Disneyland With Little Kids and Discipline Dilemmas – Ep. 175
November 8, 2021
Listen Now:
Laura takes her kids to the happiest place on Earth, and Shanna tries her hand at disciplining her two-year-old. Also, in the special segment “OMG I’m Freaking Out,” they discuss the parenting-related situations that have been keeping them up at night, including collapsing ceilings and Christmas shopping complications. Finally they share their BFPs and BFNs for the week. Shanna’s kids are 2.5 and 5 years old, and Laura’s kids are 2.5 years old and 8 months old.
Show Notes:
- Siblings Without Rivalry* by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. Laura recommended this book to Shanna, who needs some sibling help with her two girls.
- Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids* by Laura Markham. Laura recommended this book to Shanna, who needs some sibling help with her two girls.
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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, OMG! I'm freaking out! Where we get into the topics of support beams and supply chains. We wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFNs. Let's get to it!
Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 175. Hi, Laura. Hi, Shanna. How are you doing? What's your check-in this week? I'm dying to know what's going on with everyone. Oh, it's a fun check-in.
Laura
Good. So, Augie is two years and nine months, and Sebastian is eight months, and we went to Disneyland this week. Oh, my God. You are ambitious, woman. We actually had help. That's the only reason I agreed to go to Disneyland with two small children. Cory's mom came with us and Cory's brother and his partner came, my sister-in-law. And yeah, it was actually super fun. I was nervous, to be honest. I wasn't sure exactly how well it was going to go with two kids. But we decided to go for it. The backstory is that we actually were going to go in July way back. I can't remember when Disneyland reopened because of COVID stuff. But when they first reopened, they were only at 25% capacity. It was like May, June. Right. That sounds ideal. Yes, exactly. So at that time, I bought some tickets and their new system is like so convoluted.
You buy your tickets online and then you have to get reservations separately and you never know like if the reservations are going to be there or not. And we were all like, Oh, Disneyland at 25% capacity sounds perfect. Let's get tickets and go. Well, between buying the tickets and being able to get the reservations for a weekend everyone could go, they lifted the 25%. Like, I think it's at 70% now or something. Oh, okay. And we were supposed to go mid-July, and we all kind of like, we were all kind of playing cancellation chicken with each other like... No one wanted to be the person to say like, let's not do it because no one wanted to be like the party pooper. Yeah. But I think finally my mother-in-law Sherry was like, do we really want to do this?
And I was like, oh, thank God you said something because I really don't want to go to Disneyland in the middle of July heat in Southern California with a five month old and a toddler. Like that sounds awful at almost full capacity. And Delta was starting to rage at that point, right? Indeed. Delta was coming up, creeping up. And it's actually like there was a coincidence that the weekend we were supposed to go, the following week an article came out in the New York Times that was like, my entirely vaccinated family went to Disneyland and we all still got COVID. I was like, oh. No. Yeah. So that was like a hard pass. So we decided to reschedule till it was like cooler and we thought it would be fun to go during like the Halloween spooky season. And so we did. We rescheduled and we went and it was honestly perfect. It had rained that morning and it was like cool all day. Oh, nice.
And it was just super fun. It was a really, really fun day. Augie was literally beside himself. Like if he could have flown out of his body and stood beside himself, he would have. And Sebastian just enjoyed looking at things. So yeah, it was great. I'm so happy we went.
Shanna
Good. Did you guys go on rides? What do you do at Disneyland with a two-year-old?
Laura
Yeah, so there are some rides like Augie went on Dumbo with Corey. He really loved because he's really into spinning, you know, so like that was really fun for him. I wanted to get him on the tea cups, but I didn't want to go on the tea cups with him. So like it didn't actually happen. Because I will do the thing that Shanna hates if you get on her teacups. Like, I can't handle spinning anymore. I don't know about you. No, not so much. And Augie just loves to be spun. Like, I will pick him up and spin him around once. And he's like, do it again. And I'm like, I can't.
I literally can't.
Laura
But so we did that and we went to Star Wars land, Shanna. We went to Star Wars land a lot. So it's actually, it's called Galaxy's Edge if we want to be, you know, technical about it. And honestly, it's just like Augie Paradise because there's a bunch of spaceships just hanging out park, including the Millennium Falcon. So like he just got to walk around and look at these spaceships and like he got to see Chewbacca. Oh, cool. So he didn't really need to ride rides. He just kind of absorbed it. But OK, we did that. And then I have to say that I think the highlight of the trip other than Star Wars, like as far as rides go, was Autopia. Do you remember Autopia? Autopia. No, I've never heard that word. It's a driving ride. Like it's in Tomorrowland, tucked way in the back. And I remember as a kid, I thought it was OK, but it's not. It's not high production value.
It's like literally you have a car with a gas pedal and a steering wheel, and it's kind of on rails, but you can bounce around. Like there's a central rail so that the car can't like veer off path. But within that, you have to actually like steer and press the pedals. And Augie is big enough to steer, but not big enough to press the pedals obviously, his little legs. But we went on it together and oh my God, this kid was so excited. Can I send you a video? Yes. Okay, so here's the thing about him on Autopia. He's so independent, he would not let me steer. Oh, I bet, yes. And by not let me steer, he would slap my hands away.
He was like, Augie do it. Well, actually, he doesn't say that anymore. But when he was littler, he would say, Augie do it, Augie do it. And now he's like, I want to do it. Let me do it. You don't drive. I'm like, all right. Oh, my God. I mean, got to listen to that too, you're old.
Shanna
That's for sure.
Laura
Yeah. But the downside of that is that because you actually do have to steer on this ride, it made it a very rough, very rough ride. Did you get whiplash? Basically, so in this video, I will show you, he gets like knocked off his butt. Like I was worried he was gonna fly. Really? Yes, I was worried he was gonna fly off of the ride like it was something else. Okay, so I'm sending it over.
Shanna
All right, let's see. Oh, he's got his cute little Star Wars hat on, very adorable. Oh my God, he's like falling over in his seat.
Laura
Oh my God, he's so into it. He's so happy, like just could not be happier. Oh my gosh. How cute. So cute. So yeah, I highly recommend a trip to Disneyland where you have two adults per child. That was like key, right? Because we can split up and we borrowed a double stroller from a friend. Thank you, Gabby. And yeah, it was great. Cool. And yeah, and the baby was there too. So sorry, Sebastian. He enjoyed, he just enjoyed like looking at stuff. And then he liked, we went home. We took them on Pirates of the Caribbean. And I thought that was a huge fucking mistake because I was like, oh my God, Augie is going to have nightmares. And he was a little scared. And then when we were getting off of it, he was like, where are the pirates? I want to go back to the pirates. So I guess it was, he liked it. I guess it was okay. And yeah, Sebastian was, was into all of it.
He loved it's a small world. So yeah, all in all a success. They fell asleep in their strollers on the way back to the car like you do.
Shanna
Yeah, that sounds fun. I am scared to take my kids to Disneyland. I myself have only been once in my life and it was when I was 14. I am not. I don't know. I do want to go there, but I'm not a person that is obsessed with Disneyland or anything. And I don't get super excited about the idea of it. So you're helping me feel a little bit more positive about it.
Laura
Oh my gosh, Sean. And now I want to go with you guys the first time you go with the girls.
Shanna
Oh, that would be fun.
Laura
Yeah, we should do that. Here's the thing. I'm not like one of those Disney adults. And if you are a Disney adult, more power to you. Like there's people who are so into Disney, right? Like they collect all the little badges and they all have like special ears they wear depending on the season or whatever like mm-hmm I'm not that like we go once twice a year maybe but when you go with kids you think it's gonna be a nightmare because you have to deal with like the logistics of having kids but watching how excited they are makes up for all of it like it's you know how addictive it is to like make your kids happy you bought them a bounce house like you know
True.
Laura
So it's like bounce house times a thousand, right? It's just like, it's so magical to them. It really is. So you were 14, you said the first time you went?
Shanna
Yeah. And I went with a school trip. So it's not like it was like a magical family vacation or anything like that. It was just kind of too cool for school, you know?
Laura
Yeah. You were at that cynical age where like, this is cheesy, right?
Shanna
I mean, I did have fun. I thought it was neat. I preferred Magic Mountain. I really like fast roller coasters and thrill rides. So that was more exciting to me.
Laura
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I still think you need to take the girls to Disney at some point and I want to go with you because it's too fun to watch them get excited.
Shanna
Well, that sounds fun. All right. I'm just going to have to be strategic about it and try to avoid crowds and avoid heat and try to make it enjoyable for myself. First and foremost, I'm so selfish.
Laura
You go on like a Tuesday off season in a cold weather month. I mean, that's what we can do because we live in Southern California. You can like take a day off work and go down so it won't be crowded. Plus the other thing is like right now they are doing the reservation system, which they'll probably do forever. So it's capped. Like you're never going to get one of those days where it's like the whole place is super crowded because they can cap it at like whatever the cap is now, 70% or something like that. So even if it's at 100%, you're not just going to get one of those days because there's a reservation system. Got it. OK. But yeah, I feel like that was a little bit scattered of a check-in because I was trying to compress, I don't know, 14 hours into 10 minutes. But the bottom line is it was super fun. The kids really enjoyed it.
And I would do it again in a heartbeat, but maybe like two weeks from now, like three weeks from now. I just need a break. Yeah. We got 14,000 steps. Oh my word. That's. Wow. How many miles is that? Good question. Oh, I'm sorry. I just looked it up. It's 18,000 steps. I got. Oh my God. And you know what? Apple Health doesn't actually tell you how many miles that is. So let me just do like a quick Google. Okay. Steps to miles calculator. Let's try this. I'm five foot six pace of walk. It's slow. Let's call it a slow walk. 18,336. Oh my God.
It says it was eight miles. Wow. That's a lot of walking. It was. It was a lot of walking, but 100% worth it. I'm glad about it. Well, I'm glad you guys had a great time. That's awesome. Yay. Yay, me too. So that's my check-in. I'm gathering you did not go to Disneyland this week, so you want to tell me what you did this week and how your girls are?
Shanna
Yes, I did something almost as exciting as go to Disneyland. Oh, yeah? I tried Time Out for the first time with CeCe. Ooh, I know. Exciting, right?
Laura
Yes, it's just as fun as Disneyland.
Shanna
Oh my gosh. I've been having a lot of trouble with the girls lately. The sibling dynamics are strained lately. They do love each other a lot and they like playing together a lot. But they've also gotten into this phase of really taunting each other and getting in each other's personal space to get attention from each other and from us. And it's just this ongoing thing. And it often devolves into hitting, especially, I mean, just Cece really. I mean, Elle is old enough to more or less not hit her two-year-old sister. But Cece is still in that uncontrollable two-year-old mind frame. And we're really working with her to like, not automatically take her fist and hit it on Elle's back. Oh man. I know. It's so, so stressful. And so I have been doing timeouts with Elle for a while now. What we do for a lot of stuff is a timeout we call quiet chair.
It's just like go sit in that chair for one minute, you know, take a pause from what's going on. And it's kind of enough of a break for Elle to like not like it and, you know, want to avoid it in the future and stuff. So I'm like, okay, I'll try that with CECE. But I had been very nervous to try anything like this. I didn't know if like she was old enough for timeouts yet or what to do really. And so in mommy and me that week, we had actually been talking about discipline with our toddlers and they talked about timeout and kind of how to approach it if that's something you're going to do for more egregious behavior. And the teacher gave us a strategy like tell them first, like give them a warning like I won't let you hit your sister. That's not what you do.
If you are frustrated, step away, give each other personal space or, you know, give her an option of something different to do first and then give the warning. If you hit her again, I'm going to put you in the quiet chair for one minute. And I was like, all right, I'll try that, you know, cause I'm having problems with the girls at home. So later that day I went home, I was very emboldened and the fighting started and Cece was like hitting her on the back. And so I grabbed her hand and I was like, I won't let you hit L. If you do it again, I'm going to put you in the quiet chair for one minute in the timeout and she goes timeout. I'm like, yes, for one minute. And she turns to L and like hits her on the back again. She looks at me. She's like, I have time out now.
Laura
Oh, no.
Shanna
Well. Yeah, time out. I put her over there. She was like smiling and just enjoying it. And I set the timer for one minute and the timer went off and she hopped out. She's like, time out, it's done. And I'm like, yeah, she's like, I love time out. And I'm like, oh my god. So it totally backfired.
Laura
Well, that worked real well.
Shanna
Yeah, she loves time out. That's where we're at right now. She loves the quiet chair and she loves time out.
Laura
So that worked real great. Yep, yep. Just killing that parenting game right there. Is the quiet chair like in the same room where you guys are? Does she have to like go somewhere else?
Shanna
The quiet chair is in the same room. Yeah. If the kids don't cooperate with the quiet chair or do something, you know, especially egregious, like really purposely hurt something or something, then it's more of like a warning and you go to timeout to your room. You know, I do that with Elle. I haven't done that with CeCe yet because I can't even, can't even conquer the quiet chair with her yet because she just likes it. So.
Laura
Well, she's probably seen Elle do it and like, you know how they are. They just want to do whatever their big sister, their big sibling is doing.
Shanna
Oh, true. Yeah. So she probably thinks it's a cool thing that she gets to do now because she's a big girl. Yeah.
Laura
It doesn't sound like it's going to motivate her to stop doing anything.
Shanna
No, no, not at all. So now I'm like, great. Now I have to reinvent this playbook again. Cool. So I'm just at a loss. Have you read Peaceful Parent Happy Siblings? No, I really need to read some sibling books. or listen to the course I bought from Dr. Becky that I still haven't listened to.
Laura
I saw a meme recently where you know it's like the meme where it's like the guy is looking at another girl and his girlfriend's jealous or whatever that one. Uh, so it was like the guy is me and he's looking at like a new online seminar and like the jealous girlfriend is like all the other online webinars that I haven't watched yet.
Shanna
Oh yeah. Yeah, that's my life. Yeah. But what's this book? Like why should I get this?
Laura
Well, okay, so there are two books I partially read before I had Sebastian. One was Siblings Without Rivalry, which is the one that got recommended to me a ton. But that's kind of more for older kids. Actually, it might be perfect for you because it's for kids who are starting to be verbal. It's not for baby plus toddler. It's more for like toddler plus older kid.
Shanna
Okay.
Laura
So you might want to check that out. I'm actually pretty sure it's written by the same people who wrote how to talk so little kids will listen. Oh, okay. Great. Yeah, it is. I just looked it up. Adele Faber and Elaine Maislish. Okay. And it's in the same style. It has like cartoons in the middle of them that like help you understand topics and stuff. So it's a really easy read. And then peaceful parent happy siblings is like a peaceful parenting version of it. That was really helpful for me. But I mean, I don't have any specific suggestions for you other than reading those books.
Shanna
Okay.
Laura
But those books have a ton of very detailed information. And it kind of gets at the root of things too, like instead of just treating behavior like she's hitting, you know, I don't know why how to stop the hitting. It's like goes back to why the hitting is happening, not just like we stop the hitting, which I know that is something you would be interested in because you're all about problem solving, right? So yeah, I think it's worth reading maybe siblings without rivalry first.
Shanna
Okay.
Laura
Get it on that Kindle girl.
Shanna
I will. Oh, yeah. I have a Kindle. I forgot about it again. So I just forget about it for months at a time. All right. Yes, I need to do that. And I will report back because it's definitely getting very tricky with the two of them. And it stresses me out a lot. So I got to get on it.
Laura
How does Elle react when her little sister punches her in the back?
Shanna
Oh, it's mixed. Sometimes she gets really upset. I mean, sometimes it really hurts, you know. CECE will go too far, and like me and Steve aren't there to intervene, so it goes a little bit too far. And it does hurt her, and she'll start crying and be like, mommy, CECE hit me or whatever, and I have to come and... comfort her. And then sometimes she just kind of like bears down like a little turtle in her shell and just lets her pound on her back with her little fist. And I don't think it hurts necessarily. I don't know. She kind of just takes it. She hardly ever fights back with her. Like she doesn't hit her back or anything. She's very patient with her. So that's really good. But yeah, it makes me feel really bad when Elle gets hurt, you know, it makes me feel really sad. I don't want them to hurt each other.
Laura
Yeah, I don't blame you. Yeah, it's so tricky. I can see how that's going to be a hard phase because right now Augie, like he does do the thing where he sort of like naturally lashes out kind of. And thankfully he hasn't really like focused it towards his brother. But I can see it being a problem when Sebastian's that age because they're going to just be naturally used to playing rough with each other. You know, right now it's like gentle with your brother, gentle, gentle. So. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry about that. That sounds tough.
Shanna
Thank you. But I've got some ideas now, some books to look at, and hopefully we'll get on the right track soon.
Laura
Oh, good. All right. Well, definitely report back.
Shanna
I will for sure. All right. Should we take a break and come back with our special segment? Yes.
Laura
Okay, we are back in our special segment this week is OMG, I am freaking out where we talk about the things that are stressing us out this week. Shanna, I have a crying baby in the background. Hopefully people can't hear it because that will probably stress our listeners out. But Eliza's on it and we have a podcast record. So I want to know what's freaking you out this week.
Shanna
Okay, I had a restless night the other night with a lot of dreams. I don't often have very vivid dreams, but I did the other night and it was all about me accidentally getting pregnant because I'm no longer on birth control right now and Steve hasn't gotten his vasectomy yet. So we are in the danger zone, I guess you could say.
Laura
That soundtrack was just playing in the background of my entire dream.
Shanna
I was so pregnant in the dream that when I took the pregnancy tests out of the box, they were already positive. I didn't even need to pee on them.
Laura
You just had HCG in the air, your breath.
Shanna
It was like positive, positive, positive. Like every test in the box was just positive. I was like, no. And it was the most ongoing dream. The first stressful thing about it, I'm not going to go too much into my dreams because Talking about dreams is not the most exciting thing in the world, but one thing I wanted to mention is there was a doctor I had in my past in real life that I've talked about on the show that kind of shamed me like my first fertility doctor. She kind of shamed me for switching doctors, right?
Laura
The one who like sent you an email being like, I can't believe you changed doctors without telling me and like,
Shanna
Yes. Yeah.
Laura
Yeah. I hate her. Go on.
Shanna
So in this dream, you know, it was a nightmare because suddenly she was my OBGYN and she saw that I was pregnant and she's like, what are you doing? You didn't tell me you were in the fertile phase. We were trying to prevent you from getting pregnant. And I was like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. And then, oh God, I just, you know, the whole dream was about like, do I really want three kids? I don't know, like my girls aren't gonna get as much attention. I know people have three kids. I could love having three kids. And the back and forth and I was so stressed. And I woke up in the middle of that dream and it was morning time and I had to just start the day. And like the first thing I did was look at Steve and I was like, you have got to make that appointment ASAP. I am so stressed out about this.
And the good news is that of all days for me to start my period, I started that morning. So I knew I wasn't actually pregnant in real life. So that was good news. But I was just so stressed out and demanded that he make that appointment immediately. And yeah, it just freaked me out for the whole day.
Laura
you know, you spent your whole life like either preventing or trying. Maybe there are other people who are like casual about it. And like if it happens, it happens. But in my experience, it was like my 20s and into my mid 30s was like, oh, dear God, make sure the birth control works. And then it was like, oh, dear God, make sure these ovulation tests work right. And then right back to, oh, God, I hope this birth control works. There's no like chill out time, I feel like in my room.
Shanna
That's a good point.
Laura
Mm-hmm, but I feel like men don't have that like she's probably like yeah, I'll get a vasectomy I'll just you know, I'll make the appointment eventually mm-hmm get around to it He doesn't have to have stress dreams about having a third baby.
Shanna
He should though. He's probably want to be more stressed about it than me He's like I do not want to live through the newborn phase ever again Only a few months like that's not the hard part
Laura
Yeah. Yeah. Like, I'm like, I only want to do two year olds like one more time.
Shanna
Oh, yeah. So yeah, that's that's what's freaking me out this week. What about you? What's what's freaking you out?
Laura
I am freaking out about the fact that Augie overhears every conversation we have and it's causing him nightmares. Oh no. Yeah.
Shanna
What are you talking about in front of him? Like all the murders that you've committed in your past or something?
Laura
Yeah. Well, that's old hat. He knows about those. Okay, so we had a structural engineer come to the house because we're going to be like renovating eventually. We're going to renovate the bathroom and we're renovating the kitchen and we needed a structural engineer to come and like make sure that it was okay to take one wall out, right? No, okay. So he went up into the attic and they were like poking around and the good news is like, it's totally fine. It wasn't a supportive wall, what do they call it? Not retaining wall, what do they call it? load bearing wall that's it load bearing wall yeah so it's not a load bearing wall but the engineer sort of offhandedly said like okay this attic is cool but you really shouldn't hang up like drywall or build it out until you put more supports up because it looks like at some point in this house's history they took down some support beams and
It's fine as it is. But if you tried to, like, put up drywall or, like, make it a finished attic, it doesn't have the support to do that. So, just know. Like, don't go DIY and start hanging up walls, right? Really? Okay, cool. We got it. Like casually mentioned this to some friends who are like, are you gonna finish the attic? And we're like, oh, well, you know, there's just not the support beams. And like, Augie would be like watching TV or like doing something completely different. So the other night he woke up in the middle of the night, which is the thing that's happening because he's like having nightmares and stuff. And I went in and I was like, Hey honey, what's going on? And he's like, the ceiling, the ceiling's coming down. And I was like, I know. And I was like, what honey? And he's like, the ceiling, it's coming down.
I was like, oh honey, maybe it just looks like that it's an optical illusion. He's like, no, there's no supports. The ceiling's coming down. And I was like, you have got to be fucking kidding me. Oh my God. This kid hears everything. And I was like, you actually understood enough of that adult conversation to understand that the attic doesn't have enough structural support. And now you're afraid that your ceiling is going to collapse on you in the middle of the night.
Shanna
Oh, my God. That's so smart. I can't believe that. And also so sad that he thinks his ceiling is going to collapse.
Laura
I know. And so I had to repeat to him, like, no, honey, you're safe. We'd never let you stay somewhere that's not safe because our number one job is to keep you safe. And it seems to work. He hasn't really mentioned it too many more times. But it happened a couple nights in a row. He's like, the ceiling's coming down. And then in the morning, I would come get him and be like, good morning, sweetheart. Do you have a good sleep? And he goes, the ceiling didn't come down.
Like, yes, that is a low bar to clear. Did you have a good night? Yes. The roof didn't collapse on me. I had a great night.
Shanna
That's all I ask for.
Laura
Oh, man. So anyway, that is my first OMGM freaking out. Shanna, do you have one more?
Shanna
I do. I realize we're recording this sort of near the beginning of October, but I am already freaking out about Christmas shopping. This year. I don't know if you've heard. Me too. You are too, so you've heard. Okay, so. I have. There have been posts in my parenting groups like panic posts like, parents, get your Christmas shopping done now. The supply chain problems in the world are gonna fuck Christmas up. And I'm like fuck Christmas up. No, this is like year two of pandemic. We cannot fuck Christmas up. No. So I am flipping out about what to do. Like, do I make my kids Christmas lists already? Yes, I've started. I started making their Christmas lists already and like asking them what they want. And like the Amazon catalog came and like L is circling things and the Target catalog came.
And I'm just kind of in a little bit of a frenzy here of like what exactly do I need to do to prepare for this Christmas apocalypse where like apparently nothing is going to be shipped on time or something. I don't know, I'm just in a bit of a haze about all of this.
Laura
Yeah, I've heard a lot about this. Like you should get your shopping done early and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, pardon me is like, maybe this is a good excuse to not buy as much shit this year. You know what I mean?
Shanna
Like I entertained that notion for a quick second. I was like, Christmas is all about family and love. And then I was like, no, it's also about presents. I'm sorry. It's really fun. And I just, uh, yeah, I don't know. I really want to get presents.
Laura
Well, you should get presents then. Just get them early and put them in your wine closet.
Shanna
That's true. I have plenty of storage in there. That's a great idea.
Laura
Just get stuff that's small enough to put into the little like cubbies, the little wine cubbies.
Shanna
Yeah.
Laura
Just get a bunch of little wine shaped boxes.
Shanna
And just for all the adults in my family, just get them wine because then there's a perfect storage spot for it.
Laura
For people who maybe are listening to this like five years in the future and don't know what we're talking about maybe they're like that never actually happened. There's like a lot of stuff in the news right now about how like the ports are all backed up with stuff and there's just like not enough trucks to move all the supplies and so stuff we're used to getting on like. Same day or next day, Amazon Prime isn't going to happen this season. And it's just going to get worse as far as I can tell. So, yeah, I think it's smart to get started this early. Do you have something that's like top of the list that you want to get?
Shanna
No. And I think that's going to make it easier for me. I think if people have kids that are really, really hooked on one thing, like if their kid really wants a Nintendo Switch, the newest model or something specific that might make Christmas shopping trickier this year because those things might not be available. My kids aren't, I don't know, they're hooked on certain ideas and presents quite yet. They don't really know what's available out there. So I'm just thinking of getting them a variety of just fun toys and stuff like that. So I think I'll probably be okay. But I was shocked how much I got worked up about this potential problem that's like two months away.
Laura
I will say there is something that's already affected for us, which is Gabby's dollhouse. Do you know about that show? So Augie loves Gabby's Dollhouse, which I love because it's kind of a girly show, for lack of a better word. It's pink and sparkly and has a girl lead and it has cats and all this stuff, right? And he loves it. And I love encouraging him to watch something that's not trucks or Star Wars. So he loves Gabby's Dollhouse. And I was like, oh, he's starting to get into the age where he really likes little figurines and playing, you know, imaginative play. So I was like, I'll get him a Gabby's Dollhouse. Great. And it's like, oh, it just happens to be like this year's Tickle Me Elmo. Like everyone wants a fucking Gabby's Dollhouse. Oh no. They sell out the instant they're in stock. And yeah, people are like price gouging like crazy on the internet right now.
Shanna
Oh my gosh. So I'm back to square one. Yeah, that's frustrating. Well, just introduce him to a new show for him to get really into. Maybe one that's less popular, you know, develop an interest before Christmas so you can buy a toy that goes along with that interest.
Laura
To be fair, his interest in Star Wars is there. So true. And there's a lot of Star Wars merchandise. So I think we're OK in that respect.
Shanna
Yes, yes, yes. But yes, I'm gonna finish my list, send it out to the family members and make sure everyone does their shopping ahead of time. All right, what about you? Do you have another OMG I'm freaking out? I am, but I was thinking let's take a quick break and then we'll come back with it. All right.
We are back and Laura has one more OMG I'm freaking out for us. Laura, what is it? Okay. Do you have the Citizen app on your phone? No, for a reason. I don't want those notifications.
Laura
This is what I'm freaking out about. So for people who don't know, Citizen is like this app where they notify you if there's like police activity or anything in your area. And like I'm a glutton for punishment in this sort of thing because like while I get disturbed by the details of things I love knowing like why are there sirens like what is that helicopter for so I really actually like having the app because it's kind of cool to see like what's going on around the city and you know if you see there's an ambulance down the street you can know like is that a big accident what's going on right who reports to citizen citizens people neighbors are the police authorities
i think a combo right so it's like they take stuff off of the scanner like the police scanner and they sort of auto report that stuff and then people can go citizens can go and like take live video at the scene or like add information so it's a combination of things. And because of the police scanner stuff, you get a lot of these automated things, like there was an accident down the road or whatever. And it even happens if it's minor. Any time someone's dispatched, you get a notification. And it wasn't a big deal when I lived in Pasadena because Pasadena doesn't have public police scanners for whatever reason. You can't actually listen to their police scanner, but Glendale does. Glendale's police scanner, I guess, is available for whoever, including the Citizen app. I'm now getting notifications for every little thing. We live in a more densely populated area.
There's condos around and stuff. More stuff is happening. We live closer to a bigger street, so more stuff is happening. But the specific thing that's freaking me out about it is that I lose it and freak out every time I get a notification when the kids are out with Corey or with Eliza. Oh, uh-huh. Any time the kids are away from me, out and about, and I get a notification accident on Brand Avenue, accident here, you know, pedestrian hit by car. Yeah. Yeah. Which apparently happens a lot around here. Uh-huh. Which is very disturbing. Lots of pedestrians getting hit by cars. So I will just be like enjoying my alone time and it's like ding ding ding which it isn't actually ding ding it's more like buzz buzz because I never have my sound on buzz buzz and I look down it's like citizen like major accident one mile away and I'm like shit sorry like
have to start cross-referencing where the accident is and where Cory is on, like, Find My Friends and make sure it's not them. And it's very, very unnecessary stress in my life, Shanna.
Shanna
That is really stressful, Laura. You maybe need to get rid of that app.
Laura
You know what I need to do? Okay. This is the accountability I need. I just keep meaning to turn off notifications because I like the app in general, but the notifications are super annoying. So let me just go to the settings right now. Yeah. Well, we are together and I'm going to turn off notifications. Notifications.
Shanna
Off. I did it. It's done. That's good. Good. Because you can still have it there if there's Helicopters hovering overhead, you can go and check it to see what's going on. But you don't need to know about every injured person in your neighborhood. I really don't. Especially for a mom who's maybe got some intrusive thoughts, maybe a little anxiety. That is just adding to that. I don't know who you're talking about. Oh, just a general hypothetical person. I don't know.
Good. I'm glad you turned that off. That's good. That would stress me out a lot, too.
Laura
You know what I realized? I liked it during the height of the pandemic because they would do these daily pandemic updates like what's going on, what's the news, what the numbers are, and I liked getting that info, but now I don't need it. Okay, that's done.
Shanna
Thank you. Yay! We've solved an OMGM Freaking Out. I feel very accomplished. Yeah.
Laura
I think we did enough today.
Shanna
I think so.
Laura
Let's go take a nap.
Shanna
Yeah. We earned it. Yay us. Oh wait, we got to finish this podcast.
Laura
Oh, finish the podcast. Before we take a nap, let's do our BFPs and BFNs. What do you think? Okay.
Shanna
We are going to wrap things up with our weekly BFPs or BFNs. Laura, what do you have for us this week? I have a BFP. All right. Good, good, good. What is it?
Laura
Okay. It's a thing that I didn't know about before I had kids that's very Disney specific, but it's called Ryder Swap at Disney. So Disneyland or Disney World. Okay. So Ryder Swap is this program they have at Disney. where if you have kids that are too young to ride the ride or people who are unable to ride the ride for whatever reason, like mobility issues or heart conditions or whatever it is, and they are unable to be by themselves while other people ride the ride, you can do a thing called rider swap, where you go up to the front and you're like, hey, we want to do a rider swap. They scan your tickets and then Half the party can go on the ride and then when they're done with the ride the other half of the party gets to cut the line and go straight to the front. That's cool. So you don't have to wait in line twice for everything.
Mm-hmm and it's amazing Corey and I got to go on like the Millennium Falcon ride for that reason and like maybe we were abusing the system a little bit because Technically like Corey's mom didn't want to go on the ride So she could have stayed with the kids while we all went but yeah instead like half of us got to like go enjoy the park while the other halfway in line and then we just did a little swaperoo and cool. I have to say one of the best things about like cutting the line is like the satisfaction you feel walking down the fast pass lane in front of everyone else. I know that sounds really obnoxious of me, but it's just so fun to be like, I'm just scooching past everyone to go to the front. I'm a special person. Oh, yeah.
Shanna
Although someone in your party had to pay the price, someone had to wait in line. Yes. It's not like you're just going to the front for the fun of it.
Laura
Yes. But the people who didn't have small kids were able to do that, get their alone time, get to hang out without the kids. And they have all the time in the world. They don't have small kids. Exactly.
Shanna
Do you have to sign up for this or somehow officially get a badge for it or how do you do it?
Laura
No, if you just walk up to the person at the front before you get in line, you say, like, we're doing a ride or swap and they scan the tickets of the people who are going to return. Oh, the other cool thing about it, and they just tell you this, they're like, you can do up to three people, at least as of right now, so people can ride twice. if they want to which is okay so like if like let's say Cory's brother and sister-in-law waited in line right but then three more people can go to the writer swap so they could have come back with Cory or something you know what I mean like you can actually end up writing a ride twice that way if you really want to so yeah.
That's a good Disney hack. I love it. So if you're going to Disney, make sure you utilize the Rider Swap. I think it used to be called Stroller Swap, but yeah. So yeah, that was fun. That made for a lot more rides for us that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. Yeah. Yay, I love that they have that. Yeah, it's great. So what about you? Do you have a BFP or a BFN?
Shanna
I have a BFP. Yay. Yay. We have discovered YouTube Kids app, which is so great. It's solving a lot of problems that we have had. Recently, Elle has really been into YouTube and just wants to watch YouTube videos during her TV time. I think she's exhausted all of the TV shows on all the other platforms or something. She loves watching funny dog videos. She's really, really into hamster videos, hamsters doing elaborate mazes, domino videos. A lot of cute stuff that I don't mind watching, but when she was watching them on our YouTube app on our TV, that's just like Steve's account, right? There's no filters on anything. The algorithm is just serving her up whatever like popular kids videos are hot and so many of them are, for lack of a better word, asinine. I mean, they are just so bad. They're bad, yeah.
They're really bad and just amateurish and just I keep telling her I'm like, please don't watch that video. It's not quality content. I'm like, because I don't know what else to tell her. I don't want to like rip on things.
Laura
Like the production value sucks. All right. If you're going to watch something on the TV, at least have good lighting. Yes, exactly. Please. Your parents are filmmakers.
Stop.
Shanna
I mean, that's, yes, beyond that though, right? If it's a quality program and the production value is like in the low budget, that's fine. But I wish I could just describe some of these videos, like the videos where it's just like filming two four year olds playing with random toys. I just, I really, really hate that stuff. And I don't want her to watch it. And I didn't know how to solve that problem. And I was like, Steve, we got to figure something out. And I don't know why we didn't know that YouTube kids existed. We discovered that. And you go into the app and you can change the settings so that you can allow content or ban content. So any channels you don't want the kids to watch, you can like ban them. So I banned that kid, you know, the toddlers playing with toys channel, stuff like that.
And we add the content that we do allow her to watch, you know, funny dog compilations, hamsters doing mazes. And stuff we want to encourage her to watch, like lots of science for kids videos, some good shows. Like there's a lot of supplemental content for like Bluey. There's curated channels like PBS Kids will curate different YouTube channels that, you know, are suggested to parents. If your kids are into science, there are like science channels that have been curated. So we just have a lot more control now of what they're allowed to watch on YouTube. And I feel a lot better about it because honestly, I don't babysit them while they watch TV a lot of the time. A lot of time I will sit with them and hang out and watch what they're watching. But a lot of time I use it so I can also do work. So I can't have them going down the YouTube rabbit hole into weird stuff.
I need it to be more controlled. So this is amazing. Yeah, you can't babysit the babysitter.
Laura
No, but I'm with you on that because Augie, like I hate showing him anything on YouTube for that exact reason. Cause like, you know, it's fine to pull up Blippi. I mean, I guess like, I don't love Blippi, but whatever Blippi's fine. So you pull up Blippi, it's fine. But then it's like, you may also like this and it's like two hours of a disembodied hand playing with truck toys. And I'm just like, no, I know. And it's like so addictive for him to the times that like people have let him watch it. The people I've done it. My mom really lets him do that a lot. And it's like, he can't stop. Like, it's really, it's really interesting. And it's like, no, I can't let you watch this. This is bad for your brain. Like, I'm usually the person who's like, whatever, screen time, whatever, it's fine. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is bad for you.
You have to watch something with a story at the very least or like educational content. So yeah, is it free or do you have to pay for YouTube kids?
Shanna
It's free. You just have to sign in. Are there ads? There's like an ad before some of the videos, but they are kids' content ads. And there's like a little interstitial that's like, we'll be back right after this break. So it's very clear to the child that they're about to watch an ad. That's good. And it's things like the Clifford movie and little ad for that. So that doesn't bother me too much. Maybe there's a paid version. I know that you can buy YouTube Plus or YouTube, whatever their paid subscription is. We don't do that.
Laura
But for now, this has been OK. Yeah, because we've gotten some weird ass ads during Blippi on YouTube. Really? Mm-hmm. Like there was an ad for like industrial plumbing supplies at some point. Uh-huh. I think because it was like blippy the plumber. And so then it was like showing you like wrenches and like stuff that only actual plumbers would need. And Augie was like, he thought it was really cool, but I was like, what is happening? Why are we watching this? Oh, that's so crazy. Okay, so YouTube Kids, is there an app on the Apple TV for it?
Shanna
Yeah, that's where we do it. And you can also sign in on your phone. That's what I did. I signed in on my phone, picked a bunch of videos for her, set up all the settings on my phone, and it's the same account on your Apple TV. So it'll just show up there. Oh good, I'm installing that today. You got to add content pretty consistently, I think, because, you know, she's already kind of bored of it. She's like, there's got to be more hamster videos out there in the world. Can I just watch regular YouTube?
No.
Shanna
So I have to like go in occasionally and like try to find the latest hamster maze videos and add those and everything.
Laura
That's good though. OK, I'm going to do that because yeah, I hate opening the YouTube app for all the reasons.
Shanna
Yes, you will love it. It's so much better. It solves so many problems that you have with YouTube. Hot tip, hot tip. Yeah. And I think that's it for our show, yeah? I think it is, yeah. All right. Listeners, do you have any OMGs? I'm freaking out. We want to hear them. Laura, where can they reach us?
Laura
We are on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok at VFP Podcast. We have a website, BigBatPositivePodcast.com. If you want to send us an email, remember, you can always include a voice memo in that email. Just send it to contact at BigBatPositivePodcast.com. And finally, if you want to join the coolest group of people on the internet, search Facebook for Big Fat Positive Community. Request to join make sure you answer those two membership questions. There's just two it's so easy. But that way we know you're not a robot and we'll let you straight through to the amazing conversations we're having in there.
Shanna
If you love our show please rate us and review us wherever you listen to podcast that's so helpful. Let other listeners know that we've got a great show that they should take a chance on. And spread the word. Let your friends know about BFP. Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks for listening, everyone. Have a great week. Bye.