Why Is My Kid Crying? – Ep. 186
January 24, 2022
Listen Now:
In the brand-new segment “Why Is My Kid Crying?” Laura and Shanna share the seemingly innocuous things that have caused their little ones to meltdown, dissect the reasons behind the huge emotions, discuss how they handled the situations and explore how they might have done things differently. Also, Shanna talks about the unexpected feelings she had about the holiday season, and Laura reports on restarting potty training her two-year-old. Finally, they share their BFPs and BFNs for the week. Shanna’s kids are 3 and 5 years old, and Laura’s kids are 2.5 years old and 10 months old.
Show Notes:
- Oversized Wearable Blanket Hoodie* Shanna's BFP this week is the coziest thing she's ever worn!
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Episode Transcript
Laura
Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week, we have our weekly check-ins. We have a brand new special segment called, Why Is My Kid Crying? Where we try to find out why our kids are crying in the bathroom, in the kitchen, and in a drive-through in Hollywood. And we close with our BFPs and BFNs for the week. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. This is episode 186. Hi, Shanna. Hello. Hello, hello. So we want to hear your check-in for this week. How's it going? How are your girls? Et cetera, et cetera.
Shanna
Well, we are good. It was Christmas week in our house, as it is in many people's houses. That's not unique. I don't know why I said it that way. Just in our house.
Laura
We celebrate Christmas on October 12th.
Shanna
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it was good. The holiday was good, crazy chaotic. We had some family in town and the girls were just like bananas with excitement about everything and like trying to open every single present at the exact same moment. And I was just like, slow down. I was like really feeling like an uncool mom, you know, for a little bit. Just like, slow down. Let's all watch each other open presents. But it was good. And they got some great gifts that are keeping them occupied, which is nice. But the thing I kind of wanted to talk about and get into about all of this is I am usually a person who is super excited about holidays, Christmas, Thanksgiving. Like, I just I love it. I love celebrating. I love setting everything up. I have a lot of energy and Christmas spirit. And this year was totally different. It was Kind of disappointing to me to see how I felt about everything.
And I know for a fact it started with Thanksgiving week, right? That was a really hard week for me. We canceled Thanksgiving. My dog died. So I was really down that week. You spent like two nights in the ER with your daughter. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So it drained me, obviously, in a lot of ways. And I kept kind of waiting for my holiday spirit to come back and my excitement to come back. And I think that just plus like almost two years now of parenting during this pandemic. And I've pushed through and put so much enthusiasm into every single holiday, right, since the lockdown. decorate extravagantly for every birthday, every holiday, etc. And I found myself just being like, oh, we have to decorate for Christmas. I've never been like this in my life. And I don't know, it was really, really strange to me to not feel that holiday spirit.
But of course, I did everything anyway, because I wanted to make it fun and magical for my kids. But I was kind of sad that I was like kind of lacking some of that enthusiasm that I usually have.
Laura
Yeah, I think it's totally normal to be sad about that. I mean, you're grieving, Shanna. Like, I think that you maybe are underestimating the impact of chili. passing away. Or maybe not, maybe you're aware of it. But I think it's totally completely understandable to not be feeling the holiday spirit when you're not only grieving your dog's death and your dog who you had for a long time, who was a real part of your family. It's a real loss. on top of it, having to manage both of your daughters and their feelings about that. On top of that, having to deal with the trauma of spending two nights in the ER with your daughter. Like, I know everything was fine in the end, but that's an actual trauma to live through. You are worried having to go to an ER during the middle of a fucking pandemic with your daughter, right?
All of that combined, and then just sprinkle a little biggest surge since the beginning of the pandemic on top of it. Just a little cherry on top of all that stuff. Like, I mean, honestly, I'm impressed you got the decorations up at all.
Shanna
Yeah, yeah, I really pushed through. And you know, Cece actually got sick a couple days before Christmas. Like she spiked a low fever and had a sore throat and I was just like, oh my God, here we go again. We're gonna like miss Christmas and we're getting like COVID tests to see like if the family can actually come into town. And yeah, it was just like a lot of stress. Obviously I don't mean to be a downer about Christmas, but I think, you know, if I'm honest, like it was a tricky one this year.
Laura
I think that's fine. I think that's totally fine. It doesn't always have to be the most magical, amazing time. Like, you're allowed to have a down year. I know you still got your girl's presence, and you still had family over, and I'm sure you still created a magical time for the girls. But, yeah. I think so. I hope you can let yourself off the hook a little bit for it, because, you know, it's important to take your feelings as they come, right? We tell our kids that all the time. We should maybe follow the same advice. Very true, very true.
Shanna
It's good to be honest with how you're feeling and do what you can, basically. I was really glad that I did a bunch of Christmas shopping ahead of time. I think I spoke on the show about how I was worried about the supply chain issues? Yeah, the supply chain issues. I was worried about the supply chain issues. And so I did a bunch of shopping ahead of time. And I was really, really grateful for that. And I did a bunch of rapping ahead of time. So I was really glad I didn't have to jam all of that in in the last couple of days right before Christmas, because I really think I would have keeled over if I had to do all of that right at the last minute. But it did work out. Cece did not have COVID. She miraculously was better the next day, which I was just like, what? OK, cool. We'll take it. Everyone came into town. And it was good. It ended up being fun and great.
Laura
Oh, good. Yeah, I'm glad you got to see your family. Me too. Yeah, I did not get to see a lot of family. Corey's mom. came for Christmas, which was very, very nice. But my mom and stepdad who were going to fly down canceled because of Omicron. So we had a very small Christmas, very small Christmas. I'm sorry. It's OK. It was really nice having Sherry there. And it's nice to have a nuclear family Christmas sometimes, especially since it was Sebastian's first Christmas. It was actually very cozy and very nice but you know i kind of feel you on this like difficulty in getting the holiday spirit riled up inside of you because it's like two years of pandemic. Has just made you like part of it for me was not knowing like i didn't want to build anything up i almost didn't even want to tell agi that.
His grandma sherry was coming because I was afraid that she'd have to cancel at the last minute, you know, because like everything is like people have to cancel at the last minute. And so I don't want to promise anything. And it's like, so I can't get my own hopes up. I can't get his hopes up. So like everything is just hedging your bets at this point in the pandemic. It's just like, oh, I just really wish I could like say something for sure. You know, for sure you're going to get to do this. Like, yeah, anyway. So. I feel you on that and you know, we decorated and stuff and I felt Christmassy enough, but I also don't hold myself to the same high standard you do, so. Yeah, my old high standards. I mean, in this regard, I have high standards for other things, just not in like decorating for Christmas.
Shanna
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, okay, so that's my check-in for the week. It's your turn. It's your turn. What's going on in your world?
Laura
It's my turn. Okay, so two weeks ago we had our big check-in that we switched to the toddler bed with Augie.
Shanna
Oh yeah.
Laura
you know he's like now he's like a week from turning maybe it's two weeks two weeks from turning three years old and that's been going great and I was gonna wait until we were like really settled with that toddler bed transition for this next big transition but since that went super well I decided what the heck maybe we should just potty train this week. Oh, okay. That's big. Yeah. So we have officially restarted potty training. Okay. So you may recall that when he was 20 months old, so young, I decided that we should try potty training with him because I read the oh crap book and they said between 20 and 30 months was ideal and we happened to be smoked in at the time. It was during those insane fires we had in the Summer of 2020. So I was like, well, we got nothing else to do and he's showing lots of signs that he wants to use the potty.
So maybe we'll potty train before the new baby comes and it'll be great. It went pretty well at that point. But if you recall when Sebastian was born, he completely regressed with peas and we went back to diapers on Augie's request actually. He at 25 or 26 months decided like, He was having a lot of accidents and we asked him like, do you want to go back to diapers? And he said, yes. So back into diapers he went. And so I was just waiting until like we had a chunk of time where we could like refocus on it. And also like when I felt like he was really, really, truly ready. And this week, you know, we have two weeks off of school so he can like get some practice at home and, you know, he poops in the potty. I'd say 95% of the time before this, like he would have a poop quote unquote accident.
Like he would poop in his diaper once a month, maybe less, maybe, you know, like I could count on one hand the amount of times he's pooped in his diaper. Our nanny Eliza never has had to deal with a single poopy diaper with him. Like that's how rare it was. So I was like, I think this is going to be easy. You know, he's nearly three. All we have to do is like remind him what he needs to do.
Shanna
Okay, cool. So did you check in with him this time and ask, like, do you want to stop wearing diapers? We did.
Laura
We said, Augie, how do you feel about wearing undies instead of diapers? And he said, good. Did you want to be without diapers? Yeah. And then we'd ask him again. And he'd be like, I want diapers. I don't want diapers. Like he didn't, I think, really understand what it meant. Yeah. But he wasn't against it, right? He wasn't like, no, I want my diapers. Don't take my diapers away. He was sort of like, whatever. So yeah, he was like pretty ambivalent about it. So we just decided to give it a try. Like, why not? Again, we were basically stuck at home again because of Omicron and figured we'll just give it a go. So if you recall, the OCRAP method has these like three levels. What do they call them? The three blocks. Right. Oh, right. Where the first block is you go completely nude from the waist down. The second block is you wear pants, but no undies.
And then the third block is undies with pants or whatever, skirt or whatever.
Shanna
Right.
Laura
So, we did it by the book for the first time, the first go around, when he was 20 months. And this time we decided we didn't really need to follow the book that closely, especially with the like being naked from the waist down thing. Like the kid already knows how to use the potty. He knows when he's going pee. He knows when he's going poop like so we didn't need that step at all. So we went straight to wearing pants. And the first morning we decided to try this, he had a few accidents, namely when he was watching TV. And I definitely had a few moments where I was like, ooh, maybe we shouldn't be doing this. Actually, I think Corey really was like, maybe we shouldn't be doing this. He just had two accidents on the couch, like one right after another. Yeah, which is like annoying, right? And it's just accidents are just they trigger me. I don't know if they trigger you.
It's just like they shouldn't. Like I know they're normal and everything, but just like, oh, what a mess. Yeah. So I definitely was doubting things. And I talked with Corey about it and we decided what we really needed to do was to stop watching TV until he has it like down pat because we realized he was getting like sucked into the television, right? And not realizing he had to pee. So this was not a popular choice as far as Augie was concerned. He did not like an imagine Yes, he did not like this decision, but we just explained to him. So we said honey We just we can't watch TV until we're really really solid with the the pee pee and we're always getting into the potty and we're not having any accidents Okay, he was like the TV. I want to watch shows and we're like we'll watch shows again once we pee pee in the potty for a couple days Shanna the kid did not have a single accident after
Shanna
He just needed some serious motivation.
Laura
Yeah. Yeah. And it's so funny. Every time you pee in the pot, he was like, can I watch TV now? Wow. Yeah. So did he get to watch TV or how long did you wait? We did two days just to make sure and then we're like, okay. I mean, obviously he has it down and he was getting really good about like stretching the time between peas. Like at first it was like every 30 minutes. He's like, I had a pee pee and it was like an emergency, right? And then it started to be like an hour, an hour and a half. Like it started stretching pretty quickly. So then we're like, okay, we'll try the TV, like hold on, we're just going to put down some puppy pads on the couch first. Yes. But he was fine. The really, like, and this is not a huge surprise. He was previously potty trained. He's now almost 36 months. Like the kid should be able to be potty trained pretty quickly, right?
And I know a lot of people have trouble with poop and he already had poop mastered. So we were like 90% of the way there already. Here's the thing that was super surprising to me. Are you ready for this? What? The kid has woken up with a completely dry diaper this entire week. What? Bone dry. Wow. He spontaneously night trained himself.
Shanna
Oh my god, you're so lucky. That's amazing.
Laura
I mean, I don't trust it 100% yet. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to take him out of pull-ups, but we got like official pull-ups that aren't as absorbent. We're not doing like heavy duty nighttime diapers like we were. I mean, I'm telling you, last week, he would wake up with a diaper so full, like we had a Sposie pad and a nighttime diaper and they would be like filled to the brim. Wow. Okay. So not only were they bone dry, but like the second night I was putting him to bed, like after the second full day of potty training, I was putting on his nighttime diaper. Like usually when he goes, I don't need diaper, I'm potty trained. And I was like, oh honey, nighttime's different than daytime, you know, we're going to have to, no, no, I don't need diapers. I'm potty trained. And he like took it off. Oh my gosh. So I told him, OK, tomorrow I'm going to go get pull ups for you.
And I did so that you can have like undies type things at night time. But anyway, I just thought it was so funny because he was just like once we got him in the mode, he was just like, OK, this is my new reality and I'm going to night train.
Shanna
Wow, that's so cool. Is it crazy? Yes.
Laura
Yeah, so anyway, that's a really great development here. Yeah. I have a little bit more to say about it, but I'll save it for our last segment. Oh, okay. Yeah, but real quick, I just want to check in about the baby because I feel like when we have these big check-ins with Augie, the baby who is 10 months, almost 11 months, gets forgotten a little bit. And I just want to say one thing about him, which is he is a fucking strong ass baby. Oh, he is. He is like a little muscle man. So this week, I got a video of him doing a new skill, which is we go on to our backyard and usually he finds one of these like little push toys that we have, you know, like those toddler push toys that are meant to be used as like little walking aids, right?
Shanna
Right.
Laura
Usually he'll go out and do that and push the toy around. He crawled over to our 25 pound hand truck that we got from Home Depot, you know, like a dolly. And he started pushing that in laps around our grassy backyard.
What? I mean, I have a video of it. Would you like to see?
Shanna
Yeah.
Laura
Okay.
Shanna
Here it is. Oh my God. He's just like, no, I found my own walking aid, mom. I don't need that Fisher Price BS. What?
Laura
This is huge. It's huge. I'm telling you, I looked it up on the Home Depot website. It's 25 pounds. And the grout's not even, right? It's like grassy and it's a little bit uneven. So like, you'll see he gets to a spot where he has to kind of like give it an extra shove to get over a little hump. And stop. It's like, who are you? And he's so casual about it. He's just like, here I am pushing this thing around. Wow.
Shanna
Sounds like he likes the big muscle activities.
Laura
Oh, I got two of them, I guess. Oh my God. These kids and their heavy lifting activities. But yeah. So the baby, he's turning into a little muscle man. And I have a potty trained kiddo now. So I only have one kid in diapers. Yay, that's amazing. Yeah. So anyway, that's my check in for this week. Do you want to move on to our very special, very new special segment?
Shanna
I think we should.
We're back. And this week we have a brand new segment. We're calling Why Is My Kid Crying? Now, you've probably seen memes over the years floating around on the internet or videos that people share of like, wild. reasons that their little ones melt down. And Laura and I were like, well, we have fodder for a segment like that. So let's do something like that. And we want to kind of dissect these things that make our kids cry, talk about them, maybe find the reason behind them. And yeah, just talk about this stuff.
Laura
Yeah, you know, we talked about this segment. It's always fun to like see the silly reasons other kids are crying and stuff. But we definitely don't want to be making fun of our kids because we know that the reasons they're crying may seem silly to us. Like we know that their emotions are valid. And so this isn't going to be a segment just to like make fun of all the absolutely ridiculous reasons they're crying. However, we are going to talk about the reasons they're crying and probably laugh a little too, but not at them with them.
Shanna
Maybe? Exactly. Exactly. Because we have done the same things when we were little, right? I mean, we've all broken down because our orange juice wasn't pulpy enough or whatever. So yeah, we've all been there.
Laura
And not just when we're little, like I've cried over stupid shit as a a grown up, you know?
Shanna
Yeah, maybe we should like talk about why we've cried recently.
Laura
Oh yeah, I like fully had to hide in the kitchen recently. Not because I like need to hide my crying or whatever, but because like I just didn't want to deal with it at that moment because Augie was watching Beauty and the Beast for the first time. And for whatever reason, the opening number completely triggered my like childhood memory of seeing with my grandma. And I had to like go hide in the kitchen have a little little cry.
And it's not even like a sad or touching song. I'm just like, just memories. I just didn't want Augie to be like, oh no, this movie makes mommy cry. I don't want to watch this movie, you know? Because I like the movie. So yeah, that's a weird reason I cried recently. How about you, Shanna? Yeah.
Shanna
I don't cry very often because I'm a stone cold bitch. But let's see.
Laura
You know, I used to never cry. Like, I actually kind of had it as like a point of pride for some really diverse weird reason. Yeah. I mean, I know now that it was like all kinds of repressed reasons why I thought it was a good thing that I didn't cry. Like, no, I realized that it was a bad thing and I'm not going to get into them all here. But like yeah, I have to say like I think from age like 15 to approximately 25 I could probably count the number of times I cried on one hand and I thought that was a good thing Interesting now. I'm just like waterworks like you know being more in touch with my own feelings and honest about them plus having kids I'm just like That's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen about every other day.
Shanna
Aw, I love that. I've always been embarrassed to cry in front of other people. The vulnerability has been too much for me, so I kind of stuff it down. But I will cry by myself. Lots of crying in my car over the years. Other drivers are probably like, what's wrong with that lady?
Laura
Okay, I don't want to put you on the spot about coming up with some reason you cried recently, but now that you're aware that we're doing this segment, let's pay attention and come back with some good ones, okay?
Shanna
Okay, all right, that sounds good. If I think of anything between now and the end of this segment, I will share. Great, and I want some not in the car crying. Let's do some out in the open crying.
Okay.
Shanna
I'll try my best. Okay, Laura, you're first to present why is my kid crying for us. Go for it.
Laura
Okay, so I'm going to try to make this into a little bit of a game. I'm going to see if you can guess why my kid is crying based on the location of the crying. Are you ready? Okay.
Okay. Okay. I've got my thinking cap on. Okay. The crying is happening at a drive-through in Hollywood. Why is my kid crying? In which kid is it? This is Augie, my almost three-year-old. Okay.
Shanna
Okay. A drive-through in Hollywood. I am picturing in and out. You are going there for a burger and fries and maybe a milkshake and let's see. Oh, when you get the fries, Augie wants one immediately, but you're like, honey, it's too hot. You'll burn your mouth. And he's like, no, I want it now. And breaks down crying.
Laura
That is a really good guess. It's wrong. Although, you were so close to actually predicting something that did happen at In-N-Out, but in Glendale. We were in the In-N-Out drive-through line recently, and Augie was like, I want McDonald's. And I was like, we're already in line at In-N-Out. We're getting In-N-Out. And he's like, I want McDonald's. He's screaming. And like the in and out line for people who don't have in and outs near them it's always like a million cars long so we had wrapped completely around the restaurant and he could see the takeout window like the drive-through window right outside his car window and I was like honey we're already in line in and out it's burgers and fries too I know you like in and out it's fine right and he's like I want that I want McDonald's and he's pointing to the drive-through window and I'm like Oh, honey, that's in and out.
And he's like, no, that's McDonald's. I was like, no, no, no. They're both drive-through restaurants. This is one. And so I was able to head off the crying because it turns out what he really wanted was just any drive-through. He just thought all of it was McDonald's. Oh, my gosh. Funny. So anyway, you were on the right path with an idea because that is something that could happen. But no, no, no. This happened to be a drive-through COVID testing clinic.
Shanna
Oh, those are never fun. Okay. Yeah.
Laura
Yeah. So this was actually like about a month ago. We were getting a COVID test. We needed it for something I don't even remember. And we went through this drive-thru clinic on the recommendation of some moms on Facebook. I found this place on Kowanga in Hollywood and it's a drive-through. So I was like, this is awesome. I can just like leave him in his car seat and he can get swabbed and we can get going. And it was awesome, but he cried a lot getting his nose swabbed. This was his third COVID test, I think, at this point. And I think he had a lot of anxiety about it. And I get it. It doesn't feel comfortable. It's not all the way into your brain ones that they had at the beginning of the pandemic, but it's still a weird tickling sensation. I don't love getting my nose swabbed for COVID.
Shanna
Were you doing his test or was someone administering it for him?
Laura
No, someone was administering it for him, which is also hard. I was sitting in the back seat with him and I had to like hold his face and I have to say that having the car seat was helpful because he couldn't like actually squirm away. And the reason I'm talking about this is actually because I used parenting skills to make it better. Ooh, what are those? Yeah, parenting skills. You learn them on Instagram. Oh, and TikTok, got it. Yeah, and TikTok. So actually, this is something I learned from my toddler and me class way back in the day. And it was about how when we are having kids who have tantrums or having really hard times, you talk about what happened in a calm moment. And you repeat the story over and over and start, and every time you repeat the story, you start focusing more and more on the resolution than the problem. It's something my teacher Gia had taught us.
And I feel like this was the first time I really got to see a very concrete example of it. So I knew we were going to need another COVID test at some point, right? Because we live in this world. And so the next day, or I might have even been that night, I started talking to him about the COVID test. Yeah, you went and got a COVID test today. Yeah, they tickled your nose and it was kind of pretty uncomfortable, huh? And you cried. Yeah, it felt bad to get that test. But then. At the end, you realized it wasn't that bad, huh? Yeah, it wasn't that bad. It didn't hurt. And you got to watch truck tunes. Spoiler alert, I bribe him with truck tunes videos on the drive to the COVID test.
Shanna
I bribe CeCe with candies, though. Yeah, I'm right there with you on the bribing for COVID tests.
Laura
Well, they gave him a lollipop at the end. So I was like, and they gave you a lollipop. And boy does this kid love lollipops, right? So we talked about it a couple times after that, and every time I just made the resolution a little bit more, you know, take up more time in the story. Yeah, and it really wasn't that bad, huh? You got to watch truck tunes. What truck tunes did you get to watch? Oh, they're so cool. Oh, was that lollipop really good? Do you want another one? Okay, I did parenting. Hashtag parenting. So last week, we had to go get another test because it was gonna be Christmas and Sherry was coming over and yadda yadda yadda, right? So I went back to the same drive-through and we talked about it on the way there. I said, you know, remember last time and it did the whole spiel, the kid laughed during his COVID test. What? He said, he got his nose tickled.
He said, aha, that tickles. And then he said, can I have a lollipop?
Oh my God.
Laura
And he didn't cry. That's amazing.
Shanna
Wow.
Laura
So that's why I wanted to talk about it because it was like, in my head, I kind of expected it to be torture for the rest of eternity, right? To always have to get these nose swabs and I dreaded it. But it turns out I didn't have to because hashtag parenting works, apparently.
Shanna
Nice. I'm going to have to try that. My solution for CECE hating nose swabs is I just take her to a different testing site that allows me to swap her mouth.
Laura
Oh. I don't know where one of those is around us. But anyway, I've done all this work, so I might as well just do the nose swab at this point.
Shanna
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Yeah, of course. Got to cash in on all that work. Yes, yes.
Laura
But anyway, that's my first why is my kid crying? Awesome. Sean, I want to know why is your kid crying?
Shanna
OK, I've got one for you. Great. You would think my five-year-old, almost six-year-old, would not have such huge emotional meltdowns about things anymore. But oh, you are wrong. are wrong.
Laura
I've got a few. I don't know. When are they supposed to stop with the meltdowns? Like, does it ever stop?
Shanna
I don't know. Your 80s. I mean, who knows? Yeah. So yeah, I've got a few to choose from with Elle, but I'm going to tell this one. And I'm going to have you guess why she cried based on the location of the event. Okay. And this event happened in our bathroom.
Laura
Okay. Elle cried because she was in the bathroom and she wanted to give Sasha a bath with her. And you said Sasha can't come in the bath with you. Sasha is your dog.
Shanna
Sasha is my dog.
Laura
Is that correct?
Shanna
No, that's not correct. That's a really, really good guess, though. I can imagine that Elle would love to take a bath with Sasha. I don't think that idea has even occurred to her that that could be a possibility, so hopefully she'll never realize that's a possibility, because I think she would cry about that. No. Okay. So, well, the other night, she had like not focused on eating her dinner and then we put it away and then she was hungry and this was like right before bed, right? The whole nighttime routine. And I guess she had the nagled Steve into getting her a last minute pickle. She's obsessed with pickles. She loves pickle spears. And so he gave her a pickle and she was like, not even really focused on eating the pickle, like kind of getting distracted and blah, blah, blah. And had about one inch of the pickle spear left. And we were in the bathroom.
I was helping CECE brush her teeth and get ready. And Steve was like, okay, I'll like, let's move along. Time to come in and brush her teeth. And she set the pickle spear down and started brushing her teeth. And Steve mindlessly threw the piece of pickle.
Laura
in the trash. Oh, Steve. Steve, Steve, Steve.
Shanna
What have you done? What have you done? She, after a moment, realized that the pickle is missing and was like, where's my pickle? And Steve was like, oh, I threw in the trash. And inside I'm just like, no, man, no, no, no, you played that wrong.
What? I wasn't done with that back off. He's like, well, you started brushing your teeth. I thought like you were done eating. She's like, no, I wanted the reservoir back off. And just full on meltdown. So upset about. the pickle in the trash and Steve was just like trying to reason with her. He's like, honey, I mean, it was just like a piece of a pickle. Like it was just the end of a pickle and you were brushing your teeth and it's not a big deal. And I'm just like, oh man, you know, trying to be like, okay, how can we reason with her? Because obviously it's more than about just a piece of pickle. Yeah. Right. It's like, He didn't ask her. She didn't know what was happening. I think she probably felt surprised by it, disappointed.
Laura
And she probably also legitimately wanted to finish that pickle, you know, and now is like... Absolutely. I'm never gonna have a pickle ever again. That was the last pickle in all of the world. And you got rid of it. Yeah.
Shanna
Yeah, I probably felt like the stakes were really dire. That was her last opportunity to ever eat some pickle. And she was really, really mad at him. And yeah, it was emotional.
Laura
So I noticed something. I know she's not a preschooler, but I saw something on preschool therapies, TikTok recently. I've talked about his TikTok before. And he does these things where he duets people who film their kids tantrums, which I mean, like I don't think I would ever film one of my kids tantrums out of like respect for them. But also it's super, super instructive to see how other parents like deal with it. So I'm glad people do. Like it's a weird, it's a weird feeling I have because I'm like, I don't know if they should be recording this. But also thank you so much for recording this. It's probably kind of how our podcast feels to people like, oh, I never go on a podcast and talk about my kids that much. But glad they do. They're doing hard work. So he will duet them and sort of give notes. Be like, oh, you did great here. One thing you could have done better is this.
One of the things that he had mentioned was that notice that when you start trying to apply logic, it can make it worse. And so this mom was being like, but you'll get more tomorrow. But it's not whatever. It's not morning, whatever. They didn't want to go to bed, so it's not. He said, watch how any time she reverts to logic, the kid cries more, like cries harder. And I've been trying to remember that because it's like, all you want to do is like use logic with them. It's like, there's more pickles in the kitchen. That pickle was gross. You just set it down on the counter. You just brush your teeth. Please do not make a big deal out of this.
Shanna
But it's not about that, right? Right, right. And I think the reason that upsets them more is that it's not validating their feelings about the situation. It's not acknowledging them, which is probably, you know, what they really deeply want is for us to understand how they're feeling and why they're feeling that way.
Laura
Exactly, exactly. So how did this play out? Like what happened in the end?
Shanna
You know, when you're talking about this, like, don't use logic, blah, blah, blah. I immediately was like, I'm really good at that. Like, I am so Janet Lansbury. And Rai Parenting, like for so many years now, like I'm pretty good at knowing that you need to understand their feelings. And I did do that in this situation, which I think was helpful. But then I'm like, I didn't do that in the situation I'm going to talk about next. You'll see how I handled that one. And you'll be able to tell the error of my ways. So I'm definitely not perfect at this. Um, but in this situation, I definitely, I was like, I'm sorry, Steve, but I'm like seeing Steve do everything wrong, which like trying the logic out of the pickle situation. And me on my high horse, I was there like, Oh honey, you're so upset about the pickle.
Like you really wanted that pickle, you know, just like really trying to dig in on the acknowledging her feelings and stuff. giving her some comfort and everything. And she just really had to cry it out and get those feelings out. And after a while, she just kind of got over it. So, yeah.
Laura
Well, that was a real pickle, Steve got you in.
Shanna
A real pickle of a situation, Steve. OK, do you have another why is my kid crying for us?
Laura
OK, so this one is why is my kid crying on the potty? Are you ready for a twist? Yes.
Shanna
It's Sebastian. What? Okay. So why is my 10-month-old crying on the potty? I'm gonna assume it's like the little potty, like the toddler potty, not like the toilet. Correct. Okay. I think that He was sitting on the potty trying to be like his big brother, who's now using the potty, and was frustrated that he couldn't use it like his big brother.
Laura
Not quite. No. Sebastian, my adorable 10-month-old, was crying, just sobbing hysterically because I would not let him stick his hands deep into the potty and play with it.
Oh, no.
Laura
How dare you, Laura? How dare you prevent that activity? I'm so mean. I'm just such a strict mom. So I bring this up because it's not just that. It's also the kitchen cabinet that's full of cleaning products that I wouldn't let him get into. Or it's also insert choking hazard he's picked up right from outside. It's pebbles or whatever. He has now gotten to the age where he is so strong willed but also like very opinionated about what he can and can't do like where he will just scream his head off if you don't let him do what he wants. And I've talked about this on the show, you know, where he like won't let me do diaper changes and stuff, but I feel like it's just ramped up even more lately. And I feel like it's got to be like a developmental thing, right? Yes, because he, you know, I'm remembering just a few months ago when he was this little smoosh.
You could just put him down and he'd stay where he was supposed to stay and you can kind of do what you wanted to him. Not that I was like doing anything disrespectful to him, but you know what I mean? Like I could change his diaper. Augie could run over and like tickle his head or poke him or whatever and he'd be like whatever. Augie could run up and steal a toy out of his hand and he didn't give a shit, right? Those days. are gone. Like he now is possessive. He has like real intention about what he wants, where he wants to go, what he wants to do. And if you get in his way, like look out. And I mean, I don't know what to do about it. Like he, if I pick him up and he wants to be on the ground crawling, he does like a full 180 degree like snake turn out of my arms and tries to launch himself towards the floor. You know, and I actually have a video of him being upset about the potty.
Do you want to see that? Yeah. All right. I'm not going to show this to the audience. Sorry, listeners, but I just don't think it's, you know, quite respectful. And I'm not going to play it because I hate when I hear babies crying on TV or podcasts or anything because I never know if it's my baby. And I just, I'm triggered by babies. So Sean, you'll have to narrate it for us. Here it is.
Shanna
Oh, poor guy. He is like sobbing his little face. Tears are streaming down his face. I think you like wipe away a tear at some point and he's just like crawling up your legs like so despondent. And that's about not being able to play with a potty.
Laura
Yeah. Yeah. I just like put my foot on the lid so he couldn't open it. Oh, geez. That's all I did. Literally nothing else. Nothing else is changed in his environment. So. Yeah, I mean, there's not much to do about it. I'm not really worried about it. It's just like, it's just kind of a fun and awful new phase that we're in. And that's why my kids crying a lot. Oh boy. Poor guy. Yeah. Okay, I want to know one more reason your kid was crying, but I think we should take a break first and then come back with it. What do you say? All right, let's do that.
Okay, we are back and Shanna has one more. Why is my kid crying? Example for us, Shanna?
Shanna
I do, I do. Okay, I want you to guess what happened in the kitchen with CeCe. I feel like we're playing Clue, like what happened in the drawing room with Miss Peacock. Was there a snack involved? Oh, I shall not say. I'm going to let you form your own narrative.
Laura
Okay, okay. Based on that, I'm going to say, yeah, there was food involved. Cece was crying because she wanted more raw onion, and you told her she had to wait until dinner time.
Shanna
I love how you never miss an opportunity to bring up the fact that CECE likes to eat Ron. I mean, it's hilarious.
Oh, my God. Oh, that's too funny. OK, no, that's not it.
Laura
Oh, darn. OK.
Shanna
But you're close. It is snack-related. Oh my god. Okay. So she the other day wanted a snack as she does multiple times every single day and a snack. I'm like, all right, all right. And we go over to the cabinet and I'm like, what do you want? And she has to pick, right? I can't just offer her something anymore. And she's like, I want Ritz, Ritz crackers, right? The little crackers. Yeah.
Laura
Good stuff. Oh, we haven't bought Ritz crackers in a long time. I gotta, I gotta add that back into rotation.
Shanna
Yeah. It's a good one for kids. They love them.
Laura
I do too.
Shanna
Yeah, they're really good. Buttery and crumbly. So I open up the sleeve of Ritz and I put five Ritz in her bowl and hand her the bowl and she goes, no, I want to five rits. And I'm like, that is five rits. She's like, no, that's three rits. And I'm like, no, that's five rits. Like, look right here. Look, there's five. So I'm using logic, right? I'm like, no, there's five. Look, one, two, three, four, five. No, that's three rits. And she just threw herself on the ground, kicking her little heels into the tile just full on meltdown because she wanted five rits. And I was giving her five rits.
Laura
Yeah, what a monster you are.
Shanna
I think this segment is all about us discovering how monstrous we are as people.
Laura
Absolutely. So, okay, what do you do in a situation where your child is crying because they want the exact thing you're giving them, but they don't recognize that you are giving that to them?
Shanna
Oh, just stand there and complete an utter shock and awe about what is going on in your life. I really didn't know what to do. It's just like, what is happening? It just was one of those that was so ridiculous, right? I really, really tried not to judge my kids because I totally understand that meltdowns come from a place that's beyond what the actual situation is. I totally get it. But yeah, it's just like, girl, there are five Ritz here. That's not three. I'm showing it to you. You know, it's just like, I think I, I got down and sat with her because like I've mentioned before in the show, I try to be present with her when she's having a tan trimmer meltdown. So she knows that I'm not afraid of her motions. And just sat with her. I think I said something like, you're really upset like about the Ritz, you know, just.
But with Cece Mann trying to even talk to her in a dantrum like that, you know, acknowledging feeling, it just makes her even more mad. It's like, I'm not mad about the Ritz. It's fuel on the fire. So I just sit there until she calms down and is over it. And we hug. And then I'm like, would you like your five Ritz? And she's like, yeah. Then it's just over.
Laura
So it's roller coaster. It's so amazing how it just is like over all of a sudden. We had a similar thing the other night where like Augie likes these little like lotus buns, you know, like those little buns. You remember take a bow that restaurant? Oh, yeah, I love that place. Those little like fold over bow buns, right?
Shanna
Yeah.
Laura
He likes those. He doesn't like a lot, but he likes those. So I get them from Hmart and they microwave really quick in the microwave. They're out of the freezer. And he was like, I want buns. And I was like, OK, you can have buns for dinner. And then I bring them out and he's like, I want frosty buns. And I was like, frosty buns? What are you even talking about? And I guess because they come out of the freezer, he knew that they were frozen, but I'm like, you can't, they're not edible. You can't eat them. You're gonna break your teeth. I can't give it to you. And yeah, it was the whole thing. I had to take him out of his chair and put him on the ground like he was having a seizure. I was like, I'm gonna have to take you out of your chair so you don't hurt yourself and just let him kick and scream about it until he had gone through it. And then he got back in his chair and ate damn buns.
Shanna
It's like, so glad we had that moment. Okay.
Laura
Yeah. Like you said, it's not about the, it's not about the Ritz, but it is especially irritating when it's like, you have the, like if only you could see that you have the thing you want, it's here. It's right in front of you. Cause like it's not even an issue of like, oh, I have to give into their demands and then they're going to have another tantrum. It's like, no, no, it's already there. There's no giving into demands. Yeah. Like I've already been a good mommy.
Shanna
I've already been nice. I've given you what you want to know. Can't you see? Yeah. Yep, but yeah, letting her write it out is often the best solution in our house.
Laura
Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, that was fun.
That's dramatic. I like that new segment. I think that gives us a lot of stuff to talk about.
Shanna
Yeah, yeah, indeed. Definitely plenty of meltdowns happening over here.
Laura
Oh, for sure.
Shanna
And I'll take note of my own. So next time we do the segment, I have something to admit.
Laura
Yes, yes. We can't wait to hear that. But for now, should we move on to our BFPs and BFNs? Sure.
Okay, so we close every show with our Big Fat positives or Big Fat negatives of the week. Shanna, what do you got for us?
Shanna
A BFP.
So Steve got me lots of nice things for Christmas. He's a great gift giver. I think if he were to take the quiz on love language, that might be one of his top love languages. He always does well with that. And this year he gave me a gift that I fell in love with. I think everybody needs to know about it and everybody needs to get one right away. Okay. Tell me. Okay. It is a blanket hoodie. It's like The snuggie, remember that? Like it's a blanket with sleeves, but this is like a million times better. It's like a ginormous hoodie that feels like a blanket. And it is the warmest, snuggliest, coziest thing it has a hood. I'm wearing it right now. Like I love this thing. I think it was an invention on Shark Tank initially. And now there's like all sorts of knockoffs, you know, out there. And Steve got me one. The brand is, yeah, Catalonia.
And I just, like, I wish I had this, like, since the moment I became pregnant, actually. It would be an amazing thing to wear when you're pregnant. An amazing thing to wear when you're a new mom and up late at night and it's chilly. And I don't know, I love being warm because I'm always cold. And I'm embracing the cozy life that the pandemic has brought upon me, a lot more sweatpants than I ever used to wear and stuff like that. And this just fits into my wardrobe in that way. And I just love it. Love, it makes me so happy.
Laura
I'm having trouble picturing it. Can you describe it and send me a picture?
Shanna
Okay, so mine is blue, like a turquoise blue, because he knows that's my favorite color. And it is huge. Like if I stand up and spread my arms out to the side, it hangs down like from my elbow, basically. It's a huge like big square. And it comes to like my knees and it has like a pouch for my hands. And inside the pouch is a pocket for my phone. So my phone or whatever I want to put in there. is secure. It's got a big hood on the inside. It's like Sherpa lined, you know, like really thick, warm, fuzzy. I don't know what it is. Goodness. Here, let me send you a picture.
Laura
Okay, because for some reason I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around it. Like, is it a blanket? Is it a hoodie? I guess it's both.
Shanna
It's like a gigantic hoodie made out of a blanket, basically.
Laura
Okay, okay.
Shanna
Here's a picture of me with it on. The hood is up. That doesn't give you an idea of the entire thing. So I'll send you one more pic from the internet. You do look, you look blissed out.
Laura
Like you kind of look high in this picture, Shanna. I'm not going to lie. That's how good this blanket hoodie is.
Shanna
See, it's a natural hide. Get yourself one. I mean, here is a screenshot from some Amazon listings. So you can see like the pictures.
Laura
Okay, so you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of a little kid putting on like their dad's hoodie, but made out of blanket material. That's the like ratio of body to hoodie size.
Shanna
Yeah, if CECE put on one of Steve's sweatshirts, it would be like that. And the one I have comes to my knees, but they also have them that go all the way down to your feet. Like if you just want to be completely enveloped in Sherpa sweatshirt,
Laura
I am getting this for my mom for the next occasion. There is an occasion. Yeah. She loves robes and jammies and stuff like that. So I could see your mom in this. Yeah. Unfortunately, my mom, her birthday just came and went. But and so did Christmas. But, you know, there's always another time. So OK, awesome. Yeah. That looks great. OK, your turn. What do you have for us? You know, I've debated about this, but I think I have a BFN. Oh, okay. And my BFN is the Oh Crap Potty Training Method book. Blasphemy. It is a little bit of blasphemy. So many people love that book. It is. And okay, to be fair, this part of the debate is that I didn't know if it was really a BFN because it's what we used when Augie was 20 months old to some success, right? And it obviously has been so helpful to so many people. So if it's a helpful manual for you, by all means, like I'm not saying don't use it.
For me, all of parenting is like this. Like if it works for you, awesome. I have no problem with that. It's just that I want to talk about it in terms of what happened in our family and why it's turned into a BFN for me. Okay. And the main reason it's turned into a BFN for me is how certain the author of that book is about certain things on it, specifically about how like her way is the only way. And if you do things any other way, you're basically setting your child up for disaster, right? Never being potty trained, having all these problems. Like she has a very authoritative tone in it that's like, this is the one and true way. And I get it. That's how you sell books, right? Like you say, I have the one solution. However, I've joined like the, oh crap, Facebook group and I've like seeing people talk about it all over my Facebook mom groups like in personal life and stuff.
And what I've discovered is that it's causing a lot of stress for a lot of parents because if you can't follow her method exactly, they're worried their child will like never be potty trained, right? And I don't like that. I don't like parents getting, you know, even more stressed out about an already stressful situation. And that's the main reason it's a BFN for me is like how it seems to be causing stress. Like there are all these people who are like, my son is 31 months old. Is it too late you know crap says it's too late enough i do my child wear diapers until they're in college you know or whatever yeah like no you have not. Different different times work for all kinds of different kids there is no one thing that works for everyone so i don't like that. And then there's one other aspect of the book that I also was just not a huge fan of.
And that is how she recommends that you stop calling your kid a baby when you start potty training. Do you remember this or did you hear about this? No, I don't remember this at all. So this is one of her things right she's like okay so this is like a big deal and so we want what we want to do is like say goodbye to the diapers and she even recommends like having like a little ceremony where you like say goodbye to your diapers and you throw them in the trash or whatever. To like mark to the kids like this is really happening. And in the same breath, she says like, and you might want to stop using the terms like baby towards your kid because they're not a baby anymore. They don't use diapers. So you may want to stop calling them baby, like come up with different words for them. And I remember when I read that I was like, it really made me sad because I was like, he's my baby.
First of all, he was 20 months then he was still a baby, right?
Shanna
Yes. He was under two years old under two-year-old.
Laura
He's a little I mean I know he's not like a little tiny infant But he's he's my baby and I like calling my kid baby like baby is a term of endearment I fully expect to call my kid baby as long to let me write Mm-hmm and when Sebastian was born, I actually really wanted me to keep telling him that he was my baby like I think it was something he was really nervous about and, you know, when there's a new baby, there's a lot of wondering what your role in the family is and all that stuff. And it was important for me to let him know he's always going to be my baby. And one of the things we really kept up. Thankfully, I didn't take this advice and maybe that's why it didn't work the first time. But, you know, I kept calling him my baby. And that combined with a couple other things just makes me feel like it's not a
a completely compatible method to use with also like doing respectful parenting. Cause there's a lot of sort of trying to get your kid to do something maybe before they're ready and then also like changing your behavior to them. And this whole like getting rid of diapers, having a ceremony get rid of them doesn't allow for regressions, which they don't, she doesn't like really acknowledge that regressions are normal and typical. So like for me, when the regression happened, when the baby was born, It stressed me out because I was like, what's happening? I thought we had it down. And like it was only after I read other people, you know, like I read some Janet Lansbury and I read some other stuff and I talked to other parents and I realized, oh, regressions are completely normal. Like he'll probably have another regression at some point.
Like when he starts going to kindergarten, who knows, like regressions happen, right? And I was really internalizing it like I screwed up somehow. So that is why Oh Crap is my BFN for this week. I don't think you should throw it out. I think if it works for you, great. And I think you can also like take things from it kind of the way you did. You take kernels from it and use it. But I would say don't bother treating it like the Bible. Like there's lots of ways to get to a potty trained child and that is not the one true method as far as I'm concerned.
Shanna
Absolutely. This time around with CeCe, I used some of it more. She's like 20, 21 months. She can probably do it. She showed interest in the potty. I don't know. I wish I hadn't been given the idea that 20 months old was perfectly fine and great and normal to body train. I think if anything, it's like on the low end of a bell curve, right? So it's like some 20 month olds can do this, not the majority at all. And that kind of got us off. on the wrong foot. And similarly, when it wasn't working out, I was like, Oh, but if I put her back in diapers, like I'm going to be screwing up all the progress and blah, blah, blah. And like, I had a lot of stress about that. And I think it was related to the advice in the book. But then ironically, I did find the chapter in that book that like, gave me permission to do a reset. And I was grateful for that.
So yes, there are nuggets to be taken out of the book. I think that like going naked for a little while is a great idea, you know, and not doing undies for a little while. But the absolutist tone that she takes, I agree, can definitely cause problems for people. And I think it should definitely be taken with a grain of salt and mixed in with whatever other methods work for you and your family. I know that the Rai method of potty training is basically don't do it, like wait until they're ready. Like a lot of people on like the Rai forums are like, my child is foreign still, you know, not ready and we're just waiting and So it's complete opposite of, oh crap, right? And I think you can, if you want, land somewhere in the middle and just do what's right for your family.
Laura
Yeah, just bribe them and tell them they can't watch TV until they get potty trained. Like I did. Yeah, exactly. Do what works for your family. I should write a book. How to potty train in two days.
Shanna
You'll sell millions.
Laura
Just don't let them watch TV.
But anyway, that's it for me this week.
Shanna
Me too. Listeners, we know that your kids are crying for some reasons, and we want you to share those with us. So, Laura, where can they reach us?
Laura
We are on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at BFPPodcast. We have a website, bigfatpositivepodcast.com. If you want to send us a voice memo, you can send it to our email. You can also just send us a plain old email if you want. To contact at bigfatpositivepodcast.com. And finally, if you want to join in on some amazing discussions, search Facebook for Big Fat Positive Community. Request to join. It's a private group, so you have to answer those two membership questions so I know you're not a robot. And then you'll get sent straight through to our awesome community full of awesome people.
Shanna
If you love our show, please rate us and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back next week with reading another five-star review, so send yours in. It could be yours. And spread the word. Let your friends know about BFP, our shows produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye. Bye.