, and I think like the background song was like, oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. Right?

Laura: Yeah, we all know. If you’re on TikTok, you know that song. Yeah, the oh no song.

Shanna: Oh, no song. Well, my kids heard it. They love it. They made me play it on Spotify. I found the remix version of this TikTok song on Spotify. They made me play it on repeat. And that is now what CeCe’s walking around singing all day. Oh, no. I’m like, great, you’re two years old. As if you don’t say no enough. Now you’re singing no.

Laura: all the time. It’s just hilarious. I have to say I sing that now. Like if something goes wrong and I’ll say like, oh no, and then I’ll go, oh no, oh no, no, no, no, no.

Shanna: It’s really catchy. It’s very catchy. It is very catchy. So anyway, that’s all that’s really going on with us this week. What do we shift over to your world? And why don’t you give us an update on what’s going on with you guys?

Laura: Yeah. So, Auggie is almost two and a half. We’re approaching two and a half. And Sebastian is 16 weeks. I feel like, I don’t know, it’s a nice square number, 16. Yeah. Does that mean he’s four months old? Is he not a newborn anymore? He’s almost four months. He has two more days, Sean. Two more days.

Shanna: Okay.

Laura: Yeah.

Shanna: All right.

Laura: Yeah, the way the weeks work out. He has two more days to at least four months old. But do you know who did have a birthday this week? Who? Yours truly, Laura Birek. Oh, that’s right. How did it go? Happy birthday. Thank you. You did wish me a happy birthday on my actual birthday, which I really appreciated. I don’t know how it went, to be honest. OK, so I feel like last week I unleashed the story of our epic trip to Fresno. And I feel like this week I’ve had a major physical and emotional hangover from the trip.

Shanna: Oh yeah, I can imagine.

Laura: I’m exhausted physically just from like the action of driving there and back and all that stuff. And then I’m like emotionally exhausted from the taking care of the two kids all by myself. Sebastian screaming for hours straight in the car and seeing my dad who’s not doing well, you know, all those things have really sort of piled up. And I think I was sort of in action mode when I was in Fresno, right? Like I was, you know, had stuff to do. I had to get things done. I had to like get home. You know, I was, I was go, go, go. And then this week, like the crash happened. And I think it really hit on my birthday morning. Like I was home and Corey was like, hey, let me take, I’m going to take Auggie to the park so you can have some kind of alone time. It’s still to the point where Corey can’t really like go out with both kids. To be fair, I can’t really go out by myself with both kids because Auggie will like run away. And Sebastian needs help. And, you know, at least I have the boobs. So if there’s an emergency, you know, I can feed Sebastian. But Corey really can’t deal with that. So he took Auggie. I stayed home with Sebastian, who naps pretty well. But Corey got out of the house with Auggie and I put Sebastian down for a nap. And I’m looking around thinking, like, what should I do with my birthday morning? And I’m getting all these texts from my friends and family, everyone wishing me a happy birthday. And everyone’s like, I hope you’re having a wonderful day, all this stuff. And I looked around at my house, which was a like complete fucking disaster. Like toys everywhere. The floors were like covered in dirt and cat hair and all this stuff and everything just seemed like oppressive in that moment. And I’m sure my baseline emotional and physical exhaustion like contributed to that. But all of these things combined to me like sort of having a little bit of a pity party for myself on my birthday morning. I swept the floor crying thinking, it’s my fucking birthday and no one’s helping me. I mean, which is so not true. Like everyone’s helping me. My mom came, my mom was still in town and you know, Corey had Auggie to try to help me, but I was just sort of. You know, just not having a good day. Not having a good day. But it’s kind of a bummer to talk about on our generally lighthearted podcast, but I kind of wanted to be real about it because, you know, sometimes the birthdays suck. You know, sometimes they’re not a happy day. Sometimes it’s not a wonderful day. Sometimes your dad is really sick and you’re exhausted and, you know, there’s no one who will calm the baby except for you. So there’s no escape.

Shanna: Well it’s not like you wake up in the morning on your birthday and some magical switch has flipped and it’s like all magic and rainbows just because it’s your birthday. Like life is still going on. Exactly. It’s still affecting you.

Laura: And when you have small kids there’s no escape hatch. You know, I feel like our listeners probably can relate to this, right? This idea that like no one is coming to save you. I think that’s how I felt on my birthday because I had these visions of like, oh, I could just like go to the spa and spend all day in the hot tub and getting massages and like, how nice would that be? And then reality starts creeping in. It’s like, who’s going to feed Sebastian? Are you going to pump at the spa? Is the spa even open yet because of COVID? And I was just like, Stop it, reality.

Shanna: Well, it’s also very difficult because of the year that we’re in. I mean, I know things are getting better with COVID, but still, we are at the tail end of one of the most stressful years of our lives, especially because we’ve had kids during this time. And it does feel like there’s no escape, no help. And then all of a sudden at the tail end of it and the tail end of a stressful week, you’re supposed to have a magical, wonderful, perfect birthday. It’s like, no, that doesn’t always happen that way. Yeah, no, it doesn’t. I’m sorry, did it get any better as the day went on?

Laura: Yes, you wanna know why?

Shanna: Oh, good. Because you found a spa to go to.

Laura: I didn’t. I found a Nordstrom rack to go to.

Shanna: Oh, even better. Even better. Perfect.

Laura: Basically what happened was we put Auggie down for his nap. I don’t think he even took his nap. But I call my mom. She was at the hotel nearby with my stepdad. And she had wanted to have us over for like a pool day. But it was actually kind of cool. It was like highs in the low 70s. And I didn’t really feel like going in the pool because we had done that the day before. This was the other thing is like the day before my birthday, we had gone to go like have a pool day, but it was kind of cold. But of course, Auggie wanted to go in. So I’m the one who has to go in with him. I go in with him. It’s freezing. Meanwhile, Sebastian is crying for me because he wants boo. My mom’s trying to calm Sebastian down. I’m thinking like everyone at this fancy hotel probably hates us because there’s this baby crying. And then Auggie doesn’t want to get out of the pool, even though he’s shivering and his lips are purple. And then like. On the way home, we end up staying overstaying our time. You know, we didn’t like have the schedule right and Auggie ended up over hungry and over tired and we’re trying to leave and we’re at like the valet line of the super fancy hotel. We’re at the Langham in Pasadena, which is like, it used to be the Ritz Carlton. It’s super fucking fancy, right? We’re in the valet line of this place and I’m trying to get Auggie in his car seat and he’s throwing a fucking fit. Like, I don’t want to go. I want to go in the hotel elevator. We’re like, we’ll go in it tomorrow when we see grandma, you know, all this stuff. And in the process, I get kicked like full force in the face.

Shanna: Oh, ouch.

Laura: Yeah, I thought I was going to have a black eye. So my mom, of course, didn’t see any of this. She was in a room like she didn’t see any of them out. And all she saw was the fun stuff. in the pool, right? Yeah. She’s like, let’s do it again on your birthday. Yeah, which makes sense, right? She thought it was really fun. She didn’t get to see the aftermath. And of course, bedtime was like a nightmare. So she texted me in the morning was like, when are you guys going to come over? And I like think I was in the middle of my pity party and I didn’t even respond. So once we got Auggie down for his non nap, I called her and I was like, what are you doing this afternoon? You want to come over here? And she was like, OK, I’ll come over here and like, good. So she came over and I like booked it. Oh, good.

Shanna: Alone time. Have you had any alone time since having your second child? Does going to the OB count?

Laura: No, I don’t think so. That’s not that fun. No. No, I have not. I mean, I guess I did go to a grocery store once. Like, not to do anything for me, you know?

Shanna: Yeah. Yeah.

Laura: So I jumped ship. I ran to Norton Rack. I hadn’t been in a store in a year and it was weird, but also exciting. And I got myself some shoes. And of course, I ended up buying stuff for the kids too. But I have to say that it didn’t solve the problem, but I started to feel better. And then Corey had gotten us dinner reservations for that night, which was going to be our first time in a restaurant. in a year. And my mom was going to babysit. So once we got everyone down for the night, Corey and I left. And of course I had to like, I couldn’t get ready. Like I couldn’t put on makeup. I just like had to throw on a dress and leave the house because I didn’t, you know, I didn’t have time. But I was like, who cares what I look like? It’s a pandemic. So I went out and we went to a restaurant and that was lovely. And by the end of that, I was starting to feel like better. I was starting to crawl myself out. You know what I realized? It’s that I could keep thinking that like, oh, I need a whole spa day or whatever. But I think what I need are small bits of alone time where I can get them.

Shanna: Well, that’s a good start. I mean, who’s to say you shouldn’t have a spa day? I think you should at some point have a spa day. But yeah, you could start with small bits of time and fit those in where you can. And that’s going to go a long way to feeling better.

Laura: Well, I think part of my like being despondent about it is that I know it’s going to be a really long time before I can have a whole day to myself. But I could do an hour here or there. You know what I mean? Two hours here or there. And if I can cobble those together, I know it will make me feel better. not completely better maybe, but a little bit better. So that’s my new plan. Try to cobble together alone time so that I can have some relief from this burnout, I think, which is what’s going on. Yeah.

Shanna: Definitely sounds like burnout. It’s hard to remember to prioritize yourself in that time when things are so hectic and You’ve got the kids. They feel like the top priority and everything else. It’s hard to remember that, but you have remembered it.

Laura: So that’s good. Yeah. Hard one and intermittently, but I’m trying. I’m trying. So, but yeah, I just wanted to share that. It was another challenging week. But I think, you know, that’s how things go. And, you know, the stress of the move. Did I mention the move? We’re still moving. You have before, yes. It’s still happening. I’m not elaborating on it because there’s not much going on this week. It’s just that it’s still happening. It’s still in the back of my mind. There’s still a bunch of papers to sign and shit. So, yeah, stress, stress, stress.

Shanna: Ooh, you know what would be cool? If me and you had a spa day sometime, just, you know, have someone else watch the kids go get some massages, sitting hot tubs. That sounds great. Sounds so nice. Sounds so nice.

Laura: Oh, soon soon soon soon. Yes. Yeah. All right. But anyway, that’s it. And I have to say that talking to you has been a high point of my week. So yay. I’m already feeling better. But should we take a break and come back with our special segment? Let’s do it.

Shanna: We’re back, and this week’s special segment is Never Have I Ever Parenting Edition, where we reveal some things in life that we never in a million years thought we would find ourselves doing until we had children. Laura, you’re up first. What’s your first Never Have I Ever?

Laura: Okay. Never have I ever been excited for construction on my street. Construction on your street is the worst.

Shanna: Why do you like it? Actually, I have an idea why you like it, but you tell us. Yeah, take a wild guess. No, you take a wild guess.

Laura: Because your husband Corey gets so excited about the big trucks. Yeah, yeah, he’s really into excavators right now. He’s in an excavator phase. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Oh, you’re close. It’s actually my toddler, Auggie. Ah, okay. As you know, I’ve talked about this on the show. He has an extremely intense interest, which is like a technical term in EII for all things trucks, construction, etc. And this happened a couple months ago. I was just opening my mail and I saw that there was a letter from the city of Pasadena. And inside the letter it was a warning that our street was going to be under construction for a new water line. And it said it was going to be under construction for three months. Oh my lord. And you know, normally you’d be pretty irritated by the fact that your street was going to be under construction for that long. It’d be loud, etc. But there was a paragraph called What to Expect. And I’m going to read the first sentence of this so you can see why I got excited. Ready? It says, what to expect. During construction, a variety of heavy equipment will be used, including excavators, backhoes, loaders and construction trucks. Oh my God, that’s just his favorite things in the world. Totally. He’s obsessed with excavators. He knows how to identify all the weird trucks. I mean, I guess they’re not weird, but stuff I didn’t know. I didn’t know what a skid steer was, but now I do. And I suddenly just got super excited. Reading it, it got me jazzed because I was like, oh my gosh, we’re going to get to look out the front window. And he’s going to be able to see backhoes and diggers and all this stuff. Like basically it’s like having a free babysitter, right? Absolutely.

Shanna: Especially you guys are trying to cut down on screen time. And so you’ve got this basically a giant screen because you have a perfect huge window overlooking this activity.

Laura: I could see why you were jazzed. So excited. So yeah, it’s so funny because I opened it up and I think my mom was there when I opened it because it was right after Sebastian was born. And I was like, Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, mom, look at this, look at this. And she’s looking at it, she’s like, oh my God, Auggie’s gonna be so excited. So yeah, and so yeah, the construction’s been going on and it’s pretty great. I think I’ve sent you some pictures of him staring out the window at the diggers.

Shanna: And some pictures of the trucks down there. And I didn’t know that this was like a three month process. I just kept wondering, Why are there more trucks on your street? What’s going on? So now I get it mm-hmm.

Laura: Just constantly trucks, but we’re okay with it We go down and like walk around and look at them closer and the workers are now starting to like get to know us Yeah, yeah, so yeah never have I ever been excited for construction on my street That’s a new one. But yeah, what about you? What’s your never have I ever?

Shanna: Okay never have I ever retrieved a breath mint from someone’s nostril Did you get to use the mother’s kiss? Almost. I was almost about to do it. We went to the park one day and this is kind of also a mom confession rolled into a never have I ever because my mom confession is I bribed my kids with Altoid minis to get into their car seats. They are obsessed with breath mints. Like, you know, those tiny, tiny little square Altoids, right?

Laura: Yeah.

Shanna: Mm-hmm. They love them.

Laura: Really, because one time I gave Auggie an Altoid, because he wanted one, and I was like, I don’t think you’re going to like it, but you can try. And he put it in his mouth for one second and goes, too spicy! And he spit it out.

Shanna: They love them. I don’t know why. I don’t know if Cece loves them so much on her own, or if she just sees L really into them. It’s like, oh, the big sister likes them, so I will, too. I’ll just bite the spicy bullet and enjoy this mint. But whatever, it’s a great motivator to get them in their seats. And it’s just a tiny treat, you know, like once you’re in your car seat, I’ll give you an Altoid, another Altoid. It’s like they have to be buckled and everything. And so I gave them each a tiny little Altoid on the way to the park one day. And I guess CECE’s new thing was savoring her Altoid instead of just… Putting it in her mouth and chewing it, it was like, suck on a little bit, take it out. Mama, look at this. And like showing me that like she still had some left and whatever. And by the time we get to the park, I get out to get her out of her car seat. And she’s like, ow, ow, ow. And I’m like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And she’s like pointing at her face and her nose. I’m like, what’s the matter? What’s the matter? And she just kept pointing up in her nose. I was like, oh my god, do you have an Altoid stuck up your nose? Did you put your Altoid in your nose? She’s like, yeah. And I’m like, OK, mother’s kiss. I know what to do. I was just about to do it. And then she just went and blew it out. So I didn’t actually have to go up there and retrieve it. But I was about to.

Laura: Do you want to remind our listeners what the mother’s kiss is just in case people haven’t heard that episode?

Shanna: Yeah, the mother’s kiss is a technique for dislodging foreign items in children’s or I guess anyone’s nose. I guess you could do it on your husband, your lover if you want to.

Laura: Yeah, I don’t know what people are into. The combination of the term lover and like, I don’t know, the trying to get some of the other- Dislodging objects from their nose. Whatever, people might be into it. I don’t want to shame anyone’s interests.

Shanna: No, exactly, exactly. But let’s say something does get stuck up in one nostril and it’s not coming out. As a parent, you can close the opposite nostril and then put your mouth over their mouth, as if you were doing CPR, I guess, and blow into their mouth. And that air forces through the nostril and dislodges the object, and it comes flying out. And it is something that you’ve done to Auggie, right? I got a mint leaf out of his nose a while back. Yeah. We have experience that it works. I’ve never actually tried it myself, but I was almost about to do it.

Laura: So close with that Altoid question. Did you throw the Altoid away after that, or did she put it back in her mouth?

Shanna: Oh, she totally put it back in her mouth. She wasn’t wasting that. I think she snatched it away from me before I could do anything with it. The kids are so gross.

Laura: They’re so gross. She’s like, that’s the tastiest booger I’ve ever had. Oh my god. So minty fresh. What’s with putting minty things up their noses?

Shanna: Oh yeah, Auggie had mint leaf up his nose and Cece had a mint mint. I don’t know. You know why?

Laura: It’s because he’s like all organic, you know, like he only puts natural mint up his nose.

Shanna: Yeah. Mine only puts synthetic products up her nose. Yeah, yeah. No. Yeah.

Laura: Just getting all he eats is like peanut butter jelly sandwiches, mac and cheese and like that’s it. So I am just all jokes. All jokes today, but that is a truly memorable parenting moment, getting it out of your child’s nose. Indeed. All right, what about you? Do you have another one for us? I do. Okay, yes. So never have I ever scared someone to death by farting. What? Did someone literally die in this scenario? No, I did not literally scare them to death, but I felt like I did. That someone was my newborn Sebastian. This was a little bit ago. You know how it is when you have a baby and you need to go to the bathroom. You have to bring them with you. There’s just no other alternative most of the time. I mean, that’s not always true. Sometimes I’ll leave him playing like if he’s out safe on his mat or whatever. But on this particular instance, I knew he wasn’t going to be okay just hanging out by himself. I knew he wanted me around. And so I brought my baby Bjorn bouncer into the bathroom. For people who don’t know what those are, it’s like a really simple, low-profile bouncer that you can put them in. It’s really portable and easy and fun to use. I got one as a hand-me-down and it’s awesome. It’s like a baby bouncy seat. Yeah. It’s shaped like a V, basically. One edge of the V is on the ground and the other is the bouncy seat. It’s great. So I was like, perfect. I’ll take the baby yarn bouncer. I’ll put it in the bathroom. I’ll stick the baby in it. And then I can go to the bathroom because, like, to be honest, it wasn’t just a quick pee. Like I had to poop. So I got that from the story.

Shanna: You figured that out.

Laura: Well, you know, sometimes there’s some some farts without the poops. But this time it was like a whole deal. So so I put him in the bouncer. He’s fine. He’s playing with his little toy and like watching me and I go to I go to pee. And then I let out pretty loud fart like I don’t know I’m feeling was feeling gassy who knows what was going on that day and instantly his eyes went super wide and he like turned white as a ghost and then just started screaming you know I just startled him so bad. So instead of having a calm baby and a bouncer, I’m trying to poop with a baby who is screaming bloody murder because I had scared him to death. And of course, I couldn’t even really go over and be like, it’s OK, baby. Mommy’s right here.

Shanna: He’s like, why is she staying over there? Why isn’t she comforting me?

Laura: Yeah, I know. So there went my plans for a nice, relaxed toilet session. Oh, story of my life.

Shanna: Story of every mother’s life, right? Yeah. It’s like the second you have a child, all your peaceful toilet sessions just fly out the window.

Laura: Because even if they’re not in the room with you, it’s constantly like, well, how much time do I have? Meanwhile, not to stereotype, but I feel like the vast majority of husbands are taking their 20-minute poops in peace. Well, that’s happening at my house, for sure.

Shanna: They never, ever bother Steve, ever. I swear to God, the second I go to the bathroom, they’re either pounding on the door or busting in. It’s, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura: So, but I felt bad. I scared him so bad. He must have been so terrified. Oh, poor guy. I gotta learn about the world somehow, I guess.

Shanna: Yep, yep. All right, so do you have another one for us? Yes. All right, here’s my next one. Okay. Never have I ever played fetch with children.

Laura: Oh, like you throw a ball, they run and get it and bring it back to you, like a dog?

Shanna: Or a stick. A stick.

Laura: This sounds like inspired parenting to me.

Shanna: Yeah, yeah. We know Elle is obsessed with being a dog. I talked about it on another episode. And that obsession or extremely intense interest, as you call it, is that what it is? I think so, yeah. Indogs has not gone away. It’s persisted. And we went to the park recently. And it’s so funny, because that day she really wanted to wear a costume to the park. who might have fight with my five year old about this crap. So I was like, okay, sure. So she wore a ninja costume, like complete with like a head covering and everything. And when we got there, she’s just like wanted to play fetch. I don’t know, she found a stick in the grass or something and wanted to play fetch with it. And so next thing I know, I’m just like throwing a stick across the grass and she’s running after it. She didn’t put it in her mouth or anything. Like I made her run like a normal person. and pick up the stick and bring it back. And she was so into it. And I was like, this is getting her so much exercise that I just don’t even care. So we sat and played fetch for like 15 minutes. Genius. Genius move. Yeah. And of course, Cece got in on the action because she does everything that Elle does. So I was just throwing sticks for my two kids at the park. Did anyone see you doing that? Oh, probably. There’s like a walking path nearby, like a little hike and everything. So probably. And I just, I was embarrassed. I don’t want to say I didn’t care because I did care. I was embarrassed. But the desire to exercise my children overrode my embarrassment.

Laura: Yeah. And I have to say that it’s kind of nice. You can stay in one spot and they go and come back. I mean, I’ve done similar things in that it’s not like, we don’t call it fetch, but we did our ready set goes, which is just running, right? And so I’d like tell them to run to the tree and run back. I don’t think it’s much different.

Shanna: Yeah.

Laura: Yeah. It’s getting them exercise.

Shanna: They need it. It just, it felt funny because I haven’t taken my dog, my My actual dog to a dog park to play fetch in ages because of COVID and everything. It’s like poor Sasha. She’s the one who fetches. Chili doesn’t move a paw. Chili. Chili. Oh, old man chili. Oh, even when he was young, he was like, balls didn’t care less. Anyway. I haven’t taken the actual dog to a dog park to play fetching forever, but here I am with my five-year-old and two-year-old just doing what you gotta do.

Laura: What you need to do is do it all together. Like, see if you can get Sasha and L and CECE all in on the action at the same time. Yes!

Shanna: Oh, they would get so much exercise. Genius. Genius. Putting it in my calendar now. All right. Okay.

Laura: Do you have another one for us? I do. Okay. So never have I ever forgotten to put a sheet on the bed and allowed my toddler to sleep all night on a mattress pad. Oh, no. What happened? Oh, God. So we use those quick zip crib sheets. I think I’ve talked about them on the show. It’s like a fitted sheet where you have a shell on the bottom and then you have a rectangle of zipper around the top so you can zip off the top and zip on a new one really quickly. They’re really awesome. I love them. It means you don’t have to lift up the whole crib mattress to change it out. Well, there was a day recently where Auggie was resisting his nap like he does, like the ongoing struggle that we’ve been experiencing for weeks and weeks. And that day’s struggle was that he took his sleep sack off and then he took his pajama bottoms off and then he took his diaper off. And so he was nude from the waist down and he’s semi potty trained, right? Like not totally potty trained. But my deal right now is like, I’m not rushing in to get him if he does something like that because he knows that’s why he’s like doing it, right? He’s doing it to get my attention. So I’m just like, well, if there’s pee, there’s pee, right? He’s done this a couple times and every time he does it when I come in, I’m like, well, did you pee? He’s like, yeah, pee-peed on the elephant. And he’ll like have pee-peed on like this elephant mat that we have there. And it’s just like, oh my God. He’s like, he’s peeing on specific things. Like I know you’re a potty trained kid. Like you are actively choosing where to pee. So I go in after our allotted time. I’m like, oh, you’re naked. He goes, I didn’t want to nap. I’m like, yeah, I got it. And he’s like, I didn’t want my diaper. I see that. I see that. And I go, so I say, oh, so where did you pee? And he goes, pee right here. And he like points. And of course it was the corner of the crib. And I was like, ugh. All right so i’m like okay i’m gonna have to take the sheet up and we have to wash it and right when that happened i don’t even remember what happened but something happened i think probably sebastian woke up right so i had to like rush off to do something else and i couldn’t put the new sheet on right right away. And I was like, I’ll just do it later. I never did it. And then when we were doing bedtime, I started doing Auggie’s bedtime. And then I had to swap out with Corey by the time that the lights had already turned off, because Sebastian woke up from his last nap and needed to be fed and stuff. So I had to do a trade off. So Corey came in, not knowing that I had forgotten to put the sheet back on. Oh, right. And it was already dark in there. So he couldn’t see. It was a little light, but not enough to notice. And then the next morning I go into his room to like grab something and I see that there’s just like the mattress pad all kind of like bunched up and no sheet on the bed. And I was like, Corey, did we let him sleep without a sheet all night? And he’s like, oh, I thought he took it off because sometimes he will just like unzip it. I was like, no, no, I forgot to put it back on. He’s like, well, why did you tell me it wasn’t on? I’m like, because I forgot it wasn’t on. Yeah, so he slept on his mattress pad all night. No sheet. And it’s one of those weird kind of rough texture. You know what I’m talking about?

Shanna: Yeah, I was going to ask if it’s a soft one or if it’s kind of a waterproof. like crunchy one, hards. It’s a waterproof, crunchy one.

Laura: Yeah, or like kind of scratchy, like kind of like, like the, like the soft quote unquote side of Velcro. You know what I’m talking about? Like that kind of material. Not comfy, but the kids slept on it. Bless them. That’s good. That’s good. But I felt horrible. I felt like that was bad parenting. I felt bad.

Shanna: I don’t know. You got a lot going on that I can see how that would slip from your mind very, very easily with other stuff. And it’s still a soft surface. So that’s good. True. He had a bed to sleep in. Yeah. He didn’t accidentally leave a pound of bricks in there. He’d probably love the bricks. That’s construction stuff. He would just build stairs and get himself out of there.

Laura: He absolutely would. So yes, that is good reframing. All right, so that was my last one. Shanna, do you have one more for us? I do. Should we take a break and come back with it after the break? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Okay, we are back and Shanna has one more. Never have I ever for us. Shanna, what is it? Never have I ever called poison control. Oh, there you’ve crossed that bridge. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Shanna: What happened? Yeah. So I recently received a gift in the mail, like one of those gift box, gift basket things, you know? My dad sent me one of these gift basket things, and it was like a stack of little boxes that get increasingly smaller and make a nice little tower. And each one has lots of goodies in it, cookies, candies, et cetera. And the girls just went bonkers for this. I thought it was so exciting. They’re like, mama, open. Open this, open this, we want candy, blah, blah, blah. And so finally when I had a moment, I was like, all right, let’s open these. And in the whirlwind of like eight treat boxes and like bags of caramels and cookies and everything pulling all these treats out and then begging for them, I noticed that every box had one of those silica gel desiccant packets. Oh yeah. In it. And so I was like, okay, put that to the side. Like I’ll throw that away with the trash later. And then we just kept opening stuff and like, I want this candy. I want this candy. No, you can’t have that candy. You can’t have them. And so it’s just like a whirlwind of activity with this tower of goodies. And so finally, I’m like, okay, first priority, I got to put all these goodies somewhere else. Otherwise they are going to eat them all immediately. And I go and put them away. And I think I’ve like taken care of the situation. And Steve comes in like 20 minutes later and he’s like, oh, you guys got into the tower, huh? I’m like, yeah. And he’s like, well, what’s all this black stuff? And I was like, what black stuff? And he’s like, all this black stuff over here. And I’m like, racking my brain. Like what candy was black? I’m so confused. And I went over and I’d never cleaned up those silica gel packets. They had ripped, probably L had ripped one open and the black, whatever inside was everywhere all over. Oh my God. Oh my God, right? Like they don’t know any different. There’s like boxes of candy and treats. And then here’s like little packets that look like little packets of goodies. Yeah. So, like, right on those packets, you know, it’s always like, do not eat, do not eat, just everywhere, all over those packets. So immediately, I was like, Elle, did you eat any of the packet? And she like looked so scared and so caught. And I was like, it’s okay. I’m not going to be mad at you, but it’s really important that you tell me. She’s like, yeah, I ate one. And I was like, okay. Did CECE eat one? She goes, yeah. She did. And I’m like, oh my God. Oh my God. So she was like, we got to call poison control. And we were just like really freaking out for a minute. And he called. He called and the woman answered the phone. And he told her what had happened. And immediately she was like, oh, don’t worry about that. It’s really just mostly a choking hazard. Those are totally fine. What?

Laura: My whole life has been a lie up to now. I was convinced that they would kill you if you ate the whole thing.

Shanna: Same! I thought it was pure poison in a little packet inside of a shoebox or wherever they come.

Laura: I was always so afraid of the cats getting into them. Like, what? I’m blown away right now.

Shanna: She’s like, more than anything, it’s just a choking hazard. I think, you know, like if they actually put the entire little packet in their mouth and swallow it, it could be a choking hazard. But apparently eating Some of the contents of that packet was fine, and she told us not to even worry about it, and we went on with our day. Oh, my God.

Laura: Well, that’s good to know. Yeah. I mean, not that I’m going to be feeding my children silica, desiccant gel, or whatever, but, like, new snack. Good to know. New snack.

Laura: Jaime, would you like your desiccant packet today? Oh my god. But yeah, wow, that’s good to know. Good to know. I love, I mean, I don’t love having to call poison control, but they’re such a great resource. Like they’re so, so helpful.

Shanna: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I never would even think why I would need to call one because I guess as an adult, you just don’t accidentally ingest poison very often.

Laura: Well, I mean, I think I talked about this on podcast, but I called when I wasn’t sure if Auggie had swallowed one of the berries from the tree outside, China berry tree. So yeah, I mean, it’s a great free resource if you’re in the US for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, I’m so glad that they’re not desiccated from the inside out. Me too, me too.

Shanna: All right, so that’s mine. Should we move on to our BFPs and BFNs? Yeah, great idea.

Laura: All right, so we close every episode with our big fat positives or big fat negatives of the week. Shanna, what do you have this week? I have a BFP. What do you got?

Shanna: You should know all about it.

Laura: Okay.

Shanna: Because I got to see you in person and meet your baby. Oh, that’s right.

Laura: I was going to slow roll that one. I was going to talk about that next week.

Shanna: No, no. I’m excited that we finally got to meet in person and we can tell the world about it.

Laura: It was amazing and wonderful and truly magical.

Shanna: Yes, you got to hold my baby boy. Yes, we met up at Descanso Gardens with our friend Jen and it was just the ladies and Sebastian, me, you, Jen, and the baby. And it was like the best outing I’ve had, like obviously in like over a year, because I have no outings. And it was with my besties, and I got to meet your baby and be at the garden. And it was just like such an awesome day.

Laura: It was like a perfect day, too. It was like the perfect temperature and just lovely. And yeah, it was really, really nice to walk around. We were there for a long ass time, too.

Shanna: Oh, yeah, we were. I was all about stretching that out and being solo away from the kids for a little while. Oh, it was great.

Laura: Yeah, Sebastian took a little nap in the stroller when we walked around and it was so nice to see you guys. We haven’t been together all three of us in over a year. Oh, I haven’t seen you in person since January 2020. Yes. Right. So yeah, it’d been a very long time. And I don’t know about you. For me, it just felt very normal. Like I kept being like, oh, it’s going to be so weird to see people in person again. And it’s not really. I don’t know. What do you think?

Shanna: No, it was totally normal. I felt the same way going to like target for the first time in my mind. I was like, it’s going to be like either amazing or so weird after so long, you know, not going and I went in and I was like totally like, oh, yeah, this is target. And it was the same thing with you guys. I was like, oh, yeah, it’s it’s Jen and Laura. And yeah, it’s just like old times.

Laura: Yeah. No, it was really, really great. So I had a lot of fun, and I think we should do it again. I think we should definitely.

Shanna: And being able to hold the baby. Oh my God, he’s so cute.

Laura: I just wanted to hold him the entire time. He smells really good too. That’s what you can just, you can’t get that through FaceTime, you know?

Shanna: Yeah, no. The baby smell, yeah. You can’t hold him through FaceTime either. It was so great.

Laura: It was great to see you. It was so nice to see you. We have pictures we can share now. We were like, we got to take pictures for the podcast. We haven’t been together in over a year. All of our photos for social have been spliced together.

Shanna: I know. These are like actual real not Photoshopped of us together in real life.

Laura: It was great. That was too fun.

Shanna: Yeah, so that’s my BFP for the week. What do you got for us?

Laura: I also have a BFP other than seeing you, obviously, which was the true highlight of my week, even when I had a kind of hard week. It was really wonderful to see you. My BFP this week is a product that I just wanted to share because it’s really helped me with taking my postnatal vitamins. I’ve been taking, you know, prenatal vitamins but for postnatal. And I think a lot of people who are postpartum, their doctors tell them just to like continue taking their prenatal vitamins, right? And I don’t know about you. I am terrible at taking any pills on a daily basis like I forget and then I can’t remember if I actually remember to take them and then I’m worried that I’m going to take too much. And as a result, I found something called timer caps. Have you heard of this? No. I’m a little distracted because I feel like Sebastian might be screaming his head off in the other room. But I did want to tell you about these timer caps. So what they are are caps that you put on your pill bottles. Like a lid? Yeah, they’re like a lid and they have a little like just a tiny digital clock in it, like a counter. And when you open it, it resets to zero. And when you close it, it starts to like count up again. So you can see exactly how long it’s been since you opened your pill bottle. So you can see, and usually when you open your pill bottle, that’s when you take your medicine. So you can see exactly how long it’s been since you took your medicine. And I’m telling you, I’ve never been so consistent in taking my prenatal vitamins than when I’ve had this timer cap.

Shanna: Interesting. So you just feel motivated to reset the timer, or why is it helping you take it more consistently?

Laura: Well, I put it to more obvious. And then I see, oh, it’s been 23 hours and 57 minutes. It’s time. as opposed to being like, well, I’ll take it later. Or did I take it today? I don’t remember. That’s the real problem. It’s like, did I take it today? When did I take it? I remember opening the bottle at some point. Was that yesterday? Was that a week ago? And also, when you get the pill bottle and it says 48 hours it’s like a little bit shaming right like a shame to remembering so you don’t want to get there again so. They really work for me right now they’re unavailable on amazon i think they’re sold out cuz i learned about this on tiktok so i’m guessing everyone else in the world did too. Oh, okay. Because the brand I have is called Timer Cap, and it’s super simple and works really well. But there is another brand called E-Pill. So just look around for it. I’m sure there’s more manufacturers that I just don’t know about. But yeah, Timer Cap’s for medicine. Genius. Oh, I love that idea. But anyway, that’s it for me for this week, I think. Yeah, I gotta go take my meds.

Shanna: It’s been 48 hours.

Laura: Probably.

Shanna: All right. If you have any Never Have I Ever’s that you want to share with us, you know we love hearing from you. Laura, where can they reach us?

Laura: We are on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. at BFPpodcast. We have a website, BigPapPositivePodcast.com. If you want to send us an email, you can always include a voice memo, just send it to contact at BigPapPositivePodcast.com. Finally, if you want to join the coolest community on the internet, search Facebook for BigPap Positive Community request to join, answer the two membership questions, and we will send you right through to all the amazing discussions we’re having in there.

Shanna: If you love our show, please rate us and review us wherever you listen to podcasts that’s so helpful and has been discovered by new listeners. And spread the word. Let your friends know about Big Fat Positive. Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Stevie Yager. Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye. Bye.