May 29, 2018 • 39 mins
Beth and Peter discuss their children’s love of all things potty, how they would deal with a super-powered child, and the science behind laughter. The hosts answer a listener’s question about teething and remember their time as after school monitors at a private school.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I got to see Hello. Welcome to We Knows Parenting.
I'm Beth Newell, editor and co founder of the satirical
woman's magazine Reductress. And I'm Peter McNerney, actor improviser less
(00:22):
impressive titles her husband, and we are real life married
couple and parents. We have two children, Ethereal ethereal boy
named Brenn, a three year old boy named Brennan. Aye.
She wins, I don't. I don't think this. This script
is outdated. She's probably twenty two months. Yeah, let's stop
reading the script. Uh. This is parenting podcast where we
(00:44):
compare notes on our week. Uh. We never talked to
each other, and this is where we hash it out
when you get into it. Beth, my darling wife. It's
lovely to see you. Good to see you. We've actually
been around each other a lot this week. Yeah, too much,
but in the most stressful way because what has happened
this week. The ongoing theme of this podcast is our
(01:08):
kids are always sick. Not sick sick, but just sick
enough where we can't take them todaycare. Yeah, it's right now.
It's the end of March and someone in our house
has been sick almost every week since. Yeah, well definitely
every week since Christmas. So Brandon was we he was
sick on Friday, blah blah blah, took him home. He
(01:29):
was like, fine, I had a fever because may Haven
had it the week before, and then no more fever
after like Saturday, afternoon Sunday he was totally fine. So,
after being totally shamed, I think he did have a fever.
He has just had medicine, so that was suppressing. Okay,
well we're just not good parents. And so anyway, after
(01:49):
three days home, well we sent him back on Monday,
and they sent him right back again. This is twice
we haven't taken him from and send him right back.
And then they call us and they are pissed they
weren't piste this time. They're pasted our doctors that they
should be piste at us. Right, But brit has this
phenomenon where he's at home, he's like perky talking to us.
(02:10):
He's like, hey, mommy, I'm up at six, what's up.
I'm cool. And then the second the second you drop
him off, I take care. He's like, I tell me her,
I have a headache. And the weird thing is they're
like he has blisters in his mouth. He's real sick.
And I was like, what, Yes, I have yet to
see one of these blisters that apparently are covering his
(02:33):
I don't right, I didn't see anybody. I didn't really
look many times. This definitely freaked me out because he's
had this fever and people in my mom Facebook group
we're always talking about handfoot mouth disease, also known as
cocksackie is the most ridiculous name ever, cocksackie um. And
so I was like, I was like, we can't get this.
(02:56):
And I also, around the same time, I felt like
I had a weird little like mouth cancer store, and
I was like, if I get hand foot and mouth
after all this illness we've all had, I'm going to die.
So I went I went to school to pick him up,
and I'm like, I were the worst. Everyone's getting sick
and it's all our fault. So I go there and like,
(03:16):
so is everyone getting sick? And she's like, oh, no,
no one but your kids, over and over and over.
I don't think that's what she meant that. I think
she meant in on that specific day, well, I took
it as somebody is getting our kids thick, and they
don't go anywhere besides day anyway. Our kids get the
most mild sickness in the world. It's just enough to
(03:38):
cry at at daycare. So we've both been stuck home
with brand for what feels like forever. And on top
of it, we would have taken it back to school
three days ago because he was fine the next day.
Snow day the blizzard apocalypse, which was nothing. Everything's canceled.
It was like the most mild snowstorm, and so the
(04:00):
doctor was going during commute times. It's not like, sure, well,
I'm from Minnesota, so I have to be really like
pompous about it that you're all babies about driving no
matter how much it snows. You have to be like
I've seen was I had to drive to school in
you know, blah blah blah. I'm from Massachusetts, so I'm
not not used to snow. I'm not talking about you.
(04:21):
You're great, You're not as great of snow. That's why
I love you, right, But there's reasons they make these rules,
and it so people don't crash there because people crash
their cars and it's dangerous to send kids out. And
I know why, but I still feel like I should
be a jerk about it. So we have the snow day.
So then we're now stuck home with two kids, which
is slightly maddening. It's just because it was on top
(04:44):
of all the other stuff you're it's like, we're just
not getting our work done. There's kids here constantly. So
then yesterday, on top of it, all the snow days over,
there's barely any snow and left. You decided to take
Britain to Urgent Care to get a doctor's note so
that he can go back to school. But that plan
failed urgent Care. So we went the day before and
(05:07):
we get there. I dropped me even off and I
was like, I'm gonna take Brand to the doctor. We'll
be back later. Go to urgent Care. No sign in
the window. Eight o'clock rolls around, no one's there. I
stand there for twenty minutes. I've also been to urgent
Care where there's no sign on the window and just
no one there, and it's frustrating. Yesterday was like a
series of unfortunate events because I was all ready to
finally have a work day at home alone. You take
(05:29):
Brand out. I think we're finally rid of him. I
thought so too. Then you walk back in the door
sauntering with that boy, and I do you think I
was sauntering? He was was um. So then of course
come naptime, he boycott's nap and it's so insanely difficult.
So then I can't get any work done during naptime,
(05:53):
And so I tried to take him to the grocery store,
where he acts difficult and insists on sitting in the
cart but pushing the cart around the store himself. He
wants to crash the cart into things, and then he's
climbing under the cart into the little bottom tray. He
also wanted to put our food under the cart in
(06:13):
that area. And then the guy at checkout was trying
to be really helpful and friendly, but in a way
that was just blowing everything down. And he was like,
let me give you some stickers, and I'm like, fine,
he's seen these stickers before. They're not impressive, Trader Joe's
this kid has seen stickers before. They stickers, which is
really nice, but he's so not only is this guy
getting stickers, he gives the longest amount of stickers I've
(06:36):
ever seen, which is just like so unwieldy to carry
around and then he gives Britain a lollipop, which was
actually pretty helpful, but then it kind of amped burnt
up more and he was dancing around the store and
like insisting on wandering away from me while I try
to pay for things, and the guy, again trying to
be friendly and helpful, kept chatting to me about brit
(06:58):
and like, I'm put more lollipops in your bag for later,
and I'm like, just packed the food anyway. Guy. But
it had nothing to do with this guy. I was
just at this point so tired around anyway. But he did.
He is like having this little moment of being a
(07:20):
big kid just hanging out at home, which is kind
of It's like scary and exciting to see him learn
to do things. Like yesterday he pulled a box of
cereal off the counter and stuck his hand in and
grabbed a fistful of cereal and put it into a
bowl and then walked out of the room. And I
was like, Oh, you're learning how to get your own cereal.
This is progress. Like this, I see many potential downsides,
(07:42):
but the plus is I'm not doing it right now.
It's time for we knows winds this is where we
share some of our parenting successes, some victories for the week. Beth,
I know you have one shared with us. So weeks
like this, I'm trying to give myself the perspective of like, Okay,
(08:05):
some of this is like a disaster, but it doesn't
break me the way it used to, especially when I
think back on the times when I was postpartum during
the election and also dealing with a thyroid issue, when
some of these things would have really broken me. So
when your life was a blanket of sadness, when when
I lived, my life was a living house, um, so
(08:27):
I had. I'm very happy that we are laughing about this.
So I Maven was doing her thing the other day
where she wants to go potty. She's like really taking
initiative on the potty train, and so I think she
more wants to say she wants to go potty than
(08:49):
wants to go potty. Well, I've seen her do it
a few times, but she right, she really makes an effort.
So she gets on the potty, she like into the
sungcoing potty. This was coming out of the bath, which
is easier. I usually let her try because I can
tell if I don't she's going to poop in the bathtub.
So I think she was getting out. I think it's
(09:09):
just thing, and she what it sort of makes kids
are at home like to try that. Well, if you do,
don't tell me about it. So she yea what I did. Okay.
So she's sitting on the potty. Brand's watching. He's kind
of annoyed because he's like, the potty is my thing.
(09:31):
Why is she trying to do this? Who's trying to
do my thing? Yeah, so she said, and she does
this thing where she's like, she makes this insane face,
so much effort, and she's like and she's like she
talks about it a lot. It takes her a while,
and she's like, I go poop. I gotta go poop,
and you're like, and I'm like, I don't think you
have to go. This is just a performance. So she's
(09:53):
doing this, and I like, I think this was like
the end of a long day, and I was getting
pretty exhausted, so I was like, she's not going to go,
and she was refusing to put her diaper on. So
I think I just walked out of the bathroom at
that point because I was just like, this is getting
kind of maddening, Like I was like, you don't have
to poop like in the living room, and I get
(10:14):
that feeling of like, okay, wait, I think she managed
to be doing something in there, and so I run
back in she is pooping. This is actually two incidents
I'm mixing up right now, but the first one this week,
she pooped and then I'm like, she's like, yeah, poop,
but I'm like, wait, I think you're still pooping. And
she stands up so excited. She's like poop and she
(10:36):
still has another poop coming out. Let's attached to her,
so that falls out of the front of the potty
onto the bath mat. Are like white cloth bath mat
was wondering where that went. I'm like, okay, So I
was pretty proud of myself. I'm like, mayben, but I
wasn't like pissed. It was just like this happens with kids.
So I like, clean it up. It's fine, and she's like,
(10:59):
I pooped, and she's like she's like still like cheering.
She's like, why are you not cheering? Like poop came
out of me and this is what mom, this is
what you've been asking for. So then last night very Similarly,
she's came out of the bath pooped on the potty again.
I don't know why I left the room again, and
I was like, she's not going to poop because she
(11:20):
was making such a performance out of it, being like
and I was like, I don't know if it's gonna happen.
So I come back in. She's standing over the potty
poking her poop with her finger. She's like, poop, so
like her pop is like your Michigan Jay Frog, Oh
my god, where it's only when you walk away that
(11:40):
doesn't track perfectly. I don't know this analogy. What's happening?
You know Michigan Jay Frog? It's the Looney Tunes where
the guys like, isn't that the w B Frog? Yes,
but it's originally a Looney Tunes cartoon and this guy
finds a dancing, singing frog and he's like whoa wow,
and he puts it in a box and he goes
to show people. When where he shows people, the frogs
(12:01):
like he's just a frog. And so it's about this guy. Okay, Well,
when you describing that frog just makes me think like, oh,
Dawson's Creek is on next or whatever? U So yeah,
she was. She's touching. Why do you say r I
P isn't it? It's a CW. It's still there. It
merged with up N. Remember up N, Yeah, I do.
(12:24):
UPN always had the most dismal, bad Sunday movies. Yeah
it was. It was w B and up N world
these like not doing great networks, I think, and I
don't know. We didn't have a lot of movies in
our house growing up. My dad didn't like us to
buy movies, so up and I would always be like, Oh,
a movie's on TV and then it's just this very
(12:46):
dark bad cop movie. Think something. You're like, this is
unwatchable and it's four hours long because of commercials, but
they still edited down to be a shorter movie anyway. Yeah,
so our daughter loves to touch her poop and you
can't take your eyes off her. Well, I'm glad that
your We Knows wins this week is our daughter touching
her own poop. I'm proud. Congrats. This next segment is
(13:14):
called did You Knows? This is a segment where Peter
learns and shares a parenting or child related fact. Peter,
what's your knowledge? Okay, okay, I like this fact? It's
simple fact, but it connects with something that I've spent
a lot of time writing about, thinking about, reading about.
And it's a comedy. So you're literally pumping your fists
in the air right now. But whatever this fact is,
(13:35):
so it's my favorite, it's my favorite thing. So the
simple fact is that kids on average laugh three times
a day, whereas adults laugh about sixty times a day,
which feels right to me. The thing that's really interesting,
So I've done a lot of reading about comedy theories.
What is a comedy? There's only one book I ever
(13:57):
read where I was like, this is it? This makes sense?
So that just of it is humor feels really good.
Anything that feels good in your brain is is a
reward system that your brain gives you because it wants
you to go after something sex, food, feel great, because
it requires a lot of energy to go get those things.
So why what what is humor? Why why do you
(14:17):
feel good? So the theory in this book that I reade,
it's called Inside Jokes, a very dry, amazing book, is
that humor is the correction of a falsely committed active belief. So,
because we have so much sensory information coming in all
the time. Your brain is designed to filter out unimportant
(14:40):
information and just go hey, just focus on this. This
is all you need to know about. That's your attention,
that's what's active in your mind. That gets you through
today because you can assess the situation quickly and move on.
But there is a danger to that, which is if
you make the wrong assumption about something, you are potentially
in danger and ball mind to a threat in your
(15:02):
environment to this hunter gatherer. So humor is a backup system.
It encourages you to double check your current assumptions about things.
So when you realize I've made a mistake, the reward
is that feeling of ah, I was wrong, And so
the laugh when I laugh out loud, that's a social
(15:24):
indicator to those around me. Hey, guys, I made a
wrong assumption about something, but I just figured it out.
You might want to double check your assumptions. I can
talk about this for an hour and a half more
than one. This is all humor, I absolutely do. I
mean this explanation, I have to say takes all the
(15:44):
fun out of Oh yeah, this is why you hate
talking about this. But this brings me such I don't
think this is all humor. Every comedy theory I've ever
read has twelve exceptions, and they're like, well, tickling doesn't
fit into the US, but this is the only one
where it fits every single example. I just it's so
(16:07):
funny you are reading all these comedy theory things, because
it's like not in my mind, that's like not a
good way to be good at comedy. Oh no, I
I agree. If if I was like, hey, you want
to get into comedy, read this book. This does not
help you at all. This as an improv teacher, as
(16:27):
already having been in comedy for a long time, reading
something that fits in with what I've been teaching is
like so satisfying to me. Anyway. I think this fits
in perfectly with this fact, which is kids are constantly
learning new things, obviously, and so kids are also kids
(16:49):
are much smarter than people give them credit for. They
make brilliant assumptions about the world with not enough information.
So they're constantly going, Okay, well I know this, so
this new thing must mean this, and so your make
that isn't things like do you have bones or something
like when they ask you weird questions about your body. Yeah,
(17:11):
So we're constantly laughing at them, like did we talk
about this? When Brynn said uh, I asked him if
he went and he was like, yeah, I have a weener.
And I was like, did you go poop? And he goes, no,
I don't have a butt. Yeah, there's this. The kid
logic is so satisfying, but they're constantly being asked to
(17:33):
adjust their expectations and they realize like, oh, this must
be this, and then they learned something new and everything's
hilarious because they have a belief like your brain automatically
makes assumptions about things, but this constantly being corrected when
you're little, and there's so much humor in that, in
discovery and that like this is all new to me.
(17:54):
Whereas he become an adult and you experience fewer new things,
the fewer things that are of surprise, Your expectations are
met as you expect them to be more often, and
those people that are like you should do you need
just like a childlike attitude have more fun laugh like
that's so that sort of stuff is so dumb to me.
(18:17):
When it's like, just have a kid's point of view,
it's like, well, you can't, because you have had He
was telling you to do this and where I found
this fact. This is on like a cute list of facts,
and afterwards they're like, so maybe you should think about
like being being cool like a kid. You said you
read it in a book. No, no, no, the comedy
theory was a book. This laughs a day, Google, that's
(18:41):
that ship. I would like to think I laugh more
than sixty laughs a day, but some days probably not
if you're around people, like if I if I'm teaching
improv classes, I laugh constantly, but if I'm a home alone,
because an actual like you can feel humor when you're
the actual laugh that happens when you're around people much
(19:04):
much more in there's tons of statistics to back that up.
Right Anyway, if you want to write in and challenge
my comedy theory, I will back it up. But I
can tell from Beths glazed over eyes that we can't
get into it. No, um, this was really funny cool.
(19:30):
This next segment is called Listeners Want to Knows, where
we try to answer questions from our audience members. Right, So,
this week's question comes to us from Nick in Brooklyn,
who wants to know his baby is currently teething and
so he's wondering is there anything we can do to
soothe our child's pain beyond tail and all motron or
(19:52):
frozen chew toys. Um, Nope, no, there's that's it. Okay, great, alright,
next segment. This next segment is called We Knows Theater.
This is a segment where we uh we uh improvised
(20:13):
scenes with our kids. Let them do a little bit
of improv comedy. Uh. This scene we're going to play
for you is uh scene we're I was dealing with
the kids in bed with some stuft animals. I was
playing the role of bunny ice cream shop owner. Yeah,
Maven was playing the role of Moose, and Brin was elephant.
(20:33):
I don't remember anyway. This scene, I gotta say, is
a little bit long, but I think there's a strong
payoff towards the end. So please enjoy the ice cream
shop incident with Brandon Maven Yes, recorded via iPhone. Enjoy
(20:56):
keels like and as some ice cream. Okay, here's an
ice cream cone, pig. I want some ice creams on.
Hold on, fellas, and I can only just have so
many ice creams at once. Hold on, Okay, here you go, Moose.
(21:17):
That'll be one dollar ninety nine cents. One guy over
from me, No, pig, the cost is one dollar nine cents. Okay, moosey,
you want another one? You've had a lot of ice
cream today, Mousey, sure you can handle one more. Okay,
here you go. I ain't so many at my house,
(21:41):
and no my commies roombling. Oh Pig, your tummies rumbling
from all the ice cream. Yeah, you're not going to
throw up, are you? Oh pig, you just threw up
all over my ice cream shop? Moose? Why are you
throwing up? You're just sick? Yeah, I can now live
(22:05):
tear from this, A rolled up on my nose. I know,
I gotta figured off. Guys, Please don't just shake it
off all over my ice cream shop. It's getting everywhere. Yeah,
it's just pooping. Who's pooping. Pig is pooping, My shop
(22:29):
is pooping. Moose. Are you pooping on the table over there? Yeah, Moose,
that's yucky. People eat ice cream on these tables. The
poop on cake loves you, well, now they do. Boy,
I'm going to call the police. Moose, stop pooping on
(22:53):
all the ice cream tables. Yeah, we have kill pig.
You don't have to poop all over my ice shop
ice creams again? Good bye? Now? Oh no, they just
took my ice creams and ran out of here after
they threw up and pooped all over my ice cream shop.
(23:15):
I'm sick and know my Jamie's roombling again through a
little thing shop. I can't believe you guys are already
back here in my ice cream shop after you just
love again. Yeah, you're throwing up in my ice cream shop.
Is not going to make me serve you more ice cream? Yeah,
(23:38):
I'm gonna get white. Oh no, he jumped over the counter.
He's getting it. Okay o Hi, oh moose, Now you
want to be polite. I'm sick, you're sure, Just on, Moose,
(24:01):
I have just thrill loving your shop. Pig, you need
to get out of here and stop throwing up in
my moose. You and Pig need to You need to
take your friend Pig out of here because he's already
thrown up in my shop five times this evening, and
that is not acceptable. I'm calling the boy. Oh he's
(24:24):
throwing up in my face. You're throwing up in my face.
Now it's time for a segment. We call would you
knows where we posit a hypothetical parenting situation to the other.
And uh, I'm very excited because starting this week are
(24:45):
hypothetical would you knows are coming from the fans. So
we went online and we got some great suggestions and
this first one comes to us from then and Beth,
I'm going to give this one to you. Okay, I
like this one. This is I wouldn't have thought of this.
Ben says, you're a very small child is somehow granted
(25:07):
very dangerous and potentially important superpowers. Let's say heat vision.
You are normal. How do you keep your child from
destroying the city and or becoming like that kid with
mind powers in that one episode of twilight Zone that
I think Lauris Leachman was in. Wow, this is hard.
(25:27):
This is a real parenting problem. I gotta say, have
you seen the Incredibles two trailer? No, So the premises
Jack Jack, who's the baby, suddenly has all of these
powers and he's an infant and he's like laser eyes,
and it stresses me out so much to watch it.
He disappears, he has like all powers and he's an infant,
(25:50):
and that's terrifying to me. Yeah, I don't want to
see that movie. Based off what you just described. Okay,
here's the thing. If your kids in emergency situations with
kid tantrums slash acting out, I would say my gut
is to give a treat, a distraction, like a sugar thing,
(26:13):
like in a real emergency. Yeah, okay, and this could
definitely blow up in your face. Literally, are we going
with heat vision? Because he gave us some options if
our child had heat vision and if you threw a tantrum,
looked at us and burned a hole through us. So okay,
the heat vision, the child has no control over it.
(26:35):
It's always it's like when Magneto takes off his glasses,
when Magneto takes off his classes you mean cyclops. No, No,
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna define the rules of this
for you. Okay. I think it's heat vision, which is
if he really like squeezes his eyes and concentrates, like
a beam comes out, and because he's little, it burns
(26:55):
like like a like a magnifying glass has been on
you for an hour, but in a second, so it's
a little burned like a cigarette burn. And uh, it's
it's dangerous and it can start little fires, and it's
whinn as strong as a cigarette burn, because when you're
I'm just going to rush the kid and grab them. Obviously,
(27:19):
it's like a kid with a pair of scissor Okay,
let's say that when they're an infant, that's what it's like.
But as they get older they can control it more
so by the time they're thirteen are when are we?
Everything else was the same. Britain has heat vision, and
he's at like strength on heat vision, somewhere between a
cigarette burn, cigarette burn and fire a spontaneous combustion. When
(27:45):
he hits hits eighteen, he can set your whole body
on fire by choosing to. I mean again, I think
I just had to rush him because if I don't
get to him in time, I then become the mom
whose kid burned up the world. I there's nothing we
have to take him to a special mutant home. We'd
(28:06):
have to here. So here's what we would have to
do is we would have to either move or dedicate
a room in our house that's like our fireproof room,
and it's his major league time out room where he
has to go and it's all surrounding knowing our son.
Though it's not a time out room. He's in there
twenty four hours a day. He's not going to not
(28:29):
use this power on us, so he's not going to
have as a life at all. We're gonna put him
in It's from like his eyes are open and it's
happening like oh no, not constantly. No, no, this is
this is what I said at times of emotional stress
and when he really focuses like fire starter, I think,
you know, this is the kind of problem with our
(28:49):
kids that we'll destroy our relationship because there's no way
we're gonna agree on tactics. We're not going to get
through this as a couple. So you're saying is if
Brin has heat vision, we'll get divorced. I'm sure of it. Uh,
would you just take Maven and leave me with the
(29:09):
mutant child? I mean, you haven't dealt with one of
my options. That sounds like a pretty good one in
this scenario, It's okay, Like otherwise I have to like
try to backseat drive you chasing our mutant sun around
while he burns things up, and then I have to like,
so you take the same tactic you do when you
(29:30):
see a spider, which is just I'm out of here.
You better deal with this while I'm going I just
don't think this a scenario in which the two of
us are doing this and you're not trying to take
an authoritative role where you think you're the decider on
how to handle and you're also not just running into
the problem. I'd get burned way more than you would. Hey,
(29:50):
you know what, if Brendon gets heat vision, I'll take
care of it. Okay, I'm gonna taken and move away.
My god, I will very much miss you and not
being burned all the time. Thanks Ben for that. That
was a really fun question. You really just showed us
the limits of our relationship. Let's hope it never comes
(30:12):
to that. This next segment is called We Knows What
They're Watching And this is a segment where we discuss
are where we discuss our children's latest pop culture obsessions.
So this week is really interesting. So uh, if I
haven't said explicitly, I'm also a host of another podcast
(30:34):
called The Story Parts Podcast, where we adapt stories written
by kids into songs and sketches. The very fun upsurd
Ist Show and Bran and may even listen to a lot.
You play it for them a lot. You love playing them.
The latest Story Parts music does that invalidate what I
just said. They therefore listened to it a lot. I'm
just painting a picture. You get them in the car,
(30:55):
you drive them to daycare, you turn on your phone. Well,
it's literally my job to be listening to the edits
and giving notes. So when I'm in the car is
a great time for me to do my job. And
they're there and they love it, so everybody wins. This week,
we just released a song called Fart Out Loud Day,
which is obviously about farts, and it's a little a typical.
(31:20):
We don't do a ton of stories in that vein.
But Brin loved this song, as do most children who
hear it, because there's some universal love of farts. Now,
I want to say our mutual friend Rachel Winitsky, who's
on both our podcasts outside of this one, she pointed
out something beautiful about Fart Out Loud Day, which is
(31:42):
that it's written by two little girls. Oh yeah, sisters,
they're incredible. The story. I mean, the reason we picked
this is this story is actually incredible. It's not just oh,
they said farts, let's do it. Just sing a little
bit of it for happy Fune out Loud day. You
can let it out. You don't have to be embaressed.
(32:04):
It's a funk funk delicious. So this is going to
be a divisive song for some parents, I think. Yeah.
I had to force a minor disclaimer into the episode
because I knew some some moms are going to be
happy about it, but a big hit with our kids
right now because farts are everything. But I get it.
I get it why parents don't want their kids in
(32:27):
love with something celebrating farts. Yeah, I mean, I don't
mind them doing it, but it is slightly concerning that
our kids are sort of being indoctrinated into this fart
song right as they're being dropped off at daycare, so
that like we probably now have like the fart kids
at daycare. I mean what two and three year olds
don't love farts? Okay, but some kids are probably showing
(32:48):
up talking about like Daniel Tiger or something, and our
kids are like, hey, farts. I wouldn't much rather talk
about farts than that. Have you seen that Daniel Tiger cartoon?
We only watch it like one time, maddeningly. I love
Mr Rogers. The perception of us as parents will change, Yeah,
(33:09):
that's what I'm worried about My only hesitation is simply
what other parents think of us that like, oh, those
are the parents that thing about farts. I just hope
our children's moods and laughter will overcome the whatever stigma
work getting for being the fart kids. Well, we are
(33:30):
the parents that bring the kids that are always sick,
that never agree to anything or talk about farts, poke
their own poop. But they're very charming. I think that
makes up for it. If I was running the daycare
and I did you know I used to work in
(33:50):
a school and also was a babysitter, I would say
I would be cool with the fart kids. Yeah, I
would be happy to have the fart kids. I worked
at that same school as a playground monitor, and I
was people didn't kids didn't like me. Okay, but that
was like middle schoolers. That's different. Yeah, But because I
(34:11):
was that, like hey, Tanner, and then I just look
at them from across the hall and just slowly shake
my head, and they'd be afraid of me, and they
called me Mr mcnerdy behind my back. Did I'd sell
his story? If would Tanner? I always use an example
of Tanner, who was a real kid. He came up
to me and he was like trying to find somebody, goes, oh, hey,
Mr mcnerdy, it realizes that he calls me by the
(34:35):
name they called me behind my back, to my face
and his face went white. Do you know one of
the kids at that school referred to me as the Lioness.
That was my nickname. That's a tad bit cooler than
Mr mcnerdy, kind of like insulting, but also like I
was like, I think I'm running their respect. And then
(34:56):
this other teacher over we were like not old teachers,
we were just like after school people, and we were
not teachers in anyway no, so they there was like
a big, large power difference between us and the teacher.
So the teacher overheard this kid referring to me as
the Lioness, and he was like, are you cool with that?
(35:19):
And I was like, yeah, I think so because those
kids were pretty horrible. I mean, they were just annoying
after school kids. And I was like, this is probably
the best I can do here. You have them be
scared of me. The lion asked, like I said, basically
a thirteen old way of like saying bitch. Yeah, Because
(35:42):
well that one that kid was like particularly difficult. And
one time when I was like towards the end of
that job and I was getting pretty frustrated and ready
to leave, I maybe shouldn't say this, but he he
him and his friends came over to me and one
of them was talking about him in front of him
and was like, he's being an asshole. And I was
(36:02):
just sort of like really tired, and I was like, yeah,
that sounds about right, and that's why like I did it.
I was like, I think I can get away with
this because it's not like I said, asshole, but you
are very much literally condoning it. Yeah, that's right. I
just didn't feel like I had a lot of recourse there.
It was like what am I going to do about
(36:23):
this situation? By remember remember in super Mario gave everyone cokes.
I'm not good. I'm not good at laying down the law.
I'll admit that I am. That's why they hated me
a little. Contacts about Super Mario. My co worker looked
exactly like Super Mario. And it was one day the parents,
(36:46):
the teachers are all having an after school like meeting whatever.
So there's a giant tub of cokes and they were like,
these are not for students. So I stood there for
an hour. As soon as I can, I grab a coke,
Like you can't grab a coke. You can't grab coke,
and then I needed to go across the room. I
leave the room for like a minute, and I come
back and super Mario has given every kid there a
(37:08):
coke and company looks at me. He's like they wanted. Yeah,
that guy was horrible, and I was like, great, you're
the hero and I'm an asshole. That was like a
very weird, specific private school situation where that guy was
just like a guy from the neighborhood that they hired
at some point like oh, he's a good guy, and yeah.
(37:28):
It was just like a lot of weird like nepotism,
like son, they hired, his son they hired whom I
got fired. Yeah, well, he was like friending kids on Facebook,
friending middle schoolers on Facebook, and he had all of
these pictures him doing dumb things and drinking. It just
feels I mean, maybe it's competent. I guess this stuff
does happen in public schools, but it just feels like
(37:50):
this weird private school thing where it was like, wait,
this person has no qualifications. How did they end up
working at a school. But it's also great because that's
how we got hired. Yeah. True, but you know we're cool.
I am good with kids. I let them say swear
where you're the lions in any Mr mcnerdy, tell you
(38:14):
what they used to call me. And when you're an
adult and a kid calls you Mr mcnerdy, it still
hurts your feeling. Okay. If you have any questions related
to parenting, send them to we knows Pod at gmail
(38:35):
dot com or find us on Twitter at we knows pod.
Or if you have any parenting hypotheticals for our would
you Knows segments, please send those along as well. But
until next time, Beth, anything you want to plug, you
can find me on the Reductor's podcast called The Reductress Minute,
and you find me on the Story Pirates podcast if
(38:55):
you love barts. Until next time, I'm Peter McNerney and Beth. No,
we knows parently, We know h
I got to see Hello. Welcome to We Knows Parenting.
I'm Beth Newell, editor and co founder of the satirical
woman's magazine Reductress. And I'm Peter McNerney, actor improviser less
(00:22):
impressive titles her husband, and we are real life married
couple and parents. We have two children, Ethereal ethereal boy
named Brenn, a three year old boy named Brennan. Aye.
She wins, I don't. I don't think this. This script
is outdated. She's probably twenty two months. Yeah, let's stop
reading the script. Uh. This is parenting podcast where we
(00:44):
compare notes on our week. Uh. We never talked to
each other, and this is where we hash it out
when you get into it. Beth, my darling wife. It's
lovely to see you. Good to see you. We've actually
been around each other a lot this week. Yeah, too much,
but in the most stressful way because what has happened
this week. The ongoing theme of this podcast is our
(01:08):
kids are always sick. Not sick sick, but just sick
enough where we can't take them todaycare. Yeah, it's right now.
It's the end of March and someone in our house
has been sick almost every week since. Yeah, well definitely
every week since Christmas. So Brandon was we he was
sick on Friday, blah blah blah, took him home. He
(01:29):
was like, fine, I had a fever because may Haven
had it the week before, and then no more fever
after like Saturday, afternoon Sunday he was totally fine. So,
after being totally shamed, I think he did have a fever.
He has just had medicine, so that was suppressing. Okay,
well we're just not good parents. And so anyway, after
(01:49):
three days home, well we sent him back on Monday,
and they sent him right back again. This is twice
we haven't taken him from and send him right back.
And then they call us and they are pissed they
weren't piste this time. They're pasted our doctors that they
should be piste at us. Right, But brit has this
phenomenon where he's at home, he's like perky talking to us.
(02:10):
He's like, hey, mommy, I'm up at six, what's up.
I'm cool. And then the second the second you drop
him off, I take care. He's like, I tell me her,
I have a headache. And the weird thing is they're
like he has blisters in his mouth. He's real sick.
And I was like, what, Yes, I have yet to
see one of these blisters that apparently are covering his
(02:33):
I don't right, I didn't see anybody. I didn't really
look many times. This definitely freaked me out because he's
had this fever and people in my mom Facebook group
we're always talking about handfoot mouth disease, also known as
cocksackie is the most ridiculous name ever, cocksackie um. And
so I was like, I was like, we can't get this.
(02:56):
And I also, around the same time, I felt like
I had a weird little like mouth cancer store, and
I was like, if I get hand foot and mouth
after all this illness we've all had, I'm going to die.
So I went I went to school to pick him up,
and I'm like, I were the worst. Everyone's getting sick
and it's all our fault. So I go there and like,
(03:16):
so is everyone getting sick? And she's like, oh, no,
no one but your kids, over and over and over.
I don't think that's what she meant that. I think
she meant in on that specific day, well, I took
it as somebody is getting our kids thick, and they
don't go anywhere besides day anyway. Our kids get the
most mild sickness in the world. It's just enough to
(03:38):
cry at at daycare. So we've both been stuck home
with brand for what feels like forever. And on top
of it, we would have taken it back to school
three days ago because he was fine the next day.
Snow day the blizzard apocalypse, which was nothing. Everything's canceled.
It was like the most mild snowstorm, and so the
(04:00):
doctor was going during commute times. It's not like, sure, well,
I'm from Minnesota, so I have to be really like
pompous about it that you're all babies about driving no
matter how much it snows. You have to be like
I've seen was I had to drive to school in
you know, blah blah blah. I'm from Massachusetts, so I'm
not not used to snow. I'm not talking about you.
(04:21):
You're great, You're not as great of snow. That's why
I love you, right, But there's reasons they make these rules,
and it so people don't crash there because people crash
their cars and it's dangerous to send kids out. And
I know why, but I still feel like I should
be a jerk about it. So we have the snow day.
So then we're now stuck home with two kids, which
is slightly maddening. It's just because it was on top
(04:44):
of all the other stuff you're it's like, we're just
not getting our work done. There's kids here constantly. So
then yesterday, on top of it, all the snow days over,
there's barely any snow and left. You decided to take
Britain to Urgent Care to get a doctor's note so
that he can go back to school. But that plan
failed urgent Care. So we went the day before and
(05:07):
we get there. I dropped me even off and I
was like, I'm gonna take Brand to the doctor. We'll
be back later. Go to urgent Care. No sign in
the window. Eight o'clock rolls around, no one's there. I
stand there for twenty minutes. I've also been to urgent
Care where there's no sign on the window and just
no one there, and it's frustrating. Yesterday was like a
series of unfortunate events because I was all ready to
finally have a work day at home alone. You take
(05:29):
Brand out. I think we're finally rid of him. I
thought so too. Then you walk back in the door
sauntering with that boy, and I do you think I
was sauntering? He was was um. So then of course
come naptime, he boycott's nap and it's so insanely difficult.
So then I can't get any work done during naptime,
(05:53):
And so I tried to take him to the grocery store,
where he acts difficult and insists on sitting in the
cart but pushing the cart around the store himself. He
wants to crash the cart into things, and then he's
climbing under the cart into the little bottom tray. He
also wanted to put our food under the cart in
(06:13):
that area. And then the guy at checkout was trying
to be really helpful and friendly, but in a way
that was just blowing everything down. And he was like,
let me give you some stickers, and I'm like, fine,
he's seen these stickers before. They're not impressive, Trader Joe's
this kid has seen stickers before. They stickers, which is
really nice, but he's so not only is this guy
getting stickers, he gives the longest amount of stickers I've
(06:36):
ever seen, which is just like so unwieldy to carry
around and then he gives Britain a lollipop, which was
actually pretty helpful, but then it kind of amped burnt
up more and he was dancing around the store and
like insisting on wandering away from me while I try
to pay for things, and the guy, again trying to
be friendly and helpful, kept chatting to me about brit
(06:58):
and like, I'm put more lollipops in your bag for later,
and I'm like, just packed the food anyway. Guy. But
it had nothing to do with this guy. I was
just at this point so tired around anyway. But he did.
He is like having this little moment of being a
(07:20):
big kid just hanging out at home, which is kind
of It's like scary and exciting to see him learn
to do things. Like yesterday he pulled a box of
cereal off the counter and stuck his hand in and
grabbed a fistful of cereal and put it into a
bowl and then walked out of the room. And I
was like, Oh, you're learning how to get your own cereal.
This is progress. Like this, I see many potential downsides,
(07:42):
but the plus is I'm not doing it right now.
It's time for we knows winds this is where we
share some of our parenting successes, some victories for the week. Beth,
I know you have one shared with us. So weeks
like this, I'm trying to give myself the perspective of like, Okay,
(08:05):
some of this is like a disaster, but it doesn't
break me the way it used to, especially when I
think back on the times when I was postpartum during
the election and also dealing with a thyroid issue, when
some of these things would have really broken me. So
when your life was a blanket of sadness, when when
I lived, my life was a living house, um, so
(08:27):
I had. I'm very happy that we are laughing about this.
So I Maven was doing her thing the other day
where she wants to go potty. She's like really taking
initiative on the potty train, and so I think she
more wants to say she wants to go potty than
(08:49):
wants to go potty. Well, I've seen her do it
a few times, but she right, she really makes an effort.
So she gets on the potty, she like into the
sungcoing potty. This was coming out of the bath, which
is easier. I usually let her try because I can
tell if I don't she's going to poop in the bathtub.
So I think she was getting out. I think it's
(09:09):
just thing, and she what it sort of makes kids
are at home like to try that. Well, if you do,
don't tell me about it. So she yea what I did. Okay.
So she's sitting on the potty. Brand's watching. He's kind
of annoyed because he's like, the potty is my thing.
(09:31):
Why is she trying to do this? Who's trying to
do my thing? Yeah, so she said, and she does
this thing where she's like, she makes this insane face,
so much effort, and she's like and she's like she
talks about it a lot. It takes her a while,
and she's like, I go poop. I gotta go poop,
and you're like, and I'm like, I don't think you
have to go. This is just a performance. So she's
(09:53):
doing this, and I like, I think this was like
the end of a long day, and I was getting
pretty exhausted, so I was like, she's not going to go,
and she was refusing to put her diaper on. So
I think I just walked out of the bathroom at
that point because I was just like, this is getting
kind of maddening, Like I was like, you don't have
to poop like in the living room, and I get
(10:14):
that feeling of like, okay, wait, I think she managed
to be doing something in there, and so I run
back in she is pooping. This is actually two incidents
I'm mixing up right now, but the first one this week,
she pooped and then I'm like, she's like, yeah, poop,
but I'm like, wait, I think you're still pooping. And
she stands up so excited. She's like poop and she
(10:36):
still has another poop coming out. Let's attached to her,
so that falls out of the front of the potty
onto the bath mat. Are like white cloth bath mat
was wondering where that went. I'm like, okay, So I
was pretty proud of myself. I'm like, mayben, but I
wasn't like pissed. It was just like this happens with kids.
So I like, clean it up. It's fine, and she's like,
(10:59):
I pooped, and she's like she's like still like cheering.
She's like, why are you not cheering? Like poop came
out of me and this is what mom, this is
what you've been asking for. So then last night very Similarly,
she's came out of the bath pooped on the potty again.
I don't know why I left the room again, and
I was like, she's not going to poop because she
(11:20):
was making such a performance out of it, being like
and I was like, I don't know if it's gonna happen.
So I come back in. She's standing over the potty
poking her poop with her finger. She's like, poop, so
like her pop is like your Michigan Jay Frog, Oh
my god, where it's only when you walk away that
(11:40):
doesn't track perfectly. I don't know this analogy. What's happening?
You know Michigan Jay Frog? It's the Looney Tunes where
the guys like, isn't that the w B Frog? Yes,
but it's originally a Looney Tunes cartoon and this guy
finds a dancing, singing frog and he's like whoa wow,
and he puts it in a box and he goes
to show people. When where he shows people, the frogs
(12:01):
like he's just a frog. And so it's about this guy. Okay, Well,
when you describing that frog just makes me think like, oh,
Dawson's Creek is on next or whatever? U So yeah,
she was. She's touching. Why do you say r I
P isn't it? It's a CW. It's still there. It
merged with up N. Remember up N, Yeah, I do.
(12:24):
UPN always had the most dismal, bad Sunday movies. Yeah
it was. It was w B and up N world
these like not doing great networks, I think, and I
don't know. We didn't have a lot of movies in
our house growing up. My dad didn't like us to
buy movies, so up and I would always be like, Oh,
a movie's on TV and then it's just this very
(12:46):
dark bad cop movie. Think something. You're like, this is
unwatchable and it's four hours long because of commercials, but
they still edited down to be a shorter movie anyway. Yeah,
so our daughter loves to touch her poop and you
can't take your eyes off her. Well, I'm glad that
your We Knows wins this week is our daughter touching
her own poop. I'm proud. Congrats. This next segment is
(13:14):
called did You Knows? This is a segment where Peter
learns and shares a parenting or child related fact. Peter,
what's your knowledge? Okay, okay, I like this fact? It's
simple fact, but it connects with something that I've spent
a lot of time writing about, thinking about, reading about.
And it's a comedy. So you're literally pumping your fists
in the air right now. But whatever this fact is,
(13:35):
so it's my favorite, it's my favorite thing. So the
simple fact is that kids on average laugh three times
a day, whereas adults laugh about sixty times a day,
which feels right to me. The thing that's really interesting,
So I've done a lot of reading about comedy theories.
What is a comedy? There's only one book I ever
(13:57):
read where I was like, this is it? This makes sense?
So that just of it is humor feels really good.
Anything that feels good in your brain is is a
reward system that your brain gives you because it wants
you to go after something sex, food, feel great, because
it requires a lot of energy to go get those things.
So why what what is humor? Why why do you
(14:17):
feel good? So the theory in this book that I reade,
it's called Inside Jokes, a very dry, amazing book, is
that humor is the correction of a falsely committed active belief. So,
because we have so much sensory information coming in all
the time. Your brain is designed to filter out unimportant
(14:40):
information and just go hey, just focus on this. This
is all you need to know about. That's your attention,
that's what's active in your mind. That gets you through
today because you can assess the situation quickly and move on.
But there is a danger to that, which is if
you make the wrong assumption about something, you are potentially
in danger and ball mind to a threat in your
(15:02):
environment to this hunter gatherer. So humor is a backup system.
It encourages you to double check your current assumptions about things.
So when you realize I've made a mistake, the reward
is that feeling of ah, I was wrong, And so
the laugh when I laugh out loud, that's a social
(15:24):
indicator to those around me. Hey, guys, I made a
wrong assumption about something, but I just figured it out.
You might want to double check your assumptions. I can
talk about this for an hour and a half more
than one. This is all humor, I absolutely do. I
mean this explanation, I have to say takes all the
(15:44):
fun out of Oh yeah, this is why you hate
talking about this. But this brings me such I don't
think this is all humor. Every comedy theory I've ever
read has twelve exceptions, and they're like, well, tickling doesn't
fit into the US, but this is the only one
where it fits every single example. I just it's so
(16:07):
funny you are reading all these comedy theory things, because
it's like not in my mind, that's like not a
good way to be good at comedy. Oh no, I
I agree. If if I was like, hey, you want
to get into comedy, read this book. This does not
help you at all. This as an improv teacher, as
(16:27):
already having been in comedy for a long time, reading
something that fits in with what I've been teaching is
like so satisfying to me. Anyway. I think this fits
in perfectly with this fact, which is kids are constantly
learning new things, obviously, and so kids are also kids
(16:49):
are much smarter than people give them credit for. They
make brilliant assumptions about the world with not enough information.
So they're constantly going, Okay, well I know this, so
this new thing must mean this, and so your make
that isn't things like do you have bones or something
like when they ask you weird questions about your body. Yeah,
(17:11):
So we're constantly laughing at them, like did we talk
about this? When Brynn said uh, I asked him if
he went and he was like, yeah, I have a weener.
And I was like, did you go poop? And he goes, no,
I don't have a butt. Yeah, there's this. The kid
logic is so satisfying, but they're constantly being asked to
(17:33):
adjust their expectations and they realize like, oh, this must
be this, and then they learned something new and everything's
hilarious because they have a belief like your brain automatically
makes assumptions about things, but this constantly being corrected when
you're little, and there's so much humor in that, in
discovery and that like this is all new to me.
(17:54):
Whereas he become an adult and you experience fewer new things,
the fewer things that are of surprise, Your expectations are
met as you expect them to be more often, and
those people that are like you should do you need
just like a childlike attitude have more fun laugh like
that's so that sort of stuff is so dumb to me.
(18:17):
When it's like, just have a kid's point of view,
it's like, well, you can't, because you have had He
was telling you to do this and where I found
this fact. This is on like a cute list of facts,
and afterwards they're like, so maybe you should think about
like being being cool like a kid. You said you
read it in a book. No, no, no, the comedy
theory was a book. This laughs a day, Google, that's
(18:41):
that ship. I would like to think I laugh more
than sixty laughs a day, but some days probably not
if you're around people, like if I if I'm teaching
improv classes, I laugh constantly, but if I'm a home alone,
because an actual like you can feel humor when you're
the actual laugh that happens when you're around people much
(19:04):
much more in there's tons of statistics to back that up.
Right Anyway, if you want to write in and challenge
my comedy theory, I will back it up. But I
can tell from Beths glazed over eyes that we can't
get into it. No, um, this was really funny cool.
(19:30):
This next segment is called Listeners Want to Knows, where
we try to answer questions from our audience members. Right, So,
this week's question comes to us from Nick in Brooklyn,
who wants to know his baby is currently teething and
so he's wondering is there anything we can do to
soothe our child's pain beyond tail and all motron or
(19:52):
frozen chew toys. Um, Nope, no, there's that's it. Okay, great, alright,
next segment. This next segment is called We Knows Theater.
This is a segment where we uh we uh improvised
(20:13):
scenes with our kids. Let them do a little bit
of improv comedy. Uh. This scene we're going to play
for you is uh scene we're I was dealing with
the kids in bed with some stuft animals. I was
playing the role of bunny ice cream shop owner. Yeah,
Maven was playing the role of Moose, and Brin was elephant.
(20:33):
I don't remember anyway. This scene, I gotta say, is
a little bit long, but I think there's a strong
payoff towards the end. So please enjoy the ice cream
shop incident with Brandon Maven Yes, recorded via iPhone. Enjoy
(20:56):
keels like and as some ice cream. Okay, here's an
ice cream cone, pig. I want some ice creams on.
Hold on, fellas, and I can only just have so
many ice creams at once. Hold on, Okay, here you go, Moose.
(21:17):
That'll be one dollar ninety nine cents. One guy over
from me, No, pig, the cost is one dollar nine cents. Okay, moosey,
you want another one? You've had a lot of ice
cream today, Mousey, sure you can handle one more. Okay,
here you go. I ain't so many at my house,
(21:41):
and no my commies roombling. Oh Pig, your tummies rumbling
from all the ice cream. Yeah, you're not going to
throw up, are you? Oh pig, you just threw up
all over my ice cream shop? Moose? Why are you
throwing up? You're just sick? Yeah, I can now live
(22:05):
tear from this, A rolled up on my nose. I know,
I gotta figured off. Guys, Please don't just shake it
off all over my ice cream shop. It's getting everywhere. Yeah,
it's just pooping. Who's pooping. Pig is pooping, My shop
(22:29):
is pooping. Moose. Are you pooping on the table over there? Yeah, Moose,
that's yucky. People eat ice cream on these tables. The
poop on cake loves you, well, now they do. Boy,
I'm going to call the police. Moose, stop pooping on
(22:53):
all the ice cream tables. Yeah, we have kill pig.
You don't have to poop all over my ice shop
ice creams again? Good bye? Now? Oh no, they just
took my ice creams and ran out of here after
they threw up and pooped all over my ice cream shop.
(23:15):
I'm sick and know my Jamie's roombling again through a
little thing shop. I can't believe you guys are already
back here in my ice cream shop after you just
love again. Yeah, you're throwing up in my ice cream shop.
Is not going to make me serve you more ice cream? Yeah,
(23:38):
I'm gonna get white. Oh no, he jumped over the counter.
He's getting it. Okay o Hi, oh moose, Now you
want to be polite. I'm sick, you're sure, Just on, Moose,
(24:01):
I have just thrill loving your shop. Pig, you need
to get out of here and stop throwing up in
my moose. You and Pig need to You need to
take your friend Pig out of here because he's already
thrown up in my shop five times this evening, and
that is not acceptable. I'm calling the boy. Oh he's
(24:24):
throwing up in my face. You're throwing up in my face.
Now it's time for a segment. We call would you
knows where we posit a hypothetical parenting situation to the other.
And uh, I'm very excited because starting this week are
(24:45):
hypothetical would you knows are coming from the fans. So
we went online and we got some great suggestions and
this first one comes to us from then and Beth,
I'm going to give this one to you. Okay, I
like this one. This is I wouldn't have thought of this.
Ben says, you're a very small child is somehow granted
(25:07):
very dangerous and potentially important superpowers. Let's say heat vision.
You are normal. How do you keep your child from
destroying the city and or becoming like that kid with
mind powers in that one episode of twilight Zone that
I think Lauris Leachman was in. Wow, this is hard.
(25:27):
This is a real parenting problem. I gotta say, have
you seen the Incredibles two trailer? No, So the premises
Jack Jack, who's the baby, suddenly has all of these
powers and he's an infant and he's like laser eyes,
and it stresses me out so much to watch it.
He disappears, he has like all powers and he's an infant,
(25:50):
and that's terrifying to me. Yeah, I don't want to
see that movie. Based off what you just described. Okay,
here's the thing. If your kids in emergency situations with
kid tantrums slash acting out, I would say my gut
is to give a treat, a distraction, like a sugar thing,
(26:13):
like in a real emergency. Yeah, okay, and this could
definitely blow up in your face. Literally, are we going
with heat vision? Because he gave us some options if
our child had heat vision and if you threw a tantrum,
looked at us and burned a hole through us. So okay,
the heat vision, the child has no control over it.
(26:35):
It's always it's like when Magneto takes off his glasses,
when Magneto takes off his classes you mean cyclops. No, No,
I'm gonna say, I'm gonna define the rules of this
for you. Okay. I think it's heat vision, which is
if he really like squeezes his eyes and concentrates, like
a beam comes out, and because he's little, it burns
(26:55):
like like a like a magnifying glass has been on
you for an hour, but in a second, so it's
a little burned like a cigarette burn. And uh, it's
it's dangerous and it can start little fires, and it's
whinn as strong as a cigarette burn, because when you're
I'm just going to rush the kid and grab them. Obviously,
(27:19):
it's like a kid with a pair of scissor Okay,
let's say that when they're an infant, that's what it's like.
But as they get older they can control it more
so by the time they're thirteen are when are we?
Everything else was the same. Britain has heat vision, and
he's at like strength on heat vision, somewhere between a
cigarette burn, cigarette burn and fire a spontaneous combustion. When
(27:45):
he hits hits eighteen, he can set your whole body
on fire by choosing to. I mean again, I think
I just had to rush him because if I don't
get to him in time, I then become the mom
whose kid burned up the world. I there's nothing we
have to take him to a special mutant home. We'd
(28:06):
have to here. So here's what we would have to
do is we would have to either move or dedicate
a room in our house that's like our fireproof room,
and it's his major league time out room where he
has to go and it's all surrounding knowing our son.
Though it's not a time out room. He's in there
twenty four hours a day. He's not going to not
(28:29):
use this power on us, so he's not going to
have as a life at all. We're gonna put him
in It's from like his eyes are open and it's
happening like oh no, not constantly. No, no, this is
this is what I said at times of emotional stress
and when he really focuses like fire starter, I think,
you know, this is the kind of problem with our
(28:49):
kids that we'll destroy our relationship because there's no way
we're gonna agree on tactics. We're not going to get
through this as a couple. So you're saying is if
Brin has heat vision, we'll get divorced. I'm sure of it. Uh,
would you just take Maven and leave me with the
(29:09):
mutant child? I mean, you haven't dealt with one of
my options. That sounds like a pretty good one in
this scenario, It's okay, Like otherwise I have to like
try to backseat drive you chasing our mutant sun around
while he burns things up, and then I have to like,
so you take the same tactic you do when you
(29:30):
see a spider, which is just I'm out of here.
You better deal with this while I'm going I just
don't think this a scenario in which the two of
us are doing this and you're not trying to take
an authoritative role where you think you're the decider on
how to handle and you're also not just running into
the problem. I'd get burned way more than you would. Hey,
(29:50):
you know what, if Brendon gets heat vision, I'll take
care of it. Okay, I'm gonna taken and move away.
My god, I will very much miss you and not
being burned all the time. Thanks Ben for that. That
was a really fun question. You really just showed us
the limits of our relationship. Let's hope it never comes
(30:12):
to that. This next segment is called We Knows What
They're Watching And this is a segment where we discuss
are where we discuss our children's latest pop culture obsessions.
So this week is really interesting. So uh, if I
haven't said explicitly, I'm also a host of another podcast
(30:34):
called The Story Parts Podcast, where we adapt stories written
by kids into songs and sketches. The very fun upsurd
Ist Show and Bran and may even listen to a lot.
You play it for them a lot. You love playing them.
The latest Story Parts music does that invalidate what I
just said. They therefore listened to it a lot. I'm
just painting a picture. You get them in the car,
(30:55):
you drive them to daycare, you turn on your phone. Well,
it's literally my job to be listening to the edits
and giving notes. So when I'm in the car is
a great time for me to do my job. And
they're there and they love it, so everybody wins. This week,
we just released a song called Fart Out Loud Day,
which is obviously about farts, and it's a little a typical.
(31:20):
We don't do a ton of stories in that vein.
But Brin loved this song, as do most children who
hear it, because there's some universal love of farts. Now,
I want to say our mutual friend Rachel Winitsky, who's
on both our podcasts outside of this one, she pointed
out something beautiful about Fart Out Loud Day, which is
(31:42):
that it's written by two little girls. Oh yeah, sisters,
they're incredible. The story. I mean, the reason we picked
this is this story is actually incredible. It's not just oh,
they said farts, let's do it. Just sing a little
bit of it for happy Fune out Loud day. You
can let it out. You don't have to be embaressed.
(32:04):
It's a funk funk delicious. So this is going to
be a divisive song for some parents, I think. Yeah.
I had to force a minor disclaimer into the episode
because I knew some some moms are going to be
happy about it, but a big hit with our kids
right now because farts are everything. But I get it.
I get it why parents don't want their kids in
(32:27):
love with something celebrating farts. Yeah, I mean, I don't
mind them doing it, but it is slightly concerning that
our kids are sort of being indoctrinated into this fart
song right as they're being dropped off at daycare, so
that like we probably now have like the fart kids
at daycare. I mean what two and three year olds
don't love farts? Okay, but some kids are probably showing
(32:48):
up talking about like Daniel Tiger or something, and our
kids are like, hey, farts. I wouldn't much rather talk
about farts than that. Have you seen that Daniel Tiger cartoon?
We only watch it like one time, maddeningly. I love
Mr Rogers. The perception of us as parents will change, Yeah,
(33:09):
that's what I'm worried about My only hesitation is simply
what other parents think of us that like, oh, those
are the parents that thing about farts. I just hope
our children's moods and laughter will overcome the whatever stigma
work getting for being the fart kids. Well, we are
(33:30):
the parents that bring the kids that are always sick,
that never agree to anything or talk about farts, poke
their own poop. But they're very charming. I think that
makes up for it. If I was running the daycare
and I did you know I used to work in
(33:50):
a school and also was a babysitter, I would say
I would be cool with the fart kids. Yeah, I
would be happy to have the fart kids. I worked
at that same school as a playground monitor, and I
was people didn't kids didn't like me. Okay, but that
was like middle schoolers. That's different. Yeah, But because I
(34:11):
was that, like hey, Tanner, and then I just look
at them from across the hall and just slowly shake
my head, and they'd be afraid of me, and they
called me Mr mcnerdy behind my back. Did I'd sell
his story? If would Tanner? I always use an example
of Tanner, who was a real kid. He came up
to me and he was like trying to find somebody, goes, oh, hey,
Mr mcnerdy, it realizes that he calls me by the
(34:35):
name they called me behind my back, to my face
and his face went white. Do you know one of
the kids at that school referred to me as the Lioness.
That was my nickname. That's a tad bit cooler than
Mr mcnerdy, kind of like insulting, but also like I
was like, I think I'm running their respect. And then
(34:56):
this other teacher over we were like not old teachers,
we were just like after school people, and we were
not teachers in anyway no, so they there was like
a big, large power difference between us and the teacher.
So the teacher overheard this kid referring to me as
the Lioness, and he was like, are you cool with that?
(35:19):
And I was like, yeah, I think so because those
kids were pretty horrible. I mean, they were just annoying
after school kids. And I was like, this is probably
the best I can do here. You have them be
scared of me. The lion asked, like I said, basically
a thirteen old way of like saying bitch. Yeah, Because
(35:42):
well that one that kid was like particularly difficult. And
one time when I was like towards the end of
that job and I was getting pretty frustrated and ready
to leave, I maybe shouldn't say this, but he he
him and his friends came over to me and one
of them was talking about him in front of him
and was like, he's being an asshole. And I was
(36:02):
just sort of like really tired, and I was like, yeah,
that sounds about right, and that's why like I did it.
I was like, I think I can get away with
this because it's not like I said, asshole, but you
are very much literally condoning it. Yeah, that's right. I
just didn't feel like I had a lot of recourse there.
It was like what am I going to do about
(36:23):
this situation? By remember remember in super Mario gave everyone cokes.
I'm not good. I'm not good at laying down the law.
I'll admit that I am. That's why they hated me
a little. Contacts about Super Mario. My co worker looked
exactly like Super Mario. And it was one day the parents,
(36:46):
the teachers are all having an after school like meeting whatever.
So there's a giant tub of cokes and they were like,
these are not for students. So I stood there for
an hour. As soon as I can, I grab a coke,
Like you can't grab a coke. You can't grab coke,
and then I needed to go across the room. I
leave the room for like a minute, and I come
back and super Mario has given every kid there a
(37:08):
coke and company looks at me. He's like they wanted. Yeah,
that guy was horrible, and I was like, great, you're
the hero and I'm an asshole. That was like a
very weird, specific private school situation where that guy was
just like a guy from the neighborhood that they hired
at some point like oh, he's a good guy, and yeah.
(37:28):
It was just like a lot of weird like nepotism,
like son, they hired, his son they hired whom I
got fired. Yeah, well, he was like friending kids on Facebook,
friending middle schoolers on Facebook, and he had all of
these pictures him doing dumb things and drinking. It just
feels I mean, maybe it's competent. I guess this stuff
does happen in public schools, but it just feels like
(37:50):
this weird private school thing where it was like, wait,
this person has no qualifications. How did they end up
working at a school. But it's also great because that's
how we got hired. Yeah. True, but you know we're cool.
I am good with kids. I let them say swear
where you're the lions in any Mr mcnerdy, tell you
(38:14):
what they used to call me. And when you're an
adult and a kid calls you Mr mcnerdy, it still
hurts your feeling. Okay. If you have any questions related
to parenting, send them to we knows Pod at gmail
(38:35):
dot com or find us on Twitter at we knows pod.
Or if you have any parenting hypotheticals for our would
you Knows segments, please send those along as well. But
until next time, Beth, anything you want to plug, you
can find me on the Reductor's podcast called The Reductress Minute,
and you find me on the Story Pirates podcast if
(38:55):
you love barts. Until next time, I'm Peter McNerney and Beth. No,
we knows parently, We know h
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
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