Embracing Your Child’s Unexpected Talents – Ep. 222

Laura

Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week, we have our weekly check-ins. We've got our special segment, Loose End, where we follow up on some topics we left hanging, such as sauces, sports, and spacing out. And we close with our BFPs and BFNs for the week. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 222 in the year 2022. Hi, Shanna.

Shanna

That feels either really special or really spooky.

Laura

Well, Halloween is coming up, Shanna. So maybe it's a spooky coincidence.

Shanna

I'm down with that. You know I like ghosts.

Laura

You just want me to have a haunted house. You don't actually want to interact with ghosts yourself.

Shanna

No, no, no, no, no. I want to live vicariously.

Laura

Just throw a like poltergeist in there just for fun.

Shanna

Make all my dreams come true.

Laura

Well, anyway, you're going to have to wait until my check in to hear about all the ghosts that we have in our house. But I do want to know what's happening with you and your family this week.

Shanna

Okay, my three-year-old, Cece, has achieved a milestone that I didn't even know existed for little kids, okay? Is unicycling backwards?

Laura

I mean, it's cool if your daughter isn't doing that yet. I mean, Augie's been doing that since like 18 months. Oh, yeah, okay. But everyone just develops at a different rate, so don't worry about it.

Shanna

Hashtag humble brag. Well, that might be what I'm about to do, so I should probably slow my roll.

Laura

Okay. By the way, just to clarify, the kid won't even get on his Strider bike, so that was all a lie.

Shanna

Okay. Now, CeCe has been working on this very hard for several weeks now. And we all know CeCe is something about her personality as she is extremely determined. She gets in her mind something she wants to achieve and she does it, she sticks with it. Laura, my daughter has learned how to gargle.

Laura

Wow, that's actually pretty impressive.

Shanna

It just didn't even occur to me that that's a thing that a human needed to learn how to do. like obviously I don't know when I learned to gargle. Elle at some point just started doing it. We use a mouthwash, right? Like in the bathroom, it's one of my ways to get them excited is buy them fricking bubblegum mouthwash and let them swish around. They love it. But Elle has been gargling and Cece's like, I want to gargle and she can't do it, right? She's like kind of choking on the liquid. It's just been a nightmare, but she's like pissed because she can't gargle and she kept working on it. I'll be damned that low three-year-old can gargle now and she is so proud.

Laura

You know, this is inspiring me to try with Augie because the kid does it. Uh-huh, but he does it with bath water, which is really gross. Um, and I don't like, I never connected that that was like a skill. It was cause we're always like, stop, stop. Don't do that. You know, we don't do that. Don't do that. But you're right. It is like a very complex movement. Right. You got to tilt your head back. You got to keep this liquid in the back of your throat while slowly breathing out and usually like making a noise. Like, can you do it without making a noise? I've never tried. Oh, I don't know.

Shanna

I mean, the liquid's going to bubble, so there's going to be some sound. I don't know what your obsession is with quiet gargling.

Laura

Well, I'm just I was trying to like, you know, demonstrate for the podcast. Anyway. I really want you to put together like a rocky style montage of her learning to gargle.

Shanna

I wish I had the footage. Oh, you know, maybe she has the acting gene. I'll see if I can get her to pretend that she's learning to gargle.

Laura

of our rivals. Someone get us on, uh, name that tune. The Gargles. Yes. What's the new show? Beach is Am? Yeah, Beach is Am. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd be very bad at that show. Very bad.

Shanna

Very. Anyway. Me too.

Laura

Okay. So is it just gargling updates this week or do you have anything else to check in on?

Shanna

I do. I have one more check-in. Mostly has to do with L. CECE is along for the ride as usual. So I've mentioned before that L has a Minecraft addiction and it drives me bananas, right?

Laura

Not so much the actual game playing that drives you bananas, but the obsession with watching videos about playing the game is the problem, right?

Shanna

Yes. And they're on YouTube and then she's sucked into this. YouTube rabbit hole and watching God knows what. And I just, I really, really hate it. So I've been trying to figure out a solution for this. I first was like the obvious, right? Like let's remove the YouTube app from our Apple TV because that's where she's watching it. And Steve gave me some real hard pushback on that. He apparently also loves YouTube, but he doesn't watch Minecraft, other things. And so he didn't want to take it off. So he had this idea like, let's make a folder like in your apps on Apple TV, you can make a folder and like put a bunch of apps in it. He's like, we'll hide it in this folder. I'm like, mm-hmm. OK, that's going to work real good. These kids are so savvy. I mean, especially, right? She's so savvy.

Laura

Yeah, I tried to add some Transformers videos for Augie, and that did not work out much. Oh, really? It was a displeasure, yeah. Yeah, he really wanted to watch those Transformers videos.

Shanna

Yeah, yeah. Because if you go into the app itself, the YouTube Kids app, you're really limited what you can add, right? Like she loves this specific Minecraft video called JJ and Mikey. It's like these two characters that are like playing Minecraft or whatever. And it's pretty benign. So I don't really mind if she watches a few of those. I just don't want her watching like four hours of it. Yeah. So we go to our own YouTube account, search that video. I add a couple into YouTube Kids and some other stuff. People reading kids books, educational videos about how to play softball, science videos, there's a variety. And I was like, oh man, she's going to be pissed. Like she's not going to want this limitation, blah, blah, blah. So I went in and talked to her one day. I was like, look, we're going to try something different. I don't want you watching YouTube anymore.

Laura

That's amazing. I mean, I love YouTube Kids. We've been doing the same thing with Augie because it's like, It's just too much being on actual YouTube and it's nice to be able to curate exactly what's available to him, but then he feels some independence because he can scroll. You know, if you have enough videos in there, he can scroll and kind of feel like he's making the choices. So yeah, I love that app. I think that's a really, really useful app. By the way, Sebastian has 100% figured out how to like go on the iPad, find the YouTube kids app and like swipe to truck tunes already.

Shanna

I'm not surprised at all these little toddlers are so damn savvy. It's like, yeah, it's amazing.

Laura

Yeah, it is. I mean, just this little, you know, fat little toddler finger just zooms right in that icon.

Shanna

He knows what he wants.

Laura

Yeah.

Shanna

Anyway, those are my check-ins for the week. What about you? What do you guys have going on?

Laura

Okay, so we have a fun check-in this week. I just have two little check-ins for the boys. Augie is still three and a half and Sebastian is 19 months now. And this week we actually started them in swim lessons again for the first time since the pandemic.

Shanna

Fun!

Laura

Yay! And I should say it's Sebastian's first time ever in swim lessons. And for Augie, We had done like a couple months of really casual mommy and me swim classes and then the pandemic hit and we obviously stopped going. So I had been like kind of anxious to get them back in but, you know, trying to book swim lessons, we've talked about this I think in Los Angeles, especially in the summer, it was just too overwhelming for me. I was trying to get in at the Rose Bowl, which is in Pasadena and a very popular place but like, Our friend Carrie tried to do that and apparently she was like logged in at midnight like she was getting Coachella tickets or something like refreshing the page and she still wasn't able to get in. Yeah, so I've just been kind of dragging my feet on it and then my mom has really been getting on my case about it. She's like, these boys need to learn how to swim.

Shanna

Ooh. Yeah.

Laura

And like a gym nearby. So that was a big selling point. A big problem was the price point. It was not super affordable. Is it classes or one on one? So they're classes. They're four on one for their ages. And it's like mommy and me for Sebastian. So I get in the water with him. And for Aki, it's like him and three other kids and a teacher. And you know, it's like they're small, I get it. Like it's not something you necessarily want to cheap out on, right? Because it's important to teach your kids to swim. But we just didn't have it in the budget. And I just couldn't justify the price. And so I then just told my mom about it and let her think it was her idea to pay for the lessons. Yes, leather. And she was like, let me do it. It'll be my gift. I'll be happy to do that. And then I can know grandma paid for them to learn how to swim. I was like, oh, you don't have to.

Shanna

Okay. Aw, what a brave guy putting his face under. That's awesome. His little swim cap is so freaking cute.

Laura

That's one of the things about this swim school is they like require these swim caps. I guess it tells them what level the kids are at. It's really funny. Oh, that's cute. Yeah, but yeah, he jumped in off the side of the pool while holding the instructor's hands, got totally submerged, thought it was hilarious, really enjoyed it, and did a little kick swim with his head underwater on the way back. And I'm just so proud of him because I feel like there's a lot of kids who just will not get their heads under, and that's a big sticking point. So I just thought that was really sweet.

Shanna

Yay, that's so fun. This is making me want to get back into swim class with the girls. I have been neglecting to do that.

Laura

I thought you were going to the Y. Yeah.

Shanna

Cece finished her course at the Y and the next level is like no mommy and me. Like it's just an instructor. And I don't know. I just wasn't feeling like she was quite ready for that yet. But now that she's been in preschool longer and is more independent, I think maybe she will be ready for that.

Laura

Are you allowed to be there on the side?

Shanna

Well, that's the thing about the Y is you can't even be by the pool. The parents have to be out in the lobby of the YMCA, watching through a window that is really far away from the swim lesson pool. There's a big lap pool in between me and the little pool. Or else I need to sign her up for a different location where I can be right there or something. I don't know. I need to figure something out.

Laura

I don't blame you. I don't think I'd be comfortable with that either. You don't know who these swim instructors are. Hopefully they're well qualified, but you don't know. And you can't just take your tiny kid, your preschooler, and let them get around water without knowing how to swim and not know what you're doing. So I don't blame you with that one.

Shanna

Yeah, exactly. It would be much better for Elle. She's really confident in swimming and she'd probably be working on her strokes now at this point, you know? But yeah, not with the little ones.

Laura

Yeah. I also sent you a picture of Sebastian at the end of our class. They do a little bit of playtime at the end of class where they give them inner tubes to hang out in so they can practice kicking and go get toy, you know, they throw in a bunch of bath toys into the pool and they can go try to race to try to get them and stuff.

Shanna

Aw.

Laura

That's so cute. Oh, fun. He doesn't have his swim cap on because he was not having it. Oh, I can imagine many toddlers wouldn't. Yeah. Not a big fan, but we'll work on that. And then the other quick check-in I wanted to do this week. Actually, I have a little video I want to show you. So Corey and I have had this joke about Augie for a while now, which is that he is going to be a director. You know, Corey is in the TV industry. He's a TV writer. And Augie is, you know, he's so sweet. I love him so much. He's also just like bossy. He's just like, he directs everyone around him. Like he has gotten worse about this too. But ever since he was like, I want to say two and a half, he tries to like direct play a lot. Like, so he'll be like, no, you're this person and I'm this person and this is what we're doing. And if you do it wrong, he's just like,

Speaker 1

Okay. No, you forgot to say action. You're right. You're right. Action. Attack. Yeah? Now, do a scary movie. Okay. Like, you can be the ghost, and when I say action, do it. Okay. Action! Ooh, I'm the ghost. I'm here to unto you.

Speaker 2

Now... So when I'm done with the scene, you say cut. That's how I go, I'm done with the scene, okay? So you say action to start the scene, you say cut to end the scene.

Speaker 1

Action! Woohoo!

Speaker 2

I'm here to hide your dream! Cut! Thank you. Okay, good. Was that a good take?

Speaker 1

No. Now it's like the real ones.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Speaker 1

Action! Woohoo! No, I didn't say action. You just said action! No, that was just... That was just... That was just practicing. Now this is going to be the real action. No more to go through again.

Laura

What am I doing?

Speaker 1

A zombie run. A zombie run? Or when they say cut, stop.

Laura

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Action. I'm a zombie. I want to eat your brains.

Laura

They just pretend because that sounds like a scary thing to happen. Wouldn't that be scary?

Speaker 2

Also, brains are delicious.

Laura

You can stop watching at some point because that whole like video that I like sent you a clip of was like 15 minutes long. I had to trim down from.

Shanna

Oh my gosh. It is so cute. I love it. He's so assertive. He is directing you like you're his little actress. It's that's amazing.

Laura

Yeah. And this kid continued to do this all week, like all week. My phone keeps crashing because it's out of, it's out of storage because I have these like 20 minute long videos on it now. And like our friend Carrie, I mentioned earlier, her daughter came over for a play date. He was directing her. Like he kept being like, okay, now you're this. And they're like, I have like 20 minutes of them playing And Augie just continuously correcting her and giving her new lines to stay. It's so funny.

Shanna

Yeah, there you go.

Laura

But anyway, should we take a break and then come back with our special segment?

Shanna

Yes, we should.

Laura

It's the hard-hitting questions here on Big Fat Positive.

Shanna

Oh, and you're getting these for your kid, not yourself, right, for people who don't remember.

Laura

Correct. The reason I need so much sweet and sour sauce is not for myself, although I do enjoy a sweet and sour. It's because Augie has a very limited palette. He is a bit of a picky eater, and one of the things he loves are chicken nuggets or dino nuggets. Dino nuggets I can make at home, but he insists on having the sweet and sour sauce to dip it into. I have found myself many times justifying driving through the McDonald's drive-thru for like breakfast or lunch even by myself because I realized that we need more sweet and sour at home. So there have been many sausage biscuits with cheese eaten because that is my breakfast of choice with extra hash browns and four sweet and sour on top.

Shanna

That's smart. How is his eating going? Has he expanded his palate lately?

Laura

So, okay, here's what's been going on with it is that I'm trying to kind of work on me and Corey and our reactions to his eating rather than trying to like quote unquote make him eat more foods. I recently finished this book called Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating, a step-by-step guide for overcoming selective eating, food aversion, and feeding disorders by Katya Rowell M.D. and Jenny McLaughlin, I think, who's a speech language pathologist. And it was interesting because reading it, I don't know if he really qualifies as an extreme picky eater, but he's verging on it. And so I still was sort of taking a heart what the book was recommending. And they have advice for kids who have a very, very limited, they eat like three foods or they are losing weight because they're not eating. And it had a really very rye-esque approach.

Shanna

That's awesome. Well, slowly, but surely.

Laura

Yeah. And, you know, honestly, it's so much nicer to just not give a shit.

Shanna

Yeah, sounds stressful.

Laura

Trust that he's, you know, he took him to the doctor for his checkup and he's fine, you know, so like, just let it be, let it go, as Elsa would say.

Shanna

All right. Well, it sounds like you guys are doing a good job with that. And I applaud your efforts to, you know, support and accept where he is.

Laura

Thank you, thank you. All right, I've got a question for you. In episode 202, you talked about having some real mom brain. And I'm wondering, how is that mom brain of yours?

Shanna

She's okay.

Laura

the one we painstakingly edit out if we accidentally say it from every episode, yeah.

Shanna

Yeah, and I don't mean the name Elle, I mean like her name in real life, right? We use pseudonyms on the show and it's not that big of a deal if some of our listeners know her real name, but it's just like of all the information, all the identifying information on that fucking board. Like that was the main thing. And it was the biggest. It was all capital letters. She has an eight letter name. It's a big name. And like right across the top of the board. And like didn't see it. Didn't think of it. Posted that picture. Like it's not even that someone saw her name that upset me. It's just that like what is wrong with my brain that I'm like missing details these days. I don't know. I'm just offline or I'm like so busy multitasking that I'm forgetting stuff and it just like it makes me feel like not like myself.

Laura

Mm-hmm. Yeah. No, I get it. I talked about this recently and I don't have an answer for you, but other than like it happens to everyone. And I looked at our analytics and only 36 people had visited the page. So to those 36 people, now you know L's real name. If you pay attention, I wonder how many people actually noticed.

Shanna

Yeah, I wonder. Write in and let us know if you noticed.

Laura

I always think people are always like, oh, I want to find out their names. And it's not like they're not a state secret. It's just that we don't want it to be like Googleable in the future. Right? Like we don't want people to be able to like Google their names and then find us talking about like the time they had blowout diapers when they were six months old, right?

Shanna

Exactly.

Laura

Yeah, so I think the fan that I met in person, I told her Sebastian's real name. I wasn't identifying him as his fake name in front of him. So yeah, but yeah, I get it. I get it. I don't know. I'm curious if there's any moms of older kids out there who might be able to tell us if the mom brain gets better.

Shanna

I hope the answer is yes. If it is, reach out and tell us. If not, don't bother. I need the encouragement. Oh my God. Anyway, okay, it's a miracle that my brain is here and online for this episode, so let's keep chugging before it passes out. Okay. Next question for you. Okay, we talked about this in episode 211. You mentioned that you signed Augie up for a sports class, like a multi-sports class where he tries different sports. And of course now that I'm a softball mom, I'm like super curious how sports went for him. And I don't know just how it went.

Laura

I wouldn't say it went great, Shanna. Look, I'm glad we signed him up for the class because we got the experience and we now know that that sort of class is not what he wants or needs right now. So it was a like eight week course where there was two weeks of like each of four sports. So the first two weeks were soccer. Second two weeks were baseball or t-ball. You brought your own little, like little tikes t-ball thing, right?

Shanna

Okay.

Laura

The third set was basketball. We actually missed one of the weeks of basketball because we were in Portland. And then the final two weeks were track and field. And soccer, he participated, I want to say, like 30 to 50% of the class, right? He kept wanting to run off to the playground, but he kind of had a little fun with soccer. T ball, he liked hitting the ball, but, uh, he, that's all he wanted to do, right? He didn't want to do any of the exercises or anything beforehand. Basketball could not get the kid onto the court. Like he was, I don't know if it was just his mood that week or what, but he would not, he would not participate at all. Like we got there, all he wanted to do was play in the playground. Um, and unfortunately the playground was right there. So there's not much to be done about it. That's bad placement.

Shanna

Okay, so agility ladder is like something on the ground they run through. I was like totally picturing him like climbing it like a gym rope, but okay, I get it. I get it.

Laura

Yeah, for fast feet, you know.

Shanna

Gotcha, gotcha. And the little relay is so cute. Oh my gosh. I could see how the kids would like track or field better at this age than some of the other sports that are more like rule focus like this is kind of just like run jump over something. Well, because there was a tunnel in that video. I don't think real track and field has tunnels, but not really.

Laura

But you know, he liked the hurdles. So anyway, it was a mixed bag. Mostly we're not signing up again, obviously. But you know, I'm glad we did it. It was something to do on the weekends. And now we're moving on to swim class. So Okay, I've got a question for you. Speaking of our three and a half year olds, in episode 205, you dropped a bombshell about CeCe. And I want to know, does she still have a boyfriend at preschool? Oh, you're here for the tea.

Shanna

Okay, I see, I see. No, her boyfriend graduated. He was an older man.

Laura

They didn't want to do long distance.

Shanna

No, he went on to kindergarten.

Laura

That's right. You got to have your girlfriends first anyway.

Shanna

That's right. Okay. Next question for you. In episode 213, you mentioned starting a spreadsheet to track Sebastian's words because you are maybe slightly concerned about his speech development. How's that going? How long is your spreadsheet? What's the sitch?

Laura

You know, let me open it up to just be accurate here. Okay. So when we're recording, it's like early September, right?

Shanna

Mm-hmm.

Laura

The last date I have recorded on here is August 13th. So you can tell how diligent I've been with the spreadsheet. The last entry I have in here, it's the 36th word and it's

Shanna

That's cute.

Laura

Which he now usually says while he's dragging me towards the couch. He goes, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. I'm like, all right, I know you want the boo. Hey, pal.

Shanna

Yeah.

Laura

And he's not like Augie with who at 20 months, you know, just a month older than this was like literally singing the song with all the words. But he does have the pitch like perfect. So he'll start singing and he'll go like.

Shanna

Good. I'm glad you're not so worried about it anymore. I'm not.

Laura

I'm not. Okay. I've got another question for you. Okay. So in episode 203, I guess we talked about Elle being afraid of you and Steve dying suddenly. And that inspired you to realize that you need to set up a will or a trust and stuff like that. So I think we kind of held each other to it. We're like, well, check it on this because I also was like, oh, I need to finish that process. Yeah. So where are you on that?

Shanna

Well, I think I mentioned before that we did immediately increase our life insurance. Both of us increased our life insurance. And then I realized it can be really expensive to hire a lawyer to set all of that stuff up, just like, I know it's important, blah, blah, blah. So Steve did some looking around online and he actually found this organization called Free Will. Oh. Where they help you set up your will and trust for free, which you know, appealed to me. And of course I'm like, is this legit? Like what is the You know like what's the catch like why are they doing this so part of the thing that free will does is help people set up a state planning and a lot of people Donate some or all of their estate to charity right different nonprofit organizations So this company free will partners with a lot of different nonprofit organizations And I guess maybe like

Laura

I know it's like.

Shanna

I'm like, no, man. He's like well, I'm gonna work on mine, and he's like typing typing typing like forever, right? I'm like I don't know

Laura

That's great. I will say it's super easy to get things notarized at the UPS store in my experience.

Shanna

Oh, okay.

Laura

Yeah, you just go in. You call ahead and make sure they have a notary and if they have hours, but the one by us, by our old house, just had a notary. The manager was the notary, so you'd go in and for $25, they did it for you. So yeah, super easy.

Shanna

That's good to know. And I'm sure that maybe a little bit further down the line when we've got more financial means, we could probably work with a lawyer or whatever and set things up. more thoroughly, but this at least gives us a little piece of mind for now. Okay, so what about you? Do you have an update for us?

Laura

Yeah, so we are stuck on the payment part, honestly. We did everything else. We met with a lawyer who went over all the options and we have everything nailed down and we went over and made sure everything in the documents are accurate and like changed addresses for people who've moved and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, okay, now this is what you owe us. And we're like, so about that, we just spent all of our money on a renovation and pre-school. And that's just it. So like- On and on and on, I know. On and on and on. So now we just have to figure out where to like find it in the budget. And they are calling us like, So can we expect to check and like yeah. And I know it's necessary like it's so worth it. Yeah. And obviously I'm not going to like someone suggested like why don't you just take everything on their worksheet and then like use one of those free things.

Shanna

Yeah.

Laura

Okay.

Shanna

We're back, and I've got one more loose ends question for you, Laura.

Laura

All right, hit me.

Shanna

In episode 218, my mom win was playing games with my girls. And you were like, oh, I haven't really tried games with my kids. And I think I want to do that. So have you? How did it go?

Laura

Yes, actually I have you know I mentioned this game called first orchard in that episode because I had seen a pop up on my tiktok and like I want to say like the next day or the day after someone in one of my mom's groups posted it like three bucks this game that's like great for little little kids and I was like. Ah, this is meant to be. So I picked that up and I brought it home. And after school, I showed it to Augie and he wanted to play immediately. And it was a huge hit. He loved it. The only thing. So first orchard is actually really cute because you're playing as a team and you're trying to beat this raven that's trying to like eat all your fruit and you're like as a team trying to gather up the fruit before the raven gets there. But Augie really like really wanted the Raven to win.

Shanna

Yay, that sounds so fun. I'm going to have to look into that game.

Laura

Yeah, it's great. It's great. Nice wood pieces too. Really fun. Okay, so that brings us to our last question, which is sort of a general question. So we talk about mom hacks a lot. That's one of our segments, right? But what I want to know is, like, have you used any of the hacks that I've shared with you? Yes, of course. You always give me good tips. Like what? Being praised, tell me more.

Shanna

Okay, so specifically in episode 219, we did a what the hack segment and you talked about a tip to help toddlers in their meltdowns by being like, do you smell something? And it's a way to get them to pause, get out of that, you know, brain and take some deep breaths. And I was like, oh my God, that sounds amazing. I definitely want to try that.

Laura

Okay, so how did Steve like it? Did he calm down?

Shanna

He took so many deep breaths. Oh, Steven is tantrums.

Laura

Also possible that like random parenting tips you find on TikTok are not all gold.

Shanna

This is true, except ours. If we share a tip on TikTok, it is pure gold.

Laura

Yes, unassailable.

Shanna

Yes. So it didn't work, but, you know, I'll keep trying things that you throw my way, of course. But what about you? Have you tried any of the hacks that I've ever shared?

Laura

I mean, I always try your hacks and everyone knows that if you used your like animals in the mouth or like stormtroopers in the mouth, toothbrushing hack forever. I haven't remembered to try the stop and go game with the toothbrush yet, but I do want to do that. But you did share in that same episode, episode 219, a trick about getting kids like ready. And instead of like having them race, you said that you should have them like try to beat the song, right? Like try to race a song.

Shanna

I feel nervous right now. Like I really want this to have worked for you. And I'm nervous that it didn't and that I messed things up. I don't know if I want to hear the outcome. Okay, just tell me.

Laura

It's because I failed you so bad. No, don't worry. It worked great. Good. Okay. But of course, because Augie is so funny and like so particular, the song we had to beat was Teka Attacks from the Moana score.

Shanna

Does he ask for it by name?

Laura

Oh, Shanna, have I not talked about this on the podcast? No! What? Oh my gosh, this kid, I'll get into it more some other day, but like, this kid is obsessed with scores from like soundtracks, right? Not the music, like not the singing, not the like, how far I'll go where you're welcome from Moana. He wants to listen to specific tracks from the score. And the first time he listens through, he asks what the title of every track is. And of course, I'm like, I don't know. So I have to look on Spotify. We did this also with that Netflix movie, Mitchells versus the Machines. Have you guys watched that? It's a little scary. I don't know. But anyway, it was very much up his alley. So it was like robots take over and you have to fight the robots. It's cute.

Shanna

Yeah.

Laura

Which isn't very long. But he was motivated. And the thing is, he knows exactly where you are in the track. So he was like, he knew how much time he had left. And we did this to try to get him in the bath, because it's the only way, apparently, to get him in the bath these days. So I was like, I don't know. Do you think you can get undressed before to caught taxes over? He's like, ah! So, yeah, Takah attacks.

Shanna

Oh, that is hilarious.

Laura

Which by the way, he asks me to sing for him. He's like, will you sing Takah attacks? And I'm like, because there's a little bit of like chanting at the beginning, very quiet. But then it's like, it's orchestral, but he wants me to sing it to him. I'm like, kid, can I just sing your welcome? Like, no, Kakamura. Oh, my God. He's so funny. That is hilarious. But yeah, it worked great. So thank you. Glad to hear it. Anyway, that's it for my questions.

Shanna

Yes, me too. All right. That was a good series of updates, but now it's time for us to move on to our BFPs and BFNs.

Laura

Alrighty. Alright, so we close every episode with a Big Fat Positive or a big fat negative from the week. And Shanna, I want to know, BFP or BFN? BFP.

Shanna

I'm really excited about this one. So I think I mentioned recently that when Al started first grade, her teacher uses an called Class Dojo. And it's a place where she can communicate to the class and newsletters, assignments. And it has this feature where she can give points to the kids for different things. Being on task, being a helper, et cetera. And I was going through it with Elle one day after school. And I noticed it also has an area in the app where you can give points at home. So I can also do my own stuff separate from what the teacher does. Of course, this is a feature of the paid version, which is slightly irritating. But I was like, well, I'll give it a try for a week. It's a free trial. So I set up a profile for L and for CECE and set up all these different tasks that they earn points for in this app. And so I have things like listening, focusing on dinner, right?

Laura

What are their choices? What do they get? What is their dinner of their dreams?

Shanna

L picked pizza and CECE the other day. I was like, okay, what do you want for dinner? Thinking she was gonna say pizza or something grand, you know, something big that I could make. And she's like, watermelon. I was like, okay. And peas. I was like, and... And she's like, that's it. I'm like, okay, I'll check back in with you tomorrow at dinner time.

Laura

All right. This is a very happy CECE sitting in front of a plate full of cubed watermelon and looks like sugar snap peas. Yeah. Wonderful.

Shanna

Oh, super funny. So anyway, it's just been really fun. They've been motivated by it. I thought it was going to fade like within a few days, but it's actually been a few weeks now. And I OCC a family outing because that was one of her rewards for like 30 points the other day. And yeah, we're going to do something fun like go to the farm or something, the Underwood Farm. You're gamifying parenting. I am. That makes sense for me. I like games. I like winning.

Laura

Yeah, I was going to say your girls are definitely your daughters because you're like, they like getting points. I'm like, I know someone like that.

Shanna

Exactly. So yeah, class dojo. It's a very fun little app. So what about you? What do you got for us this week? A BFP or BFN?

Laura

I also have a BFP. All right. What is it? And my like very specific BFP is digging in dirt. Oh, that's fun. But let me elaborate. And I'm talking about me, not talking about the kids. This is a mama thing. Okay. So the backstory is we have this front lawn that doesn't really get used because in Glendale, California, apparently there's rules that you can't have like a fence in the front yard. What? And yeah. So you can't have a fence, which means my kids can't really play out there because they'll run into the street and there's a lot of dogs that walk by, which means that front yard is essentially just like a dog urinal, you know, like there's really nothing else going on there. So I've been wanting to like tear out the lawn and replace it with like water wise native plants for a while. And I finally got my ass in gear a little over a month ago.

Shanna

So that's exciting. I love that kind of shit. I've been doing it on and off too. I mentioned before like I'm trying to pull up all that damn asparagus fern. And there's a ton in our front yard, and I'm just like, Steve has nothing to do with it. I'm a woman on a mission. I've been digging this stuff up. Wait, let me send you a picture. I know this is your BFP, but I've got to send you. I'm so proud of myself for digging this monster up. It took hours. Holy shit, that's a lot of asparagus fur. Oh my God, those roots. They're so, oh my God. There are so crazy anyway. But that's awesome. And it's motivating me to get out there and like finish my project because now I just have like this dirt pit in my yard and I lost steam.

Laura

So I think I'd be happy just like full time gardening. Honestly, I've become that person.

Shanna

Yeah. That would be nice. I get it. I get it.

Laura

So old.

Shanna

I know we are.

Laura

What our 20-year-old selves would say about us now? Just give me a good shovel and some dirt. I'm happy.

Shanna

Oh man. All right. Well, I think that's it for our episode and we should probably wrap things up. But I have a five star review to read because our wonderful listeners have been taking the time to go over to Apple podcast and put these in for us. So I want to read one for you. This is from Brit was on Apple podcasts. The title is love, love, love five stars. I absolutely love this podcast. I've been binge listening to it while at work for almost a year now since I found it. I'm not a mom yet, but I hope to be soon, so I wanted something that could help me get ready. This is the best podcast for exactly that. They're so real about everything. That's what I wanted. That's what we need as women who want and have children in our lives.

Laura

I love that. Yes, I love that. I also love knowing that there's some people who aren't pregnant or already have kids listening. Like, that's so fun. Yeah. So, hello to everyone out there. Yay.

Shanna

All right, listeners, if you haven't had a chance yet to give us a review, if you could do us a favor and head over to Apple Podcast and say a few things that you love about the show, as I've mentioned before, it's really helpful for letting people know that our show is worth taking a chance on. If they read that you love our show, they're willing to give it a listen. And we would just want to keep growing our community of parents and people trying to conceive and people who want families in their future, so thank you so much for doing that. And Laura, if any listeners have questions about loose ends that we didn't have a chance to answer today, where can they reach us to ask those questions?

Laura

We are on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok at BFB Podcast. We have a website, bigpadpositivepodcast.com. If you want to send us an email, you can always throw a voice memo in there. Just send it to contact at bigpadpositivepodcast.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 need to request to join. And it's so important you answer those two membership questions, because that's how we know you're not a robot. Once we make sure you are not indeed a robot, you'll be sent straight through to all the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful conversations we're having in there.

Shanna

Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks so much for listening, everyone. Have a great day. Bye.