Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun. From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life.
Hi, this is Sarah. Before we start with this episode, Laura and I talked about it and we want to provide a little bit of a trigger warning. This episode talks about kids advancing in milestones and some of the fun things about that as parents that many parents do look forward to in their parenting journeys. However, we recognize
that not every kid progresses at a linear fashion. We know that many children out there have maybe uncertainty around their progress in various milestones, and listening to this kind of content could be really triggering if you're dealing with a kid who's not progressing in perhaps typical or expected ways. So if that does apply to you and you feel like listening to more typical celebrations of kid milestones is
going to be difficult for you. I definitely suggest skipping this episode and we'll be back in your feed next week.
Thank you so much. Welcome to Best of both Worlds. This is Laura. This episode is going to be all about parenting milestones. We sort of joked about calling it just you wait, because that is one of our least favorite phrases that people use about parenting. But we think there's actually a lot of positive milestones as kids get older that we want to talk about in this episode. So first, Sarah, that phrase just you wait, that makes every hair on your head stand up, right.
Yeah, I really don't like it. And to be clear, I don't like it when it's like, oh hah, you're like upset about not pumping enough. Well, just you wait till they're teenagers, you'll really find out what parenting challenges are about. Like I don't know, like Seasoned, there was this trope of like Seasoned parents like laughing off the trials and tribulations of parents with young kids because that's like little problems or like not really worth stressing about and it's just so belittling.
Yeah, or just the idea that like, oh, if you're happy now, you won't be in the future. Like if you're finding this particular time of parenting fun, like just you wait, because the heavens will strike you down or something. I don't know, it just people have a lot of
negativity that then now I will admit that. There's sometimes like people have not like had children yet there's someone pregnant and they're like, oh, I'm getting all these like cashmere baby outfit, like I'll be able to pass down to my grandchildren.
I mean sometimes in those baby sizes, they wear them only one time, so.
It's they might be right. Maybe I would never say just you wait. I'd be like, oh, that's great. I can't wait to see it. I mean that would be yeah. And see, you wouldn't say it.
You might say it in your head, but you don't need to say that out loud or like I mean, I've even had it with like oh you're running, well, just you wait, your knees are gonna hate you in a decade.
I'm like, well, maybe they won't. Like I was running a decade ago and they haven't hated me yet. And why do I need to plan from.
In my inevitable demise like, yeah, I know about aging and mortality, Like you don't need.
To I have medical credentials. Yeah, exactly.
No.
Well, there's a couple other phrases that are also ones that we hate, like a savor every moment, Sarah, are you enjoying every moment? I hate? Just you wait?
And then these two I thought were so you like, savor every moment? And then zone defense zone defense?
Yes, well, so you cannot enjoy every moment, and that is absolutely ridiculous because that just heaps like suffering on top of the misery of the current moment, like that I'm supposed to be feeling good about this time. That is pretty miserable. And there's nothing really that fun about three kids screaming in the grocery store. So the person telling you to enjoy every moment is not really.
I'd be like, you want to take take one of them joy moment too, the.
One who's screaming loudest at the moment they can be yours. Yeah, or zone defense just we've joked about a lot of because it's a sports metaphor. We've heard this from a number of gentlemen who their family maybe having their third child and they do like, oh, we're switching from man to man to zone defense, and that seems to imply that this person has never had both two children with them on their own, because they would have already been doing zone defense if they were had had this situation
occur before. So you know, and the truth is that that might actually be true, might be true. Like their ideas, it's man to man because the only times that they have their kids, their wife is there too, and so they can split them. But it is what it is, Like, we know that many people have done zone defense before the third child arrives, and so we just want to honor those who have juggled many children on their own and adding a third is just one more to the mix.
But we're not gonna be negative in this episode.
Can we gonna be positive?
Yay?
One of our potential titles was just you wait, it's gonna be great? Yes, So just because those positive parenting milestones, things that maybe we didn't even like know that we were going to look forward to, that have like made parenting maybe easier, maybe more fun, more rewarding, things that if you are pregnant right now or you have really literly little kids, we're gonna give you some fun stuff to look forward to.
Yeah, so, Sarah, why don't you go first?
I try to go kind of in age order, but well not exactly edge order, but we're gonna start with babyish stuff. So when they can buckle their own car seat, it's amazing, Like they don't even have to be able to like fully like get in themselves. But even if they can kind of like help buckle it, or they get to the point maybe when they used to fight you in buckling it and they'll cooperate, Like when that hole getting in the car thing becomes easier, it is definitely something to celebrate.
Yeah, Yeah, getting in the car independently is a huge milestone. It just makes getting out the door that much easier with that. Switching from like the full on car seats to a booster seat. When you can do that, it's each of day around four in a lot of states, is huge because it's just something that's more portable and then you can take a portable one with you or like rent it or buy one even if you need
to in a destination. I mean, it's just so much easier than a huge car seat that you have to deal with when they don't need a booster seat at all. Even more so, you're like, any car is ours. We can get in any car. It is wild.
Like Annabel is like fully my height, and I think almost done growing. And now she sits in the front seat, which is legal where we live, and it's like wow, Like if I can sit in the front seat, she can sit in the front seat, and it's kind of amazing. Okay, Now I'm like nervous about car safety people, so please look up your local laws, weigh your pros and cons. But when you feel it is safe and it is legal, it is really nice when your kids graduate from one step of protection in the car to.
The next one. Yeah, well, if they are your size one would hope. I mean, we don't have laws against like small women driving cars, like at least not yet.
Not yet.
I hope I don't have to give up my driving privileges. Sorry, you're not five three, You're done? All right, next one, Sarah, all right? When they can talk and express their frustration, this one is amazing. And I mean, obviously it's not going to be hit at the same time for every kid. We had some kids that were talking at eighteen months and others that were like three, so you know your
mileage is going to vary. But man, once they can kind of say what they want and not like turn into like a puddle of tears because they can't express that, like they want the cheese slices instead of the peanut butter or something like that, then just makes everything so much easier.
Yeah, like when the kids don't just cry because I mean, when you got a little kid, you'll be in a car trip and they start crying because they're uncomfortable or they are want to get out of the car, and you do too, but you can't cry like that. So it's just the crying is something you didn't have to deal with because people, especially if you're in public, people don't like to listen to it, and it just makes every situation more stressful. There's a five year old cries
for very specific reasons, right. They cry if they're upset about something, they cry if they fell down, but they don't just randomly cry. And I think that moment is parenting milestone we don't necessarily talk about quite as much, but it's there. It's as much as taking those first steps.
Yeah, no, and it can't happen a little bit gradually, but then you'll kind of realize, like, we don't have the sound of crying frequently in our house anymore.
And that's awesome.
And I'm not knocking any babies who cry like that is a perfectly appropriate and acceptable response, pre communication, et cetera. But man, it's nice to not have that be the dominant soundtrack.
I will throw one in here, which is when the child can actually follow a video woo. And I'm sure there's all sorts of stuff about like putting kids on screens, and I'm not saying that, you know, you want to have your babies watching Teletubbies or whatever the thing is for them now, but like when a three year old could actually watch an episode of Dora and get it,
like what's happening, and so it actually entertains them. This like opens up the possibility that you can like cook dinner without a kid on your leg or something like that. It just gives you a little bit of space, and so I think that's a milestone that is worth celebrating too. Totally.
That's a good one and related because I think sometimes it can be helpful for them to sit and watch when you're in this phase. Is that like magic moment.
It's somewhere like.
Three ish fourish, Like I'm fuzzy on exactly what it is, but when you're like, I don't have to follow this kid around to prevent them from self harm because they're gonna fall and hit their head or put something in their mouth or like, I never had a perfectly babyproofed house in part because I felt like, you can never have a perfectly baby proof house, So what's the point of having a mostly babyproof house and then like realizing it's not perfect and having like I just felt like
we had to rely on like a lot of supervision for a really long time. But when you don't have to follow them around, it is magical. And I think most of us can kind of like sense when that moment has been reached.
Yeah, yeah, And it's unclear exactly when it is, And if you went to somebody else's house, you might still need to follow them around for a while, but there is a moment, like when you can bring your kids to someone's house and like if you're going for a play date and you like that parent, like the two of you could sit and talk in another room, right and you don't have to be there right on top of them, supervising the whole time. Yeah, that's a pretty
magical moment when that happens too, totally. Well, we're going to take a quick break.
We're so enthusiapatistic about these moments, we're living all these positive milestones. We will be right back with some more.
Well, we are back talking about positive parenting milestones. Things you can be looking forward to if you have tiny children who need constant supervision right now. Things that will make your future feel bright. Just you wait, because it's going to be great. So, Sarah, that wonderful world of toilet independence. You guys achieved that at some point.
Oh yeah, when they can go to the bathroom on
their own, that is miraculous. And I'll even add when we got to some point and this is gender specific because like I'm talking more in public, but we got to a point where like if I was like, had all the kids and we were shopping and then Genevieve's like I have to go to the bathroom, I can ask Annabel to take her rather than like stopping all the shopping and I'm checking out and like it's like no, so or at a restaurant, maybe I'm like, oh, do you guys both have to go and I can just
stay seated. Like, if you can have your older kid help your younger kid go to the bathroom, that's like an intermediate milestone before the complete independence.
Yeah, I thought you were talking about, like actually helping a small child in the bathroom. My older kids are not that big about doing although in babysitting it has happened that they have needed to help Henry with being in the bathroom. But he's five now, so he's pretty much there almost Sometimes it's more supervision rather than active. Yeah, he wants supervision and like making sure that he washes
his hands and stuff like that. But yeah, when or when you don't even know when your kids are going to the bathroom like that is huge. And I was laughing about this because we have all our pediatrician appointments coming up in swift succession over the next month, and one of the questions they always ask them is about their bathroom habits. And some of the kids, like at age nine or whatever, will turn to me and I'm like, I can't answer that, Like I have no idea what's
going on? You have to answer that, which is kind of fun when you're not really aware of what is going on totally.
And I will admit I know to ask the kids, like I've learned as a clinician, like the parents don't know, and sometimes crazy stuff is uncovered when you actually asked.
Well, okay, then find out who even knows what's what's going to find out? But yes, if I guess, well, you probably would know if your kid was going to the bathroom like twelve times a day. Super would be something that might come up in the course of your day to day life. Okay, So restaurants though, like you talked about having two kids go to the bathroom together in a restaurant, even being in that restaurant is a milestone.
Right, yes, and not having ask for a special seat and then lug the seat around the restaurant. But everyone just going to sit down at a regular table, And yeah, that moment when you're like, oh, going out to dinner is fun again.
Yeah, somebody is just holding a baby who might be crying. You have to walk around with them, or somebody's you know, anxious to get out of the away from the table. I mean, the older kids in my family are fun
to go out to eat with. Alex just doesn't eat, so it's kind of not I mean, you know, he won't be ordering something, so I sort of have to just make sure he has eaten before we go, and then I guess he can be on the iPad or I can try to get him to talk or whatever, but if he's not participating in the meal, that's sort of its own thing. Henry is still a bit of a loose cannon. So that's that's the reality of a
five year old. But it's getting better, Like we can in fact sit in a restaurant and if we do not eat immediately, it's not the end of the world.
Yes, they don't have to bring the you know something out right away now. I think I remember a time in our lives when we had I think both a single stroller and a double stroller in the foyer of our like not very big house in Miami Beach, and I was like, someday these will not be taking up half of our house. So I think it's really exciting when you really can't imagine a use case for a stroller anymore and you can give them away.
Yeah. I always remember as Henry was like three and a half or four, and the stroller sort of migrated from the front porch to the garage and never came back out, and it was like, oh, okay, that's kind of cool. Now, I'm not saying he always moves under the power of his own ambulation, like Michael will carry him. In various situations where he has declared that he does not wish to walk anymore, he winds up up on
Michael's shoulders. So I could see a use case for a stroller, but we tend not to take it with us. We just rely on the fact that he's gonna walk, or in that scenario he will wind up being carried for a short distance, and at.
A certain point you're just gonna be like it would be ridiculous, like seven, it would look crazy.
Like yeah, I mean like Michael can't carry Alex, Like that doesn't work. Like maybe you could, but there'd be like some back injuries coming out of it, And Michael's going to tell me I guldgur him if I had to, But yeah, no, it's like a small child yes, a bigger child no. And there is a point where there is no way you would ever be walking around with the stroller because it would just be embarrassing for everyone involved.
Next one is when they can read without it being an onerous chour.
And we're not.
Totally there yet with everybody in the family, but we are so close. And you know, reading isn't fun when you're still sounding out every word. It's just like your kid's not going to lose themselves in a book when it takes a minute to like you have to ask for help with every third word. So this is when I'm not we're not quite there, but I'm very much looking forward to and I've seen it happen with my big kids, so I know it can.
Yeah, and even just when kids can read in general, because then they can deal with like the world on its like there are things that come with instructions, or there are things that sign a sign, or if you're turning on a television, seeing what the thing is that it says on there, or you know, there's just reading is obviously useful. Literacy is a helpful skill. That's why we learn it. But it's just one other way that
they can entertain themselves. And I think one of the reasons small kids wind up on screens a lot is because they can watch a show and can't read, whereas there becomes a point when they're six, seven, eight that they start to become a more fluid reader, and then things that are printed become as interesting as some of the shows, and so it can wind up being a bit more of a balance, and you may not have to build up more of that habit if they have
developed more of an interest in shows and movies and things like that. But I think it's doable. And one of the things we do is they carve out time in the evening where people can't have their screens and so they can stay up if they want, but they're going to be reading, and hopefully that helps build the habit.
Yes, well here is a fun one when they can take their own shower and or wash their own hair.
Yeah, this is I mean, and there's It's an interesting thing what age like kids stop wanting you to be involved with it at all. And we talked about this in another episode of It, being around ten or eleven, that they like actually start really not wanting you anywhere near them while they are bathing or taking care of other personal things, whether that's changing or something else. And so it's interesting to watch that as a milestone. But what that also means is that you're not involved in
the bathing process. Now, that can be a double edged sword, because my experience is that some tween boys are good about deciding to shower on a regular basis. Some just don't think it needs to be a priority, and so wouldn't if you were not more actively involved in making sure it happens. So you know, you need to go in and tell them to do it, even if you are not actively supervising the process.
I feel like your problem is you don't live in a hot enough climate with kids that play sports outside, because it's like you could not poss I don't know.
I feel like there are I mean just from being around other tween boys too. You know that, like not everyone, it's not a natural thing. Like the overlap of when you need to shower daily and when you decide to shower daily is not always immediately. You know, those milestones don't actually happen at the same time all the time. Oh my goodness.
And even before they don't want you in there, there's a point where you can send them like it's so much nicer to be on vacation and be like Genevieve, go take a shower. Versus like, Okay, I'm gonna have to micromanage this shower like you, especially when they don't have a tub or something like that in a hotel room.
It's just nice. Yeah, no, very very true. And with that doing their own hair, I mean this is less of a thing for me. I guess you have multiple girls, yeah, do not do her own hair.
So like I have one kid who is like Annaba broke her finger and I had to do her hair and I was like, wow, I really haven't done this in many, many years, Like I don't know when this happened, but I have not been doing your hair. And she does her hair quite nice, so you probably better than I do. So yeah, that that one's big because that can be time consuming and sometimes not the most quality time you're spending with your kid because you're trying to.
Brush out knots, and not everybody enjoys that. So yeah, yeah, Well I have four boys who have chosen to wear their hair more on the shorter side. If somebody wanted to wear their hair longer, I would be all right with that, but you know, they've generally been fine with it being on the shorter side, which means there's never been any doing the hair. I mean, you know, I wash Henry's hair in the bath when he takes one, And that's about the extent of my hair involvement.
Now.
Obviously Ruth was at some point a smaller girl with longer hair, but I guess I was never really that kind of mom. Her hair is pretty fine, as these says they say us.
The hair type thing, because my kid's hair would be like in a big snarl, that would like we'd have to cut it off their head.
Yeah.
No, I mean as long as it was washed fairly regularly and then brushed, and then you know, you could put it in a ponytail or whatever. I don't have the skill to braid things extensively. We've had a few you nanny's and babysitters over the years who have much better expertise in that area, and they've done some cool things with her hair. But that's one thing where I could just admire other people's skills. And when she's with me, it's in a ponytail. But now she's old enough she
does her own things. Obviously she's thirteen, she's been doing her own hair for years. Love it.
How about when they can engage in conversation and you're like, this is like a fun dinner party, Like I'm actually having like a real thoughtful conversation and valuing your interesting perspectives.
Oh yeah, when you could talk to your kids and it's not like you're talking to a kid, like you're actually having a conversation with a person. Yeah, Yeah, that's a milestone that kind of sneaks up on you and you realize, like, hey, we're hanging out in the kitchen having a conversation, like two normal people having like this. You know, I was cooking with Ruth the other daily baking. I'm sort of like this is almost like, you know, if I had a girlfriend here baking something with me.
I mean, obviously we're still parent a child, but you're just having a fun conversation with each other, enjoying the time. And yeah, that can kind of sneak up on you too. Now, some children are more introverted than others, so it could be harder to engage some people in a conversation than others. But you know, if it's a topic they like, and so if you do the work to figure that out, then you can have a really cool conversation with them too.
Yeah, or they may know a lot more about something than you do all of a sudden, and you're like, oh, I will learn from this tween or teen, like that's amazing.
Yeah, that's awesome. All right, Well let's take one more quick ad break and then we'll be back with some more positive parenting milestones. We'll be all right back to the kitchen. Yeah, yeah, back to the kitchen, Sarah. What else is a milestone for you in the kitchen?
Yeah, when they can cook and they like it legitimately is good. Cameron is like the omelet master in our house. Actually, to be honest, he's surpassing. But I think in terms of, like she's going to a cooking camp this summer, so I don't know, like like.
You can have them compete this summer. You could be the happy beneficiary of that exactly. Yeah. No, I mean I have enjoyed, like Ruth will do baking projects and things like that. But even just when the kids are able to produce their own food when they are hungry and it doesn't have to involve you, Now, for some children this would lead to only eating crackers. So even if they are technically old enough to be producing some of their own food, you sort of have to monitor it.
But yeah, like if you know your teenage boys get hungry all the time, there's just like I don't know, it's like six meals a day or something, but they I don't have to be responsible for most of them. You know, if you get hungry, you just scramble yourself eggs, or you make yourself mac and cheese, or you start the oven and make a pizza. I mean, there's just all sorts of things you can do on your own,
and that milestone is excellent. I still cooking family dinners a lot of time, but yeah, other extra meal food is not necessarily your concern.
No, It's true, like on the weekends, I don't necessarily know what the bigger kids eat for lunch. Yeah yeah, but genevieb iy do and it takes work and it's fine. But like, yeah, interesting to know that that changes, all right?
Driving double edged sword, Yeah, well that's that's kind of a ways beyond all of these just I mean, because of the laws on it, and I think in a lot of states it's more graduated licensing. So even if so in some places people can get their license at sixteen, in some other states you can get Like in Pennsylvania, you can get a permit at sixteen, and then you have to have six months of driving experience before you can get your license, So it winds up happening a
little bit later than it might have elsewhere. But yeah, I mean, just having another driver opens up another dimension. Often I think of the schedules of many people and going lots of places being somewhat like chess here you have to like think through the various moves. But when you have another driver, it just opens up another angle that you can take. And so it's like having a kid who can stay home alone, or a kid who
can stay home with a younger sibling. It just adds a level of flexibility that makes the game a lot
easier to figure out. And so like when Michael and I were going out for something on a Friday night and we had left Michael and Ruth and no not my sorry, Jasper and Ruth and Alex were at home, and now Henry was off he has a Friday night sitter, but they were off at her place, right, so, and Sam was off at something and I was like, well, are we going to make it back from this thing where we are at at a time, and then I'm like, but we don't have to be I could send Jasper
out to get Sam and Ruth would still be there with Alex. It's like I have the babysitter and I have the driver and it's all good. Like it's new vistas. New vistas have opened up in terms of figuring out everyone's schedule. Of course, I mean that the driving can go wrong. I mean, knock on woods. I know people have had many things happen obviously, you know, scary things. They're even just like somebody hitting your mailbox, like let's you know, there's many many options that can happen with
a new drivers. But it is a milestone, and it is if you have a well trained and safe driver, which hopefully you are encouraging your young drivers to be so in working with them to become so it does open up some possibilities as a milestone.
So kind of like on that note, teens in general, I can't comment much having no teens officially yet although very soon, but you have a bunch, so.
Yeah, I love teenagers. I think they're great, and it's not just because they're my kids, like I actually really kind of like their friends too. I mean you know, they're just good kids that have chosen friends well for the most part. But I think it's like there are a lot of really cool young people out there in the world, and it's so exciting to get the see them develop their own personalities and figure out their way
in the world and what they want to do. And they're not quite as jaded as older people in Cynical and so that's sort of fun. And yeah, they had still their lives in front of them, and I really enjoy that. And I think this is a key thing because a lot of the just You Wait is about how teenagers are going to be terrible, and I think
in some ways I've really lucked out. I also really make a point, and this is more conscious of not getting upset about little things, and I think that can help a lot if you want to enjoy the teenage years more like getting upset about dishes. Being in a bedroom, for instance, might not be really worth getting upset about.
Or I'm trying to think of other things. It wouldn't be so specific here, but you know, like one bad grade is not the end of the world, or if somebody if you have booked something wonderful for the child and the first phrase out of their mouth is not thank you, wonderful mother. I am so appreciative of this. It's sort of more of a grunt because they're still focused on something else. You don't need to fly off
the handle about that either. You can just trust that in a little bit they'll be more excited about it, and you just wait for that. Life with teenagers is great.
Another major game changer has been the moment when I feel like I can leave the kids at home without getting a babysitter, even just for like a short like oh, I'm dropping one kid off it sports practice, and I can leave the other two home. And that's been relatively recent for us, and I've been surprised at how life changing and freeing it feels. And as someone who has a lot of childcare already, I can only imagine it being amazing when you don't have someone that you're hiring full time.
Yeah, I mean this is it's certainly been something for us. It probably took me longer to get to this point. And I don't know if it's just because, well, partly, Jasper turned sort of babysitting age during COVID, so we weren't really going as many places during that time as we might have anyway, for like the first two years until I was like fourteen, fifteen years old, and then I hadn't really and we still had a very little
kid at that point, and so I'm not sure. You know, a lot of teenage babysitters did not that big on following a toddler everywhere and changing diapers and things like that. But once Henry was potty trained, I was like, oh wait, I actually have at this point three babysitters in the house, and especially if they trade off, it is much more feasible for them to do even reasonable stretches of time.
And we haven't been gone that long with them just because of we're still getting our heads around the idea. But so I would say the max was like Michael and my going out to dinner for a while, and then huge, but that was cuge. You know, we'd go local in case we needed to get home, but it
was like a major milestone. And then like this winter, We're taking Sam with us to go to one of the Eagles games, and I had booked a sitter because I was like, Okay, well it's gonna be six hours, Like that's kind of a long time to ask the other kids, so you know, especially it's their weekend like it. But then she got sick and I was like, Okay, what do I do? And so I was like, okay, guys,
you too, split it. Jasper and Ruth, you guys can split it so you could both go do something else if you want to during the other three hours, and I will pay you like a good going rate for a sitter. And so they did it and it was fine, Like it was absolutely fine, and you know, I checked in with them by phone on occasion, but you know, we were able to be gone for that amount of time and Henry was fine and he even got dinner. They made him dinner, so like, yay, yeah, it worked. It worked.
I mean because they're definitely old enough to babysit other kids.
We were sitting it totally be higher. I was babysitting for all sorts of people and like by seventeen, yeah, I mean, that's like definitely old enough to do. But I don't know, it's just like you don't have your own mindset of that, and then you realize, oh, yeah, they are like definitely old enough to be doing this. That is awesome.
How about sleeping in on weekends.
Oh my goodness, we don't get to a milestone. You should definitely, although we joke about this because I feel like a lot of adults, just as your children starts sleeping in on the weekend, like you become unable to sleep in anymore. Like you are.
I could sleep in still, like, because I get up so early the rest of the time if I want to sleep in, And when I say sleep in, I mean like eight yeah, But I mean don't don't you have to.
Like go to the bathroom after like seven and a half hours?
No.
I mean I feel like sometimes I would go to about them earlier so I could really fall back asleep. But I guess what I'm getting at is we're not there because Genevieve always wakes up like.
Well, and a lot of people sort of circadian rhythms shift as they become older. That's why we joke about like senior citizens having dinner at four thirty because they're up, you know, early in the morning, so the day is like over by seven pm. But it's true, like your circadian rhythms do shift, and so around the time that your kids are sleeping in, you develop like you can't sleep in anymore, and it's sort of annoying that is,
I can still sleep till about like eight. Yeah, I can make it to eight, and your kids do too. That kids do too, So on a weekend morning, if we don't have to be anywhere early, which is its own thing, like there are all sorts of ridiculous like
tournaments that start at seven thirty in the morning. But if we don't have to be somewhere and I don't set an alarm, like I will probably wake up on my own and it won't necessarily be a kid that's waking me up, Like I will probably be up before anyone else in the household, and that's kind of huge, or even just during the week, like the fact that I'm setting an alarm, like there was definitely a time in my life where the alarm was kind of a
superfluous extra check on the morning to make sure that we didn't completely miss school work whatever. But like Alex was up at five point forty five in the morning for years, and now he is not. He's definitely not up five, or if he is, he can go get his own iPad and deal with it himself, Like it's not my problem.
This is oh my gosh, in those baby days, Like the first day that you get woken up by your alarm instead of the baby, that is like so sweet.
Well, I heard a milestone from somebody who like actually missed work, like maybe I were late to work one morning because the first time it happened, like they were just not prepared for that reality that it could ever happen, right, you know that the kids had been waking up for so long, and then they're like and probably like, you know what worth it? I'm seven thirty train. Yeah, so it can happen. It will happen to you at some point, so you know, eventually you do need to start setting
the alarm. But it's pretty sweet, all right.
Media, Like when kids shows don't stink when they want to watch stuff that you actually want to watch, and you're not just compromising because you know it'll keep every kid happy, but you're actually legit interested in the TV show or movie or whatever.
Yeah, because you guys all liked Wicked, for instance, right, I mean I love that.
I mean maybe that's a more kid angled one, but I mean I legit wanted to see that, and legit wanted to see it again, so that's a great example, yeah.
For us. The upside is that when the kids have gotten old enough to watch stuff with Michael that I definitely do not want to watch, which is great because then he can go to a superhero movie with somebody who is not me, and if he wants to watch Game of Thrones, which I really did not want to watch. I don't like violence and stuff like that anyway. So there have been teenage boys watching Game of Thrones with him and they can all get into it and it's
not anything I need to deal with. So that's a wonderful parenting milestone too, totally.
And for the record, I have not watched Game of Thrones either. Oh no, okay. I have one last one that I'm adding on, which is that you get to a point when your kid will be like, I'm sick on a school day and you're like, okay, because they can stay home either by themselves or with you. And that's spawned by the fact that Cameron is right now homesick and I am sad that he's coughing, and I feel bad, but I'm able to do the things I need to do, versus back in the day i'd have
to call in more childcare. I mean, our nanny would come, but like I didn't even have to bother her.
It's like we're fine. Yeah, yeah, when older kids can stay home, and I mean if they're not like a death store. I mean, obviously, if somebody is like very very ill, you probably want to be checking on them. But yes, a cough or you know, sleeping off, tummy troubles the day before is something that an older kid can kind of deal with. On another OWD, and with that, I would point out that there comes a point where a child recognizes that they are about to be sick.
And that is a beautiful moment too. As we talk about the wonder of winter and the winter germs and the Nora virus thing that goes through your whole household, some children are able to recognize that's about to happen, get themselves to a bathroom, and there's a lot less mess, and that is wonderful.
Yes, absolutely one of the best milestones there.
Are those best milestones there possibly could be with parenting. All right, So on that note, Sarah, moving on, we can go ahead and get to our question for the week. Do you want to read this? Do you want me to? Sure?
So this person, I'll summarize, right, they were listening to our airtight task management episode. I wanted to know when we get our personal and family task done, Like if you had a task that might take a bunch of hours to complete, is this and after kids are in bed on weekends kind of situation. This person's just kind of wondering where to fit that in.
So Laura, yeah, well, this is definitely a problem for It's a different answer if you have sort of flexible job versus if you don't have a very flexible job. And so I can tell you what I do, which is I just put the bigger tasks on my priority list for the and I just assigned them a time. So, since I work for myself and it is often easier to do these things when you are sitting at your desk with your laptop, with your planner, with your phone,
I will probably do them during my work hours. I try to choose time that's not my peak focused creativity time. Like when I had to send invitations to a kid's birthday party and I had to look up a lot of email addresses to get them on the paperless post invite. I did that at like three thirty pm on an afternoon, right, like, that was something I carved out time to do that for. Then I keep a running punch list and I try to get through those sometimes on Friday. Lately, I'm not
sure what's been happening. My Fridays have been had stuff and they've been shorter than they should be, So I don't know what's happening with that, but I will do at some other point. I have my running punch list, or even make myself a weekend to do list and say there's you know, I'm going to do an hour
of work on this. If you have a less flexible job, obviously you cannot just you know, be like I'm going to stop seeing patients at three thirty and do my personal punch list, or I'm going to stop driving this bus at four o'clock and do my personal punch list. Like, yeah, obviously there's many things that this is not going to work. But I think it's important to recognize that it is
work and it does take time. So you do need to build some time into your life so as you're planning your week, you can kind of triosh keep a running list and triosh what has to happen during business hours and what does not. If there's something that doesn't have to happen during business hours, you might try carving out like thirty forty five minutes two evenings a week or on the weekend when you're trading off with your
partner or whatever, that you do it. Then if it does need to be during business hours, either dedicate a lunch to it, or if your business hours don't entirely overlap with like eight to five, Like maybe you start work at nine, maybe you could do eight to nine one morning a week where you get through some of that stuff. Or if you work eight to four but you can pick up your kids as late as five thirty at daycare, maybe you carve out one day a week where you do it from four to five thirty.
And you can't necessarily do it on your employer's equipment, right, Like I'm not saying you have to do it on your work computer, but like go somewhere, like go to a coffee shop with your phone and your planner and make it happen. That's what you can do.
Yeah, I mean, I my schedule is definitely less flexible, even on my flexible days, I think because I don't have very many flexible days. My flexible days become really unflexible really fast, because I booked.
Every interview and every thing and I can't move it.
I do a lot of opportunists, and I feel like the more urgent the thing is, the more I will find a pocket time to get it done in. Sometimes that's a weekend, like a weekend afternoon. It doesn't mean we're only doing drudgery. There's still time to do fun stuff and also get some work done. Sometimes it's lunchtime at work. Sometimes a patient will know show. So there are probably equivalents to that, and whatever your industry is,
where you just have a pocket of time. Someone cancels a meeting and you know what, if you work on that home thing for thirty minutes, probably you know it wouldn't impact anything. And we know from our Patreon group that many full time, very corporate working women spend some of that work time.
I'm doing these personal things, so sometimes that will work. Your mileage maybury.
And then also other pockets are like, oh, you're picking up a kid at seven from dance, but you have to drive across town and you don't want to go home first. You're gonna be stuck in the car, so like what can you get done? So looking for those windows of opportunity and always kind of knowing what is the most urgent so you can triage effectively.
Yeah, all right, Sarah Love of the Week, What is your love this week?
Well, this one is inspired by the topic, which is that I love it when you're well.
We had a great playground birthday party.
Not we we didn't throw it, but we attended one where a I knew all the parents because the kids have been together for years and be the kids are all old enough that we could just let them entertain themselves and they did and it was just.
Like super relaxing. Yeah, no, that's great. There's certain things that make teen independence easier than others. Obviously, it's harder if you're not in a walkable area because then they have to drive in order to get around. So you still providing rides places until they're sixteen and a half or something, and so that sort of postpones things a
little bit. But one thing I have found makes it convenient for kids to go places on their own if they need to pay for stuff is Apple Pay like on their phones, just that you can put a credit card on their phone. If they need it for something, they can use it. And maybe there are things you agree that they pay you back for, but they have access to a payment tool at a time that they might need it, So then you're not constantly asking do you have cash on you? Like where kids don't like
to carry wallets or purses. I don't know what it is kids these days, but so they don't have like where are you putting your money? Like where would you put your drivers? I said, I don't know anyway, But that said, they at least have a way to pay without a credit card falling out of their pocket or cash falling out of their coat pocket or getting left in the car wherever. So yeah, it's a benefit of it. Love it all right? Well, this has been best of
both worlds. We are talking positive parenting milestones because just you wait, it's gonna be great. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds. Podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.