July 23, 2019 • 48 mins
A new week brings new neighbors, a new bed, and a new appreciation for a lazy day. Beth shares an article about the history of mothers’ lack of alone time, Peter catches up on some old lister mail and Bryn writes a book about the Sun… farting.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
I welcome back your knuckleheads. It's we knows parenting. I'm
Peter McNerney and I'm bath Noon and I will never
call you knuckleheads again because it was weird and I
didn't like it. Yeah, that was a big mistake. It
was a big swing, though, really big swing. It was
(00:29):
nothing if not brave. I went for it. It's feeling cute.
I'm feeling cute tonight, are feeling cute? Yeah, I feel cute.
You're looking cute. We're entering Leo season. That must be it,
so everyone's about to start feeling real cute. Everyone's cute. Um, boy, Beth,
(00:50):
I had a good week. Do you have a good week? Yeah?
I did have a good week. I can't think of
any any major tantrums. I could probably think of what
if I tried? Yeah, but you'd have to try, which
is a which is a victory. It's not, oh, of
course obvious. Um. You know what I thought the win
(01:13):
for us was this weekend was that we had a
really lazy weekend. And I like that. Well that's funny,
because you know I like a lazy weekend. You get
a little crazy. Well, I don't think it's good to
be indoors all the time. Everyone gets mad at each
other and it's bad, but we haven't had one in
(01:35):
a really long time. Well, the thing was this week
it was like a hundred degrees outside, So I was like,
you know what I knew for at least Saturday. I
was like, I'm calling this off right now, like this
day is going to involve as a little exertion as possible. Well,
I went outside with the kids yesterday, which was also
(01:55):
which is almost a hundred degrees and um, we went
to the playground. They got a great in our unit.
There's a sprinkler thing at the playground and we went
down there and like all, there's a lot of kids
in our unit in the in the complex we live in,
and all the ones we knew were down there with
(02:16):
the three year I went down with Brindan Maven and
there were three moms down there with all their kids
and I was like, ah, these are three parents I
like I'm comfortable with and I felt like a real
playground dad and I actually chatted it up and I
started playing. And there's two kids that are in Brin's grade. Um,
(02:37):
they were in pre K with him. They're going into kindergarten,
and after a while I started to warm up and
I allowed myself to be a little silly in front
of strangers, not strangers, but people I'm not super close with.
And we started playing this game where the kids came
up to me and I would turn them into things
and I'd be like, oh, good, await, you're a dragon,
You're a superhero. And I knew I know how much
(03:01):
Brin likes these things, so I started immediately giving Brian
really weird ones. And I was like, you're a computer.
And Bryn's face lit up and just ran over to
Maven and he goes type on my belly, do work,
do work, all I'm working, I'm a computer. We have
very weird kids. And tonight he wrote a book about
(03:22):
the Sun, the planets and plute out and should we
read the book? I mean, I memorized it. Well, I'm
not gonna go get it. As he I was drawn.
I was like, they wanted to watch TV, which we
don't do in school days. I said, let's draw, and
so I sharpened pencils, which they'd never seen before, by
the way, a pencil sharpener, and they really were interested
(03:45):
in that. It's crazy how many simple things like that
that their generation just doesn't get exposed to. I mean,
kids know about pencil sharpens. They just have been drawing
with crams their whole life. And I was like, let's
do pencils. So sharpened some pencils for them. That was
a hoot, and uh, we started drawing. Brent told me
(04:05):
what to draw. He told me to draw um, a
unicorn with with silly teeth, Um a robot saying poop, um,
a scary son. And then he made me draw a
picture of four blue jays that are dressed in our clothes,
(04:26):
the four of us in the family, and all have hair,
and each one each individual and was saying, uh, cheekady, cheekady, Daddy, cheekaty,
mamady cheekade maven cheekade brand. I do think that the
Doctor SEUs books they got, the new ones, have been
making them more excited about creating weird things. I would
(04:50):
just bought a bunch of Doctor SEUs books and I
love them. I mean, no hot take. Dr SEUs is great,
but the language of it, I think Brian is getting
into it in the and you're absolutely right. It has everything.
It has creatures with stars on their bellies, and you
can and some stories see the outline of their butts,
which our children long like a but um. So Brin
(05:15):
drew two pictures. One was of all the planets plus
Pluto because it's not a planet, it's a dwarf planet,
and the other page was just the Sun, which is
a big circle. And then he wanted a title page,
and so we got a title page and he wrote
the most writing I've ever seen him do he I mean,
he asked me how to spell things, but he wrote
(05:35):
the title was called the Planets and the Sun and Poluto.
And then we stay pulled it together and he was
really proud, and then you came home, and then he
wanted to write words on the inside. So after the title,
the second plage isn't good enough for mom if it
doesn't have but he read it to Grandma over the
phone and he's like, well, first of all, there were
(05:57):
no words, and so he picks it up. He goes, Grandma,
look at this book, this book, here's the cover. He no,
I'm gonna read it to you. You're gonna be really confused.
And then he opened it up, looked at it, and
then he turned the page, looked at it and then
he closed it and he said the end, and the
joke was that there's no words, so he didn't say anything.
(06:18):
His joke didn't land with Grandma, so he had to
do some rewrites. Yeah, he was like that guy laughed,
but it could have gotten more. So then he wrote,
we're hard jokes, you know what I mean. He just
needed to punch it ee um. The first page he
wrote the planets and Pluto, and then on the sun
page he wrote he added a little cloud next to
(06:41):
the sun, and he wrote the word fart on the cloud,
and then the page has the farting Sun. And then
he presented to you, So you take it from there.
How did that make you feel? I'm already said proud. Yeah,
I felt very proud. You laughed real hard. It was good.
(07:05):
I was. I'm more, honestly, more than the jokes. I'm
just delighted he's drawing, because sometimes he I don't know,
he goes through stretches where he doesn't really draw, and
then all of a sudden he'll do something really creative
and you're like, oh, you could draw more. Yeah. May
even drew a really awesome unicorn. I mean, by the
(07:25):
time you saw it, she went back over it and
just scribbled over the whole thing. But the initial one
was shockingly good. Yeah, they're perfect artists. I really like
drying with them. I'm gonna do it more. Can I
Can we talk about the real win of the week.
(07:48):
What's that? Our new bed came? Oh yeah, so, if
you may recall from our previous episode, we were, oh
my god, you're going to take so long to get
to it, and you say, you tell the story. We
were um tided by our neighbors for politely having loud
(08:12):
love making sessions that we're disrupting the piece sessions. They
said it was too vigorous. Uh no, they didn't get
into two specifics. They just suggested I put a pillow
behind the headboard, which we didn't have. We didn't have
a headboard and our bed frame was a regular old
(08:33):
metal bed frame on wheels, and we were like, you
know what, it's time to come grown ups and get
a real headboard. So we got a bed for a
great price. I have to say it's an excellent Um
I'm going to do another plug that makes us no money.
It's from a company called Living Spaces. Very simple bed, nice, solid,
(08:57):
not resulting in loud sex. Okay, that's the next thing
I was going to say is that we have since
uming it in we've reinstated our love making session. Okay,
so so not to get graphic, but since since our
neighbor commented on this, I've been mortified and any sort
(09:21):
of that stuff going on. I'm like, they're listening, They're
downstairs listening. So it's been a whole lot of like
trying not to use the bed or or being slightly
off the bed so the bed is not moving, and um,
it's been interesting and there's been some creative solutions. Uh.
(09:42):
But honestly, I occasionally think about it, but when I'm
in the moment, it doesn't occur to me at all.
Here's the difference between us is that it is constantly occurring,
and it gets in the way. I mean, I there's
a lot of things that distract me. I guess it's
just one activity that I'm pretty focused on. But the
(10:05):
thing is, so the other night, Um, we had the
new bed and you know, went for it, and I
realized in the middle of this that, oh my god,
the bed is not making any sounds. And suddenly I
felt so free and so happy that I can actually
(10:29):
focus on this very positive thing that's happening, and I'm
not thinking about my elderly neighbors period. It's funny because
we have recently lost two elderly neighbors on both sides
of our apartment. Sounds like they're dead when you said
it that way, Well, no, they moved out, but they
(10:49):
the two like neighbors that we shared like window viewing
with are gone. So I feel like I'm starting to
feel more free, and I know it's just going to
result in some sort of like accidental nudity when the
new neighbors move in. By the way, I guess what
happened today, what the new neighbors moved. I shouldn't have
been to my naked yoga. You do it so loud
(11:13):
and with the windows so open, and you just scream
naked yoga while you're doing That's how yoga works. Actually,
before you came home, I've been like trying to catch
a glimpse of the neighbors because I see the door
cracked and there's like a van outside, but I haven't
seen them. It's a three bedroom, so I'm really helping.
(11:35):
They have kids close to our kids age, so they're
young enough to appreciate love making. Yes, Um, but I
heard someone going in through the door, and so I
peeped through the peep hole and I saw a shoulder
and a T shirt like right outside the widow And
then may even very loudly, what are you looking at
(11:57):
out there? And then I was like lame cover. I
was like, I'm looking at this picture. It was like
that was weird. That was an oh cool, just a
totally normal family we live next door to, just regular
humans living next door. Alright, so we're in the clear. Um,
(12:23):
so I hope they're cool. Well, if they're wearing a
T shirt, it sounds like they are. Yeah, baby, Oh
my god, I gotta have a T shirt and my
kind of people. Um. Two other little things that happened
this week. So I bought new new car seat, a
new booster seat for brin. Maven is not big enough
(12:44):
for the booster seat he was in, and so we
got rid of the big, clunky car seat. And Maven
is so proud excited to be a big girl to
ever like use the real seatbelt. She keeping it on.
I'm just scared what will happen when she has one
(13:05):
of her tantrums. Well, I think she's just seen Brin
in it for you know, as far as she knows
her whole life, and so there's nothing to explore, whereas
like Brin the first time we put it on Brin,
he'd just take a seatbelt off and then have a tantrum.
But I don't think that things don't occur to her
the same way they did to him because she's had
(13:26):
him as an example where he had no one. Well,
sometimes more things occur to her because she's had hidden
as an example. What she's for some reason, that was
too much of I couldn't I couldn't follow. I'm saying
(13:48):
you should look out for her. I don't trust her.
I think she has a lot in store for us.
She's a big goof That's what I think. Um. And
the last thing is I just realized, I think we've
just been feeding our kids way better than we used to.
This weekend especially, I found I feel like they weren't
(14:13):
like eating as much garbage, Like they had a lot
of fruit and then they had healthy meals. I was like,
this is incredible, Like a whole day of healthy food,
whole day, let's say, a whole week. It just occurred
to me because I had the thought I was like,
oh boy, feeling a little lazy, and then it's just
a flash of maybe we'll order some food. But whenever
(14:36):
that happens, they get chicken fingers or pizza or something.
And I realized, it's been so long since I've done that.
Maybe it's helping them with their cravings because they're not
in the cabinets as much. I feel like part of
it is like we had to clear the cabinets of
like anything that tasted good at all for like a
(14:57):
month before Brent stopped trying to like constantly be in
the cabinets, and then we now have added back in treats,
and it's like he's still looking, but it's not like NonStop. Yeah. Well,
I've also really doubled down on I've realized how effective
it is to call something a rule. Bryn really likes rules,
(15:20):
even if he doesn't like what the rule is. You know,
it's like no, the no TV of school day rule.
He doesn't like it, but he doesn't question it because
he understands the rules. And so I've started saying a
new rule is that before dinner, you can eat anything
you want, so long as it's a fruit or a
vegetable and that's just meant that maybe they have a banana,
(15:44):
but they're not trying to find candy. They're waiting. Well,
no one loves rules as much as you do. I
don't know if you met Brin. Uh. Well, the other
thing is that he's been waking up and doing his
usual food sneaking routine, but he this week pulled the
leftover shrimp scampy out of the fridge and ate an
entire top or where full of shrimp scampy first thing
(16:04):
in the morning with his bare hands, just like oily noodles.
And yeah, both him and maybe when we finally got
out of bed, they were both just greasy, greasy with
shrimp grease. And did I watched them before I sent
him to daycare? Nope? I don't think that was a weekday,
(16:24):
was it. Well, either way, I wouldn't have watched him
if it was. And now it's time for did you
know this is where we share some parenting related information
that we read or listened to somewhere. Beth, you have something, Yeah,
(16:45):
I wanted to talk to you guys about an article
from I wanted to talk to you guys. Well, I
just want to talk to you guys for a second. Um,
there's an article. Hey Peter, I'm trying to talk to
these guys. Oh sorry, I'm gonna go get a drink. Okay. Um,
this article that I want to talk to you guys
about is from The Guardian. It's called a woman's greatest
(17:06):
enemy question mark a lack of time to themselves. Um,
so this is not explicitly about parenting, but uh, there's
a lot of references to moms in here, and the
article just talks a little bit about how this woman
was trying to carve out time for her writing and
her colleague recommended this book about the daily rituals of
(17:29):
great artists, and what she found in the book was
a lot of talk of these historic figures artists, writers
who had had really devoted wives or housekeepers or someone
who basically made it so that they had enormous amounts
of free time. And then she goes on to talk
about how most women have very little free time, and uh,
(17:52):
as she gets particularly into parenting at some points during this, UM,
I just loved to interject some of the examples they gave.
And I don't remember which of these famous writers there were,
but wives who would lay out full outfits for their husbands.
So that was seben Freud's wife had to lay out
his outfit and put toothpaste on the toothbrush for him. Uh. Surprising,
(18:18):
but not surprising. So it was So he got to
his articles about penis envy. You gotta he's got to
think more about penis. He had a lot of good,
important things to do. Um, a lot of phalic. Uh.
One of the quotes I liked was, um, she talks
about She read an interview with Patti Scalfa, who is
Bruce Springsteen's wife, and she said how difficult it was
(18:40):
for her to write music for her solo album because
her kids kept interrupting her and demanding her time in
a way that they never would have her father of
their father. And I feel like that was the most
relatable part of the article to me, where I was like,
I'm just not allowed to be in my own home
doing work without someone walking in and talking at me. Um,
(19:03):
this is something I've learned because I like to walk
in and talk at people. You love it. You love
breaking a train of thought like nothing else. Um, But
I leave you alone way more than I used to.
That For the most part, I still feel like you're
there's something about it where you're like a magnet. It's
(19:24):
like a moth to a flame, Like if you're going
out the door in ten minutes and I'm like just
really trying to concentrate and I keep you keep basically
chasing me out of the room, Like I'm like, oh,
he's getting ready, I'll go in the other room. Oh
he's coming in here and talking at me. I'm going
to go in this other You're just like I noticed,
but I just don't. Sometimes I don't notice until I'm
(19:44):
in the middle of it, and then I'm like, oh here,
I am, okay, all right. I used to It took
me a long time to notice at all. Yeah, but
I get it also, you know we I relate to
this on a certain level of the like the fragmented day,
(20:07):
because today I was home all day, which which is
such a dream, like I don't that hasn't happened in months,
where I basically had nine to five uninterrupted and I
got so much done, and it was like, this is
a mirror my favorite days. And I think part of
which he kind of hands out in this article is
like the creative process I think requires you not only
(20:28):
to have enough time alone to like physically get the
work done, but you have to have a little bit
of brain space to let your mind wander in the week,
to actually experience pleasurable activities so that you can sit
down feeling like a little bit charged and like inspired
and not just like you know, trying to like quantify
(20:50):
your workload, you know what I mean. And and I
think that's the hard part. I think is like even
when I do have the space to work, it's like
to get that full day is kind of rare to
just like devote to like your one thing that you
you know what I mean. Um, So yeah, and oh
there was a quote in here as there was a
(21:11):
statistic that said a study of thirty two families in
Los Angeles found that the uninterrupted leisure time of most
mothers lasted, on average, no more than ten minutes at
a stretch. This is modern women are talking about. Yeah,
I mean that statistic is sort of horrifying to me.
And like introvert who likes to have my own headspace. Yeah,
(21:34):
and obviously we're it's it's rare that wives have to
deal with Freud's um but it still is the thing
that that was really interesting. In that article of you know,
they compared men and women in the academic arena, and
(21:55):
they had the same amount of time to work during
their work day, but women had twice as much unpaid
labor to do after work and like that whole day
still now on average, Um, there's far more to do.
And I'll also say just that, like, you know, because
(22:16):
our our schedules are pretty similar, and I think at
this point we're doing the same amount of of of
housework and all that. But there is something about, like
I can ignore our kids better than you can, partially
because there's not hounding you, Like well yeah, partially because
(22:36):
I can block them out and do it, but they
give up on me and they ignore me much more
than they Also part of it is like they need
to be interacted with, So like on Sunday, I went
to the coffee shop to work, and then you took
them outside to the sprinklers. So then they came in
tired and like you know, sort of spent a little
(23:01):
bit and they and when I got home, they actually
sat and watched TV and I was able to continue
working in the other room for the first time in ever,
like it was the first time I've really had like
a full half hour stretch of work where I was like,
I can't believe they haven't bothered me. And I think
part of why it's hard for me to do that
(23:22):
with them is sometimes because you're you're able to not
interact with them for so many hours that when I
come in there like someone interact with us now, like, well,
i'll tell you you're you're not wrong because you're understand right.
And on Sunday that is exactly what I was thinking,
(23:43):
because I'll tell you what. I don't want to go
to the playground. I don't want to go outside. I
don't want to do anything. Because when I was leaving,
I said, you should try to get them outside. I know,
and I take them outside not because it's and I
do this regularly now. I take them outside and I
take her to do things, not because I want to,
but because because of you. Well, it's good for everyone's
(24:06):
mental health, it is, I agree. But I'm just being
totally honest about where I live in a selfish brain.
Almost everything I do, I'm just like, I just want
my wife to be happy. But in the end, I'm happier,
my kids are happier. You're happier, and it's the thing
I should have been doing in the first place. Can
we just acknowledge that I'm always right and I always
have good ideas, and if you just got on board
(24:27):
with them sooner, everything would be a hundred perfect um.
But I'll give you. I have to say the time,
I love our new food routine. We're eating real meals,
balanced meals, a lot of fish. I mean the routine
where I now buy food and I cook food, you
cook full meals. I love it. And I was saying
(24:51):
to you years ago when I was in a postpartum stupor,
I was like, I need real food. I was like,
I literally don't know what that is or how to
do it or how to listen. I gotta go to
an improv show. But You're like, I'm sorry, the best
way for me to support this family is to teach
every night of the week. Well, it literally was at
(25:13):
the time. Money. Yeah, now we're loaded. We're so loaded.
We really needed books and commercials Like yesterday anyway, that
a lot of women I know, I think that article
really resonated with them today, and I thought it was
nice to hear people talking about it. Resonated with me
(25:35):
part of it. I'm not saying. I'm not saying, oh,
I totally get it. I'm experiencing the same thing, but
just with the ideal with the kids a lot, and
then the groceries and all of this. And I'm even
when I'm home nine going for an audition that's three hours,
and I constantly have this feeling that like I never
have enough time to get into a thing. Um, I
(25:57):
realized that for many women, that's that's the historically. Well,
I have to also admit acknowledge my great grandfather. You
have to Jim Jim James Alexander Hamilton's so he was
a big medical hospital administration and professor an blah blah blah.
(26:22):
Please make this article about women about your grandfather. Well,
he wrote a letter to the wives I think it's
like the wives of his of his students, grad students,
his grad students, explaining like their role, um, and that
like you know, when your husbands are going to be
(26:44):
working on important things all day long, so when they
come home they need to it needs to be a
relaxing place, like they need to be handed a cocktail
the second they walk in the door. And it's boy,
I've read the letter and it's it's real embarrassing and
it's outdated. But even at the time, I think it
was outdated. That's why I think like these conversations we've
(27:09):
been having culturally about like the treatment of women, there's
always like with people, you know, like politicians like Joe
Biden or whatever, when they're like, all I did was
the things I was raised to do. It's like, yeah,
we know, we know it's been bad, and we're asking
you to stop. Um, yeah, and it's hard to I'm like,
it's it's really easy to be like, well, thank god,
(27:31):
we're not like Freud anymore. And it's like, oh, yeah,
you know. It's like it's got a half life, you know,
genera it's not nearly as bad, but it's still like,
not like I want to hear your morning rambles while
I'm trying to get my work done. Well, you just
don't like hearing me tell you things at any point,
(27:51):
so that's not true. Well, you just admitted that you
like me. Congratulations. This next segment is called would you Knows.
It's where we discuss parenting hypotheticals. We got one from
(28:16):
a listener and I'm going to read it now. Longtime
listener and I love this show since water appears to
be such a hot topic. I'm sorry. We thought we
were beyond the water topic. We're not here is this
podcast is about water now, parenting and hydration. It's we
(28:37):
don't do any research. We just whatever random thing a
listener tells us about water. That's the fact of the day. Well,
this is not a fact, this is a would you know,
so we're having fun with water. Here's a hypothetical for
you both. Um. I would call this hypothetical a little cheeky. Um.
Your son has a crippling fear of being around water.
(29:00):
He hates swimming, splash paths, and he says he never
wants to go near lakes or the ocean. Ever. You
have tried swim lessons, but to no avail. On the
other hand, he loves drinking water and drinks that recommended
amount every day and never asks you for sugary drinks.
(29:20):
He always says he prefers the taste of water to
all other drinks, and he thinks he always will. One day,
you take him to a hypnotist to see if you
can help him get over his sphere of swimming. This works.
After one session, he is suddenly able to completely overcome
his crippling fear and the whole new world as a
(29:40):
whole new world has opened up to him. Unfortunately, he
now suddenly is repulsed by the taste of water. What
do you do? Do you accept this trade off or
do you go back and try to undo undo the hypnosis?
Cheers Now, well, I'm definitely going back to that hypnotist.
I should get my mod back. We're not so fast.
(30:02):
Not so fast. This is designed to tear us apart
because everyone knows I hate drinking water, and everyone knows
you love the ocean. This question is designed to terrorism
apart because I don't think so. Yeah, she's trying to
admire as that I don't like drinking water and you
love the ocean, and so she's made a hypothetical where
(30:24):
we can't have it both ways. I don't think this
is meant to terrorists apont do. It's already working. You're
tearing us apart yourself, if your own accord. I I
love the ocean, but I want my child to drink
water to survive. So I'm going to try to land
(30:47):
on that outcome. If not, have the best of both
worlds and get the hypn tists to do their job right. Well,
just big make the hypnesists do their job right. Yeah, come,
they knew, they knew if there was a drawback, they
should have put that in the contract and warned me.
(31:08):
How would they know that by making them? Look, they
know how it works at this point, doesn't does not
their first hypnotism? What if it it was? It's not.
Why am I paying this person good money? If this
is the first time they've done something. Maybe it's our
new neighbors. Maybe it was a freebee. Again, you've got
(31:29):
to be specific with the details. Okay, what kind of hypnotism?
I don't want to this question. I don't know. If
we paid ten here's what I would do. Let's say
the hypnotism uh cost five bucks. Then you know, just
like once a week we take them back and switch.
He's like, he's probably pretty it's that important to get
(31:51):
your kid in the ocean every other week that you
want to prevent them from drinking water. I don't think
that he won't drink water. I think he just hates it. Oh,
it says he's suddenly repulsed by the taste of water
you can drink on a daily battle. You want to
(32:11):
have every other week just because you want to be
able to get this kid in the ocean. You can
drink other drinks that hydrate you, Peter, use your brain here,
it's I'm gatorade. Will buy a lot of gatorade. You're
a libre. Do you see the scales, the balancing scales, way,
the pros and cons? Here, boy, I'll tell you what.
(32:37):
This scenario is not suited for libres because what they're saying,
if this is a scale, is that you have all
the weight on one side or all the way on
the other. They didn't say that that can't. No, that
was your own addendum to the question where you throw
a hypothetical every other week scenario. They did not say
that in the question. I didn't say. Well, they said
(32:59):
it's repulsed by water, or loves the ocean, or the
complete other way around. Phil, you did this on purpose.
You're you know what I don't. I'd love water. Water
is great. I think it tastes great, feel good when
I drink it. And by the way, I've been drinking
(33:21):
a lot of water and I feel better. We've been
over this all relevant points. Thank you. Although okay, so
oh my god, so as you know, because I've mentioned
it every morning. I'm skinnier than I have been in
(33:43):
four or five years. The question was just about the
ocean versus Yeah, but but I want to brag about
how skinny. This is a body positive podcast. Yeah, I was,
I was. I've been not. I've been drinking a lot
of water, but recently I've been not drinking water so
that I wake up super dehydrated, so that the scale
(34:03):
a little bit not healthy. It's not healthy. But then
I drink a ton of water after I step on
the scale. Well, that's between you and your god. You'll
never meet my god. It's my secret. Yeah, I guess
we'd make him drink water. I agree, beth Um, if
(34:25):
we could drink water versus swimming, I say, drink water. Well,
thank you. I hope you're happy, though, Bellerie, and this
has been would you doze? And now it's time for
(34:50):
do you know what they said? This is where we
talk about something our kids said? Uh? So I quickly
wanted to say the The other day I overheard Brent singing,
like humming to himself, and he was like, do you
hear the people sing? What? He was like literally singing
(35:10):
La mass which I thought you would appreciate. Another thing
he's been saying to me lately when I started singing
is he says, I like it when you sing, but
not right now, which is a really sick burn. Um.
Maybe it's what I'd saying that to me, Could you
not sing please? Brinds is really nice. He's like, I
(35:32):
like it when you sing, but not right now. He's
figuring out that compliment. Sandwich good head of hr um.
He said, Oh, so he was talking about like what
would happen if we didn't get oxygen? And I was like, well,
we would die. And then he was like, so what
happens when we die? And then I kind of like
(35:53):
vaguely said something about like heaven ish whatever, and he goes,
so we're imaginary. And my mind was blown because I
was like, actually, yes, like that is the most likely scenario. Um,
(36:14):
the most likely scenario is that we are imaginary. I
what's really strange synchronicity wise, is that after he said
that to me, I went to lay down in bed
and I was listening to Oprah's podcast and she had
Eckhart toll On, who's like this big spiritual guy, and
he was like the only thing that we know for
a fact as human beings is that our consciousness exists.
(36:37):
We know that we're experiencing this on some level. Therefore,
our consciousness is the one guaranteeable thing in this world.
Like you can't prove that a cup is real, you
know what I mean. But so it was so weird
to hear Britt say that and then here that podcast
and be like, whoa, he's Brent knows. He's like, he knows,
(37:04):
he's a spiritual thought leader. Yeah. So Brince had some
funny things to me. We did we try to catch
up on our journal. We're about a month and a
half behind. So I asked him a ton of questions
and we didn't catch up entirely, but there are a
few things he said that um gave you made me chuckle. Uh. So,
(37:29):
if you don't know, we have this great journal question
a day three day calendar. Um. So I asked him,
what are three words to describe your neighborhood? And then
Bryn goes neighborhood and go, yeah, where we live. And
then he just starts looking around and he did a
real like Steve Carrell for Mancorman. Where he went He
(37:50):
looked out the window, he goes, I like the cars.
Three words described the neighborhood, and he said I like
the cars, and looking around, I like the milk, and
then looking around again and he goes, I like this
musical instrument. And then he picks up our harmonica and
starts singing through through it, going do do Do Do
(38:11):
Do Do do, And then he dropped the harmonica on
the ground and walked out of the room. Amazing, amazing.
He you know, he started pouring his own milk, which
is amazing and terrifying. Yeah, this morning tonight, I walked
in and he had poured a the biggest glass we
have full of coconut water. He doesn't understand proportions or
(38:33):
speed or the weight of the carton how that factors in,
but he's going for it. Um. I asked Brian and Mamon,
what are three words to describe your family. Brin actually
understood this question and he said, goofy, silly and cool.
(38:56):
Nailed it. Maven said I'm scared. I don't know what
that was about. Very similar to when they were doing
impressions of you sleeping on you in your Instagram video
and Mayven kept saying blood I'm bloody. I'm bloody, an
incredible bit where Britdin goes, look, I'm daddy sleeps like this,
(39:17):
and then he lays down and he goes and then
it turned into bathing, goes, daddy sleeps like this, I'm bloody.
I'm bloody, which is insane and creepy and where did
that money? It's a perfect impression of you. She's like,
you get this old creep over here? How he sleeps?
(39:39):
I mean, in her defense being covered in blood. Guy's
nuts bloody in my dreams. Um. The question is are
you loud, quiet or in between? And Brin went super
loud and I go, Maven, are you loud quieter? In between?
(40:01):
And then she said and then it got down on
her hands and knees and crawled backwards out of the room.
I was like, those are two very different, my girl, okay,
and I think this is the last one I'm gonna do.
The question is who drives you crazy? Why? And Brent
(40:25):
says it's mommy because I love her and she drives
and she makes me go, ah, this car is crazy
as if and he mind, as if you were driving
a car all crazy? Yeah, Well, I forgot to tell
you when I pick up the kids. I run around
all over the road, and you go, I'm driving like crazy.
(40:48):
And I asked maybe the same question, and I said,
maybe who drives you crazy? And she said, Mommy, I
want to drive crazy like this. So they took it
real literally, yeah, because that's what I literally do and
how I drive. Well, ye's very irresponsible. I can't help it.
(41:13):
Last one, what's the wildest thing you've ever done? Prince says,
eating too much sugar and not being sick and this
is his life's achievement. Oh you know what they're saying.
You know what they said? What is this segment called
forget it? Darndest? Would This next segment is called listeners
(41:47):
want to knows. That's where we take some questions and
comments from you guys. Oh right, you know what. It's
time to do an email. Episodes almost over, Gonna have
one more. This. This is actually what I got lost
in my inbox. This is from I think maybe a
long time ago, but somebody wrote in Joanne a long
(42:09):
time ago about her son I believe, who had a
problem with wiping his boogers on the wall next to
his bed. And there, as she there was a problem,
he couldn't stop She asked us for advice because, like,
you know, because we're experts. Uh, and I think our
(42:33):
our advice was maybe try putting a target on the wall. Yeah.
I think we said to put up like a poster
or something, right, Yeah, like a cleanex with a target,
a target drawn on it, which, you know what, great idea?
Um and Joanna wrote back in to report on the progress.
(42:53):
I hope this male finds you well, as you asked
to report back on our snot wall issue, you I am.
I'm happy to say that no new snots were added
to the wall last night, and this makes me hopeful
for the future. You heard tips of sticking kleen X
on the wall and to create a snot target, where
great suggestions that we did not follow. She's like, yeah,
(43:20):
I want to make it more unsightly on my kids snife.
Thanks guys. Instead, we kept issuing lame threats and getting
grossed out. Finally, my husband took a turn on the
d snotting front. Yesterday afternoon. Our son's bedroom shares a
wall with the kitchen where my son and I were chatting.
(43:42):
Throughout our chat, we heard the unmistakable sound of a
of a gag coughing man through the wall. I explained
to my son that his snots were making Daddy feel sick.
This concerned my son gravely. He asked me if Daddy
was going to be okay, to which I slowly replied,
(44:02):
I think so. He seemed truly remorseful. I think we're
getting somewhere. Have a great evening, and thanks for your support,
Joe Anne. How did you know I was going to
read this in the evening. It's remarkable. That's a weak
stomach gridesnot. You can't be that gross. I mean, I
(44:26):
do think that's an effective parenting technique to give your kid,
like a vivid depiction of how their behavior affects other people.
You know what, That's actually a really good point. And
I found successful versions of that and not successful versions. Well,
it's like tonight when Raven was trying to rub her
raw apple all over me, which I am allergic to,
(44:46):
and I feel like she was just doesn't understand what
allergic means. And then you had to paint a picture
for her of me getting sick and she eventually stopped
when I because I try to guilt. It's not a
great tactic. I try a guilt trip. I think guilt
is sometimes a good tactic. If I am annoyed or
(45:10):
emotional and he sees that in me, then like any
started parenting, that's all he sees is that there's an aggressive,
aggressive person in front of you, and the emotions are
all they see and he doesn't observe the information. So
if I am calm and matter of fact and I
can get him to actually listen to me, then painting
a picture of another person and what they're going through
(45:33):
and how it affects you. Experienced this new habit he
has of spitting on you. No, I heard that from
the other room. What was that? He just he I
think he just discovered it out of the blue, and
we were like play wrestling or something. He just like
spat at me, and I was like obviously grossed out,
and then he got a reaction, so then he kept
(45:54):
trying to do it. Was sort of like phart noises
splatter or like a Hawka lugi at you, like really
spit at me. So that happened over the weekend, and
then tonight he like did it again out of the blue,
and I was like, we don't spit and then he
pulled back and I don't know if someone else talked
to him about it, but he seemed to take it
(46:14):
slightly more seriously. But now I'm like, I just never
know if I'm gonna get spit on. I just never
know if I'm going to get spo on. What's the
deal from the two times that's happened in my whole life,
I just never know. I'm not a fan of it.
I'm not either. I can't think of a single time
(46:34):
someone spit on me and I've been cool about it. Good, Um,
I did hear you? You laid down the law. That
was good. That was a really good stern but not
overly emotional, like, hey, I'm being serious. Thank you. Well,
time will tell Yeah, he won't do that to me.
(46:57):
Good luck. We do not spit, Yes, we do. You're
you sound like the kind of guy I want to
spit on. Well, hey, podcasts over, you want to go
spit on me? That was gross, really really unnecessary gross.
I didn't mean it to be sexy. All right, let's
(47:18):
see the action. This is about another episode of We
Knows Parenting. Please find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. We
Knows pod is the handle. Check it out. Find us
if you'd like to submit a question, share a story,
give some advice, or share a parenting hypothetical for the
(47:39):
Wood You Knows segment. You're welcome to email us at
we Knows pod at gmail dot com, or you can
leave us a voicemail at three four seven three eight
four seven three nine six. Hey how about leave us
a rating and review? And you know we've had a
lot of great reviews on Apple Podcasts say a very
sexy podcast for parents, so we haven't. Should we have
(47:59):
a new umped? What should the new review be? Beth
a mostly sexy podcast? Yeah, like, uh, this podcasts bed
ain't creaking. We'll work on it's somebody. How about the
title should be this parenting podcast got Me pregnant? Please
(48:20):
please please review the podcast with this parenting podcast got
Me pregnant amazing. Even if you don't, we love you.
Have a great night.
I welcome back your knuckleheads. It's we knows parenting. I'm
Peter McNerney and I'm bath Noon and I will never
call you knuckleheads again because it was weird and I
didn't like it. Yeah, that was a big mistake. It
was a big swing, though, really big swing. It was
(00:29):
nothing if not brave. I went for it. It's feeling cute.
I'm feeling cute tonight, are feeling cute? Yeah, I feel cute.
You're looking cute. We're entering Leo season. That must be it,
so everyone's about to start feeling real cute. Everyone's cute. Um, boy, Beth,
(00:50):
I had a good week. Do you have a good week? Yeah?
I did have a good week. I can't think of
any any major tantrums. I could probably think of what
if I tried? Yeah, but you'd have to try, which
is a which is a victory. It's not, oh, of
course obvious. Um. You know what I thought the win
(01:13):
for us was this weekend was that we had a
really lazy weekend. And I like that. Well that's funny,
because you know I like a lazy weekend. You get
a little crazy. Well, I don't think it's good to
be indoors all the time. Everyone gets mad at each
other and it's bad, but we haven't had one in
(01:35):
a really long time. Well, the thing was this week
it was like a hundred degrees outside, So I was like,
you know what I knew for at least Saturday. I
was like, I'm calling this off right now, like this
day is going to involve as a little exertion as possible. Well,
I went outside with the kids yesterday, which was also
(01:55):
which is almost a hundred degrees and um, we went
to the playground. They got a great in our unit.
There's a sprinkler thing at the playground and we went
down there and like all, there's a lot of kids
in our unit in the in the complex we live in,
and all the ones we knew were down there with
(02:16):
the three year I went down with Brindan Maven and
there were three moms down there with all their kids
and I was like, ah, these are three parents I
like I'm comfortable with and I felt like a real
playground dad and I actually chatted it up and I
started playing. And there's two kids that are in Brin's grade. Um,
(02:37):
they were in pre K with him. They're going into kindergarten,
and after a while I started to warm up and
I allowed myself to be a little silly in front
of strangers, not strangers, but people I'm not super close with.
And we started playing this game where the kids came
up to me and I would turn them into things
and I'd be like, oh, good, await, you're a dragon,
You're a superhero. And I knew I know how much
(03:01):
Brin likes these things, so I started immediately giving Brian
really weird ones. And I was like, you're a computer.
And Bryn's face lit up and just ran over to
Maven and he goes type on my belly, do work,
do work, all I'm working, I'm a computer. We have
very weird kids. And tonight he wrote a book about
(03:22):
the Sun, the planets and plute out and should we
read the book? I mean, I memorized it. Well, I'm
not gonna go get it. As he I was drawn.
I was like, they wanted to watch TV, which we
don't do in school days. I said, let's draw, and
so I sharpened pencils, which they'd never seen before, by
the way, a pencil sharpener, and they really were interested
(03:45):
in that. It's crazy how many simple things like that
that their generation just doesn't get exposed to. I mean,
kids know about pencil sharpens. They just have been drawing
with crams their whole life. And I was like, let's
do pencils. So sharpened some pencils for them. That was
a hoot, and uh, we started drawing. Brent told me
(04:05):
what to draw. He told me to draw um, a
unicorn with with silly teeth, Um a robot saying poop, um,
a scary son. And then he made me draw a
picture of four blue jays that are dressed in our clothes,
(04:26):
the four of us in the family, and all have hair,
and each one each individual and was saying, uh, cheekady, cheekady, Daddy, cheekaty,
mamady cheekade maven cheekade brand. I do think that the
Doctor SEUs books they got, the new ones, have been
making them more excited about creating weird things. I would
(04:50):
just bought a bunch of Doctor SEUs books and I
love them. I mean, no hot take. Dr SEUs is great,
but the language of it, I think Brian is getting
into it in the and you're absolutely right. It has everything.
It has creatures with stars on their bellies, and you
can and some stories see the outline of their butts,
which our children long like a but um. So Brin
(05:15):
drew two pictures. One was of all the planets plus
Pluto because it's not a planet, it's a dwarf planet,
and the other page was just the Sun, which is
a big circle. And then he wanted a title page,
and so we got a title page and he wrote
the most writing I've ever seen him do he I mean,
he asked me how to spell things, but he wrote
(05:35):
the title was called the Planets and the Sun and Poluto.
And then we stay pulled it together and he was
really proud, and then you came home, and then he
wanted to write words on the inside. So after the title,
the second plage isn't good enough for mom if it
doesn't have but he read it to Grandma over the
phone and he's like, well, first of all, there were
(05:57):
no words, and so he picks it up. He goes, Grandma,
look at this book, this book, here's the cover. He no,
I'm gonna read it to you. You're gonna be really confused.
And then he opened it up, looked at it, and
then he turned the page, looked at it and then
he closed it and he said the end, and the
joke was that there's no words, so he didn't say anything.
(06:18):
His joke didn't land with Grandma, so he had to
do some rewrites. Yeah, he was like that guy laughed,
but it could have gotten more. So then he wrote,
we're hard jokes, you know what I mean. He just
needed to punch it ee um. The first page he
wrote the planets and Pluto, and then on the sun
page he wrote he added a little cloud next to
(06:41):
the sun, and he wrote the word fart on the cloud,
and then the page has the farting Sun. And then
he presented to you, So you take it from there.
How did that make you feel? I'm already said proud. Yeah,
I felt very proud. You laughed real hard. It was good.
(07:05):
I was. I'm more, honestly, more than the jokes. I'm
just delighted he's drawing, because sometimes he I don't know,
he goes through stretches where he doesn't really draw, and
then all of a sudden he'll do something really creative
and you're like, oh, you could draw more. Yeah. May
even drew a really awesome unicorn. I mean, by the
(07:25):
time you saw it, she went back over it and
just scribbled over the whole thing. But the initial one
was shockingly good. Yeah, they're perfect artists. I really like
drying with them. I'm gonna do it more. Can I
Can we talk about the real win of the week.
(07:48):
What's that? Our new bed came? Oh yeah, so, if
you may recall from our previous episode, we were, oh
my god, you're going to take so long to get
to it, and you say, you tell the story. We
were um tided by our neighbors for politely having loud
(08:12):
love making sessions that we're disrupting the piece sessions. They
said it was too vigorous. Uh no, they didn't get
into two specifics. They just suggested I put a pillow
behind the headboard, which we didn't have. We didn't have
a headboard and our bed frame was a regular old
(08:33):
metal bed frame on wheels, and we were like, you
know what, it's time to come grown ups and get
a real headboard. So we got a bed for a
great price. I have to say it's an excellent Um
I'm going to do another plug that makes us no money.
It's from a company called Living Spaces. Very simple bed, nice, solid,
(08:57):
not resulting in loud sex. Okay, that's the next thing
I was going to say is that we have since
uming it in we've reinstated our love making session. Okay,
so so not to get graphic, but since since our
neighbor commented on this, I've been mortified and any sort
(09:21):
of that stuff going on. I'm like, they're listening, They're
downstairs listening. So it's been a whole lot of like
trying not to use the bed or or being slightly
off the bed so the bed is not moving, and um,
it's been interesting and there's been some creative solutions. Uh.
(09:42):
But honestly, I occasionally think about it, but when I'm
in the moment, it doesn't occur to me at all.
Here's the difference between us is that it is constantly occurring,
and it gets in the way. I mean, I there's
a lot of things that distract me. I guess it's
just one activity that I'm pretty focused on. But the
(10:05):
thing is, so the other night, Um, we had the
new bed and you know, went for it, and I
realized in the middle of this that, oh my god,
the bed is not making any sounds. And suddenly I
felt so free and so happy that I can actually
(10:29):
focus on this very positive thing that's happening, and I'm
not thinking about my elderly neighbors period. It's funny because
we have recently lost two elderly neighbors on both sides
of our apartment. Sounds like they're dead when you said
it that way, Well, no, they moved out, but they
(10:49):
the two like neighbors that we shared like window viewing
with are gone. So I feel like I'm starting to
feel more free, and I know it's just going to
result in some sort of like accidental nudity when the
new neighbors move in. By the way, I guess what
happened today, what the new neighbors moved. I shouldn't have
been to my naked yoga. You do it so loud
(11:13):
and with the windows so open, and you just scream
naked yoga while you're doing That's how yoga works. Actually,
before you came home, I've been like trying to catch
a glimpse of the neighbors because I see the door
cracked and there's like a van outside, but I haven't
seen them. It's a three bedroom, so I'm really helping.
(11:35):
They have kids close to our kids age, so they're
young enough to appreciate love making. Yes, Um, but I
heard someone going in through the door, and so I
peeped through the peep hole and I saw a shoulder
and a T shirt like right outside the widow And
then may even very loudly, what are you looking at
(11:57):
out there? And then I was like lame cover. I
was like, I'm looking at this picture. It was like
that was weird. That was an oh cool, just a
totally normal family we live next door to, just regular
humans living next door. Alright, so we're in the clear. Um,
(12:23):
so I hope they're cool. Well, if they're wearing a
T shirt, it sounds like they are. Yeah, baby, Oh
my god, I gotta have a T shirt and my
kind of people. Um. Two other little things that happened
this week. So I bought new new car seat, a
new booster seat for brin. Maven is not big enough
(12:44):
for the booster seat he was in, and so we
got rid of the big, clunky car seat. And Maven
is so proud excited to be a big girl to
ever like use the real seatbelt. She keeping it on.
I'm just scared what will happen when she has one
(13:05):
of her tantrums. Well, I think she's just seen Brin
in it for you know, as far as she knows
her whole life, and so there's nothing to explore, whereas
like Brin the first time we put it on Brin,
he'd just take a seatbelt off and then have a tantrum.
But I don't think that things don't occur to her
the same way they did to him because she's had
(13:26):
him as an example where he had no one. Well,
sometimes more things occur to her because she's had hidden
as an example. What she's for some reason, that was
too much of I couldn't I couldn't follow. I'm saying
(13:48):
you should look out for her. I don't trust her.
I think she has a lot in store for us.
She's a big goof That's what I think. Um. And
the last thing is I just realized, I think we've
just been feeding our kids way better than we used to.
This weekend especially, I found I feel like they weren't
(14:13):
like eating as much garbage, Like they had a lot
of fruit and then they had healthy meals. I was like,
this is incredible, Like a whole day of healthy food,
whole day, let's say, a whole week. It just occurred
to me because I had the thought I was like,
oh boy, feeling a little lazy, and then it's just
a flash of maybe we'll order some food. But whenever
(14:36):
that happens, they get chicken fingers or pizza or something.
And I realized, it's been so long since I've done that.
Maybe it's helping them with their cravings because they're not
in the cabinets as much. I feel like part of
it is like we had to clear the cabinets of
like anything that tasted good at all for like a
(14:57):
month before Brent stopped trying to like constantly be in
the cabinets, and then we now have added back in treats,
and it's like he's still looking, but it's not like NonStop. Yeah. Well,
I've also really doubled down on I've realized how effective
it is to call something a rule. Bryn really likes rules,
(15:20):
even if he doesn't like what the rule is. You know,
it's like no, the no TV of school day rule.
He doesn't like it, but he doesn't question it because
he understands the rules. And so I've started saying a
new rule is that before dinner, you can eat anything
you want, so long as it's a fruit or a
vegetable and that's just meant that maybe they have a banana,
(15:44):
but they're not trying to find candy. They're waiting. Well,
no one loves rules as much as you do. I
don't know if you met Brin. Uh. Well, the other
thing is that he's been waking up and doing his
usual food sneaking routine, but he this week pulled the
leftover shrimp scampy out of the fridge and ate an
entire top or where full of shrimp scampy first thing
(16:04):
in the morning with his bare hands, just like oily noodles.
And yeah, both him and maybe when we finally got
out of bed, they were both just greasy, greasy with
shrimp grease. And did I watched them before I sent
him to daycare? Nope? I don't think that was a weekday,
(16:24):
was it. Well, either way, I wouldn't have watched him
if it was. And now it's time for did you
know this is where we share some parenting related information
that we read or listened to somewhere. Beth, you have something, Yeah,
(16:45):
I wanted to talk to you guys about an article
from I wanted to talk to you guys. Well, I
just want to talk to you guys for a second. Um,
there's an article. Hey Peter, I'm trying to talk to
these guys. Oh sorry, I'm gonna go get a drink. Okay. Um,
this article that I want to talk to you guys
about is from The Guardian. It's called a woman's greatest
(17:06):
enemy question mark a lack of time to themselves. Um,
so this is not explicitly about parenting, but uh, there's
a lot of references to moms in here, and the
article just talks a little bit about how this woman
was trying to carve out time for her writing and
her colleague recommended this book about the daily rituals of
(17:29):
great artists, and what she found in the book was
a lot of talk of these historic figures artists, writers
who had had really devoted wives or housekeepers or someone
who basically made it so that they had enormous amounts
of free time. And then she goes on to talk
about how most women have very little free time, and uh,
(17:52):
as she gets particularly into parenting at some points during this, UM,
I just loved to interject some of the examples they gave.
And I don't remember which of these famous writers there were,
but wives who would lay out full outfits for their husbands.
So that was seben Freud's wife had to lay out
his outfit and put toothpaste on the toothbrush for him. Uh. Surprising,
(18:18):
but not surprising. So it was So he got to
his articles about penis envy. You gotta he's got to
think more about penis. He had a lot of good,
important things to do. Um, a lot of phalic. Uh.
One of the quotes I liked was, um, she talks
about She read an interview with Patti Scalfa, who is
Bruce Springsteen's wife, and she said how difficult it was
(18:40):
for her to write music for her solo album because
her kids kept interrupting her and demanding her time in
a way that they never would have her father of
their father. And I feel like that was the most
relatable part of the article to me, where I was like,
I'm just not allowed to be in my own home
doing work without someone walking in and talking at me. Um,
(19:03):
this is something I've learned because I like to walk
in and talk at people. You love it. You love
breaking a train of thought like nothing else. Um, But
I leave you alone way more than I used to.
That For the most part, I still feel like you're
there's something about it where you're like a magnet. It's
(19:24):
like a moth to a flame, Like if you're going
out the door in ten minutes and I'm like just
really trying to concentrate and I keep you keep basically
chasing me out of the room, Like I'm like, oh,
he's getting ready, I'll go in the other room. Oh
he's coming in here and talking at me. I'm going
to go in this other You're just like I noticed,
but I just don't. Sometimes I don't notice until I'm
(19:44):
in the middle of it, and then I'm like, oh here,
I am, okay, all right. I used to It took
me a long time to notice at all. Yeah, but
I get it also, you know we I relate to
this on a certain level of the like the fragmented day,
(20:07):
because today I was home all day, which which is
such a dream, like I don't that hasn't happened in months,
where I basically had nine to five uninterrupted and I
got so much done, and it was like, this is
a mirror my favorite days. And I think part of
which he kind of hands out in this article is
like the creative process I think requires you not only
(20:28):
to have enough time alone to like physically get the
work done, but you have to have a little bit
of brain space to let your mind wander in the week,
to actually experience pleasurable activities so that you can sit
down feeling like a little bit charged and like inspired
and not just like you know, trying to like quantify
(20:50):
your workload, you know what I mean. And and I
think that's the hard part. I think is like even
when I do have the space to work, it's like
to get that full day is kind of rare to
just like devote to like your one thing that you
you know what I mean. Um, So yeah, and oh
there was a quote in here as there was a
(21:11):
statistic that said a study of thirty two families in
Los Angeles found that the uninterrupted leisure time of most
mothers lasted, on average, no more than ten minutes at
a stretch. This is modern women are talking about. Yeah,
I mean that statistic is sort of horrifying to me.
And like introvert who likes to have my own headspace. Yeah,
(21:34):
and obviously we're it's it's rare that wives have to
deal with Freud's um but it still is the thing
that that was really interesting. In that article of you know,
they compared men and women in the academic arena, and
(21:55):
they had the same amount of time to work during
their work day, but women had twice as much unpaid
labor to do after work and like that whole day
still now on average, Um, there's far more to do.
And I'll also say just that, like, you know, because
(22:16):
our our schedules are pretty similar, and I think at
this point we're doing the same amount of of of
housework and all that. But there is something about, like
I can ignore our kids better than you can, partially
because there's not hounding you, Like well yeah, partially because
(22:36):
I can block them out and do it, but they
give up on me and they ignore me much more
than they Also part of it is like they need
to be interacted with, So like on Sunday, I went
to the coffee shop to work, and then you took
them outside to the sprinklers. So then they came in
tired and like you know, sort of spent a little
(23:01):
bit and they and when I got home, they actually
sat and watched TV and I was able to continue
working in the other room for the first time in ever,
like it was the first time I've really had like
a full half hour stretch of work where I was like,
I can't believe they haven't bothered me. And I think
part of why it's hard for me to do that
(23:22):
with them is sometimes because you're you're able to not
interact with them for so many hours that when I
come in there like someone interact with us now, like, well,
i'll tell you you're you're not wrong because you're understand right.
And on Sunday that is exactly what I was thinking,
(23:43):
because I'll tell you what. I don't want to go
to the playground. I don't want to go outside. I
don't want to do anything. Because when I was leaving,
I said, you should try to get them outside. I know,
and I take them outside not because it's and I
do this regularly now. I take them outside and I
take her to do things, not because I want to,
but because because of you. Well, it's good for everyone's
(24:06):
mental health, it is, I agree. But I'm just being
totally honest about where I live in a selfish brain.
Almost everything I do, I'm just like, I just want
my wife to be happy. But in the end, I'm happier,
my kids are happier. You're happier, and it's the thing
I should have been doing in the first place. Can
we just acknowledge that I'm always right and I always
have good ideas, and if you just got on board
(24:27):
with them sooner, everything would be a hundred perfect um.
But I'll give you. I have to say the time,
I love our new food routine. We're eating real meals,
balanced meals, a lot of fish. I mean the routine
where I now buy food and I cook food, you
cook full meals. I love it. And I was saying
(24:51):
to you years ago when I was in a postpartum stupor,
I was like, I need real food. I was like,
I literally don't know what that is or how to
do it or how to listen. I gotta go to
an improv show. But You're like, I'm sorry, the best
way for me to support this family is to teach
every night of the week. Well, it literally was at
(25:13):
the time. Money. Yeah, now we're loaded. We're so loaded.
We really needed books and commercials Like yesterday anyway, that
a lot of women I know, I think that article
really resonated with them today, and I thought it was
nice to hear people talking about it. Resonated with me
(25:35):
part of it. I'm not saying. I'm not saying, oh,
I totally get it. I'm experiencing the same thing, but
just with the ideal with the kids a lot, and
then the groceries and all of this. And I'm even
when I'm home nine going for an audition that's three hours,
and I constantly have this feeling that like I never
have enough time to get into a thing. Um, I
(25:57):
realized that for many women, that's that's the historically. Well,
I have to also admit acknowledge my great grandfather. You
have to Jim Jim James Alexander Hamilton's so he was
a big medical hospital administration and professor an blah blah blah.
(26:22):
Please make this article about women about your grandfather. Well,
he wrote a letter to the wives I think it's
like the wives of his of his students, grad students,
his grad students, explaining like their role, um, and that
like you know, when your husbands are going to be
(26:44):
working on important things all day long, so when they
come home they need to it needs to be a
relaxing place, like they need to be handed a cocktail
the second they walk in the door. And it's boy,
I've read the letter and it's it's real embarrassing and
it's outdated. But even at the time, I think it
was outdated. That's why I think like these conversations we've
(27:09):
been having culturally about like the treatment of women, there's
always like with people, you know, like politicians like Joe
Biden or whatever, when they're like, all I did was
the things I was raised to do. It's like, yeah,
we know, we know it's been bad, and we're asking
you to stop. Um, yeah, and it's hard to I'm like,
it's it's really easy to be like, well, thank god,
(27:31):
we're not like Freud anymore. And it's like, oh, yeah,
you know. It's like it's got a half life, you know,
genera it's not nearly as bad, but it's still like,
not like I want to hear your morning rambles while
I'm trying to get my work done. Well, you just
don't like hearing me tell you things at any point,
(27:51):
so that's not true. Well, you just admitted that you
like me. Congratulations. This next segment is called would you Knows.
It's where we discuss parenting hypotheticals. We got one from
(28:16):
a listener and I'm going to read it now. Longtime
listener and I love this show since water appears to
be such a hot topic. I'm sorry. We thought we
were beyond the water topic. We're not here is this
podcast is about water now, parenting and hydration. It's we
(28:37):
don't do any research. We just whatever random thing a
listener tells us about water. That's the fact of the day. Well,
this is not a fact, this is a would you know,
so we're having fun with water. Here's a hypothetical for
you both. Um. I would call this hypothetical a little cheeky. Um.
Your son has a crippling fear of being around water.
(29:00):
He hates swimming, splash paths, and he says he never
wants to go near lakes or the ocean. Ever. You
have tried swim lessons, but to no avail. On the
other hand, he loves drinking water and drinks that recommended
amount every day and never asks you for sugary drinks.
(29:20):
He always says he prefers the taste of water to
all other drinks, and he thinks he always will. One day,
you take him to a hypnotist to see if you
can help him get over his sphere of swimming. This works.
After one session, he is suddenly able to completely overcome
his crippling fear and the whole new world as a
(29:40):
whole new world has opened up to him. Unfortunately, he
now suddenly is repulsed by the taste of water. What
do you do? Do you accept this trade off or
do you go back and try to undo undo the hypnosis?
Cheers Now, well, I'm definitely going back to that hypnotist.
I should get my mod back. We're not so fast.
(30:02):
Not so fast. This is designed to tear us apart
because everyone knows I hate drinking water, and everyone knows
you love the ocean. This question is designed to terrorism
apart because I don't think so. Yeah, she's trying to
admire as that I don't like drinking water and you
love the ocean, and so she's made a hypothetical where
(30:24):
we can't have it both ways. I don't think this
is meant to terrorists apont do. It's already working. You're
tearing us apart yourself, if your own accord. I I
love the ocean, but I want my child to drink
water to survive. So I'm going to try to land
(30:47):
on that outcome. If not, have the best of both
worlds and get the hypn tists to do their job right. Well,
just big make the hypnesists do their job right. Yeah, come,
they knew, they knew if there was a drawback, they
should have put that in the contract and warned me.
(31:08):
How would they know that by making them? Look, they
know how it works at this point, doesn't does not
their first hypnotism? What if it it was? It's not.
Why am I paying this person good money? If this
is the first time they've done something. Maybe it's our
new neighbors. Maybe it was a freebee. Again, you've got
(31:29):
to be specific with the details. Okay, what kind of hypnotism?
I don't want to this question. I don't know. If
we paid ten here's what I would do. Let's say
the hypnotism uh cost five bucks. Then you know, just
like once a week we take them back and switch.
He's like, he's probably pretty it's that important to get
(31:51):
your kid in the ocean every other week that you
want to prevent them from drinking water. I don't think
that he won't drink water. I think he just hates it. Oh,
it says he's suddenly repulsed by the taste of water
you can drink on a daily battle. You want to
(32:11):
have every other week just because you want to be
able to get this kid in the ocean. You can
drink other drinks that hydrate you, Peter, use your brain here,
it's I'm gatorade. Will buy a lot of gatorade. You're
a libre. Do you see the scales, the balancing scales, way,
the pros and cons? Here, boy, I'll tell you what.
(32:37):
This scenario is not suited for libres because what they're saying,
if this is a scale, is that you have all
the weight on one side or all the way on
the other. They didn't say that that can't. No, that
was your own addendum to the question where you throw
a hypothetical every other week scenario. They did not say
that in the question. I didn't say. Well, they said
(32:59):
it's repulsed by water, or loves the ocean, or the
complete other way around. Phil, you did this on purpose.
You're you know what I don't. I'd love water. Water
is great. I think it tastes great, feel good when
I drink it. And by the way, I've been drinking
(33:21):
a lot of water and I feel better. We've been
over this all relevant points. Thank you. Although okay, so
oh my god, so as you know, because I've mentioned
it every morning. I'm skinnier than I have been in
(33:43):
four or five years. The question was just about the
ocean versus Yeah, but but I want to brag about
how skinny. This is a body positive podcast. Yeah, I was,
I was. I've been not. I've been drinking a lot
of water, but recently I've been not drinking water so
that I wake up super dehydrated, so that the scale
(34:03):
a little bit not healthy. It's not healthy. But then
I drink a ton of water after I step on
the scale. Well, that's between you and your god. You'll
never meet my god. It's my secret. Yeah, I guess
we'd make him drink water. I agree, beth Um, if
(34:25):
we could drink water versus swimming, I say, drink water. Well,
thank you. I hope you're happy, though, Bellerie, and this
has been would you doze? And now it's time for
(34:50):
do you know what they said? This is where we
talk about something our kids said? Uh? So I quickly
wanted to say the The other day I overheard Brent singing,
like humming to himself, and he was like, do you
hear the people sing? What? He was like literally singing
(35:10):
La mass which I thought you would appreciate. Another thing
he's been saying to me lately when I started singing
is he says, I like it when you sing, but
not right now, which is a really sick burn. Um.
Maybe it's what I'd saying that to me, Could you
not sing please? Brinds is really nice. He's like, I
(35:32):
like it when you sing, but not right now. He's
figuring out that compliment. Sandwich good head of hr um.
He said, Oh, so he was talking about like what
would happen if we didn't get oxygen? And I was like, well,
we would die. And then he was like, so what
happens when we die? And then I kind of like
(35:53):
vaguely said something about like heaven ish whatever, and he goes,
so we're imaginary. And my mind was blown because I
was like, actually, yes, like that is the most likely scenario. Um,
(36:14):
the most likely scenario is that we are imaginary. I
what's really strange synchronicity wise, is that after he said
that to me, I went to lay down in bed
and I was listening to Oprah's podcast and she had
Eckhart toll On, who's like this big spiritual guy, and
he was like the only thing that we know for
a fact as human beings is that our consciousness exists.
(36:37):
We know that we're experiencing this on some level. Therefore,
our consciousness is the one guaranteeable thing in this world.
Like you can't prove that a cup is real, you
know what I mean. But so it was so weird
to hear Britt say that and then here that podcast
and be like, whoa, he's Brent knows. He's like, he knows,
(37:04):
he's a spiritual thought leader. Yeah. So Brince had some
funny things to me. We did we try to catch
up on our journal. We're about a month and a
half behind. So I asked him a ton of questions
and we didn't catch up entirely, but there are a
few things he said that um gave you made me chuckle. Uh. So,
(37:29):
if you don't know, we have this great journal question
a day three day calendar. Um. So I asked him,
what are three words to describe your neighborhood? And then
Bryn goes neighborhood and go, yeah, where we live. And
then he just starts looking around and he did a
real like Steve Carrell for Mancorman. Where he went He
(37:50):
looked out the window, he goes, I like the cars.
Three words described the neighborhood, and he said I like
the cars, and looking around, I like the milk, and
then looking around again and he goes, I like this
musical instrument. And then he picks up our harmonica and
starts singing through through it, going do do Do Do
(38:11):
Do Do do, And then he dropped the harmonica on
the ground and walked out of the room. Amazing, amazing.
He you know, he started pouring his own milk, which
is amazing and terrifying. Yeah, this morning tonight, I walked
in and he had poured a the biggest glass we
have full of coconut water. He doesn't understand proportions or
(38:33):
speed or the weight of the carton how that factors in,
but he's going for it. Um. I asked Brian and Mamon,
what are three words to describe your family. Brin actually
understood this question and he said, goofy, silly and cool.
(38:56):
Nailed it. Maven said I'm scared. I don't know what
that was about. Very similar to when they were doing
impressions of you sleeping on you in your Instagram video
and Mayven kept saying blood I'm bloody. I'm bloody, an
incredible bit where Britdin goes, look, I'm daddy sleeps like this,
(39:17):
and then he lays down and he goes and then
it turned into bathing, goes, daddy sleeps like this, I'm bloody.
I'm bloody, which is insane and creepy and where did
that money? It's a perfect impression of you. She's like,
you get this old creep over here? How he sleeps?
(39:39):
I mean, in her defense being covered in blood. Guy's
nuts bloody in my dreams. Um. The question is are
you loud, quiet or in between? And Brin went super
loud and I go, Maven, are you loud quieter? In between?
(40:01):
And then she said and then it got down on
her hands and knees and crawled backwards out of the room.
I was like, those are two very different, my girl, okay,
and I think this is the last one I'm gonna do.
The question is who drives you crazy? Why? And Brent
(40:25):
says it's mommy because I love her and she drives
and she makes me go, ah, this car is crazy
as if and he mind, as if you were driving
a car all crazy? Yeah, Well, I forgot to tell
you when I pick up the kids. I run around
all over the road, and you go, I'm driving like crazy.
(40:48):
And I asked maybe the same question, and I said,
maybe who drives you crazy? And she said, Mommy, I
want to drive crazy like this. So they took it
real literally, yeah, because that's what I literally do and
how I drive. Well, ye's very irresponsible. I can't help it.
(41:13):
Last one, what's the wildest thing you've ever done? Prince says,
eating too much sugar and not being sick and this
is his life's achievement. Oh you know what they're saying.
You know what they said? What is this segment called
forget it? Darndest? Would This next segment is called listeners
(41:47):
want to knows. That's where we take some questions and
comments from you guys. Oh right, you know what. It's
time to do an email. Episodes almost over, Gonna have
one more. This. This is actually what I got lost
in my inbox. This is from I think maybe a
long time ago, but somebody wrote in Joanne a long
(42:09):
time ago about her son I believe, who had a
problem with wiping his boogers on the wall next to
his bed. And there, as she there was a problem,
he couldn't stop She asked us for advice because, like,
you know, because we're experts. Uh, and I think our
(42:33):
our advice was maybe try putting a target on the wall. Yeah.
I think we said to put up like a poster
or something, right, Yeah, like a cleanex with a target,
a target drawn on it, which, you know what, great idea?
Um and Joanna wrote back in to report on the progress.
(42:53):
I hope this male finds you well, as you asked
to report back on our snot wall issue, you I am.
I'm happy to say that no new snots were added
to the wall last night, and this makes me hopeful
for the future. You heard tips of sticking kleen X
on the wall and to create a snot target, where
great suggestions that we did not follow. She's like, yeah,
(43:20):
I want to make it more unsightly on my kids snife.
Thanks guys. Instead, we kept issuing lame threats and getting
grossed out. Finally, my husband took a turn on the
d snotting front. Yesterday afternoon. Our son's bedroom shares a
wall with the kitchen where my son and I were chatting.
(43:42):
Throughout our chat, we heard the unmistakable sound of a
of a gag coughing man through the wall. I explained
to my son that his snots were making Daddy feel sick.
This concerned my son gravely. He asked me if Daddy
was going to be okay, to which I slowly replied,
(44:02):
I think so. He seemed truly remorseful. I think we're
getting somewhere. Have a great evening, and thanks for your support,
Joe Anne. How did you know I was going to
read this in the evening. It's remarkable. That's a weak
stomach gridesnot. You can't be that gross. I mean, I
(44:26):
do think that's an effective parenting technique to give your kid,
like a vivid depiction of how their behavior affects other people.
You know what, That's actually a really good point. And
I found successful versions of that and not successful versions. Well,
it's like tonight when Raven was trying to rub her
raw apple all over me, which I am allergic to,
(44:46):
and I feel like she was just doesn't understand what
allergic means. And then you had to paint a picture
for her of me getting sick and she eventually stopped
when I because I try to guilt. It's not a
great tactic. I try a guilt trip. I think guilt
is sometimes a good tactic. If I am annoyed or
(45:10):
emotional and he sees that in me, then like any
started parenting, that's all he sees is that there's an aggressive,
aggressive person in front of you, and the emotions are
all they see and he doesn't observe the information. So
if I am calm and matter of fact and I
can get him to actually listen to me, then painting
a picture of another person and what they're going through
(45:33):
and how it affects you. Experienced this new habit he
has of spitting on you. No, I heard that from
the other room. What was that? He just he I
think he just discovered it out of the blue, and
we were like play wrestling or something. He just like
spat at me, and I was like obviously grossed out,
and then he got a reaction, so then he kept
(45:54):
trying to do it. Was sort of like phart noises
splatter or like a Hawka lugi at you, like really
spit at me. So that happened over the weekend, and
then tonight he like did it again out of the blue,
and I was like, we don't spit and then he
pulled back and I don't know if someone else talked
to him about it, but he seemed to take it
(46:14):
slightly more seriously. But now I'm like, I just never
know if I'm gonna get spit on. I just never
know if I'm going to get spo on. What's the
deal from the two times that's happened in my whole life,
I just never know. I'm not a fan of it.
I'm not either. I can't think of a single time
(46:34):
someone spit on me and I've been cool about it. Good, Um,
I did hear you? You laid down the law. That
was good. That was a really good stern but not
overly emotional, like, hey, I'm being serious. Thank you. Well,
time will tell Yeah, he won't do that to me.
(46:57):
Good luck. We do not spit, Yes, we do. You're
you sound like the kind of guy I want to
spit on. Well, hey, podcasts over, you want to go
spit on me? That was gross, really really unnecessary gross.
I didn't mean it to be sexy. All right, let's
(47:18):
see the action. This is about another episode of We
Knows Parenting. Please find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. We
Knows pod is the handle. Check it out. Find us
if you'd like to submit a question, share a story,
give some advice, or share a parenting hypothetical for the
(47:39):
Wood You Knows segment. You're welcome to email us at
we Knows pod at gmail dot com, or you can
leave us a voicemail at three four seven three eight
four seven three nine six. Hey how about leave us
a rating and review? And you know we've had a
lot of great reviews on Apple Podcasts say a very
sexy podcast for parents, so we haven't. Should we have
(47:59):
a new umped? What should the new review be? Beth
a mostly sexy podcast? Yeah, like, uh, this podcasts bed
ain't creaking. We'll work on it's somebody. How about the
title should be this parenting podcast got Me pregnant? Please
(48:20):
please please review the podcast with this parenting podcast got
Me pregnant amazing. Even if you don't, we love you.
Have a great night.
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
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