There’s No Manual

This week, while Peter solo parents in New York, Beth calls in from out of state with special guest and co-author Jackie Ann Ruiz. Beth and Jackie’s book “There’s No Manual: Honest & Gorey Wisdom About Having a Baby,” is available TODAY wherever you get books!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
I got to Oh, hello, welcome that we does parenting.
I'm Peter McNerney and I'm Beth Nowell in the woods.
I'm in the woods. I'm outside of Richmond, Virginia. I'm
down here for a book released party tomorrow night. Babes,

(00:28):
it's tonight. If they're listening to this, it's tonight baby.
By the time you're listening to this, it's tonight yesterday,
depending on when you listen. Babes of Carrytown, Richmond, Virginia. Um, anyway,
we I'm here with Jackie, my co author. Oh, we've
got some kids waking up. Oh my gosh, this is

(00:52):
this is gonna be extra Keep explaining yourself if I
should be quiet. Um, the we've disturbed a second household
with our loud podcasting. So where are you right now?
I don't even know. I am at Jackie's house outside
of Richmond, and she's putting her daughter back to bed,

(01:14):
who just overheard us recording a podcast And she was
asleep and she's like, why are people projecting? So clearly
I must get out of bed and investigate. Is someone
promoting a book event? That's what she was thinking. I'm interested. Um. Yeah,

(01:36):
so we FaceTime you earlier with the kids. That was
fun boy. I gotta say so. Jackie has two kids,
very similar ages to our two kids, and they have
they talked before they hit it off. They have talked before,
but not in a while. So they were really connecting
and and Britain said to Rocket, he was like, how

(01:58):
old are you? Like? He clearly is like, this is
a cool person and I need to know how I
measure up. He's like, are you my peer? I think
you're somebody I can connect with on an intellectual level.
And then she showed him that she lost her two
bottom teeth, and then he lied and said that he
lost a tooth in the back of his mouth, conveniently

(02:19):
that you know, the place where you can't easily show
someone over FaceTime. I've lost one way in the back.
He's a big liar. Um. So we're we're I'm home alone,
solo parenting. It's going great so far. Can I say
I took I took them out to dinner and I

(02:40):
was in a good mood, so I was just practicing
full deflection instead. Anytime they got cranky or said no
to something, I just decided, no matter what, I'm not
gonna I'm not going to be a rigid wall. I'm
just gonna get out of the way and redirect and
day positive. Did you say I'm not going to be

(03:02):
a rigid mom. No, that would be very offensive if
I said that, are rigid. I think I said wall,
like you know, you know when they do something you
want them to stop, and you media they are like, no,
that's sort of like you're not getting by me at all.
I picture it like when I'm doing my best parenting,

(03:26):
not soft, but just I'm trying to redirect. I'm trying
to get out of the way of the conflict, like
just like let it get past me, and then when
it's less threatened, to point it towards a productive direction.
And it was super successful. Um, okay, so we can
talk about the really the best thing in the world

(03:47):
that happened today, finally some relief on the housing front
we were in. Did you feel it like I got
that text that it happened and I just felt the
weight of the universe lift off of me. Yeah. Well,
I was telling Jackie today, I feel like the energy

(04:07):
is shifting around us. Yeah, that's an understatement. I'm offended
at how how how underwhelming a description that is of
how I feel. I feel invincible, and now we can

(04:30):
do everything else. Now we can move on with our lives.
Now we can talk about it, Now we can plan.
We can plan our lives sort of. Yeah. Yeah, that's
I think that's why. That put me in the mood
where I'm like, I'm gonna try positive parenting tonight. You
know what, if they get mad, fine, I'm just gonna redirect.
I wasn't any sort of special parent tonight. I was

(04:51):
just in a good mood, which makes it a lot
easier to deal with bratty children. Yeah, because like, I'm
not taking things personally. I don't care. I'm fine. I
have a house now, so you kids can't hurt my feelings. Yeah,
your homeowner invincible? Yeah, dude, I'm a home owner. Homeowner.

(05:12):
You know I have no problems. I'll be super stressed
in two days as like the reality of what's next
comes into play. Yeah. So how does it feel to
be free from your kids and your husband and with
your with the best friend and and no responsibilities. Um,

(05:36):
it feels good. I wouldn't say there's no responsibilities, but
I mean I I went from hanging out with my
kids to hang out with someone else's kids, so it's
it's fun. It was a pretty similar trade in terms. Yeah,
it's like actually less annoying when someone else's kids are

(05:58):
jumping on you because you're like, you don't take it personally.
You're not like this person jumps on me every day
of my life. It's also I'm not responsible for stopping this.
I don't need to teach them anything. Go for it,
kill me, you know what, jump on me. Go ahead. Um,

(06:20):
Jacky's daughter Rocket said something, or she was she said
something about me being a mom now, or she's like
she was like, this is what it's like to be
our mom. You never get a break. It was like
very on point. I was like, oh, I know, tell

(06:42):
me about it, Rocket. But on that note, I think
we should introduce our guest. Um, alright, great, I don't
want to keep talking about her while she's here. I mean,
for the record, we've heard her giggling in the background
for at least five minutes. Yeah, well, I've been trying
to introduce her. I also quietly choked and ran away.
She had a whole choking thing. If you catch it,

(07:06):
go back. It's the easter egg in the episode Find it. Um. Yeah,
so we have here Jackie and Ruise, my co author
in There's No Manual and also illustrator of everything. Um. Yeah,
those illustrations are incredible and I love it. Thank you

(07:30):
so much. I always look at all the pictures first
before I read a word. Well, that makes me feel
superior to your wife, and that basically my goal in
doing this whole thing, So thank you very much for that.
And all the illustrations are a lot of like vaginas
and boobs, which I think and when anyone like passing

(07:52):
by the book who picks it up, I think is
going to be a little taken in by that. Yeah,
I think they are compelling. I think we have we
we have dedicated a shocking amount of time to talking
about the vagina illustrations in your book between last week
and this week? Did we? I guess? This week Beth

(08:13):
found out that I used that I've been drawing vaginas
with spiderwebs coming out of them since I was a teenager.
What seemed really offended that I didn't disclose that earlier. Well,
I was to find out because last Christmas I sent
Jackie a needle point I did of a human spider
woman with a spiderweb coming out of her vagina and

(08:39):
about her wall. And she never told me that she,
as a child would draw spider women, because I just
decided that it was like ancestral knowledge that you already
had about me if you were to make me an
embroidery like that apropos of nothing. Yeah, there's no part
of you that was like, oh weird, I relate to this,

(09:01):
Let me share it. You're just like, oh, yes, of course,
she was like, and like when check out my portfolio,
she was like she never acknowledged that, like, oh, this
speaks to me on a soul level. Did so? How
old are you when you started drawing, drawing cobwebs in vaginas?

(09:24):
I think I was about sixteen. It was always the
same pose of like a woman laying down and all
you could see was like her belly and her boobs
and then like her spread out legs and then a
spider web emerging from inside of her vagina. Was like,
that was my phone doodle for some reason? Was there
because I could see I could see I could see that,

(09:48):
I could see the tone of a drawing like that
going a lot of different directions. I could see it
as a like horror. I could see it as sad,
I could see it as empowering. Um, how would you
describe the tone of these illustrations. Um, I think they
were expository. Mostly they were sort of like a medical

(10:12):
a medical exploration. In my mind, I'm picturing a Shell
Silverstein like quality. That's exactly what I was picturing. Yeah,
I want to be Shelley Silverstein. And um, it involves

(10:34):
a lot of vaginas Shelly, Shelly Silverste. I feel like shell. Yeah. UM,
I love this. This made a thing of something your
daughter told me tonight on FaceTime. UM, I love her
passion for snakes. Yes, um use me like my I

(10:58):
love snakes. And then the first thing she told me,
I don't remember exactly what she said, but she was
fascinated with, um, um, like the insides of snakes, like
like the spine of snakes. Oh, she wants to be
a veterinarian for snakes only. And she said, I want
to see what they look like inside. She said, I
want to be That's her like when people ask her

(11:18):
what she wants to be, she says, I want to
be a reptile veterinarian because I want to know what
the inside of a snake looks like it's a very
like psychopath esque, fascinating but healthy. She and you know what,
she does, have like a weird connection with snakes. And

(11:39):
we went into a pet store and there was like
a a few pythons up on this top tank and
I had to lift her up to look into the tank,
and the snake just lifted up its head and went
it just like in Harry Potter and was staring at
h She is totally in Slytherin. She's a Slytherin with

(11:59):
Griffin door rye sing, Huh do you want to talk
about astrology now? Well, I just want to say, making
astrology into a Harry Potter analogy is the first time
I've been mildly interested in it. Um. I stole that
from my friend Gina. I just want to admit that
that's She says she's a slither with Hufflepuff rising, and

(12:20):
I think it's really good. Yeah. I think I might
be a Griffin door with a Hufflepuff rising. I think
you might be a hufflepuff with a Griffin door rising. Wow,
she just read you well. As I was saying that,
in my mind, the first thing I thought is Beth

(12:42):
would say the opposite of what I'm saying. And now
you're talking to two best I really am, I'm really
talking to the two of you. Is great, it's exciting,
it's exhilarating, and it's also the worst thing in the
world because you ready hopelessly I mean when I'm just

(13:04):
alone with Beth listeners, No, I'm hopelessly outnumbered. Yeah, I
don't know what we're counting. I take up so much
air and that's just Yeah, you take up more presents
than I do, even though I use ten times more words. Literally,
you cut every segment with you making a really funny

(13:24):
joke and then cut it real quick. Oh somebody noticed, Yeah,
well that's not the one that's going to give a
ham fisted button so that we can move on to
the next thing. No, I've been trying to move on
for the last like five minutes, and you're not picking
up on the We gotta sell it. I don't understand

(13:47):
that you're done unless you mug to the audience. Clear
your cash. Yeah, you should just be ending it with
one of our catchphrases like clear cash anyway, clear your cash.
Oh boy, um boy, this is going very well. Um

(14:09):
so can you tell us, Um, I'm sad I won't
be able to be at this at this event tomorrow night.
What can folks expect? Um, I'm redirecting it away from
me being the target. The two of us will be,
There'll be books available. They'll also just be an event

(14:29):
available at a lesbian bar to the event. An event available,
is it the same event that is your event? Or
is there another event available? I started to stress out
about like what we needed to do to plan and
prepare for our party, and like asked the guy at
chop Suity Books who organized it for Asward, what I

(14:50):
should do, like what my jobs were, and he was like,
you don't have to do anything. And then Beth was like,
I feel like at a lesbian bar, the less we do,
the cooler it will be. Well. I also think, like
I when you do events in other states, no matter
how much communication you have with the people involved, sometimes

(15:11):
you're like, you just don't know until you get there
if there's a microphone or stage or even a room available.
Like so, I sometimes think, you know, you don't want
to you want to have a loose plan. Yeah, we
don't know what's going to happen. You should definitely come
and we're getting tattoos of tits snakes on our arms

(15:33):
right before we go. Yeah, I'm sorry what you'll see
when I get home? Did you say tits snakes? Yeah?
I mean if you will want a clue, you'll have
to leave through the pages of There's no manual, honest
and gory wisdom about having a baby. Oh yes, I

(15:54):
do know the tits snakes. But when you said tits snakes,
I pictured first um, a snake with just a big
set of boobs, and then secondly I thought of a
chest that had two snakes coming out of it. There
it's like, I have to tell you an unrelated story

(16:15):
today Tonight Rockets stop the presses. Jackie' daughter Rocket Tonight said,
she said, Beth, I like your voice. And then she
was like, she was like, you're always like cool, and
she goes, it's like you're tired. And it was the

(16:38):
biggest read I've ever experienced in life. And she stayed
on her for ten minutes. Anytime best said anything, she
was like, there you're doing it again. Boy, Now you
know what it's like to be married to you. She's smart,
she's good. Boy. I want to see her and brand

(17:02):
hang out. I can tell right out like she can.
She can hang and she's one person. I think you
could just destroy him. Yeah, she's a dumb He's gonna
you know, he'll argue any point and she'll subvert it
and make him instantly realize that. I think he would

(17:24):
fall in line pretty quickly. I think he would have to. Yeah,
he could tell right away, like when he was like,
how old are you? He could already tell, like he
was like, she's lost two teeth. All right, you're my
you're my intellectual. He's like, I can work with this.
I'll just say I've lost teeth. They're in the back.

(17:44):
You can't see him, that's all um. Anyway, should we
talk about the book? Yeah, you know what. You know what, though,
let's take a little break, let's hear delightful ad and
then we'll come back. You know what, I'm not going
to button this segment. You are all right? And that

(18:22):
was time for everyone's favorite segment, segment, segment segment. Did
you notice that my wife and Jackie wrote a book
still and we're excited about it and it came out
today every one's favorite segment. Guys, It literally is coming
out today, which is very exciting, and I have a

(18:42):
copy of the book in my hand, so I thought
i'd play a game called flip to a random page
and ask you about it. Sounds good, that sounds delightful,
all right? Oh, I flipped to a good page. Pregnancy sex. Oh,
Nancy sex. That's an illustration of my vibrator that you're

(19:03):
looking at right now. Does your vibrator have little googly
eyes and it looks like it's shouting with its alarms.
We had a lot of good back and forth where
I would assign Jackie illustrations. I would say, hey, could
you do a little vibrator person, because it would be
great if you just had like a little illustration right there.

(19:26):
And then when we handled in the manuscript and there
was like a hundred and nine illustrations and they were
like your contracts said thirty five. Why did you do this?
It was all Beth made me do it. I like,
the little vibrator looks like it's going hi Hi, It's
it's shouting to the heavens. This is this is fun

(19:51):
where I'm just going to describe illustrations to people. Um,
there's there's uh, there's two there's two segments. Chapter headings
in Pregnancy Sex Clutorial pleasure is your friend, and the
other one is Orgasms are different. I'm just gonna say
right now, I'm intrigued by orgasms are different. Will you explain? Well,

(20:12):
I think you know. One thing we talked about in
the book is that when your pregnancy hormones funk up
your whole body, it's kind of unpredictable how anything's going
to affect any one person. So someone one person might
be like vomiting all day and another person might not
have that much. It may be orgasming all day, might
be orgasming all day. So you have like increased hormones,

(20:36):
increased blood flow. And for some people those kind of
things can equal too much sensitivity or a newfound sensitivity
that they wished they'd had, or a newfound desire that
they wish they'd had before pregnancy. So it's like it
can go all different kinds of ways. And then um,
when you have a person, you know, weighing down your

(20:57):
whole uterus, your orgasms cans start to feel different. Thing,
that's the end. Yeah, they could be painful um or
trigger contractions, or they can be just shittier than regular
orgasms where they can feel like a hiccup and you
feel cheated at the end of it. Yeah. Interesting, that

(21:21):
sounded sarcastic, but it genuinely was. All Right, you guys,
ready for another random segment? All right, here we go.
Should I have a home birth? This is a flow chart?
Um so, jackiees are a really cool flow chart of
whether you should have a home birth or not? And
I mean you have in front of you. It starts with,

(21:43):
would you prefer a midwife or a doctor? Um? A midwife.
If a midwife is appealing to you, then it says noise,
is your pregnancy low risk? Uh? No, okay, this is great,
but so let's segment to this a beth, Um, Jackie,

(22:04):
did you you had did you had a you had
a home Do you had a home birth? I had
to home birth. I had one home birth in Brooklyn
on the fifth floor of an apartment building in Flatbush.
And um, then when I moved to Richmond, I had
a home birth in a regular house where I wasn't
afraid the pool was going to break through the floor,

(22:26):
and in my old tenement. Um so I really run
the gamut of home births. Boy, you saying that just
now because we we were planning a home birth for
Brian that didn't pan out and we ended up at
the hospital at the birthing center, but that was for
some reason. The thing I couldn't get out of my

(22:47):
head is the idea that this tub would burst and
just a full tub of water would leak down into
our neighbors and we had just moved here, and that
would be the fucking terrified all the time? Can you
are left to Chris? Yeah, you just live in a
state of like elevated fear when you live in New York.

(23:09):
So the idea of a giant body of water being
suspended instead of your living room is really stressful. That's
why we got out of town. Um two weeks after
I gave birth in Brooklyn, I was in the elevator
holding my newborn baby, and um, this couple was like, oh,
she's so cute, and I was like thanks, I had
her in the building and they were like, oh, that

(23:30):
was you. We thought somebody was getting murdered and they
didn't do anything. Yeah, just like because they like it
sounds like murder, but it's but not quite right. So
we won't call the police as long as they clean
up after themselves. That was That is something I was

(23:54):
also really stressing out about. You know, I probably should
have been more worried about my life and her well being,
but I was like, should I tell the neighbors that
this is going to happen in case they hear something? Yeah,
to dress anyone out. They just don't People don't know
if you're laboring before you go to the hospital or

(24:15):
if you're actually pushing a baby out, Like, how would
they know the difference? Right? Um? Alright, I flipped to
another random Patriot right for this do we seem angry? No? Never? Um?

(24:36):
This page has a I'm drawn to the illustrations no
pun intended. Uh, here's a circle where it hurts illustration
a postpartum activity sheet plus safe space to complain. And
it's a lovely drawing of a naked woman in sort
of a arms and legs splayed type of anatomical diet Graham.

(25:00):
It's kind of the same position where the spider webs
would come out of the vagina. I really see it now, um.
And then there's a lot of labels and arrows, like,
for example, there's an arrow pointed to to the crotch
that just says destroyed. Question mark um fired and then
the boobs have flames coming off of them, and there's

(25:23):
a label that says hashtag fire tits but fires with
a y exclamation fire fast because we're millennials. Yeah. Do
you feel like this book came out too late to
really to really hit the full potential of a firefest joke? Yeah,

(25:45):
well we didn't. If we had had a heads of
the firefest was going to happen ahead of time, we
would have time the release of the book for that
joke to hit. I mean, this is a segment where
I critique the book. Um, other labels. Brain seems gone
up here? Uh, skin of a corpse pointing to the face, Uh,

(26:09):
team level acne new third eye never stops crying. Well, boy,
that's deep. I added that one. In the final edit,
things got considerably darker. That's that's the one where I laughed.
I'm like, oh, that's funny. And then there's layers. There's

(26:31):
layers to that joke. Yeah, and I get it. Sometimes
you're writing a book for three years while your children
tuget your sleeves the whole time, and then you get
a divorce. Uh yeah, um, every time, I may every time,
you guys say something really heavy. I'm about to make

(26:53):
a big trans shift into a new topic, and it's
just because I'm reading this. Um never mind saucage fingers
A nope, nothing, I don't have time. Creaky and painful joints.
Hair is falling out in clumps, walking hurts, ankles. Ankles

(27:14):
are gone forever question mark with a little rest in peace, tombstone.
This might be my favorite page so far. I don't
know why. It's really satisfying to hear other people laugh
at your jokes. It's kind of weird to hear illustrations narrated, though,
as if this is like a listening service. It does

(27:37):
feelbility training. Oh my god, in another life, that's my
perfect job, miling and she doesn't look happy, but she
doesn't look sad either. It's like she's doing her job
and that and it's fine. That's actually the description of
the book. That's um. Oh oh god, I found the

(28:09):
best one on this. There's a word bubble pointing to
the stomach says loose stomachs can assemble resembles map of
Middle Earth. You got me with the nerd joke. It
was specifically for you, But that's your joke. I am.
I am eight feet away from the complete Atlas of

(28:30):
Middle Earth book. Now do you care about women's bodies? Yes,
that's what I've been saying all along. Just make it
accessible for me. That will be your next book. It's
like a journey to the center. The manual for being
a affluent white male father, all written and Elvish everywhere. Um, alright, great,

(29:06):
I'm going to women. That's the whole book. Let's just
be nice to women in Elvish spelled out across the
hundred pages, and it's a puzzy you have to translate it.
Men are simple beasts. I'm not going to argue with that. Um.

(29:31):
This segment is called the Weirdness of Labor. Ah. Yeah,
we were trying to get out how weird it is?
Why is it weird? I think, how is it weird?
When is it weird? Why is it weird? Part of
what we're trying to get out with this book is
to try to put words to experiences that no one

(29:52):
had ever told us about in our lives. Like you
kind of like are like no matter how much information
and you're given, it's not like no one really describes
it in the visceral like the way that you can
wrap your head around. Like I wish someone had told
me that when you give birth, there is a very

(30:13):
specific smell, yeah, which we describe as like an enormous
hot like popped blister. It's not bad, it's not good,
but it's just like you're sure of exactly what it is, yea.
And being pregnant really puts you a dutch with your
body in a lot of interesting ways. Boy, the smell

(30:37):
of birth really is there's nothing like it. There's an
emotional connection to it. I mean, obviously I'm speaking as
as a dad. No one really talks about like after
you push the baby out and you're like meeting your baby,
like your body is shaking uncontrollably for no reason, and

(30:57):
then there's a there's a reason, well there, yeah, but
like no one's told you the reason. So you're like,
am I having a stroke? Is something bad happening? Are
these drugs hurting my body? Like? And everyone's like, oh no, No,
that's just the thing that your hormones do. That happens
like almost every time. You're just shaking a lot, But
no one told you that, Like, yeah, I mean this

(31:20):
is the one. The first thing I've said about the
book over and over is that it is a visceral experience,
unlike anything I've ever Everything else I read is clinical,
and this makes me feel like I'm getting a taste
of actually feeling the experience. Yeah, that's why we want
all men in America to buy this book and read it.

(31:43):
I mean, honestly by it for their sons and their grandsons.
Buy this for your teenage boys, your grandfather's for the bathroom.
I've been reading it to brand a chapter at night. Good,
that's not true. I haven't we read a We read
a four page pamphlet on groundhogs that he brought home

(32:04):
from school tonight. Yeah. If I mean, if if Brin
read this book, then he would start doing like standard
monologues about being married to a head of own sexual
man like these men. Boy, Brin is gonna brands. It's
not too long before Brent starts giving long lectures on

(32:28):
feminism to anyone who will listen. Are you ready for that, Beth? Yeah,
that's convincing. Um, here's a right. What I just left

(32:50):
to a new page? Does my baby have colic? Or
is he just an asshole? It's a good question. How
do you how do you answer that question, Well, the
answer is right there in front of you. I don't
have it in front of me, but it's colic. Is
crying for more than like more than three hour than

(33:13):
three hours certain number of days, Like there's a clinical
diagnosis for it, Yeah, there's there's yeah. But also, even
if your baby doesn't have colic, babies are very annoying
and cry a lot, and it can feel like your
baby has colague and you can still get just as
tired as someone whose baby does right. And with things

(33:34):
like colic and teething, there's just always this mystery where
you never really actually know if that's what's wrong with
your baby, or if they're sick or having a developmental
leap or whatever. While you know is that you have
to survive a weird week of an angry baby and
no sleep. Yeah, no sleep, and just no answers for

(33:56):
what is happening. That is the most in my own
experience being a parent. There's the most insane feeling of
of the there's nothing I can do. I've done everything
I I thought I knew how to do to soothe
the baby, to calm it down, and nothing is working.

(34:16):
And this is the closest to true madness I've ever felt. Yeah,
it's a literal torture technique to not let people sleep.
They're just dumb and they don't know how to live
well yet, and it's our jobs. They are pretty stupid. Yeah,
and they continue to be very stupid. Yeah, I mean

(34:37):
they don't. They want to stay up when they're too tired.
That is, idiots go to bed. It's good for you
to bed. It feels so nice, the pillows are great.
Eat your food. You're hungry. You're just saying no so
that you can be right. So Brind's doing now, He's like,
I'm not hungry, Like you just told me about how

(34:59):
you ate both of your snacks first thing in the
morning before school started, and you were hungry with today.
Eat these eggs. I fall into that trap like the
they seem so smart because they can mimic adult behavior.
And then I find myself just falling into that trap
of negotiating with Maven, and then I get angry and

(35:21):
frustrated that she's not being logical, and then I'm like,
what am I doing? She's three years old? Yeah, three
has been very tough. That like, there's just no I
feel like I'm just waiting for for otis to have
like a little bit more common sense, and there's nothing
I can do until that happens. And so we're going

(35:43):
to like he's going to scream at me in the
hallway because he wants to wear his sandals and it's
freezing and raining outside. He's going to be very upset
because he doesn't get it, because he's still young and dumb.
And it's mind to force it without being a mean mom,
and that's a hard job. Yeah. I just had to

(36:06):
remind myself recently Maven's has some really bad freakouts and
I was like, oh, yeah, Brin had a really really
terrible period and it was at the exact same age,
three and a half. Yeah, but they both had really
terrible periods at every age. Like I feel like everyone

(36:29):
about two andys about one, and they say every there
it's all hard, like that we're creating imaginary milestones in
a slug and then you instantly forget. And I love
that you guys have talked about like, don't ask anyone

(36:50):
about advice about having a baby who hasn't had a
newborn baby within the last year, because you forget readjust
to your new reality. So quick. That's what's supposed to happen,
so we'll have another baby. Because if you remembered just
how tired you were and how much should hurt evolutionary amnesia. Yeah,

(37:15):
it's all right. Look to another another page. Soft Instagram
filter Weird second trimester pregnancy symptoms. So each of the
each of the trimesters, you have this section, I believe
where you talking about weird symptoms. The symptoms are like

(37:36):
this one. Can I just read one that popped out
to me. You've got the hiccups in your butt? Can
you explain that when your babies inside you, you can
feel their hiccups in various parts of your body, so
sometimes it's like in your chest, or your butt or
your vagina. Um. It's that actually makes more sense than

(38:01):
I I didn't really think about it. I just thought
it was really funny sentence. I just saw the word
but and I said, let's read this one. You were like, here,
you wrote the word but. Can you elaborate? Can you
talk about butts? I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I
just flipped through pages and I see something funny or

(38:23):
or sexual or naked or naughty, and I'm like, tell
me about that yeah. Oh, here's a picture of a
man holding a woman in labor and they're in a
witches cauldren and I think this is a midwife with
a witch's hat on. This is my favorite drawing in

(38:44):
the book. And I fought really hard to get this
in the book, and I kept being like, there's room
right here, will you please just put this back in
because I love this drawing, and they finally did. Um,
it's a winner. It's great. Um. I'm not going to
even explain what it means or why it's in it.
You'll have to buy the book to find out them. Um. Friends,

(39:09):
before we end this segment, is there anything you'd like
to tell us about the book before before we're done? Um,
just please if you know any pregnant ladies, get them
this book. Um. We it really, we're proud of it. Um.
In spite of how hard it is to ever acknowledge
that as women we are, we this is the book

(39:33):
we wish we had had. We wish someone had handed
us and told us, hey, these weird things are going
to happen to you, or some of them are, and uh,
you might want to know about it going well, I'm
proud of you both and I've already learned things having
read this, and I wish that I had read this
before my wife had babies. So I'd like it. I'd

(39:58):
like to interrupt you to make this bold declaration and
say that if our book makes it to the best
seller list, I will record my own version of lemonade
Um because I am in the process of getting a
divorce and I feel that it is the next logical
artistic for me. So I'd just like to make that
claim here tonight. Yeah, just when you purchase this book,

(40:22):
know that you are funding our creative freedom to make
any choice going forward. If you will co sign here,
we will be free to be me and me hashtag

(40:45):
tit snake. And now it's time for listeners want to know. Um.
We got an email this week from ivan or von

(41:06):
Um from I believe from Germany based on the country
code of this phone number, which I won't say out loud,
but here we go. I googled it. I didn't memorize
country codes. Hey, Beth, Peter and family, how are you all.
My son was born five months ago yesterday as a

(41:29):
fairly big boy nine pounds and one ft nine inches.
Since then, his growth s bird has been kind of insane.
He's now seventeen pounds and two ft five inches. He
is all proportional, but just has a very healthy appetite.
I've been going to the gym and training a lot
uh more just to be able to carry him as

(41:50):
he is now just entering that phase where he likes
being on on people's arms. He is not the most
fond of of seating being restrained. He's still quite young,
but my back is constantly killing me, and I feel
he is getting heavier faster and I'm getting stronger. I
tried those baby wearing approaches, but it's just not cutting it.

(42:12):
Any suggestions. I'm afraid the problem will keep growing long
before he can just walk on his own. And for hypothetical,
I did the math and if he keeps his growth
to the same rate at the time he's eighteen, he
will be forty two ft tall seven inches. Let's say
you are going through this with your quote unquote little ones,

(42:32):
how would you do this? Um? You had your own
little own little Kong. Thanks for a great podcaster and
for shining light on what lies ahead. All the best
lots of love, yvon Ivan. Okay, So I assume she's
not genuinely worried that this kid is going to be enormous.

(42:54):
I heard someone, oh, child baking a huge child. No,
it's a huge child coming into the life. I think
it was just a ghost. Um. I assume she doesn't
actually think her child is going to grow to be huge, because,
first of all, just to be clear, I feel like

(43:18):
the size of a baby does not necessarily correspond to
the size of the adults. But um, I will say,
I don't. I do not know the gender of our
of our writer, although ivan I would assume, uh, male,
but I don't know. It doesn't matter either way. Um, Okay, Sorry,

(43:44):
I hear a lot of fear in this email, and
I feel like I just want to say, hey, babies
just don't keep growing at the same rate. Yeah, this
is very much a front loading thing that we've got
a child. I don't think. I don't think that was

(44:04):
the real concern. Or do we have a child that
just woke up? Yeah? Well, I will say, boy, I
don't know that there's any solution to kids keep getting
But I still have to carry maybe in a whole bunch,
and it's incredibly hard. Yeah, I don't have to still
pick her up and put her in the car. I
don't need to I need to stop that. But I

(44:26):
how do you deal with this? Because I'm obviously incredibly strong,
so I can't remember what age she said this child was,
but I feel like or he said this child was.
But they should maybe looking at different kinds of baby
wearing options, like or just do stroller. I saw this

(44:47):
thing once where you could wear it behind your head
and the baby could sit around your neck and lean
back and not fall. And it was like a cheating
way of having a kid on your shoulders. Oh it's
a little like crazy creek chair on your shoulders kind
of Yeah. I love crazy creek chairs. Oh my god,
I haven't thought or talked about crazy creek chairs in

(45:08):
a long time. Talk about some crazy creek chairs with you, guys.
Let's go to the woods. Let's get some crazy creak
chairs and roast some marshmallows. I need to tell you
that there is a child sitting on the couch with us,
and I think, do you want to say do you
want to stay anything for the podcast tonight? Okay, Well,
we need to wrap this up because we have to

(45:29):
put a child back to sleep. Okay, is this the
child is this a child that loves snakes and wants
to be a reptile veterinarian. Is it that child? She nodded, Okay,
great rocket. I want to know what why do you
love snakes so much? Because I think snakes are awesome,
But I want to know why you think snakes are
all I really like? Yeah, like as a king pobra

(45:57):
has like something like sticking up from the sides of
its head. It's got like a It's like it's wearing
a hoodie. It's just a little bit fancier, right, Yeah,
it really likes fancy. It's the I think Kinkob is
definitely the fanciest snake around. Is there a fancier snake? Yep,

(46:20):
you heard it here, folks. That's gonna do it. I
think we have to wrap it up because there's no
more nothing else to say. Once you've talked about the
fanciest snake. This has been another episode. We know his parenting.
I'd like to thank our very special guest Jackie and
Ruiz and guys have an incredible book launch party today
February fourth. Tell us again where that is where people

(46:44):
can see Babes of Carrietown in Richmond Virginia amazing. If
you'd like to write in, send us some advice, asked
us a question, you can email us at we knows
pot at gmail dot com, find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and we know as pod. And please rate review the
podcast by the book wherever you buy books, leave us leave,

(47:07):
leave these these wonderful women a positive review. For that.
Ask your local library to get a copy of the book. Please.
There's there's no manual, honest and gory wisdom about having
a baby. Is that what it's called? That's right, great,
and we'll see you next time. My