Potty-Training Q&A: Readiness, Road Trips and Poop Reluctance – Ep. 378

Laura

Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. This week, we have our weekly check-ins with our special segment, which in honor of the release of my new potty trading book, Good to Go, a fresh take on potty trading for today's intentional parent, my co-author, GNI, will be taking over the special segment for a Ask Us Anything About Potty Trading, and we close with our BFPs and BFNs for the week. Let's get started. Hello, hello, hello, everyone out there in podcast land. This is episode 378 of Big Fat Positive. Shanna, hello. Hello. Hello, hello. Let's get right to it. Can you tell me what's been going on this week? Sure thing.

Shanna

So this is a bit of a loose end, but I don't know if you recall back when we recorded our end of the year wrap up. Um, last year, like at the end of the year, one of the questions was like, what's one of your goals in 2025? Or what are you looking forward to? And I was like, I don't know, to hire a gardener. Oh yeah. Just, I don't know. I was not aiming high, um, clearly. But despite the seeming ease of that task, it's taken me about nine months to get around to it. But we have succeeded. I asked Steve to jump on that task, and he did. We have hired gardeners to come and clean our yard so me and my family can get more use out of our yard without me having to also get out the blower and the rake and do all the stuff. So I'm so happy about that.

Laura

Oh, that's great. Congratulations. I am a little bit jealous. We once had gardeners. I didn't like them. They didn't really do what I asked them to do, and I was kind of nervous about them around my native plants. So we decided we should just go without gardeners. But yeah, the backyard is a mess all the time. And I definitely long for someone I trust to just come in and like

Shanna

fix it up so we can just go out there and enjoy it like you said so that's amazing that's exciting yes so as a result i have found myself you know when you hire like a house cleaner right you're like oh my gosh i have to tidy up for the house cleaner and get ready for the house cleaner i found myself doing that with this yard person i was like oh my gosh it's the first day of the yard work And I'm like, come home. Next thing I know I'm cleaning stuff up, putting things away and doing all this stuff. But doing this got me thinking about my front yard, which I have not watered the lawn out there for at least a few years. And to save money, there was the drought. I thought maybe I would replace the lawn, et cetera, et cetera. But I've discovered that seeing the brown deadness of it makes me just miserable. I don't know. I want to see life out there.

Laura

Yeah. And it's very physical. You know, when you mentioned the sprinkler situation, I had to cap off all my sprinklers. And it was a lot of work. And I really wish I had a shop back. When you said, like, suctioning dirt out of holes with the shop back, I'm like, oh, that's where I went wrong because I was just digging it out. And that's very hard to do. So that was an innovation.

Shanna

I had to do a lot of digging, but a lot of dirt was falling into it. And so I sucked it up. I felt ridiculous out in my front yard, sucking up stuff with my shop back. And I had this tent that I put up, like a shade tent. And oh my gosh, it was silly, but it was good.

Laura

Yeah. I think I called it grief gardening, even though I wasn't really gardening. I was really just getting a garden prepared. But yeah, the parallels are very strong here. trying to get rid of grass or do something else with it. And yeah, I think it was the same time of year too. It was.

Shanna

Yeah, I think it was. And then, you know, part of that was going to the hardware store and trying to buy new sprinklers, but then be like, ooh. Let me look at the garden section and I brought CECE with me and she always convinces me to buy stuff. I mean, I'm such a sucker for that. She's like, let's get this plant. I'm like, okay, next thing I know, I have like nine new plants. They don't really go with like the design aesthetic of my front yard, but I bought them anyway. And I'm like, I don't know what to do with them. And I don't know. It's a whole thing, but it's fun and it's something fun to be engaged in.

Laura

So do you have a plan for the area or you're just putting the sprinklers in and then figuring out what to do?

Shanna

My plan is to see if I can revive my St. Augustine lawn, because that has just died completely. And as our friend Jen asked, she's like, oh, what are you going to do to revive your lawn? I want to know. And I was like, well, I'm going to start by watering it. I mean, that's a first. First step. I haven't done that in years. And then one corner of the yard that's really dead. I've kind of sectioned off. I think I'm going to dig it up and put some drought tolerant plants in that corner. And then just see if I can get a little grass just for some greenery somewhere for the kids and the dog to run around. Nice. Yeah. But yeah, that's my check-in, a little grief gardening. What about you? What's going on with you all? Oh, we have a check-in for this week.

Laura

Ooh, ooh. Tell me more. We had another baby. What?

Shanna

Oh my gosh, I'm an auntie again. Tell me everything. Yes.

Laura

How was the delivery? Oh, it was so easy. My friend Amy just brought her over from her house and dropped her off.

Shanna

Okay, either you adopted a child or something else is going on. What's happening? We got a baby kitty cat. Yay.

Laura

Okay, so as you know, and our listeners know, we lost our beloved elderly mancat, Magnus, back in February. So it's been a while and I wanted to give us some time to grieve Magnus. and just sort of figure things out before we thought about having another cat. But of course, like right away, even my mom was like, are you gonna get a kitten? Are you gonna get a kitten? I was like, let's, like, we haven't even received Magnus's ashes back. Like, give us a second, you know? I'm like, can we go home from the magic castle brunch first before we talk about this? Right.

Shanna

Seriously, it's true, right? Animals can get depressed and sad when their buddies pass.

Laura

Yes, it's true. And the other argument I made was how many times in anyone's life do you get to have a kitten? Do you get to have the experience of getting a new kitten? Unless you're fostering Amy, so the answer is 10 times a year.

Shanna

Okay, let me see. Oh my goodness. Oh, what a cutie little patootie. Must be really small. She's tiny. Yeah. Just barely like, I don't know, barely sits in his lap.

Laura

Like, I don't know. It's so cute. She is adorable. She is very teeny tiny. She was definitely trying to get away from him, but he just has his like, blissed out look on his face. Oh, 100%. Oh, my goodness. So happy. So anyway, we were like, pretty much sold visiting her. And we just had to leave her with Amy for a couple more days while she got her shots. And then we picked her up this weekend. And now we have a new baby kitty.

Shanna

Like the buddy that he adopted from CECE's birthday party exactly, and I was like my dude Let's think of something original.

Laura

Yeah But we're yeah, we're in debates. We I've said, you know, we all have to agree more or less We can't you know, we all have veto power for things. So it's gonna be a bit of a debate I will report back but right now we just call it you don't baby kitty You little kitten. So sweet. How old is she? Two-ish months. Amy wasn't entirely sure. And she's small. She's only like two pounds, so. Nice.

Shanna

Oh, I love a kitten. I have to come over and visit her. I mean, I'm visit you. I've got to come visit my friend, you. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no.

Laura

I'm not as exciting. You come over for the kitten.

Shanna

We are back, and this week's special segment is a Laura and Gia Takeover. Laura, in honor of the upcoming release of the potty training book that you and Gia wrote, the book called Good to Go, a Fresh Take on Potty Training for Today's Intentional Parent, we thought it would be fun if you and Gia took over the special segment to answer listener questions all about potty training because we know our listeners have lots of questions about this topic and they need to hear from the experts. So I think I might just pass the mic on over to you and to Gia.

Laura

Yes, Shanna. Thank you so much for letting us take over the segment. Okay, hello. I am now here with Gia for our Big Fat Positive Special Segment Takeover. Hi, Gia. Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me. Of course. Okay, so we put out a call to my Big Fat Positive listeners to see if they had any potty training questions and they came through with so many questions. It was a little bit overwhelming. We tried to collect them and get the most pressing questions to help you guys out, but we are going to do our best to answer some potty training questions during the segment. Gia, are you ready? I was so excited to see such a giant list. It means people are really ready for this book. Yes. And honestly, this book is ready for you. I don't know if we've mentioned this. It's like over 220 pages long, right? I don't even know what the final count ended up being.

Speaker 1

Gia, what do you think about this? Well, first I do hear this a lot and I wasn't surprised to see this in the list multiple times in different ways of asking. There does seem to be a little more ease with peeing in the potty and a little more reluctance with pooping in the potty. And there could be many reasons for this. And we did do a deep dive in both research and in the chapters about this topic. It could be that your child has a fear of that drop between their bottom and where the water is below. It could be that they are in the wrong position, which we dubbed in the book their poop posture. So if your child has been standing or walking to poop their whole life in diapers, then when you take the diaper off, it's hard for them to get into that right crouching, squatting position, which is the shape of a toilet. So it could be their poop posture. It could be some subtle constipation.

Laura

I think what we write in the book about poop issues, because this is honestly so common. I think every parent that's come up to me to ask, like they find out I'm writing a potting training book and they're like, oh my gosh, my kid is great with pee and is still pooping in a diaper. And every single one of them think they're the only one, right? They think like every other kid is fine with poop. And like it's just their kid who's having this problem. And we're here to tell you that is not true. There are a lot of kids who do this. And what we write in the book about this is, I'm going to read. I'm going to read an excerpt, Gia. We wrote, the number one rule for kids who refuse to poop in the potty, allow them to poop however they are comfortable. For many kids, this means they'll need a diaper or pull up just for daily poops. No, this will not derail potty training or confuse your child.

Speaker 1

Would you agree, Gia? I totally agree with that. So one of the good parts about the good to go potty training method is that we don't see elimination as the only thing that counts towards being potty trained. So if your child does need the diaper to poop in, you still have many other steps that they can feel some type of success about still using the potty. You can take them over with their full diaper, walk them over to the bathroom, take the diaper off, have them roll it into the potty, have them practice wiping their own butt, or with your help a little bit, we'll get into that soon. Also, Also have them flush it away, put on their fresh underwear, wash their hands. There's still a lot of success and confidence building that you can do while using our method because elimination is not the only sign that your child is potty trained or training.

Laura

Yeah, this is actually one of the core concepts in our book. We call it the universal potty sequence. So for adults, you and I, when we say we need to go to the potty, it's one step. We're going to the bathroom, right? Usually we don't say we're going to the potty. Usually say we're going to the bathroom. But for a kid learning to go to the potty, we've identified nine distinct steps that they have to learn and they're all new for the kids and they can all be really overwhelming. And so in our book, we like to employ something we call the rehearsal period, which is a period of about two weeks before you plan on taking away diapers, where you practice eight out of the nine steps of the universal potty sequence. You practice everything except for noticing the sensation so that when it comes time to actually take away diapers, noticing the sensation is the only thing they have to focus on.

Speaker 1

And it keeps the confidence high because sometimes if, you know, the flip side of fear of pooping on the potty is that anxiety, right? Fear and anxiety go together. And so it can maintain or build that confidence that even though they miss the potty, they can still do all these other things.

Laura

Yeah, absolutely. And then the one thing I just wanted to highlight before we moved on to the next question was you touched on this poop posture thing that we came up with. But it's really important to notice the way your child's body is situated when they're pooping. Because I like to say this to adults because it always blows their mind. Like if I said to you as an adult, stand up and poop. you wouldn't be able to do it. You would think it was weird. And if I tried to force you, you would get so much anxiety because your push muscles, your pelvic floor, those muscles are just not developed in your body to push poop out while you're standing because they're not supposed to be. And you've been practicing working out the other muscles your whole life, basically.

Speaker 1

I agree.

Laura

Okay, so pivoting to the next question, we got this question from at least five people, I wanna say. And the question is, what is the ideal age to start?

Speaker 1

Gia, what is the ideal age to start? So we have a chapter dedicated to this called Rethinking Readiness, where we really break it into two parts, where it's not some checklist of all these things that have been kind of the historical way that parents have looked like, check, check, check, they have these things. We break it down into two different categories, but you don't need all of them. They are not prerequisites for your child to start. A lot of these readiness signs are actually things that you can teach and encourage and you don't have to wait for them all.

Laura

Yeah. So in the book, we actually call the chapter rethinking readiness because we really want everyone to sort of reevaluate how they've thought about potty training readiness so far because all these signs that we list and we list physical signs, cognitive signs, and social emotional signs. And while they're all nice to have, you're not going to have every single one we list. Your child is not going to show every single one we list. And some of them are teachable while many other ones are not. Right. So these are just meant to be clues to sort of make you realize that maybe it's getting to the right time. So we have them as a reference in the book. They're definitely not prerequisites, right, Gia?

Speaker 1

No, absolutely not. And the other part about our training method is that we want to highlight once you go diaper-free body awareness. And there is kind of a sweet spot there about when to start. So oftentimes, you know, a young child or infant is just completely unaware, then they might know after they've gone. Then, and this is where we're coming to the sweet spot, they know when they're doing it. So if you have a child that's like freezing when they're peeing or hiding to poop, then that's usually a good time that you can tell they started to notice sensations in their body. And that's a good starting point. That's what we call the sweet spot. And so when you collect that along with some of the rethinking readiness signs that Laura just discussed, then you'd kind of bank it in your favor.

Laura

And Gia, you said we dedicated a whole chapter of this, but you're actually wrong. We dedicated two chapters to this because there's another chapter called Are You Ready? And it's all about whether the caregivers are ready to potty train, right? So you as a parent, are you ready? Is there going to be a baby born in the next few months? Are there going to be big trips coming up? Stuff like that. So we have a whole chapter to not just assess whether your child is developmentally, emotionally, social, emotionally, and cognitively ready, but whether the whole family is ready to take this on.

Speaker 1

Okay, Laura, the next question we have is tips for long commute. Sometimes you are stuck in the carpool lane and there is just no chance of you pulling over. What do you do?

Laura

That is tricky. And that is something that I feel like all the other resources and books that we looked at or that were available to me when I was first potty training Augie did not address. Like they were basically like, look, he's going to be potty trained after the first three days. So you don't have to worry about this, right? Like it's going to be great. And if you didn't do it right the first time, then that's your problem, right? Like no HOV lanes for you. That obviously does not line up with real life. People have to go back to work after the weekend and sometimes your kids go to the daycare that's next to your work because you both have to take the hour long drive to get there, right?

Speaker 1

Yeah. I'm happy that you brought up the confusion because that's also what is talked about in other methods. And definitely parents have picked this up that like if your child ever goes back in diapers, it undoes all of your hard work. And that's just, it's just not true. You don't break them or ruin them by putting them in diapers occasionally. And what we do talk about in the book, and that's where my child development professor nerd gets to come out a little bit, is the relationship between teaching and learning. They are learning and learning is a process and the process takes time. And just like the walking analogy, sometimes it's two steps forward and one step back. And this doesn't cause a regression.

Laura

Amen.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Laura

And it's, yeah, it's a process, guys. So yeah, we really hope that this has answered a good number of questions for people. We have run out of time in this episode to answer more questions. Do you want to tell our listeners where to find the book?

Speaker 1

Yes, our new book is available any place that you buy a book. You can find a full list on our website, which is Good2GoParenting.com. There are buttons for any place that you want to purchase your book. And of course, please follow us on Instagram so you can stay current with our events. We have a lot of events coming up to help promote the book. You can find me at parentcoachjia.com.

Laura

And I'm at Laura Birek or you can look on the BFP podcast handle. I'll try to repost as much as possible without being annoying. Same. And Gia, you had a thought. You wanted to piggyback on our BFPs and BFNs segment that we do on our show. And I thought that was a great idea, but we were going to do a good to go themed version, which is we are going to name our BFPs from our book. So do you want to go first?

Speaker 1

Yes, of course. I mean, of course, it's hard to pick just one, but one of the parts that I'm very proud of that I know parents are dying to have because I hear it all the time is a schedule. It is I blow by blow. What do you do from 810 to 820? We have a whole schedule written out for what those first days look like. And we also offer an advanced schedule full of ideas of how to handle prompting, how to handle misses, even ways to fill your day and what to do all day. That's one part that's my favorite and I have to throw in one more that I'm particularly proud of. And that was also including high conflict co-parenting. I can't tell you how many parents that I have worked with that are going through the very difficult process of either breaking up or divorcing or moving apart from one another and trying to potty train.

Laura

Yes. And that one, I have to credit to you, that was your brainchild. And when you mentioned it, I was like, oh my gosh, yes, we have to include this because Like you said i've talked to a couple people about this and they were just like oh my god thank you because my. Ex and i are not on the same page about potty training like is that going to ruin everything and we have answers that the answer is no it's not going to ruin everything might take longer right. But it's doable. And we try to address as many scenarios as possible and be inclusive of more than just your stereotypical nuclear one dad, one mom family. We also include a lot of stuff about having siblings around. I feel like that's something that's not addressed in other books, right? Yeah. That we often don't hear about, like, what to do if there's an older sibling distracting you the whole time. Or you have to leave the house.

Speaker 1

You cannot just be home the whole time. Absolutely. All right, Laura, I'm dying to hear yours. What's your BFP for good to go?

Laura

Okay, well, like you said, I mean, the BFP is honestly that the book is finally coming out into the world because we've been talking about it for so long and we really are excited for people to get their hands on it. A couple of our listeners have actually been able to get advanced copies through NetGalley and have left us the most glowing, wonderful reviews. So I want to thank everyone for that. but I have to be a little self-centered for my BFP from Good to Go, which is that my favorite part of the book, again, this sounds so self-evolved. are the sidebars that are in my voice. But the reason why I'm highlighting them. So the way our book is structured, I think we did a really clever thing, which is the main text of the book is from your voice. We really wrote it collaboratively. I mean, we were on Zoom.

Speaker 1

You know, I really feel like the sidebars are just as instructive, like the storytelling. It's true. Like you learn from those sidebars just as much as from like reading about the method. There's a lot of learning in there as well.

Laura

Yeah. So hopefully our listeners enjoy the way we've put it together. And yes, please let us know when you get the book and we'd love to hear from you. And Gia, thank you for helping me take over this segment. My pleasure. Anytime. All right. Well, I'm going to throw it back to me and Shanna. All right. Bye.

Shanna

Okay. That was amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and knowledge about this topic. Listeners, if you want to get this book, once again, it's called Good to Go, a fresh take on potty training for today's intentional parents. Laura, where can everyone find the book?

Laura

The book is out from Bloomsbury publishing October 2nd, 2025. So this week, if you're listening to this episode as it airs, you can buy it anywhere you buy books in the US and Canada. You can also go to good2goparenting.com to just get the links handed to you on Silver Platter. right on the top of the website. And a lot of you have asked about an audiobook option. We are working on it. We are determined to get an audiobook out into the world. If you want to help us manifest it, just think good thoughts or you can send us a DM so I can collect all the demand for audiobooks and send them to our agent. Nice. But there will be an audiobook one way or another, I promise. It's just in the works. So yeah, please everyone order a copy for yourself or anyone you know who might be approaching potty training.

Shanna

Yay. Yay. We were invited over for a play date at one of CeCe's friends house this weekend. The play date started at 10. And so we went over to their house. It was like a play date with three little classmates from kindergarten that have become besties. and so is them and then the parents. And, you know, I was expecting to stay a couple hours, maybe have a little lunch and be on our merry way on Sunday. Well, we had so much fun that it lasted seven hours by the time five o'clock rolled around. I was like, um, I think maybe we should go and have dinner. It was just like, whoa, I was not expecting to stay there that long, but like, This girl's parents were so welcoming and friendly. I love the mom. I totally connected with her. We were just chatting about everything for hours. The other girls' parents were great too. They had to leave a lot earlier. But I was like, yeah, let's stay.

Laura

I know. I'm suddenly feeling self-conscious about my play date hosting skills. I'm like, hello, I kind of cleaned up.

Shanna

Yeah. Yeah. Or I'm like, hi, does anybody want a mini ice cream sandwich? Like that's like the extent of what I have to offer. I mean, the answer is always yes. Yeah. True. True. I love an ice cream sandwich. But yeah, it was just great. And you know, love it when CECE connects with a Bestie as well. That's always very heartwarming.

Laura

Do they live close enough that it's like easy to pop in and just do quick play dates?

Shanna

Yes, it's a school friend and they live in the neighborhood. Oh, nice. Yeah, I think that we'll definitely hang out more in the future.

Laura

I feel like this is a thing you've been trying to manifest, right? You've talked about how you want more friends in your area that you have a lot of friends, but they're not in your vicinity. So I love this for you.

Shanna

Yeah, me too. Now I just have to be sure to maintain the friendship, you know what I mean? Because sometimes you get so caught up and you forget to reach back out to people, yada, yada, yada. I don't want that to happen because I really, really like this mom and the dad too. I mean, they're just a great, great family. So I've got to maintain the friendship.

Laura

I also think it's funny because in retrospect, you had a lot of fun. But if I told you going in like, hey, guess what? You're going to be here for seven hours. It would probably cause panic, right? I feel like, oh my gosh, what is that going to be like? Yes, yes, for sure. It just goes to show context is everything, right? Because like I like I can imagine if someone came up to me and was like, hey, you are going to be invited to a seven hour play date. You're going to be there all day with some people you barely know. I'd be like alarm bells ringing, you know, panic rising. And yet, you know, when stuff like that does happen, you're just like, you know, you're able to go with the flow. It's so fun.

Shanna

Yes, totally. That's why I like spontaneous stuff. I've always been that kind of person that would rather kind of just fall into something spontaneously and be like pleasantly surprised. So that's how this worked out. Awesome. Yeah. So that's mine. What about you, BFP or BFN?

Laura

I have a BFP. Okay. Other than the kittens, the kittens, of course, a BFP, an infinite BFP. But my BFP is something that happened in Sebastian's TK classroom without him, actually, this weekend. So as I've mentioned, Sebastian and Augie's school used to be on two campuses. They've combined into one this year. And part of that process is that they've like had to reconfigure the space, right? Trying to figure out where all the kids are going to go because it's not like a traditional school with just a bunch of different classrooms. It's this big warehouse space with like modular classrooms. And they're like made out of like shipping containers and stuff, you know, it's like all very artsy party. Wait, what? Yeah.

Shanna

Oh, have I not told you about this? How have I missed this detail all these years? No, I didn't know that.

Laura

That's fascinating. It's very non-traditional, for better or for worse, right? Well, his old school was normal. His old school was a bunch of bungalows and normal classrooms with doors. This new campus is the one that's like all artsy-fartsy, right? You know, I love me some artsy-fartsy shit. So that's fine. But, you know, and I have mixed feelings about it because like as much as I love an artsy, modular, you know, free spirited locale, I, you know, I want to be mindful of like, is this the best environment for my kids to learn all that stuff? That's kind of, you know, something I'm keeping in the back of my mind. But the one and only classroom with doors is the TK classroom. So they realize that the littlest kids really need to have like kind of their own isolated space so that they're not just mingling with the chowder of the rest of K through eight.

Shanna

I thought you guys were going to be putting up bulletin board borders or something.

Laura

This is legit. I know. We were constructing like we're covering up what like the support pole in the middle of the room with fake tree so it can look like there's a cool tree growing in the middle of the room. Another parent was building a like awning for the corner to make it into a cozy corner and they wanted it to look like I mean they were basically set decorating. the TK classroom, like creating this adorable space. A bunch of other parents had donated stuff or bought stuff from a wish list. And so they were able to create like a reading nook with a brand new little couch. And I was putting together IKEA furniture and just I ended up spontaneously painting a little bit of a mural on the wall.

Shanna

Yeah, they're going to see it. Exciting. But they saw the old version, right?

Laura

Like they did a week in the... Yeah, they've done two full weeks in the classroom. And it's not like it was dangerous or anything. It was just not cozy. So we're hoping to make it cozier and more functional for the teacher. That was another thing she really wanted.

Shanna

That's so nice. What a gift. What a gift to the teacher and the kids. That is so cool. Now, here's my question. At our school, there's more than one TK class. Is that how it is at your school? And like the motivated parents are renovating one of the TK classrooms and the other one is still poo poo classroom or what?

Laura

No, that would be pretty rude. No, there's just one. It's a pretty small school.

Shanna

Yeah. Oh man, that's awesome. Do you have photos? I want to see what you did.

Laura

I don't have a ton because I was actually only at the first of two of the build days. But I can show you the little mural I made. So the reason it was a spontaneous mural was that one of the Ikea things I was building was one of those like Kalex cube shelves because there weren't enough cubbies for all the kids. So we were adding an extra one for more cubbies for the kids. And there was a whiteboard that was like in the way. So we took the whiteboard down thinking we just take the whiteboard down and put the shelving like in front of it where it had been. But when we took it down, we discovered that at some point in history, the wall had been purple and they painted it blue, but just painted around the whiteboard. No. Oh my goodness. But it's not like we had the blue paint to paint over with, right? It's not like we could match it.

Shanna

Well, I have faith in you because I saw your window art that you did last holiday season, was it? And that was very good. So I think that this is probably going to be up to snuff.

Laura

Snuff is kind of what I was going for. Like, I definitely feel like I kind of jumped the shark at some point with it. Like I started adding too much stuff, but it's cute. It's fine. I'm sending you the whole process so you can see.

Shanna

Okay. Let's see. Oh, yes. The purple square in the middle of the wall. I see. You've sketched out welcome to TK. It's a work in progress. Looking good. Oh, that's a bear. Very cute. You added a border around it, some butterflies. Oh, and then the cubbies go in front of it. That's so cute. Well done, friend. Well done. Better than a big random purple square.

Laura

That was what I was going for. Better than before.

Shanna

Success.

Laura

Yes. I mean, I was really in my mind thinking I was going to be as good as the Trader Joe's sign painters, but obviously, I didn't quite get there. Oh, man, I always envy their skills. It's my favorite calming thing to watch on TikTok or Instagram. Just find a, find your Trader Joe sign painters. Have you never watched their process videos? Oh, I should.

Shanna

That sounds like my alley.

Laura

There's all these sign painters who just document what they make and it's the best.

Shanna

Before you said on TikTok or Instagram, I thought you were just going to tell me that you love watching them in person. Like you go down there and stand over their shoulder in the store and watch them paint signs.

Laura

I don't think they do it in the store. I think they have like a workshop. I've never seen any going on live. But the other one, another hot tip is anthropology window design people. Like, I don't know if you've ever seen those accounts, but there are people who design the anthropology like window displays and they will document it on social media too.

Shanna

So fun. There you go. Gonna amp up my algorithm with some fun stuff. Thank you.

Laura

Yes. But yeah, that was my BFP. And I think that's it for our show. Wait, Shanna, unless do you have a new five star review to read?

Shanna

I do indeedee! This review is from Sugar 3 Tips. The title is Go To Mom Podcast, Five Stars. This has become my absolute fave podcast. I started listening when I was 16 weeks pregnant this past year. I'm glad I'm late to the podcast so that I have so many to hear before I'm caught up. These ladies are hilarious and genuine. My two favorite qualities, keep it up. What a nice compliment. Oh my gosh, I love being called hilarious and genuine.

Laura

That is a great combo of adjectives. And I think it's absolutely true about you, Shanna.

Shanna

Yeah, and same for you, Laura. Aw, thank you so much for this review. I really, really appreciate it. And listeners, if you haven't had a chance yet, could you please do us a favor and head on over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify, Amazon, Audible, wherever you listen. Leave us five stars. If there's a spot, say a few things you love about the show, and we might read your review on an upcoming episode. If you have any comments, thoughts, questions, or anything else you want to share with us, we would love to hear from you. Laura, where can everyone find us?

Laura

We are on all the social medias at BFP Podcast. We have a website, bigfatpositivepodcast.com. And if you want to send us an email, send it to contact at bigfatpositivepodcast.com. And finally, if you want to join the coolest group of people on the internet, just search Facebook for Big Fat Positive Community. It is a private group, so please request to join and answer those two membership questions. So we know you're not a robot. But once you do that, you'll set straight through to all the amazing, wonderful conversations we're having in there.

Shanna

And thank you again to Gia for being on our show today. And listeners, don't forget to order Laura and Gia's new book, wherever you find books, or at Good2GoParentine.com. Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks for listening, everyone. Have a big, fat, positive week. Bye. Bye.