Parents Anonymous: My Baby's Head Is Also A Plate

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Hi, it's Anal's Todd here from this Glorious Mess, introducing hot Pod Summer, one hundred hours of curated listening across the Mummamere network, just for you to escape the chaos and enjoy with the kids at home and the weather warming up. We've got episodes of Parents Anonymous to share. Parents Anonymous is part game show, part church confessional. You share your deepest parenting shame and myself and Stacey Hicks rate you, but the worst parenting wins the most points,

My tax Thanks for all the admissions there, and I'm Stacy Hicks. I'm the deputy editor here at MoMA Meyer and this week I ticked not one, but two daycare bugs off my big go card. As you can probably hear, I'm still dealing with the second one, but where fluids ended up coming out both ends and my nose simultaneously.

And I'm just so happy to be sitting with you in a studio. Yeah, are you loving this? I'm a little cuddlef No, thank you, Okay, welcome back to parents Anonymous.

Yes, this is our favorite time of week where we hear your parenting confessions and basically just feel better about being hot messes together.

Group therapy, you know. So you share your story, you get the guilt of your chest, and we give you points based on our very serious and scientific grading system. Yes, otherwise known as a vibe check.

Vibe checks only. So it's part church confessional, part game show. So we give you our points, but basically the worst it is, the more points you get, so there's no losers. It is the best worst parenting. Absolutely, it's the best. Well, my daughter is three, so this is my confession this week. Thank you, Thank you. Three going on four Primetime for tantrums, and this week she was having one of her little meltdowns over something I'm sure was very very important to her.

I am very serious little issue. Yeah, I'm with her. If I was really annoyed about something and then someone was laughing at me, that would just make me so much angry.

Before we were trying to stifle the laughs, but it was just too funny watching her try and be very serious about a very silly little issue.

I reckon next time, instead of laughing, you could just pretend you're crying.

That is what we should have done. I think we're here with you, we feel we feel you on.

This, and pretend that you're crying. Instead of laughing, and that would be better for her feelings. Yeah.

Yeah, the way a banana is peeled is very important. You're right, I should have been more serious about that.

Now, this show does not exist without your guilty confession, so please leave us a voice to note, or if you want to be fully anonymous, you can email us and we'll even read them out for you.

And on today's show, our mystery confessions are called my baby doubles up as a plate. My office is daycare and it's not that bad.

All right, let's go. Let's go. Confession one, my baby doubles as a plate. I found a rash on my daughter's head and immediately panicked. Of course, I jumped onto Google and found the worst possible scenarios, terrible diseases, contagious infections, And after working myself up for well over an hour, I investigated the rash further with my phone torch, even touching the rash il and it moved. I wiped it

Look, you saying this means that you did not have what I had, which is what we call a velcrow child, which is that you can't so much a step one foot away from them without them screaming, and so you get to the point where they just live on your chest. My daughter, for the first three to four months of her life, was permanently in a carrier on my chest or my husband's chest, so every meal was eaten over the top of her. Look, should there be a barrier, probably lay a napkin down on their head.

That's a good little tissue. That's a nice little.

Accessory for them too. You know, keep so busy, do what you gotta do, and when mama's hungry, like she's looking after a little human life, you just got to eat when you can.

It's all character resilience training. It's all resilience training. That's exactly right.

It's fine, like they learned to deal with the elements. Then anything could strike.

And she was on guard for the baby's health because she was concerned it was a ration. Immediately acted. Yeah, and it turns out to just be a little dribble of tomato sauce.

Lucky she touched it. Imagine if she'd gone all the way to the doctors.

Oh, that would be so embarrassing, Like you.

When you don't want to touch a rash, I would be all up in there.

So lucky she did.

She'd rocked up and be like, my baby's got necrotizing fashi ITAs or one of the weird diseases she's googled, and then she gets there and it's tomato sauce.

That would be so embarrassing. All right, So in terms of scoring this out of ten, what are we thinking? Stace?

Look, I think you are able to laugh at yourself about it, which is great, and no harm done. The baby's fine. It was just the sauce. It wasn't the piping hot meat from the middle of the pie. So we're fine. I'm giving you nine tommy sauces out of ten.

I think that you're right. It wasn't hot meat pie. It was cold tomato sauce. So I'd like to retract my concerning statements from previously discussed concerns. And I think that it's a funny story. It would have been funny if she actually went to the doctor, So I'll take off a few points for that. Yeah.

Yeah, if you've gone all the way ended up at the er, that would have been oh ideal for us.

That would have been the storytelling purposes and out of ten for drama. So for that, I'll remove some points and just give you a cheeky seven party pies out of ten. Love it? Okay?

So next we have my office is daycare. I'm currently in my final week of maternity leave and go back next week full time. During my leave, my husband and I have moved, so we weren't able to get on any daycare waiting lists early enough. All the reputable ones in this area required an in person visit, and so daycare won't start for our son for another six weeks

Okay, the confession is that she's lied.

She's lying to work, so she's got to make it work for six weeks with this baby at home. We don't know how old this baby is. This baby might be six months of which might be a little bit easier a one year old. A one year old's trickier. Oh, they're not napping as much.

And they do like to move around. Yeah, and they like.

To squeal at random time. So if you're on a very serious meeting, that will be hard to contain. Yes, but between the two of them, and between family members coming and being able to help out at important times,

I also, I don't advocate for lying to your work, but I would like to question the workplace if she feels the need to lie, Like hear it, Mamma Mia, we wouldn't need to lie. Yeah, I could just say, very very honestly, this is the situation, and Mama Mia would say, don't worry, We'll make it work.

Everyone knows that I've had it coming out both ends for weeks.

And we can all hear it now. So I just feel like that the issue is in the workplace culture. It is not fostering parent friendly terms of honesty and communication. So points off for the workplace, not for the.

Lie, but not for her. No, she's making your work. This is life as a working parent, really, isn't it. Like it's the juggle and it's real.

Yeah.

So I think, look, you're not permanently lying, You're not trying to get away with it in the long term. It's just a means to an end. So I think for six weeks it's okay.

I didn't want to do it.

No, oh god, no, no, you're in for a world of pain. We're not gonna lie about that. This is not going to be fun.

Working at home with toddler's is a worst Like.

I actually think you're better off with a baby or a one year old or whatever this baby is rather than a toddler. That would just be a no go altogether. Yeah, because there's only so much Bluey can do for you in terms of parenting.

Because then once they get to that age where they can sit on an iPad when they're sick for hours and you can work next to them with the only interruptions being the snacks. Yeah, that's the phase I'm in.

It.

Yeah, much easier for you, So much easier. I could just work from home and pretend that kids weren't there. And so what are we rating her for this one?

Oh?

I think we're just going to have to really add points on for the terrible workplace that she works in where she cannot tell the truth, And for that, I give her eight and a half white lies out of ten.

And I'm giving her a few bonus points for being so optimistic and thinking that she can do it the first six weeks back at work, where you're trying to get your brain into gear while you are parenting a little bubba that to you all the time. So I am giving you nine lives out of ten. And I want to make it clear when I said about it coming out both ends, it was not in my workplace. I mean, I've been away from the work.

Thanks doing that. Goodness, thank you for that caveat, And to our very very delulu dilemma Confession three, it's not that bad. I woke up at five point thirty this morning to my baby, who is in the middle of that fabled four month sleep regression, screaming her head off again because she's tired and frustrated that she's having such a hard time falling asleep. My husband, who was awake with me the entire time, is back at work, and I have this cranky, restless baby all by myself today.

Look, you're a better girl than me, because I quite frankly found sleep deprivation horrendous. I felt like there was nothing worse in the world than the sleep deprivation. But I love the way that she's looking at this, because really it is all about perspective, isn't it. If you're thinking that that's the hardest thing in the world, then it does feel like it is.

But really she's right. Every baby's different because you know, sleep regression if that's sort of the worst thing, and she's not struggling too badly with it. I had this experience with my first. My second was a nightmare and I had a newborn Anna toddler don't recommend, But with my first, it was just like looking after a little worm that just I would go and go for walks, go and get coffee and cake. I would just watch

I actually have forgotten this part until we've spoken about it now, just how much Gray's anatomy I got through in the early days of feeding. Like, you never get that time back. No, you never get to sit on the lounge for hours on end again until they're out of the house, I assume. But that's a long way off for me.

So you're right, I know that's really happening. But yeah, I mean, she won't be thinking this if she does have a second or third or fourth, because then you're looking after too many people.

Yes, you don't get that time.

No, you don't just get to sit around and watch TV. Your first it's just a little cheeky walk. It's a coffee and a cake. You know. You can just live in pajamas.

That is the best bit is that you can be in an elasticized waistband at all times. Jeans don't have to come anywhere near you. Quite frankly, that was my favorite part of maternity leave actually.

So I think that this person is very very well versed in silver lining syndrome, which is my brand, and I respect that all about this. Yeah, and I think that she's not even looking at it in the rear view mirror. She's in it, and she realizes that working is actually worse than having just that little newbie worm time and TV binge watching time. Yeah, because then it does get worse again than working, and then by the time the end of your mat leave comes around, you

It's taken me until now to think about this, so you're doing much better than me. So for that, I feel like I have to give you ten seasons of Gray's Anatomy out of ten.

Enjoy. Are we united on who we feel is the winner?

Well, I feel like we were quite generous this week with all three yes, you're sick.

I'm just yeah, just do stup on medications. I think everyone's wonderful. So we've got the tomato sauce on the head. Yes, I took points off because she didn't actually go to the doctor and that would have been a funnier story.

And I added some because I just think.

You got to eat when you got to eat, and lying to your work about having daycare, My office is a daycare. I mean, I feel for her because, as I said, I feel like that's her work places. Yet yeah, hers for having to lie. I really think that this highly evolved confession, the fact that she realized at what everyone does describe as the worst stage, it is actually a little bit easier than all of the other stages with hindsight.

It really is with hindsight, but she's in the moment and has figured that out, and that's incredible.

It's highly evolved, and so she's definitely the most winner, resilient, brilliant winner. Congratulations, well done, well done, enjoy that little worm time designing downhill from here.

And if you've got a confession, we'd love to hear it. Please send us your secret chams. All the details are in the show notes.

See you next time. Bye. If you're looking for something else to listen to, Mama Mia is officially presenting one hundred hours of summer listens, from meaningful conversations to incredible stories, fashion, beauty, and more. There's a link in the show notes