Our Most Embarrassing Mom Fails, Parenting Hacks, and Frida Mom Scandal

We had Santa take the binky. If you can have a fictional character, take your binky. CJ now hates Christmas and Santa. Our kids had not seen a Nerf gun before. Griffin wanted to play with it and he didn't know what to do. And I'm like, you just push this and shoot a Nerf ball. This one is unhinged. Don't mess with lunch. Honestly, I love that. Three meals a day is crazy. It's crazy. With toddlers, they don't eat that much food. Their marketing and their branding on their packaging is very sexual. Is it enough for you guys to not buy Freedom Moms anymore? Welcome back to Always Here. We're your hosts, Abby Howard. And Abby Howard. And we are here once again to share the hope and the heart with heart and humor. Should we just say the whole thing together? Yeah, I was kind of like, I feel like I have it memorized at this point. Yeah, hey, we're getting professional here. I'm down, I like it. okay we have a big week i feel like i think we have a million things to talk about yeah honestly i could yap a long time today i know we got a lot of big segments i'm excited we do we do um let's just kick it off with what's been going on in our life first of all we had a birthday girl in the house and he is now 21 years old oh such a baby he's actually 25 i almost texted you happy 26th birthday it's a good thing i didn't 25 now it was good it was fun first birthday as a mom so that really changes things that's sweet so abby came over and watched brielle that night so blake and i got to go out to dinner we had a really fun recording day on my birthday which was kind of fun oh yeah you had a fun recording day a video will come out we brought a lie detector in oh yeah Matt asked him when to do that. And Caleb and I was like, what are we talking about? I was like, I literally had no idea. No, we had questions prepared for you guys if you wanted to do it. If you wanted. I actually have them in my bag right now. Oh, I'm sorry. I still like to see those questions. It was very last minute. It was very intense. It was very intense. Very intense. I can't wait to hear about it. It was a fun day. And now Addie's 25. I stopped aging mentally at 25. Really? I think 25 is a great year. And I think I just like sat on that one for a while. Yes. I'm sitting on 23. It's too much. I think it's too young. I think I've said that before. 23 i keep telling people like yes we're in our young 20s and then i'm around 23 year olds and there is a stark contrast yeah you feel it yeah i'm like i'm not 23 i feel that i'm like i can't i don't feel like i could say that yet but sometimes i'm around like 20 and 21 year olds and i'm like i'm starting to feel older than you maybe it's because i have a baby now and i'm like been married for a few years it's still the freshness of all of it but i'm like wow, I am getting older. I really don't know how to talk to high schoolers. I feel like they're the hardest group. I think in my head, I'm like my peers. And then I'm probably like the old lady. I think middle schoolers, I feel like, are harder to talk to. Really? Than high schoolers. I feel like middle schoolers are just children. Babies. Yeah, they're so babies. But then I look back and I think back to what I used to talk about, think about in middle school. and I shook into my core. Not innocent. I remember I switched from a Catholic elementary school to public school and I just learned so much that first week. What's wild is that I went to public school the whole time and I never learned anything. It's such a bubble. It was good. So happy birthday to Addie. Thank you, guys. Yeah, our in-laws came in town this weekend, me and Abby's in-laws. We had a busy weekend. I mean, it was so fun having them here. Yeah. You guys were gone for a lot of it. We were gone for three nights. We actually came back early because we were just like, we missed the game. Three nights is really the max, I feel like. And we got there late one night, but no, it was good. And it was busy. And then it was like the perfect amount. Like it started to just feel like a good time to leave and come back home. But we went to a marriage conference, learned about money. I hate talking about money. What did you, excuse me, what did you learn? I learned that we do need to have a budget and talk about that. I know. It's so important. I talk about all the time on my accounts. And then every time Kayla brings it up, I'm like, oh, look at the budget. It pushes me into like a fear space, like with money, which is like, there's supposed to be the opposite. Like if I actually have this conversation, I wouldn't feel that way. Right. So we do need to do that. And so we had on the calendar for the top of March to do. Yes. And hopefully we'll start doing that monthly. So half of it was money and then half of it was like marriage specific. And I told you on Sunday that I was like the line that we like learned and took away from it is to say to your spouse whenever you're like having some type of conflict or dispute or not even like even just like thinking something about them. That's not positive that you say the story I'm choosing to tell myself is and then you kind of can say which sounds wordy. But I feel like when you put it into practice, it's really good because it's like taking ownership of like this is not necessarily true. Like this is what I'm gathering. But this also is how I'm feeling. And it kind of just makes you feel like so you don't go to contempt like in a relationship where you just like believe these nasty things about your partner. And then it's really hard to recover from. Yeah. But, yeah, I think that was a good line because that was like for the conference of like how to resolve conflict, I think. So practically how do you use that? let's just use the example yeah caleb was like i hate your shirt and then i would go to him and say the story that i'm telling myself is that you think i'm ugly and you hate me yeah that's how you would okay okay yeah or like say that's an extreme obviously or say like they're on their phone like say your spouse is on their phone a lot like this is the example i think they use like the story i'm choosing to tell myself is that you don't care about me okay or you don't enjoy spending time with me and so you're looking for uh i'm not an expert on this but that's what i gathered from it And I feel like that would be like useful, like a useful line. I feel like that kind of cuts the chase. Like, it's not like I'm dancing around. Oh, like something you said couldn't hurt my feelings. It's kind of like, hey, this is what I believe. Yeah. Is that wrong or true? And it's like why it's bothering you too. Because it's not like, because then I feel like it can become passive. It's like, oh, is there something really interesting on your phone? Like, but then it's like getting to the point of like why this bothers you. And it's like, oh, that's not. And if that's not true, then you can clear that up. And then they can also hopefully change your behavior as well. I'm such a passive aggressive person. Really? Yeah. I didn't, I didn't know I was, but I am. And in my head, I'm telling myself that I'm nicely pointing out something that's bothering me. But then Caleb's like, well, you just tell me what's up. Like, instead of being passive. I'm a straight up girl. No, I'm always like, oh, is something funny over there or something funny on your phone? You know, I'm just so, instead of just being like, hey, put your phone down. Put your phone down. Or I could say the story I'm choosing to tell myself. I know. The story I'm choosing to tell myself is that you hate me. You don't want to spend time with me. no that's really good abby that's a good tip i was telling you i like after this weekend we had so much fun with our in-laws and just coming off of the crazy weeks that we talked about last week i obviously sound congested because i am so yesterday i took a sick day and happy said what does a sick day look like when you're a mom i said what does that mean you said and it was nice yeah it was nice i was just in my pjs literally all day until 3 p.m and then i took an everything shower and that was the day how'd you take a shower at 3 p.m well they're napping oh okay but i also did have to shower the dog so it wasn't like a relaxing everything it was literally i showed everything ew oh my gosh lewis is a horse so i the only way that i can shower him is if i physically bring him in to the shower and i have a handheld but i get so wet because he's massive that i just shower anyway have you uh recharged your clippers caleb bought a new one okay we came over to their house on malatine's day evening right when we got home and lewis's legs are like long and furry his head and body are fully shaved and then his he looks like a butt yeah what's the septar is that what it is where it's like centaur yeah he's very hurt for it in the bottom he looks rough it looks so bad yeah i know the kilpers gave out halfway through his haircut so we did buy new ones well yeah yeah busy weekend for everyone that was good made me think of i texted abby and matt last night because blake came up with this idea that you guys should do a parent swap like you guys swap kids and dogs for a day for a video and i'm just like or you could just do the dogs and it's like mad abby have to give lewis a haircut oh my god it's a shower it would take six hours i would have to call somebody kayla's back hurts and by the end of it he's so frustrated he's just mad Does he stay still? Sometimes. Yeah, he's gotten better at it over the years. No, not for me, but he does for Caleb. Yeah, that's a good idea. I like that idea. We'll have to do it. Caleb did so many house projects this weekend. He worked almost 80 hours last week, and then he came home and, hey, baby, the ceiling fan, like, you have a day. So he did the ceiling fan, and then he switched out our garbage disposal because it went out, and he replaced our sink faucet. He's been on a tear. When I found out that your garbage disposal was out, I was like, oh, crap, I put a lot of things down. It was out at the Super Bowl party. Put a lot of stuff. And it all backed up. And I was like, how do we handle this? So Caleb just replaced it. I know. It never smelled, thankfully. Yeah, at least not that I knew of. No, my disposal smells and it works. So it's impressive. So he did a lot of things around the house, which was great. Wow, that's crazy. Wow, that's crazy. That's crazy. All right, that's enough of that. I am really anxious to talk about this week's Wow, That's Crazy. Yeah, we told you what it was. which is against the rule. Well, I suggested it. You did. This is when I knew what was happening. I had a little extra screen time. Oh, Abby's back online? Just in Nashville. I really got to get under control again, though, because I was like, just without kids. Yeah. I was like, I'm just going to scroll. And I don't actually fully understand what's happening, but I think I get the gist of it. Same. Yeah, we're talking about the freedom mom scandal and everything going on with their company and their marketing tactics because they are salacious. You would have thought that their product was like an adult toy of some sort. I know. So, okay, let's give a little recap for the people that maybe don't know what's going on. Freedom Mom is a company that does a lot of baby products, postpartum products for moms. Super, super popular. That's all they do. That's all they do. Right? And they're very good at what they do. I have Freedom Mom everything. Yeah, I love, love, love the snot sucker. I think it saved my kids lives multiple times. I'm not kidding. That's a lot. I think it gets the snot out of their brains. it's really effective um so i feel like it's been a little we had all their things we had the the nail clippers the postpartum well first of all the postpartum kit a lot of their breastfeeding things like the warmers the pads like yeah all that stuff we had the baby nail clippers the we had the thermometer everything yeah so they're very successful company and i feel like it's just started to come to light that their marketing in their branding on their packaging is very sexual which i've never noticed before never noticed it and i have so tired who's looking closely and also it's a baby product like i'm just not expecting anything exciting on the packaging i always thought it was like cheeky and fun yeah but i never thought i was talking about threesomes right and pulling out and it's so it's so crazy to think that i'm confused why it's just now. I can't even say it without like feeling disgusting about it. I'm confused why it's also just now becoming like a like why are we, how are we just noticing this and also what about just maybe just someone brought it up. I don't know. I thought it was AI to be honest when I first saw these. This can be real. I literally was like that's not real. I've used, you know what I mean? And some of these posts that have come to light are from 2020. That's what I heard. Like the one that I thought was really crazy. There's a picture of a baby. It's a cartoon and it's a rectal thermometer and it says the closest your husband will ever get to a threesome that was the caption on their instagram post that's crazy that's crazy so crazy yeah so i feel like they're coming definitely come under fire they're doing a mardi gras campaign right now which i actually i don't agree with it personally their decisions here but i actually think it's kind of interesting and i think it's appropriate for the setting of mardi gras they're doing a they're trying to Like to get away the stigma of breastfeeding being weird in public. Yeah. Which is great. Yeah. And so they're saying if you can flash your boobs at Mardi Gras for beads, then you can be able to put your boobs out to breastfeed. Totally agree with that. Yeah. I don't think that's like inherently wrong. I did block them on Instagram when I saw the post because their first post on their feed was just a girl flashing her boobs at Mardi Gras. Full boobs. The last two posts are both censored. Like I can't click on them unless I click. I would like to see. And they still have them up. Yeah. And they haven't posted anything since a week ago. Yeah, they've been coming under a lot of heat. Yeah, I just think it's a little concerning. I understand the marketing mind behind it. Like, hey, sex sells. If you do things that are outrageous, it creates a power content that people then talk about, which then promotes sales. So I understand, like, the rage bait side of it. I understand, like, the wanting to get people talking side of it and being bold. But I do feel like it's missed a mark. and i also think about like the balenciaga scandal a few years ago where they did the same thing and i think it's different when it comes to kids like you can't be really pushing the boundary in this realm when it comes to children i just got chills you mentioning the balenciaga thing yes do you remember that abby i don't know enough about it they had a campaign that was really it just promoted it looked made kids look like they were really inappropriate like s&m yeah type stuff it was really inappropriate so yeah i just feel like it's kind of tone deaf totally yeah yeah i think is it enough for you guys to not buy freedom moms anymore um i was actually thinking about that i am not one to ever really like be a canceller i will still buy the snot sucker but if there's two products next to each other and one is a freedom mom and one is a different brand and they're the same quality i'll go with the other brand yeah i'll probably still get the i just i did really like the product i mean i i again it's i don't like what they've done but also i think i probably will still buy it yeah maybe the same yeah i mean i haven't used a lot of that stuff because it's like all mostly baby but i also remember being like that was usually one of the only retailers that sold that category in store so i feel like it would require an extra step i i think for me and more specifically what i'm saying is like the postpartum packaging like that was so great it literally is a diaper caddy with all the things in it yeah just put it on there or the breast stuff that you can just get a package of all the things you need and I'm sure there are other people who do that as well and so I'd be open to it but I've been seeing people throw away the things they currently have oh I mean I understand what people do I'm like yeah if you want to do it you know I agree with that decision um I think there's like a huge market now like you're saying Addy there aren't a lot of other brands that do these kits that do so if you're a brand that wants to step in the market now there's kind of a gap freedom mom has been pushed to the side a little bit you can take over and do it better yeah this isn't something you really forget like i feel like this is something you're gonna keep kind of remembering it is so interesting that they've probably had this on their marketing for a long time and we haven't noticed it yet i feel like the most crazy things that were light on their instagram right yeah which i didn't follow or like look at closely yeah i never did um but you see this pattern brought throughout their like whole thing like what was it that's what i was saying a lot of their captions and their content is kind of on in that like joking about like things sexually and so it's interesting that we've never known 446 000 people follow their instagram which is i'm sure has been dropping i'm sure people are unfollowing so i can only imagine how many people were following before I mean, I'm sure it started just as like funny parent humor stuff, which was a great tactic. And then it probably just went too far. That's what this says. It says others are saying that Brandon tended to use adult humor to make light of the realities and frustrations of parenting, not to sexualize children, but acknowledge it cross the line for many. Yeah. Which I don't have. They apologized yet. Not on Instagram. Okay. That's a bad look. Okay. what the company has said so far at the moment frida baby has not issued a detailed public apology addressing all the specific claims um and that's if we're telling people today's date that is wednesday the 18th okay yeah anything so we're gonna keep the conversation going for at least another week because this will be posted a week from now but yeah the things that really bother me like the the boob stuff i'm like yeah i think breastfeeding should be normal yeah like i think that like the sexual nature this the thermometer the threesome thing is so beyond inappropriate that it's like how are we just now right bringing that like that's it makes me actually like like i feel like i could like it brings up so many like anger sad like yeah deep sadness just like it's like that should be the safest person is that baby's dad and mom and like that is just not yeah that is so no brain even goes there to think of making that joke i don't know and so uh-huh what do you think if they rebranded their because i again you just talked about cancel culture and being like okay i'm never gonna buy them ever again what if they come out they're like we see it this cross line and they change their packaging like i think that's great is that i think it's always good to for people to be able to like i i understand i feel like remember the paul brothers i think logan and jake paul talked about this a lot sometimes you just get blinded in the pursuit of a goal and you just lose sight of your north star and sometimes you just take things too far and so i think it's that is where i think cancel culture can sometimes be good it's like i would not cancel culture but i think calling out a company when they have crossed the line and taken it too far it's good to help point them back right no i would give them an opportunity to apologize i would still buy their product for like a future baby but i like you said If there was like a thing where I was like, oh, there's both, I'd maybe opt for the other one. Just, I don't know. I think about Scrub Daddy because Scrub Daddy has, I think they have very similar marketing tactics to Scrub Daddy. You know the sponges? Yeah, it was a sponge. That's what I'm saying. It's like the product is so different. That with Scrub Daddy, it's like funny. It makes sense. But for a baby product, it's like babies in. The most precious, innocent life form. Right. On this planet. Right. Wasn't there another one? I feel like there was another. There was like the. yeah she did post other options for like their signature products oh who did her name is jordan lee dooley do you follow her i don't follow her but i know who she is she um has like other baby brands that like have like similar nasal aspirators or thermometers or like wind windy pipe alternatives which is like their gas reliever and postpartum care alternatives as well oh cool which i feel like that's for me what was the was the main thing i really liked was the postpartum like women's care which at that point i'm like we can make some like jokes about that that's just us and our body yeah even still like maybe not but like that's fine it's really crosses the lines exclusively with the baby thing uh-huh yes yeah i would agree i would agree i only really use their snot sucker see i didn't like that because i always just felt like snot was gonna get in my mouth i'm not used to stop sucker ever well brielle's nostrils are too small you also have to change those you're supposed to change those are single use yes i didn't realize that for a long time and i just couldn't keep up with the single use thing it's not a single use for me okay i do change them out frequently no not frequently every once in a while but that's what got me when no one else uses my nasal aspirator well no one should be sharing those anyway exactly it's fine but yeah once i said it was single use i was like oh i'm out i like the bulbs just because you know well i would say that was a marketing fail marketing fail lesson learned everybody doesn't learn you know i feel like we all fail oh i'm not comparing i'm not comparing mom but we have some mom fails too sure and so do you guys and you guys were generous to share some of your mom fails so we thought it'd be funny if you we shared some of the ones that you guys submitted and then we'll talk about our mom fails and then we'll give some of our mom hacks fun i love a good mom fail thank you if we can't laugh about some of this stuff we're we're gone We're losers. We're done. We are done. That's the biggest fail of all. That's the biggest fail of all. Because no one's a perfect parent. I feel like everyone is the first to say that. But sometimes we get a little bit ashamed. It's true. But let's just laugh together. Let's laugh it out. Do we want to start with our fails or their fails? Let's start with some of their fails. Okay. This is from Jessica. She clipped the binky clip onto her son's skin when he was two months old. Sad. That's actually really sad. To the pinch. Is it like screaming? You don't know why. oh that one's a bummer that was sad that one's a bummer this one just says it's from kinsey it says bought our kids ipad thumbs down that's all that is something that i that's a hard and fast rule hey i don't blame you i don't blame you i feel like our phone was acting like that for a little bit like in the car just to get them to like stop screaming and then we had to really knit that in the bud because i was like this is no different than an ipad if i'm handing you my phone right and so it's just a it's a tough one to take back is the problem time is hard to reel back in she said that's all that's all this is hey you learn kenzie you do live and you learn uh this is mariah this one's a little crazy she said i put addy's lips in it this is crazy i put cayenne pepper on my nine-month-old food to get him used to spice quote i def traumatized him there's something to that though there was a little girl that i babysat her family was indian and so their cuisine was different yeah if you have spicy cuisine you gotta get your kid used to it she was way more tolerant of it than i was we were eating fish she was like one we were eating fish and the mom also left enough food for me it was a more like a mommy's helper situation i was there the whole time fun and so i was eating my fish and i high pepper's really spicy spicy that's crazy i mean chili pepper would or chili powder would have been like still kind of spicy but i ate my fish and i was like literally felt like there was steam coming out of my ears i had no tolerance i had the whitest food ever growing up and i literally did not know how to ask this woman for water i go to the bathroom the door is cracked i'm drinking from the bathroom sink and she comes in she's like oh i'm sorry i'm like i will never forget that i was humiliated meanwhile the one housing yeah she loves the she loves it and we had these same fish She like more cayenne mom She can even talk She just eating such spicier food than me But I mean, that's hilarious. Maybe not spice. Maybe flavor. I don't know. Caleb tried to give CJ hot sauce. And yeah, I think he didn't like it either. Just like a little dollop on his pinky. And I don't know. I have like the mildest tongue. And I think my son has inherited that. Yeah, we gave him that Elote chip from Trader Joe's. And he started crying. He started crying. like rubbing his tongue trying to get it off it was really sad that was also yeah that was also we've all been there mariah this one is from mama converse my daughter ate an entire tub of margarine while i had shower diaper was bad oh no i know but honestly you're like what's when you're in we gotta wear our odds here i'd rather shower honestly because that's what's so scary i just would just sprint you were in the shower for five minutes you come out and you're like what am i gonna find i'm scared and when it's quiet it's worse oh you know it um this is mazzy she said i hid my toddler's valentine's candy so he forgot about it and i eat some each night everyone does that i've done that uh this is from sally i dropped my phone on my baby's head during a three of feet i've done that really i feel like i probably have too oh that one's sad that is so sad what a bad wake i feel like in middle school i used to do that where i like and just yeah it's the worst it's just so dumb like why did i do that poor baby my son grace this is from gracie my son was crawling around making a sucking noise and i thought he just learned a new sound then he coughed a leg flew out the kid was sucking on a cricket for like an hour he calmed and a leg flew out he was sucking on a cricket although i mean there could be worse things i think there's good protein yeah that feels that feels actually great for him this one's from emory it says breastfeeding a blanket in the middle of the night not my baby lols that's sleep deprivation okay with vivian i was trying to put her pink ear mouth but she was the best and i kept trying to get it i was like why is she not taking it i open my eyes i look over i'm putting it in her ear she's like that's not gonna do it honor said my son was on my lap a spider crawled onto his hand i shoved him on the floor so fast. That's just what I think. I shoved him on the floor. You can't slow it down once it started. I mean, honestly, good reaction time. Good reaction time. I was like, you this past weekend at my house, I was like, what kind of bug is that? And you just go, a dead bug. That was so aggressive. I'm not afraid of bugs. Are you afraid of bugs? No, no. That wouldn't get me. What kind of bug is this? A dead bug. Dead bug. I think it's funny that we're reading these because it's all, these people are also, I think, they're fails. I love it. It's not like they're like, this is a great thing I did. I'm in pain. Thank you guys for sharing that. Less than ideal. Okay, this is a longer story that someone submitted. I couldn't find out where my pads and tampons were going for three months straight. Wow. Every month I thought I was stocked up for the next month, and yet somehow they were always completely gone when I needed them. this week we had painters come in to paint a few rooms they ended up having to move a few pieces of furniture and i was helping move some stuff out of the way when one of the guys moved our coffee table the coffee table is pretty big but also super low to the ground so you can't really look under it underneath was a massive pile of all my missing products i kid you not half a year's worth apparently my toddler had been transporting my stuff from the bathroom drawer and had been shoving it under the table for safekeeping or something the guy was obviously taking it back he just tried to pretend it wasn't there and stepped over it all i was mortified anyways make sure you don't wait three months to vacuum under any piece of furniture especially if you've had toddlers it's hilarious the movie guy's like oh sorry excuse me that was a thing at disney because in the women's restrooms at disney they have free feminine products yeah griffin augie think they're souvenirs yeah of course like pushing the button and getting them and i'm like those are for women right those are for women right dang what an expensive hobby the kid had taken all your tampons okay this one she said my besties motherhood mishap she was cleaning the bathroom in the new house they had just bought and her one-year-old son was playing behind her when she turned around she found him playing with the toilet brush and put putting it in his mouth but the worst part is it was the previous owner's toilet brush not even their own poopy germs that's so bad i'm dying that is so bad i'm dying oh my god no i think i i don't that would be a caleb would have to handle that one i can't tell you how many times as a parent i say you have no idea where that's been you have no idea you have no idea what it's been um okay this one says when i went to cut my daughter's nails for the first time oh so many of these learning lessons i ended up clipping part of her finger so much blood she was fine i ended up passing out twice seeing all her oh my gosh oh my gosh this is coming from a nurse who has been elbows deep inside a woman's hair it's your own kid baby you're just like i know i think about it all the time i'm like i'm not grossed out by bloody things or gas just like i love seeing that but i imagine it on cj and i immediately want to throw up i know okay last what my husband forgot to put a diaper on our baby before bed one night we didn't realize until i woke up to feed her at 2 a.m and couldn't figure out why she was all wet last night mad did that last night i didn't put a pull up on griffin the first diaper that i ever put on cj right after he was born um i put it around his thighs and not even cover his butt oh and caleb lifted him up and goes what are you doing i go i just had surgery i just had surgery i don't know oh thank you guys for sharing those those are awesome and relatable yes so relatable i feel like we've all done some of these um so we thought we'd share some of ours here's my first mom fail okay i think you've heard this story before our backyard is very safe and so i'll just let cj go out the doors and just play in the backyard and he was maybe a one and a half i would never put his shoes on him to go outside because that keeps him away from the dog poop and the rocks so he just goes on the turf barefoot and he's usually concealed well this day i put his shoes on him i don't know why and i let him and lewis run out the door that's not recent no he was like one and a half oh um i let him run out the door i go into my pantry to grab a snack to bring outside with me i look out the window of my pantry that goes into my backyard and all i see is cj's hand and my horse of a dog's pee rod just just he's peeing so hard and cj's hand is just in this he's just digging it in his stream and i like run out there i go cj no and he looks me dead in the eyes and one word goes hot it probably was hot so he immediately got a bath he's just covered in so gross so gross i said okay no more of that no more i will be out there immediately with you dang it no shoes honestly him and lewis go out and shifts this one's not even funny this one just still makes me sad oh great okay different vibe everything's fine but okay so one of our kids is sleeps like a rock and one of our kids not so much and so we never like our youngest just like doesn't wake up in the night like consistently never does one night we heard him make like a couple sounds look on the monitor don't see anything and then he just went right back to sleep it wasn't like he was even crying but he just kind of was like making sounds which was really unusual because he like goes to sleep stays asleep the whole night right that next morning when to get him out of his crib puke everywhere i was so sad oh he's just sleeping in it oh he's just sleeping in it sleeping in it it smelled so bad gosh i was like buddy oh it makes me so sad and so now i'm like that just makes my anxiety with this freaking sleep and monitor thing just so much worse yeah and so after that every time i'm like go check him right out right out he's like he literally just sneezed like everything is fine but like I just felt so guilty that he like slept in that but yeah I actually as a kid did that I was a little older I remember throwing up um around me and my mom came up the next morning because I guess I normally wake up early I did not come down so she finally came up to check on me and she's like when I was coming up the stairs I was smelling like bad smells and I was laying there fully awake with my hands in the air and she goes Abby why didn't you come get me and i look at her i go i didn't want to get my hands dirty so i just laid and i'm covered covered in vomit but i didn't want to get my hands dirty oh my gosh okay this next um mom fail this happened recently actually we went to the magic house um in st louis over winter break did i tell you this story maybe and they have this thing called uh it's like a super slide oh i heard this from teresa that's a bad story it's for ages three plus tj is two and a half and he's like a big kid so he was a little scared so we were encouraging it we're like tj you're gonna do great buddy you can go down the slides it'll be so fun you go down slides all the time it's like a three-story tunnel slide it's aluminum it's large well and as you go down the steps it has windows so as a parent you can watch your kid as they're going down each level the visual image just came well because we went on the same slide a week later or whatever it was yeah so i was like oh my gosh i tell you what happened okay so we're like cheering him on we're encouraging we're saying cj go you got this buddy be brave we send him down the slide we start walking down the first flight display window big massive display window i just see a washing machine kid tumble down and ah it's aluminum it's aluminum cj's tumbling down this slide screaming it's just like a flash in the pan just flashing past me just tumbling child and i go oh my gosh flights of stairs it's three stories three flights like three big stories so i'm running down the stairs i'm yelling to my sisters at the bottom i go cj's falling he tumbled down the entire side he my sister's at the bottom to catch him she says he comes down head first laying on his back okay he started feet first forward how did that even happen i think he put his feet down and tripped over him i felt horrible we only went down once only went down once and i said we're never doing that again we were stuck in that side for a really long time Oh my gosh, it was so... It was like a movie. Just a picture, you look, it's just a flash of... Ah! Like down the window. It was horrible. Sad. Teresa made this... Wait, was Teresa there? Uh, no. Oh no, you must have told me this story. I did tell her about it, yeah, yeah. Oh, that was a huge film. This one was so bad. Okay, let me preface this by saying we don't have Nerf guns in our house. I'm not strongly opposed to them, but I just feel like it's something that once we introduce... deuce oh you're never going back never going back and it will be i will find bullets everywhere and i just feel like we need to have more conversations about them because they can actually seriously hurt your eye matt i got really hurt my nerve i know i'm kind of anti and so and i don't even know but like little boys tend to just create guns out of anything they do it's a shooter shooters i'm like they just made up the word shooters i know so you don't go around yeah like weird I feel like it will happen eventually. But let me just say, our kids had not seen a Nerf gun before. We're playing at someone else's house. And Griffin brings it up to me. And he's like, Mom, he wanted to play with it. And he didn't know what to do. And I'm like, oh, buddy, look. And I'm like, I show him the gun. And I'm like, you just push this. Just shoot under fire. It's so stupid. no one told me he's bringing a lot of loaded nerf guns to me he brought it to you and he's asking you to shoot him in the face like how do you use it he didn't even ask me just he certainly didn't ask me to shoot him but i'm like oh buddy let me see this i'm literally crying i'm like it's really fun you just i don't know i don't like this toy the way he looked at me the shock i'll never forget it it was literally like my own mom the betrayal the betrayal he felt i'm laughing but also i was like oh my gosh oh my gosh the way that he just literally looked at me like my own mother would betray me like this i was like i'm so and that's a really good lesson never aim it at your face never aim in that people's face i don't even i was someone else's face they went there's a witness to the school. I was like, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Sorry about that, buddy. Go play. Thank goodness I didn't get his eye. That was so bad. That's so funny. That's so funny. You know why that's funny? Because we all do it. I was like, oh, buddy, let me just... I was trying to show CJ how to use one of those punch balloons that's on a string. okay i didn't hit him but i go cj look and i went boom and it just broke my chandelier that line went pop it's so fun i had it for two seconds i go that's an outside balloon buddy oh my gosh that was so that's a good one thanks for sharing that yeah a vulnerable moment thank you for your transparency okay so this other one was recent cj transitioned from his crib to his big boy bed and you know they have to learn how to sleep not moving in all directions at night so you get in the pillow and the blanket and i was like well it's a nap first so it's fine if he doesn't sleep well he slept he fell asleep fine he was like i love this bed i'm gonna fall asleep abby's rolling her eyes he's always been a very easy sleeper um so i'm like working and the floors in our house are all tile like hard hard tile and i don't know this was such a mom fail all of a sudden i'm working and i hear conk silence he does have long pauses he stops breathing for so long and i run in there because i know immediately this kid just fell out of the bed he's laying out of his crib fully upside down stuck in a scorpion his feet are touching the back of his head and he's just not breathing just stunned like he's think about he was in a dead sleep a dead sleep and he's upside down head on the floor just crying and i'm like i am such an idiot why didn't i put a pillow a blanket why didn't i move his foam pad just two inches to cover the floor poor kid head injury that day yeah yeah that wasn't even the one i was thinking Oh, what was the matter? I was thinking of one here in Missouri. Oh, we should insert an image. Visual aid for this one. This one, we had CJ, you know, he's been in his toddler bed, so he's like, you got it, buddy, a mattress on the floor. We're not going to bring your pack and play. You'll sleep great. The poor kid is terrified to fall asleep on this mattress in the middle of the floor. He wakes up. I guess he fell off the bed in the middle of the night. Wakes up under, like, the bed frame of the bed next to him. no idea where he is well Caleb was gonna have him sleep in it on the bed frame I was like Caleb this bed's too tall like I think he's gonna fall off you learned move the mattress on the floor sure did fall off underneath the other bed woke up horrified he woke up not breathing so scared this is a really deep sleeper well it's an image of him just under this bed that would be scary yeah it would be so scary so I learned if you're transitioning your kid put some pillows on the floor. Okay, this one somewhat recent. So I went to go buy dog food. And my friend works where I buy the dog food and she carries the food out with me. It's very heavy. She's very strong. And so I had the kids with me, I put them in the car, but I could tell that we were gonna chat a little bit. She was she had some things going on. So I want to be a good friend. And like, obviously, give her my full attention. I'm like, I'm not gonna strap them in the car seats. They can just roam around the car while i'm talking we have white leather seats which that's on us i mean seriously can't be mad when those get dirty problem is they found ink pens and so we actually got so matt really got so much heat on instagram or went tiktok or whatever because he showed him cleaning the car and he showed like they're like you let your kids run crazy like and it's like No, I was actually a foot from them. But they clearly found a good activity because we had blue ink pens all over the white leather seats. And you know what? I didn't even really say anything to them because I was like, that's on me. Yeah. You're like, I left these two accessible. I left a two and a three-year-old in a car near a pen. I mean, I'm right next to them the whole time. And I was like peeking in. I'm like, oh, they're having fun. They're going to keep it. Great. I love that. You're using their imagination. Imagination. They're using their resources. And usually their car is trashed. I'm like, there's so many fun things for them to play with. Nope. That way they found the panda ball things. Of course, of course. And it, oh, it doesn't come out. And so we used acetone. Yeah. To strip the. The leather? Strip the leather. So you just have. Ink pen. It's there. It's there. So what does the leather look like now? So the parts where the acetone was, it's like not even white exactly. It's a totally different finish. Great. And it started to go to like gray. Perfect. Whatever. Well, now you just need to color the rest of the seats with the marker and just make it even. Oh, acetone. I was like, you know what? It's just got to. It's just. It's going to look that way. We'll keep this car forever. It's ours. It's ours. That's great. That's a good fail. My last one is a newborn one because Addie said she wants to hear a newborn one. I remember here. When CJ switched, he started doing formula at like six months. And around seven months, Caleb was giving him a bottle. And it took about 40 minutes for him to drink out of this bottle. And he was like, what is going on? Why? It's taking him so long to drink this bottle. Well, it turns out we had a seven-month-old drinking out of a newborn nipple. That's a slow flow. Slow flow. She's like trying to get eight ounces. She's like 45 minutes. Can I tell you my fail? It's like you give him a coffee straw. No, literally. I did the opposite. I went to go order her new nipples. Yes. She needed to go up? She's getting to go up in size. Choked like crazy. Yeah, we actually only have that size. We only have the bigger size. She never had a newborn nipple. What? no wonder she didn't like nurse she didn't give me that bottle no wonder at first she was like i'm not really interested in that no she's like the milk comes out so much faster she wanted the bottles they were coming they were she didn't want to have to work for it oh my gosh so i need to so i ordered new ones and i put them on i said these are the same size i was like oh my goodness addy yeah she's always had three plus month bottle nipples perfect unfortunately oh my gosh that's great she drinks yes maybe that's my mom hack she actually took once we got a nipple show she did breastfeeding and bottles perfectly fine it could be a hack or a fail there you go that was great thanks for laughing with us well it wouldn't be fair if we just only talked about the fails we got to also talk about the wins we got to talk about the hard and the hope that's right that's what this podcast is all about right And so not necessarily the wins, but we're going to talk about some of our mom hacks, if you will. I love it. Also, there's no judgment on any of those. I don't want to hear no judgment. We're not judging. We're not judging. We are all. That's why it's a fail. You live and you learn. You live and you learn. Yes. That's the whole point of having fails, honestly, so that you learn. Don't do it again. Don't do it again. That's right. Okay. Yeah, we have some hacks. Do you want to share your first hack? Yes. This one's actually kind of like a serious one. Yeah, my first one was kind of serious, too. Okay. this one had i we actually did it when griffin turned one and now he's three and a half and so we've done this for two and a half years with both of our kids and it works really well for our kids now i'm gonna say this like every kid's different for sure and things that worked for one of my kids does not work for the other vice versa but this works for both of them and mine is have a family motto and i feel like when they're young honestly you can start with one word and usually we just say howards are and then we say like one word that like so we had three and it was really hard for them to memorize it but they pick up quickly yeah and so we said howards are patient generous and kind now we have kind of like expanded on some of those but patient generous and kind for us was a really good foundation because it gets a lot of those early misbehaviors like they don't want to share their toys it's like well howards are generous so that's that's where it really helps is when you have a strong family motto when there is a misbehavior it you can see where they can put it in their category it's like oh this is this isn't okay because this is what's true about us and so and i also think that they really remember i'm like oh but wait a minute howards are and then they're like generous yeah so patient is another one because obviously little kids are like mom mom or like they need things now there's no concept of it's really hard for them to conceptualize like tomorrow or you know five minutes even right and so it's like we just we are patient and so that kind of helps like those like whining behaviors sometimes and then kind that kind of gets every like the hitting the like yelling the just like the general like reaction towards other kids those three really surface them all we've expanded now to also obedient and also we've workshopped a few others that haven't worked like we were thinking good friends to others and I'm like it's just too wordy too wordy yeah so we're gonna switch it to servant-hearted because I feel like it wasn't even just about friends like it was more about like having service towards others and like we do these things we make ourselves uncomfortable sometimes to serve others so we gonna add those those two We already added obedient And now we going to work on servant hearted because that feels a little bit advanced Yeah. But I think we're ready for it. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I think having that family motto, though, is just a really good thing because we can also say it for ourselves. It's like, I'm doing this because Howard's are kind. And I think it can also age well with them. Totally. And so whenever there is like a misbehavior, just constantly going back to that family motto really feels like it makes it clear for them. And it's also really concise. Yes. I stole that from you. I didn't create this, by the way. I don't know who I got it from, but. It's good. It's really good. No, I heard you say that to Griffin when he turned one. You said, Howard's or generous. That's the first one I remember. And I started using that with CJ when he got older. It also is really convenient that we have the same last name. Well, CJ, Howard's are. Howard's are. um but yeah the one i've been using a lot with cj recently is howards are howards do hard things oh yeah because i feel like he's getting to a point where i'm like why is he trying why are you being lazy not lazy but you know like doesn't want to throw his trash or do right and so i'm like howards do hard things buddy like and i think it's been really it's an uplifting way to instill um what's the word instill values in them right and because i feel like to expand upon that too i hate as a parent when i'm constantly like no stop don't whereas like this is like an actual that they can do it's like and because otherwise i feel like it's like well what do you want me to do like i this is what i like my instinct is telling me to do like this is what you know human nature is telling me to do and like but it's like yeah it's also not like you're you're being mean it's like hey howards all of us are kind so i also have to abide by these right and So I think it's like it makes a family unit, which is cool. Right. I really liked that when you did that. That's a great number one tip. Thank you. My number one tip is I prompt the response that I want to hear. And I actually heard you do this today with Griffin. You said, hey, we're leaving in one minute. Let me hear you say one minute. And then they said one minute. And I do this with CJ where, especially on the more serious things, if I'm asking him to put his shoes on and get in the car and like some of the stuff that obviously kids just do not want to do. But I feel like these are the things in parenting that can drive you crazy is when your kids aren't listening. And so I go, hey, CJ, I'm not asking you, but I'm telling you, we're going to put our shoes on right now. And then we're going to get in the car. Say yes, ma'am. And then he'll say yes, ma'am. And it's kind of like this, like I'm prompting him and like, hey, I'm expecting the action and the response at the same. And it's obviously respectful. And I feel like that's helped us a lot with like a no kind of obviously he's not perfect at it. But I feel like it's helped a lot with like the repeated begging to do things. It's like when he's like, oh, I have to respond and I'm going to say yes, then I'm going to do it. And I feel like that's just been really, really helpful in discipline. And some of these like parenting things are just not so fun. That's a really good one because I feel like it's easy as a mom of toddlers to just get so naggy. Like I feel myself doing it. I'm like, I've told them a million times to do it. Like, should I sing it in a song? Like, what should I do to get them to actually listen? but I think you're right. Like prompting that response. It's like, okay, now I know that, you know, cause sometimes I'm like, I feel like I can't give you a consequence if I'm not even totally sure you heard me or we're listening, but it's like that valid, that like validates that. Okay. You did hear the expectation. Now, if you make the choice to not do that, then my, it's clear for me now that you're like, Howard's are obedient. And so like this, like, and so, yeah. And also prompting respect too. I feel like it's really good too. Sometimes I'll be like, cj put your listening ears on he goes no mom i'm not putting my listening ears like no mom i'm not listening i go okay well we'll come back to this these are foolproof not foolproof these are these are ideal scenarios these are our best scenarios this one is unhinged and so once again don't want to hear any judgment because it's not going to change um don't mess with lunch honestly i love that abby okay don't do lunch time Here's the thing. Three meals a day is crazy. It's crazy. With toddlers, they don't eat that much food. No. And so I found myself early on with them. I was, like, constantly, like, their little silicone plates, like, just dumping the entire plate and just starting again. I'm like, oh, there's still lunch on it. Now it's dinner time, breakfast, three times a day. Yeah. It was driving me insane. And they also weren't eating food. They don't care. They're playing. They weren't eating food. but if you present it as a snack and it literally is a snack which essentially is what kids lunches often are anyway then it they eat more it's more well-rounded because they look at and they're like they feel like they chose a snack right like because i'll bring an option of fruit i'll bring like a protein option like a beef stick cheese or yogurt like any fruit banana oranges strawberry anything and then some type of like carby option like chips crackers a granola bar and that's that's lunch that counts as lunch i'm not gonna lay a plate down and ask you to sit down because i'm only gonna do that fight twice a day right exactly i'm not doing that fight three times a day that's crazy that would be my whole day uh-huh so this is my advice to you don't do lunch don't do lunch it's freeing it's done yeah it's done and then you can do it on the go yeah we'll go to parks and I'm like oh you want your snack and then I just make sure that they get like one of those three things sometimes I'm hey throw fruit snacks in there yeah of course it's lunchtime it's lunchtime snack time it's a fun time of the day don't do it it's a trap seriously I feel like I give CJ a full breakfast and then he's like snacks until dinner right he just eats all day long that's all it is and I'm okay with it yeah there's so much they're small yeah there's so much they're small they don't need to fill up three times no they don't that's crazy that's crazy um my second was also food related. I was having a huge issue with breakfast time, especially once I had Vivian and I would have to nurse in the morning first thing. And then by the time I'd be done nursing, CJ would be starving for kid. And then it's like, okay, then I have to cook and prepare breakfast. And it was just too long of a time to go without feeding him. And so what I did was I would give him like a breakfast snack while I was nursing to then tide him over until breakfast. And I felt like that was like a real hack i'm like okay i would give him one of those oikos protein yogurts and then i would give him his little vitamins and that would hold him for 25 minutes until i could go make the rest of his breakfast because the kid's very he loves his pancakes that's just a time-consuming task so give your kid a little snack like a little fruit a yogurt before the breakfast that's a good one yeah thank you i feel like we're always heading out the door too fast that i don't have the time but if i was nursing that would change it was really hard when you're nursing because you're just sitting there and your poor kid is just waiting for you so patiently to be done you know and i'm like i'm sorry i was starving you want to eat food too right i know okay this is also another like more serious one related to like behavior modification i don't know what the word is we're gonna use for that consequences but um i started to frame um whatever our kids had a consequence i started to really make sure like whatever their consequences i kind of like hold that certain like kind of lightly because I'm also not exactly sure what I want to do best I recognize that usually like if there's certain behaviors especially where someone else is getting hurt they need to be away from that situation I don't love the idea of time out so usually they're in the same room as us but just separate and they have to be like they can be with us they can see with us I would even sit with them but we're with them and we're kind of still workshopping that because I'm like I don't know how effective this is but I've noticed that the true like where I really feel like I'm reaching them after a misbehavior is the conversation after whatever the consequence was is done and so Matt and I have both been really intentional with like how we frame like that resolution time and it can be hard to do in the moment but this framework made it like kind of seamless so we say like why are you taking a break and they can answer this younger than you think like why are you taking a break and then they can usually answer and then it says what are you going to do differently next time and then what should you do now and those three questions like really helped me feel like okay whatever this consequence is i don't care that's necessarily like they hate whatever they're doing but that i can come to them and like really like have this resolution moment it really has been so good and now the kids are doing this on their own so like in the car they weren't listening great today after church and um randomly augie my youngest he goes sorry for not listening mom i'm gonna listen next time oh my god and i was like i love that because it's like and i made a huge deal about it yeah of course you gotta praise that that's amazing yeah but i'm saying like these three questions made it really easy for both of us to just like always have this like baseline to go back to so it felt like okay we're not just like throwing consequences at you or like making you not play or be with your friends because mom and dad or me which also we say this i got this from our friend val she loves when we share she actually loves it um she a really good she's a great parent and i learned a lot from her and so but something that she tells her kids i've started telling my kids is that everyone has consequences because it's true everyone on this earth has consequences right and so i don't want them to think that that we're specifically picking on them which is also why we have like our family motto too it's like we are all held to a standard and we're held to a standard as a family and also just like as citizens. Right. And so anyway, that resolution like moment feels really, it feels like a template that is easy to kind of make it all feel clear to everyone. Like what just happened? We don't want to just have tears to have tears or we don't want to just do these things. And so it really feels good. And I feel like they can start to use it on their own too. Yeah. That's a great, because I want to just be like, sorry, sorry that uses that loses its meaning. Totally. And so that has helped a lot. Yeah, that's really good. Something that I think I've been thinking about a lot too, is I just want the expectations to be really clear. And so I'm trying to figure out like, okay, the bigger, like the more violent things are timeouts. Then I don't want everything that needs to be, everything that requires a consequence to be a timeout. So I'm like, what are other creative things that I can do in like the discipline realm? And then I'm like, okay, but I don't want to lose the expectations where CJ is like, what's it going to be this time? a big consequence or a little consequence and so um Kim she's she's been a mentor for me she did this with her kids I thought it was a really good idea it's an if then chart and I think when CJ gets a little older I'll start implementing it when he can understand it better but it's like hey if you hit your sister then no fruit snacks or if you do this then you get a timeout or if this you know it's like just really clear expectations of hey if you choose this choice then this is it and then it's like really easy as a parent to like reflect back to it because i think that's the thing that you're saying too it's really good is like they're able to reflect back to these questions and be like okay this is how that applies and it's like you're thinking through it and then it's it's not it doesn't always have to be such a big conversation yeah if there's the expectation yeah that clarity is really good and also good for your husband like husband and wife to like okay same expectation holds because there's a chart or like this is how we do it yes Because sometimes that's hard. Like when Caleb, he works normal hours. So I'll do certain things. I'll try different things with discipline. And then he'll come home and it's like, wait, no, no, I wasn't doing that today. You know, like, yeah, it's like we had to stay on the same page. And that's like a huge part. And now's the learning time. But also it is good to start doing those things early because they are really they're really smart. They pick up on things really, really quickly. Oh, yeah. OK, so I for my third one, you're going to hate me for this. Oh, no. Why? my third tip is don't have the perfect environment for sleep you have too much privilege to say this i knew you were gonna get me i knew you're gonna get me okay i have my kids are really mild temperament kids so i understand that like they're very just like they love to just lay a mom and they love to sleep um so keep that in mind i feel like this is very dependent on kids but something that caleb and i talked about from the beginning was that like I remember reading some of the stuff about like having the blackout curtains and like the temperature of the room perfectly set and like just creating the perfect sleep environment for your kid and I was like I will definitely do that if my kid doesn't sleep but I don't want to start out that way and then have them only be able to sleep in like this perfect environment so that was kind of like my our last resort was like adding in the different things if necessary um so like when CJ was little, he would literally nap in a full lit room and I wouldn't always put him in a sleep sack if he didn't need it. He always had a sound machine, which is easy, like on the go to have a sound machine. Um, but these are just different things that I tried and I feel like it benefited. Our kids are pretty flexible sleepers. Um, so if it's possible that you can do these things and then your kids still sleep the night, do it. But obviously if you need to be strict, but I'm just saying, don't, I would, I don't ever give the advice, like start out super strict with sleep like work your way there i don't think anyone really can because they're in your room with you what do you mean like as a newborn yeah as a newborn there's noise there's like yeah but like once you start sleep training you know like vivian now is in her crib and i vacuum during her naps like her room does not have blackout curtains lewis's barking you know there are different elements where i'm like i could put the dog away and like not clean or do certain things to like try to hone in to make sure her naps are perfect but i don't i try not to stress about it and i think it's benefited so far yep i know it's annoying no i love that for you abigail i love that for you but that's my tip don't start strict if you we did that with i will just give you the little caveat we did that exact thing with griffin yeah he slept in the room like in fully lit rooms didn't go well i know not every kid is not gonna work for it and um so then we learned and did the opposite and then our second was a much better sleeper so i guess i say this because i just feel like the internet is so um you know like they always want to make we talk about like anxious moms and like it's always like you have to do these things this thing this thing this thing like start sleep training your kid from the day they're born it's like i feel like i just stressed about stuff that was not applicable and like i didn't have to worry about cj's sleep until i knew if he was a good sleeper or not and so it's like i don't need to implement all these things to create the perfect environment until i know that my kid's not a good sleeper do you know what i mean yeah i think it's like it's just let's just take the stress off and just let your kid yeah you know this helped me this actually helped eliminate stress for me personally because i was like i can recreate this and it i'm sleeping yeah who cares but i think that's i mean i think that's a good baseline but i do think you learn pretty quick whether or not you're gonna have to use intervention so for sure i think also i would i have struggled with that a little bit of like we did the sleep training we did the nap training braille doesn't have like a blackout room she it's dark but it's not and we have a sound machine but i was really worried about like she naps during church and so she's in the nursery in there and she's only taking 30 minute naps in there at home she takes two hour naps and i'm like that's okay if she takes a two hour nap later but only takes a 30 hour 30 minute nap now that's okay like having to like really tell myself that it is what it's gonna be yes you know and figure that out i think we can get so like dependent on the schedule and then we become a slave to the schedule yeah i didn't go to church the first two weeks we were sleep training because i was like can't do it no i'm you know i'm pro being flexible with the schedule yes so then it's like okay as long as vivie has she's taking four naps a day so i'm like if she has two naps in her crib that are good then i think that's a great day but she's sleeping through the night so i'm like then if she wasn't sleeping the night then i would adjust and be like you gotta stay home for all for a night okay this one this took a lot of reworking because there's a major irritation especially with two toddlers keep a pair of shoes in the car oh that's a good just a good tip keep them in the car and when they get home take them off in the car we just have car shoes smart car shoes exist because we couldn't i i'm telling you how many times we'd get to a location and i'd be like you took your shoes off after it took me so long to locate them get them on your feet and then you just rip them off and so i was like that was just making me so agitated i was literally saying it till i was blue in the face i was like keep your shoes on keep your shoes on wear your shoes put your shoes on and i was like i'm just done with this we're keeping shoe cars or car shoes car shoes we're keeping car shoes and here's my other advice keep the kids socks by the shoes because i remember so many times heading out the door we finally found the shoes thank goodness but oh socks are up in their bedroom that's a good idea i mean keep the socks by the shoes and that can probably be like wherever your garage door is um and also just keep a pair of car shoes don't put them on until you're at your destination that's efficiency brain i don't i would never thought that but i'm like it is so annoying when we're out like get at the door and his shoes are there I'm like, we forgot socks. We're going back in to get socks. That was my final strike. You need so many things to get out the door with them. I just was so tired of fighting with the shoes. Yes. There's four feet. The car is the ultimate diaper bag. Let's just be honest. I don't even carry a diaper bag anymore. Keep a diaper in there. Keep wipes in there. Keep a changing pad in the car. Go change your baby in the car. Your extra outfits, diapers, wipes, everything, and you'll never have to carry a diaper bag again. It's great. It's so great. That's a great tip, Abby. My next one, we had Santa take the binky. if you can have a fictional character take your binky it's so much better because then there's like no chance that thing coming back you know what i mean not because the kid now hates christmas and make santa the bad guy what a weird make the tooth fairy the bad guy make um the easter bunny the bad guy make santa the bad guy make a leprechaun for saint patty's day the bad guy that way you don't have to do it and you can start talking about it weeks before hey saint patty's coming and he's gonna take your binky and it's but he's gonna leave you the leprechaun going oh sorry sorry saint nick took our binky that's crazy it's crazy but it worked for cj santa santa yeah and you know what he took those binkies and he gave them to the other little boys and girls that needed them like vivian like vivian yes and then if you have a second kid you could gift them just rub it in their face i'm just kidding but it really did work and then because santa goes away he never asked i mean he would ask like where are my binkies and like cj where'd they go and you go santa took them with the cookies saying it and it was really easy to reference back and then it wasn't a conversation of hey the binkies are you know you can't like i've heard people plant them in the yards and like flowers bloom up and i'm like i think cj would have gone out there with a shovel and tried to dig them out you know oh we've tried everything i know so i'm like we actually just tell him i'm really big into telling them the truth which is kind of the opposite i'm like they're messing up your teeth uh yeah well griffin's old enough to understand that now he's like yeah they're messing up my teeth yeah and i'm like i think it also comes down to like how what kind of sleeper is your kid yeah like if they like sleep but yeah cj i would tell not leading up i'm like cj you're getting buck teeth buddy so we got the because they're just not appropriate why have the dentist have a conversation too i mean we've really tried the fictional character we did everything and now we did the hack of just like let's just let them do whatever the heck they want they're sleeping no that's a good one that's a good one controversial but good sure my final one is catch them doing good i feel like this is an obvious one but also it can be hard to just remember day to day as a mom like whenever they do something that like a behavior that you want them to do more of and you know that it's especially something that they've changed like it's a you're noticing a difference praise the crap out of it that's my biggest like we we like and it's amazing how they like light up and that's so meaningful to them yeah and so like i said when like they said sorry i was like i really i brought up a couple times like i was like i really like how you apologized and like i was able to forgive you and you and you knew why or like whatever it is even them finishing their plates we have like a whole song they like we are so proud of them for that yeah like eating their meals like when they're supposed to because that's also difficult that was also my other hack is uh with meals if you're fighting with your toddler about meals we can you can just say we provide you decide like sometimes i handle that where it's like you can decide if you're gonna get dessert tonight because if i'm providing you with something now if you're trying something new we're not gonna hold you to that same standard but if something it's like i know you enjoy this food and you're choosing not to eat it then you decide you decide and so anyway praise the crap out of what they do right and i you i think you would be surprised like you just see that behavior so much more yeah they do respond so well to that yeah totally um i love when they eat the finish they go augie finished my food i ate it all and they stand up on their chair they go we have a whole chant it's a big deal okay my last tip this is something that we decided before cj was born honestly because i saw an influencer post about it i was like i'm gonna do that um we really really try to keep screen time to the weekends and that has been it's crazy when cj like has screen time like tv time during the week uh i just noticed it a lot in his behavior and it's and then it's asked all the time mom i want to watch a show i want to watch a show and it's like hey buddy actually the expectation we just don't do that during the week buddy we just do it on the weekends and it honestly like kind of nips a butt in the asking for because i'm like we just don't do that on mondays today's wednesday like you can watch tv on saturday and I think it's been helpful a lot during the week also for me I think if I'm feeling tired or whatever like it could just be like very easy for me to want to put on a show but then it's like no I should just actually put a blanket outside and we go sit in the backyard and like have imagination play or I'll sit and read my book in the backyard so it kind of keeps me off of screens too which I really liked um and I think it's really fostered CJ has such a he's really good at imaginative and individual play and i think it's because like i don't have the option of tv during the week and i think it's just been really like it's good it's been really good in our house yeah it's really good i didn't stick to that yesterday so i'm obviously not perfect at it but yesterday we had a sick day and so we did watch veggie tales that's awesome but we've really tried to stick to it and i feel like it's kept the screen time conversation to a minimum yeah and whatever the expectation is i think those screens was just it has it's got to stay consistent yes because Because then otherwise they like well wait they ask for it all the time Totally Like even if it like our Val Hey girl We talked about it all the time Like they do screen time after naps And so it just like the hey no we not going to watch it until after Like, if you just have a set time, I feel like that's really the most helpful. Yeah. Within parameters. I feel like that's been helpful for us. Ask, ask, ask, Abby. Let's do some voicemails. Guys, thank you so much to everyone who calls in and leaves us messages with a question. It can be about anything lighthearted, silly. It can be serious. It can just be a curious question that you have about us or whatever you want. If you want to call in, the number is 602-456-9690. We'll also put it in the show notes. Here's the first one. Hi, Abby. My name is Madison, and I was wondering, what are your favorite parks about living in Arizona? Thank you so much. Thanks for calling, Madison. my favorite part about living in arizona i think there are a lot of things i really love i love living in i love it so much it's so different than the midwest so it's also been really fun just to experience something totally different than what we had growing up um i mean obviously the weather here is unbelievable i just really love the access to being outside and the different options of all the things that you can do outside there's just an endless amount activities here that i really really literally love you cannot beat sunshine no like when we go back home like i am reminded how much i take for granted the sunny days because it just affects like it's just so gloomy when the sun's like we take for the sun is out basically every day and when it's not out like today oh it's cozy it's totally it's like a little cozy day it doesn't even feel like there's just like there's just not really bad weather here and that just makes a big difference in my motivation to like take care of my own health and also just like get out of the house and do fun things with the kids and also our kids can like basically always play outside obviously the summer is like the more trickier time but it's just so nice yeah let the hounds out let them out let them out and even in the summer when it is super super hot um like you swim and different sprinklers splash pads yes there are different there's still activities to be outside what about you adi i was gonna say i really like how much there is to do but more so on the thing of like blake and i both like sports and watching things like that we live in it's living in a bigger city but we like are kind of in a suburb area of phoenix and i feel like i really like that we can go and do major league sports or go to spring training or do these um like cute dates like different places to go to i think um i really enjoy is the season i'm in right totally you could never do everything which is so different from like growing up in like a smaller for sure area yeah it's been fun hi abby's my name is nevaeh and i just the question that i had for you all was what is a season in your life that you feel like you took for granted and you go back and just like relive every moment if you could i love your old podcast and thank you for listening bye that's a really good question i have to think about that for a second thank you nevaeh for that that's really that's a thought-provoking one every season of my life i can say like i have thoroughly enjoyed i don't know that i could say the word like i felt like i took that for granted but there's really sweet things that i like can recognize more in hindsight about certain things in my life and i think about being a kid a lot like i'm like oh that was such a like i don't know it was such a sweet time and such a comforting time yeah and like I knew that I felt like I had the freedom to make decisions but ultimately I knew that my parents were going to like step in and take care of things for me and I think I appreciate that even more now being a parent like it's so fun being on this side of things there's so much responsibility so then you think about like okay nothing was actually truly that serious when I was a kid yeah like that feels and And that was because I had really good parents. Like, you know, the stakes were pretty low. And so, I don't know. I just always think about, like, ugh, when I was a kid. Totally. Things were just – things just happened. It was free. Things just happened. Food was there. Yeah. I think it was one of our first episodes you said, I just went to dance practice and – Just went to school, went to dance. Went to school, went to dance. And my parents made it happen for me. They made it happen. And so it was just, like – Yeah, it's sweet. I don't think that I necessarily took it for granted because I think I always knew. I was like, I, this is great that I'm like very grateful that I had to do these things, but I'm like, wow, that was so good. Like that was literally so good. I'm also so grateful. This is kind of like a little bit off track with this question, but I'm always so grateful that every season of my life I've had good friends pretty much. And I think that has also made like even the hard things in my life, like so much less difficult than they could have been. And so I especially had, like I had really good friends growing up, which I think is like probably the most important time to have good friends yeah and that's the thing i wish them most for my kids is like please make them be friends with like good examples yeah for sure i mean that influences their life so much i don't i don't really feel like there's a season in my life that i feel like i've taken for granted either i feel like i've i feel like i've always had a very gracious like i've always felt so much gratitude for different seasons and um i think a season that just like that newlywed season with Caleb was so sweet I look on it look back on it so fondly it was just such a fun fun fun season and I don't think I realized in the moment how fun it was um so I think maybe that is a season I look back on it was like those first three years married also it was COVID and we were newlyweds so we got married in 2019 and then COVID hit that whole year just disappeared I don't know what happened to it but like what a fun time to be quarantine with your husband your best friend you know it's so fun just getting to spend so much time with yeah because we worked from home we were together all the time and now i feel like i barely you know i don't see it often as much so i love love love that i probably took all the time we spent together for granted that's special yeah well this segment is called always eating always eating which i'm actually hungry right now yeah honestly let's go home and eat we're trying to just think about like how we can give to you guys and like i don't know just make this more of a community we're still having conversations so we're open once again to any suggestions i feel like a lot of us in this community are in a season of either being like a newlywed um mom like we have got people we gotta they've got a great range yeah we got people we gotta feed good range but we all have the common thing of we're all hungry and we have other people that are hungry that we gotta feed and so we were thinking about sharing a new recipe every week to kind of just help if you're like oh i make the same things every night or i don't i have no idea what to cook tonight so if you're heading to the grocery store right now while you're listening to this or after listening to this we've got a couple new recipes for you we'll link them below i linked my shrimp tacos because i just started making those again a lot um but i'm telling you you got to buy your shrimp from costco actually i have to have one of you abby you have to buy from sam's club really It's three pounds for $21 peeled, deveined, raw. Ooh. I don't have a Sam's Club membership. I know. I was going to tell you you need to get one. We just got one. You can use it. Just to get shrimpies? No, but. I have heard Sam's is better than Costco. It's just a little cheaper. No, here's the thing. Costco has way better healthy options. But Sam's is cheaper. Well, then I'll probably stick to Costco. I know. Just get my two. It's two pounds. But it's peeled, deveined, and raw. But they have the biggest shrimps. It's hard to find peeled, deveined, and raw. Yeah, it is hard. It's a hard combo. But they've got to add Sam's and Costco. So whatever membership you have, you're covered. Shrimp tacos. I don't follow this recipe. This recipe is just a good baseline. It's very flexible. Basically, just cook your shrimp and just put all the toppings on that you like. But this is just a good seasoning blend, and it's just the sauce is good, and it's just foolproof. I love your shrimp tacos when you make them. Thank you. I eat a lot of them. I do, too. I make them huge because I also love the tortillas from Costco. They're so good. They have raw tortillas. It really makes all the difference. I'm rambling right now. but i feel like those are good for dinner and lunch too my recipe is a cabbage soup which sounds weird i just love cabbage and i always have you're going to make this for me because i saw you share the recipe and i was a little skeptical well okay so i i'll link a recipe that was i kind of adapted my own but the recipe itself is good okay um i but i posted on my instagram story is like my own little adaptation of it but it's hearty it's warm it feels healing it's just the perfect like blend of warming herbs and good vegetables and i added chicken for protein it is so good herbaceous crusty bread it's a win okay i'm gonna have to try it yes i'm excited about that and it sounds very healthy too it is okay book review time everybody your homework is due did you read the book we're actually still transparently trying to figure out the best way to do this book club right like sounded like a great fun idea yes sent it and we mostly just want to do fun things like foster community with y'all and i love to read i feel like we got a couple readers in here abby you like to read too yeah i like to read when i'm told to read when you're told to read and so um yeah so we're just trying to figure out what the best way to do this is because like for those of you that didn't read the book you're probably like i didn't read the book i don't care i don't want spoilers so maybe on this video we can put a time stamp for when we're done talking about the book yeah and we'll try to keep it somewhat brief but maybe down the line we're thinking of other options of like what's the best way to do it we thought about having like a separate channel maybe patreon type of thing for those of you that like want to be a part of the like book club we thought about doing all kinds of different discord chats like keep it separate or we can keep it in here but mostly we just want your guys's feedback like what do you prefer um because we're just figuring this out yeah it's still new in the goodreads i i think a lot of people have said that link isn't working and also i feel like we don't know how much to engage in the goodreads so if there was a different platform that's a little easier to do the book club in we want that and obviously we would make it like accessible and easy and stuff yeah so or if you're like hey this is preferred do it this way this is a democracy so you need to speak up always homies is it a democracy all in or an oligarchy what's it wait which oligarchy is like kings and queens you guys are the democracy I don't know. It's a democracy. You guys vote, please. You guys gotta vote. This is an inherited. Spoiler alert. We're gonna give spoilers. So if you don't want to listen, maybe fast forward. For My Husband's Wife by Alice Feeney. If you haven't read it and want to read it, skip. Skip. But don't leave. Just skip. Okay, what was everyone's... Let's start with everyone's ratings. Five stars. Ooh. Yes. There you go. I gave it a 3.5. Oh my gosh. three as well oh so on goodreads it'll actually be a three yes that's why i couldn't i was gonna do a 3.5 but goodreads you can only do full stars so i did why i think i'm dumb like i'm actually still confused i am a little confused you both finished the book yes sat myself down i didn't read it so fast i was like i'm gonna have to go back three i'm actually still confused i feel like okay here's my thing no let you guys talk no there's too many crazy people in this book there There are a lot of crazy. What are the odds that all, like, every single character is crazy? Is willing to do something crazy. Crazy. It just got to a point where I was like, first of all, I'm like, it's a thriller. It's not, like, real. So, obviously, it's going to be fiction. But it just got to a point where I was like. It was too much. Everybody is psycho. So, it's not based in any kind of, like, it kind of lost me. Like, I was like, okay, every single character is Looney Tunes. Sure, sure. I could see that. It felt like it wasn't grounded in something. I was confused because I thought Harrison committed to, like, said he murdered her a million times. But he wasn't the murderer. I think they wanted you to think. I feel suspicious of everyone. Harrison was actually the cleanest of them all when you really think about it. He just created a weird company. But then he was, at the end, he was like, my company's not worth it. It's not real. Like, it doesn't work. He knew it was a bad thing. You know, he knew it was bad to know when you were going to die. i ate the reason i gave it three stars it took me at least 45 of the way through to be like oh stories connecting like the first because it's just like two separate like birdie's talking in one of them and then there's everyone else and i'm like how do these connect and so once they connected i was like okay now i'm starting to understand what's happening but i would read it again and i liked the first half better actually when eden died i was shocked shocked really remember when her chapter ends, she goes, and this is how I died. I was like, oh my gosh. She died? The main character? But then you realize she's not the main character. She actually didn't die. No, she did die. No, that was Mary. No. Eden did not die. We're all confused. Eden Fox did die. His fake wife, his second wife, did die. No, that's Birdie. No, that's Birdie. oh oh okay i mean it's confused we might need to explain the book did eden die he didn't die you didn't got pushed off no that was mary guys google it no mary is in switzerland with harrison living happily ever after yes yeah oh jane thought it was mary and accidentally killed mary instead of or and actually killed eden instead of mary yes jane is the one who pushed her off yeah we were the whole time you're like who pushed her off that was a terrible mastermind to literally because talked about her yeah oh carter's wife but at the end i actually liked that really yeah because it was very unsuspecting and then at the end when she was talking about my my husband's wife i was like wait who's talking eden or i don't know who i thought it was eden it's not even about eden or like the title of the book is not even about like i feel like that it was cool because the title my husband's wife applied to two different stories i kind of like yeah yeah i that was creative i like this one more than the other alice feeney book i read which was rock paper scissors me too i think the beginning was really strong i also liked the setting better yeah i didn't like the setting of rock paper yeah just an isolated yeah but i'm still confused so um the person who gets pushed off the cliff is the real eden fox yes the real eden yeah the real eden i and then mary sorry and jane tried to kill eden but it was actually mary and she didn't even know that she killed no no mary's not dead she tried to kill mary that she thought was eden but it wasn't yes pause how do they look so much alike yeah i don't know that's weird that was also crazy but a lot of these people had never met her before like had never met eden like in the town because mary was going around and meeting people like this whole time but had not known like carter slept with mary not eden but he just kissed her i thought oh maybe they just kissed yeah but still he was maybe fantasizing about no they had they just kissed on his desk because he said i wanted that's what he saw but then he actually did sleep with birdie but he slept with birdie but see this is two affairs actually that's what i'm saying this is crazy like jane was willing to commit that crime just to have a kiss because that's the only thing she witnessed yeah i know but then he was actually cheating there was just too many i i didn't really like the storyline of how eden pushed the daughter over the balcony i'm like that just feels so far-fetched like she wasn't actually hit by the car that whole story was like a little crazy all of it was all staged and then gabrie gabriella the daughter is also crazy just randomly one chapter where you find out she's crazy or like at the end they try and they try and sneak in that she's locking Eden out of the house. This is my house. And she's like in her clothes and stuff. And then she goes, don't mess around like that. And then she lets her in the house. Like it was like weird. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And when they, they ended the chapter with, one of the chapters with Gabriella jumping out of the car. Yeah. And they never really came back to that. There was too much happening and too short of a book, honestly. Of trying to wrap up all the loose ends at the end. I was lost. I'm actually clearly still lost. I actually, I really enjoyed it. I was going to debrief. I thought it was very entertaining. I wouldn't recommend it personally. Really? I would. I highlighted, or this was chapter 10, so we were really very beginning. I said, I'm Olivia Bird, I tell him. And then his face folds into a frown, and he shakes his head. Olivia Bird is dead. I said, what the heck is this freaking book? I'm so confused. I know. That was about the grandma, like, was dead. Oh, yeah, the fact that two characters had the same name. And the grandma was in there with such an injured kid. And she died twice. yeah and the mom died and i was like there was so much happening yeah i i was thought it was i think if the mom died twice and then birdie died twice that would have been i think i'm just too dumb for this book no it was a lot she does have i think alas fini can someone confirm that she has all 10 fingers because she tried to cut the finger again so does she have all 10 fingers why is this her signature in the other book we read by her rock paper scissors the book ends with a finger cut off with a ring on it that's why abby made cookies if you ever saw that video cut a finger off in this book it was olivia bird's finger yes it was the grandma's finger was cut off they like with the green ruby yeah or something yes does she not have all fingers nine fingers she has spoken publicly about losing part of her finger in a childhood accident it's something she occasionally mentions in interviews and author talks oh my gosh she mentions it in her books okay that's cool that's really good i love when an author has a signature yeah i think i actually still need to google and just like be like please explain the ending of this book like who's who because see i think what's happened is that like it nothing the parts that were actually mary but you're thinking are birdie yeah never got rewritten in my brain yeah it is so i'm like she has really hardcore twists i never expect her twists in both stories i was very shocked by her my hot take though is that like i like to be surprised by a twist but i just think that her twists are just underdeveloped like there's you should be able to make inferences of some kind or at least go back and say like oh this was this but i feel like it just smacks you out of nowhere it does smack me out of nowhere i think that's why i like it i'm like is that good though like story development i don't know but um yeah you know it was a good thriller to start it's a fast paced one to start your year off you can get one book under the belt now you can read another yeah i have a suggestion for the next one yeah i was gonna say we probably should if we have another book i feel like we need to do a new release that's not brand new okay because it's hard to get our hands on we heard feedback about that but this one came out last year and it's called atmosphere by taylor jenkins reed and it's like it's a fiction but it's takes place it's related to females going to space and people say it's like very inspirational and really good and i really like the author she wrote um seven husbands of evelyn hugo which i've heard of that but i never read it she also wrote um daisy jones in the six fun but this one's kind of like it's like a slightly historical fiction but it's like the 60s i think but it feels like girl power and i feel like that'd be fun yeah let's go always homies it's a fiction though It's not like, it's not, it's a, it's a story. Yeah. Fun. It came out last year. It has 65,000, um, reviews and 4.5 stars. Fun. Let's do it. Okay. Atmosphere. It's a GMA book club pick. A love story. Perfect. Love. Love story. I need to change a pace. I feel like that one was, that one got me. I also read a thriller before that, so that disturbed me. So maybe I just need to have you a little lighter. You need to be a little lighter. Send me a little lighter. um it'll just be a depressing depressing book I enjoyed the book club and I'm glad that we're doing this oh my other side note really quick one more thing is that the subplot of the paintings felt underdeveloped as well that you just kept painting that they all painted and then like the wolf and the like all the points just felt underdeveloped like it felt like there's a lot of good potential but then it never came full circle enough for me to be like appreciate those like plot elements you want it to be a longer book maybe it needs to be longer but i do think some of the things need to just be a or edit it out some of the variables not as many lunatics sure yeah i feel like there could have been some editing there wasn't one sane character yeah i just whenever carter was crazy too what happened okay question another random thing what happened to maddie you know they're like we can't contact her she's not answering maddie disappeared oh yeah she disappeared well the power went out that was just kind of like the day of the dead why that was not that important she said the power was cut yeah the power's coming yeah that never played a role the day of the dead really never just came to do anything i thought we're sure someone was gonna be hidden well jane came and looked at was dressed up and came and looked at birdie but birdie had taken all the pills and passed out and so she's like oh she's already dead so i don't have to kill her right right I wasn't mad at it. I was just kind of like, eh, gotcha. Okay. In closing, we just want to say thank you guys. Wow. This was a long episode. Thank you for sitting with us and chatting with us. Actually, I was going to tell you at the marriage conference, a woman came up to me and she said that her and her daughter listened to always hear every week together. So sweet. I had a girl come to church. Her name is Taylor and her daughter, Isla. So sweet. She's the first one ever come to me. I know. I love the mother daughter. That's so sweet. It was so fun. So thank you guys for saying hi and listening. It's crazy. Yes. And especially we want to thank Haley for she did the next right step. Write a review. She wrote, love you all. I look forward to this each week. It really does feel like I'm right there with you all. When Abby would talk about her books on Unplan and Joke about having a reading corner segment, I'd always beg for it. So now that you guys added a book club, I'm so happy. You guys are so amazing. If you love Girl Talk, friendships, and books, this is the podcast for you. Amazing. Sweet. Thank you so much, Haley. And also, anyone that is feeling generous today, please take a moment or two to just write a quick review, subscribe, share this episode, download. What are all the things you can do? Heart it. I don't know. Give it a thumbs up. Whatever you need to do on whatever platform you're listening on to just show them that you're enjoying us and you intend to come back. It really means a lot. We're so thankful to you, and so is our entire team. So it's not just for me and Abby and Addie. there's more people behind the scene that also are really encouraged by that positive feedback as well so thank you thank you thank you well i have to pee yeah well you know what you guys remember we're always here