Bizarre Birthing Devices and Sourdough Scandals – Ep. 306

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Laura

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 we report on some sourdough sass and spinning services. And we close with our BFPs and BFNs. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. This is episode 306. Shanna. Hello. Hello. Would you like to tell us what you did this week? Oh, sure.

Shanna

I spent a lot of time trying to convince my kids to participate in the fun after-school extracurricular activities I've signed them up for.

Laura

Yes. This old problem.

Shanna

What in the world is up with this?

Laura

I don't know, but we have a similar issue. I thought it was just swim class for us because you know, they have to get in the water and it's cold and whatever, but like pulling teeth sometimes getting them to actually want to do it. But sounds like it's more than just getting in cold water.

Shanna

Yeah, we haven't been swimming much lately, but you know, Ella signed up for tumbling, and when we signed her up, we had to make a year commitment, Laura. It was like either a seven year, not seven year. Oh, good Lord. Seven months. Either a seven month contract or a 12 month contract. And like, of course, 12 is a little bit cheaper per month. And I was like, well, we'll just go with that it'll be fine and we're like maybe three or four months in and I pick them up from school and it's like okay on the agenda today is tumbling I don't want to go to tumbling I'm tired I'm like oh my gosh it's like Costing us a lot of money for these classes, you know and then CECE has softball and softball practices like twice a week and we have games Every single time it's like on the agenda of softball. No, I don't want to go to softball.

I'm just like, oh my gosh I can't believe I have to work so hard to convince you kids to go do fun stuff and

Laura

Yeah, and it's triggering, too. Augie's like this with tennis, too. It's not after school, but it's in the morning on like a Saturday, and he's like, I wanna go tennis, really. And then you feel like a mean parent for being like, go do the fun thing. We're making you do it.

Shanna

Yes, I've started bribing them with pom poms. You know, we have our pom pom jar reward system. Straight up bribes. Yeah. So my new thing is whoever does their extracurricular activity with a positive attitude earns a pom-pom. And then one pom-pom was not alluring enough. So now it's two pom-poms. I'm like, oh my God, like in three months they're going to be earning 20 pom-poms just for going to a softball game.

Laura

Oh, Shanna, I know. It's tough. But then they beg you to sign up for more things, I feel like.

Shanna

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Oh, yeah. And I'm already thinking about this come softball season in the fall. If CECE's like, I want to sign up for softball, I'm going to be like, really, really?

Laura

Hmm. You know, it's interesting because all the stuff we do is kind of a year round thing. They're not seasoned, so they don't get a break. But we actually, well, we were faced with a similar question with tennis for Augie. And, you know, Corey and I were like, ah, do we just like make him power through it? Because, you know, you kind of have to get over that hump. with anything, you have to just keep doing it until you get better. Because our sense with Augie is the reason that he doesn't like going is because he's not good at it yet and it feels like he's failing. He's one of those kids who

for instance, whenever he gets a coloring page and he like gets out of the lines, he gets so upset and like wants to tear it up and throw it away. Like we're working on it, right? Like we've gotten to the point where he doesn't immediately tear it up, but he gets mad. I want a new one, bring down a new one. You know when we have to work like work through our problems. But it sounds like he has some perfectionist tendencies. And because of that, when he goes to tennis and he's not good at it yet, he's just like frustrated and doesn't want to continue. So Corey and I were debating, oh, should we just take a break? Should we sign him up for this parkour class, all this stuff, right? And I went to go look at the tennis class just to see like when the next session started. And I noticed it was full. So that's all that problem for us.

Shanna

You know what? You mentioned about the year round stuff. I was thinking about my childhood, and every activity I did really had a season. I did softball growing up, but it was always in the spring and summer. Like, it just, that's when the season was. And the rest of the year, I didn't play softball. You know, Elle, I signed her up for softball when she was six, and she played like four seasons in a row. Fall, winter, spring, you know, then the All Stars. And rightfully so, she wanted to break after that. So like, oh. Maybe we don't need to be doing these activities year round all the time with these kids. I think a break is good. But I think a lot of parents, me included, it's a little bit in there. It's like, oh gosh, but if they take a break, they won't keep improving. They won't keep getting better. And I don't know. I don't know if that's true or not, or if that even really matters.

If doing it so much makes them want to quit, then what's the point of even pushing through?

Laura

Yeah, and I'm definitely not here to force my kids to do something that they don't enjoy to make them hate it even more, right? Like, that's not what I'm here for. But the problem is the money. And I don't really know how to properly explain that to the kids. But like, There are just times where you're like, do you know how much money I paid for this? We're doing it.

Shanna

You're doing this. Oh, yeah. I straight up say that to Al about gymnastics. I'm like, ooh, you know, me and daddy are paying good money for these classes. It's true. I want her to understand the monetary value as well and not just think it's OK to just not go because she just wants to sit and watch TV instead or whatever. Yeah.

Laura

Yeah. Is she getting better at tumbling, though, even though she doesn't want to go?

Shanna

Yeah, she's fantastic. She can do all these back bends. Like she can stand up, lean backward and fall over into a bridge. Oh my gosh. And she's doing kickovers and roundoffs. And she's really good. Her teachers are like, she's doing great. Her reluctance is a little bit more recent. It hasn't been going on quite as long. I think she still has some love for the sport. But CECE is pulling teeth every practice every game honestly Laura I just skip at least one practice a week if not two I just don't go because it's also a lot for me personally to like get the kids out of the house go down there It's in the evening cuts into bedtime, and I was like forget it.

Laura

I just I just can't do it Yeah, two softball practices a week is what you said yes, and then a game or two games on Sundays so wait three to four softball activities a week and That's a lot. That's a lot.

Shanna

I think it's a lot for a five-year-old.

Laura

Yes, it's way too much. I'm sorry. That's a lot of commitment. I don't blame you for skipping some of those practices because I 100% would have. But yeah. I'd love to hear from our listeners if anyone has. help, solution, advice, experience with this sort of thing because for me it is really triggering when they're like, I don't want to go. They get all whiny about it and you're just like, I don't want to have this argument.

Shanna

I know and it's like I'm trying to do something enriching for your life and you're pouting about it. It makes me sad. Do you ever feel like maybe some of the reluctance is because they would rather be comfortable at home on a pad or a TV?

Laura

one thousand percent. I mean, Augie will sort of say it. He's like, I want to go home and watch TV. And I was like, this is not what I want. He'll say it with an earshot of other parents. And then I feel really self-conscious. I'm like, I'm raising an iPad kid or whatever for you. We all are. These whining he's like I want to watch Minecraft videos and I'm just like no we wouldn't even do that like we're not doing that anyway because it's not fun at home like But yeah, yes. Yeah, he wants to go home and watch TV and honestly same kid Think about the long day at work. Like, what do you want to do after your long day of work?

Shanna

Yes. Yes. Yes. I get it.

Laura

Yeah.

Shanna

All right. Well, I'm glad I'm not alone in this conundrum. It makes me feel better that I don't have the only kids in the world that are dragging their feet to this stuff. But it also feels good to talk about it and get it off my chest. So thank you for being my sounding board.

Laura

Yeah. It's wild that that tumbling place, the shortest commitment you could make was seven months. That's a racket, man.

Shanna

I know. Anyway, all right. So that's us. What's going on with you all?

Laura

Okay, Shanna. So this week, the theme has been anxiety for me. Just general free floating anxiety that kind of came to a head on Tuesday. And I'll tell you why. So last weekend, if you recall, Sebastian took a little tumble on top of an umbrella stand at the Huntington Gardens and split the bridge of his nose open. Aw, yes.

Shanna

How's he doing with that?

Laura

He's doing fine. We got those little series strips and he's keeping them on, which is great. He kind of looks like a Trojan soldier with them on. For some reason like the nose bridge protectors bridge exactly because he kind of has like a helmet hair right now his hair super long and it looks like he has a helmet on and then he has this little like strip because he's his nose is tiny. He's so small still. So he has this little strip of bandage coming down on his nose and the edges always curl up. So it totally looks like he's a Trojan soldier.

But he know he's doing great with that. So after that experience, I was alone with him because Corey had taken Augie back home because of the ear infection, right? So I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in last week's episode that when it happened, when he got injured, I had been like worried about that specific thing happening for like a few minutes beforehand. But bit my tongue and didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to be a helicopter parent. I wanted to let him have risky play and all that stuff, whatever, right? And to be fair, the way it happened was not exactly as I had envisioned it in my mind, but he still managed somehow to fall exactly onto the thing I didn't want him to fall on and he cracked his nose open.

There was something about that combination of things, of having like seen it happen ahead of time, but not stopping it, being the only parent there, because Cory had already taken Augie home. So I was the only one kind of dealing with the situation, although my friends really did help.

Shanna

Yeah, they helped by keeping your spot in line for lunch.

Laura

Pretty much they did. And they ordered my lunch and all that stuff. But you know, I'm like, you know, you know how it is when your kid gets hurt, right? Like you are activated. Instantly right and when you know it's a little more than just like a little ouchy you're instantly in that like mama bear mode where you're just protect right so that adrenaline rush combined with the fact that I had quote unquote seed it happening before it happened really triggered my anxiety for like the rest of the week something fierce.

Shanna

Yeah, that sounds really tricky because it's like your brain is saying, hey, those intrusive thoughts you're having, those are accurate. You need to trust those when you've been doing all this work to not worry about intrusive thoughts and stuff like that. So it's almost validating in a way, which I would imagine would spike your anxiety even more.

Laura

No, I mean, that's exactly what it is, right? It's like, oh, that intrusive thought came true, so maybe all the rest of them are also going to come true, right? And it's very hard to gauge what to worry about when something like that happens, right? Because it recalibrates you're like, well, you should have stepped in and stopped that and you didn't, right? There's the regret thing too. And I wasn't quite aware of it until the next day on Sunday when Corey realized the kids needed to get out of the house and he offered to take them to the park by himself so I could like chill out a little bit. And I was like, yes, thank you, sounds good. And as he was walking out the door with the boys, I was like watching them go and I had, you know, a slew of intrusive thoughts like just panic being like, oh my gosh, like, you can't let them go. Like, what if they all die while they're at the park?

What if there's a bomb? You know, like, that's just all this stuff going on in my head. And that's when it really hit me. I was like, oh. something has spiked your anxiety, Laura, because it's been a while since I've had that level of like intrusive thoughts and anxiety about stuff like that. Like I might have like passing thoughts, right? Like, oh, they may die. I'll die while they're gone. And then I'll be like, it's okay. It's okay. We could all die at any time. It's okay. You know, like I talk myself down, right? But I was like starting to notice my heart rate rising and I was like getting really jittery and I was like on the verge of Making them not go you know like making up some excuse but I talk to myself down. It didn't help that when they came home from the park everyone was alive but Sebastian got his finger stuck in a freaking door hinge at the bathroom.

Thankfully, he wasn't severely hurt, but it sounded really bad and Corey's relaying of it was a little sheepish, you know, like he was like, well, I was trying to help Augie with the bathroom and I turn around and he has his finger and the hinge and it's closing on him. I was like, oh my God, that sounds like the main door, like big door, little finger. Oh, not a stall door, like the main door. Not a stall door, the main door, Shanna. And I was just like, what the hell? So I'm like inspecting his finger, like trying to make sure it's not broken or something. So then I'm like something that did happen to my baby at the park, you know, like freaking out. Right. So I was noticing a lot of this generalized anxiety and more intrusive thoughts at the beginning of the week. And I was trying to be conscious of it. Like I identified it and I was trying to help.

But it still was activating me, right? So fast forward to Tuesday morning, Corey's taking the kids to school on this particular day. And we've been having this issue. which is that we usually park in our garage, which is off of an alley that's behind our main street, but that's been under construction. So we haven't had access to our garage for like two weeks, which also means that our street parking is like a complete shit show because everyone in the neighborhood doesn't have access to their garages. So like the street, it's crazy. Like you can never find a parking spot. It's been a nightmare. That also probably has contributed to my anxiety spiking because like every day we don't know if we'll have anywhere to park when we get home.

And so Corey actually had to pull his car into our neighbor's driveway, which is off the Bain Street in order to load the kids up on this particular day because there was nowhere else to do it, right? And this is important. It's not just a weird fact that I'm dropping on everyone talking about alleyway reconstruction. So He pulls into the driveway next door to load up the kids. He's tightening Augie's car seat and I go to tighten Sebastian's car seat and it moves like it slips like the base of the seat. Yeah, you know, like it kind of like shifted. like not a huge amount, but enough where I was like, ooh, this is loose. And I like kind of wiggled it. And I was like, this is kind of loose. And of course, we're running late to school, everyone, like it's very hectic. And I was like, Corey, we got to swap out this car seat.

Like, will you just go get the Nuna from my car, which is like way easier to install tight. He was in a KLEK flow, FLLO flow. that was slipping around which is hard life in my experience is harder to get tight so i was like just go get the other go get the new no move it in so i can like get it nice and tight like i cannot let you guys drive to school like this and cori was definitely like. Okay you know like Laura things idea spiking like. it's probably fine, it's probably within the right one inch or whatever of shifting, but he thankfully indulged me on this one. So he runs, gets the Nuna, I uninstall the Clek. Meanwhile, Sebastian's having a grand old time dancing around in Daddy's car. I quickly install the Nuna Rava. I have to say, by the way, Nuna Rava, I absolutely love these things. They're expensive AF, but they are so easy to install. Love it.

Anyway, so I get the Nuna installed, stick them in it, give them a kiss goodbye, and they start backing out of the driveway. I start walking back to my front door, and all of a sudden I hear a crunch. Uh-oh. And I turn around, I'm like, oh my God, and I run back. Corey's Tesla Model 3, which is like the small version, has been hit by a Ford F-150. Oh my God. Uh-oh. Where? On the car? It was on the back bumper. So we have now reviewed the footage from my Nest Cam about five million times. And it's really small. It's hard to see, but he is like inching out the driveway. Like, I mean, and as I mentioned, the street parking was insane. tons of cars on both directions. So there was like no way to see past it. So he's like slowly, slowly, slowly inching out. And he was like pretty well out into the street before this happened.

And this car slammed into his bumper, like his back bumper, and scraped along the sides. I mean, he went pretty far past Where the impact was so we're pretty sure he was driving really fast like people drive really fast on our street. He was like I was running late to an appointment at the post office and we just live near the post office that does like passport application so I'm guessing. But it was like oh so you're running late and rushing down the street. But anyway, I rushed to the car. The boys are just like, I expected the boys to be crying or something, but they're just like, what happened? You know, they were just like, they were perfectly fine. But I will say that Sebastian's car seat did not budge. It did not move a centimeter. Augies, on the other hand, which I hadn't checked, shifted over like six inches, I want to say.

Shanna

Oh really?

Laura

Yeah, which really did not help my anxiety either. But anyway, that is the dramatic thing that happened to us this week. The boys keep talking about like Sebastian keeps going, why that guy running? Why that guy running? Because he had heard us say he was running late. Why that guy running? Why he running running post office? Why he hit us? I'm like, well, he wasn't paying attention. But now Corey's car is in the shop. We're down to one car. We have two car seats we can't use anymore. Silver lining is it's at the same time as the target trade-in event. So at least we can trade those car seats in.

Shanna

Nice.

Laura

And I'm going to have to talk to my therapist about this anxiety because that did not help it, Shanna.

Shanna

That did not help it. Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry. I'm so glad everyone's okay, though, and that, like, Cory was going super slow and it was a bumper situation. But still, it's a reminder, like, you know, things can happen, so that'll really speak to your anxiety.

Laura

Well, I mean, and it was that thing again where I was like, I can't let you guys drive with this car seat, right? Like, I had moments before just changed out that car seat, you know? Right, right. In retrospect, I do wish that I had just tightened the click that was cheaper and older than the relatively new Nuna that now is out of commission, just because I like that car seat. Now it's done. But yeah, like it was that thing where it was like, well, Your anxiety saved us again, Laura. Better keep feeding it.

Shanna

Oh, keep validating that anxiety. Yeah, that's a therapy situation right there.

Laura

Yeah, that's rough. So if my therapist is listening, buckle up for this week.

She's taking notes right now. Can you imagine? I mean, I maybe it would be helpful for your therapist to like listen to your podcast. Maybe just be like, I'm tired of talking this week. Will you just listen to my podcast? Oh my God, seriously, yes. But anyway, that is my anxiety riddled week that involved a car crash. So yeah, fun times. But I do think we have a much more fun segment coming up. So I think we should move on to that. Oh, yes, let's do it.

Shanna

We're back, and this week's special segment is Internet Insanity, where we report on the pregnancy, parenting, child, mom related things that we found online recently. Laura, you are up first, and I would love to know what's your Internet Insanity.

Laura

Okay, my Internet Insanity comes from a Facebook sourdough group that I'm in? Oh, I can already tell this is going to be good. Okay, you're in a Facebook sourdough group and you found... I mean, multiple Facebook sourdough groups and they're wild. Oh, well, okay, so here's the thing. I just got back into doing sourdough. I had made sourdough during the pandemic like everyone else. Then I let my starter die and I hadn't done any sourdough baking for a while. But then someone I knew offered to give me some starter. So I was like, oh, let's try it again. And, you know, the algorithm knows what you're interested in. I do a couple searches for sourdough recipes. The next thing I know, I'm in like five sourdough groups. I come for the recipes but I stay for the drama because there's always drama, okay?

Shanna

That's amazing and I have to say the algorithm must know that we are friends and that you are in sourdough because I swear the last like four months they have been suggesting sourdough group posts to me in my feed and I'm like why am I getting so many suggestions of sourdough groups? Like that's not my interest. Interesting. I don't get it. That must be it.

Laura

Well, this is not helping because now we're talking about sourdough and our phones are listening. So all these different groups I'm in have different feels, right? One is like a very scientific group. And if you suggest doing anything that's like not by the book, People jumped at your throat. I do not participate in these groups. I should mention I'm a lurker because I do not need this stuff in my life. I do not need these people commenting, making, bringing me down. OK. Yeah. There's always drama. But, you know, I'm just mostly there for the occasional tidbit of advice on making my sourdough loaves better. But I found this one in one of my kind of like more risk taking sourdough groups, the ones that are like able to like do a little bit more. OK. Your edgy sourdough groups. It is the edgy. It's exactly what it is.

Like a lot of times people will post something like, I would never post this in that other sourdough group, but you guys would understand. They're like, I put commercial yeast in my loaf today.

Shanna

Oh my god.

Laura

You found your people, Laura. You found them. Except for it's too much. It's too much. But anyway, OK, so I saw this and I was like, oh, this is going to be good because first of all, I read this post and then I was like 159 comments. Cool. OK, here we go. So the post has two pictures. One is of a jar of starter with a baby bottle right next to it. And then the other picture is the jar completely smashed on the ground. And here is the content of it. I saw on another page that a lady substituted water for breast milk in her starter and had great results. Since I am in that phase of my life, I thought, why not give it a go? It worked amazingly. It rose better than any of my other starters and was looking quite promising. Until I went to move it to a safer spot on the fridge, a.k.a. away from a four-year-old's reach, which is relatable, and smash.

This is the second batch of starter I've dropped in two days. And then she goes on to say, my husband would be overjoyed at the smashing if he knew what I had put in it. But in my last loaves, I forgot salt, and he said they were terrible. So revenge was going to be silently sweet. Oh well, try again tomorrow. Shanna, can you imagine the comment situation here? But this is the risky group? Oh yeah, yeah.

Shanna

Wow. People are probably horrified that she used breast milk in her starter, I would imagine.

Laura

Yes and no. So here's why I love this post, just in general. Because the comment section is essentially every argument you will ever see on a mom group condensed together, okay? So the most popular comment is basically saying like, you can do whatever you want with your sourdough, but you need to tell people what's in it. Like that's just a moral obligation, right? And a lot of people are saying, I agree. And I agree. I want to just come out on record and say that first of all, I don't think this is a good idea. I don't think it'll make your sourdough better. And also I do think it's not okay to put Anything else in people's food without telling them, right? Like if you're getting sourdough bread and you're not expecting any type of milk in it, it's not okay to just like give it to someone and not let them know that there's milk in it, right? They could be vegan.

They could be lactose intolerant or maybe they just don't want to drink their wife's breast milk, you know? Like it's it's fair. So I just want to be on record and saying I agree with that stance, right? But then You know someone said I completely agree and then someone said yes, especially when many pathogens can be passed through breast milk. Hmm. Oh shanna There's a lot of replies to that comment. Uh-huh. Then someone says I'm curious what specific pathogens are commonly passed through breast milk and where you heard this and then like I'm just scrolling scrolling scrolling there are like 30 replies back and forth between like breast milk advocates and people who are grossed out by it trying to argue their stances. This is fear mongering. You know, breast milk is sterile, blah, blah, blah. It's wild, right?

Shanna

What are the pathogens that people are quoting?

Laura

One says HIV, hepatitis, tuberculosis, strep flu, gonorrhea, staph, etc. Then there's people saying that's ignorant and like trying to give a whole history. I mean, like I'm scrolling this three screen lengths of a lecture about the benefits of breast milk.

Shanna

Oh my word.

Laura

You can just imagine, right? It's just back and forth about this. It's a sourdough group, remember?

Then there are people who are like, oh, this is just weird. And then somebody says, I urge you to sit with yourself and ask what's weird? Is it that mother's lactate or that mothers can use their body's gifts to sustain families? Or is experimenting with nature that weird? And like, it goes on. So like now we've got this argument, like, are you calling breast milk weird? Like, okay. Wow. This really spiraled. It's very much spiraled. Then someone defending the husband saying, original poster, did you try the loaf without the salt? It's really not good. That's why you would stop liking it.

Shanna

Back to the salt then. I gotta say, I was kind of hung up on that point too. I was like, ooh, sourdough without salt does not sound good.

Laura

It's not gonna be good. It's gonna taste like flour. It's gross. Yeah. And then people... Then we got to the whole, like, vegan situation where people are like, if the only weird thing is drinking from other animals, like humans are the only species that drink from other mammals and you know, like, you've heard that whole thing, right? Okay. And one person who I just love who does not have any responses wouldn't go bad since this shelf life unrefrigerated is four hours Good point my friend

Shanna

What did the original poster have to say to all this? Because you have to think that she knew that posting something like that would create some kind of firestorm.

Laura

Hold on, I have to re-sort this by all comments because apparently there's a six-part response from her. Let's see. I was seeing them out of order and it made no sense. Yeah. Oh boy, okay. OK, so at the end, she goes, OK, doggies, let's clear a few things up.

So first, she says that there were some good tips from people who suggested that instead of adding breast milk to the starter, you should just add it straight to the loaf. So that's what she's going to try next time.

Shanna

OK, that's the first thing that shelves life and all.

Laura

OK, she does mention that she's never going to share anything with her breast milk with anyone outside of her home. And she considers baking the loaf as pasteurizing?

Shanna

I feel like her comment about revenge on her husband was tongue in cheek. You know, I'm sure she wasn't actually going to not tell him, right? And then people just jumped on that as if it were serious.

Laura

I don't know. I'm sensing some hostility here because her point number three is, those who are concerned about my husband's well-being, you should have been around in his 20s when he was shoving anything and everything into his body. My breast milk is the least of his concerns. Oh, throwing that husband under the bus. I know. And he says, what he doesn't know doesn't hurt him. So I mean, I wouldn't put like a bet on their five year marriage longevity, you know, it seems like there's a lot of hostility there. Oh, also she mentioned that bread does taste average without salt, but if you're still living a very lucky life, if you're eating organic sourdough in your warm kitchen before going off to work, that allows you enough money to enjoy luxury such as this. So sometimes you can say, oh, this is missing the salt rather than your bread tastes terrible.

He knew he did the wrong thing and he called later to apologize. So again, there's some tension in the family. I just feel like you can learn so much about complete strangers all from what should be a silly post in a alternative sourdough group, if you will. So anyway, this made me laugh. It made me roll my eyes. It made me just be so happy for our Facebook community because this shit would never happen in our Facebook community. No. Plug for our Facebook group. And yeah, it's really the internet is the gift that keeps on giving. So I can't wait to hear what you have for us.

Shanna

All right. I recently came across a patent from the days of yore, the year 1965 to be specific. And I don't know if you know this, but Google has a repository of patents. It's patents.google.com. I did not know this.

Laura

Interesting.

Shanna

Yeah. Yeah. So this patent I found is an application describing this item in great detail, how it will be made, there's diagrams, and it's all very, very like a serious looking and very like engineering. The patent is for an apparatus that would help women give birth using centrifugal force. Say what though?

Okay, let me explain. So a device, a machine, a big round machine where a woman about to give birth would be strapped down. If you see in the diagram, there's like a strap holding her head down, a strap across her chest. And then the apparatus spins extremely fast so that the centrifugal force created by the spinning would help work the child out of the vagina and into the world. And in the design, you see that the woman on the apparatus has a net betwixt her thighs to catch the baby that would fly out.

Laura

Wow, what could possibly go wrong?

Nothing! It's a perfect idea! I was going to ask what problem they were trying to solve, but I get it. The problem they're trying to solve is that childbirth takes a long time and is hard.

But I don't think it's like a gravity issue.

Shanna

I know. Well, here, let me read from their patent what they were trying to solve. OK, first of all, the inventors of this apparatus are named George and Charlotte Bronsky. They were a New York couple. George was an engineer. In a moment, I'll get to what inspired this idea. But here is what they wrote in their patent about why this was a necessary device. It's known that the fetus needs the application of considerable propelling force to enable it to push aside the constricting vaginal walls, to overcome the friction of the uteral and vaginal surfaces, and to counteract the atmospheric pressure opposing the emergence of the child. In the case of a woman who has a fully developed muscular system and has had ample physical exertion through the pregnancy, as is common with all more primitive people, nature provides all the necessary equipment. and power to have a normal quick delivery.

This is not the case, however, with more civilized women who often do not have the opportunity to develop the muscles needed in confinement.

Laura

In confinement?

Shanna

Wow. Yeah, so I guess the city women of the future were, I don't know, relaxing indoors instead of out working in the field so they didn't have the musculature to push out a baby. So his idea was to Have it fly out with the use of centrifugal force.

Laura

Oh, there's a lot of, I mean, it's so interesting because there's so much like obviously racially charged stuff going on here. The whole like primitive people's thing, blah, blah, blah. But what is kind of interesting about it is that usually this old timey racist stuff tends to like, so we created a device to like, you know, subjugate people more. But this one is, you know, for the, the city women who are so weak that they need to use centrifugal force. I like also this whole thing about like atmospheric pressure, like there's like a perfect seal or something that they're put, I don't know. Does this person have any obstetrical background or anything?

Shanna

Okay, great segue. No, George Blonsky was a mining engineer. He and his wife Charlotte, they loved children, but they didn't have any. They also loved the Bronx Zoo, getting this information from the Guardian. One day they went to the Bronx Zoo and George noticed a pregnant elephant giving birth. And as she was doing it, she was slowly twirling herself in circles, I guess to prepare for delivering the 250 pound baby. And apparently that got his wheels turning on how humans might be able to use this same concept.

Laura

I mean, I feel like he really is coming from a good place, as good a place as he could, right? Like he's looking at this, he's thinking, hmm, women suffer a lot. when giving birth. Here's this elephant doing a thing. Let's try it. But also, it just goes to show, like, I know that mining, engineering, you're extracting things from dark caves, but it's not the same.

Shanna

Yeah, it doesn't quite translate. And he took it very seriously. I mean, it's like an eight page patent. It describes exactly how it works and like over a hundred components breaking it down into all of the bolts and brakes and wing nuts and all these different pieces needed to create this device, but it never got created. No one ever used it.

Laura

So no one ever used it. It would never went into testing. No, no. I'm just thinking that if I were pregnant, maybe I would just try the sit and spin, you know, like getting on your toddler's sit and spin and just taking a couple turns to see if it helps.

Shanna

Just strap a Trader Joe's bag like between your thighs, get on the sit and spin and whirl away.

Laura

The most horrifying part of the whole thing is really the net. That's there to catch the baby.

I know.

Shanna

I mean, can you imagine being in labor with how disorienting it is and painful and hard and whatever and being strapped down and then spinning at a high speed and like not knowing if a net's gonna catch your newborn?

Laura

I also like this idea that this is not going to have any detrimental effect on the mother's blood flow.

I just imagine everyone passing out. Oh my God, completely. We should look and see if there's been any examples of women giving birth shortly after getting on fair rides that spin you around. Yes. Yeah, the Gravitron. Maybe that's why they say pregnant people can't get on those. Not because it's dangerous, but because they don't want you giving birth left, right, and center.

Shanna

Yes, exactly. Oh, my word. So I don't know, Laura, next time you get pregnant, you might want to see if someone can create this device for you.

Laura

Oh, gee, we'll just hold our breath for that one.

Shanna

Yes, yes.

Laura

All right. Well, that was fun. The Internet really is the gift that keeps on giving. And I'm so happy you shared that with me, Shanna. And I'm so happy it never got made.

Shanna

Me too. And I'm glad that you shared the sourdough snark with me. I found that very fascinating thing.

Laura

I really hope that they don't figure it out and like come after me, Shanna.

Shanna

I don't know. Anything's possible.

Laura

Oh, boy. Get you security detail. Shanna, you don't fuck with sourdough people, okay? They're serious people.

Shanna

Okay. Okay. I've learned something important here today. All right. I guess that's it for our segment. Shall we move on to our BFPs and BFNs?

Laura

Yes, we should.

Okay, we close every episode with a Big Fat Positive or a big fat negative from the week and Shanna, I would very much like to know. Do you have a BFP or BFN?

Shanna

I have a BFP. Yay. Yay. This Sunday was really fun. It was a softball day, so it was a little tricky getting out of the house. But after CECE's game, the league held a hit-a-thon for the 6U division, so for the little girls. And it was a big event in which like every team got up and tried to see how far each girl could hit the ball after like five pitches, you know? And then there was like face painting and bounce houses and a dunk tank. So all the girls got to try to dunk their coaches and we were out there for a really long time and it was a beautiful day and it just felt so good to not be sitting around the house on a Sunday, which we often do. We were outside amongst people. It's got such a nice sense of community, that league. And I really appreciated that they put on this event. And the girls had a blast, of course. And it was just really fun. OK, so what does a hittathon entail?

So each little girl comes up to bat, and they get five pitches from the coach. And there are, like, distance markers out on the field. So they see, like, what's the farthest hit that you got in your five pitches? A lot of the little little girls can't hit off pitches very well, so then you can bring in the T. So Cece hit hers off a T. And really, it's just for fun, camaraderie and fundraising. You know, it was like a fundraising event too. Like, have people sponsor your kids or how many hits they can get and all that jazz. So yeah, that's pretty much what it was. That's so cute. Yeah. And I'm so over fundraising. I was just like, guys, here's 50 bucks. Like I didn't ask anybody for any donations.

Laura

Yeah, I was going to say I did not see any fundraising emails about the hit-a-thon. It just is relentless, though. I feel like there's always something. We just did our jog-a-thon at school, and now they're fundraising again for a raffle thing. And I'm just like, ugh. I can't ask my family again.

Shanna

Yeah, we had just come off the heels of the read-a-thon at their school. And the family gave money to CeCe and to Elle for that. And then I was like, now a hit-a-thon is I don't think so. Sorry. Sorry, softball league. Bad timing, softball league. Yeah, bad timing. But it was fun. And then we found out that because CECE's team had 100% participation, they won an ice cream party. So this Sunday after their game, they are going to get a little ice cream party to celebrate. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. So that is the nice thing about that particular league and activity is there really is like a sense of fun and friendliness and community. I appreciate that.

Laura

That's how they suck you in, make you feel guilty about not signing up for the next season.

Shanna

Dang, that's so true. Oh, you know what happened, though? That was a little bit triggering. Uh-huh. There were four bounce houses out in the outfield and they were, you know, just the kids descended on them. And right in the middle of the kids jumping, one of them deflated. And all the parents were like, oh my god. And run over and try to hold up this big plastic thing. And I was having flashbacks to when that 20,000 square foot inflatable bounce house land that we went to all deflated. I was like, oh my god, is CECE in their age? They were fine. But yeah, that brought me back. Nice.

Laura

Can't just be a fun day, gotta have a little sprinkling of anxiety right in the middle.

Shanna

Yep, yep, yep, always. All right, what about you, my friend? You have a BFP or a BFN in this anxiety-ridden week of yours?

Laura

Well, amazingly, I have a BFP. Good. Which, okay, so as you know that when I have anxiety or sadness or any kind of ill feeling, what is my number one go-to to help me feel better? Knitting arts and crafts arts and crafts yes arts and crafts it would be knitting but knitting is tricky to do with the kids because they always want to get involved and then they ruin my knitting as I've talked about in the past. But I rediscovered a craft that I used to love that I introduced to the kids this week and it was a huge success.

Shanna

Oh, fun.

Laura

And that is Shrinky Dinks. Ooh, cool. I haven't done those since I was a kid. I know, right? Okay. So my specific BFP is actually about printable Shrinky Dinks, which is a thing I didn't know existed. So Shrinky Dinks are just a specific type of plastic. I think it's like number five, if I recall. Like if you get in the US, if you get a plastic and it has a little recycle number, it's either five or six, maybe it's six. Somebody Google it, look it up. But it's just one type of plastic, right? It happens to come in like those clamshell, like food boxes a lot. Okay. And you see it less and less these days because everyone's moving away from plastic. But it's just that type of plastic, right? But you can buy sheets of it pretty cheap. And then now on Amazon, it was like, I want to say 12 bucks for a pack or actually maybe even cheaper of printable, shrinky things.

And what I realized was I could print out coloring pages for the kids, have them color them and then make them into shrinky dinks. And, you know, we poked a little hole in the top to make it so that they could make it a key chain for their backpacks. And oh, my God, they loved it. I'm going to send you a picture of them working on theirs. Sebastian did too. He did a Spider-Man Among Us character. I don't know if you're familiar with Among Us.

Shanna

Slightly.

Laura

It's a video game. And Augie did that same one, Spider-Man Among Us. And then Sebastian also did a Spider-Man on a motorcycle. And then I did a minion. So I'm going to send you these pictures. What do you color them with that's safe to go in the oven? So we use Sharpies. So you have to be with your children unless you want Sharpie all over the house. So I got a pack of colorful Sharpies. But I think you can also use colored pencils. Oh, cool. But the Sharpie looks really cool, and I will just show you what happened.

Shanna

Okay, here's a video of Sebastian, and he's got his little Spider-Man Among Us Shrinky Dink before it shrunk in its full size. Very cute. And the minion you colored is very good. This, I believe, could be an illumination production minion. Very nice. Oh, and then the shrunken form, okay, much smaller and hard, I imagine, right? Don't they like get nice and hard?

Laura

Yes. They get like five times as thick. Yeah. So what you do is you stick them in an oven or we actually used our air fryer toaster oven and they shrink down in like less than a minute and then you have a little key chain or whatever. And it's just really fun. I wanted to do more. The kids kind of lost steam, but they were so excited watching them shrink down in the oven. You know, we stood and watch him and they go shh. It's very satisfying.

Shanna

That's so cool.

Laura

So and then they were so excited. I just got a cheap pack of these little like clippy kind of like lanyard clips, you know. Mm hmm. and stuck them on their backpacks, and they were so proud. They were so excited to go to school and show off their little shrinky dinks, so highly recommend it as an activity.

Shanna

That's so fun. And in your future, I see Halloween coming up and you making these for every kid in the class. The Halloween theme.

Laura

Why are you setting me up for something like that? I mean, I would love to, but you know, I'm not going to remember until like two days before Halloween. And then I'm going to stay until 2 AM. You'll just stay until 2 AM. But the other thing is that if it's printable I could also just do all the printing like on it and then not have to actually color anything Yeah, there you go. I also didn't seal the back with some like clear spray like acrylic just to make sure it didn't chip off But I'm not sure how necessary that was But yeah, that was so fun.

Shanna

That sounds really fun. I want to try that with my girls. Can we use like laser printer? Like that's all we have is like a regular old black and white laser printer.

Laura

It's an inkjet. OK. I had just gotten an inkjet printer. Remember for Christmas, right? But what you can do is you can just trace through it. So like if you print out something, you can just trace it because it's tracing paper. Basically, it's plastic, right? So, and your girls are older, like Elle could very easily trace something onto it and then fill it in. So yeah.

Shanna

That sounds very fun. Thank you for the idea. But yeah, that's it for me. And I think that's it for our show. It is listeners. If you have any thoughts, comments, feedback, or any internet insanity, if you want to share with us, we would love to hear them. Laura, where can everyone find us?

Laura

We are on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook at BFP Podcast. We have a website, BigBatPositivePodcast.com. And if you want to send us an email, you can always throw a voice memo in there. We love those. Just send it to contact at BigBatPositivePodcast.com. Finally, if you want to join the coolest group of people on the internet, and I swear we will not shame you for your sourdough starter techniques, go to Facebook and search Big Fat Positive Community. It is a private group and you have to request to join. And when you do that, you will have to answer two membership questions. So we know that you're not a robot and also that you're not going to shame us for our sourdough techniques. And once you do that, I always send straight through to 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. Have a big, fat, positive day. Bye. Bye.

Bizarre Birthing Devices and Sourdough Scandals – Ep. 306

May 13, 2024

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Episode Transcript

Bizarre Birthing Devices and Sourdough Scandals – Ep. 306

May 13, 2024

Listen Now:

This episode's sponsors:

Whisker Litter-Robot

Once Upon a Dance

Tags

Episode Transcript