Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcast. I'm Terry Morrow and I'm Catherine hileco. Every Thursday we're bringing you a library find, a pick from our archives, and a parenting or pop culture tidbit or two. Let's start with Catherine's library find of the week.
So I am once again bringing you a update or a new title in an ongoing category, which is scatological titles to draw kids interests. We've had, We've had butt or face I believe was a previous entry in this category, and now we have fish farts, oh my goodness, and
other amazing ways animals adapt. So once again, you know, non fiction for kids about animals, and Simon and Schuster tells us that from popping off a tail to rolling around and dung to farting to send a message, this funny and informative nonfiction picture book shows the many unusual ways animals adapt to their surroundings. So wow, I mean, wouldn't you rather read about fish farts than deadly bites?
I would? I entirely would.
That's what you're getting here.
Yes, and you know if you bring the fish Farts Book to school, the teacher will be mildly annoyed. If you bring the fish Bytes book to school, the teacher is going to send you the counselor. So it's it's all so much better, right. Oh, and I'm looking at the I'm looking at the more books from this author, Your amazing digestion from mouth through intestine.
Exploding ants. There's enough one. There's another one she wrote.
When Okay, well she's got a pH d.
That's right on the cover.
I gotta think fish Farts is the best seller. Though.
Yes she's got a PhD. Because that's what impresses eight year olds like I.
Want this book. She has a PhD. Yes, yes, yes, this is a This is a book purchased by uncles everywhere. This is the one your funkl brings to the birthday party and everybody laughs and mom shoots him a look great, great. What do they do?
They they said, they fart to send a message.
And this is all all weird things that animals do, and popping off a tail to rolling around and dunk to farty to send a message. Well that's something that kids do, for sure. It's funny and infortive fiction picture books, the many unusual ways animals adapt to their surroundings feel. Yeah, yeah, this is gonna be popular with a certain subset of the juvenile reader. Yep, for whom it will be endless giggles.
Because it has surprising, exciting, and sometimes hilarious ways that animals adapt.
But only sometimes. Yeah that looks like fun.
Sure does.
And it farted his way its way across the library to you.
It's it sure did. Yeah, yeah, it's been. It's just came out too. I might have seen it because it was brand new.
Oh, just being processed in m hm. Well, I'm sure it will have a lively uh circulation history.
I think so too.
Absolutely all good for them. It's it's you know, I've had a reluctant reader. He probably would have been that probably would have appealed to him. Yeah, so, or I would have spent a lot of my time look farts, dung and he would be going, really, I would like to go over there and do something else, right, But you know, we try, we do what we can. Sometime our kid in the future, our kid is gonna be on an island going. I remember my mom kept trying
to get me interested in farts. Now I am tortured exactly well for my random my random recommendation this week, I am going to recommend something that I have seen mention of. I have not done anything with it, but I wish it well and I find it kind of fascinating, and we'll be keeping an eye on it. Julia Whalen, who is an author and audiobook reader who I think you and I have both enjoyed her work, both her
written work and her spoken work. She was also, when she was younger, an actress on a show I loved very much called Once and Again, so I have a residual affection for her from that, and she has just started what looks like is maybe intended to eventually someday be a rival of Audible. It's called Julia Whalen's Audiobrairi, and right now it has her books that she has written and narrated and some offshoots of those books, plus an additional historical nonfiction book, so not too much then.
I'm not sure there's an app you can use to listen to the books that you purchase, and I guess you take out a membership to either get the books or then are able to buy them. I'm not sure how it works, but she's been published a lot on social media. I've seen a lot about it, and I wish her so well in anything she tries to do. And if she feels like there's a need for something like this, then I don't know whether maybe to get a better deal for readers or just to have some
more control over her work. I want her to have those things. So if you are an audiobook listener, and especially if you have not already listened to her books My Oxford Year, and thank you for listening, and wish to check this out, see if this is something you might be able to use, and then message me and tell me how.
I mean, I wish her well. I wish her well. Taken on Amazon good.
Yead for Yeah. I mean, I don't know exactly if that's what she's doing, but it certainly seems to be and I think that they have interviews on it also, and a community, you know, probably a like a an online community to talk about books, write a newsletter. So there's lots of extra stuff. It's not just audiobooks audiobook listening. It's sort of being interested in audiobooks and sharing that
with other people, which certainly we could all use. And so check it out and see if it's something that you might be interested, and I will be looking into it more as well and seeing if there's something that I can do with it right now. But one thing I can do is publicize it a little bit. So go see what she's up to. Yeah, Whi's pretty cool. So I'm sure it's something good.
I mean, it's so ambitious and it's impressive when someone tries to do something like that.
Yeah, yeah, I wish here well, and what do we have this week from our deep and ridiculous archives.
Yes, if we wanted to turn ourselves into an app, we would have a lot of content to fill it up with. So back in twenty twenty one, we were talking about free time activities for adults, and I wanted to see if we had any additional come up with any hobbies or leisure activities in the past three years. I really haven't because I got another job.
Yeah, yeah, I think we were remembering back then. I remember the social life my parents had and I don't have anything like that, right, And they belonged to a square dancing club. They had another square dancing club from the past that they had belonged to, and they still got together with the people from it from time to time. They had bridge groups that they would participate in together or individually, and they just they had this whole adult life, right,
which the children sort of looked on. And my mom had tea parties for her church at the house. Do you do anything? You have a book club that you go to? Yah?
You?
But it's like there was this whole structure that I feel like does not exist anymore, right, or if it does, they don't want me or I don't want it. I'm really quite happy sitting in my house doing falling asleep on the couch or doing work until late at night.
Well, you do go to church, and you.
Do go to go to Rosary Society. I've started bringing my daughter with me one so she can drive me there, but also just because she's interested in going out and doing things too. She's a young adult who doesn't really have anything to do, so and she's like like probably the next two youngest person there, if not the youngest, and so all the all the ladies are thrilled to have her, right, So they've been very sweet to her. And see that's once a month, get out.
Yeah, book club is only once a month.
So yeah, and I don't know, I mean, I see, I kind of forced my husband and son to join the Nights of Columbus, So they go out now once a month, well twice if they meet twice a month. We have desserts at the Rosary Society. They have like actual real food at the Nights, so usually they dinner first and then they have another dinner while they're there. But which is you know what interests my son? I think most about it. Right, we sit through a boring meeting and then we get d.
Eat stuff if that's what it takes.
Great gets him out of the house, right, And you know, my kids have all their little sports things, different practices over the course of the special Olympics practices, and they have an actual social life. They go to a social group every Friday, and Rick and I go along with that, so that's sort of our social We talk to the parents while the kids are doing stuff. So that's a little bit of a social life. That's a little bit of a free time activity is going and watching my kids do things.
Right, But it's not like.
My parents used to had. I mean, they would watch me doing things, but I would also stay home with the babysitter while they went and did stuff, So where did that? Goyah? Does anybody have that?
I mean, I think part of what we were talking about with this the first time around was the way that it's been for parents in recent times that your whole social world is your kids' activities, and when that goes away, then what happens?
Yes, that's true. I'm still a part of my kids social activities, which is not normal, I guess, but is the way it is for their particular group of young adults with disabilities. So they could I mean, my daughter drives, so they could just go by themselves to these things. But everybody's parents bring them, so we might as well bring them, and we might as well go and and interact with the parents and have some sort of life,
you know exactly. But if they if it wasn't for that, I mean, I guess we would still go to the church stuff. But hmmm, I would like to square dance? Does anybody square dance?
Any I just I saw like a tweeter meme or something like why is it that we were all taught out of square dance in like fourth grade?
And then I'll tell you that was the that was my time to shine with the folk dance and the square dance units in high school gym, those were my A quarters and then we would go back to something that I was miserable that and I go back to a D. But boy, I lived for those quarters.
It's really not fair to grade you. It's really not your skill at you know, basketball or.
Whatever, and they totally do That's not fair. The story of my life showing up. Yeah, I was threatened with failure a couple of times. Goods, permanent record and all that. The only time I've ever gone across ladder bars is when the teacher told me I was going to fail middle school gym unless I went across them. And so that I did, and she felt like, see, I knew you could do it. And I was like, so that thing about adrenaline making you able to do that, I get it now. I see that I could have picked
up a car. I see how that happens.
I am not failing.
Never been able to do it again, never was able to do it before. I did it exactly one time and got my d so anyway, but square dancing square dancing was fun. It was My mom had special dresses with petticoats and stuff. I go square dancing. We got to bring square dancing back. Yeah.
One of my and one of my brothers does folk dancing. Okay, so he has like groups that he dances with and performs at you know, community events.
So right, so that's fun. Yeah. My parents I think their their group was called the pyr Squares. They I don't know if they did competitions, but they got together at least once a week and had their matching dresses. Right, Golly, And you looked at that and you'd say, so that's what being a grown up is like.
Right, I'm gonna have these fun dresses.
Yes, oh man, I did play bridge a little. I did I square dance. There was a there was a teen square dance group that I was in for a little bit. I was affiliated with my parents group, and then I did play bridge a little bit. And it's like not for me, but.
They were trying to get the next generation going anywhere they were.
They set me up with one of their uh very awkward bridge night with the son of one of my parents' friends that I think was supposed to be the start of something big and.
Did not You were not interested.
I was, actually I would I was not disinterested, but I think he was not interested, so whatever. But do people do that anymore? Do they try this awkwardly set up friends using social gatherings?
I think so? Yeah.
I mean it's more they invite one of my kids over and do it.
It's more the apps, I guess. Yeah.
See, we've all we're all just sitting in front of computers. Now there are no active My fun activity is scrolling Twitter and substack at getting mad well.
One of my fun activities for today was supposed to be a concert, an outdoor lunchtime concert that our city puts on in the summer. But it just started pouring. Maybe you can hear it, So I guess maybe that's not happening. Yeah.
I did this community band for a while. That got me out of the house, but then I stopped And now when I think about going, and it's like all the stuff I have to do? What it is? Also?
Would it be hard for you to read them? Would it be hard for you to read the music without magnification?
It was barely barely functional on the flute before and now I haven't played it again for another X number of years. I don't think. I don't think they're missing me. I think the flute section probably sounds we did better in my absence, And I mean really that was I was in that band because I got in it so my daughter would go in it, and so it was still piggybacking off my kid. It wasn't like an independent Hey, I would like to play a flute, right, didn't I
go join the community band? I'm pathetic. I do a podcast. That's my fun activity.
That's right.
That is our our hobby, and listening to it is fun for you guys, right right right, Listening to my podcast is also my fun activity, right you and me.
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