Moving Into a New Home With Small Kids – Ep. 159
July 19, 2021
Listen Now:
At long last, Laura and her family move into their new home, and she reports on what it is like to move with a two-year-old and a four-month-old. Shanna talks about signing her 2.5-year-old up for preschool. Also, Laura tells an epic tale about being the daughter of two doctors in the special segment “Throwback.” Finally, they share their BFPs and BFNs for the week. Shanna’s toddler is 2.5 years old, and Laura’s toddler is 2 years old. Laura’s baby is 19 weeks old.
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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, Throwback, where Laura tells an epic tale about life as the daughter of two doctors. And we wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFNs. Let's get to it.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to episode 159. Laura, what's up? What's up? How are you guys doing?
Laura
You want to know? You ready for this answer?
Shanna
I have a guess, but I'm going to let you reveal what happened.
Laura
We are in the new house.
Shanna
It happened. Woohoo. And you moved into a truck, right? To appease your two-year-old son. You just decided to just live in a truck. It's actually an excavator.
Laura
It's the finest excavator Glendale has to offer. The ultimate mom sacrifice move. She's like, we're going to live in an excavator to please my son. Sebastian just sleeps in the scoop, you know, in the front.
Shanna
It's like the perfect baby bassinet. It kind of is.
Laura
Nothing says cozy like a big hard steel bucket lined with dirt. With lots of big spikes. Yeah. No, no, no. We tried to find an excavator, but the market's just crazy. So we ended up finding a house instead. Okay. And we have officially moved. Yay. The fact that I'm here talking to you is a small miracle. I kind of feel like I'm gonna fall over and just be like comatose at any given point. I can only imagine. Oh my gosh. Okay, in retrospect, we should have done this when I was pregnant.
Yeah, moving with two small kids is no joke. I think I was like purposefully being like ignorant of that fact because I knew there was no avoiding it. But this was a very hard week. It was a very hard week and I'll just get into the move real quick. So I don't want to go through all the details. I could I think they're probably boring. It's probably like the way people think telling stories about your dreams are interesting. Like, oh, my God, I had the craziest dream. This happened, then this happened. And like, for everyone else, it's like, okay. Yeah. So you had a dream. But yeah. So like the details maybe aren't that important. But let me give you the grand overview of moving day. We moved on Wednesday and we were not prepared, but we were told that the movers would pack up anything we hadn't packed, right? That's good. So I was like, okay, that's fine, right? Yeah, that'll be fine.
They're professionals. What I didn't know is that what they meant by that is they would basically do like an arm sweep and just like sweep things into an open box.
Oh my god, so no carefully wrapping your china or anything like that I mean they wrapped the plates and stuff like actually so far knock on wood nothing's been discovered like super broken but they Organization was not I guess part of the plan and you know how you would talk about chowder last week there yeah description of just loose random things basically all of her belongings are now chowder like Oh, God. I have no idea where to find anything because boxes are just random. It's almost like being an archaeologist now, like I'll open a box and I'll be like, okay, so this was in the living room last I saw it. And then there was this, like they put like random diapers and you know, like if it was on the table, it got in the box, right? And so I'll be like, okay, so I see a diaper. I see a sippy cup and I see An old plate of peas. This must have been from the kitchen, you know.
So yeah, everything's in chaos in that way. And maybe it was our fault. Maybe it wasn't. There's a lot of blame being thrown around on moving day. about who like Corey seems to think it was our fault. Like he was self-blaming that we didn't prepare. I personally was told that the movers would take care of it. I guess I didn't ask how they would take care. I didn't ask like in what manner. So I guess it was taken care of, but. Technically, yes. Technically, yes. And they weren't prepared, I guess, for how much they needed to do. So it ended up being a long ass day. So let me just start from the beginning. So they showed up at like 8 a.m. And I took Augie and Amber, his nanny, to the park because I was just like, we need to get him out of here, right? So I discovered that there was a splash pad nearby that had just opened. Oh, I forgot to mention.
It was like the hottest day of the year that we were moving. It was like 102. Of course. So we were moving in the middle of this crazy heat. Normally, I would just be like, let's all go to the park, let Corey be in charge and we'll just deal. But I wasn't about to sit out in a hot park in 102 degrees with Sebastian. He's only four months old. He's 19 weeks old. Augie's a little more hearty. He's almost two and a half, right? Like, and I was like, okay, we'll take him to the splash pad. He will love that, right? Yeah. So I drop him and Amber off at the splash pad. We like drive through McDonald's on the way and I just like get a bunch of food being like, here you go. These are your provisions. She's like, when are you going to come pick me up? I'm like, I don't know. We'll find out basically. And thankfully she was working all day, so she was game, which was so nice.
And then I ended up spending a lot of the day like shuttling back and forth between the new house and the old house because like, Direct TV was coming and like the roofers were coming. There's all this stuff happening. I don't know why we scheduled it on moving day. That was probably a bad idea. Like Sherry Corey's mom came to help so she was at the new house half the time I was shuddling back and forth like taking Augie to the park picking him up from the park all this stuff. Meanwhile, Sebastian like his naps are totally fucked. Oh and I didn't even bother trying to schedule a nap for Augie. It was just like this isn't gonna happen right like there's nowhere for him to nap. So all day it was this back and forth Corey was dealing with the movers at the old house and You know, it's just moving. Moving is really hard. But then you add babies and little kids into it.
And, you know, Augie wanted to help with everything. So like he wanted to help the movers. And it's not very helpful to have a two and a half year old underfoot when you're moving furniture.
Meanwhile, Sebastian wants to nurse all the time, and I'm pretty bold about breastfeeding, but in front of random movers, there are all these 20-something guys. I was just like, I don't really feel like doing this, but of course there's no furniture too, so I'm doing it in the middle of the floor. Then he needs to nap. I'm like, I'll just keep him in a baby carrier, but like there was too much activity. So I ended up having to like go hide like literally hide in the coat closet in the hallway in the new house. Oh my God. and turn white noise on my phone and like bounce him and shish him till he fell asleep on me. I did that two or three times during the day.
Wow.
Laura
And it was just like, you know, like the couch wouldn't fit through the door upstairs, the sleeper sofa, so that had to change. The fridge wouldn't fit through the door. So like Cory and I are trying to like figure out how to disassemble the fridge because the movers wouldn't take responsibility for it. So like Cory and I are trying to figure out how to get the fridge in. Meanwhile Amber and Sherry are trying to take care of the kids. It's a whole thing. But to get to the end of the day, finally the movers left at like 10.30 p.m.? What?
Shanna
Oh my God, you must have paid them a fortune. I don't even know.
Laura
For a 14 hour day. Holy cow. I don't even know how much we paid them. Oh, meanwhile my mom is flying in. She's supposed to get it at 8. And then she's going to stay like the rest. She's staying for 10 days. She's here now. But she flew in at 8 p.m. That's the earliest she could get there. She thinks she's gonna show up and, like, the move is gonna be done and she's gonna help unpack. No, she shows up and we're, like, still actively moving in. These movers are losing their mind. Like, the mover said to me, oh, this is a day I'm never gonna forget. I'm like, you?
You have the gall to say this to me, like as I'm holding the baby, like you guys are the professionals. And like, it's a two bedroom house we were moving. Is it really that bad? Anyway, like we're not hoarders. I didn't think you were hoarders. Anyway, so at some point, our friend Jen, who we talk about a lot on the show, Jen came over, she was like, I'm going to bring you guys dinner. I was like, that sounds fantastic. Thank you so much. She shows up at about 8 30 with dinner and she's like, oh, my God. This is an unmitigated disaster I was like okay it is right like it's not just me and she's like no no this is bad and she went into like being in charge mode because part of the problem is that I couldn't do anything the movers kept coming to me to ask me like where do you want this where do you want this and then Sebastian would start crying.
And like I couldn't, couldn't actually help them do anything. So Jen bless her comes in and is like, oh, these guys need direction. And she just like got to it. She was like, okay, she like would grab a mover and be like, you, you need to move this here. You need to move this here. We need to get this in the room. And then she was, I was like, you know, the kids don't have their sleeping places. Like Sebastian can sleep on me, but like Augie's crib isn't put together. And so she was like, I'm on it. And she told them, she was like, you have to assemble his crib right now. Like he, the number one priority is he needs to get to sleep. By the way, this is like almost 10 o'clock at this point. Oh my God, was he still awake? Oh yeah, and he unnapped. Oh my God. But of course, he thought it was amazing, right? That's true. It's exciting for him, I'm sure. So jazzed. He was so jazzed.
But yeah, so Jen came in and helped save the day. Awesome. So anyway, yeah. Jen saved the day. My mom saved the day. We finally got it done. Our house is a complete disaster right now. But we're trying to settle in slowly. Just boxes everywhere.
Shanna
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you survived. And it sounds like you did a good job rolling with the punches.
Laura
would hope so? I hope we did. It's all a blur, honestly. It just felt so stressful that it's just a blur and it doesn't feel over because everything's still in boxes. I had all these high hopes about having a bag packed with all our essentials for the first couple nights and even that didn't get to happen. This is a word of warning. If you're pregnant right now and you're trying to decide whether it's better to move while pregnant Or when you have a small child, do it. Do it now. Do it now. Yeah. But anyway, that is my epic week. Wow. Well, congrats. Oh, thank you. Yes. And I'm happy. It's all for good. I don't want to be just complaining about this super privileged position we're in to move to a bigger house and like all that stuff is just it's just it's just a lot of like physical work to get done. You know and you know we could hire movers.
I'm such a I'm complaining about all this all this stuff I shouldn't complain about but I am happy I'm very pleased that we're here I just it was a stressful week. It was a stressful. Yes. Yeah, yes But anyway, I want to know what's going on with you this week. Did you move to a new house or has your week been a little quieter?
Shanna
We did not move to a new house. It's been much quieter little excitement over here. I Which I'll tell you about. Okay. The first piece of news this week is that we toured a preschool for CeCe and we signed her up. What?
Laura
Yes. All right, tell me everything. Is it full time? Is it part time? Where is it? What's going on? Does she like it? Tell me everything.
Shanna
Yeah, it is the co-op preschool that I talked about a couple episodes ago. So a lot of places I called didn't have availability or wanted me to do some wild two-and-a-half-hour tour with the husband. It's just like, no. So we scheduled a tour with this little co-op and we went and met the teacher, teacher Nancy and she was really nice. She's been Doing this for years and years and the preschool room was really cute and wide open and there's a really great little play yard out back with a big swing set and sand and play structures and CeCe just walked in and was like, parents, who are parents? I'm going to check this place out. And just went exploring her and Elle. We're playing all over the play yard while we talk to teacher Nancy. And just got a really great vibe from it. Feels very community-oriented and sweet and perfect for her because I don't
want to put her straight into like a full-time preschool. I want to ease her into socializing in school and everything. Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, just being in COVID for so long and not being around people and whatever. Totally. Yeah. She's not used to being out of the house. Yeah, she's not used to being not around us. I don't know how she's going to react to that. So it's part time. It's Tuesday through Friday, like 8.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. And we will have to figure out how we're going to volunteer once a week in the classroom. That's kind of a thing I'm just like. All right, I'll figure that out later. How many hours do you have to volunteer? Four hours in the room, you know, but it's like one person from your household. So in theory, Steve and I could trade off and alternate and do it like every other week. And it starts the day after Labor Day.
So we still got a couple of months of full time childcare on our own, but it's like a regular school year there. It's not really a year round type of daycare situation. The school year starts in September. So And does it end in June or something? Like, does it have a summer break? Yeah, it ends in the middle of June, then takes a break, and then they do a summer camp, where it's not academically focused. It's more just play and fun focused. So when that time comes next year, we'll sign her up for the summer camp, assuming this all goes well and she likes it and everything. That's fun. But I'm excited and I feel really good to be able to check this off of my to-do list because it's been nagging at me for months to figure something out for her. And I'm like, yay, I can breathe a sigh of relief. Like this is taken care of.
Laura
Do you know, does the co-op have like a philosophy? Like is it play-based or Montessori or any of those things? Yes, it's play-based. Okay, which I think it's also called developmental sometimes. Oh, I didn't know that. I think they're the same thing based on my learnings. Someone write it and tell me I'm wrong. But that's fun. I love the play-based idea. Like, we're starting to think about preschools for Augie too. And like, I just think that's what jives best with him because his life has been play-based, right?
Shanna
Yeah. Definitely. And L was in a play-based preschool for a couple years and I really liked how they structured that. They followed the kids lead on what they were interested in and allowed them to learn and discover through playing with different things. So I thought that was really cool and I'm really excited to get CECE into something like that as well. That's awesome. I can't wait to hear updates about that. Yeah. And then the other thing this week is that I had a birthday. That's right.
Laura
Yes. I remember that.
Shanna
Yeah. And for my birthday, I was like, I want to go to the beach. We haven't been to the beach in forever because of COVID. You know, it's been a really, really long time. and Elle loves the beach and Cece doesn't even remember the beach because last time she went she was like six months old so it's like let's go. So we went to the beach and it was really fun and Just a couple things to report. Before I report on the beach, I have to say there is some stomping and running around going on in the background because my kids are awake and trying to amuse themselves while I'm recording. So sorry if that's a little distracting.
Laura
Me too. So I'm still trying to figure out the recording setup in this new house. And I'm in the closet of the office. Thankfully, the movers left a bunch of moving blankets. Like they forgot to take them with them. And I was like, perfect podcasting equipment. Oh, yeah. But I'm hearing a lot of stomping, and I'm realizing that the stomping carries from downstairs. So sorry, listeners. I'm going to do my best to edit those out. But go on, go on.
Shanna
So we get to the beach, and this is another opportunity for me to realize how different my kids are when it comes to sensory experience. Cece was actually really excited about the beach and the water, but I don't think she knew what it really meant or entailed. I got her in her suit and all. sunscreened up and she ran towards the water and put her feet in and was like, oh, this is cool. And started running around in circles. And then like almost immediately got knocked over by a wave and was like, oh, no, and got really upset and scared. Whereas L is like down on all fours, rolling around in the sand and the water and like just full on just full body experience of it all. So Cece spent pretty much the rest of the time at the beach just kind of playing in the sand and eating snacks in the beach tent, which that's her best life, really. She was very happy about that.
Laura
I saw the pictures and I was sad. You actually invited us to go with you. And I really wanted to, like I really, really wanted to, but we had just moved. Yeah, bad timing. It was bad timing. I was so tired, but also I had no idea where any of our beach stuff was. Like I had no idea where our beach towels went. Right. So it takes a lot to go to the beach. Yes. With two kids, it's a whole thing.
Shanna
Whole thing. We bought a beach wagon, filled it to the brim with beach tent snacks. The whole thing is just, it's intense, but it makes the beach better when you're prepared. with equipment.
Laura
Oh, for sure. Yeah. And it's not like you can just pick up and go get something. I mean, maybe in other places, there's more stuff on the beach, like little shops you can go to. But in LA, especially Santa Monica area, it's a long walk if you want to go grab a sandwich somewhere.
Shanna
Yeah. Yeah. It's not super easy. So it's good to be prepared. And one of the things I wasn't really prepared for was the potty situation with CeCe. Yeah. So there are fine, nice public restrooms at the beach, but I discovered on this trip that she's terrified of public toilets like the big ones I don't think she's ever seen one before like she goes to the bathroom at home on the toilet totally fine but you know like with a little potty seat and like some sense of security and we go into the restroom at the beach and she's like practically crying like she doesn't want to get on this big toilet and then you know they're flushing all around us and it's scaring her and stuff. So I'm like, oh, what do I do? So my plan was, okay, I have her old, just like little potty chair in the trunk that I keep in there. It's big and clunky.
And when we're at the park and no one's around, I just kind of let her sit on it in the trunk and go pee in this little thing, right? But I'm like, we're in a beach parking lot. Everyone's around. What do I do? I'll go and grab it, bring it back to the public restroom, have her sit on the tiny potty in the public restroom go pee. And so that was our plan, except that Matt had to bring her out to the parking lot a couple of times to get this thing. So it was a good trek for me. And the second time I did it, I set her down so I could grab the potty and stuff. And I turned my back for literally one second. And she starts running away from me into the parking lot. And a car comes around the corner. And she ran in front of the car. I was like, oh my God, oh my God. And I grabbed her arm and pulled her back. And thank God the car saw her and stopped. And we waved at each other.
And I was like, oh my God, mortified and so glad that she didn't get run over in the middle of a parking lot.
Laura
Oh no, that's so scary.
Shanna
It was so scary. My heart was like pounding. I was like, oh my god, why did I set her down beating myself up about it? And just remembering, you can't trust a toddler to listen to you. Because I set her down like stay here, stay by the car. the odds of them listening to you are like 50-50, who knows what they're actually gonna do.
Laura
Do you think having Elle, and you know the fact that she's older and does actually listen to you probably a lot more, is sort of deceiving for you? Like you get used to having a kid who does listen and then you kind of forget, like you overestimate CECE's capacity to follow directions and stuff like that?
Shanna
Yeah, I definitely think so. It's just an automatic thought process. Like, oh, the kid will listen to me and it's like, oh, nope, nope, they won't. She doesn't understand the dangers of a parking lot, whereas Elle completely does. And I forget that. Yeah, yeah, that's scary.
Laura
Well, I'm glad it was okay.
Shanna
Yeah, me too. It was all fine. But it was an adventure.
Laura
So, you know that oxo travel potty that I talked about ages ago back when Augie was potty trained and is no longer? That is really cool because the legs, they flip in so that you can store it really small, right, in a little pouch. They flip down so it can be a little potty that they sit just straight on and they flip
Shanna
Out so that you can set it on top of a public restroom potty cool that's totally what we need something I can just slip into my beach bag and you know not have to go all the way out to the car and get a big old potty and everything.
Laura
Yeah, and they have like bags you can put in them so you can just like put her in the beach tent too if she needs to. And then you just like tie it up and they have a little absorbent pad in it so that the pee doesn't go everywhere. It's very convenient. They've thought of everything.
Shanna
Wow. Awesome. Um, yeah, I'll have to get that. But otherwise, that is my week. Happy birthday. Thank you. It was a good one. I think I took some lessons from your birthday and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to plan my own birthday and try to make it good and try to do what I want to do and not. Yes. I tried to have a good birthday and I think it turned out pretty good.
Laura
I'm glad. Well, next year we will celebrate both of our birthdays together. Yeah, that'll be so great. Oh my gosh, I'm looking forward to that. But in the meantime, we have a whole year. Should we take a break for now and come back with our special segment?
Shanna
Oh, we should because I cannot wait to hear your story.
We're back, and this week's special segment is Throwback, where Laura is gonna take her turn to tell us a story from her childhood that influences her parenting now, or like we said last week, is maybe just a good story that we all wanna hear. I don't know. I don't know what this is gonna be. I'm excited to find out. Laura, take it away.
Laura
All right, so you know both my parents are doctors. Most people know this, right? My dad is retired now, but my mom is a medical geneticist. She was actually on the show a very early episode. And she's the doctor you see if your newborn screening test, you know, that little heel prick they do when your baby's first born at the hospital, If that comes back abnormal, you see my mom, basically, or if you notice something going different with development or something like that, that's when you see a medical geneticist. So, my dad, he was a pediatric anesthesiologist, and he mainly did open heart surgeries on kids, which like, super intense situation, right? So they were the kind of doctors who dealt with really sick kids a lot, right? They're not just your run-of-the-mill pediatrician who you see when you have a cough, right? So this is the context of my childhood.
And it made for, I think, a unique or at least unusual childhood for me and my brother. It's one of those things where like, okay, so like five or six years ago, I was on a plane with my dad. We were actually flying to Romania to like visit the homeland, if you will. And he had recently been to Berlin with my stepmom. And he is the type of person who if you are a captive audience, which I was, I was sitting right next to him on an international flight. He would show you slides, basically. Like, do you remember back in the day you'd have actual slideshows? Like, nowadays we do that with iPads. But my dad had me as a captive audience and he wanted to show me the approximately 500 photos that he had chosen as the best photos from his trip to Berlin with my stepmom. Oh, gosh. So I'm sitting there and he's swiping, swiping, swiping through.
And, you know, I see, like, there's the Brandenburg Gate and there's the, you know, whatever, the little bit of the Berlin Wall remaining, all the stuff, right? And then just in the middle of all the stuff he's trying to show me, there is a picture of a open heart surgery, like a close-up of like a bloody heart. Ah!
Right?
Laura
And he starts swiping, he's like, oh no, no, that's no good. And then of course he's swiping and then it turns into videos. Oh no. Feeding in a chest. Oh my God. Okay. And so I am laughing because this brought me back to my childhood so hard. And I know that most people would not have this experience. They would not see a picture of a open heart surgery and think, Wow, that makes me nostalgic for my childhood. You're maybe the only person in the world who could say that. I'm guessing there are other kids of doctors who have the same experience. But the reason why is because when I was growing up, my parents only had one camera. And I don't know why they only had one camera. They were both doctors. They probably could have afforded another point and shoot, but they never got around to buying one.
And so our family had one camera that was used for both family celebrations and for documentation of medical abnormalities. Okay, okay. So like my mom would take pictures of saying my like eighth birthday party and then she would take that same camera and the role of film wouldn't be over, right? So she'd take it to work and she'd end up with a kid who was like very sick and had some kind of, you know, unusual presentation of a rare disorder. So she would take pictures of the child and then she would come home and take more pictures of like, you know, a pool party or something, whatever. And then I don't know if you remember the 80s and 90s, Shanna, but when you got a role of film to develop, it was like the most exciting thing in the world, right? Oh, yeah. You had to wait so long to see your pictures. You had to like take it out of the camera, right? You made sure it's all rolled up.
If you opened it up before it was rolled back, you ruined all the photos, right? So you roll it back. And then you take it out and have that great like chemically smell, right? And you have to go to the like Rite Aid or wherever, even the grocery store Costco was a common one. And you get the little envelope and you write your name and phone number on the envelope. Drop it in, you'd seal it up with that gummy tape and you drop it into that bin. I remember thinking like, where does that bin go? And you drop it in the bin and then like a week later, you go back to the store and you start rifling through everyone else's photos. Like, do you remember that was also a thing? You didn't like just get it handed to you. You had to like go and like look for your name in all the photos and you get your little sleeve and opening up that pack of freshly developed photos was so fun for me as a kid.
You never knew what you were going to get, right? You were so excited to see if the photos you took from your eighth birthday party or that pool party turned out okay. But in my house, this is how it usually went. My mom would come home with the packs of photos that we finally got around to developing probably six months later or something. And there's like a pile of them and my brother and I would just tear into them. So excited to see what was inside these like mystery boxes. And we're going through these three by five prints and we're like, oh my gosh, it's my eighth birthday party. Oh my gosh, there I am blowing out the candles. There I am opening presents. There's a sick baby, sick baby, sick baby. Oh my gosh. Remember our trip to the water park? So this was common, right? I grew up just filtering out pictures of sick kids in my household.
Shanna
Well, you sounded so blasé when you said it as if you were flipping through them and just kind of like toss them to the side like it was no big deal. So I'm sitting here like horrified, right? Like, oh my god. And to you, it just seems like it was no big deal.
Laura
Well, it wasn't. I thought this was totally normal. I thought everyone else's photo packs had like pictures of sick children. Or surgeries like yeah, just plain surgeries just out and about lots of blood and stuff and not only was I blase about it, but I was actually just kind of curious like I would I infer dramatic effect I'd be like sick baby sick baby sick baby But usually I'd be like oh mom who's this and she'd be like oh that's one of my patients who has you know client-filter syndrome. I'd be like, okay, cool. Who's this? Oh, that's one of my kids who has Williams syndrome. She would tell me all the information. Obviously, this is a massive HIPAA violation. This was before HIPAA, by the way. But I'm also a kid. And so she would start teaching me stuff about these syndromes. She'd be like, oh, this one's actually really interesting. It's an X-link disorder.
And so I would learn about all this genetic Information like I knew what a x-linked genetic disorder was before I was 12 probably I mean maybe sooner so this was just sort of the background of my childhood I remember that when I would go use the potty. when I was probably around that same age, you know, like eight, nine years old, my favorite thing would be to like read the magazines that we had on the potty, because, you know, I don't know, it seems so adult, right? To like sit and read something. And this is before iPhones. So, you know, you had to actually read physical printed material. I feel like, do people still do that? I feel like in the 80s, there would be like a magazine rack, basically, in the bathroom. Yes.
Shanna
Or at least just stacked on the tank of the toilet.
Laura
Yeah. And no one does that anymore, because everyone has their phones. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it would be weird, right? If you went into someone's house, probably you'd be like it seemed a little too private even though we know everyone does it Or maybe I'm maybe not everyone and now I'm just telling the world that I'm the only person who looks at my phone on the toilet I don't think that's true.
Shanna
You're not unique in that regard. No The only person I know who reads physical content on the toilet is CECE
Laura
Well, she's, you know, after my own heart because I loved reading physical material on the toilet when I was a kid. But in my house, what we usually had were New England journals of medicine on the back of the tank and As a kid, that was a very dense reading material. I obviously wasn't reading the studies, per se. But there's one section of the journal that I'm assuming is still there, because I can't imagine it's changed that much in probably 100 years. It's called Images in Clinical Medicine. And that was my favorite. So whenever we'd have a new New England journal on the potty, I would open it up to the Images in Clinical Medicine and look and see what I could see. So sometimes they were like, slides from a microscope of pathology, but oftentimes it was photos of syndromes or rashes. There were a lot of rashes, if I recall.
Rashes were very fun to diagnose, and so I would spend my time as a kid trying to diagnose mystery rashes from the New England Journal of Medicine.
Shanna
Oh my god, I just have to pause and say, I love how this highlights how different we are because like when I'm scrolling through my mom's groups on Facebook or something and someone posts a rash of their kid, no shade to anyone who's done this. I think it's totally normal. Lots of people do it, but for me personally, I'm like, I look away, I can't do it. And so here you are as a child, like curiously absorbing other people's rashes.
Laura
Yeah. And I now recognize that it was super weird, right? Like not normal or maybe not appropriate for kids, but it was what it was. It was what was around, right? And I just, I took to it. I thought it was really interesting. And I'm also now as an adult, like the person who will ask you to send a picture. Like, like our friends, like Jen always jokes that I'm like, not, I'm like the not a doctor doctor. Like she'll ask me a question first to see if she needs to call her doctor. And usually she'll ask a question. I'll be like, just send me a picture. So I've gotten lots of pictures of rashes and cuts and bruises and stuff. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I know to ask people before I send them to other people because, yeah. Yeah. You know what it reminds me of? Remember when I accompanied you to your wound care after your C-section problems?
And you were like, you can stay in the lobby with Elle and I'll just go in. And there was some point where Elle was like, she was just a little baby, obviously, because this is like post C-section. And she needed you or she was not like willing to let you out of her sight. So I was like, I'll come into the room with you if you're OK with it. I'm OK with it. And you were like, are you Sure, it's really kind of gross. I'm like, um, would you be offended if I looked? Cause I'm like, I want to see like, I want to see this open wound and see what I can see.
Shanna
I don't even think I ever looked at it. I just like always close my eyes and be like, just put the bandaid on.
Speaking of this, can you tell us why doctors take pictures of this stuff anyway? Because I'm so far removed from all of this that I'm a little bit like, ooh, why are they taking pictures of patients and kids and stuff?
Laura
Well, okay. So there's teaching, right? You have to teach other doctors what things look like, especially in genetics. These diseases are super rare. So if you see someone with it, you know, there's some very specific, like, physical characteristics that go along with a lot of different disorders and so like this is a disorder that affects one in 250,000 people, right? So if you see it, you want to take a picture of it so you have it documented so you can sort of add to the knowledge base, right? That's one thing. Honestly though, I think a lot of it is to show other doctors or just have a cool picture of it. I honestly don't know because not all of them are getting submitted to medical journals, but maybe it's in case or it's to keep track of the progression of a disease.
I mean, I think with my dad having the open heart surgery on his iPad, I think it was a cool, unusual case and he wanted to have it documented for himself. And again, him accidentally showing me was probably a hippo violation. But I didn't. Well, maybe not because there was no identifying features of the patient, right? Right. It was no way to know who that patient was, so maybe not. But it is, I think, fairly common. I do think nowadays you sign releases at doctor's offices, like if they can take pictures and stuff. But, you know, this was the 80s. It was a while time, right?
Shanna
Your mom was using the same Kodak camera at your eighth birthday party.
Laura
I want to know who's developing these photos too, right?
Shanna
Right, because they would see everyone that popped out.
Laura
Yeah, yeah. But anyway, so this is all to say like this is generally the context of my childhood. I would go into the hospital a lot because my parents would like need to rush in, you know, they'd be on call and we didn't have a babysitter. So we'd go and we just like sit in the waiting room while they did their work. And so like I was just around this stuff a lot. So anyway, this is my home life, right? This is like the stuff that's going on in private. And, you know, there's a lot of things I think in people's lives that Happen at home that you think are normal that aren't right until you go into the wider world Maybe you go to college and you discover that you know not everybody has a Aquarium in their bathroom or something. I don't know Literally making something up off the top man
But, or you know, there was that great, this American life about like people realizing things later in life, like someone who realized that unicorns weren't real. Like she just thought that they were endangered or extinct as an adult. Right, there's things you discover once you leave the cocoon of your family life that you discover aren't normal. So for me, I feel like this happened the first time my mom was invited to give a presentation in my classroom. Oh, okay. So, you know, we didn't have like a career day per se, but we would have the thing where, you know, parents would come in and talk about their jobs every once in a while. And my fourth grade teacher caught wind of my mom's very unique medical profession. And she asked my mom if she'd be willing to come in and give a talk about genetics to the kids, right? And my mom is like a big exhibitionist.
She loves being the center of attention. So she was like, yes, of course, I'd love to teach the kids all about genetics. And I feel like my fourth grade teacher probably meant like come in and talk about Joseph Mendel and his like peas and like recessive and dominant genes and leave it at that. However, My mom showed up with her slide carousel and I was honestly so excited and proud. Like I was so proud of my mom for being a doctor and for being so smart and doing all this really cool work that I just could not wait to share it with my friends, right? I was just like, they were gonna see how cool she was and it was gonna be awesome. So she comes in, it's so fun also like instead of dropping me off at school, she like walked in with me. How fun is that, right? So mommy's in class with me, so exciting. And so she breaks out her slide carousel and she starts her presentation.
And yeah, at first she does go over like the basics of dominant and recessive genes and you know, some really basic genetics for fourth graders. which I'm not even sure how much it connected, but she was trying. And I have to say, I give her credit for like, she doesn't dumb things down for kids. You know, she believes that kids can understand this stuff. She always talked to us about it like we understood it or could understand it. And so she was doing this with our fourth grade class. Great, right? But then she got to like the show and tell portion of the slides where she took some of these photos. You ask what are they for? Well, apparently some of these photos are for elementary school presentations.
because she showed some pictures and the faces were redacted on these pictures. So they were, you know, not identifiable like who they were. But she showed some pictures of some common genetic disorders to talk about them. And again, I was sitting there like totally wrapped like very interested in the whole thing. But you could tell like the kids were getting a little like antsy around me. And then some of them would make like you gross, you know, like sounds They clearly weren't very respectful of other people's body types and differences, as a lot of fourth graders are not, to be fair. And you could tell that the kids were not as into it as I was. But anyway, she ended her presentation and there was a Q and A and then she went home.
And I remember, even though the kids had kind of gotten squeamish about things, I was still like super excited and proud of my mom being there and thought it was just a really cool experience. Like I would have had her come in every day if I could have, right? So then we had recess. And at recess, a kid came up to me and was like, that was so weird. Your mom is so weird. No, jerk. Yeah, she was a jerk. I'm Facebook friends with her still, and she's still kind of a jerk.
She Facebook friended me and I was like, maybe bygones are bygones, right? She's still kind of a jerk. But anyway, you can change your name to your married name, but you're still a jerk. But anyway, I digress. So she kind of made this night comment towards me. She was also 10, right? So I can cut her some slack. But I remember like being in shock, right? Like I had never occurred to me that what my mom did was like anything but the coolest thing in the whole world, right? And to hear that like other kids were not thinking the same thing was a little surprising to me. So I remember that kind of threw me for a bit of a loop. But then I went home, I talked to my mom and like the truth is it kind of just disappeared from my memory because I think I must have had a conversation with my mom about it and she probably was like, who cares?
Yeah, and she probably was like, yeah, what I do is kind of different and weird, but it's important and I help people and it's other people who are weird if they don't think that's good, right? So yeah, I definitely think that I kind of got labeled as like that girl with the weird mom who comes in with the scary slides. Right? Oh. But it never really got to me because I was so proud of my mom. And now I think if we're talking about how it affects or influences our parenting, there's a couple of things that I really take away from it. One is that working outside of the home does not negatively affect your kids necessarily right like my mom worked your ass off when I was growing up but like I didn't think that I was like missing out on my mom I thought that my mom was doing super cool things and was like helping save lives right like I was so proud of her for it like I never felt.
I never felt like I was missing out from those stay-at-home moms. In fact, it was the opposite. I kind of felt like, oh man, it sucks that your mom doesn't go save people's lives all day.
So that's something good to remember because it's good to have your own interests because your kids see that and think it's a good thing too, right? It doesn't detract from your love or caring for your kids to have your own stuff going on. And then the other thing I realized is I have a lot of unique hobbies.
spinning wool and weaving and i mean they're not that unique there's a lot of people who do fiber arts but you know not everyone has their own spinning wheel their own loom their own like die pots for doing shibori dying technique you know like all this stuff i do right like tons of yarn everywhere right. And honestly, I haven't had any time to do any of it for a couple of years now. And I've realized that I need to start prioritizing having those hobbies, even though they're weird and don't necessarily have anything to do with my kids. Because them seeing me be engrossed and involved in something is good for them. It's good for all of us. They need to see that I have interests outside of them and that I can be passionate about something that doesn't have anything to do with them, basically. And by doing that, it does involve them. You know what I mean?
My mom, being a doctor, really didn't have anything to do with me, but me watching her being grossed in that really enhanced my life, taught me a lot, made me feel proud of her. So yeah, so I'm trying to take that as a lesson for me to do stuff.
Do stuff. That's not kid related.
Shanna
Do stuff. Yeah, it's motivating me to do stuff too, because I've dropped quite a few hobbies since having kids.
Laura
Yeah. Well, and for me, it's like a time issue, but I think I need to make time. Or, you know, even the podcast, you know, like letting him see my podcast set up and telling, you know, Augie, because Sebastian's too little, obviously, but telling Augie like mommy needs to go and record her podcast and not like try to sneak it in all during his nap times or whatever, you know, let him know. This is the thing that's important to me and I'm doing it and isn't that cool. And like he's come up to me when I've been editing and he'll be like, what's that? And I'll show him, you know, how the edit works. It's kind of hard because he wants to help. AKA delete everything on accident. Yeah. Listeners, if you ever get an episode that's just like a bunch of like, it's because Augie's helped.
But anyway, yeah, so I've been thinking more about this. Like when I knew I was going to do a throwback story, I wanted to talk about this. And like it just made me reflect and say it's time, even though Sebastian's only, you know, four months old, like I need, I need to find things for me again. And it'll be good for them to see me do it.
Shanna
Absolutely. And there's something about your mom's story in her career that says like, it's okay to be unique and different and quote unquote weird as a mom. We don't have to be kind of these middle of the road safe parents in order to be good parents. We can be unique, odd, edgy, incredibly passionate, what have you and still raise interesting, curious, smart, well cared for children.
Laura
Or even just to put it more simply, you can just be you, right? If you are a person who super enjoys orange slices and soccer pickups, that is awesome. We need moms like that, right? There needs to be moms like that. And if that's your thing, that's great. That's so great. But that's not all of us, right? And can all contribute in our own way. And our kids are going to love us for us. I think the problem is when we try to change ourselves to fit into some mold that we think exists. There's no right way to be a parent. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. But my mom will probably listen to this. She'd never listened to the podcast and she always like apologizes. I never listened to your podcast from the worst mom. I'm like, it's fine. It's fine. But whenever I mention, I'm like, oh, I talked about you on the podcast. She's like, what episode was that?
So if you're listening, hi, mom. I love you.
Shanna
Hi, Susan.
Laura
But anyway, that is my throwback. That is the end of my walk down memory lane. And maybe I'll find a photo of me and my mom from the 80s to post. Yes, definitely. And I promise there won't be any open heart surgeries involved in the photo. Yes, please, no. But shall we move on to our BFPs and BFNs? Oh, yeah.
Okay, so we are back and we close every show with our big fat positives or big fat negatives of the week. Shanna, tell us, do you have a BFP or a BFN?
Shanna
I have a BFP. Yay! Yay! My BFP this week is a brand of kids' puzzles that I have completely fallen in love with. I've mentioned before that CeCe really likes doing puzzles and I noticed that one of the puzzles we have, Elle got for her birthday as a present like a couple years ago from a friend. And it's such a cool puzzle. The brand is called Crocodile Creek. Okay. And the designs are really, really cute. It's like animals and stuff. And the pieces are kind of big. You know, each piece is maybe like the size of the palm of your hand. And it's like 24, 36 pieces or something like that. And Cici's been enjoying doing that one. So I was like, I wonder if this brand has any other puzzles available we could get her some variety and turns out they have a whole line of puzzles for different ages. So there's different number of pieces depending on the age it's geared for.
All of the designs are totally cute. And so I bought her a couple new ones. One is like a rainbow cat with its little kittens and one is a lion and she loves doing them. She'll just do them over and over and over. She finishes it, takes it apart and does it again. And they're great quality, great designs, super cute. And I just love them. So, yeah, Crocodile Creek puzzles for your little ones.
Laura
I haven't yet to get Augie to even do like a four piece puzzle. Like, I don't know if it's a focus thing or what. Like, I also don't have many just lying around, but this is making me feel like we need to up our puzzle game. Because hearing she's doing 24 to 36 piece puzzles, I'm like, ooh.
Shanna
It's because they are around. I mean, I don't think I would have thought to buy puzzles like this for Elle when she was two and a half. But because Cece has a big sister who has puzzles, you know, puzzles are around our house and she just discovered them on her own and started doing them. So, yeah, I think if you just get a couple and they're around and he's exposed to them, maybe it's something he'll enjoy doing.
Laura
OK, I know we've talked about this before and I just need to like go and order some of these.
Shanna
Crocodile Creek. Crocodile Creek. They're so cute. Check it out.
Laura
All right, we'll do.
Shanna
All right. What do you got for us this week? I've got a BFN. No. All right. Tell us everything.
Laura
So you remember from way back at the beginning of the episode, I talked all about my move and how it was a long ass day, right? Yeah, so around I want to say like 11 30 at night at night PM This is after like the move started at 8 a.m. I think and we were up God knows probably 6 a.m. Right? Oh my god, Augie's finally in bed Sebastian's finally in his new I'm covered in spit up because we still are waiting on the stupid PPI prescription to come through God Like we have it now, but it's a Wednesday. We didn't so I am like literally covered in spit up like all just head to toe And I'm like, what I need right now is a hot shower. Yeah. Yeah. Just sounded like the best thing in the whole world. I go to my shower in my brand new house, turn on the water and it's cold. No. Yeah. And I'm like, well, maybe it's the shower. I go to another shower. It's also cold.
I go to all the hot water faucets in the house. And by the way, this house has five bathrooms. There's so many. They're all cold. So I go out to the hot water heater, you know, thinking it's just probably the pilot had gone out. We have a gas hot water heater. Oh, right. So I, and that's the thing that happens, right? Like, especially if it's been sitting unused for a while. So I try to relight the pilot does not work, does not work. So I'm like, oh, freaking hell, right? So I ended up taking a cold shower because I had to take something, right? No. Yes, I did. And then the next day, I called the gas company to request a pilot relight because, you know, it's a simple thing. They come out, they relight the pilot and then you have hot water again. So I'm thinking this will be solved really quickly.
So the gas company comes out the next day and he looks at the water heater and he's like, all right. This is vented wrong. Someone did some DIY work on this unit and it's completely unsafe. It doesn't have a shut off valve. I can't even get the pilot to light again. This is not safe to use. I have to condemn it. What? Oh, no. And he put like red tape on it and a red flag on it says like, do not use unsafe to use. And I looked at the inspection report and it said something about like irregular workmanship on it. And we should have had someone come out to check it. But we were thinking like, oh, we'll probably just replace it really soon anyway. It's an old water heater problem. So like, but I didn't think we'd have to replace it the day we moved in. Oh my God.
So we have been scrambling to try to find someone to put a new water heater in and we have yet to find someone who can come like the soonest they can come is Monday. So we are without hot water and it you know why it's my BFN other than the fact that it's obvious why it sucks is it's one thing to take a cold shower yourself. But I have a baby and a toddler who's used to having a bath every night. Oh, yeah. So you know what I've been doing?
Shanna
Boiling water. Boiling hot water pouring into the tub. Just adding tasks to your already busy day.
Laura
And there's nothing like having a new house with two floors. And you're like, oh, I've got to boil water on the first floor and bring this giant like soup pot upstairs. Oh, no. Pour it in the tub. Ah, so that was definitely a big bummer this week, and we're still in no hot water land, so hopefully it'll be resolved soon.
Shanna
I hope so. It's things like that that make you realize the things we take for granted, like hot water. It just seems so easy, and we just have it right there, and take it for granted, and then you don't have it, and you're like, what is life?
Laura
And you know, again, it's like we're so privileged in the United States to like assume we have hot water, you know, and privileged, you know, financially, like I've never questioned that our gas bill would be paid on time. And so we would have hot water, you know what I mean? So it's a very privileged position to be in. And I realize that it's, you know, taking me down to earth a little bit. But yeah, it's it's it's another challenge.
Shanna
Mm-hmm. I hope someone can come out soon and fix that for you. Me too. Otherwise you guys can come take showers in my house.
Laura
Oh my god, we drive a half hour to go take a shower at your house.
Shanna
Depends on how desperate you get.
Laura
Yeah, but anyway, it sounds like our gardeners are here. We don't have hot water, but we do have gardeners and that means we should probably wrap it up.
Shanna
Okay, let's do it. Listeners, you know we want to hear your throwback stories. If anyone has something good and juicy to tell us about your past, reach out. Laura, where can everyone reach us?
Laura
You can just throw a voice memo into that email because we love those. You can send it to contact at bigfatpositivepodcast.com. Finally, if you want to join the coolest group of people on the internet, search Facebook for Big Fat Positive Community, request to join, answer our two membership questions so we know you're not a robot, and then you can join in on all the awesome conversations we're having in there.
Shanna
If you love our show, please rate us and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. And spread the word. Let everyone know about BFP. Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. Have a great week. Bye!