Welcome to Ron four of the Parenting Roundabout podcast for the week of July third. I'm Catherine Heleco and I'm here with Nicole Heretics. Hello, I'm Terry Morrow. Hello. As moms of teens and young adults, we've survived those little kid days. Yeah, we're still rethinking the decisions we've made all through our kids' lives and worrying about what's going on right now. Today's Thursday,
which means it's time to give in to our obsessing. And today we're obsessing about learning new things as a parent, specifically in an effort to getting good with your kids. This was an article that Nicole found on Scary Mummy about a mom who learns to skateboard so that she can hang out with her kids. And I mean that's dedication, because no, I would not I would not skateboard. But yeah, I mean, so have you, either of you ever done maybe not as something as extreme as learn not skateboard, but
have you done other things to spend more time with your kids? Huh? I mean I got into I at least as a spectator hockey and figure skating, you know, because of my kids. I certainly didn't know anything about them before that, right, but I haven't actually only once did I actually put on skates and skate myself one fade in time. Yeah, like I think you know, there's like the parents spectator and the one that takes them to all the sports and activities. But yeah, like have you ever gotten
in and participated and actually played? I think is and it I mean just do being the spectator and this chauffeur does give you a lot of time oh together. Oh yeah, there's no denying that. Yeah, yeah, definitely, which has been good, you know, Yeah, I value so. I mean I didn't learn, but when my daughter took up start doing tennis, I would go and play with her like my husband and I would go and play a game with her. There you go. Um yeah, so
we did that. Um ohthough the driving range every once in a while. But I haven't, like those are already skills I already knew, Like I haven't really like when my son joined water polo, I didn't think I'm gonna learn to play water polo. Oh my gosh, I do you imagine that would not be good? Yeah. So similarly, this wasn't something I learned, but it's something I reconnected with. When my daughter was I think she
was in middle school, right before she went to high school. She was going to be in the band in high school, and there was a community band that had a lot of alumni from the marching band and the same director as as the high school band director. And it was suggested to us by someone, why doesn't she go be in the community band this year and then she'll be familiar with things. So, you know, I could not just send her alone into that, and so I dusted off my ancient flute and
I put it together to see if I could still play it. And I could not well, but I did start playing the flute again to go and be in the community band with my daughter, and I actually wound up staying in it longer than she did. She stopped some time after high school. I kept going for a little bit, but I don't think I would have played my flute ever again had it not been for that. Or you know,
every now and then, you know how it is. You put it together, you play something in a songbook, and you go, boy, I can't do this anymore, and you put a bar and put it back
for another twenty years. But for a while there I was playing it pretty steadily, band poorly, but you know, because these were all people who played their instruments all the time and they were really good, and I was like, I can play a good one third of those notes, so I'll just provide that little bit of extra volume for one third of the time. Yes, there was. There's a Stars and Stripes Forever has a a flute
part. It's really mostly played by part. Yeah, if you're in a band and there's flutes, then the flutes get to play a lot of fast notes too. But that was that. That song was the end of my school flute playing days. I was in the band in middle school and I was pretty good and I felt pretty good about I was first chair of the flutes. I felt really good about myself. And then we got that to play and I could not do it. It's like, nope, nope,
nope, can't play the piccolo part on that. Can't even play it on the flute. How about choir? I could wire Because it's it's like you could see I had gotten to the to the highest level that my ability would take me and all downhill from there. So rather than take that as a challenge and take some extra lessons and strengthen my ambrasure and do all these things I just said next, But then I did go back and play it for my daughter. So, and did you ever have to play started stripes in
the community band? Every year? I wiggled my fingers energetically their sound coming out. We're not too sure. Hopefully there were enough out. There were some slower passages that I could play, But that part, it's like, I'm just wiggling my fingers and I'm probably not the only one. But you know, there were enough really good players that it was fine. If there had just been three flutes, it would have been a problem. They would have known every now and then, oh every now and then. The director
would want each of us to play individually. So he made sure we had something not for that song, but something else. And I'm like, right, please, don't, please, don't call on me. But he would not some people. He would make them play it again and again, torture them till they got to write. He just would would make me do it once and it's like, fine, yeah, we're gonna move on. She's
just a mom. He's not serious. But but so that was something I don't think there's been anything similar with my son that he just has his interest in. He wants to pursue them solitarily. But then you spectate, like when you go to the special Epics. Yes, goes bowling and stuff, right right, both of them now, so two child parent cheerer. Yeah,
But my husband does that really more than I do. He's a coach for some of the things, and well, I mean one of many coaches for some of the things, and so he's the one who takes them to do all those things. I just go for the actual competitions, right right. So that's been his thing that he's done to spend time with them. And that's good because as much as I stink on the flute, I stink way more on sports. I have a bundle of talent, y'all. My
daughter, my daughter found out about this. It's in like Sweden or Finland or you know, someplace like above the Arctic Circle. They do a big like endurance race or event on ice on ice skates, and she's like, we should do it, Oh what like? Because I could walk long distances, but I don't know if I can skate. But I do still have my rollerblades from when I was like twenty three and living in New York City
and used to rollerblade in Central Park. I still have them, I god, really, yeah, and you get on them, like, do you use I haven't in a while, but I just tried them on recently. You know, I was cleaning out a closet recently and they were there and they still fit, so I could if I didn't feel weird about being seen on the street. I used to love that though, when I lived in
this city. You know, I would rollerblade over to Central Park and I would really rollerblade around the loop and then I would sit and read the New York Times and the grass like, Wow, that was a good day and you could do that, So you're like the epitome of young and living in the city. That's right, And that's the kind of thing my daughter would like to do too, But yeah, I would not want to do it personally, but it sounds nice. Yeah, it's fun. So do you
think she'll do it the big yeah marathon thing. I don't know. I don't know. We'll see. Wow, that's exciting. Yeah, if either of us are going to do it, we probably need to be actively training and also saving our money because that sounds expensive. Yeah, yeah, no kidding, will participate together in thinking about how cool it would be to do that. Yeah, that's how people will do that together, for sure. And of course there's all the time we spend with our kids preparing podcasts.
You know, they're so interested in podcasts and we want to support them in that, and so we just go ahead on ourselves and you know, we talk about them. That counts as spending time with them. This is how we bond. I talk about my daughter and then she listens to the podcast and it's almost like we're having a conversation. It's great, right, it's awesome, But sorry, kids, mom's got something else to do. That's
going to be it for today's Round four. Tune in tomorrow and we'll share our roundabout roundabout things we've been using or enjoying lately that we think deserve a shout out. Find all our episodes of parenting roundabout dot com and talk back in the comments. They're on our Facebook page or on Twitter, where you'll find us at roundabout chat