Helping Your Toddler’s Fear of the Dark – Ep. 201
May 9, 2022
Listen Now:
Laura reports on the ingenious new tactic she used to allay her three-year-old’s latest nighttime fears, and Shanna talks about her daughter’s hilarious takeaway from a family trip in the mountains (a trip which did NOT go as planned). Also, in the special segment “Loose Ends,” Shanna and Laura provide updates on past topics they left hanging, including whether Laura ever donated her breastmilk to the UC Health Milk Bank, how Shanna’s three-year-old is doing in speech therapy, if Laura’s son is still obsessed with her cracked heels and more! Finally they share their BFPs and BFNs for the week. Shanna’s kids are 3 and 6 years old, and Laura’s kids are 3 years old and 14 months old.
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Episode Transcript
Shanna
Hi, welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. On this week's episode, we have our weekly check-ins, we have our special segment, Loose Ends, where we talk about playlists, pours, and punching bags, and we wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFMs. Let's get started! Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 201. Hi, Laura. Hi, Chana. How are you doing?
Laura
OK, I am tired again. I swear. I don't want to sound like a broken record on this, but it's so frustrating when you're previously well-sleep-trained children suddenly start waking up in the middle of the night, and you're like, what the fuck is happening? I thought I was past this phase. I know. And it's both of them again this week. It's just like they alternate who wakes up all the time and it's just I'm so tired. So not to belabor the point, I have some like specific things to talk about here. But we had had like a good week or so with like just a few little nighttime wakeings with Augie and like he was easy to get back to sleep and we didn't have to like sleep all night next to him on the nugget next to his toddler bed. But this week, Corey and I made the mistake of trying to do something for ourselves. How dare you? How dare we? How dare you? What was it? We went and saw a movie.
Oh, fun. Super fun. It should have been great. But we went and saw the movie. We were enjoying ourselves. And then I noticed I'm getting text messages from Eliza Arnani. And I was in the middle of the movie. Yeah. Fuck. And I think she was texting because our outlet, the monitor that monitors Sebastian's heart rate and oxygen like went off because he was like moving too much. Like if you move too much for a sustained period of time, it can't get a reading. And so like alarms is like having trouble getting a reading. And it only happens if you like leave it on them while they're awake or forget to like put it on or falls off, right?
And so I think she was only texting because she wanted us to know like he's fine like ignore these alarms, but he's okay But yeah, he like woke up at like 8 30 or something He usually goes down at like 6 37 and like she tried everything a bottle You know lying down with him and he would not calm down or go to sleep until we got home at like 10 Oh, my gosh. He cried for like an hour and a half with her. Yeah. I mean, she said it wasn't like screaming at the top of his lungs, but he would not like settle. He wouldn't play. He was just upset. And then he was up like every two hours overnight, basically the rest of the night. And then the next like three days were like that, Shanna. And I don't know if it's a regression or teething. He's still 14 months, but whatever it is, it's hard to not like interpret it as punishment for trying to do something fun for ourselves.
Shanna
It's really unfortunate that it keeps lining up with your attempts to go out and do stuff.
Laura
Every fucking time and like he's a little smarty pants, you know, he knows I think he probably overhears us talking about it Like I know he understands way more than what he's able to like express back to us You know his receptive language is very good and I feel like I need to start like talking to him like mommy's gonna go out But we're gonna be back and all that stuff. Yeah I think that's maybe the problem, but of course, like I didn't do that before this time. And now he's like traumatized and thinks that every night I'm probably like jetting off to some fun activity without him when in fact I'm just downstairs making Augie's lunch and like. doing the dishes. Right. Right. Exactly. Oh, no. And then on top of that, I don't know if it's like hearing Sebastian cry or unrelated, but Augie is also waking up every fucking night at this point and being really scared.
So this week I tried a new tactic. Oh, okay. I actually talked about it a couple of weeks ago in episode 199. I talked about like Dr. Becky's whole like, what is it? Monster spray strategy, right? Oh, right. Where you like sort of have a ritual, make-believe ritual that helps keep scary things at bay in the room. And after like the fourth or fifth night of Augie waking up in the middle of the night and like being too scared to let us like leave his room, But also, by the way, not scared enough to come sleep in our room with us, because I gave in. I was like, do you want to come sleep with mommy and daddy? And he was like, no, no, you wouldn't do that. But we had to stay with him. So we're like, oh, great. Another night on the nugget. This is fun.
Shanna
He's like, I demand you sleep uncomfortably on this big pad on my floor.
Laura
Honestly, I don't think it's that uncomfortable. Corey, I think, prefers the nugget at this point. Oh, my God. He thinks our bed is too soft. I don't know. I think he's crazy, but he likes a very firm mattress. So he like he embraces the nugget sleeping life. OK. But it was like three or four days of this in a row, maybe more. And we were in the bath at bedtime and it was kind of a quiet moment. And so I was like, Aki, let's talk about like what happens when you wake up in the middle of the night and he started talking about how there were too many shadows. He was scared of the shadows and that the shadows moved. Yeah, the shadows can be super scary. Super scary. I get that.
And you know, he's been doing this thing where part of his wakeups in the middle of the night involve him getting up, running to the light switch and turning on like the big overhead light in his room and then insisting that he sleep in like fully bright light all night, which isn't good for anyone to sleep in that light. And so I was like, OK, shadows, that makes sense. And, you know, Corey started in on like, oh, honey, shadows are just there. You know, they're not they can know that they can look scary, but they're not scary in trying to like logic it out of him. And I was all of a sudden reminded of Dr. Becky. I was like, Dr. Becky, Dr. Becky says do some make believe. So I pulled out my Dr. Becky hat and I was like, Augie, well, I have some good news for you. So last night you had told me you were afraid of the shadows.
So today while you were at school, we called the shadow busting team in and he was like, what shadow busting team? And I was like, I was like, they're a team. They come with a van and they spray every corner for your shadows and make sure all the scary shadows are gone. And he's like, I want to see, I want to see.
Oh, so I was like, okay, sure, let me just pull up a picture and I'm like Google searching Terminix, which is a pest control company. And so I was like, yeah, so here's the Terminix shadow busting group. See this guy, he came and I'm like just showing him the generic like marketing.
But he bought it. He like hook line and sinkered that shit. He was like, oh. And then like the rest of the night Corey did his bedtime that night and Corey came out and reported he was like, oh yeah, he was talking about the Terminix shadow busting team and how they came and like took care of the shadows.
That's amazing. So did it help him sleep? It did. That was the first night he didn't like freak out and call for us in the middle of the night. Dr. Becky saves the day and every day. You're ingenious. Yes, of course. So now I'm just worried that one day he's going to like see an actual Terminix truck and like think it's a shadow-westing team and not like a pest control team.
Shanna
This is definitely going to happen when he's like 17 and hanging out with his buddies. And he's like, oh my God, you have the shadow busting team at your house. And his friend's going to be like, dude, that's the exterminator. What are you talking about?
Laura
This reminds me of a really good story that I should probably save for our next throwback segment. Oh, yeah? Yeah. About the time my cat ran away with a raccoon.
Well, I can't wait to hear that. And hopefully we have throwback coming soon. Hopefully. I think it is actually up on the roster. But anyway, the good news is that for now, the Terminix Shadowbusting team worked great for him. So I'm only dealing with one child waking up in the middle of the night. And yeah, I have no solutions there, except for just lying down with him and praying.
I'm sure to check in later. I'll let you know as the weeks progress how that goes. All right. In the meantime, Shanna, I want to know, are you getting sleep? How are you over there? How are your girls?
Shanna
Uh, well, let me just tell you a little story about our week. No. We did a little family trip vacation up to the mountains last weekend.
Laura
Oh, that sounds fun. I haven't done that yet with the kiddos. So, okay, tell me more. Where'd you go? How was it?
Shanna
Uh, we went to Big Bear, uh, Big Bear Lake. It's up in the mountains. It's about two and a half hour drive from our house. Um, so it was kind of ambitious for us, uh, with the kids. We haven't done anything like that. With them really and yeah, it was it was fun. We got an Airbnb through a friend of my mom's group and it's like a kid friendly house. There was like a swing set outside and a hot tub and lots of kids stuff in the house bunk beds and all that stuff. So it was like, oh, that's perfect for us. We'll have a little getaway. And the drive up was surprisingly okay. It was like not bad. We did have to make a pit stop for the girls to pee like once we were up in the mountains. And we have a little travel potty that like you're supposed to put a bag like under the potty seat like a little plastic bag and it catches the pee or whatever and you tie it up and toss it.
how that particular travel potty works. We have one of those too.
Laura
They're really great.
Shanna
Oh, okay. So useful. Yes, yes, I love it. Unless your roll of bags is like completely buried under all of your luggage and everything that you packed inside your trunk. And so Steve's like, where are those bags? Where are those bags? He's looking around and... I was like, oh, forget it. Cece can just sit on this potty seat and pee right on the forest. And she just thought that was amazing. Like L-W-P over there, because she can squat down. Cece, I pulled the little potty out and set it down. And she started peeing. And I didn't realize we were on a bit of a hill. So all the pee just started rolling down under her feet. And then I realized that I had set it up right in front of the door of the car. getting her back in. I was trying to like step around pee.
But anyway, the real point of this little anecdote is that she loved peeing in the forest so much that like that was her main takeaway of what nature was. Like for the rest of the weekend, Stephen and I are like, oh, we're in nature. It's so beautiful. And Cece would be like, nature is for peeing. Nature is for peeing.
She thought we just went to the mountains to be outside, basically. I mean, yeah, a lot of people do that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So she was very excited by that. Once we got there, though, into the cabin, we were very delighted by this charming cabin. I went to the grocery store to pick up a few items for dinner and Steve texts me while I'm at the store and he's like, um, could you buy a thermometer while you're there? And I'm like, what? Oh, God. He's like, I think CeCe has a fever. And I was like, no!
No!
Shanna
So mad. So I buy a thermometer because who packs like thermometers in kids' medicine? No. Yeah. Nobody. For a weekend away, right? So I had to like spend money on stuff we already had at home. I bought ibuprofen and Tylenol, whatever just in case. And I get home to the cabin and we take our temperature and it's like 103. Oh, my God. I was like, what? happened. She was so lethargic like she had been fine on the drive up and then it just hit her like a ton of brick just like so lethargic and tired and massive fever poor thing at this point I looked at Steve and I was like should we just turn around and go home? We don't know what she has, if it's going to be really bad. Are there going to be medical services here? I don't know. Will she be more comfortable at home? We were just debating this. And Cece was literally saying, I want to go home. She did not want to be at the cabin.
And so we're debating whether to go home. And Elle caught wind of that. And then she started freaking out and breaking down. She's like, I don't want to go home. I would just stay in the cabin and oh my gosh, it was such a drama.
Laura
Yeah, I bet. I get wanting to be home when you're sick. You know, it's the comfort and coziness of home, but also you just drove two and a half hours. You don't have to drive two and a half hours back just to be sick at home. Yeah. So what happened?
Shanna
So we decided to stay at the cabin because I was like, you know, she's going to be sick. might as well take care of a sick kid in the forest and at a place with a hot tub. Like maybe I'll get to soak after the girls go to bed. And she was so exhausted by bedtime. It was actually pretty easy to get her to go to bed, even though it was like a new room and whatever. put them to bed, they shared a room for the first time and it actually went pretty well. Oh good. Yeah, and Steve and I got to hang out in the hot tub under the stars at night and like drink wine and enjoy our time. So at least like there was that. So that was really nice. Yeah, that sounds nice. Yeah.
Laura
So did she get better the next day or was she still sick?
Shanna
No.
Laura
Oh no.
Shanna
Nope. She was still super sick. Her fever was super high. I did drag her to the lake to just do a walkabout with the facts. I was like, I don't want to be stuck in this cabin all weekend. So I gave her some ibuprofen and we just drove to the lake and I was carrying her around and she just straight up said, mama, I feel so grumpy. Oh, I was I was like really impressed. Yeah. Wow. That's a really good development for you to be naming your feelings because she's so resistant to all of that stuff. And I was like, yeah, you are grumpy, huh? Because you're sick and it's okay to be grumpy and blah blah blah, but that's really all we did the rest of the time we stayed in the cabin and they watched movies on Netflix and hung out and then we went home and then she was very sick the entire week. She missed all week of preschool. She had a fever for about seven straight days.
We went to the doctor twice. She got tested for everything. Wasn't COVID, wasn't the flu, wasn't RSV. The doctor said I think she just has a raging virus. So yeah, she missed a whole week of preschool. Next week, her preschool's on spring break. Oh, come on. So basically, I just paid a ton of money for CeCe to go to preschool two weeks this month. I'm just like, ugh.
Laura
But whatever been there been there. It's so painful. It's like you can just like see the money like leaving your house in Visualize all that money that you're spending on not having child care. Yeah Yeah, we need universal preschool. It's crazy.
Shanna
Oh, I know. Yeah, that would be very helpful But she's starting to feel better now like finally by Friday. She was starting to get a little bit better. Oh good. Yeah But wow, what a doozy.
Laura
It just never fails. Like, it takes some real optimism to plan any trips at this point because it's just like, it's always fucking something, you know? Like, when we went on that trip to Newport or wherever down south for my mom's 75th birthday, I got sick. I was like sick the whole fucking time. And then the baby kept waking up all night. And it was just like, why do I even try? Why don't you even try?
Shanna
It's funny how we really do still hold on to some amount of hope and optimism. I mean, I fully have a weekend planned for the summer. We're going to do Redondo Beach again. And I'm just like, oh, it's going to be great. I'm so optimistic. But, you know, hope springs eternal. It does. Anyway, that's it for me. Should we move on to our special segment? Yeah, let's.
Laura
All right, we are back and our special segment this week is Loose Ends, where we tie up some topics that we left dangling in episodes past, and we have some questions for each other, because we wanna know how things turned out. So, Shanna, my first question for you is how is CECE's speech therapy going? In episode 185, you talked about taking her for an evaluation, and then a couple episodes later, she had her first session, but I don't think we've talked about it since then, so I'm curious.
Shanna
Great question. And I can't believe I haven't talked about it because it's going great. Oh, good. She's been going twice a week and she loves her speech therapist. They kind of play games and make it really fun for her to practice her sounds. And the therapist is really impressed with her development and progress with her speech. Like all of the basic letter problems that she was having that I was most concerned about are better now. She used to mix up B and D and use the letter T for a lot of sounds that wasn't the right spot and she was really, really hard to understand because of all of the basic mistakes she was making and she doesn't do that anymore. She's gotten very conscious of about how she speaks and uses her letters and stuff, and she's gotten a lot better, and we've moved on to more advanced things.
The thing we're working on now is her slowing down when she talks because she talks so fast that her brain kind of can't keep up and process the sounds really, you know, and then she'll be difficult to understand. Like if she says a lot to me at one time, that's when I'm like, wait, what?
So her therapist has her slowing down. It's like, I want a piece of cake to practice so that when she is in conversation, she can slow down a bit and be more understandable. And one thing I wanted her to do before she started preschool was practice her own name because she has a tricky name. And she never said it correctly. And I was like, can we practice teaching her how to say her name so that You know everyone knows who she is and she feels confident and proud announcing herself and so we did that and she caught on and Yeah, she's doing awesome.
Laura
Oh, I'm so glad to hear that It's so funny you talk about the like talking too fast the brain needs to catch up or maybe the brain is going too fast in the mouth needs to catch up thing because I feel like Augie does the same thing But he just ends up sounding like a record that's skipping Because he'll be like, mama, mama, did you know, did you know, did you know, did you know, did you know that, oh, this was his thing yesterday. Did you know, did you, did you know, did you know that you can eat lavender?
I was like, I did. Who taught you that? He said, Wyatt. Like, okay, Wyatt at school.
Okay.
Laura
Wow. He's learning some advanced culinary things there at preschool. This is a child who doesn't eat anything. Yeah. But he knows you can eat lavender. Hilarious.
Shanna
Oh my gosh. I love it. All right, let's move on to you. Speaking of eating, how is Augie doing with eating? Because I know you've expressed some concern about it in the episode 193 OMG segment. You were really worried about him eating and especially how that appeared in front of other people. And then in 187, I was like, I feed my girls hot dogs all the time. And you're like, oh, he's never had a hot dog. So has he had hot dogs? Is he eating veggies, snacks at school? What's going on? No. No.
Laura
None of it. The answer to every question you ask is no.
Just no. OMG. So specifically about hot dogs, I think the next day I was like, okay, I'm going to try hot dogs. Every kid loves hot dogs. Hot dogs are the best, right? Mm-hmm. Would not touch them, shove them away from his plate like nothing, right? Uh-huh. And I emailed his teachers asking about the snacks at school because I had mentioned in episode 193 that like he gets snacks at school and sometimes they have veggies and he's always marked down as eating them. So maybe he's eating them at school. Oh, right. So I sent his teachers an email because that's like the way you get sort of like lower priority questions answered. And I was like, this is really not a big deal. I'm just super curious because Augie has not eaten a vegetable at home in at least six months. So I'm curious if he's eaten any at school.
But so the teacher wrote back and said that the Bright Wheel snack updates are more to let you know that a snack has been offered and at what time we sat down. The children have the freedom to choose whether they want to eat the snack or not. We strongly encourage them to take a tri-bite, but we do not mark the amount of snack they had. Auggie usually will take the tri-bite, but will let us know he doesn't like the food, mainly the vegetables.
No Recently he's been wanting snack from his lunchbox, which we allow as long as it's not inside of the lunch I hope this helps so the answer is no he's not eating Oh My god, so Yeah, here's the thing so I'm trying to just work on me like I'm actually not trying to work on him with this I'm trying to continually offer different foods and not like just Stop offering him foods, but I'm trying to work on my mindset more than his because like Mm-hmm creating more pressure isn't gonna work. I know that's not gonna work It's just gonna make him resist more and I really don't want to create like some kind of lifelong weirdness with food with him So I'm just trying to Let myself be okay with the way he's eating and move on.
Shanna
Absolutely. That totally makes sense. One thing you mentioned, though, is that you noticed he has some kind of smell aversions to food and to certain other things in life. Any developments on that front? Yeah.
Laura
It's interesting because, yeah, like with the hot dogs, this is a perfect example of this. When I put it in front of him, he like shoved the plate away and said, I don't want to smell that. And like, really? Yeah. And if we're having some dinner that he doesn't like, he'll be like, I don't want to smell that. And one of our listeners actually wrote in, I think on our Facebook group, and she suggested that it's possible he has this COVID complication. called COVID-Perozmia? Have you heard of this? No. Okay, so this is apparently a fairly common side effect of having COVID. And you know, he had COVID in August, so it's been a long time, but it can last like a really, really long time for people. And it's this thing that happens where like, you don't lose your sense of smell, but everything starts to smell like gross, like rotten garbage basically. Oh no.
And people are really suffering with this, like really terribly suffering with this. And I actually joined a couple Porosmia like support groups on Facebook to try to like learn more about it and try to see if this might be what's happening with him. It's hard, it's hard to tell, you know. I don't know because it, I guess it is kind of lined up with when he started being really, really picky with food. But it's also an age thing, you know, like it's also kind of the age where you get really picky with food, two and a half. So I don't know, I'm trying to be open to that idea. But yeah, so that's a possibility, I guess, but I don't really know what to do about it. So I'd be curious if any of our listeners have had kids with the COVID pyrosmia, because I can't find anything about it really. Have you asked your pediatrician? No, that would be a smart move.
All right. Well, I know what to follow up on next time. Yeah. I've googled the shit out of it, but I haven't asked her. Good idea, Shada. Yeah. Ask her about that next time. Put that in your notes. Okay. Okay. So speaking of me trying to like tap into my calm on this parenting issue, in episode 194, you talked about how you just had like mom rage and you didn't really know what to do with it. So I'm curious, how's that going? You still feeling ragey?
Shanna
at times, but there are a couple of things that have helped improve it recently. One is Cici's three-nagerness has gotten a little bit better. Oh, good. So for a long time, she was so, so clingy. Like she could not go to the bathroom by herself. I could not leave a room without her crying and melting down. She was having so many meltdowns and that has gotten better. It's evened out, especially with her going to school. I think she's got a little bit more of a grownup-ness about her. So that helps a lot. The other thing is that we had this Mylar balloon leftover from like Elle's birthday or Valentine's Day. I don't remember what exactly it was from, but one day Steve was holding it and the girls were like punching it like it was a punching bag.
And I was like, Um, I kind of want to get in on that action. And he's like, Sean, do you want to try it? And I'm like, okay. And I punched the living shit out of this Mylar balloon while he held it like it was my punching bag, like it was my mom rage release. I think everyone in the family was just looking at me like, Whoa, like, calm down. But I was like, just punching it so hard. And to tell you the truth, I felt better after that. Like, I just knew I needed the permission to, like, hit something, anything. Yeah. And that provided a bit of relief.
Laura
So, yeah, it's gone a little bit better. Well, we still need to book that rage room. I think that'll be like a great therapy session.
Shanna
Yes, I think we should for sure. Okay, your next question. I've been dying to know the answer to this. I cannot believe I haven't asked you yet. Did you ever send in your breast milk to the milk bank? And did you get your nutritional analysis back?
Laura
Oh yeah, I did. Okay, so we talked about that in episode 187 when we interviewed Stephanie Lehman from the UC Health Milk Bank. And yes, I did finally send my milk in. I was kind of like, you know, I could only collect up to Sebastian's first birthday, which was February 1st. And then I wanted to wait until like I had a little bit extra that I had pumped just in case like we needed it in the fridge. And then I just was getting busy with the renovation and stuff and forgot. So I finally packed it all up like they had sent me a box ages ago and I packed it all up. I got some dry ice and I sent it off on March 14th.
Shanna
Yay, good for you. That's amazing.
Laura
Thank you. Yeah, I sent 266 ounces. I was hoping to get more, but, you know, life got in the way. But still, I think that's a great amount. Every drop counts as the UC Health Milk Bank says. And yeah, I got a really cute picture of Sebastian sitting in front of all the milk. How many bags of milk is that? Oh, good question. I don't know. They're mostly, I think, four to six. ounce bags. That's a lot. 40, 50 bags or so? 45? Amazing. So yeah, something like 50-ish bags probably. So yeah, I did it. That's awesome. So did you get your nutritional analysis back? Yes, I did. They actually sent a very cute little graphic. It looks like a little nutrition box that you get on like packaged food. Here, I'm going to send it to you.
Shanna
Awesome. Okay, it's sent. Oh, that's very cute. Laura's nutrition facts, one analyzed breast milk sample. Oh, cool. So for every ounce, it's 19 calories.
Laura
Which apparently the average is 19 and a half. So maybe that explains my skinny boys.
Shanna
Oh, maybe. Oh, love in every drop, 100% of daily value.
That's adorable, yes. So what about the other stats? How are they, where do they fall on the bell curve of breast milk analysis?
Laura
So I don't know about the, they give you protein, fat and carbohydrates per 100 milliliters. I don't actually know how those compare to other breast milk samples because they didn't tell me that. Or formula, I'm curious. Oh, that's actually a interesting comparison. I haven't done that. Okay, let's see. So infant formula, Okay, so in formula per every 100 milliliters, there's 2.1 grams of protein. And you had 1.01 grams of protein.
Shanna
Okay, there's 4.2 grams of fat. Okay, you have 3.23 grams of fat. And there's 8 grams of carbs. Interesting, and you have 7.5 grams of carbs. So my milk is watery compared to formula.
But that's so awesome. And what they do at the bank is they mix it up with other people's breast milk. So if someone else has higher numbers than you, they mix it with yours and then it all evens out. So it's like genius.
Laura
Yeah. And you know, my milk, this could have been a sample from the morning or the night. We don't actually know. So it could be water. You know, if it was run from first pump in the morning, which most of my pumps were, it's going to be water more like watery than the ones that are like last at night, which are fattier.
Shanna
Right.
Laura
So yeah, but it was fun to get that analysis. And you know, it's fine because I know my boys are both doing quite well. So I don't need to feel inferior with my 19 calories per ounce.
Shanna
Not inferior at all. You are doing awesome. And I love that you made that donation.
Laura
Good for you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so I have a question for you. In episode 193, you talked about how you have a new dinner routine, a new ritual called boo-hoo's and woo-hoo's, where you talk about one good thing and one bad thing in your day. I wonder where that idea came from, talking about one good and one bad thing.
Shanna
I know where you're going with this. BFPs and BFNs. And let me tell you, so many times at the table during Woohoo's and Boohoo's, it comes to me, and I'm like, okay, my BFP for the day is, and Steve's like, BFP. I'm like, yeah, my BFP for the day. He's like, BFP. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Woohoo's and Boohoo's. So it's totally in my head. Anyway, woohoo's and boohoo's are still going strong. The girls, yeah, they really love it. And they just ran with the idea. We have so many woos now. We call them just woos because like we do woohoo's and boohoo's, then they have come up with excited woos. So they can tell us something they're excited about or looking forward to. They came up with what woos, which I really like. It's their opportunity to ask us a question about anything, anything that's on their mind. Usually it's like, how many days are you until Easter?
What are we doing this weekend? But it's, you know, it's really cute. Sometimes it's questions about us and our day or something they're concerned about. So that's really cute. And then if I let them, they would do woos about everything. Sometimes it's like, I wanna do a mama woo and they say something nice about me or I wanna do a Sasha woo or at one point it got to be so many woos that it was just way too much. Like everyone didn't get a chance to speak. So I'm like, let's dial it back. Okay, let's just stick with our basic woos. But yeah, it's fun and it fosters conversation and we're still enjoying it. That sounds lovely. It didn't work out so well in my house. Oh, well, you guys did it that one time and it worked well.
Laura
What happened? Yeah, so we did it that one time and it was great. And Augie has flatly rejected it every other time.
Shanna
What?
Laura
What does he say? Hey, let's do our woo-hoo's and boo's. I don't want it. I don't want to do woo-hoo's and boo's. It's just like, talking about three major, like for quite a lot of loud, he's just like, wine, wine, wine. And I just, and so I'm just like, fine, whatever. I'm not forcing you to talk about something good about your day. Yeah. Go back to rejecting your dinner.
Shanna
Maybe it'll come back around when Sebastian gets older really what keeps it going in my house is the competition between the girls yeah every night I'm like who wants to start woohoo's and boohoo's and they both want to be the first one to talk And they shoot their hand up in the air, and it's just this big competition. So, I don't know, maybe it'll come back.
Laura
I think so too. He's really rebellious. He doesn't like being told what to do, ever. It's a challenge. It's a real challenge.
Shanna
Such a three-year-old thing. Oh my God, I swear. Woohoo's and boohoo's are like the only thing CeCe cooperates with and telling you. Everything else, it's like that. Okay, question for you back on the topic of breast milk. Anna on Facebook asked, are you still nursing Augie? Yep.
Laura
Oh, going strong. Yeah, I mean, there's the occasional morning where he forgets to ask and I do not remind him. And we are down to two minutes on a timer every morning because I don't want to do any more than that. I think truly I want to wean him, but I just don't want to deal with the meltdowns and the jealousy that's going to come because he's going to see Sebastian nursing all the time. And so, like, I'm kind of enduring the two minutes every morning because he is so, you know, attached to it and just figuring I'll wean them both at the same time. Or if Augie suddenly decides he doesn't want to do it anymore, like more power to him. But yes, for now, every morning, the first thing he asks Want to go downstairs and have boo boo time and he has to have it like in the same spot on the couch now Oh my gosh, this is funny. Have I told you about the right boob left boob thing?
Okay, so he only wants to drink from my right boob Oh, because he has decided that my left boob has cow's milk in it What? Where did he come up with that idea? No idea. One day, he's had a preference for my right, I think, because it has more milk in it in general. It's like the overproducer. Oh, okay. And one day, Sebastian had been up super early and had nursed a ton and there really wasn't any milk left on my right side. And so he was like, there's no milk. And I'm like, well, try the other side, honey, try the left side. And he took like two sips and he was like, that tastes like cow's milk. What? And now, every morning, he's like, is that the right side? Does that have mama's milk in it? And I'm like, yes, it has mama's milk in it. Because the other side has cow's milk. So yeah, he thinks I make cow's milk out of my left boob and mama's milk out of my right.
And my mom was like, maybe you should just tell him that's cow's milk on both sides. Oh, there you go. So I'm holding that back just in case, like. Yeah. But honestly. Keep that one in your back pocket. because he doesn't eat anything. I'm like, well, at least he gets some nutrition. I mean, that's not true. He eats carbohydrate. Like he eats food, but just not like vegetables and stuff. But like, I know there's some vitamins and stuff, you know, calcium in my breast milk. So I'm like, he's getting something out of it. And yeah, so I'm a little hesitant to stop just for that reason. Right. I don't know. Maybe maybe he'd eat more if he didn't have, you know, two minutes of boob in the morning. I don't know. It's all a mystery. But the answer is yes. I am still nursing him. All right. OK, so I have another question for you. Do you have another question for me?
Shanna
Yes.
Laura
OK. So let's hold off. Let's take a quick break and then come back with our final loose ends questions. Shall we? Yes.
Okay, we are back and we each have one more question for each other for our loose end segment and Shanna. Yes. Okay, so in episode 197, you were talking about how Cece was having trouble sleeping through the night and you talked about how you created like a 10 hour long playlist or something of lullabies for her. I'm dying to know because I currently don't have a child who sleeps through the night, so help.
Shanna
Yes, it is still going well. Of course, she's been sick, and we went to the cabin. But I brought the Alexa to the cabin and played her lullabies for her all night there, too. And it's still going really well. Knock on wood and her big bear. I have her giant teddy bear that I tuck in next to her when she sleeps. So she's got her giant teddy bear, and she has her 24-hour lullaby playlist.
And in that episode, I promised that I would share a link to that playlist. And I have that. I actually created a Spotify account for BFP so that we can share things like our favorite songs and our 24-hour lullaby playlist so other people don't have to put 24 hours of songs into their own playlist. And I have a playlist called Shaughness Kids' Favorite Songs, and I think you need to make one for your kids too, so the listeners can know all of our favorite jams. And I will be sure to share that this week with everybody. Oh, perfect.
Laura
Okay, we'll look for that in the show notes for this episode. Awesome.
Shanna
Yeah. Okay, my last question for you in episode 191, you talked about how Augie is obsessed with your cracked heels, which is so hilarious. The burning question, Laura, have you cured your cracked heels? Yes, I actually have, Shanna.
Laura
Thank you for asking. Oh my God, I need the solution. What did you do? OK, so well, first of all, basic self-care is what the answer was. I just had to put lotion on my feet every night for a while. I used this gold-bond, cracked heel lotion that I found at Walgreens and put it on really thick underneath socks. And I hate wearing socks to bed, but I did it. And so I did that for a week. And then I got this magical foot scrubber thing.
Shanna
Please tell me it's not one of those cheese grater heel things because I cringe at the thought of them.
Laura
No, it's not like a microplane. It is called the Earth Therapeutics Preciso Plus Pedicure File. Okay. And it's like a very fine textured metal, but it's not like with holes, you know? Like it's just like bumpy. Okay. And I don't know how it works so well, but I swear it is magic. And the person who recommended it to me was like, this is absolute magic. Like same thing. I don't know how it works, but it works so well. I got it from Ulta, Ulta Beauty, which I think is nationwide. I need this. I will send you the link. I'll post it to our show notes. I can't believe like I've lived my life without this thing so far. So anyway, I did it. And then my cracked heels went away and now Augie is bereft because he doesn't have like he keeps saying, let me see your cracks. Let me see your cracks. I'm like, there's no more cracks. Like I took care of them. Oh, no. But he's moved on, Shanna.
Oh, to what? Now he asks, can I look at your pores?
Shanna
Pores? Oh my God.
Laura
And he will grab this little portable egg-shaped nightlight that we have in his room. He will grab it and hold it and stand right nose to nose with me. I love it because it's so cute. I get to be so close to him. Cuddling time is less and less as they get older. So I'm just like, yes. Please be close to me and he like stands and just very seriously stares at my pores for like minutes And then the other day he said the funniest thing he's like looking at them and like doing his inspection He looks on both sides and he just says mama why are your pores so important? Oh, good question. You know, I just laughed, but I was like, oh, you know, they're part of your skin and they like excrete oils to help you with your, you know, skin, whatever. I think I just made something up. Uh, but I couldn't stop laughing. Mama, why are your pores so important?
Shanna
Oh, I love the things he thinks about. I think you have a little dermatologist in the making.
Laura
Apparently. Yes. Oh, I love him. That is too cute. It's so funny. But yeah, I think that's all the dangling loose ends for now, right?
Shanna
I think so. Should we move on to our BFPs and BFNs? Yeah, let's.
Okay, so we wrap every week up with our big fat positives or big fat negatives of the week. Laura, you're up first. What do you got for us? I've got a BFP.
Laura
All right. What is it? Okay. So the BFP is the movie that I went to go see that triggered the whole week of terrible sleep for Sebastian, but it's worth it because this movie was so fucking good, Shanna. Ooh, I need a recommendation. What was it? It's everything, everywhere, all at once. Have you heard of it?
Shanna
Oh, I have heard of it. It's not streaming yet. Is it? Do I have to go to a theater to watch it? You might have to go to a theater.
Laura
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it should still be out in the theaters when this episode comes out because I think it was like an early release in LA and so like it should be out. It better be because it deserves to be out in the world and it deserves to be seen in a theater if you're like comfortable enough to go to a theater because it is It's just like a visual like explosion like there's just so much detail It's a very maximalist movie You know like it's just like there's just a lot going on and there's just a lot of like the set decorations very dense and there's just a lot to look at so like a big screen really just made it pop But it's like it's I don't want to get very much away, but it's like about like multiple universes is about like Chinese family like immigrant drama. It's got you know action sequences.
It's got heartfelt mother-daughter Baggage, you know, like it's it's it's got everything and it's so good. It's just so good I haven't seen a movie in so long where I just like was floored by it You know, wow, it's excellent. So I just want everyone to go see it because it's like not something that comes along very often. And it's directed by they call themselves Daniels because I guess there's two guys named Daniel who directed it. Oh, OK. And yeah, just it's just wonderful. So if you have an opportunity, go see it. If you're listening to this later, find it on whatever streaming platform it's worth like paying to rent. Trust me. So good so good, but yeah everything everywhere all at once amazing amazing movie go see it all right I love that rack. Thank you. All right. So what about you? Do you have a BFP or a BFN? I have a BFP.
Shanna
Oh good. I am so excited about this and so proud of my Elle She's in kindergarten as you know and working and has been working very hard this year on learning her letters and words and writing and reading and She is fully reading now Nice. That's awesome. I didn't know that she could read. Like I was actually the other day like, Steve or like, are they even teaching her to read and what is going on? And I was at bedtime with her the other night reading a book and we were reading kind of like a chapter book like full pages of copy. And all of a sudden, she's like, oh, I want to try reading. And I'm like, OK, go for it. And she just started reading and kept reading. Like I had to prompt her in a couple words. Four full pages later, I was like, what? You can read. And she's like, yeah, I guess I can. And I was like, holy shit, brain exploding.
And she's been reading books and stuff ever since. It's like everything was just building up in her brain. And then it just clicked. And then she just started doing it. And it's awesome. I'm so, so proud of her. And she's proud of herself and proud of her too. Yeah, it's a whole new world when your kid can read. They can read to themselves. She can read instructions on her homework. Yeah. It's awesome.
Laura
I remember when our friend Jen's son started reading, she was like, it's amazing. It's like having a babysitter. He just goes off and reads by himself.
Shanna
Oh, that's so cool.
Laura
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, yay, way to go L. And I love the story of like, you just being like, she can't read. Okay, I guess she can.
Shanna
Oh, totally. She blew me away. So funny. Alright, well I guess that's our episode for the week. Do we have a five star review we can read?
Laura
Okay, yes we do. We actually have a very special review from a very special listener, Misi Smith, who has sent us in voicemails and she's just been really supportive over the years. So hi Misi. Yes, I love her. Hi. We love hearing from her so she left us a great review. She said amazing just amazing Smiley face emoji with the blushing cheeks and the like football hands What do you call that? We're like you're making a touchdown sign like the woohoo hands. Is that what you think of them? I think of them as like touchdown Oh, yeah, that too. OK. So she says, these two are the light. Honestly, I came across this podcast when I found out I was pregnant. I went searching mainly because I'm the research slash got to be in the no type. So I wanted to learn. I learned I laughed and then learned and laughed some more.
Shanna and Laura will always have a special place in my heart as they were with me throughout my whole pregnancy, even post baby. Their intro jingles the sponsorships, their stories about their babies, it all brings me so much joy. We all know that feeling we get when a certain scent or song reminds us of a special time in our life or a fond memory. Well, that's exactly what this podcast does for me. Thank you for all you do, Shanna and Laura, and you too, Steve, You guys make a great team. Much love and big hugs from a neighboring L.A. city. Heart emoji. Meesey. Oh, Steve even got a shout out. Oh my God, he's going to be so happy. We have to tell him. Yes. So great. He deserves a shout out. And thank you so much for that five star review.
Shanna
Thank you so much. And listeners, if you would like to leave us a five-star review, we might read it on an upcoming episode. So head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and can rate and review. And spread the word. Let your friends know about BFP. If you have any burning questions that we didn't answer in our loose end segment, please feel free to reach out. Laura, where can everyone 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 an email, you can always throw a voice memo in there. Just send it to contact at bigfatpositivepodcast.com. And finally, if you want to join the coolest group of people on the internet, just search Facebook for Big Fat Positive Community. It's a private group, so you have to request to join. And please be sure to answer those two membership questions so we know you're not a robot, and then you will get sent straight through.
Shanna
Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. Have a great week. Bye. Bye.