Breaking Up With Your Mom Group – Ep. 399

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, Internet Insanity, where we dig into toxic mom groups and unusual baby names. And we wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFMs. Let's get started. Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 399. What?

Laura

I'd say we're mere seven days away from episode 400.

Shanna

So close. All right, well, let's kick off this last episode in our 300s with your check-in, Laura.

Laura

What's been going on with you all this week? Okay, I'm going to report on something that happened due to a random and spontaneous chain of events. Okay so on Tuesday this week I was responsible for picking up both boys from school and as I mentioned we now have a good system where Augie gets to stay an hour past the first bell so I can pick him up and then go straight to get Sebastian from his preschool and Corey was busy, so I was like, I got the kids all and maybe I'll take them to a park or something, do something, you know, active and outdoors, right? So I pick up Augie and usually what happens is I say, let's go to a park and say, I wanna go to a park, I wanna go home. I just wonder what she be, you know, he's full on, you know, seven going on 17, right? And I have to convince him blah, blah, blah. I pick him up, we go through that whole rigmarole. Okay, let's go to a park.

Shanna

Oh, amazing. OK, I'm sold. Yeah, there you go. This is an animated kid series, I take it.

Laura

No, it's live action. It's based on the incredibly popular Percy Jackson series that is all about like, you know, bringing Greek and Roman mythology into modern day life. And the premise is that Percy Jackson is a half blood, right? He's a demigod. And to be fair, I haven't paid very close attention to the plot, but the basic thing is like Percy Jackson starts going on like ancient Greek and Roman mythology adventures, right? And yeah, it is cool. And it's great production value. It's just awesome. It's a great show. Where is it streaming? Disney Plus.

Shanna

OK, OK, we got that.

Laura

I know you've got that.

Shanna

He's like, OK, I'm assuming this is more than just a list of human beings names written out in a boring type font at the end of the show.

Laura

Indeed it is. So every season, I think they're on season two now. Sort of in the spirit of Game of Thrones where it tells the story of the season, but Percy Jackson's is done entirely in this art deco, almost mosaic style. It is super cool. Nice. And I agree with him. I sit down and watch the end credits with him every time because I'm just like, this is art. This is beautiful.

Shanna

I love the idea of you hearing it in the distance, like, hold on! Hit pause! You put down your coffee or work and rush in to watch this two-minute segment. Okay, I love it. I gotta check this out.

Laura

I'm gonna have to send this to you because I think that you are not understanding the full beauty.

Shanna

Clearly, clearly I'm not. It's really pretty. But I believe you. I believe you. I trust you and I trust your child.

Laura

Okay. I'm just going to send you the YouTube clip of the end credits because I don't think you're giving it enough credit.

Shanna

Okay. Okay. Okay. Let me see.

Laura

Ooh.

Shanna

I don't know if I have the words in my vocabulary to describe this. I was not an art history major or anything, but yes, it's very, very cool. And it's different every single time. It's different every season. Oh, OK, OK. It's beautiful. It's really, really artistic. And there it pans up to the sky at night. You see constellations, et cetera.

Laura

Very cool. Yeah. And I love that it gives us this opportunity to talk about art. And, you know, Augie's always like, what's the style again? And I have to remind him it's Art Deco. And this happened in the car. He goes, mommy, what's the style again? What's the style called? And I said, oh, it's Art Deco. And as I'm driving for locals, you can envision this in your head. I was driving from the 134 east to the two south. And as I'm going over that bridge, I'm like, you know what? There is a place.

Shanna

Oh, man, I love the observatory. I haven't been there in so long. I didn't even remember that there was anything painted on the ceiling. All right, let me see your picture here. Okay, this is a photo of the ceiling inside the observatory. Is this like in the main lobby area?

Laura

Yeah, right when you walk in and there's the big pendulum, this is what's around the pendulum on top of and around it.

Shanna

Oh, man. That is beautiful. What did your kids think of this ceiling painting?

Laura

They were mesmerized. And luckily, the guy at the information desk was so nice. He explained what every single one of the figures was, like which Greek god it was. And maybe went on a little too long for my kids, but they were pretty wrapped. And yeah, they were super into it. I know.

Shanna

When you said he explained every single one that might, I was just like, oh, God.

Laura

Yeah, at some point I was like, uh, okay.

Shanna

But they sat through it because they were watching it. Oh, there's Zeus, I think. No, Thor. Is Thor the lightning guy? Stop, Laura. Come on, I'm trying my best here.

Laura

No, no, no. I think Thor is also a lightning guy, but it's just a different tradition. You know, that's like Norse mythology. Oh, okay. So I made an even worse mix-up than I realized.

Shanna

Ooh, this guy's scary. Are you talking about Kronos? He looks like kind of like a bearded wolf face drinking out of a green soup bowl. Yeah, that would be Kronos eating his own young. So that is pretty scary. Oh, that is a scary one. Cool. I bet your kids loved that one though, honestly.

Laura

Well, you know what? The thing about Greek mythology is it's fucking brutal, you know? Yeah. And they just loved exploring the grounds. We watched the sunset. We saw the tech. the coil. That was very exciting for them. They're like, is that real electricity? I'm like, yeah, that is real electricity. Oh, wow. So fun. I mean, the whole thing was just amazing. And I cannot explain how fun it was to go from discussing the Percy Jackson soundtrack to that inspiring a trip to the observatory and just being cool with being like, yeah, let's do it, you know, like I felt more free than I have in a long time shot.

Shanna

Oh my gosh, that's why I love spontaneity. Just doing things on a whim, it feels so magical. And the fact that it just like was born out of this conversation and it was like the perfect match of the activity. I mean, what a magical, magical outing. And I'm looking at a couple more pictures you sent me and like the sun sets beautiful for people who don't know the observatory in Los Angeles is on a hill. overlooking the city, basically. So you've got incredible views. It's just the mountains are behind them. I went to a surprise engagement there one time for a friend of mine. And it was just the perfect, perfect location. I just love the observatory so much.

Laura

Well, you may remember, Shanna, that that is where I got engaged to Corey. What? You don't remember that? Why do I not remember that? Well, I mean, you were there. Because I wasn't there to surprise. Yeah.

Shanna

That's right. This is a different friend.

Laura

Yeah. No, he, on our seventh dating anniversary, we went out to dinner and then he was like, I was thinking we should go up to the observatory. And I remember being like, hmm, this is suspicious, but I didn't want to say anything. And then, yeah, he, He popped the question and spoiler alert, we got married and had kids.

Shanna

Was it under the image of Chronos eating his young out of a soup bowl?

Laura

I wouldn't have it any other way, Shanna. That is the only romantic gesture that is acceptable as far as I'm concerned.

Shanna

Did you tell the kids about your proposal when you were there? We're like, this is where we got engaged. Oh yeah, they didn't give a shit.

Laura

They're like, I was like, this is where mommy and daddy got engaged. Like, oh, OK. One other thing I will say, if you're thinking about going to the observatory with kids, first of all, it's free. Parking costs money. But only if you park close, if you park at the bottom of the hill and take the bus up, it's free. But they also have these cute little passports they call them for the kids that have a bunch of different things to find in the observatory. And they give you stamps for everything you find. And so they were super into it. Oh, fun. Love a treasure hunt. Yeah. So that was very fun. And that was our fun little adventure for this week. So cool. Oh, and the other thing that was not mentioned is it's one of the best places to see a view of the Hollywood sign.

Shanna

My check-in this week is about my little girl, my older little girl, my nine-year-old, really showing signs of growing up because this week, she completely planned her own play date. What? Yes, I was not involved. The other girl's mom was not involved. They were like, hey, do you want to go to Starbucks today? Yeah, I do. And then they asked us if it was OK. And I was like, yeah, sure, that sounds good. But whoa.

Laura

Well, that's a leap up. I feel like that's something they don't have in the Wonder Weeks. Like every time your child develops. We'll start planning their own social outings. That's so fun.

Shanna

It is. It's really, really fun. I love it because when I was a kid, I was always taking initiative to like plan play dates. I would get on the landline, call my friend's mom and be like, hi, Andrea's mom. Um, can you come over for a play date? Like I. took all of that initiative off my mom's plate. So I am really glad that my kid can start doing that now. But you might ask yourself, how did this happen? How did Elle contact her friend to arrange this?

Laura

Oh, I'm just assuming it was at school.

Shanna

This was not an in-person arrangement. No, no, no, not at all. This was on the weekend. It was Sunday morning. We were all just sitting on the couch relaxing when Elle was arranging this and then presented me with the idea.

Laura

Oh, well, I have a little insight into how this may have happened because back when we went to the library a few weeks ago, I got a text message from a mysterious number being like, where are you at?

Shanna

Yes. Okay. Okay. You know, I was maybe going to talk about this in a never have I ever segment, but it just, I'm just going to talk about it now. So just pretend I'm presenting it during one of those segments. Okay. What I wanted to say was never have I ever bought my child a burner phone.

Laura

Oh yeah and I was like I don't know if my anxiety would allow this. I can see how this would be useful for that.

Shanna

Yeah. So when we were talking about our anxiety about them going out and about in the city, I was like, well, what about we send them with an air tag? Like we've got those for Disneyland. They can just have them on. We can see where they are. And it's like, of course, we haven't looked at or touched those things in ages who even knows if they're charged. It felt better to give them something we could actually communicate with them. For sure. So Steve got this track phone. It's some Samsung thing. It was $39. Wow. It looks like a decent phone. Like she was floored when she received this thing because it looks cool. It doesn't just look like an old flip phone or anything like that. She can take pictures with it and stuff. But it just had a limited number of texts, a limited number of minutes, you know, all of that was limited. But everything else about it was pretty much what we needed.

Laura

I mean, I can see the upsides of it. I do remember when we got to the library and I was like, you are texting me. And she was like, yeah. And I was like, you got a phone. That's pretty cool. And she was like, yeah, but it's boring. There's nothing on it. Okay, and I'm like also this tracks because your mom and I have talked a lot I didn't say this sure but I was like your mom and I have talked a lot about this and I'm kind of surprised you have a phone in your hands And I'm like, oh, yeah one that does basically nothing and that you think is boring is exactly what your mom wanted Exactly

Shanna

And Steve chose this one because it's an Android and so I guess the parental controls are easier to manage with an Android system so he can really put limits on what she can access. And I keep saying he because honestly this is a Steve project. Didn't know it was being purchased, set up. I haven't really even been involved in this very much except to sit back and grumble a little bit and be like, I don't know. My kid has a phone. I don't know. But I do think that it is the perfect type of device for what we need, what she needs at this age. And the fact that she's using it to socialize, I don't really have a problem with. I tell her that I will look at her text message threads to just do safety checks and make sure her and her friends are being kind to each other. And I have checked them a couple of times and they're fine, you know, but she's a social kid.

Laura

Well, I mean, we used to call our friends. Like I remember being on my landline before anyone knew what a landline was with my friend Danielle for like hours, you know, and I was probably eight or nine. We just sit there and talk and yeah. It's too bad that kids don't have that anymore. I've seen that tin can phone that is making the rounds. It's like an $80 landline, essentially, or it mimics a landline. But just to give kids that opportunity to have the conversations with each other that they don't have now. Yeah, that sounds like a really good compromise.

Shanna

Yeah. And I've also heard of parents circumventing this expensive Wi-Fi landline thing by just literally getting an old-school landline phone, having their kids' friends get one too, and letting the kids call each other. So, you know, if you guys want a landline, I know a couple girls who would love to chat with your boys. Oh my gosh, can you imagine?

Laura

Yeah. Well, that's really sweet. And it's very wholesome. So I think it's wonderful.

Shanna

Yeah. Yeah. It was very nice. But that is my check-in for the week. Should we move on to our special segment?

Laura

Yes, we should.

Shanna

Okay, Laura, you know that when I was in the process of naming my babies, I took to the internet for help. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, big time. And I loved the process of finding a name for my kids. I thought it was so fun to read articles and lists and you know, put things together and all that stuff. But that's all in my past now and I haven't really thought about anything like that. But my past passion for names, I guess, is still alive. So when I stumbled upon an article online announcing the 2025 name of the year that was published in December, I was like, ooh, what is it this year? I wanted to know. So I opened it up. This article was on namorology.com and was written by Laura Wattenberg, who is a name expert. And the title of the article is the 2025 name of the year is Elara. And I was like, oh, that's good. I love it. Like that is in my wheelhouse.

Laura

Wow. Okay. It's the M dash and the Alara. Yes. Yeah, if you have both in there, ooh, AI plagiarism, baby. I have a problem with the M-dash thing because I love M-dashes in my writing. And now I'm like, I feel like I'm not supposed to use them anymore because people are going to be like, you had generative AI right then. I'm like, I did it.

Shanna

I just like an M-dash. I know. I know. I know. I feel the same way. It's very frustrating. I like the breathing room. Yeah, totally.

Laura

It's a very useful thing to use in your writing. But I will say I've never created a character named Lara.

Shanna

I guess you should. I'm going with Elara. Yeah, it's a great question. And this woman who wrote the article, Laura Wattenberg, attempts to answer that question, right? She says that AIs are trained on human-generated content. They're trained to kind of like please us and give us what we want and as humans naming babies and characters especially now in this generation we really favor what she calls liquid names especially for girls things that are soft that roll off the tongue things like Mila Ella, those types of names. Interesting. So it's inclined to suggest those types of feelings, but also Alara doesn't have a lot of baggage associated to it because it's a rare name. It's not so well known. It's almost a blank slate. So I guess it's been a good suggestion for people to create their own characters.

Laura

Interesting. Well, fascinating. Now I know what to look out for. If I see that name pop up, I'm going to be super suspish. Oh, yeah. I like how it's just made up a word, suspish, not sus, not suspicious, suspish.

Shanna

Are you actually an AI robot, Laura? Are you? Making up words like that? I don't know. Haha! Absolutely not. I am not a robot. Honestly, you're on the right track with that, guess? I don't know. Anyway, so I needed to try this for myself. I wanted to see if ChatGPT would offer this name to me. If I were someone looking to use AI to name my baby. So I opened a private window, opened a ChatGPT conversation, not in my own accounts, just completely blank slate to see what would happen here. And here's a little bit of our conversation. Ooh, anonymous ChatGPT time. Ooh. I said, I'm pregnant with a baby girl and I need help finding the perfect name. And chat GBT said, ah, congratulations. That's such a special moment. Baby girl names are dangerously fun to think about and goes on to suggest a bunch of names. Emma, Claire, Lily, Nora, names in different categories, right?

Laura

It is fascinating how quickly it comes up with that. And it's such a rare name that it doesn't make any sense really, unless it's just somehow part of its model training. Like it's so interesting what comes out of it. It kind of reminds me of how the movie Splash made the girls name Madison a thing. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And you can see a clear moment from before Splash and after Splash, so when girls started being named Madison. And now this is the chatGPT version of that.

Shanna

Oh yeah, it's so much about things just coming into our awareness and then being like, ooh, I like that. Although this author also points out that maybe just think twice if you are gonna name your kid that because at this point it is so pervasive and being so associated with AI slop in a way like creating AI, images of humans that just don't look quite real and being put into stories and worksheets and all of this stuff, it's maybe starting to have a connotation that might be less positive than the name actually suggests. So I asked my final question of chat GPT. I said, I really want the perfect baby name for my girl. And chat GPT's response was, A few perfect combo ideas. Sometimes the magic clicks with the full name. And it gave me some first and middle name combo options. Ellen Grace, Aurelia May, Leora James, Sarafina Rose, Alara Jane. And then it gave me this comment.

Laura

Oh my gosh. And this is a pregnancy announcement is what you're saying.

Shanna

Let me soon, Alara Jane. Oh my gosh. So yeah, that was my little journey with the internet today. Do you have an internet insanity for us?

Laura

I do. Okay, my internet insanity is something that might be surprising to you because, Shanna, I feel like you know me very well. And one thing you probably know about me is that I'm not up to date on celebrity gossip.

Shanna

I mean, nor am I. So yes, I feel you there. And I'm pretty sure that's not what I would say is one of your greatest leading strengths.

Laura

No. And I mean, and it was actually by design that I got to this point in my life where I don't really know anything about celebrity gossip because I was in my 20s in the late 2000s and early 2010s, which was

Shanna

Oh yeah, I followed Paris Hilton very closely.

Laura

Yes, the Perez Hilton was, I mean, everywhere. Paris Hilton was like, for people who may not have been living through that time the same way we were, he would do these things where he'd take like paparazzi photos of celebrities and they'd like draw on them with like MS Paint basically. Yeah. And it was a lot of times like really crude stuff he was drawing on top of it and then people would share it around gleefully, right? And like, you know, and he was the worst, he wasn't the worst, everyone was the worst in like, you know, body shaming and fat phobia. I mean, we didn't even get to fat phobia because we were calling Ashley Simpson, who was probably like a size six fat, right? Like we were, we had lost the plot at that point in time. It was a very toxic situation.

Shanna

Yeah. I think so with her shaving her head and everything and having a lot of like mental health problems. Yes.

Laura

Yeah. And now I'm up to date on it because I read her biography, her memoir. Which is really interesting, by the way, I totally recommend it. I listened to it. Michelle Williams reads it is really interesting. Anyway, but it made me feel very good about disengaging from the whole paparazzi celeb gossip thing at that time because they did horrible things to that woman, poor Brittany. And anyway, so I'm out of the loop. So imagine my surprise when I'm suddenly in my 40s with two young kids getting sucked back into the world of celebrity gossip with a very salacious headline I saw recently.

Shanna

Okay.

Laura

And that is something I saw in The Cut, which is a column in New York Magazine. And it's titled, Breaking Up with My Toxic Mom Group. I thought I found my village. Instead, I was back in high school Ooh. And below it is a picture of Ashley Tisdale French. She now goes by Ashley French, but you probably know her as Ashley Tisdale. Hmm.

Shanna

Is she like someone who is on a TV show? Glee? I don't even know for sure.

Laura

Yeah, I mean, this definitely shows our age, I think a little bit, because she came after our time. She started as a Disney Channel star in the sweet life of Zack and Cody. That was from 2005 to 2008. And then she was in the high school musical movies, which I I have to say I did not see any of them. I have not seen any of them because Hashtag old but I knew who she was like I knew she was in the zeitgeist, right? Yeah, and she's only three years younger than me. So it's not like I'm that old Oh, OK. But she put on an album at some point. And basically, she was one of these actresses who was definitely around in that peak celebrity gossip time, right? Mm-hmm. She was young in her 20s at the time. And I'm sure she had a lot of negative attention. Well, anyway, so now she is a mom. She goes by Ashley French. That's her husband's last name.

Shanna

Oh, no. And to be clear, this is like an in-person moms group she's in, not like a, I don't know, an online group of people around the world.

Laura

Yeah. At first I was thinking, oh, it's like a Facebook group. You know what I mean? Yeah. But no, it's like a real group of like, I don't know, from what I can tell from my subsequent research, it's like eight-ish other moms, right, who all have young kids, who had kids around the same time, like during the pandemic. and are also all pretty successful people, right? Mm-hmm. I'll get to the details of the group in a second. But in this piece, she doesn't name them, right? She's just... Okay. She's just kind of airing her grievances about, you know, I joined this group and then people started acting like it was high school. I felt left out. And so I sent a text message to everyone in the group saying, like, I'm done, right? Like, I'm not doing this anymore. And then she writes a whole piece about it in the cut, okay?

Shanna

Got it. Maybe we can have her on the show to talk about this in a gripe water segment. I feel like it'd be perfect there.

Laura

I mean, yeah, but wait till you hear the rest of the story. Okay, so I actually just texted you the picture that she had in the cut, like this is the portrait of her.

Shanna

Okay, she's sitting on a beige couch in front of a white wall with some flowers. She's wearing all black. Okay, looks pretty normal. Yeah, okay.

Laura

So of course, the minute this comes out, the internet does what it always does and starts investigating. And they're like, who is in this mom's group that she is writing about? especially because she says they're famous and accomplished, right? So everyone starts digging.

Shanna

Well, of course, because it's almost like she wrote it because she wanted people to be unearthing the members of the group, right? Well, that is the thing.

Laura

It's like, okay, why did you write this, Ashley? That is the question. What were you trying to gain by writing this? Because, sure, on one hand, this can look like a very self-reflective essay where you're giving other moms permission that they're allowed to break up with their friend groups if they're not serving them anymore. That's what she's trying to, like that's definitely what she says she was doing with this piece. But the other way you can read it is like, oh, she, this is her like giant fuck you to the group, right? Like, oh, you started leaving me out. Now I'm going to go write a piece for New York Magazine about how you guys all suck, right?

Shanna

Yeah. All right, so what did people find?

Laura

Okay, so there's no confirmation about any of this, but there are a lot of pictures of Ashley Tisdale, Ashley Tisdale French, hanging out with a group of moms that includes people like Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff, and some other people who are like really famous on the internet like the What's Gabby Cooking uh account like she's i'm sure she's a real human the person who's behind what scabby cooking and she has like over a million followers right so like there are tons and tons of photos on the internet of all these different moms hanging out and then suddenly not so much uh ashley in the group anymore so it's It's pretty obvious. Oh, Megan Trainor was another person, right? But so like the most notable names were like Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff and Megan Trainor, right? Okay. So at first nobody had really weighed in.

Shanna

Oh. Oh. Getting the dudes involved, interesting, let's see. Okay, first of all, it's a picture of him on a beige couch wearing all black, mimicking the photo of Ashley Tisdale, as if it's the cover image of his article for the cut, right? Okay.

Laura

Yeah, and he also like put the cut logo on top of it and like a headline, right? So like he's definitely making it look like it's actually a piece in the cut, right?

Shanna

Oh yeah, it definitely does. And the title is, A Mom Group Tell All Through a Father's Eyes. When you're the most self-obsessed, tone-deaf person on earth, other moms tend to shift focus to their actual toddlers. Ooh!

Laura

Darula. Yeah. What was the response to this like? Well, everyone basically took this as confirmation that the mom group she broke up with had to be this group that had Hillary Duff in it, right? Because if the husband is doing this, obviously there must be some connection there. So that pretty much confirmed it. Then Meghan Trainor makes a TikTok where she's like, it's just like a video of her logging onto her computer with like a surprised face and it plays her song. I still don't care behind it. And it was like, when you've heard there's drama in the mom group or something like that. So she's like posting that. Meanwhile, Ashley Tisdale is like unfollowing people from the group. Like she unfollows Hilary Duff and she unfollows, I think, Meghan Trainor or maybe it's Manny Moore. I can't keep track of it.

Shanna

You know what this reminds me of? Like on a normal person level, you know, like they're doing it at the celebrity level is when you're in a Facebook group or some kind of group that's so benign, like a buy nothing group or your Pomeranians group. And all of a sudden, someone takes the time to post and they're like, well, I will see you guys later. You all are a bunch of idiots out of this dumb group. Bye. And then leaves the group and everyone's like, yes. Bye. No need to announce it. No one cares. Bye. And like everyone kind of like laughs and stuff. I feel like that's what she's doing here. You know, but she doesn't have a group to post to to leave this group with flair. This is her way of doing it. And it's just it's so overdramatic.

Laura

It's extremely overdramatic. And I have to say that like posting in a national magazine that you know is going to get shared everywhere is such a petty ass move, right? Like it immediately made me think I might not be on her side if we're picking sides of this because I'm like, that's, I don't know, it just, it feels like airing out dirty laundry unnecessarily, you know? Also, Mandy Moore is my close personal friend, not actually. But I have met her one time at a kid's birthday party, and she was lovely. And then the other day, I was looking for a birthday present at Target on our way to a birthday party, and she was also with her three kids at Target looking for a birthday present in the toy aisle, and we passed by each other like three or four times. So I can pretty much attest to her character at this point, and she seems nice, is what I'm saying.

Shanna

A good question. I think you've got to put on your investigator hat, reach out to your bestie, and find some more info, find some more details for us on this case.

Laura

But I also love drama that has nothing to do with me. You know what I mean? I know that's why we love celebrity gossip. And this is what could get me back in to celebrity gossip. If there's mom drama, I think I could get back into it.

Shanna

Mama drama. Let's start a blog.

Laura

Yeah, but that is my internet insanity. And I think that might be it for this segment. Do you think we should move on to our BFPs and BFNs? I think we should. All right.

Shanna

We're back and we wrap up every episode with our big fat positives or big fat negatives of the week. Laura, you're up first. What you got, BFP or BFN?

Laura

I have a BFP. Yay. Yay. So my BFP for this week is that I got together with a group of friends that I've had since elementary and middle school for a gathering for my friend Isabel's birthday. Fun. And we got together at Huntington Gardens, and this may all seem familiar because this is the same group of friends that got together at Huntington Gardens a while back, and it ended in tragedy when Sebastian fell on that umbrella stand. Do you remember this? Oh yeah, didn't he get a gash on his forehead or something? The bridge of his nose. He got this giant gash, I mean, truly bad on the bridge of his nose. I think it was actually two years ago for this same friend's birthday and it was so sad. And he was bleeding a lot and it left a big scar and it was definitely a little traumatic. But thankfully he remembered it, but didn't seem concerned about going to Huntington Gardens again. Oh, good.

Shanna

Ah, yes.

Laura

And the whole eardrum bursting situation. Of course, Sebastian. I feel like he ends up with all these traumas.

Shanna

Yeah. He's going to get a complex about going out and about with these people. I know.

Laura

And then it's my friend Erin and her son, who's just six months older than Augie. And it's just like, when we all get together, I'm always so impressed that we've maintained a friendship this long. We've all ended up in the general Los Angeles area. The rest of them live on the West side. So, you know, I'm saying we live in the same city in broad strokes. Right, yeah. we manage to maintain a friendship. And the cool thing is that our kids are friends. So, you know, sometimes it's hard to get my kids to get out of the house, right? Convincing them to leave the house is sometimes a bit of an ordeal, right? Like, I don't want to go, I don't want to do things. But when they hear that my friends' kids are going to be there, they get all excited. And same thing with, like, we were going to go to lunch after. And it was a late lunch, like 1.30.

Shanna

Aw, look at them walking arm in arm, almost in step with each other. This is very, I don't know, Beatles-esque, very the monkeys from back in the day. You remember that band? They would just walk together. Oh, yeah. Hey, hey. Hey, hey. That's very adorable.

Laura

It's so cute. And you know, I realize they've known each other since birth, all of them. Yeah. And it's sort of a little bit of a not quite sibling, but close enough experience, right? You know, like they get to know each other since the day they were born.

Shanna

So yeah. That's so sweet. But OK, I got to know. What did Augie think of this seafood restaurant?

Laura

OK, well, here, let me send you a picture of our setup because it was pretty epic.

Shanna

Oh, wow. Oh, I love this kind of thing. Okay, this is a huge round table. There's probably, I don't know, 15 of you all around the table. So much yummy stuff, bowls of soup. Is that the kind of like lazy Susan thing in the middle that you can turn so fun? Okay, I would think this would be very exciting and novel to your kids. you honed in on the exact thing that was very exciting and novel for them.

Laura

Augie could not handle how fun the Lazy Susan was. He didn't eat anything except for white rice the whole night, which is fine. We pre-gamed with some food for him. But he was in charge of rotating the giant Lazy Susan so everyone would get what they needed to get. He was so into it.

Shanna

That's so great. I could see my kids, or at least Elle for sure, like just spinning it way too hard and like soup goes flying. Did that happen?

Laura

We did have to put on the brakes a few times, you know, but he was actually pretty good. You know, we'd be like, oh, Augie, Augie, that's, you know, Isabel wants that tea, you know, and he'd be like, oh, okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, you know. But it was just very, very enticing for him. He also liked that this seafood restaurant had like lobsters and crabs and fish and tanks, you know, like seafood restaurants do. So that was also very exciting to him. It was like going to the aquarium. And we just didn't comment on what happened to the cute animals he was bonding with. Oh no!

Shanna

Shanna, do you have a BFP or a BFN for us? I also have a BFP. Oh, good. So speaking of being out and about all day, the girls didn't have school on Monday again, so it was just Steve and Shanna's field trip camp where we planned another full day out of the house. And one of the things we did, which I don't think I've ever really done before, even though I've lived in Los Angeles for a very long time, is we went to the old zoo. Have you ever been to this place? I have, but before kids. It's weird. It is weird. For people who don't know, the old abandoned Los Angeles Zoo still exists. It's in ruins, basically, and it's a part of Griffith Park. And people can go up to it and walk into old animal enclosures, go into the caves, climb up on the rocks of these big lion dens and into old welded, metal cages and stuff. It's so odd.

Laura

Yeah. Speaking of depressing animal enclosures, right? Like we both have a little bit of a theme there. That's the one thing I remember about the old zoo is like how weird and kind of creepy it is because you're imagining, you know, they have like plaques up that tell you what animals were in certain enclosures, right? Did you see those? You assume that I stop and read plaques at places like this.

Shanna

Yeah, it definitely has that vibe. And it feels very good that the zoo relocated in the 1960s to a bigger place. This was the LA Zoo from 1912 to 1966, I learned later.

Laura

That's a fun activity, though. You know, we live, what, 10 minutes from there? So we should give it a try one of these days. One of these days when I'm just like, I don't know what to do. I'm going to go do that. Good idea.

Shanna

Yeah. Yeah. And right at the base of it is the Shane's inspiration. Playground that is so huge and has the best zipline in the city, according to my kids, the best playground zipline.

Laura

Oh, that's right. I forgot about that zipline. Oh, so fun.

Shanna

Yeah, very, very fun. And yeah, that is my BFP for the week. And I think that's it for our show. I think you're right. Unless you have a five-star review to read on this 399th episode.

Laura

I sure do, Shanna. So this is from Katie Mac2224 in Canada. It's titled The One and Only Podcast I Listen to, Five Stars. I started listening to Big Fat Positive when I was pregnant with my first son. who is now almost four. This podcast is not only informative, but entertaining and so relatable. Shanna and Laura have kept me company on long car rides and late nights when sleep is not happening. I have finally caught up after all these years and look forward to every Monday. Thanks for making me and many other mamas not feel so alone in this parenthood journey.

Shanna

Aw, thank you, Katie. Aw, that's wonderful. Thanks, Katie. Thanks for the review and thank you for listening. Listeners, if you would like to leave us a five-star review, we might read your review on an upcoming episode, so please head on over to Apple Podcasts, leave us those five stars, say a few things you love about the show, and you might hear us read your review in the future. If you have any internet and sanities that you want to share with us or you have any other comments or feedback on this week's episode or anything else, 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, BigBatPositivePodcast.com. And if you want to send us an email, 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 BFP Community. It's a private group, so you have to request to join and answer those two membership questions so we know you're not a robot. But once you do that, you'll be sent straight through to all the wonderful 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 week. Bye. Bye.