A Literal Toddler Queen – Ep. 331

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Shanna

Hi, welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. On this week's episode, we have our weekly check-ins. We have our special segment, Today I Learn, where we dive into the topics of miniature monarchs, baffling school breaks, and more. And we wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFNs. Let's get started.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to episode 331. Hi, Laura. Hi, Shanna. How is it going? Tell us what's going on in your world this week.

Laura

OK. So the big event that happened around here is that I wasn't with my children this weekend. Ooh. Why?

I have finally decided that motherhood is just not for me and I bolted.

Shanna

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Laura

I love my children. I love my family. I'm not a flight risk, but I did fly away to the desert for two nights this week because I went and did a writer's retreat with jia friend of the podcast jia gambara blunt because we are currently writing a potty trading book together and our duty is coming up and we're like well we gotta do something to help get this book written and jia suggested we do a little two nights writers retreat out in palm desert. And so at first I was a little nervous because I was like, um, I've never been away from my kids for more than one night. And that was like a local outing. You may remember that you were there.

Shanna

Oh yes. Our mom's like staycation for your 40th birthday. That's right.

Laura

That's right, over two years ago, I spent one night, one glorious night away from the children at the Langham, where I got to sleep in and we go, oh, it was really fun. It was such a fun little getaway. But, you know, there was some comfort in knowing I was so close by. I was only like a 10 or 15 minute drive away. And of course, at the time, Sebastian was really small. So I think he was just over the age of one. I think he was like 14 months and still breastfeeding all the freaking time. So I was just like, Definitely a little more nervous about that outing. Yeah. But this was two nights and I was going to be like three hours away. So it was a bit more of a stretch. Obviously, the first person I had to get a sign off from was Corey because I was like, you are going to be on the hook for continuous childcare for like basically three days, right? Because if I'm gone two nights,

the days surrounding it are also required for childcare. And I just didn't want to make like a unilateral decision about it. But he was totally on board. He was like, you got to do what you got to do. And there was also some talk about having Corey like bring the kids out. And we all have like a family time after the writer's retreat, like do two days of work and then a few days of hanging out. But there were just a couple of reasons I didn't want to do that. One was I didn't want Corey to have to drive with the kids for like over two hours by himself.

You know like I thought well I mean he could he and he was willing to use like you tell me what you want me to do and I will do it to his credit but I was just like that's a lot you know me like that's a lot to handle on your own a B Corey doesn't really like the desert like it's not his favorite place so I know I would be adding all this extra like. parenting stuff on top of him to take him to a place that he doesn't particularly love right right and then as the weekend approached it became clear that there was going to be a massive heat wave and it ended up being a hundred and sixteen degrees out in the desert.

Shanna

What? Oh my gosh.

Laura

Which is, I mean, you're familiar with this. You grew up in Arizona, but it's like it's too hot to do anything. It's almost too hot to go in the pool because even when you're out, like you have to get into the pool some way and that short travel time is hot and dangerous, right? Like it can be dangerous for kids to be in super hot weather like that. So I was just like, you know what? Let's just make it a brightest retreat and nothing else and I'll go and I'll come back and we'll see how it works.

Shanna

Yeah. So how did it go? Did you guys get an Airbnb or a hotel? Or I don't know, tell me any details that you want to impart because I'm here for all of it.

Laura

So part of the reason we chose Palm Desert was because Gia's mom has this like long standing time share in a resort out there. So it looked and acted like a hotel, but it was her mom's time share. So it was essentially free, right? So that was part of the reason that we tracked all the way out to the desert in a historic heat wave, you know.

And it was so nice to be in like a hotel space all by myself. I'm not gonna lie. Just to be able to like float from like the bedroom to the bathroom to the little living room area and have nobody demanding anything of me. Taking a leisurely shower and not hearing screams from downstairs. I'm wondering who's dying. All of that, that sort of mental load of parenting that is just always floating in the background was briefly taken away, which was nice. But what I will say is that we basically did nothing while we were there except for work. We did two meals out and then everything else was just like in the rooms, typing furiously, coming up with new ideas, rearranging the book. I mean, it was a very effective working weekend, but I didn't come away from it like refreshed, unfortunately. All right. The book was refreshed. The book is starting to look really good. The rest of me, not so much.

And I'm going to talk about that a little bit more in the last segment. But I do want to bring up two things. One is that I am still nursing Sebastian like one or two times a day. And I didn't know exactly what was going to happen to my boobs when I left town because i don't think i'd gone two days without breastfeeding or almost three right yeah and i don't know where my pump is you know like it's somewhere buried in the basement it's definitely not charged doesn't even work who knows where all the parts they're probably all molded you know what i mean like i haven't touched my pump. in two plus years. So I was like, well, I'm not going to bring my pump. And I was like, what happens if I start getting like mastitis or something? Like what is that long enough? And kind of counter to my usual overplanning, I just decided to wing it. I was like, well, you know what?

Like he's been slowly weaning, like down to the point where we only nurse one or two times a day anyway. We've definitely gone full days where he hasn't nursed because for whatever reason, He's either forgotten or I've been out at bedtime. So like we've gone a 24 hour span without nursing. It's been fine. So I was like, I'll just see what happens. And if worst case scenario, I can run out to target and get like a hand pump, right? Like I can or hand express or something. And I just want to say like the reason I bring this up is because I think we've even had listeners right in asking about my like very extended breastfeeding journey and like how it works functionally and whatnot. And it turns out it was fine. Like I literally I had no discomfort. I had no leakage. I had no there was no problem there. And when I got home, I thought, oh, what if I've dried up? You know what I mean?

Like to be honest, I was like, that could be a convenient opportunity to just fully wean. That's what I was thinking. It's like, oh, shocks. Yeah, whoops. And I did have that moment where I was like, maybe this will be the end. No, I got home and he was like, mama, boob a time. And I'm like, I guess we can do boob a time. And I was like, my boobs probably need it. And then he is nursing and I'm like, is there milk? He's like, yeah. Okay, so I'm like well I guess I guess it's not the end of our journey yeah and then the other thing I want to report is that I thought these kids were gonna be so dysregulated so worried about me being gone they've never been away from their mom this long all that stuff. And I'm driving home like midday on a Saturday to get back to them. I went like Thursday, Friday, Saturday, driving back midday on the Saturday to rush to get to them.

And like I arrive home just as they're having dinner. I walk in the back door and I'm like, hi babies. They barely look away from the TV and they're like, oh hi mom.

Oh, come on, kids. I think Sebastian goes, we're watching Lego Jurassic Park. And I'm like, cool. Hi. The loves of my life, who I haven't seen in almost three days. Nice to see you. Yeah. Where's my welcome home banner kids? Right. So I mean, to me, as much as that stung for a second, it does demonstrate that, you know, Corey is very capable of taking care of them. And they had a great weekend without me. And yeah, it's definitely inspiring ideas of other ways that I could get away that maybe don't involve working the entire week.

Shanna

Yes, a true rejuvenating weekend away.

Laura

But yeah, that was sort of my big event of the week, and I'll talk a little bit more about it in our final segment. But I want to hear about what you've been up to this week, this hot week, because I think it wasn't 116 degrees in LA, but it was getting up there, right?

Shanna

Oh yeah, so hot. I'm so over it. And it's not fun when the weather's so hot when you and most of your family have walking pneumonia.

Laura

Come on. What?

Shanna

Up with all this. I'm so sorry. I know. It's just the hits keep coming. I don't know. Cece, as I mentioned, was sick and took her medication. Then Steve got symptoms. And then I got symptoms. And basically for like three or four days straight, Steve and I just both. were sick at the same time. That's the worst. Yeah, it was very stressful. My mom was so sweet when I told her what was going on. She was like, do you need help? I will drive out from Phoenix right now. Just let me know. I was like, oh my gosh, you are amazing. Honestly, there was nothing I would have loved more than help. But I was like, it's really contagious. And I don't want you to drive all the way out here just to get sick. I really don't want. you to get sick. And the good thing about walking pneumonia is it's not that severe, right? Like I didn't feel good for sure.

Like one day I just like barely get out of bed because I was so tired. But for the most part it's like mild to medium symptoms. But you got to nip it in the bud with prescription antibiotics, which I finally did.

Laura

I feel like, correct me if I'm wrong, I feel like the phrase walking pneumonia comes from the fact that it's like a pneumonia you can have while still walking around. Am I wrong about that? Is that just made up in my mind to help make sense of it?

Shanna

From the research I did online, yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, I think clinically it's called atypical pneumonia. And when I wanted to make this sound more severe, I would tell people I had atypical pneumonia. But yes, you can walk around. It's not like regular pneumonia where your lungs are so compromised that it's hard to breathe. You can't like it out of bed. It's not like that, you know? It feels more like a cold.

Laura

I first had walking pneumonia when I was in fourth grade, I want to say. And I remember it. I don't remember all my illnesses in childhood, of course, but I remember this one because I was complaining to my mom and my dad and my teachers and anyone who would listen that I was sick and everyone was like, you're not that sick. Like everyone was like, you're fine. And they kept sending me to school and it was finally my tennis coach. who pulled my mom aside and was like Laura's sitting out every tennis class and like everyone literally was like oh it's just because Laura doesn't like tennis it's because Laura's lazy. And my mom was like this was the narrative by the way it was like Laura's lazy she just wants to sit out and I'm just like yeah I'm not lazy guys.

So my mom finally was like, I'm going to take you to the doctor and I got tested and I had walking pneumonia and mono at the same time. Oh my gosh. Yeah, my mom was very apologetic. So yeah, I will never forget the time I had walking pneumonia in fourth grade and everyone thought I was baking.

Shanna

Yeah, that is the thing. I would have never thought that this was what was happening to our family, except there were a lot of messages in the moms groups in the neighborhood and in Los Angeles. Everybody's kids were getting walking pneumonia. CECE's pediatrician told me that it was like in the community. It's just, I don't know, it's having an uprising at the moment and it's going around. So that's why I was like, oh, okay, I guess we have that. I would have never thought of that because yeah, it kind of seems like a cold.

Laura

I just googled it, so the medical term for it is mycoplasma pneumonia, or maybe that's like the name of the bug that causes it. But yeah, there's all these articles that are like, it's on the rise. It's on the rise.

Shanna

I'm just like, can illnesses stop being on the rise? Like, I'm done. I'm done. After COVID, I'm done. Let's stop with the rising everything, please.

Laura

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. So is it just like antibiotic land in your house? You guys should really invest in whatever company makes that antibiotic because I feel like you just be investing in your own future at this point.

Shanna

Yes, truly. We've all been on Zithromycin, aka the Z-Pack, and it's helping. It's definitely helping. You can see I've got my energy back. But that's enough of that. The other thing I wanted to just mention briefly is that I'm a proud mama because little Cici did her first ever deck presentation in kindergarten.

Laura

I should say for those people who don't work in corporate America, a deck is like a PowerPoint slideshow basically to translate.

Shanna

Yes, exactly. And truly it really was just a photo of our family that they like projected up on the screen and she had to stand up and present the photo and everything. But her teacher sent a video of it. So I got to see it and I'm going to send it to you. So you can see it and we'll play the audio for the audience. So we can see what she said in her little presentation.

Laura

Okay, I'm opening this up. Oh, okay. First of all, this is adorable. She's standing in front of a huge screen. Is this one of those fancy touch screen things they have in classrooms? Maybe. I don't know. Their classroom is extremely fancy, yes. Augie's classroom has it, and I was totally blown away by it.

everyone else is like, this is normal. But I was like, we used to have chalk and chalkboards in my day.

Shanna

Yeah. And those, what were they called like projectors where you would come up and like write with a marker on like a clear sheet of paper? The transparency projectors.

Laura

Yes. You want to know what's hilarious? Augie and Sebastian's preschool back when Augie was still there acquired one of those as like a toy for the kids. And it's basically their favorite toy. They go and they put blocks and stuff on it and see how the shapes project on the wall. I just think it's so funny. Oh, that's kind of cool actually. I like that. All I wanted in middle and high school was to be called up so I could write on the projector. Like that's all I wanted.

Shanna

Same, same. My desire for that is only rivaled by my desire to be called on to read out loud in class, especially during something like Shakespeare where I could like read a character. Oh my God, that's all I ever wanted in life.

Laura

We're so insufferable. Okay, here, let me watch this video.

Speaker 1

This is my sister and this is my dad's thief. This is my mom and this is my, and this is me.

And we were at Rapunzel Beach. And we were at a hotel on the first floor. My favorite thing to do with my family is build puzzles. Thank you for listening. Anyone have any questions? What's your favorite puzzle to build? My favorite puzzle to build is like Paw Patrol puzzles.

Laura

Very nice. Oh my gosh, that is so adorable. She is so poised and so good at telling her little story about who's in her family and what she likes to do. And I have to say, did you practice the thank you for listening at the end or was that just her own invention?

Shanna

We did not practice at home. I think maybe the teacher was instructing them to do that because I watched a couple other kids presentations and some of them were trying to do that or the teacher was prompting them to do that. So I think it was part of the lesson.

Laura

That's so cute. I want to like Photoshop her onto the TEDx stage with this, you know. What if I told you that I had four family members?

Shanna

Oh, man. That would be amazing.

Laura

Ideas to blow your mind. My dad's name is Steve.

Shanna

We like to do puzzles.

Laura

Paw Patrol puzzles. That is so cute. I'm so proud of her.

Shanna

Yeah, I'm so proud of her too. My little public speaker. But yeah, that's pretty much it for my week. And I think it's time for us to move on to our special segment.

Laura

Yes, it is.

We are back and our special segment this week is Today I Learned, where we share some cool and interesting facts that we may have learned recently that relate to parenting. Shanna, you get to go first. All right. What have you learned today and today I learned, but maybe not today, but maybe recently. Tell us, tell everyone.

Shanna

Today, and recently I learned, I learned that, oh gosh, okay, this is getting crazy. All right, let me start by saying this one is a hat tip to Steve. He let me know about this. Because at breakfast the other day, he was like, oh, did you hear about the study with cats and kids? And I was like, what? No, I haven't. Cats and kids, that's like an intersection of the Venn diagram where I live squarely at this point in my life. I feel like it's just a circle.

Laura

It's not even a Venn diagram. They're full overlap there.

Shanna

Yeah, exactly. It's all just one big pie of cats and kids. So I was very interested in this, and I was like, send me the link. I need to know what this is. So he sent it to me. And here is what I learned. There was a recent study published by a researcher named Yasmin I hope I said that right. I probably didn't. She did a whole study with a team of researchers about why cats scratch in an undesirable way. So not just like why they scratch for, I don't know. Whatever reasons, but like why do they scratch on your couch or why do they destroy things in your house, right? So Yasmin and her team wanted to understand the relationship between undesirable scratching and environmental factors. What is causing our cats to do this? So they collected data from 1,211 cats, which I was very impressed by. That's quite a lot of cats. That's a lot of cats. More than I thought. No, I know.

And they did some online questionnaires with the owners of the cats asking questions about the environment and scratching behavior and all this stuff. And they put it all together and it came up with the results.

Laura

Okay, this is news that Corey could use. I've stopped caring about them scratching on random things because I'm like, cats are gonna cat. But Corey's always like, go get off the couch, stop it, you little jerk. Like he's always getting on the back of the couch and scratching. And I'm just like, well, All of our stuff is trash now, so oh well.

Shanna

Where do your cats scratch? Do they scratch like the arm of the couch too or what do they do?

Laura

They are mostly horizontal scratchers. They like things that are down low. Yeah.

Shanna

Oh, interesting. All right. Well, maybe this will be news you can use. Okay. One noteworthy finding. And in my opinion, the most noteworthy finding of the study is that undesirable scratching is significantly influenced by the presence of a child in the home. Aw. Just having a child in the home makes cats scratch more in undesirable areas. And I was like... Interesting. Well, that's unfortunate. It appears that the presence of a child could potentially contribute to heightened stress levels, you know, because of their noise and just everything unpredictable about a child. And I'm like, yeah, no kidding. Like, I could have told you this information without a study of 1,200 cats. I mean, it's such a bummer to know that the presence

of our children is what's stressing out our cats.

Laura

Yeah, I know. I mean, it's so obvious to me. I follow this pet behaviorist on TikTok, and she does these videos where she asks you if you can identify what a cat is feeling or a dog is feeling based on their expression, right? And I have like 100% success rate not to brag with the cats, but I've grown up with cats. Like I can tell when a cat is stressed or happy or whatever, like it's just second nature to me. And yeah, I'm hanging out with Cal, my younger cat, and he's happy and loving on me and purring and so happy. And then Augie will walk into the room and just like, you know, even though Augie loves him and is pretty gentle with him and has never hurt him significantly, it's just like they're on alert right away, you know?

Shanna

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they walk heavy. They stomp. They come into a room. It's just like, blah, blah, blah. I'm here. Their voices are loud. Yeah. The researchers also offer solutions, which is like, get a lot of cat scratching posts. And I'm like, OK. Again, that makes sense. And have hiding places for the cats and stuff like that. So yeah, if your cat is doing a lot of undesirable scratching, Because you have kids in the house. So get more scratching posts, I guess, is the takeaway.

Laura

Yeah, there's also this stuff called fellow way or fellow way. I don't know. I've never heard it out loud, but it's supposed to be like cat pheromones or something. Have you ever heard of this stuff? It's like a glade plug-in type thing. You put it in the wall and it releases some kind of pheromone or hormone scent that's supposed to be calming for cats. It's recommended when you like move or have something stressful going on. I've never known if it makes a difference for my cats, but I've gotten it a couple of times. So like there are some other things you can do to maybe help reduce the stress of kids. You know, other than getting rid of the kids, rehoming the kids probably isn't an option.

Shanna

And you know, teaching your kids to be gentle, constantly practicing that and having them look at the cats and be like, or dogs too, right? Any animals in the house, be like, what do you think the animal is feeling right now? Let's tune into that. Maybe will you send me the link to that TikTok account so I can You know, have my kids practice these.

Laura

Yes. Emotional tests. Honestly, I think that's great. That would be great to start learning that at an early age, especially with dogs like cats. Unless you have a particularly aggressive cat, they're not going to be able to do some serious damage. But if you're around dogs a lot, they need to know the signs of stressed out dogs. So yes, I will send that to you. Thank you. I do find also that Augie corrects Sebastian a lot to protect the cats. Sebastian will come in and be like, hi, Cal. I want to give him a big hug. And Augie will be like, you need to be gentle. And check in with Cal. Be like, Cal, are you OK? Oh, that's good. That's really good.

Shanna

I know.

Laura

It's so cute.

Shanna

Yeah. Yeah, and I want to say my kids are not mean to the cats. It's not about the kids being mean. It's like the cute aggression thing, right? They love these cats so much, and then they don't know their own strength and they don't tune in to what's going on. So that's why. That's why. But anyway, that's my first day I learned. I want to hear what you got.

Laura

Mine has nothing to do with cats. Okay. Which I know is surprising because they were my babies before I had babies. But mine is from TikTok, as usual. This is where I do all my research these days. It's an academic resource, right, TikTok? It's peer reviewed.

Shanna

I think it is. I think it is. It's up there with Harvard.

Laura

I stumbled upon this account called History with Amy by this woman named Dr. Amy Boyington. And she has tons of videos about just all kinds of aspects of history, but it looks like she kind of focuses on 18th century European stuff. And I found this video of hers that was titled the history of baby walkers. And I know that we've, I feel like we've talked about the history of baby walkers a little bit on the show. Like I have this memory of you sending me a picture of like a baby in a wicker walker. Or maybe I'm just making it up, but I thought you would introduce me to this concept at some point.

Shanna

It is not ringing a bell for me, but my mind is like a sieve these days. So who knows.

Okay. Okay.

Laura

Well, there are some interesting things in this video about old fashioned baby walkers, right? There's baby walkers from like the 16th century that are basically wooden contraptions on wheels. And sometimes some of them even have shelves on them. But we have proof of this because they're all these old, you know, Renaissance paintings and stuff. It's really cool. And she has all these examples of them. But what I found really interesting was just a little side note, a little side quest she went on in this TikTok video. which was the history of baby rains. Baby what now? Baby rains, R-E-I-N-S as though a rain on a horse. Oh, like a baby leash. Exactly. And it caught my attention because I know there's so much controversy around putting a leash or like a backpack leash on your kid these days, right?

If it gets brought up in a mom's group, there will be people all over the board arguing for it or arguing against it. Like it's one of those things that really inspires a lot of heated debate amongst people. Right. You know, you shouldn't have your kids are not a dog. You shouldn't keep them on a leash, blah, blah, blah. And then people will be like, my kid is an Erode Virgin. If I don't have them on the leash, they will be gone. And, you know, it gets very emotional, very heated. And there's a lot of judgment. So imagine my surprise when I see a painting of a little like two-year-old in full dress, like full garb, and her older sister is literally holding onto her with a built-in leash. I'm gonna send you a picture.

Shanna

Well, need to see this. All right, let's see here. Oh my gosh. Okay. First of all, the babies in this painting or the kids in this painting are adorable and very lavishly dressed. I mean like big full skirts and their hair is pulled back and there it is. There is. It looks like a ribbon maybe coming off of the baby's sleeve or maybe from behind her. And yeah, holding her like a little puppy. So what's the story here, Laura?

Laura

Yeah, and they're wearing like silk brocade and lace, I should mention, which is really funny to me. But yeah, and the leash itself is silk brocade. So I mean, the story is kids apparently have needed leashes forever. I just sent you two more pieces of evidence from paintings that she pointed to. just to prove that this is not a new thing.

Shanna

Okay, let's see. Oh, here's a family portrait, the dad, and then there's the mom, again, like very elegantly dressed, holding two leashes, like a rain that is attached to her child, who looks about four, three maybe. Right. Yeah.

Laura

I mean, it's hard to tell. I have to say that their ability to represent children in these old paintings is weird. Like, I feel like they're always little adults, you know? So it's hard to tell.

Shanna

Yeah. The faces look very mature. Okay. And here's one more. This is a larger family portrait. And the eight-year-old sister is holding the leash of the like two-year-old sister in front of her. This is so interesting like it must it clearly wasn't a shaming thing because these people posed with these leashes for the portraits I mean no one was like paint out the leash.

Laura

Yeah exactly I mean these must have been wealthy enough families to be able to afford oil portraits of themselves right. And in the painting, in this portrait that must have taken hours and hours and hours, right, for the artist to make. They're like, yeah, keep the rain in. That's just normal.

Shanna

Or maybe they didn't use rains in real life, but they had to use them for the painting. Otherwise, the kid would be like, I'm out of here. I ain't sitting for this portrait.

Laura

That is also possible. But no, apparently there's historical evidence that this was totally normal. And they were called leading Reigns. And yeah, it was totally acceptable or normal to have your kids be in Reigns. So I thought there was this, you know, a cute, interesting tidbit from history, but also I was hoping it would help alleviate any guilt or shame that modern parents might have about using it. Because like clearly this is not something that was invented just because children these days need to learn how to behave.

Shanna

Right. And parents these days are just incapable of keeping an eye on their kids. No, this is a need that has existed for centuries.

Laura

Yes. So yeah, that's my first today I learned. People have been corralling their children any way they can for as long as we can remember.

Sean, do you have another one for us?

Shanna

I do. I was in one of my parenting groups on Facebook recently and there was a conversation about going on a trip or something. I don't remember the exact details of it, but what I remember is that one of the parents said, Oh, our family is planning to go do that during ski week. And someone chimed in and was like, ski week. And another person was like, yeah, ski week. Like the week off school, like in February, like ski week. And I was like, what are you talking about? And other people chimed in there like, oh yeah, ski week. And I'm just like, what in the hell is ski week? So I had to find out what this is all about.

Laura

I think I went down a similar rabbit hole last year when I was getting messages from the parkour class that Auggie and Sebastian take being like, need plants for ski week? Come to parkour class. And I'm like, what the fuck is ski week? But I kind of glanced at it and was like, OK, well, this is not applicable to me, but I never really found out the real origin of it. So please tell me.

Shanna

Okay, okay. So apparently, some schools around the nation take a week off around Presidents Day, and it's colloquially known as Ski Week. It started in Marin in Northern California about 40 years. Yeah, that tracks. Like, oh, okay, there we go. Yep, yep. Yeah, 100% about 40 years ago because parents were just taking their kids out of school during this week anyway, right? Like there's a day off for so-and-so's president's birthday, president's day, whatever. And they were calling in sick or faking or whatever and playing hooky basically and taking their kids off to go ski. And I guess the schools were like, okay, I guess we'll just take the week off. And it became known as ski week because it's great time for skiing and snow and everything in mid of February.

Laura

People who are not familiar with California or its geography, Marin does not have snow. Marin County is north of the San Francisco Bay, and while it does not have snow and mountains to speak of, it is quite wealthy of an area. It's a privileged area to live in. And that makes sense why people would have the resources to be able to just take a week off and go skiing because skiing ain't cheap and ain't a cheap hobby.

Shanna

Exactly, exactly. And it's probably close enough to really good ski and like, I don't know, is it near like Tahoe?

Laura

Yeah, you can get from the Bay Area to Tahoe in a couple hours-ish. It's just like a straight shot on I-80. And as long as the pass isn't snowed in, that's kind of where the Donner Party situation happens. So if it's really snowy, you want to avoid it. But if it's open, you can go that way and get to Tahoe really easily.

Shanna

Yeah. And back then, I guess it was just known as Ski Week. And then, you know, people were like, okay, maybe that's not the best official name for this.

Laura

It's not the most inclusive name. Yeah.

Shanna

Yeah, exactly. So it officially became known as Midwinter Break. And I found an article from 1998 online that says at the time about 33 of Bay Area school districts gave kids a nine-day holiday in February, a midwinter break, aka a ski week in February. So it really caught on in Northern California. From what I understand, it's also traveled its way down to some schools in LA, Southern California, and some places on the East Coast have a midwinter break as well, but I don't think they technically call it like a ski week. And if you're curious, in 2024, school districts that offer ski week were on recess from February 19th. to 23rd. So it's just like right kind of in the middle of February.

Laura

So does Los Angeles Unified School District do this?

Shanna

No, not that I know of. From what I can tell, it's not so much a public school thing. That also sounds right. Yeah, more of a private school thing.

Laura

You know, I don't want to be judgmental of those who take a ski week because my family did growing up. We would go skiing every year for a week. It was actually like for a conference that my parents would go to, and it was just like was a ski conference. It was honestly an excuse for a bunch of cardiologists to go skiing, but they would do like conferences in the evening after they were done skiing. Oh my gosh great but it became like a thing like it became a real community to the point where they've started inviting me to go like even now that my dad is passed away. Which is very sweet of them yeah it's like the ski group I haven't been able to go but so I don't I don't want to pass judgment on you know people who have the means to go skiing it's wonderful I love snowboarding and if I. could. I would just go every year.

But I could also see people being real pissed that like there's all these privileged families who are forcing this week off when maybe families that don't have the ability to take off work for a week suddenly have to figure out something to do with their children because they're not up at the ski resort.

Shanna

Yes, exactly. My take is like, no more breaks, okay? We just came off the heels of a three week winter break. Do we really need another nine days in February? But if I were a skier and I had the means to go off on a nine day trip to the mountains, maybe I would be into it.

Laura

Yeah, I can see the upside. I can definitely see the downside. I can see the cringiness of calling it ski week, especially when you live in a place like Los Angeles where it never snows. I should never say never. It snowed for like five minutes once in Pasadena while I've lived here. Yeah. But yeah, that's interesting. Well, I am personally glad that my kid's school does not do this. I'd also be curious if there's other like quirky unique breaks that people around the world take, you know, do like people in Maryland have like crabbing week or I don't know, we would have fog days in Fresno because the fog would be so bad, but that's different. That's not planned. Yeah.

Shanna

Yeah, but it's it could be regional right and it can depend on the culture of the community Yeah, so listeners if you know of any other quirky unique time off that schools take definitely let us know the other thing I learned about this which is this is a good heads up ski week is apparently a very busy time at Disneyland so Yeah Not everyone goes skiing. Some people go to Disneyland. So just be aware that if you plan to go to Disney in February, it might be busier than usual.

Laura

Eventually, it'll just turn into Disney week. Like in 20 years, 30 years, your girls will be like sending their kids to school. I'm like, oh, I got to find childcare for Disney week.

Shanna

I think Disney should just try to do that and brand it and just make it their own. And I think it would probably increase sales.

Laura

Yeah, because they're having real trouble with sales. They're really hurting the finances department at Disney Corporation. Yeah. Yeah, true truth. I'm so glad you're offering up some free financial advice to them.

Shanna

All right, my friend, that was my last today I learned. Do you have one more for us?

Laura

I do, but I thought I would do it after the break.

Shanna

Oh, yes.

We're back and Laura has one more today.

Laura

I learned Laura. What is it? So my second thing is something I also learned from Dr. Amy Boyington from history with Amy on TikTok where she has so much interesting stuff on there. And I was just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, watching all of her videos, which were totally fascinating. And then I got to this one video that is not like in and of itself funny like it was a you know just a tidbit from history that was being retold in a very engaging way but it was cracking me up when I was thinking about it and I'll tell you why okay so it was about Isabella the second queen of Spain okay but here's was cracking me up she became queen at age three.

Shanna

I feel like that's a perfect age to become a queen because girls are divas.

Laura

Oh my God. So I have a three-year-old at this very moment, right? Like I have a three-year-old living in my house who would very much like to be king of the house. And I was just imagining what would happen if all of a sudden we all started like bowing to Sebastian.

He would love it. I think he would love that. Can you imagine actually having to like legally do whatever a three-year-old told you to do?

Shanna

That is bonkers.

What even? How do you rule a country when you're three?

Laura

So technically she wasn't actually ruling. Her mother was regent until she became 13 when she was considered an adult, which is also hilarious to consider a 13 year old an adult totally able to rule a country.

So her mother, I think, was, you know, was making the day-to-day decisions in Spain until she became 13. But what's funny for me is like imagining this little baby because even though maybe this little preschooler with I'm guessing was a normal preschooler at the time, right? Like kids brain development hasn't changed that much since the 1800s, right? I'm sure things have changed, but we haven't evolved, right? So I'm sure a three-and-a-half-year-old in 1833 was the same as a three-and-a-half-year-old now, like irrational tantrums, all that stuff, but also legally queen of the country.

Shanna

Uh, does she like, skip into a room and all the knights have to go down on one knee and like... I'm guessing, yeah, probably, right? Like...

Laura

I wonder how they felt about that. Well, here's an interesting piece of information I learned from this TikTok is that the reason Isabella became queen at three is because her father died, right? Mm-hmm. And her father's brother, her uncle, who used to be second in line for the throne until Isabella was born, was very upset about the fact that he was not getting to be king, so he contested her reign. However, the only reason she maintained her reign throughout her early childhood is apparently because the army supported her.

So I'm abathing all these grown men in suits of armor and swords being like no this three-year-old has my honor you know like

Shanna

Meanwhile, she's back at the castle like, I want my milk warmed up. Yeah, she's like, who wipes my butt?

Laura

Although granted, I'm sure queens could get their butts wiped for the rest of their lives if they wanted.

Shanna

Truly, truly.

Laura

No, I wanted it in the Emerald Cup, not the Diamond Cup.

Shanna

This is not the goblet I like.

Laura

Then someone's head gets chopped off.

Oh man.

Shanna

Oh boy.

Laura

So I sent you a few screenshots so you could see Miss Isabella. The first one supposedly is when she was three, although she looks much older than that. And then there's a few more up until she was coronated, I guess, when she was 13.

Shanna

Okay, here she is. She looks very regal. She's got her little crown. Gigantic pearls. Wow. Those are gigantic pearls on her. ears and around her neck. She wears it well. I mean, hey, you know, maybe she was born for it. I guess literally she was.

Laura

Granted, what three and a half year old girl doesn't want to be a princess? I know there are a lot of them, but like so many would kill for this. So she might have been happy with it.

Shanna

Let's not tell any of them about Isabella the second because then they'll realize it could be a reality. Okay. And this one, she's holding all her little stuffed animal. Oh, no, that's like a real dove. Uh, okay.

Laura

I'm gonna guess that has some kind of symbolism we don't understand. Art history majors, please help us. Probably innocence. Probably quoting the soul of Spain or something. Someone help us. I did not pay that close attention in history class.

Shanna

And this last one, okay, she's looking much more mature, the ripe age of 13. She's like, guys, can you hurry up with this painting? I need to go check TikTok.

Laura

I got some dances to practice. Yeah, no. I mean, who knows? It's interesting because Dr. Amy said that she didn't actually have a lot of power, and this was evidenced by the fact that she was forced to marry her first cousin when she turned 16, a man she detested, apparently. Though she mysteriously had five children and a lot of people don't think that they were actually her husband's children because she hated that man so much. And then she even publicly came out and said she had a lover. So like pretty clear that that wasn't actually her cousins, which for the best that we're not having children with her first cousins, right? Like from a genetics point of view.

Shanna

Yeah. And good for her for seeking her happiness, man. Not sticking with the guy that makes you miserable.

Laura

Yeah. At some point, she was deposed, kicked out. She ended up living the rest of her life in Paris, but super interesting trajectory. I don't envy any royals in general because their lives are weird and fucked up, but I just cannot get over this visual of a three and a half year old being the freaking ruler of a country. Like, come up with a worse idea. I dare you.

Shanna

Yes, yeah, it's bad. It's so bad, but definitely hilarious.

Laura

But I just want to thank Dr. Amy Boyington for all this wonderful content. We'll make sure to link her so that you can go see some of her cool history stuff. And yeah, that is it for my today I learned. I think it's time to move on to our BFPs and BFNs. All right.

Shanna

We wrap up every episode with our big fat positives or big fat negatives of the week. And Laura, you're up first, what you got?

Laura

Okay, I have a BFN, I'm sorry.

I know. So my BFN started on my first night on my retreat, on my writer's retreat. The previous week, Augie had had a little, just a little cold, like a little virus. He got over it pretty easily. And then I got a little bit of the virus. I kind of felt mild cold symptoms, like one or two days. right? Nothing serious. I was like, okay, cool. But I have a pattern when I get sick, which is I will get a mild cold, a little virus, I will get better for a couple of days, and then I will end up with strep throat. And this has been happening every time I get sick for the last couple of years, right? I thought I had gotten away with it. I was like, okay, I'm better. I feel fine. I got out to the desert and my throat started hurting. And I start panicking because I'm like, this is our weekend to work on the book. Like I can't be sick while we're out here.

Shanna

Yeah.

Laura

But then the next morning I woke up OK. Like I woke up, you know, usually it hits you like a ton of bricks and your throat is just on fire. And I felt OK. So I was like, you know what? Maybe it's the extreme heat and the air conditioning, all that stuff. Maybe that's just irritating my throat.

Shanna

Dry desert air, dust. Exactly.

Laura

Well, now I realize maybe it was the dry desert air that was protecting me and like keeping it at bay because I got home and the bricks fell. The bricks hit me. There's an approximate ton of them that fell on me. And it turns out, yes, indeed, I did have strep throat. Fucking again. And fun development. I also ended up with pink eye at the same time.

Shanna

What?

Laura

Yeah. So now at the time of recording, I'm a little bit better because I've been on, you know, antibiotics right away. Like the good news is I identified it quickly and got, you know, the antibiotics are still working thankfully. But here's the real BFN, which is I'm starting to suspect I need to get my tonsils out. Ooh.

Shanna

Yeah, that? I wonder if that would help. I used to get chronic. Consulitis in my 20s and I got mine out when I was like 20, 21 and it was a game changer. So maybe do. It's not fun though.

Laura

And no, it's not fun. So of course I spent, you know, all my, my convalescence lying in bed, scrolling TikTok, trying to see like personal stories of people who got their tonsils out as adults and in

It doesn't look great, Shanna. It doesn't look like a great plan. So I don't know. I'm trying not to worry too much about it, but I feel like the writing might be on the wall and I need to go to an ENT and figure it out.

Shanna

Yes, make that appointment go because even though the surgery and recovery sucks, it's It was so painful after I was done like it's great to not suffer monthly. I was suffering like monthly every month. I would get really terrible sore throat. But even if you get this like, you know, a few times a year, you know, it might improve that.

Laura

Yeah. And I snore. So, you know, I think that might improve there anyway. This is all to help me stay accountable to actually make an E&T appointment and try to get it done. So, yeah, that is my BFN. Hopefully next week I'm back with a BF pay. Shanna, how about you? Are we going to close out on a bummer or do you have a BFP for us?

Shanna

I don't have a BFB, big fat bummer. I do have a BFP, yay!

Laura

Oh yay, good, good, good.

Shanna

I finally bought a gadget that I have needed forever. I don't know why I never got it before and I'm very happy about it. and dying to know what it is. So I don't know how the drop-off line works for you guys at school, but when we drive up, adults are not allowed to get out of the car and help their kids or anything. So what I have to do is lean back over and try to unbuckle CECE's five-point harness from over the back and It's tricky, and when I do my nails, and they're like a little bit long, I just cannot push the fucking button that holds the buckle at the bottom, you know?

Laura

The crotch buckle, yeah, yeah.

Shanna

The crotch buckle, exactly. It like bends my fingernail backward, and then I'm like, ow! And it's just, I hate it. So I'm like, there's gotta be a device for this, a button helper or something. Of course there is, Laura. Of course. There's a ton of them.

Laura

There's something for everything, yeah.

Shanna

There is. And it was like $6 or something on Amazon. So it's this little plastic thing. You can slip it over the crotch buckle. And it's got a notch on it. And then you press the piece of plastic. And it's like, psh. So I don't hurt my fingernails on it anymore. And the most beautiful thing is Cece can do it herself. So I don't have to lean over the seat anymore at drop off and do anything because she can already do the chest one herself. And now she does the crotch one and she's off. And it's great.

Laura

I love that. I should get one of these two because I have to do the lean over thing. And it's fine right now because Augie is on the passenger side and just the way the car is. It's really easy for me to like just press the little like release button, like I can reach it fine. But next year when they both have to go, I don't know how I would do it. So I think this is very smart. And also I love that it's available. Like I've heard of people using this as an assistive device. Like if you're a person who doesn't have enough grip strength or dexterity to do it. So people will use it from the time kids are babies so that they can help get their kids in and out of a car seat if they don't have the strength or ability to do it themselves. So that's awesome.

Shanna

Yeah.

Laura

What's the brand name that you got? Or is it just like a generic one on Amazon?

Shanna

Here, I'll send you a link really quick so you can see what it is, what it looks like, and tell us what it's called. If you glance at it quickly, it looks like a sex toy. I'm not going to lie.

Laura

I wasn't going to say it. I wasn't going to say it. I was just going to leave it be. You're right. It does.

It says unbuckle me car seat buckle release tool, easy opener aid for arthritis, long nails, older kids. Yeah, this is great. It's just this little plastic hook that has a little protruding part that you can loop around the buckle and push down and make it a lot easier. It comes in a bunch of different colors, which is nice. And as of today, it's $14.99, which seems like a pretty good price for a daily problem that you have. I imagine that the one thing you want to do is just make sure it's not left on the car seat with your kids so they can buckle themselves.

Shanna

Well, it has a hook on it and I tied a string to the device so that if it falls on the floor, she can pull the string and bring it up. She knows not to open it herself. If you have a child that you suspect might do that at the wrong time, absolutely. Do not leave it back there within their reach at all and only use it when you are opening the seat. But she's older, right? It's almost six now. So I think that that's totally fine.

Laura

Awesome. Okay. Well, this is super helpful. I'll probably order one today to make the carpool drop off easier.

Shanna

And thank you for sharing. Indeed. But yeah, that's it for me. And I believe that's it for our episode. Unless Laura, do we have a review to read?

Laura

Actually, we do. Ooh. And here's the thing, so we've been instructing people to go to Apple Podcasts to leave reviews all this time, right? Because that's really the main place you can leave reviews. Spotify, you can leave five stars, but I don't think there's any written reviews for the show yet on Spotify, so we were just like, well, I guess just do it on Apple if you have Apple. And then I was digging around and discovered that you could actually leave reviews on Audible for our podcast if you listen through that app. And so I logged on to Audible and I discovered we actually have two five-star reviews on there. We have more ratings, but we have two five-star reviews. Which is great because I didn't even know this was a feature. So first of all, I just want to thank the two people who went through the effort to review us on Audible. That's so nice. So I'm going to read one of them.

It's from Anna S. And the title of the review is So Much Fun, Five Stars. I've been listening nearly every workday since I first found out I was expecting. It's like having pregnant friends going through the experience with you, not to mention there's a decent amount of learning and tons of cute stories involved in their parenting. I'm always telling my sweetheart's stories from the podcast and recommend it to my friends and family. Thank you so much, Anna. I know you left that a little while ago, but I'm so grateful that you knew something we didn't know, which was that you could leave a review on Audible.

Shanna

Yes! Thank you, Anna. That's so sweet. And thank you so much for sharing our show with your friends. We so appreciate the support. Listeners, if you haven't had a chance yet, could you please leave us a five-star review and say a few things you love about the show? You can do that on Apple Pie. podcast, Audible, Amazon. And if you're on Spotify, drop us those five stars. Even if there isn't anything you can say about us, give us the five stars. And that means so much and really helps support the show. And also, make sure that you are subscribed or following the show in whatever app you listen in so that you always get fresh content right away. If you have any comments or questions or feedback on today's episode, or you want to share any interesting today I learns with us, we would love to hear from you. Laura, where can everyone find us?

Laura

We're 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. 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 got to request to join and answer those two membership questions so we know you're not a robot. Once you do that, you'll be sent straight through to all the wonderful and amazing 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 Big Fat Positive Week. Bye! Bye!

A Literal Toddler Queen – Ep. 331

November 4, 2024

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This episode's sponsors:

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Episode Transcript

A Literal Toddler Queen – Ep. 331

November 4, 2024

Listen Now:

This episode's sponsors:

Whisker Litter-Robot

Once Upon a Dance

Tags

Episode Transcript