October 30, 2018 • 41 mins
The dreaded daycare meeting about Bryn’s listening skills happens and it’s...fine. The whole family spends the weekend actually doing family stuff, first going to a pumpkin “blaze” and later to the aquarium with Nana and Grandad. Peter and Beth talk about the pros and cons (but mostly the cons) of only one parent learning the gender of a baby in utero and then answer some listener mail. Peter then messes up the recording and debates whether he should complete the episode on his own or wake up Beth, who is still recovering from a cold, to re-record a segment.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello, and welcome too. We knows parenting. I'm Peter McNerney
and I'm both Newell back again. Welcome new listeners. We're parents,
we are married. We've got two kids, Maven is two
and a half and Britain is four. We are comedians.
Oh my god, we're so funny. It's terrible. Are you laughing? It? What?
(00:34):
It's terrible way to introduce yourself to a new person. Hi,
I'm Peter. I'm here to make you laugh. I guess
that's what stand up comedians do every single You're the
one putting out a podcast claiming to be entertaining. I'm
the one. Yeah, that's true. Well, okay, we can review.
How are we doing? We had a lot of things
happened this week, Beth, Starting with the big the big
(00:58):
thing we set up last week, which is we had
a little talk. The big thing. The big thing we
had a little talk with daycare about Brind's behavior and
I just was hanging over our head all week last week,
which is that daycare wanted to meet with us about
our son's behavior issues. Um and I gotta say he
(01:19):
was delightful. It was a really productive and pleasant meeting.
It was surprisingly good I think we both in our
brains expected that we're just going to be like yelled
at for being bad. Yeah, I thought it was going
to be more confrontational. It was like I thought, because
(01:41):
I mean to some extent, there was like this attitude
and which she had set up beforehand to be like,
what what do you do with him when he's like this?
And the thing that I think was making me nervous
was just like, we don't know, we don't know what
to do with him. Well, and then we ended up
having actually a pretty productive discussion with her because she
(02:01):
didn't the tactics that we do have she was not
fully aware of, and we had a good back and
forth discussion about how we can all try to be
more mindful of this. So specifically, she let us know
about two incidents quote unquote that happened. Uh that in
my mind I was like, oh, it's our fault, but
(02:23):
in her in retrospect, like she was scared that something
would happen and that we would be mad at her.
So one was they all went to the park one
day and she time to time to leave and like
no and refe years ago. So she did what I
have tried seven on seven occasions, which is the all right,
(02:44):
we're leaving Vibran and you like go and you walk,
and a lot of times that does work, and like
you go around the corner and you peek and you
see what he does. But in this instance he stayed
there defiantly. And then he went up to a stranger,
a woman who was there with her kid, and said,
they left me. And so this one had to run
back to the park and say no, I was watching,
(03:05):
like he wasn't left alone. I'm and I'm sure she
did not want us to find out about this, but
she told him and we were very like, oh, yeah,
I've done that and uh. And then another time, waiting
for the bus, he got excited playing a gazebo and
refused to get on the bus, and h she has
learned that, like we have that if you say to
(03:27):
bran Brand and you suddenly get serious and mean, he's
going to dig in and he is not going to. Yeah,
it's a weird go along with it conundrum to think about,
because I think our last resort tactic is to literally
just wrestle him indoors, and you can't ask strangers to
do that to your kids when they've got ten other
(03:48):
kids there too, is getting enormous, and I'm to the
point where I'm like, on a daily basis, like we
need a better solution. Well, uh, we do have one,
and I think the things that we talked about. But
you were so throughout this whole thing, you were trying
to make it sound like you have more answers than
me and that you're not constantly dealing with a defiant
(04:12):
child who doesn't listen. Um, where do you think with
the same problem. I'm excited about some things that have
worked for me. You went into the meeting with her
when she was bringing this up, and I was like
scared because I was like, I don't know and you
were like, well, I know how to fix this, and
you're just like throwing up out ideas that work like
fifty percent of the time. So should I have suggested nothing?
(04:35):
She specifically said, you speak with a lot of authority
on things. You know what you It makes people really comfortable,
unless you're my wife, in which case you is starting
into traffic and it's not working. Okay, Well, let's specifically
talk about the things I suggested, which I think are
excellent ideas, even if they don't have a perfect ideas.
(04:57):
I'm just saying, you're presenting them as though they are
a full proof solution. That is you interpreting, knowing how
full of shit I am. She doesn't know that anyway. Yeah,
that is me interpreting with facts. The tactics we suggested
we we talked about last week a bit um, But
I think the thing that really works with brit is
(05:19):
in the moment realizing he's getting emotional is to like
take a breath, step away and try to meet him
where he is on an emotional knowledge that he's feeling
sad or frustrated, ask him about those feelings and figuring
that like why do you feel that way? Um, and
then work your way back to the moment. It could
have gone better. But the two other simple things that
(05:42):
we both shared with her that I think we're great
is the don't ever surprise Brin that you're about to
that you're about to stop what he's doing now, sudden movements,
no like time to drop the TV, like you need
a five minute warning at least, like time to leave
the park. You'll let him know, Britain, we're gonna leave
(06:02):
in five minutes, Okay, I think and all of these
things I should be presented to him very calmly and
like with as though you don't expect him to fight, Like,
so this is going to happen in about five minutes.
Then we're all going to move along to the bedroom
where we'll be putting on pajamas. And if he goes no,
(06:23):
I ignore that. And then I just started doing other things.
And then in two minutes, I'm like, all right, we
got three more minutes still bedtime, and uh, if he
says no, I ignore it and he doesn't get upset.
And then the other thing that you suggested, which I
think is great, is the I know is something that
works on me, which is the like give him a
(06:46):
job brand, Can you be line leader and he will
take you. You'll go wherever you want to go. Well,
this is what we got from the survey we filled out,
and at the preschool parents night as they were asking
what he responded to and what he was into, and
the answer is attention, attention, attention, attention, um and so.
(07:06):
And I think preschool really used the surveys we filled
out because the first week that they started assigning jobs
to kids, they made him the line leader and then
they additionally made him calendar helper on top of that,
I think in the same week. Um so, it was
like a lot of stuff where he got to perform
leadership and he was felt very a part of things.
And I think it was like a good introduction to
(07:29):
jobs for him because he was like, oh, jobs are fun. Yeah,
if you point his enthusiasm in a productive direction, he's
gonna he's going to take care of it. But if
his enthusiasm is pointed in a counter direction, everything is
coming to a halt very quickly. Yeah. Um so we
told the woman who has to take care of that,
(07:50):
and she she perked up. She was like, oh, yeah,
he does like she Also, one thing she said in
the meeting that we both enjoyed was she's talking about
him being stubborn, and then she was like, he's very smart.
I think the word was incredibly smart. Incredibly smart. You
love that. But it was like, of course you're a parent,
you're gonna blush. You want everyone to talk about your
(08:11):
kid that way. I come from a family of incredibly
smart but difficult people, so I was just like, yeah,
isn't it great and terrible, Like just when people are
using their they're fast resources to try to outwit you
at every turn. And I come from a family of
(08:33):
really smart but distracted people. Distracted people. Um, yeah, so
that was great. So I think that was a big
win and everyone feels good. And I was also the
big thing is I was like so happy that she
only had two instances to talk about. I thought, this
is like a daily press. Yeah. I was like, don't
you mean every second were We told her in the
(08:55):
meeting like he's worse with us than he is with you.
I think that's like every parent's experience ants And she
was like he used to be. And I think what
happened is the luster of daycare has worn off and
now he makes he's like big kid on campus. He
has to prove himself to all the little babies that
are around. Yeah, and so he's not listening. But anyway,
(09:15):
So that was that, and then on Friday night went
to the Blaze, the Great Pumpkin Blaze. Is it called
the jack Lantern Blaze? What was it called? Sometimes it's
referred to as the Blaze, sometimes the jack o' lantern Blaze.
This for those of you outside of Westchester, this is
uh uh a thing not in Sleepy Hall. I think
(09:38):
it's actually Croton on Hudson. But they hand carved like
over a thousand pumpkins, thousands of thousands of pumpkins. Some
of them are real pumpkins, some of them are fake pumpkins,
but there's real pumpkins. They do make a point of
telling you that they're all hand carved, and they light
(09:59):
them up at night and you go walk through and
it's like pumpkins stacked on top of pumpkins in in
the form of like a statue of Liberty, Liberty, dinosaur
Jack in the box there formed into shapes of things.
It's incredible. It's really impressive. I knew it would be cool,
but it was far more elaborate than I anticipated. It's
(10:19):
pretty elaborate. It's also, I have to say, for people
not in the area, it's like a weirdly in demand
activity that they put the tickets on sale in early
September and they sell out in like two days. That
like a full month's worth of tickets for this event. Um,
so people want to see these pumps. Bryn said so
(10:41):
many funny things to me, and I can't remember any
of them. But he's acting very scared and like spooked.
He was scared like an eighty year old man where
he's he's like, Daddy, this is too scary. But he
also does like cartoon faces where he's like sticking his
lower lip out and being like I'm scared, m saying
(11:04):
things like mmmmm, I think this part is too scary too. Uh.
This is his second year there. I think he like
vaguely remembered it is. Yeah, you guys went last year? Yeah,
where was I? You're just missing an action dad as
usual last year. I was well, that paints a picture
(11:25):
that's not accurate. But a weekend, not around weekend, dad,
nights and weekend. Not around nights and weekend, Dad, I'm
around all week. It's one you're around all the time
when our kids are at daycare. So it's um anyway.
So I love the Pumpkin Place too. I got scared too.
It was so scary. There's a headless horseman that threw
(11:47):
his head. The music is what's really scary. I think
it keeps it in a constant spooky mood, and so
Mayven just clammed up for the whole thing. The lighting
design is amazing. They just had these like subtle color
hitting the trees like above, and so you have a
weird sense of space and place and it's not a
very big area, but you feel like you're going through
(12:09):
this cave. It is so spooky, you guys, you gotta
check it out. It felt like a real family event,
Like our kids are at the age now where we
can take them places and you're like, we're really doing
family activities. It's no longer trying to go places while
carrying babies who are stopping us from enjoying everything. Well,
that was the big thing I noticed this weekend. I
(12:30):
did have to carry Maven for most of the plaze
because it was at night, but they are kids can
walk now and that is a game changer. Oh yeah. Um.
So that leads us into Saturday, which is when we
took our kids to the Mystic Aquarium. It was such
a fun filled weekend. Yes, we met my parents who
live in Massachusetts, so we've met them halfway between here
(12:52):
and there, and it was good. Aquarium I think is
in general a good activity for kids. There's lot to see,
there's always interactive stuff, but it's not like and you
got a lot of penguins, But when you go to
a children's museum there's like a couple of interactive things,
and then nothing and this is like interactive things and
then also a ton of fish and things to see.
(13:15):
Weirdest part of the whole thing was seeing two scuba
divers jumped into the main tank, uh in Halloween costumes.
They had skeleton scuba gear on, and they brought pumpkins
down there and just carved jack lanterns underwater, and they
were feeding the fish little like pieces of the pumpkins.
Were you really concerned that those fish were going to choke?
(13:36):
Because I was no, Okay, I mean I was confident
they thought it through, but part of me was nervous.
I really loved how much Maven was into the aquarium.
She when we walked in and we got right into
the Stingwright tank where you can pet the sting rays,
she was standing above it just frozen, just like it
was like Moanna's grandmother when the rays whim around her.
(14:01):
Naven was just like taking it in like the queen
of the rays. Well, it's just also like it was
her job. Yeah, she wouldn't moved from that spot for
a while. I think she didn't understand that there's more
to the aquarium besides that one room. So she was like,
I'm going to take this in and she was not smiling,
but she loved it. But she's just like Sonny to
all of this. And she would walk up to the
(14:22):
other tanks full of fish just like with her face
up close with all the fish coming around her. Is
the same thing, just like frozen. She said like two
words the whole time, like the bigger the group of people,
I think this is similar to you. The more people
that are around that, she's just not interested in trying
to like take the focus. No, she doesn't want to
(14:43):
talk in front of those people. She when we're at home,
she's really silly and she's making like NonStop fart jokes.
And then we get around other people she's not familiar
with and she won't say a word. I mean, this
is her grandparents and her aunt. She knows everybody. I
think she's the numbers. I don't know, she's just She
was also really tired because we took her to the
(15:03):
Blaze the night before. Can we talk about the Blaze.
We had a big night at the Blaze, so it
was a big week. We got blazed. As they say, yeah,
they don't say that. Um. The last thing I said
is unrelated to children, but we were at the the
Mystic Aquarium and Uh. As we were walking around, I
(15:23):
was like, Oh, there's a sea lion show. That's funny.
I have friends. So Lee Overtree, who with whom I
do the Story Parts podcast, got hired last summer by
an aquarium to write and direct a show and narrative
around the sea lion show that they do. So he
(15:44):
he wrote and directed this really funny show based around
what the sea lions are capable of doing. And it
was just like big bizarre project that he got hired
to do. And I was like, I would love to
go see that, but I can't. And I was at
this aquarium and I was like, Oh, there's a sea
lion show. I bet it's not as good as Lease,
and I like send him a picture of something. And
as I was leaving, I was like, Hayley, what is
(16:06):
that aquarium you did your show? And he's like, Oh,
that's the Mystic Aquarium. We just missed it. And I'm
honestly so upset, like when am I going to be
there again? Casually? So if you're in the Mystic, Connecticut area,
see Lee over Trees see lion show. I did. As
we were leaving I got up higher on one of
(16:26):
the platforms to look towards the whale tank, and I
saw they were feeding the beluga whales, which were adorable,
and I was holding Maven and we watched them for
a while, and like, I think you and my parents
had already had towards the parking lot or something, so
she was alone for once, and she like that was
when she started talking, and she was like yeah, well,
(16:47):
like she was like, okay, that's enough, let's go. Yeah,
they were Those blueg whales are so cute. I do
want one. This next segment is called did you Knows,
where we share some parenting things we read online. Okay,
(17:10):
okay o gay. So this one's real loose, this one's
real light. I read this whole article in Wall Street
Journal about finding out the gender of your baby. And
I'm not even going to really read this article because
I'm just gonna give you the gist of it, but
the basic idea of this article, there's a lot of
anecdotal interviewing different couples where apparently there is a trend
(17:33):
um that is more so than in years past, of
one parent finding out the gender of the baby while
the other um remaining ignorant to that gender, and it
was just a fascinating read about the issues that come
along with that uh and like it's and it's typically um,
(17:57):
father's not wanting to know the gender and mother's deciding
what it is which and so they can and whoever
it is if it's not always that way, but so
one parent knows the gender and starts to uh plan
accordingly um and thinking of like baby names and all that,
(18:18):
but weird, the weird issues like buying clothes for babies
and having to hide them from your spouse and also
while having the baby name discussion with your spouse, uh,
pretending like you care about the gender that you know
the baby isn't to pend to care. And I red
the starticle. I was like, boy, this is so stressful
(18:41):
for the person who decides to hear it, and it's
really easy for the one who's like, I don't want
to know. So obviously that I related to this because
I didn't want to know the gender. But you were like, okay,
I'm gonna find out. That was my preference. It wasn't
a real strong one, but I was like, let's be
the eyes and you were like, no, no, this is
(19:02):
not discussion. I'm finding out you can do whatever you want.
And I was like, wow, I'm not gonna let you
know and me not know, Uh, for exactly I hadn't
thought it through. But it's for exactly these reasons that
you hadn't thought it through. But it's for exactly these
reasons I hadn't thought it through. Taking credit for the
things you didn't know. Okay, great, that sounds let me
(19:25):
take that back for you know that, like, oh, you're
going to be moving on with like the next part
of of being a parent and I'm going to be
back here and I don't know what's ahead, and like
I didn't want that. Um. Also, I don't like other
people knowing things I don't know. Yeah, why so why
(19:48):
did you make that decision? Because I wanted to know.
I it's weird. I when I see, like, you know,
videos of childbirth, which I always think are very impressive,
and then sometimes they'll reveal the gender in the moment,
like that's exciting, but I also like, having been through it,
you have such a crazy rush of hormones in that moment,
(20:10):
like anything could be happening, and you're just sort of like,
what is this baby alive? Healthy, what's going on, Like
it doesn't. It's fine if you want to find out then,
but I don't think that's like a necessarily like a
time to fully process it. And I it's not like
it diminishes the how incredible that moment. Yeah, I mean
(20:34):
I didn't want our families to know with brit because
I think my number one reason was because if it
was a girl, I thought they would buy us a
million pink things. And I was just like, I can't
handle being inundated with pink. Did we not tell anyone
(20:54):
the gender? Well, we weren't going to. And then it
was a boy, and I suddenly just like didn't care anymore.
And I was like, Okay, fine, it's a boy. I
just didn't want pink things. Yeah, And then by the
time they even rolled around, I think I just cared
less about everything. But I just I don't know, like
with maybe two, like she got a lot of hand
me down so she didn't get a ton of pink stuff,
(21:14):
which is also nice. And I just now she's really
into pink and I don't mind because it feels like
a decision like this is something she's into. But I
just I think it's a weird thing to do to
like a newborn from day one. Well, it's such a
weird thing. It's like, you don't tell people the baby
name you picked until the baby is born, because if
(21:35):
you go, hey, we're going to name um, We're gonna
name our our son Bruno, you're asking people to judge
a name on its own, and it's most people won't
love it. But if you say, hey, here's my son,
his name is Bruno, like you, you can't judge it
because you're judging a person now right and then, and
(21:56):
especially I think the people who have the biggest opinions
about stuff like this are Grandpa Earns, and then once
they have a grandkid, they're going to love them either way.
So you might as well just present them with this
grandkid that they love with the name they have, so
you don't have to like know for however many months
that they don't like your decision. Don't tell anyone the name. Well,
a funny thing happened to me because before when you
(22:19):
first got pregnant, we didn't know the gender, and you
had a strong feeling that it was going to be
a girl. And you you've decided, like this is gonna
be a girl, and I was very like, you don't know,
science says and uh. And I was like, you don't know,
and I was. And then as time went on, I
(22:42):
without trying to, just because of how you were talking
about the baby, the picture in my head, you create
a character, there's this person, and I had a daughter
and she existed in my head, and I didn't realize
I had committed to that idea just because that's how
you were talking about it until you found out the
gender and out out of town so you called me, uh,
(23:02):
and you told me that it was a boy. Well,
I opened the envelope while on the phone with you. Yeah,
that's true. And it was funny because the technician I
told her. I asked her if she would write it
on the thing for me and put in an envelope
and she drew an arrow pointing to a penis and note, boy, Well,
(23:26):
that is what they're looking for. But I remember the
second because I could hear you were excited and surprised
that it was a boy. But the first reaction I had,
without thinking about it, was that like I just lost
my daughter's gone, and I didn't realize how fully had
committed to this character until it didn't exist anymore, and
(23:50):
I was like, oh no, but that's it wasn't real.
Obviously I had never met this baby in person. And
then then you then you create this other character that
is the first version of Brian because we decided on
a name, and and then the baby is born and
you're like, although this is the person that was a
(24:11):
it's like online relationship. To the article, I think the
decision here on this up to know or not. No,
Like this is one of those where I have to say,
I think the mother should get to decide, Like, assuming
this is a male female relationship, like we there's so
much your body is going through that you're doing to
(24:32):
create a person and like destroy yourself for almost a year,
and it's like, what, it doesn't matter what your arguments
are for against knowing. It's like just you get to decide.
That is traditionally been the point of view for a
lot of people. Additionally, well that was part of this article.
(24:53):
It was like typically that is many people's deciding factor
mom for those reasons. But I'll say, I understand not
wanting to know, but I just know that if you're
going to split that duty, uh, the person who does
know that, But like you're acting like this is a
(25:16):
shared thing, like all of these things, Like it feels
like the same thing with planning a wedding with you
and having a baby, where you like, don't do the work.
I'm coming towards the end and want to have an opinion,
and like the knowing whether it's a boy or a
girl affects the kinds of clothes you by. This is
exactly what I was What you were saying is exactly
(25:39):
what I was just saying. Just now agree, But I'm
that's why I'm saying, this is stuff that still falls
mostly on the mother's shoulders, not because women want to,
but because men don't step up. So then if for
you to have an opinion that's like I don't want
to know, is like you just like brushing off more
emotional labor for a mother of a newborn to deal
(26:02):
with when she's already underwater. Yes, you just articulated exactly
what I was attempting to say. Exactly. You keep taking
credit for no, no, no, I'm trying to I am
trying to give you full credit for being able to
say more articulately what I responded to me in a
tone that was in agreeance when you started, well, because
(26:23):
you interrupted me as if I was about to say
the opposite of what I was trying to say, so
part of my defensiveness, I'm agreeing with you. You are right.
I don't think I would have understood that at the
time when we were making this decision, even though I
claimed in retrospect to fully understand, even though you are
(26:44):
now claiming that this was exactly your point, all, I
don't know anything because but you did the same thing
with the birth plan, which was me doing all this
research and having the experience of literally having a person
inside my body, and then you, doing no research, decided
(27:04):
to refute my birth plans, and I supported your birth plan.
I did have questions about that is a lie, Well,
you said me having questions and concerns about it. If
that's not you're You're right, I did. But at no
(27:25):
point was I like we shouldn't do this. Yeah, you
were when we I got in a fight with your
family and my family, and then you were not backing
me up, and you were kept saying that they all
had valid arguments, and you made it sound like I
was dumb, even though I was the only one of
(27:45):
any of us who was doing any research on this topic.
Ah for those of you who don't know what we're
talking about, which is basically everybody. Beth wanted to have
a home birth for our first out, and I was
nervous about that, and I did have questions, and I
don't remember all these details, so I'm going to assume
(28:06):
that everything just that best is correct. Ah see, but
even now this you not remember the details, like you
get to have the luxury of not worrying about the details. Well,
all of it either affects directly affects me or reflects
on me. Um that's fair. So anyway, what I was
(28:31):
saying before, I'm gonna I'm taking I'm just before you
took credit for all my thoughts and words while actively
disagreeing with them. Wait, how do we get here? I'm support,
I agree, I'm listening normally in real esty. Normally, here's
the problem. Normally in real life. This is the moment
where I'm like, okay, okay, all right, definitely, let me
(28:51):
stop and think about what I've said so that I
don't dig myself deeper because I know that Beth is right.
But now we're on a podcast and we have to
all trying to look at So you're correcting me incorrectly, right,
This is me stopping to admit my faults. Okay, anyway,
I agree with Beth moms. If you want to know
(29:14):
or not know, it's your call, Dad's if they want
to know, just no too. You know what, it's a moment.
I don't even think get over it unless it matters
more to you. I don't know. There's no right answer,
but just know you're asking more of your wife, whether
you think you are or not. You like how I
(29:34):
just learned a lesson and then I turned around and
just told all the dudes out there like it was
my idea. Yeah, and you had to have a last
word on everything. I love you. This next segment is
called Listeners Want to Know Is. This is where we
take questions and comments from our listeners. We got a
couple of emails. This one is from Kevin. Kevin writes, Hi,
(29:59):
I love your podcast. My wife and I have three kids,
a four year old boy and eighteen month old twin girls.
Life is busy. Today I took the twins out for
a short walk so my wife and son could have
do a baking project. It's always hard to get out
(30:19):
of the door, out the door with the twins, so
I neglected to take the diaper bag. Only going out
for an hour, what could possibly happen? We headed for
the library, a good and cheap place to kill an hour.
Cheap equals free win. As soon as we got there,
(30:39):
I smelled something. One of my daughters had dropped a load.
I snuck a peek. It didn't seem too bad, clean pinch,
little dear pellet sized poops. So I decided to empty
the diaper, give her a wipe, and pop the same
diaper back on win slash veil. I can't tell anymore.
(31:01):
Ellipsus Kevin, Oh, Kevin, that no diaper bag is such
a classic dad move. Um, I feel like moms I know,
with diaper age kids will almost never leave the house
without a diaper bag. I will say we we together
(31:21):
recently did leave the house without a diaper bag, so
it's not unheard of. Yeah, I mean, but our kids
are older, so it's like Also, we usually have like
at least one loose diaper in the car somewhere. There's
probably fourteen loose diapers in the car in different nooks around,
and like ten packs of wipes. We also a lot
(31:43):
of times end up using loose car diapers to wipe
up spills of soda. Different it's they we don't use
the wipes therey are we use random diapers. They're very absorbing.
Wipes don't absorb things. It's it's um, yeah, I mean,
this guy is really lucky. These were some dry pellets.
That's what. That's all I have to say about this.
(32:05):
But you know what, I think, I'm in my mind.
I read this, I was like, oh my god, you
know what, that had actually never occurred to me. Just
empty out the diaper and put it back on. I'm like,
that's wise. You'll make it back home that way. Is
incredibly rare that you've got some dry, pelloty poop. Sure,
(32:27):
And I think there's a wide range of possible poops
where that's still the best case scenario. Wide range. I mean,
we can get into the intricacies of what kind of
poop smears you got with how how I'll stop describing it,
But like, if you got it, if you know you're
gonna be after for while you gotta get home, it's
pretty good, pretty good idea. You're gonna minimize the spread.
(32:51):
And uh, it's gonna containment. So I think it's I
think it's I think it's the what I call it
a win, I'd call it a save. Yeah you agree. Yeah,
I also can't relate to having twins, So, Kevin, you
(33:12):
and your wife are heroes anyway, but mostly your wife
probably that you should say that too, Kevin. All right,
now it's time for a brand new segment called Me
Knows Nothing. This is a segment we do when Peter
(33:33):
Fox up the recording so bad and they we decided
to record so last minute that there's literally no room
for error, so that when Peter accidentally only records Beth's
side of a segment and then says, whoa, we really
left that to the last minute on a Monday night,
and we have to we have to release this tomorrow morning.
(33:56):
And Beth goes to bed after a very long week,
and then Peter goes to put the whole thing together
and edits and realizes the last twenty minutes they're gone. Yeah.
He has a bit of a conundrum, which is do
you wake up, um, your wife who's had a tough
a lot of work uh done and a lot of
(34:19):
work done? What the hell does that mean? Um? She's tired,
and if I wake her up, um, you know what,
are we gonna have fun snappy banter. No, We're gonna
have a really belabored, pushed, unfun segment. So I'm gonna
let her sleep, you know, and we'll see if she
(34:39):
even finds out that this happened. But what I am
gonna do is delightfully recreate what it was we talked
about in some of the segments that um were accidentally
cut due to my incompetence. Uh. So we did a
little do you knows what she said? Uh? Segment? And
(35:00):
that's a game where we offer three quotes from our
daughter Mayven, only one of which was real, and I
offered three to bath about something that happened this afternoon.
I picked her rupt from daycare today and by the
way daycare, we were supposed to have our Halloween daycare party,
(35:23):
but apparently only three kids, including our two broad costumes.
So we showed up and they said, uh, parties on
Wednesday now. I said, okay, great, and uh but we
got the little paper plates that Brendan Man made with
ghost faces on them their art project for the day,
(35:43):
and we took him in the car and as I
put them in the car. Mayven held hers proudly, and
she looked at the back and uh, she said, And
here are the three options I gave Beth. She said,
it's because it's a little paper plate with a ghost
face and there's like white paper hanging off the bottom
of it like it's its body. And on the back
(36:05):
it says Maven. And so she said to me, either look, daddy,
ghost poop. Referring to its body, she said to me,
look daddy, this ghost has no hair like you. Or
she looked at the back, saw her own name, Maven,
and said, look daddy, b r y n Maven. Delightful fun.
(36:33):
They all seem plausible. What did Beth guess? Beth guest, look, Daddy,
the ghost is pooping, which was a really excellent guest
because um for being honest. Maven has talked about nothing
but poop all week. In fact, she's been talking about poop.
She's been drawing poop. She's a very good artist for
(36:56):
two and a half according to me. Uh, and the
thing she's chosen to draw quite skillfully sometimes is poop.
With a big chalkboard. She drew a big oval the
other day and she said it's a skinny egg. That's
pretty good. She erased it, and then she drew a
much skinnier oval and said it's a skinny poop. Uh,
(37:17):
and then we all laughed, and so she quickly erased
it and just started drawing scribbles and quickly saying it's poop,
and then not even trying to drop poop, just wanted
to get to the punchline it's poop, and then she
would pose next to the chalkboard because she's classy, you know,
like that. And uh so Beth guest the ghost poop.
(37:39):
But that was wrong. That was not what she said,
which is why I included it as a curveball. What
she did say is she looked at her name, Maven
and said, pointing at it, b r y n Man,
which is pretty uh clever and obviously misinformed, as Bryn
loves to look at his name and say b r
(38:01):
y n Britain because that's how you spell it. And uh,
Maven just this hilariously misinformed two and a half year
old uh sort of missed the point, but picked up
the flow of it. You point at your name, you
say these letters, and then you say the name b
r y n maven um so that's gonna be the
(38:24):
episode title of this episode this week. UM. But this
episode is also going to be dramatically short because we
don't have any time to see each other to do this. UM.
We make as much time as we can, but something
goes wrong, you know, here we are. I was stressed
about it for a while when we ran out of
(38:44):
our eight backup episodes so fast. UM, but now it
has become Actually, despite the fact it's stressful to get
this done, much more exciting to know that. And hopefully
you guys listening, you realize that what we're talking about
really is this week. If you're listening to this week's episode,
(39:05):
this is what we're dealing with this week. UM, And
it allows us to answer your listener mail um more
in a more timely fashion. And UM, so I'm gonna
turn this procrastination into a plus. You guys are living
our lives as we're living at as close as we can. Uh.
How do you end a segment without a delightful wife
(39:28):
to banter with? Um? Abruptly, this has been we knows
parenting for another week. If you'd like to reach out,
let us know, tell us a story, ask us to
a question, give us advice, maybe give us a would
(39:50):
you knows hypothetical parenting scenario? You can email us at
we Knows pod at gmail dot com, or you can
leave us a voicemail VR our voice our Google voicemail number,
which can be found on our website, We Knows Parenting
dot com. While you're there, I'm not buy a shirt.
You know holidays are coming up. We have a few
(40:12):
shirts to purchase, including our new you Fucked Up T
shirt which is being said by a baby and if
you recall Bryn once said that to Beth so by that.
Please find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Um you find
Beth uh and myself our personal accounts on Instagram, where
(40:33):
you can find the funniest brand Navin videos around. Also
check out The Story Part's new album, Nothing Isn't Possible.
Wherever you get your music, It's very good. Check out
The Story Parts podcast if you've got kids or not, um,
but uh otherwise, We'll see you next time. B r
y N. Goodbye,
Hello, and welcome too. We knows parenting. I'm Peter McNerney
and I'm both Newell back again. Welcome new listeners. We're parents,
we are married. We've got two kids, Maven is two
and a half and Britain is four. We are comedians.
Oh my god, we're so funny. It's terrible. Are you laughing? It? What?
(00:34):
It's terrible way to introduce yourself to a new person. Hi,
I'm Peter. I'm here to make you laugh. I guess
that's what stand up comedians do every single You're the
one putting out a podcast claiming to be entertaining. I'm
the one. Yeah, that's true. Well, okay, we can review.
How are we doing? We had a lot of things
happened this week, Beth, Starting with the big the big
(00:58):
thing we set up last week, which is we had
a little talk. The big thing. The big thing we
had a little talk with daycare about Brind's behavior and
I just was hanging over our head all week last week,
which is that daycare wanted to meet with us about
our son's behavior issues. Um and I gotta say he
(01:19):
was delightful. It was a really productive and pleasant meeting.
It was surprisingly good I think we both in our
brains expected that we're just going to be like yelled
at for being bad. Yeah, I thought it was going
to be more confrontational. It was like I thought, because
(01:41):
I mean to some extent, there was like this attitude
and which she had set up beforehand to be like,
what what do you do with him when he's like this?
And the thing that I think was making me nervous
was just like, we don't know, we don't know what
to do with him. Well, and then we ended up
having actually a pretty productive discussion with her because she
(02:01):
didn't the tactics that we do have she was not
fully aware of, and we had a good back and
forth discussion about how we can all try to be
more mindful of this. So specifically, she let us know
about two incidents quote unquote that happened. Uh that in
my mind I was like, oh, it's our fault, but
(02:23):
in her in retrospect, like she was scared that something
would happen and that we would be mad at her.
So one was they all went to the park one
day and she time to time to leave and like
no and refe years ago. So she did what I
have tried seven on seven occasions, which is the all right,
(02:44):
we're leaving Vibran and you like go and you walk,
and a lot of times that does work, and like
you go around the corner and you peek and you
see what he does. But in this instance he stayed
there defiantly. And then he went up to a stranger,
a woman who was there with her kid, and said,
they left me. And so this one had to run
back to the park and say no, I was watching,
(03:05):
like he wasn't left alone. I'm and I'm sure she
did not want us to find out about this, but
she told him and we were very like, oh, yeah,
I've done that and uh. And then another time, waiting
for the bus, he got excited playing a gazebo and
refused to get on the bus, and h she has
learned that, like we have that if you say to
(03:27):
bran Brand and you suddenly get serious and mean, he's
going to dig in and he is not going to. Yeah,
it's a weird go along with it conundrum to think about,
because I think our last resort tactic is to literally
just wrestle him indoors, and you can't ask strangers to
do that to your kids when they've got ten other
(03:48):
kids there too, is getting enormous, and I'm to the
point where I'm like, on a daily basis, like we
need a better solution. Well, uh, we do have one,
and I think the things that we talked about. But
you were so throughout this whole thing, you were trying
to make it sound like you have more answers than
me and that you're not constantly dealing with a defiant
(04:12):
child who doesn't listen. Um, where do you think with
the same problem. I'm excited about some things that have
worked for me. You went into the meeting with her
when she was bringing this up, and I was like
scared because I was like, I don't know and you
were like, well, I know how to fix this, and
you're just like throwing up out ideas that work like
fifty percent of the time. So should I have suggested nothing?
(04:35):
She specifically said, you speak with a lot of authority
on things. You know what you It makes people really comfortable,
unless you're my wife, in which case you is starting
into traffic and it's not working. Okay, Well, let's specifically
talk about the things I suggested, which I think are
excellent ideas, even if they don't have a perfect ideas.
(04:57):
I'm just saying, you're presenting them as though they are
a full proof solution. That is you interpreting, knowing how
full of shit I am. She doesn't know that anyway. Yeah,
that is me interpreting with facts. The tactics we suggested
we we talked about last week a bit um, But
I think the thing that really works with brit is
(05:19):
in the moment realizing he's getting emotional is to like
take a breath, step away and try to meet him
where he is on an emotional knowledge that he's feeling
sad or frustrated, ask him about those feelings and figuring
that like why do you feel that way? Um, and
then work your way back to the moment. It could
have gone better. But the two other simple things that
(05:42):
we both shared with her that I think we're great
is the don't ever surprise Brin that you're about to
that you're about to stop what he's doing now, sudden movements,
no like time to drop the TV, like you need
a five minute warning at least, like time to leave
the park. You'll let him know, Britain, we're gonna leave
(06:02):
in five minutes, Okay, I think and all of these
things I should be presented to him very calmly and
like with as though you don't expect him to fight, Like,
so this is going to happen in about five minutes.
Then we're all going to move along to the bedroom
where we'll be putting on pajamas. And if he goes no,
(06:23):
I ignore that. And then I just started doing other things.
And then in two minutes, I'm like, all right, we
got three more minutes still bedtime, and uh, if he
says no, I ignore it and he doesn't get upset.
And then the other thing that you suggested, which I
think is great, is the I know is something that
works on me, which is the like give him a
(06:46):
job brand, Can you be line leader and he will
take you. You'll go wherever you want to go. Well,
this is what we got from the survey we filled out,
and at the preschool parents night as they were asking
what he responded to and what he was into, and
the answer is attention, attention, attention, attention, um and so.
(07:06):
And I think preschool really used the surveys we filled
out because the first week that they started assigning jobs
to kids, they made him the line leader and then
they additionally made him calendar helper on top of that,
I think in the same week. Um so, it was
like a lot of stuff where he got to perform
leadership and he was felt very a part of things.
And I think it was like a good introduction to
(07:29):
jobs for him because he was like, oh, jobs are fun. Yeah,
if you point his enthusiasm in a productive direction, he's
gonna he's going to take care of it. But if
his enthusiasm is pointed in a counter direction, everything is
coming to a halt very quickly. Yeah. Um so we
told the woman who has to take care of that,
(07:50):
and she she perked up. She was like, oh, yeah,
he does like she Also, one thing she said in
the meeting that we both enjoyed was she's talking about
him being stubborn, and then she was like, he's very smart.
I think the word was incredibly smart. Incredibly smart. You
love that. But it was like, of course you're a parent,
you're gonna blush. You want everyone to talk about your
(08:11):
kid that way. I come from a family of incredibly
smart but difficult people, so I was just like, yeah,
isn't it great and terrible, Like just when people are
using their they're fast resources to try to outwit you
at every turn. And I come from a family of
(08:33):
really smart but distracted people. Distracted people. Um, yeah, so
that was great. So I think that was a big
win and everyone feels good. And I was also the
big thing is I was like so happy that she
only had two instances to talk about. I thought, this
is like a daily press. Yeah. I was like, don't
you mean every second were We told her in the
(08:55):
meeting like he's worse with us than he is with you.
I think that's like every parent's experience ants And she
was like he used to be. And I think what
happened is the luster of daycare has worn off and
now he makes he's like big kid on campus. He
has to prove himself to all the little babies that
are around. Yeah, and so he's not listening. But anyway,
(09:15):
So that was that, and then on Friday night went
to the Blaze, the Great Pumpkin Blaze. Is it called
the jack Lantern Blaze? What was it called? Sometimes it's
referred to as the Blaze, sometimes the jack o' lantern Blaze.
This for those of you outside of Westchester, this is
uh uh a thing not in Sleepy Hall. I think
(09:38):
it's actually Croton on Hudson. But they hand carved like
over a thousand pumpkins, thousands of thousands of pumpkins. Some
of them are real pumpkins, some of them are fake pumpkins,
but there's real pumpkins. They do make a point of
telling you that they're all hand carved, and they light
(09:59):
them up at night and you go walk through and
it's like pumpkins stacked on top of pumpkins in in
the form of like a statue of Liberty, Liberty, dinosaur
Jack in the box there formed into shapes of things.
It's incredible. It's really impressive. I knew it would be cool,
but it was far more elaborate than I anticipated. It's
(10:19):
pretty elaborate. It's also, I have to say, for people
not in the area, it's like a weirdly in demand
activity that they put the tickets on sale in early
September and they sell out in like two days. That
like a full month's worth of tickets for this event. Um,
so people want to see these pumps. Bryn said so
(10:41):
many funny things to me, and I can't remember any
of them. But he's acting very scared and like spooked.
He was scared like an eighty year old man where
he's he's like, Daddy, this is too scary. But he
also does like cartoon faces where he's like sticking his
lower lip out and being like I'm scared, m saying
(11:04):
things like mmmmm, I think this part is too scary too. Uh.
This is his second year there. I think he like
vaguely remembered it is. Yeah, you guys went last year? Yeah,
where was I? You're just missing an action dad as
usual last year. I was well, that paints a picture
(11:25):
that's not accurate. But a weekend, not around weekend, dad,
nights and weekend. Not around nights and weekend, Dad, I'm
around all week. It's one you're around all the time
when our kids are at daycare. So it's um anyway.
So I love the Pumpkin Place too. I got scared too.
It was so scary. There's a headless horseman that threw
(11:47):
his head. The music is what's really scary. I think
it keeps it in a constant spooky mood, and so
Mayven just clammed up for the whole thing. The lighting
design is amazing. They just had these like subtle color
hitting the trees like above, and so you have a
weird sense of space and place and it's not a
very big area, but you feel like you're going through
(12:09):
this cave. It is so spooky, you guys, you gotta
check it out. It felt like a real family event,
Like our kids are at the age now where we
can take them places and you're like, we're really doing
family activities. It's no longer trying to go places while
carrying babies who are stopping us from enjoying everything. Well,
that was the big thing I noticed this weekend. I
(12:30):
did have to carry Maven for most of the plaze
because it was at night, but they are kids can
walk now and that is a game changer. Oh yeah. Um.
So that leads us into Saturday, which is when we
took our kids to the Mystic Aquarium. It was such
a fun filled weekend. Yes, we met my parents who
live in Massachusetts, so we've met them halfway between here
(12:52):
and there, and it was good. Aquarium I think is
in general a good activity for kids. There's lot to see,
there's always interactive stuff, but it's not like and you
got a lot of penguins, But when you go to
a children's museum there's like a couple of interactive things,
and then nothing and this is like interactive things and
then also a ton of fish and things to see.
(13:15):
Weirdest part of the whole thing was seeing two scuba
divers jumped into the main tank, uh in Halloween costumes.
They had skeleton scuba gear on, and they brought pumpkins
down there and just carved jack lanterns underwater, and they
were feeding the fish little like pieces of the pumpkins.
Were you really concerned that those fish were going to choke?
(13:36):
Because I was no, Okay, I mean I was confident
they thought it through, but part of me was nervous.
I really loved how much Maven was into the aquarium.
She when we walked in and we got right into
the Stingwright tank where you can pet the sting rays,
she was standing above it just frozen, just like it
was like Moanna's grandmother when the rays whim around her.
(14:01):
Naven was just like taking it in like the queen
of the rays. Well, it's just also like it was
her job. Yeah, she wouldn't moved from that spot for
a while. I think she didn't understand that there's more
to the aquarium besides that one room. So she was like,
I'm going to take this in and she was not smiling,
but she loved it. But she's just like Sonny to
all of this. And she would walk up to the
(14:22):
other tanks full of fish just like with her face
up close with all the fish coming around her. Is
the same thing, just like frozen. She said like two
words the whole time, like the bigger the group of people,
I think this is similar to you. The more people
that are around that, she's just not interested in trying
to like take the focus. No, she doesn't want to
(14:43):
talk in front of those people. She when we're at home,
she's really silly and she's making like NonStop fart jokes.
And then we get around other people she's not familiar
with and she won't say a word. I mean, this
is her grandparents and her aunt. She knows everybody. I
think she's the numbers. I don't know, she's just She
was also really tired because we took her to the
(15:03):
Blaze the night before. Can we talk about the Blaze.
We had a big night at the Blaze, so it
was a big week. We got blazed. As they say, yeah,
they don't say that. Um. The last thing I said
is unrelated to children, but we were at the the
Mystic Aquarium and Uh. As we were walking around, I
(15:23):
was like, Oh, there's a sea lion show. That's funny.
I have friends. So Lee Overtree, who with whom I
do the Story Parts podcast, got hired last summer by
an aquarium to write and direct a show and narrative
around the sea lion show that they do. So he
(15:44):
he wrote and directed this really funny show based around
what the sea lions are capable of doing. And it
was just like big bizarre project that he got hired
to do. And I was like, I would love to
go see that, but I can't. And I was at
this aquarium and I was like, Oh, there's a sea
lion show. I bet it's not as good as Lease,
and I like send him a picture of something. And
as I was leaving, I was like, Hayley, what is
(16:06):
that aquarium you did your show? And he's like, Oh,
that's the Mystic Aquarium. We just missed it. And I'm
honestly so upset, like when am I going to be
there again? Casually? So if you're in the Mystic, Connecticut area,
see Lee over Trees see lion show. I did. As
we were leaving I got up higher on one of
(16:26):
the platforms to look towards the whale tank, and I
saw they were feeding the beluga whales, which were adorable,
and I was holding Maven and we watched them for
a while, and like, I think you and my parents
had already had towards the parking lot or something, so
she was alone for once, and she like that was
when she started talking, and she was like yeah, well,
(16:47):
like she was like, okay, that's enough, let's go. Yeah,
they were Those blueg whales are so cute. I do
want one. This next segment is called did you Knows,
where we share some parenting things we read online. Okay,
(17:10):
okay o gay. So this one's real loose, this one's
real light. I read this whole article in Wall Street
Journal about finding out the gender of your baby. And
I'm not even going to really read this article because
I'm just gonna give you the gist of it, but
the basic idea of this article, there's a lot of
anecdotal interviewing different couples where apparently there is a trend
(17:33):
um that is more so than in years past, of
one parent finding out the gender of the baby while
the other um remaining ignorant to that gender, and it
was just a fascinating read about the issues that come
along with that uh and like it's and it's typically um,
(17:57):
father's not wanting to know the gender and mother's deciding
what it is which and so they can and whoever
it is if it's not always that way, but so
one parent knows the gender and starts to uh plan
accordingly um and thinking of like baby names and all that,
(18:18):
but weird, the weird issues like buying clothes for babies
and having to hide them from your spouse and also
while having the baby name discussion with your spouse, uh,
pretending like you care about the gender that you know
the baby isn't to pend to care. And I red
the starticle. I was like, boy, this is so stressful
(18:41):
for the person who decides to hear it, and it's
really easy for the one who's like, I don't want
to know. So obviously that I related to this because
I didn't want to know the gender. But you were like, okay,
I'm gonna find out. That was my preference. It wasn't
a real strong one, but I was like, let's be
the eyes and you were like, no, no, this is
(19:02):
not discussion. I'm finding out you can do whatever you want.
And I was like, wow, I'm not gonna let you
know and me not know, Uh, for exactly I hadn't
thought it through. But it's for exactly these reasons that
you hadn't thought it through. But it's for exactly these
reasons I hadn't thought it through. Taking credit for the
things you didn't know. Okay, great, that sounds let me
(19:25):
take that back for you know that, like, oh, you're
going to be moving on with like the next part
of of being a parent and I'm going to be
back here and I don't know what's ahead, and like
I didn't want that. Um. Also, I don't like other
people knowing things I don't know. Yeah, why so why
(19:48):
did you make that decision? Because I wanted to know.
I it's weird. I when I see, like, you know,
videos of childbirth, which I always think are very impressive,
and then sometimes they'll reveal the gender in the moment,
like that's exciting, but I also like, having been through it,
you have such a crazy rush of hormones in that moment,
(20:10):
like anything could be happening, and you're just sort of like,
what is this baby alive? Healthy, what's going on, Like
it doesn't. It's fine if you want to find out then,
but I don't think that's like a necessarily like a
time to fully process it. And I it's not like
it diminishes the how incredible that moment. Yeah, I mean
(20:34):
I didn't want our families to know with brit because
I think my number one reason was because if it
was a girl, I thought they would buy us a
million pink things. And I was just like, I can't
handle being inundated with pink. Did we not tell anyone
(20:54):
the gender? Well, we weren't going to. And then it
was a boy, and I suddenly just like didn't care anymore.
And I was like, Okay, fine, it's a boy. I
just didn't want pink things. Yeah, And then by the
time they even rolled around, I think I just cared
less about everything. But I just I don't know, like
with maybe two, like she got a lot of hand
me down so she didn't get a ton of pink stuff,
(21:14):
which is also nice. And I just now she's really
into pink and I don't mind because it feels like
a decision like this is something she's into. But I
just I think it's a weird thing to do to
like a newborn from day one. Well, it's such a
weird thing. It's like, you don't tell people the baby
name you picked until the baby is born, because if
(21:35):
you go, hey, we're going to name um, We're gonna
name our our son Bruno, you're asking people to judge
a name on its own, and it's most people won't
love it. But if you say, hey, here's my son,
his name is Bruno, like you, you can't judge it
because you're judging a person now right and then, and
(21:56):
especially I think the people who have the biggest opinions
about stuff like this are Grandpa Earns, and then once
they have a grandkid, they're going to love them either way.
So you might as well just present them with this
grandkid that they love with the name they have, so
you don't have to like know for however many months
that they don't like your decision. Don't tell anyone the name. Well,
a funny thing happened to me because before when you
(22:19):
first got pregnant, we didn't know the gender, and you
had a strong feeling that it was going to be
a girl. And you you've decided, like this is gonna
be a girl, and I was very like, you don't know,
science says and uh. And I was like, you don't know,
and I was. And then as time went on, I
(22:42):
without trying to, just because of how you were talking
about the baby, the picture in my head, you create
a character, there's this person, and I had a daughter
and she existed in my head, and I didn't realize
I had committed to that idea just because that's how
you were talking about it until you found out the
gender and out out of town so you called me, uh,
(23:02):
and you told me that it was a boy. Well,
I opened the envelope while on the phone with you. Yeah,
that's true. And it was funny because the technician I
told her. I asked her if she would write it
on the thing for me and put in an envelope
and she drew an arrow pointing to a penis and note, boy, Well,
(23:26):
that is what they're looking for. But I remember the
second because I could hear you were excited and surprised
that it was a boy. But the first reaction I had,
without thinking about it, was that like I just lost
my daughter's gone, and I didn't realize how fully had
committed to this character until it didn't exist anymore, and
(23:50):
I was like, oh no, but that's it wasn't real.
Obviously I had never met this baby in person. And
then then you then you create this other character that
is the first version of Brian because we decided on
a name, and and then the baby is born and
you're like, although this is the person that was a
(24:11):
it's like online relationship. To the article, I think the
decision here on this up to know or not. No,
Like this is one of those where I have to say,
I think the mother should get to decide, Like, assuming
this is a male female relationship, like we there's so
much your body is going through that you're doing to
(24:32):
create a person and like destroy yourself for almost a year,
and it's like, what, it doesn't matter what your arguments
are for against knowing. It's like just you get to decide.
That is traditionally been the point of view for a
lot of people. Additionally, well that was part of this article.
(24:53):
It was like typically that is many people's deciding factor
mom for those reasons. But I'll say, I understand not
wanting to know, but I just know that if you're
going to split that duty, uh, the person who does
know that, But like you're acting like this is a
(25:16):
shared thing, like all of these things, Like it feels
like the same thing with planning a wedding with you
and having a baby, where you like, don't do the work.
I'm coming towards the end and want to have an opinion,
and like the knowing whether it's a boy or a
girl affects the kinds of clothes you by. This is
exactly what I was What you were saying is exactly
(25:39):
what I was just saying. Just now agree, But I'm
that's why I'm saying, this is stuff that still falls
mostly on the mother's shoulders, not because women want to,
but because men don't step up. So then if for
you to have an opinion that's like I don't want
to know, is like you just like brushing off more
emotional labor for a mother of a newborn to deal
(26:02):
with when she's already underwater. Yes, you just articulated exactly
what I was attempting to say. Exactly. You keep taking
credit for no, no, no, I'm trying to I am
trying to give you full credit for being able to
say more articulately what I responded to me in a
tone that was in agreeance when you started, well, because
(26:23):
you interrupted me as if I was about to say
the opposite of what I was trying to say, so
part of my defensiveness, I'm agreeing with you. You are right.
I don't think I would have understood that at the
time when we were making this decision, even though I
claimed in retrospect to fully understand, even though you are
(26:44):
now claiming that this was exactly your point, all, I
don't know anything because but you did the same thing
with the birth plan, which was me doing all this
research and having the experience of literally having a person
inside my body, and then you, doing no research, decided
(27:04):
to refute my birth plans, and I supported your birth plan.
I did have questions about that is a lie, Well,
you said me having questions and concerns about it. If
that's not you're You're right, I did. But at no
(27:25):
point was I like we shouldn't do this. Yeah, you
were when we I got in a fight with your
family and my family, and then you were not backing
me up, and you were kept saying that they all
had valid arguments, and you made it sound like I
was dumb, even though I was the only one of
(27:45):
any of us who was doing any research on this topic.
Ah for those of you who don't know what we're
talking about, which is basically everybody. Beth wanted to have
a home birth for our first out, and I was
nervous about that, and I did have questions, and I
don't remember all these details, so I'm going to assume
(28:06):
that everything just that best is correct. Ah see, but
even now this you not remember the details, like you
get to have the luxury of not worrying about the details. Well,
all of it either affects directly affects me or reflects
on me. Um that's fair. So anyway, what I was
(28:31):
saying before, I'm gonna I'm taking I'm just before you
took credit for all my thoughts and words while actively
disagreeing with them. Wait, how do we get here? I'm support,
I agree, I'm listening normally in real esty. Normally, here's
the problem. Normally in real life. This is the moment
where I'm like, okay, okay, all right, definitely, let me
(28:51):
stop and think about what I've said so that I
don't dig myself deeper because I know that Beth is right.
But now we're on a podcast and we have to
all trying to look at So you're correcting me incorrectly, right,
This is me stopping to admit my faults. Okay, anyway,
I agree with Beth moms. If you want to know
(29:14):
or not know, it's your call, Dad's if they want
to know, just no too. You know what, it's a moment.
I don't even think get over it unless it matters
more to you. I don't know. There's no right answer,
but just know you're asking more of your wife, whether
you think you are or not. You like how I
(29:34):
just learned a lesson and then I turned around and
just told all the dudes out there like it was
my idea. Yeah, and you had to have a last
word on everything. I love you. This next segment is
called Listeners Want to Know Is. This is where we
take questions and comments from our listeners. We got a
couple of emails. This one is from Kevin. Kevin writes, Hi,
(29:59):
I love your podcast. My wife and I have three kids,
a four year old boy and eighteen month old twin girls.
Life is busy. Today I took the twins out for
a short walk so my wife and son could have
do a baking project. It's always hard to get out
(30:19):
of the door, out the door with the twins, so
I neglected to take the diaper bag. Only going out
for an hour, what could possibly happen? We headed for
the library, a good and cheap place to kill an hour.
Cheap equals free win. As soon as we got there,
(30:39):
I smelled something. One of my daughters had dropped a load.
I snuck a peek. It didn't seem too bad, clean pinch,
little dear pellet sized poops. So I decided to empty
the diaper, give her a wipe, and pop the same
diaper back on win slash veil. I can't tell anymore.
(31:01):
Ellipsus Kevin, Oh, Kevin, that no diaper bag is such
a classic dad move. Um, I feel like moms I know,
with diaper age kids will almost never leave the house
without a diaper bag. I will say we we together
(31:21):
recently did leave the house without a diaper bag, so
it's not unheard of. Yeah, I mean, but our kids
are older, so it's like Also, we usually have like
at least one loose diaper in the car somewhere. There's
probably fourteen loose diapers in the car in different nooks around,
and like ten packs of wipes. We also a lot
(31:43):
of times end up using loose car diapers to wipe
up spills of soda. Different it's they we don't use
the wipes therey are we use random diapers. They're very absorbing.
Wipes don't absorb things. It's it's um, yeah, I mean,
this guy is really lucky. These were some dry pellets.
That's what. That's all I have to say about this.
(32:05):
But you know what, I think, I'm in my mind.
I read this, I was like, oh my god, you
know what, that had actually never occurred to me. Just
empty out the diaper and put it back on. I'm like,
that's wise. You'll make it back home that way. Is
incredibly rare that you've got some dry, pelloty poop. Sure,
(32:27):
And I think there's a wide range of possible poops
where that's still the best case scenario. Wide range. I mean,
we can get into the intricacies of what kind of
poop smears you got with how how I'll stop describing it,
But like, if you got it, if you know you're
gonna be after for while you gotta get home, it's
pretty good, pretty good idea. You're gonna minimize the spread.
(32:51):
And uh, it's gonna containment. So I think it's I
think it's I think it's the what I call it
a win, I'd call it a save. Yeah you agree. Yeah,
I also can't relate to having twins, So, Kevin, you
(33:12):
and your wife are heroes anyway, but mostly your wife
probably that you should say that too, Kevin. All right,
now it's time for a brand new segment called Me
Knows Nothing. This is a segment we do when Peter
(33:33):
Fox up the recording so bad and they we decided
to record so last minute that there's literally no room
for error, so that when Peter accidentally only records Beth's
side of a segment and then says, whoa, we really
left that to the last minute on a Monday night,
and we have to we have to release this tomorrow morning.
(33:56):
And Beth goes to bed after a very long week,
and then Peter goes to put the whole thing together
and edits and realizes the last twenty minutes they're gone. Yeah.
He has a bit of a conundrum, which is do
you wake up, um, your wife who's had a tough
a lot of work uh done and a lot of
(34:19):
work done? What the hell does that mean? Um? She's tired,
and if I wake her up, um, you know what,
are we gonna have fun snappy banter. No, We're gonna
have a really belabored, pushed, unfun segment. So I'm gonna
let her sleep, you know, and we'll see if she
(34:39):
even finds out that this happened. But what I am
gonna do is delightfully recreate what it was we talked
about in some of the segments that um were accidentally
cut due to my incompetence. Uh. So we did a
little do you knows what she said? Uh? Segment? And
(35:00):
that's a game where we offer three quotes from our
daughter Mayven, only one of which was real, and I
offered three to bath about something that happened this afternoon.
I picked her rupt from daycare today and by the
way daycare, we were supposed to have our Halloween daycare party,
(35:23):
but apparently only three kids, including our two broad costumes.
So we showed up and they said, uh, parties on
Wednesday now. I said, okay, great, and uh but we
got the little paper plates that Brendan Man made with
ghost faces on them their art project for the day,
(35:43):
and we took him in the car and as I
put them in the car. Mayven held hers proudly, and
she looked at the back and uh, she said, And
here are the three options I gave Beth. She said,
it's because it's a little paper plate with a ghost
face and there's like white paper hanging off the bottom
of it like it's its body. And on the back
(36:05):
it says Maven. And so she said to me, either look, daddy,
ghost poop. Referring to its body, she said to me,
look daddy, this ghost has no hair like you. Or
she looked at the back, saw her own name, Maven,
and said, look daddy, b r y n Maven. Delightful fun.
(36:33):
They all seem plausible. What did Beth guess? Beth guest, look, Daddy,
the ghost is pooping, which was a really excellent guest
because um for being honest. Maven has talked about nothing
but poop all week. In fact, she's been talking about poop.
She's been drawing poop. She's a very good artist for
(36:56):
two and a half according to me. Uh, and the
thing she's chosen to draw quite skillfully sometimes is poop.
With a big chalkboard. She drew a big oval the
other day and she said it's a skinny egg. That's
pretty good. She erased it, and then she drew a
much skinnier oval and said it's a skinny poop. Uh,
(37:17):
and then we all laughed, and so she quickly erased
it and just started drawing scribbles and quickly saying it's poop,
and then not even trying to drop poop, just wanted
to get to the punchline it's poop, and then she
would pose next to the chalkboard because she's classy, you know,
like that. And uh so Beth guest the ghost poop.
(37:39):
But that was wrong. That was not what she said,
which is why I included it as a curveball. What
she did say is she looked at her name, Maven
and said, pointing at it, b r y n Man,
which is pretty uh clever and obviously misinformed, as Bryn
loves to look at his name and say b r
(38:01):
y n Britain because that's how you spell it. And uh,
Maven just this hilariously misinformed two and a half year
old uh sort of missed the point, but picked up
the flow of it. You point at your name, you
say these letters, and then you say the name b
r y n maven um so that's gonna be the
(38:24):
episode title of this episode this week. UM. But this
episode is also going to be dramatically short because we
don't have any time to see each other to do this. UM.
We make as much time as we can, but something
goes wrong, you know, here we are. I was stressed
about it for a while when we ran out of
(38:44):
our eight backup episodes so fast. UM, but now it
has become Actually, despite the fact it's stressful to get
this done, much more exciting to know that. And hopefully
you guys listening, you realize that what we're talking about
really is this week. If you're listening to this week's episode,
(39:05):
this is what we're dealing with this week. UM, And
it allows us to answer your listener mail um more
in a more timely fashion. And UM, so I'm gonna
turn this procrastination into a plus. You guys are living
our lives as we're living at as close as we can. Uh.
How do you end a segment without a delightful wife
(39:28):
to banter with? Um? Abruptly, this has been we knows
parenting for another week. If you'd like to reach out,
let us know, tell us a story, ask us to
a question, give us advice, maybe give us a would
(39:50):
you knows hypothetical parenting scenario? You can email us at
we Knows pod at gmail dot com, or you can
leave us a voicemail VR our voice our Google voicemail number,
which can be found on our website, We Knows Parenting
dot com. While you're there, I'm not buy a shirt.
You know holidays are coming up. We have a few
(40:12):
shirts to purchase, including our new you Fucked Up T
shirt which is being said by a baby and if
you recall Bryn once said that to Beth so by that.
Please find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Um you find
Beth uh and myself our personal accounts on Instagram, where
(40:33):
you can find the funniest brand Navin videos around. Also
check out The Story Part's new album, Nothing Isn't Possible.
Wherever you get your music, It's very good. Check out
The Story Parts podcast if you've got kids or not, um,
but uh otherwise, We'll see you next time. B r
y N. Goodbye,
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.