How Not to Hire a Nanny: An Absurd Job Listing – Ep. 254

Speaker 1

Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week, we have our weekly check-ins. We have our special segment, Internet Insanity, where some people really got some nerve. Let me tell you. And we close with our BFPs and BFNs for the week. Let's get started.

Laura

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 254. Hi, Shanna. Hi. All right. Let's get right to it. I want to hear what's going on with you and how have you been this week?

Shanna

All right. So this week I was like, let's do something fun with the family on the weekend. So I had heard from someone in one of my mom's groups that there was this little farm. out near where we live and it's like a rescue farm where they I guess save farm animals or any type of animals and like take care of them and let them live their life at this little farm and I was like that's so cute like let's go see the animals there's goats and horses and chickens like the girls are gonna love it and um

Laura

Yeah, I feel like this is such a city kid thing. It's like, let's go see some farm animals. And some people are like, that's not exciting. But my kids will be super excited for this.

Shanna

Yeah, they were excited about it. And, you know, you get to like pet the animals and touch them and go into the pens with them and everything. Yeah. So we get there and it's a really cute location, just like beautiful trees everywhere. It's like one of these little hidden gems in my neighborhood that I never knew about. And we get there and we go into the goat pen first and there's all these goats and we see like this guard dog that they have there. And it says like this big fluffy guy that's so cute and everything. And Elle's just like not that into it. She's like kind of scared of the goats. She's like that goat is sus. And it was kind of

Laura

Did she use that exact phrase, or are you paraphrasing?

Shanna

Oh no, she 100% used that phrase.

Laura

Oh my gosh, she's using suss already.

Shanna

Oh yeah, she says suss all the time. Oh, and she calls me bruh all the time. She's like, go to suss bruh. Oh, it's hilarious. And to be fair, the goat was kind of suss. It definitely looked a little not all together with it.

Laura

Look, ever since I watched The Vitch, you probably didn't see that movie did you know it's it was like one of those sort of indie thriller horror movies from a few years back set in like colonial New England type time is anyway there was a goat in it and the goat this is a little bit of a spoiler the goat was bad the goat was bad in the witch and ever since then Corey and I have a running joke about goats how they're evil so if I recall the goat's name was black Phillip black Phillip was not a good goat

Shanna

Oh, wow. Okay, well, this goat didn't seem evil necessarily. Just a little unhinged maybe. Okay, here's a picture of them brushing this goat. And you can get a look at this goat's face.

Laura

Okay, let me see. Yeah, and the thing about goats is they have those creepy sideways cat eyes, like the horizontal strip of pupil that is just It's unsettling.

Shanna

Yeah, I'll say it's unnerving. Yes.

Laura

Oh my gosh, we're going to get so many letters from the pro goat people. I have to say that I've had very many like positive interactions with goats. So I don't want I don't want the goat lobby to be writing into Big Fat Positive.

Shanna

No, no, no. Goats are fine. Goats are fine. We've done plenty of petting zoos with baby goats and everything. I don't know, Elle just wasn't having this. She was very hesitant about this goat. I just sent you the picture.

Laura

OK, let's see. OK, so it's a picture of Cece and Elle. Cece is brushing this goat. Yeah, I see where Elle's coming from. The goat kind of has his tie out to the side. He's kind of giving him side eye. Like, I would definitely be a little wary of this goat as well. I'm on Elle's team.

Shanna

So that was kind of the start to our day. That was the first pen we went in. And there were a lot of volunteers. So after we went to the goats, one of the volunteers was like, oh, come here, I have something to show you. And we're like, oh, OK. And she takes us over to this little chicken pen. There's one chicken in there. And she's like, this is a house chicken. And we were like, oh, OK, what does that mean? And she's like, the owners of this farm actually keep this chicken in their house. She wears a diaper around the house. And she gets to come and hang out at the farm every weekend and we're like, oh my gosh, that's so cute. And then she's like, we rescued this chicken. She was on her last leg. She was so emaciated and just like started going into details about the situation that this chicken was in that they rescued her from.

Laura

You've yet to introduce them to animal cruelty. Exactly.

Shanna

This event was their introduction to that. Because it only continued from there. I totally understand. where the volunteers and the owners of this farm are coming from. They have a really soft spot for these animals. They rescue animals from dire situations. I was just hoping maybe there would be some more euphemisms throughout our tour of the farm. No one seemed to care that I was with two young kids who maybe didn't understand this concept and just wanted to pet animals. So I was like on edge from here on out. I was like, okay, like they're hearing about this, you know, with this chicken. They didn't really seem to register. They thought the chicken was cute and blah, blah, blah. Then we go over to the horse and donkey pen. And this other volunteer was just straight up like talking about Oh yeah, we saved this donkey from slaughter. It was gonna be made into dog food.

Laura

I mean, you could say that they were like starting to radicalize. Like they're like, oh, young children, let's make them vegetarians and animal activists. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean that in like the most generous way, because I think that they're doing a good job probably saving these animals, but they're like, We don't sugarcoat it for the kids. They need to know the reality of the world.

Shanna

Yes, yes. I definitely felt like there was an agenda, you know, with a lot of the people there, which is fine. Like they are totally passionate about it and everything.

Laura

And I imagine that they run off of donations, right? They're probably trying to elicit sympathy to get donations.

Shanna

Ooh, yeah, that probably too. There wasn't entrance fee, but I'm sure they also take donations or a non-profit. So after the donkey, we went over to the chickens, which the girls really did like. There was one chicken that would let them pet it. The rest are, you know, they're standoffish because they're rescues. And the volunteer, like of course told us all about that and like why they, you know, aren't so friendly and all that. And as we're, In the chicken pen, one of the chickens in the little coop was like, squawking, squawking, squawking, balking, or I don't know what you call it.

Laura

And the volunteers like... Chickens make like 20 different sounds, by the way. I mean, I don't know, like, I'm not talking about, like, literally. I mean, like, in English, we have all these different words for, like, what chickens say. It's really annoying during Old MacDonald, right? Like, because everyone says something different. Cheap, cheap, peep, peep. What, clock clock? Yeah, we gotta, we gotta like get together and figure out what it is they say.

Shanna

Yeah, like when I'm impersonating a chicken, I'm like, bok bok, but when I just said the chicken was bocking, like that sounded wrong.

Laura

And so she was- And they do it like every day, right? A lot of them. So you would think that if it was that painful.

Shanna

Well, that's what I thought too, right? Yeah. And I guess that's chickens in captivity. What she was telling me is that it's more like a once a month thing for a chicken to do and it's like not right for us to be, you know, having chickens like eggs every day and etc. So I mean, we're just getting one lesson after another about like animal cruelty and Oh, it was just really stressful for me. So we continued on. We went and saw the turkeys and we got a lesson about turkey problems and all that jazz.

Laura

Turkey problems and all that jazz. I think we should put that on a piece of merch. We've been looking for quotes to put on merch. Turkey problems and all that jazz. Big Fat Positive podcast.

Shanna

I'm so glad we finally came up with a catchphrase. I'm trying not to go into too many details because I was disturbed hearing about it. I don't want to disturb any listeners. I'm just trying to say that by the time we were done with this tour, I was fully ready to go vegan. Like I was being converted and like seeing these animals and stuff. It was, it was kind of upsetting. So this volunteer was like, so by the end of the tour, it was like lunchtime and this volunteer was like, oh, there's this restaurant nearby that you should try. It's really good. And we're like, okay. So we go down to this restaurant and of course it turns out to be a vegan restaurant. which I thought maybe it would be just a vegetarian restaurant because the menu was like hot dog, you know, cheese pizza. So the girls ordered their hot dog and cheese pizza.

Laura

And?

Shanna

Oh, yeah, they didn't touch it. It was horrible. Oh, no. They had in their mind a cheese pizza and a regular hot dog. And ordering this food for them was basically like flushing $25 down the toilet. Oh, no. It was bad. I got a delicious salad. I loved it. Steve got something like, I don't know, enchiladas or something like that, a burger. I don't know. It was delicious. But yeah, the girls just weren't having it. But I will say, overall, they had a great time. It was like an adventure. And this restaurant was in this little pocket of the valley that I never really knew existed across the street. It was like this rock and crystal store, which of course they wanted to go to. And we bought them like little, you know, little stones and which was next to a big plant nursery and hardware store.

Laura

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. You try anything. You don't know how it's going to turn out. My question is, were there any follow up questions from the girls about the animal cruelty they learned about?

Shanna

No. I think they were just full on focused on petting the animals, honestly. I think it was more of my worry that that stuff was sinking in and disturbing them. And really, they were just like, animals, petting chickens, and we're actually having a good time. I didn't buy meat at the grocery store, honestly, for like the next week because it impacted me.

Laura

Yeah. Well, I mean, it sounds like it had a good impact, right? Like you had a week of being more thoughtful about what you were buying and the girls had a good time. And I was fully waiting for that goat to like bite L or something. You set that up as a red herring, my friend.

Shanna

No, we got the hell out of that pen before any goat biting could happen. They were like, there were definitely goats that would bite. They were just like, stay away from that goat. Like they were telling us the goats to stay away from. So we were safe. We were safe. Anyway, that's our little adventure for the week. I want to know what's going on with you all. How has your week been?

Laura

Not great, Shanna, not great. I'm feeling a little better now, but if you recall the end of last week, I was like, we had fun on a vacation. Everything is great. Yeah. And I just feel like, I don't know, the universe has to balance things out or something. You can't just have a nice weekend without coming home and getting super fucking sick. So you got sick? Yeah, I was the first one to get sick. I woke up with the worst sore throat I've ever had. in my entire life. And I've had a lot of sore throats. I'm 40 now. You know, it's not my first rodeo. And I mean, just like every time I swallowed it felt like I had like glass shards in my throat. And of course, my first thought was like, oh, fuck, I got COVID on this trip, right? Because we were around a lot of people and we were in Orange County, which traditionally does not have very high vaccination rates.

Shanna

Yup, that's when mine started.

Laura

I took so many tests. I ended up going and getting a PCR swab for COVID and both flus. Those were both negative too. And then it finally became clear as my throat got worse and worse. And as I got more and more incapacitated that it must be strep that I have. Ouch. I spent two days sleeping like really. I could barely move. I would wake up to like go nurse Sebastian at bedtime or in the morning. And then I'd be like, okay, I gotta go lie down. And I'd be like stumbling up the stairs, feeling dizzy. I was so sick, Sean. I have not been this sick in so long. And then after two, it's on the third day of just being like so fucking sick and not getting better. I was getting worse, you know, and high fever and chills. And I felt like my my muscle aches and like my bones ached and it was awful. I finally was able to get some antibiotics. I was like, I don't think this is a virus.

Shanna

That's the giveaway.

Laura

Yes. So I got myself some augmentin and was so, so happy for antibiotics, BFP, bonus BFP antibiotics, love to live in a time where antibiotics work. And then Corey and I were like, how come the kids aren't sick? And I'm like, well, maybe, you know, Sebastian, he's nursing, maybe he's getting antibodies, maybe Augie stayed away because I've been sleeping so much next morning, Augie wakes up. Super high fever says his throat hurts. I'm like, no. But because I had already been diagnosed with strep, his pediatrician was like, OK, he's going on a mentin immediately, right? Because obviously, like, you know, I mean, sure, maybe it was a different virus, but let's be honest, you know, like, it's going to be whatever his mom has who he, like, basically, you know, lives right nose to nose to me most days. Exactly. The very touchy-feely young man.

Shanna

So how did parenting go through all of your sickness? I guess Corey just took the reins.

Laura

Corey basically did everything for a couple of days. By like the second day I was on antibiotics, I was back to being fairly functional, you know, enough to get the kids ready in the morning. Well, actually, Augie ends up staying home. So we just kind of, there was one day where Augie and I, you know, we have like an L shaped sectional couch. Like we were basically like head to head on the L shape on a pillow sharing. We were actually sharing the giant grogu baby Yoda squishmallow. Hello. I'm just watching TV the whole day together. And then the next day I was feeling better and could like move around and do stuff. So yeah, but honestly, Corey did everything for two days because I could I like could not move. It was awful. Um, so, uh, thankfully we got better by the end of the week and we're on like a course of antibiotics for another week. It's like a 10 day thing.

Shanna

Oh, goodness. He must have been so out of it.

Laura

So out of it. But anyway, at least that's like, that's what I forgot, not like to feed him or, you know. Exactly. Forgot that he existed and left him downstairs overnight or something. Exactly. But anyway, that was our week. I don't have a lot to report because I was barely conscious this week and it sucked. But we are on the upswing and I'm hoping next week will be better.

Shanna

Good. I'm glad you're feeling better. I'm so sorry you went through all that. Oh, that sounds terrible. Yeah.

Laura

Yeah. It was not recommended. Zero stars. But on that note, I think it is time to move on to our special segment. What do you think?

Shanna

I think so.

Laura

Okay, so my Internet Insanity is something I saw floating around Facebook. And it kind of like got my hackles up for a couple reasons. It's funny. It's cute, but it's also fucking annoying. And so I'm going to talk about it and all those reasons. OK, so I saw this Facebook post and it was like a gallery of images and all the images were of little babies doing things that they probably shouldn't. I'm going to send you a link.

Shanna

Okay, I got the link. All right, first photo is an open grill with flames coming out and about an eight month old baby sitting next to the fire on the little like grill tray with like a barbecue poker in. his or her hand looking at the flames. Okay, that's, wow, that's not safe. Oh, here's the next one. The baby is standing on a table with a circular table saw. Looks like the child is about to operate that piece of machinery. And the next one I see is that baby or different baby on top of a very tall step ladder painting the wall, like very close to the ceiling while the dad is sitting on the floor painting. Okay, what is going on, Laura? This is... This is scary.

Laura

It's definitely scary. And that's kind of the point. So the title of this article that I saw was called, dad photoshopped his kids into dangerous situations to freak out mom at work. Okay. So it says Belgium based technical director Kenny Deuce. I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name right. And his girlfriend have two children. When Kenny's girlfriend had to go back to work after maternity leave. And this is all in bold, I should say. She started messaging him all the time asking for photos to see if the kids are okay. Using this as an opportunity to have some fun, Kenny started sending her Photoshop pictures of the kids in dangerous situations just to freak her out. Okay, this is why it has so many layers, right? The first one is, these are funny, right? Like these photos are really funny.

Shanna

Right.

Laura

And so that immediately pissed me off. There's another layer to what pisses me off about it, which is I was like, I've seen this before. This is made the rounds before. Like, why is this coming back? And that's when I realized he is not the first person to do this. Like this guy, it's 2023 and he's like currently posting to Instagram. I think his handle is on adventure with dad. And so he's like currently making these photos, but I was like, I've seen this stuff before. And it turns out that back in 2017, an Irish father, a guy in Dublin, was doing the exact same thing, photoshopping his kid into dangerous situations. But his narrative was not Oh, this is to, you know, scare my partner. He actually was doing it sort of as a stunt to raise awareness for a rare immune disorder that his daughter had that she was diagnosed with at four months old.

Shanna

So it sounds like he did this with a noble cause in mind.

Laura

I mean, I would say so. He had a cause in mind, not let's just freak out the mom. Also, I do some Photoshop. I know my way around a Photoshop. And I know that these photos took planning and time. He has to put the baby in the right lighting in the right situation and, you know, mask out the baby and put it in the dangerous situation. This narrative of like, oh, I'm sending this to the mom to freak her out. It's not true. He's spending hours photoshopping these photos. He's not like sending it off in a text. So maybe this has turned into a grapewater, but I'm annoyed at the second guy, but I'm sending you the first, the Dublin guy.

Shanna

Okay, all right. Okay, here's the first picture. The little baby about seven months old is standing on like the stair banister very perilously, sitting next to a hot stove grabbing a knife from the knife block. Oh my goodness, she's really cute.

Laura

All right, so these are cute. Yeah, they're cute. And I just, I mean, maybe someone else had the same idea before he did, but I'm sort of like, stop being a copycat and stop painting us moms as having like unnecessary anxiety. Stop it.

Shanna

Yes. And to your point about this taking a long time, like all I could think about when I found out he was photoshopping these while the mom was at work is like, oh, great. So the dad is spending hours on his computer working on these little pictures instead of doing what? I don't know. Taking care of the kids, going grocery shopping and cleaning up, doing anything. Yeah.

Laura

Yeah, yeah. You share my feelings about that. So anyway, I think the pictures are cute and funny. I just wish people had come up with a better narrative. And it pisses me off that like the second one, the second like, oh, mom's be crazy narrative is the one that really took off because we not be crazy.

Shanna

No, she's just worrying about her baby because she went back to work when the baby was an infant.

Laura

Yeah. So anyway, that is my internet insanity. What have you found on the old interwebs lately?

Shanna

Oh, I found a doozy.

Laura

A doozy, you say?

Shanna

A doozy. Okay. So on Twitter, there is a user named Hollis Jane Andrews. And she recently posted that several years ago, she went to interview for a nanny housekeeper position at a family's home. And when she went to interview, she received like a two page job description of what the job entailed and what the family expected. And this woman Hollis posted it on Twitter for us all to enjoy. And I wanted to share some of this with you.

Laura

I love when people do this. It's such a public service, you know? Mm-hmm.

Shanna

All right. It's a yellow sheet of paper and at the very top in like a fancy font, for some reason it says hat right up. I don't know what hat means exactly. The subheading is magical nanny slash housekeeper hat, which is still like, okay. And then the next line says purpose to keep boys well fed, well slept and house in order to provide sanity for parents. It's like, okay, that makes sense, right? That's why we hire nannies and housekeepers. And then there's a large paragraph. I won't read all of it, but it starts out like this. Both the boys are to be treated with love, care and understanding at all times. Fair enough. Love that. That's how they should be treated. It continues on. The main focus is to ensure their basic body rudiments are kept in so that they are not crying slash upsetting the rest of the house.

Laura

I thought that maybe it was an autocorrect problem, but apply Dianetics. So Dianetics is like the book. It's like a foundational text of Scientology, as far as I know. I didn't know you could apply it. Like it was a thing you could do.

Shanna

Yeah, I didn't know that. But that's one of the requirements. Okay, so blah, blah, blah. Don't use your phone while at work, et cetera, et cetera. And then it says their schedule. So here's the schedule. 7.30 a.m. Eggs and turkey, bacon, breakfast. 8.30, get them dressed and ready to go out to play, et cetera. 9 to 11 a.m. Take them for a run around Worm Worm Drive. Get them to run, throw rocks, and run all capitals with them. Don't stop them running ever.

Laura

Wow. So we need a marathon runner. We need a long distance runner because I don't know how old these boys are, but they sound like they have a lot of energy. And if they're anything like my boys, I can't keep them running all the time. Yeah, don't stop them ever.

Shanna

Laura, don't stop them ever. Or, okay, the other option is take them to a park and play with them. That's all capitals, with them. Make sure you act like a kid with them. Never serious. Keep them in games. If they are not laughing, they are not happy.

Laura

So you have to be a marathon runner stand-up comedian. Copy that.

Shanna

Exactly. So if they are crying and yelling, they are not happy. And as a nanny, you need to get them back happy again. This is a lot.

Laura

It's so weird that this person who posted it didn't apply.

Shanna

Oh, she did. She went and interviewed for it. But I think that they gave this to her when she went on the interview.

Laura

Oh, man. OK, so I had to Google hat and Scientology. Now that I had more information, I was like, this sounds like some Scientology terminology. Oh, OK. What did you learn? When I googled it, I found a document by L. Ron Hubbard that said, hat, a term used to describe the write ups, check sheets, and packs that outline the purposes, know how, and duties of a post. So it's like. A job description basically. And then this is like a, whoa, this is like a 10 page document describing what a hat is. But apparently it was developed in 1950 for use in organizations as special technology. But yeah, so I think that if you actually knew like about Scientology, you would have seen that and been like, oh, a hat. This is like the job description basically.

Shanna

Right, right, right, right, right. And that's why it didn't make sense to me. Correct. Gotcha. All right, 1130 to 12 pool time. This is all caps. You need to be in the pool with them at all times, shut the gate and have fun with them. Look, I am all about being with kids at all times in a pool, but this demand to have fun with them in all caps. Oh, and then just like an offshoot, teach them to swim.

Laura

Oh, and by the way, which is always fun. It's never not fun when you're teaching a kid how to swim.

Shanna

Yes, yeah, exactly. It's such a blast. And then 12 p.m. to 12.15. So 15 minutes for this task. Put them in bath downstairs, wash hair, brush teeth. Laura, could you do that with two kids in 15 minutes?

Laura

It takes so long here, Shada. It takes so long. Oh, my God. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes just to brush teeth. Oh, for sure. You have to, like, negotiate. You have to, like, pretend all kinds of weird imaginary things just to get them to open their mouths. And then you have, like, a 10-minute conversation in the middle of brushing their teeth about something else. Yeah.

Shanna

Mm-hmm. Yeah. You didn't put the right toothpaste on. You got to wash that off and put on the different toothpaste, the bubble gum and blah, blah, blah. So good luck with that, nanny. So okay, so after you rush through that, it's lunchtime. It says meatballs or steak with ketchup, salad or cut up some cucumber, make it look healthy and exciting. It needs to look exciting. So you need to be a food artist too.

Laura

I mean, to be fair, I do that shit because Augie's so picky that like sometimes it works.

Shanna

You'd be perfect for this job.

Laura

I would be perfect, yes, perfect for this job.

Shanna

You would be so good.

Laura

Absolutely. I should have applied.

Shanna

All right, this is the last thing on the schedule that I have, 1245 to 130 nap time. Put them to sleep with a protein bottle. And then in parentheses, one tablespoon of protein powder and water, fill it up, shake it and give them one each. And then some instructions on where they can sleep and putting on the AC. Um, so I don't know about this protein bottle situation.

Laura

I guess milk is kind of like a protein bottle. Yeah, that's a first for me. But do we know how old these kids are?

Shanna

No, it doesn't say. But if they're having bottles, I would imagine quite young, right?

Laura

Yeah, or we find out they're like 12 and 14 at the end of this.

Shanna

All right, so the next little bit says, whilst they are asleep, you magically transform into a cleaning, and then they use a term that I don't really wanna say, but indicates like someone who does something with extreme zeal, I guess. You know what I'm getting at?

Laura

Is it like there was a soup one of these in Seinfeld?

Shanna

Yes, yes, exactly.

Laura

Like people who are responsible for the Holocaust, those people?

Shanna

Yes, yes. So that's the term they put on their hat list.

Laura

Great. A cleaning people responsible for the Holocaust. That's great. That's a totally normal request. Okay.

Shanna

And then there are 14 items on the cleaning jobs that you're supposed to do during their kids 45 minute nap after you've already done everything else.

Laura

Yeah, let me get through this 14 point checklist. Look, I have two kids and they weren't napping at the same time ever, but like if they were, I could still barely do anything during that fucking nap. Right? Also, like, aren't employees entitled to breaks by law?

Shanna

Yes. You aren't allowed to stop running, stop having fun, or stop cleaning the entire time you're on this shift, Laura. Oh, my God. And then the last couple lines. If you can master all of this, then we have a happy house. And then in all caps, no phones of your own at all during work hours. You need to be a fit for these boys, exclamation point.

Laura

All right, so was there like a salary listed because like this better be the most lucrative position you've ever seen for this to be worth it?

Shanna

Yeah, right. You would think this would be worth a good amount of money for all of this. The salary was not listed on here, but Hollis, the woman who posted this, responded because people asked. And she said the salary was $13 an hour.

Laura

I feel like that's less than minimum wage in California right now. Yes! Oh my gosh. That's amazing. People are bold. That is a bold choice to offer that. Wow.

Shanna

Look, parents need help. I get it. You want to find help for your family that you feel like is a good fit. but also just have some common sense. You know, when you put this out here and have some respect for the person that's gonna be working in your house with your kids.

Laura

Yeah, I mean, it's just really interesting to me that people this day and age can think that that's an appropriate amount to pay someone for a job like that. Especially like I'm gathering these people live around horse farms and have a pool like they probably can afford more than $13 an hour. So.

Shanna

Yes.

Laura

Is this where you tell me that woman took the job and it's been the best job she's ever had in her?

Shanna

And she's so happy. Yeah. No, she passed on the job. Yeah.

Laura

Good for her. Good for her. Wow. Okay. Well, I hope those boys are running around somewhere with a nanny that's better paid than what they initially offered.

Shanna

I hope so too. And Laura, if you ever are looking for a nanny, now you have an idea of what to do in your job description.

Laura

My hat.

Shanna

Or what not to do. It would be a hat.

Laura

Yes. All right. Well, with that noted, shall we move on to our BFPs and BFNs?

Shanna

Oh, yes.

Laura

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 what you have this week, a BFP or a BFN?

Shanna

I have a BFP.

Laura

Yay.

Shanna

Yay. My BFP is the open house at CECE's preschool this week.

Laura

Ah, cute.

Shanna

Yeah. They had been telling us there was going to be an open house. And honestly, maybe it's because we've been in a pandemic for a while. I didn't even really know what that meant. I was like, what is an open house? It was at 5.30 PM after school.

Laura

The bad time, yeah.

Shanna

It's a bad time but it ended up being so cute and so fun and the girls had a blast. Turns out an open house is just when like every room at the school is open and the teachers and the classes have gotten their classroom ready for like a fun theme or whatever like CECE's classroom was Safari theme and we went around to all the different preschool classrooms and one was like a underwater theme and one was a space theme and each room had different little crafts and activities set up. And she doesn't just go to a preschool it's actually like a pre preschool the eighth grade campus and so we got to look at all of the different grades classrooms and their music room and they had like a little art show in one of the art rooms and we got to see CECE's art and. Just like everyone from the school was there.

Laura

Dang, you shut down the club. Oh, yeah. You know how to do. I feel like seeing CECE's art must have been really special because she is like quite the artist.

Shanna

They did some kind of like plastic stained glass art, and hers was really beautiful. And yeah, it was really fun. And she got to see the other side of the campus, which has like a bigger, better, more exciting playground for the bigger kids. So she got to play on that. And it was just sweet. I really enjoyed it.

Laura

That's fun. I really love that we're doing stuff like that again, you know?

Shanna

Yeah, me too. All right, that's mine. What do you got for us?

Laura

I also have a BFP. I almost had a BFN. But this week was just a general BFN, so I decided to try to find the silver lining.

Shanna

Oh, I love that. Okay.

Laura

I will say it was like a BFN turned BFP, because the initial BFN is that Augie, despite like his whole life, being completely like excited and enthusiastic to take medicine like to the point where it was like a little worrisome like is he gonna go like take medicine when we're not like telling him to like we have to make sure it's really well hidden like he just loved the syringes he used to pretend to drink dihydrogen monoxide if you recall. Right. But I would be like, oh, here's your dihydrogen monoxide. And he would like drink it with a syringe. This week when he was sick, all of a sudden, nope. All of a sudden he did not want medicine anymore. And it became a problem because he actually needed to take medicine this week.

Shanna

Oh, he's very motivated by toys.

Laura

Very. It was like a new toy. I was like, yes, anyone you want will go to Target and you can choose a toy. Guess who took his medicine for the rest of the week? No problem.

Shanna

Oh my gosh.

Laura

Yes. Yes. Good job, Laura. He was loving it. And it was interesting to watch because the first time you could tell he was like, but I got to get my toy. And he was really scared to take the medicine, but he did it. And he was like, let me just do a little bit at a time. But by like the fifth or sixth time, he was like doing it all himself, like shoving that syringe in all the way and then be like, look, mama, I took it. Let's put the sticker on. Holy shit, this is working very well. So yeah, I whipped out the very first sticker chart and it seems to be working.

Speaker 1

I do think that part of the reason it's working so well is that it hasn't been used before and it's one of those things that's gonna be like few and far between for when it's really important.

Laura

I can see how he would get diluted and he wouldn't care eventually. But for something like this where it's like, there's no alternative. He has to take his medicine. Like I can deal with a trip to Target next week to get him a toy. So yeah, so we did the sticker chart and he's taking his medicine and he's feeling better.

Shanna

Yay. Has he told you about what kind of toy he wants? I mean, is he going to pick like the $600 ride on Jeep toy?

Laura

No, I did tell him there's going to be a limit. He doesn't really understand money, but I was like, well, we'll go up to like $30. But honestly, he doesn't care. You know, like he just wants to pick it out. So next week, I'll have to figure that out. I'm like 25, 30 bucks is, you know, reasonable for us. And it seems like you can probably get something good in that realm. So. So we'll see next week what happens.

Shanna

Okay, well you got to report back.

Laura

I will. But on that note, I do think that is the end of our episode.

Shanna

I think it is. Listeners, do you have any internet insanities you want to share with us? We would love to hear them. Laura, where can everyone reach us?

Laura

We're on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok at BFP Podcast. We have a website, bigfatpositivepodcast.com. If you want to send us an email, you can always throw a voice memo in there to send it to contact at bigfatpositivepodcast.com. And finally, join the coolest group of people on the internet. Just search Facebook for Big Fat Positive Community, request to join, answer the two membership questions, and you'll be sent straight through to all the amazing conversations we're having in there.

Shanna

Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks for listening, everyone. Bye. Bye.