Ep. 60: Mom Wins!

[Music]

Shanna Micko: Hi. Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. On this week’s episode, we have our weekly check-ins. We have a brand new special segment called Mom Wins! where we celebrate the high points in our parenting life and we wrap it up with our BFPs and BFNs. Let’s get started.

[Music]

Shanna Micko: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the show. Hey, Laura.

Laura Birek: Hello.

Shanna Micko: How are you guys doing this week? Start us off with your weekly check-in.

Laura Birek: Okay. It’s week 28 for my baby and that means we’re six and a half months. The baby cold is still in full force, unfortunately.

Shanna Micko: What?

Laura Birek: Yes.

Shanna Micko: Oh, man.

Laura Birek: I know. I think three weeks ago it was parvovirus, which was mild. Then it turned into a normal baby cold that I ended up getting and then I don’t know if he went parvo, then I got sick and then I gave him whatever I had or it was parvo then he got sick then he got me sick and we’re both still sick. I don’t know. I’m feeling better for the most part, but he is still coughing.

Shanna Micko: Good.

Laura Birek: He’s in a great mood, but the cough just sucks, man.

Shanna Micko: Well, baby cough. It so sad.

Laura Birek: It’s been waking him up at night, which really sucks. It just hurts your heart. I’ll have the monitor next to me on my nightstand and I’ll just hear in the middle of the night coughs and I’m just like, my little baby. I just want to go scoop him up and then he goes back to sleep, but poor little thing. On top of that, his second tooth broke through.

Shanna Micko: All right.

Laura Birek: I knew it was going to be right behind the first one. It takes so long for them to get in all the way, so he has these little tooth buds and they’re ridged. They’re so sharp, but they’re really, really cute. So on top of the cold, he got his second tooth and I’m so proud of him. On top of all that, we’re getting ready to go on our first plane flight as a family.

Shanna Micko: That’s exciting. Where are you going?

Laura Birek: We are going to Portland where my stepdad lives. My mom splits her time between there and Fresno. So she’s going to be up there and we didn’t want to go, because we were like, we don’t want to get on a plane. We don’t want to travel. We’re kind of home bodies. We like traveling on our own terms, but we just didn’t want to do it and then my mom was like, “I’m buying your ticket. You’re coming up.” I was like, okay, how can you argue with that? I have a packing list going trying to figure out all the things I need to buy. I’m going to try to just bring minimal diapers and have my mom pick them up in Portland.

Shanna Micko: That’s a good idea.

Laura Birek: We’re also going to borrow a travel crib from someone who went to my college actually, because I went to college in Portland, Oregon and so I know a lot of alumni in the area and I’m part of my alumni group for my college on Facebook. I put a call out saying like, does anyone have a travel crib? Because my mom, by the way, she was like, “We’ve got two pack ‘n plays.” I was like, “Can you tell me when they were manufactured?” She went and rummaged through and was like, “They’re 2010 or something.” Apparently, park ‘n plays before I think it’s 2012 or 2014, now I’m not even remembering, but it’s later than 2010 are no longer considered safe, because they changed the safety rules about them. Did you know this?

Shanna Micko: Interesting. I had no idea.

Laura Birek: They reinforced them mainly so that they’re less likely to collapse spontaneously or if they were kicked in the wrong way or something and the bottom’s more reinforced, apparently and I looked it up and there were apparently like 60 infant deaths associated with these old park ‘n plays, which is awful.

Shanna Micko: Oh, no.

Laura Birek: I don’t know how long of a period of time and whether they were set up right or not, but either way, I’m like, I’m not messing around with this, you know. I was like, we could bring our brand new pack ‘n play if we wanted to, but I put a call out onto my alumni board and three people were like, “Yeah, you can have it.” But the first person who offered was like, “I’ll just take her up.” She was between the airport and my stepdad’s house, so it was perfect. We’re going to go pick it up on her porch after we arrive.

Shanna Micko: That’s so great, man.

Laura Birek: So nice.

Shanna Micko: Parents helping parents. That’s so great.

Laura Birek: It is so great. People are so generous and also I get it, because you’re like, I have this thing. It’s in my closet. Yeah, please get it out of my closet. 

We use it three times a year or whatever. Please take it. That’s exciting. So we have all the stuff we’re trying to pack up and figure out. I got a FaceTime call from my mom. There’s actually a kids resale store right around the corner from their house and so she’s giving me like a visual tour of it and she’s like, “Okay, there are two jumperoo. Which ones do you want me to get for him while he’s here?” I’m like, “You don’t have to get a jumperoo.” She’s like, “I want to get him a jumperoo. He loves the jumperoo.” I’m like, “Okay.” But she got a jumperoo for $35.

Shanna Micko: There you go. That’s perfect.

Laura Birek: The woman, I overheard her. She was like, “You can sell it back to me at the end.”

Shanna Micko: Brilliant. I wish I was right around the corner from a kids’ resale shop.

Laura Birek: Because kids don’t use stuff for very long. It’s crazy how quickly they grow out of things. That’s great. Our sort of biggest thing we’re actively doing this week in anticipation of going up to Portland is we decided to move the baby out of the little baby bathtub that we had that we would put in our kitchen sink and we’ve moved him into the big boy bathtub.

Shanna Micko: What do you mean by big boy?

Laura Birek: By that I mean the actual tub that all people use.

Shanna Micko: The people tub.

Laura Birek: I was going to get some kind of contraption for him to sit in or I was going to the little plastic tub that we had been using, I could have like set into the big bath tub and have him sit up in it. But I again asked my alumni group. I’m like, “What did you people do when your kids got too big for the sink?” The consensus was, “Bathtub with a couple inches of water.” He’s sitting really, really well on his own. They’re like, obviously you have to be on top of him at all time. You can’t even turn your back for a second. But if he’s sitting well, he’s going to love the big bath. Boy were they right, oh my God. He loves that bath.

Shanna Micko: Awesome.

Laura Birek: He loves having the huge area that he can splash in. I’ll tilt him back carefully to rinse his hair off and he starts kicking his legs and he is laughing and he has all his bath toys. Now, he has six toys in there. Of course, all he really wants to play with is like the spout I used to rinse him off with. But he ends up being surrounded by toys and he loves it and actually is faster, because I used to have to fill up the little baby bath and then I would drain it and rinse, because it would be full of soap. But in the big bath, there’s not that much soap. You know what I mean? It’s enough water. Even with two and a half inches or three inches of water in or whatever, there’s enough water that you don’t have to drain it and refill it. So it’s actually much, much faster to get through the whole actual bathing part and then the rest of it’s just like playtime and he is really enjoying himself.

Shanna Micko: That’s so fun. I love that. Those little tubs are only practical for so long. 

I have one that’s if you put them on this side, it’s for newborns. If you set them this way facing the other way it’s for infants and toddlers. It’s like toddlers are not going to tolerate that tiny tub.

Laura Birek: No way.

Shanna Micko: My girl is already like, because last week I mentioned she’s pulling to stand, the second she could realize she she’s like standing in that tub, because I put that tub in the bathtub. I didn’t do it on the counter. No, you got to just ditch it and go with the big tub. Yay! It’s a whole new world.

Laura Birek: I do have a question for you though since you are experienced in the big tub situation. What do you kneel on? Do you have a mat or something, because it’s kind of awkward for me and I don’t really know what I’m doing?

Shanna Micko: Oh, girl, I do have a tip for you.

Laura Birek: Yes.

Laura Birek: Okay. Good.

Shanna Micko: I hate kneeling on the side of the tub. I won’t do it. What I do, especially now that she’s in the big tub is I have a little foldable stool and it’s really for Elle to step up onto and brush her teeth at the counter. I put that in the tub and I put it over by the spout and all of the hard stuff that she wants to crawl on and could really hurt her face. The stopper piece that goes up and down and it’s very sharp and long, so she always of course wants to go over to all that stuff. I take the stool and I put it in the tub and I block all of that stuff and I sit with bare feet and just give her like three quarters of the tub and she plays on the safe end. I’m in the tub with her a little bit. I get a little bit wet, but it’s fun. I feel like I’m in there. I don’t have to kneel and I just sit really low next to her and that’s what I do. That’s what I did with Elle too, until she got old.

Laura Birek: That is fun. I like that. Also, your feet get cleaned.

Shanna Micko: Yes, then you go to bed with clean feet.

Laura Birek: I don’t know about you. I’m always walking around barefoot or with sandals and my feet are gross. At the end of the day I’m like, eww.

Shanna Micko: Feet get so clean. It feels good.

Laura Birek: Win-win. I’m going to have to try that.

Shanna Micko: Even when you are ready to not be in the tub with them, you can put the stool on the outside of the tub and sit on that so you’re not at least kneeling or sitting on the floor. That’s my hack.

Laura Birek: Awesome. I’m going to try that and I will report back.

Shanna Micko: Cool.

Laura Birek: Anyway, that’s my week. How about you? What are you doing? How old is your baby?

Shanna Micko: She’s great. She’s 32 weeks, which is seven and a half months and we have a couple big things this week. The first is we have started finger foods.

Laura Birek: Oh, okay.

Shanna Micko: We were only doing purees before or really mushed up banana avocado kind of stuff and so I was like, I feel like she’s crawling now. She’s probably ready to try picking things up on her own and working on her pincher grasp and eating little bits of food, so we went for it.

Laura Birek: What did you start with?

Shanna Micko: We started with the puffs. Do you know what puffs are?

Laura Birek: Yes, I recall the puffs with your first daughter, but why don’t you tell the world what these puffs are, because I don’t remember exactly what they are?

Shanna Micko: They’re in the baby food section and they’re like little rice puffs that are made with little rice and then blueberry or banana flavor or whatever and they’re really small. They’re not a choking hazard. They melt easily in the baby’s mouth and it’s a perfect thing for them to practice picking up and I did that with Elle, of course. So I was like, well, I’ll do that with CeCe. She’s going to love this. By the way, putting your child in a high chair with a few puffs for them to practice pinching, buys you a lot of time if you need to do the dishes or feed the dogs.

Laura Birek: That is a good idea. Oh my gosh.

Shanna Micko: Trap them in there. Do your shit. She was doing those and she was really great at it, but I don’t know if you remember way back when I first talked about how I introduced rice cereal to her and didn’t realize for four weeks that rice upset her stomach horribly.

Laura Birek: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shanna Micko: That knowledge went out the window, apparently, because I was giving her these rice puffs and then three days later, I’m like, why is she so upset and cranky and screaming all the time? Her body does not like rice. We ditched those and now I cut up little pieces of banana really small, or little squares of avocado as opposed to the mushed up stuff or cut up blueberries and stuff like that. It’s fun. It’s kind of a whole new world and it’s so cute. Her little face is, like what is this new texture? She makes just the most funny faces when she eats things that she’s not used to.

Laura Birek: But this is different than baby led weaning or is it the same idea?

Shanna Micko: I’m not 100% familiar with baby led weaning, because I did not follow it. I did read about it. But from what I understand, baby led weaning you don’t ever even start with puree.

Laura Birek: I see.

Shanna Micko: I think what that is, is like, the baby is a person who can eat. Just give them food. I personally didn’t love that idea. I wanted my baby to start with purees and then move on to finger foods. So I don’t know what exactly I’m doing. I don’t know if it’s got a name.

Laura Birek: It’s the Shanna method.

Shanna Micko: It’s the Shanna method. Coin that phrase. Make a million dollars.

Laura Birek: It’s interesting, because I read a little bit about baby led weaning and I loved the idea of it. Philosophically, I was like, yeah, the baby is a person. They can just eat and they won’t choke because whatever. It’s how babies have been fed for millennia: why are we doing purees? But then when I started thinking about actually implementing, I was like, this seems hard and dangerous. I’m just going to mush up some food.

Shanna Micko: It’s seems so.

Laura Birek: I was like, man, I can’t do it.

Shanna Micko: For me, I just didn’t see the point. She’s four months old when I started. I’m not going to give her a hunk of meat.

Laura Birek: Well, I do think that’s also a thing is that when you do baby led weaning, you don’t start them on solids until they’re like six months for that reason.

Shanna Micko: Probably until they’re more.

Laura Birek: I wanted to start my guy early, because after talking to Dr. Robert Hamilton, I always want to say in the Hamilton Center, “Dr. Robert Hamilton. His name is Dr. Robert Hamilton.” I just can’t help myself, but he was talking about early allergen introduction and so when he talked to us about that, I was like, ooh, I got to start early. That’s why I wanted to start early and it was too early to hand over hunks of meat. That’s cool though.

Shanna Micko: That’s a new thing on our horizon and then the other thing also related to feeding is that we’ve started, oh God, I feel like kind of nervous saying this or maybe emotional. We’ve started weaning breastfeeding.

Laura Birek: Oh, wow.

Shanna Micko: I know a while back I told everyone that I introduced formula and I was only doing it for like one bottle a day just to give myself a little break and I’ve actively made a decision to do mom led weaning. I’m making the decision, because it’s either that or baby led. The baby is like, I’m done and I don’t feel like I want to wait around for that and I feel like we’ve made a good run. By the time we’re totally finished, it’ll be about eight months and I went six months with Elle, so I feel I’ve got a ton of mixed feelings about it and of course, I’ve been doing a ton of Googling about it and everything. I just wanted to put it out there that that’s the road were on.

Laura Birek: How long does it take? I don’t know anything about weaning. I assume you just start feeding less and less and less. How does it work?

Shanna Micko: There are a lot of ways. If you want, you can go cold Turkey.

Laura Birek: That sounds painful.

Shanna Micko: Yes, that’s the thing. It can be painful. It can cause engorgement, mastitis, a lot of negative consequences for that and I’m not desperate to quit or anything. I’m totally fine to just phase it out and just see how it goes. So what they suggest is to drop a feeding every week or every few days.

Laura Birek: Okay.

Shanna Micko: Like the 9:00 a.m. feeding, I’m like, I’m just going to try a bottle of formula at that feeding and see how she does and I do that for a couple days and she’s great and I’m great, because I don’t have to nurse again because news flash, if everyone’s been listening to this show so far, I’m not a huge fan of breastfeeding and I’ve had kind of a hard time. It’s exciting in a way. I’m like, I’ll try it and see and see if I feel too guilty or see if she protests. It’s always how I approach it. I’ll just do it and see what happens and it was fine. We did that for several days and then I’m like, you know what? I’ll try dropping the three o’clock feed and see what happens and do formula instead and we did that for a while.

Laura Birek: The Shanna plan trademark.

Shanna Micko: The plan I guess for this episode is to do that every week or so until there’s only one left and then none. We’re not there yet. We’re still nursing like three times a day I think down from five. So here we go.

Laura Birek: That’s so interesting and exciting and that means that’s the end. That’s barring some really unlikely circumstance. That’s the end of breastfeeding for you.

Shanna Micko: That’s right. If I don’t find a baby on my doorstep next year, this will be the end of breastfeeding. Although I guess I couldn’t technically breastfeed that child out of the world.

Laura Birek: You could though. Did you know that you can induce lactation?

Shanna Micko: What?

Laura Birek: Same sex couples will do this a lot. So that they can both. By the way, it sounds awesome. I’m like, man, that’d be a benefit to being married to a woman so she could also induce lactation so you could share the breastfeeding duties.

Shanna Micko: Yeah, that would be amazing. Do you know how they do that?

Laura Birek: I only know the rudimentary stuff. If any of our listeners know, let us know. I’ve heard of it’s basically you have to take a bunch of drugs and I think you have to pump a ton. It doesn’t sound fun. It sounds really hard, but apparently it works. It can work for a lot of people.

Shanna Micko: Wow. That’s cool.

Laura Birek: That’s cool. But again, probably unlikely that’s going to happen for you.

Shanna Micko: I don’t see it in my cards.

Laura Birek: That’s exciting though. Changes are a foot.

Shanna Micko: They are. Baby’s getting bigger and we’re changing. We’re going with the flow. All right. Should we move on to our special segment?

Laura Birek: Yes, let’s do it.

Shanna Micko: Okay.

[Music]

Laura Birek: We’re back and we actually have a brand new, special segment this week. We wanted to mix things up a little. We have a bunch of segments where we offload our gripes in Gripe Water or we talk about our BFNs, but we realize we want to do something where we celebrate the great things that we have done in our motherhood journey. So we are calling this Mom Wins! with an excavation point and wins is both a noun and a verb. Mom wins and mom wins. We want to celebrate the great stuff that we’ve done, toot our own horns a little bit. I don’t know. Shanna, I don’t even know what you’re going to talk about. So let’s find out what this Mom Win is on your end. What have you got for us?

Shanna Micko: You all know that I am a work from home mom and part of my deal is that occasionally once a week or so, I go into the office for meetings and I had a meeting coming up. It was actually a lunch meeting. My team, we’d been planning to get together and have lunch. We had a couple new staff members and I really wanted to make a point to make it to this meeting and part of my plan as a work from home mom is to rely on what the company offers that’s called backup care. So there’s a daycare nearby that I can arrange to drop CeCe off and pick her up later in the day so they watch her while I go into work and do my meetings and stuff and I pick her up, go home and it’s fine. I’d been relying on this method to cover all my meetings and it was backup care, so I was like, it’s a last minute thing. It’s for like, when caretakers get sick or something comes up. 

This was the frame of mind I had approaching this backup care and so the day before the meeting, I put in my request the next day I need backup care, because I have this meeting I really want to go to and they call the next morning and they’re like, “Your backup care was denied. You can’t bring her in today.”

Laura Birek: Oh, no.

Shanna Micko: I said, “What?” This was like 8:30 a.m. and the lunch was at like 12:30. I was like, oh my gosh, what do I do? They were like, “Well, we can call another facility that’s in Sherman Oaks. It’s not as close to where you need to go, but we can try.” I was like, “Yes, please, please, please, please try.” They called and they couldn’t take her either, because they were already booked up. Both of these places were booked up at the last minute and I’m like, oh my God. They’re like, “The last thing we could do is we could try to find a sitter to come into your home and watch her while you go,” which is an amazing benefit. The fact that I even have this benefit available, like someone working on my behalf to try to find a daycare or a sitter is amazing and so I was like, “Okay. Yes, please do that.” I’m like getting ready to go into the office and like, oh my God, what am I going to do? I’ve totally screwed this up. Why didn’t I make this reservation earlier? I knew about this lunch earlier and so they call back and they’re like, “We can have someone come to your house and she’ll be there at one o’clock'” and I’m like, “This lunch is at 12:30. I can’t wait.”

Laura Birek: That doesn’t work.

Shanna Micko: Part of the reason I’m so desperate for this to work is I want to come across as a very competent employee. I’ve got a very special situation going on that I’m incredibly grateful for and I want to always make it seem like I’ve got my shit together.

Laura Birek: Appearances. You got to say like, yeah, I’m getting all my work done from home and I have no problem coming in for these meetings. Absolutely nothing is going wrong.

Shanna Micko: Exactly. Behind the curtains though, shit hits the fan. I’m like, oh my God, what am I going to do? I messaged Steve. Steve actually works at the same company that I do and I was like, “Steve, is there any way you could watch CeCe while I’m at this lunch? What if I drive down there, hand her off to you and you go do something with her. Please, Steve, can you do this?” He is like, “I’m really busy. But if this is the absolute last resort, I will do it.” I was like, “Thank you. It is. No one else has come through,” and so I’m getting ready, getting the baby ready and I drive to the restaurant, which is near work and Steve meets me in the parking lot and I try to get there early so none of my coworkers see me doing this. I get there. I hand the baby off to Steve in her carrier and the baby bag, give it to him. He clicks her into his car and he takes off and drives around the park or something. I don’t even know what he did with her and I stroll in. I’m early. I’m the first one there and I just stroll in, like yeah, I’ve got it together.

Laura Birek: Amazing.

Shanna Micko: I’m all good. I make it for the meeting. No one’s any of the wiser and then Steve’s exit time comes. It’s two o’clock. He has to be back at work. 

He has a meeting and we haven’t wrapped up yet. It’s small talk at the end of lunch and blah, blah, blah and I’m like getting so antsy, so anxious.

Laura Birek: Oh my God.

Shanna Micko: I know he’s out, back in the parking lot waiting for me to come get the hand off and so I was just like, “You guys actually I have to take off.” This was three minutes before everyone else was going to take off. I’m like, “I got to take off,” and they’re like, “Okay. Bye.” I’m like, “Bye. I’ll be back online soon,” and I go back to the parking lot expecting I’ll just grab that carrier, click in and be on my way. I come out and Steve’s out of the car with CeCe in his arms. She’s got shit everywhere all over. The hugest blowout she’s had in her life. The trunk’s open. He’s laying out the changing pad. I was like, “What are you doing? They’re inside. They’re going to come out. Any minute now they’re going to see that I don’t have it together. My facade is going to be ruined.” I’m like, “Let me take over.” I don’t think I’ve ever whipped together a changed blowout so fast in my life. I’m like, “Steve wipe up the seat.” So he’s wiping the seat and I’m cleaning CeCe and he’s like, “Do you want this extra outfit?” I’m like, “Fuck. No, put her in her diaper.” I put her in her diaper in the car seat click it in. I’m like, “Bye.” No one came out. No one saw me. I got away with it.

Laura Birek: I hope they hear this podcast. Amazing.

Shanna Micko: I have to say I did not give myself credit for this at first. I was extremely anxious about it and I was like, this is a sign. I just don’t have it together. 

I felt really bad about myself. I was telling this to Steve and he’s like, “What are you talking about? You did it. It worked. You did what you needed to do. No one was the wiser. You did it.” I was like, “Oh my God. I did do it. Okay. Cool.”

Laura Birek: You made that shit work against all odds.

Shanna Micko: Yes, I did. Thank God for Steve and him being able to help out and the fact that he didn’t happen to have a meeting at that time. It all worked out and I was so grateful. I didn’t have to be like, sorry, guys. I can’t make it to the meeting because of my mothering duties. I avoided it. So mom wins!

Laura Birek: That is a big win. I can’t believe you even ever thought that was not a win. That was some super momming right there.

Shanna Micko: I know right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was fun too. Get off my chest. Oh my gosh, what about you? Do you have a mom win for us?

Laura Birek: I do. This is a much smaller story, but is no less momentous and I just have to share and I’m actually surprised I haven’t talked about it on the podcast yet. I’m pretty sure I haven’t. It happened actually a few months ago, but it’s still one of my proudest moments. So I just really want to make sure that it’s out in the world. People need to acknowledge. It’s the time where I’m most sad that my nest cams turn off when I’m home, because I wish I had surveillance footage of this, because it was so good. All right. My baby boy was a couple months old. 

He was like three months old I want to say. He was smaller and we were nursing and the reason why I mentioned that he was younger is that when they’re a little younger, I don’t know if it was because I’m not as skilled at it or I wasn’t as practice or it took longer, but nursing was kind of a hands on activity at this time. Even though I had my Brest Friend pillow, he was on my lap. I was on the couch. I had my legs crossed underneath me and then he was nursing and I was sitting on my couch and our couch is on top of an area rug. We have hardwood floors, but there’s this big area rug that for some reason we thought buying a beige light colored area rug was a great idea just before I was pregnant, but also we had two cats. So what were we thinking? But anyway, so we have this light colored area rug that’s constantly getting dirty and we’re constantly having to spot clean. I’m sitting there, I’m nursing the baby and all of a sudden I hear this like, oh, oh, oh.

Shanna Micko: Oh, no.

Laura Birek: I know that sound. That is the sound of a cat vomiting or a cat about to vomit. Anyone who has cats knows that sound.

Shanna Micko: Oh God, dogs too. They make a similar sound.

Laura Birek: There’s this whole run up. If you don’t have a cat or a dog and don’t know what I’m talking about, they don’t just vomit. There’s these whole series of sounds they make and then they vomit. They give you a little warning and usually if you hear it in the middle of the night, you run out and try to find them and catch them or whatever and my cats have an uncanny ability to find spots that’s not the hardwood floor. We have hardwood floor throughout our house and they will find the smallest throw rug to vomit on.

Shanna Micko: Like it’s a throw up rug.

Laura Birek: Exactly. I’m there, I’m nursing with both my hands, my legs crossed underneath me and I hear this and I’m like, shit. I look and I see Magnus my older cat across the coffee table from me. He was just a little like hop away and I see and of course he is retching on top of the white area rug.

Shanna Micko: Oh my gosh.

Laura Birek: I was like, shit. I can’t get up. What can I do? I looked down and on the floor right next to me on the couch is a burp cloth. So I uncurl one leg. With my toes, I pick up the burp cloth and I fling the burp cloth and it flies through the air like a pizza dough or a Frisbee and it landed directly underneath his freaking face and caught the vomit in like a split second before it came out.

Shanna Micko: Oh my God, that is a thing I need on video and I need it in slowmo and I’m so sad this doesn’t exist.

Laura Birek: I cheered. It flung this across. It landed. I was like, oh my God, no one is here to experience this amazingness. Why? I was immediately calling Corey. 

I was like, “You will not believe what I just did.” The problem with that is that cats never throw up once.

Shanna Micko: No.

Laura Birek: He backed up and let loose again. However, it got half on half of the burp cloth, but so there was less to clean up at least.

Shanna Micko: That’s amazing and the fact you did it with your foot is ridiculous.

Laura Birek: With my foot while nursing.

Shanna Micko: That is multitasking to the max.

Laura Birek: I want that to be in my obituary on time.

Shanna Micko: Oh my gosh. I will remember that.

Laura Birek: Please. Yes, if I die before you. Laura, one time in the winter of 2019, she flung a burp cloth with her toes and stopped the cat from soiling the rug too much.

Shanna Micko: Man, I feel like that’s especially commendable, because I had a cat growing up and trying to catch a cat’s throw up, I’d grab a piece of notebook paper and try to get it under their mouth and then they would recoil and back away and go and they just hated it. So the fact that he didn’t mind that that burp cloth was flying at him like a pizza box or whatever, pizza dough and was just like, yes, I’ll just vomit on that and all of it together is just a perfect moment.

Laura Birek: By the way, never losing a latch on the baby.

Shanna Micko: Hell yes.

Laura Birek: I feel like, my baby has an agent. I’ve breastfed him for six and a half months. No, my proudest moment is flinging that burp cloth with my toes. Anyway, that’s my mom win and I’m so glad I finally have a venue to share it.

Shanna Micko: Yay. Congratulations.

Laura Birek: Maybe I should do a dramatic recreation. I don’t think I could do it. It wasn’t a one-time situation.

Shanna Micko: You could keep trying. You could work on that for the next year.

Laura Birek: Anyway, that was very fun. Should we take a quick break and then move on to our BFPs and BFNs?

Shanna Micko: Yeah, let’s do it.

[Music]

Shanna Micko: We’re back and we are going to wrap things up as we do every week with our big fat positives and big fat negatives. Laura, what do you got for us?

Laura Birek: I have a BFN this week.

Shanna Micko: Why?

Laura Birek: I’ll tell you, so the BFN is foot pain. It’s just like general…

Shanna Micko: From all of that burp cloth flinging you’re doing.

Laura Birek: Yes, I have a burp cloth flinging related injury. I wish it was the explanation then I would wear it with pride, but yeah, my feet are just aching all the time. It’s not a specific injury. It’s not like, my ankle hurts or I have planter fasciitis or whatever. It’s just that I’m guessing it’s because I’m like 20 pounds heavier than I was before I got pregnant and then I’m on top of that lugging around a 15 pound baby all the time and my baby is actually very light. He’s on the 10th percentile in weight and I’m still like, my body and I also think maybe I sit cross-legged a lot, which is probably a bad thing for your feet. But when I stand up from sitting, I feel elderly. Is that ageist I just assume elderly people have aching bones? Maybe not. I don’t know.

Shanna Micko: I think some do.

Laura Birek: Some do I’m sure. But I have to hobble for a couple minutes, because they’re so stiff and in so much pain and I got brand new shoes thinking that was the problem and it’s helped a little bit not much. I don’t know what even know what’s going on.

Shanna Micko: What kind of doctor would you even see for that: a podiatrist?

Laura Birek: I guess. Maybe I should go see one, because I have maxed out my deductible and out pocket for the year.

Shanna Micko: Do it. That’s exactly the type of thing you should take advantage of when you’ve maxed everything out.

Laura Birek: That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I’ll find a podiatrist. See what’s going on with my feet. But anyway, you’re on your feet a lot. I’m home, I’m not working and yet you think you’re just sitting around all day. If you asked me what I did all day, I’d be like, we just sat around all day. But then if you really break it down, it’s like you basically are doing squats all day. Picking a baby up from the ground and standing up and then putting them back down and then I end up going on a ton of walks. So my body’s just feeling it. I’ve avoided back pain thankfully and wrist and shoulder pain mostly, but the foot stuff is really annoying. I’m so curious if other listeners like new moms, if they’ve experienced foot pain after giving birth. Please tell me and if you’ve figured out how to fix it, let me know, please.

Shanna Micko: I know. I wish I had any insight for you, but that’s not something that ever happened to me. So I’m not sure what that is.

Laura Birek: Huh. I don’t know. It’s totally unexpected for me. Anyway, thank you.

Shanna Micko: It’s better.

Laura Birek: It’s not like I have to take ibuprofen for it. It’s just that I stand up and I’m like, oh, ao. It’s almost like, I feel like I can’t really bear weight really hard on it without it aching for a while. I hobble. I’ll use this as an impetus to actually look into it as opposed to just complaining about it and I will keep everyone posted.

Shanna Micko: Okay. That sounds good.

Laura Birek: Anywho, how about you? Do you have a BFP or a BFN?

Shanna Micko: I have a BFP.

Laura Birek: Great.

Shanna Micko: I’m on a BFP run lately. I’ve had several the last few episodes and I have another one.

Laura Birek: We just want BFPs all. The show is called Big Fat Positive.

Shanna Micko: That is true. So I recently signed CeCe up for a class at a place in LA called My Gym and we love it. My Gym is a little kids’ gym basically with all kinds of activities that they can do. There’s a ball pit and little slides and things they can climb and the teacher leads a class where we start with stretching and warm-ups and do songs. It’s so cute and she’s only seven months, so it’s a ridiculously young age to be doing something like this. But a), I need something to do. I need to get out of the house, so I planned it so I can do this on my lunch break and so I take her over there and we get out, we see people and she loves it. She just loves seeing people. She just lights up when she sees others and she’s such a physical baby. She loves crawling and she’s already pulling to stand.

Laura Birek: She’s active.

Shanna Micko: We did the same thing with Elle. We took her to My Gym when she was the same age and at first, there’s not a ton they can engage with. But I watched Elle develop confidence in the playroom over the course of months and she just dominated that place so quickly after gaining confidence. She learned so much balance there and strength and I think CeCe will really benefit from that too. So I’m excited we’re there and excited to have an opportunity to get out of the house and do something special with CeCe. It’s tricky having a second child, because like I mentioned before, I took her to the beach and only took one picture of her.

Laura Birek: Poor CeCe.

Shanna Micko: I know sometimes she gets overshadowed by having a big sister and so it’s like a thing that just me and her can do. I took her and we introduced the baby. I never had introduced her before this way. It was like, “This is CeCe.” It was like a whole new chapter starting of my relationship with her. It’s like me and her doing stuff together, which is such a strange thing to say, because it’s like you and your son have been doing this stuff since he was born and I do spend a lot of time with her, but it’s just different. It’s different with a second child. So I’m excited to get that kind of one-on-one special time and see if it will flourish.

Laura Birek: Your time is very split. You have two of them to take care of and your job. For me, I’m kind of in this bubble still of not working and we go to all these activities, because I’m sometimes bored as shit. I just need to do stuff and I love my Mommy & Me class and all that stuff, so I get it. I love having little outings and I think it’s great to do stuff one on one. I follow this woman who has triplets on Instagram: the river’s triplets. I think I’ve talked about them, because they had the same due date as I did, but they were born early because you know triplets. But she actually has been doing things where she goes out with one of them. They’ll have solo days, which makes sense because when you’re a triplet, you never got solo days.

Shanna Micko: Cool. That’s true.

Laura Birek: So I like the idea of that. I need to look and see if there’s a My Gym near me. 

I think there is.

Shanna Micko: Really? You guys should try it. It’s fun. We did it for a real long time with Elle and it’s just wonderful. I think if there’s not a My Gym near you, Gymboree is another similar type of place. Any of these little kid gyms, it’s fun.

Laura Birek: I think maybe when he starts moving a little bit more, he’s still just happy to sort of sit. He’s a very good sitter and jumper ruining, but that’s it.

Shanna Micko: You’ll want to wait. I waited till she was crawling and moving before I signed her up.

Shanna Micko: All right. I think that’s it for us this week, yes?

Laura Birek: I think let’s wrap it up.

Shanna Micko: You know we want to hear your mom wins. Please share, share, share. So reach out to us with your mom wins. If you want to, Laura, where can they reach us?

Laura Birek: You can reach us on all the social medias at BFP Podcast. That’s Twitter, Instagram, Facebook at BFP Podcast or one of the best ways to do it is to find our Facebook community group. It’s a closed group, so you have to ask to join. 

We keep it closed so that people can have private conversations in a safe space, but just click request to join and Shanna or I will approve you and let us know your mom wins. We’d love to hear them. Or you can send us a message. You can go to bigfatpositivepodcast.com and click on contact and get in touch. That’s also where we’ll put the show notes and links to things we talked about in the show.

Shanna Micko: If you love our show, please consider leaving us a review or rating on whatever platform you listen. That’s so helpful and spread the word. If you know someone who’s pregnant or a new parent, tell them about Big Fat Positive. We so appreciate word of mouth. Big Fat Positive is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko and Steve Yager.

Laura Birek: Thanks for listening, everyone. We’ll see you next week.

Shanna Micko: Bye.

Laura Birek: Bye.

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