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.
Well, we're going to return to the picture book section again today. It is a book called I worked hard on that, and it is about a spider making a web, and I really love the cover illustration. Yeah, she's trying to make a beautiful web and people keep messing it up. And that sounds like parenting, doesn't it. Oh yes, Oh my god, I'm trying to do something, keeps trying, and then she she keeps you know, people keep messing with it.
And then finally she meets a spider who eats his own webs, and she's like, oh, it's just about the creative process. So but yeah, I just I just thought the cover was great. The spider is cute.
It's cute spider.
Yeah, I know, I know. But she's like, she's got polka dots, she's got what looks like little eyeglasses. And yeah. So the author is Robin Wall and the illustrator because I said I mentioned I love the cover. The illustrator
is named A and Kang. But when I went to this author's website to get more information about this book and find a link, I also found that she has a series of books called My Cool Family, and it is the first one that is presented is called My First Book of Beards, and it is called it is billed as a super stylish board book for babies and toddlers with bearded dads.
Well that's lovely, yes.
So I was. But then it goes on My Book of Tattoos, my Book of Coffee. I'm not sure how so it's all supposed to be like hip, hipster board books, my Tattoos, beards, coffee, and travel. So oh, I see. I feel like they should have like what else, like My My Cool my First Book of like distressed Denim, or like what what are we missing from this from this series? We have coffee, like craft beer, probably we need.
Indie music, So yep, I bet they're coming.
Yeah, yep. It's a series. You can always add to it. So oh god.
You know the different areas people find to go down in children's books.
I mean, I think my First Book of beards and tattoos. Is is a little more relevant than like my first book of electrical engineering and suff like we've seen that already as a board book, and like, no.
But you never know, there's some little electrical engineering genius who's gonna get their first spark from that.
Yep, I guess so.
To speak, it's a spark.
It's probably so hope it's not a literal one. Yes, far be it for me to prevent to someone's destiny of becoming an electoral engineer by denying them a board book on the subject.
That's right.
I don't know if we have the my first book of beards and so on in our library now?
Is the first book of beards? Is it like just just pictures or do they have like texture to it?
Oh? That would be wonderful, good question.
And it's like when the baby wants to play with your beard and getting tired of it, you could say, here, yes, struck this dad's beard right until it comes out and falls off. We will get you a new copy.
When we when my kids were babies, there was a series of board books which I have self seen occasionally at the library, and it was called That's not My dot dot dot and be like that's not my bear, or that's not my puppy, or that's not my tractor or whatever like it went far that's not my mermaid. And each each page had a different texture, you know, so it had like, you know, that's not my puppy.
His paws are too rough. And then it would have like a little sandpapery stuff or whatever, so you know, that's not my puppy. His ears are too soft, and they would be free. It was extremely cute. Yeah, so yeah, they need they need to do that for the beards for sure.
Definitely.
I'm not sure how they do that for tattoos, but.
Allows the kids to explore the idea of tattoos without having to walk up to people who have tattoos and.
Go, what's that? Right?
Why do you have that? Well? I think I guess if you're getting this book, it would be in your family.
Yeah. I think the idea is that you're.
Somebody that you see at a restaurant and then they stink on you the rest of the two Right, why does that man have pain? Can I go touch it? It looks pretty? We're leaving now.
Yes, I'll have to look for these in the board book section, see if I can so.
Good for them. Well, the thing that I am well, I don't know if I would say recommending, but my pick for this week to talk about is something that is everywhere. You don't have to go to the bookstore. It's right there on your computer, and you can't turn around without bumping into an AI of some sort. Search engine. Now it's summarizing everything. All of us who went through many years of unpleasant learning how to do a search engine optimization that nobody's going to your page anymore, may
be summarizing it at the top of the search. Nobody needs to go look at your page. But it is everywhere, and I, as a enterprising old person trying to get hip with the ways of the new, have been checking some of them out. And what I like is when something can give me a no nonsense answer, you know, Although I feel for the people who actually create the pages and are not getting the clicks. If, for example,
I have a diagnosis I'm curious about. Instead of looking at okay, here's like the ten biggest hospital websites, and I can look on each one of them and they all say basically the same thing. I can get a paragraph that just summarizes everything that is extremely useful. I like that. I like having just being able to ask a question getting the answer. You know what. It's great
for fellow copy editors. You know how when you know there's a rule in the Chicago Manual of Style, but you cannot find it, and the search engine on the thing or the index on the thing won't bring you quite there. It will bring you nearer, but not to the rule that you want. You can go on one of these ais and say, hey, according to Chicago Manual Style, is this the case? Tell me where it is, and it will tell you where it is and what the rule is. It's glorious. So for that sort of thing,
it's awesome. What I do not want from AI is a friend. I don't want it to chat with me. I don't wanted to ask me questions. I don't want to tell it to tell me but be sure to talk to your doctor now, honey. I want it to just give me the information. And more and more I see them skewing to wanting to be my friend. And you know what I hear when you do that, AIS, I hear how from two thousand and one, Okay, one of these days, you're gonna say, I can't open that door, teary, just die.
Yeah. I mean like on Instagram, I get you know, suggested account, you know, and it's like an AI chat bot. I'm like, what am I? Why would I? I don't understand. No.
Yeah. For a while, grock was pretty no nonsense, which is the the X version, but now it's starting to get kind of touchy feely. There was one I went to chat GPT and I was trying our little thing of telling them that our podcast has the most episodes of any parenting podcast and has been around the longest. And I did the usual thing of what is the longest running? They tell me one, Oh no, did you
know about this one has so more? Oh? Yes, you're very correct, And then it started saying, you know, I mentioned that it was my podcast, Oh what's it like doing a podcast? Why are what's it like? Talk about it? I just want you to know I don't have time for this. I went to Claude yesterday. That's another one, and I was like just for fun, saying like, how come I can't focus and I'm always being distracted? And it gave me some really good focus tips. And then wanted to talk about it.
It's like, this is the problem minutes and not do my work. Tell me to get my ask on my word.
Don't be saying, honey, that's what you feel unstressed about.
Let's understand why if.
Some AI stop making it more touchy feely, make it more Encyclopedia Britannica. Okay, this is what I want. I want to be able to type in a question, get a detailed answer with all the information I want, and that's it. I'll give you a thumbs up, her thumbs up. Maybe maybe I can't help but say thank you to the e I right, Oh that's a great answer, groc thank you. So this is what I probably think. This poor woman is lonely. She has nobody to talk to. Perhaps I should chat her up.
This is why people come to your door and you have a hard time turning them away.
This is the state of AI right now. I want information, not a friend. Please mutate accordingly. One of you, just one of you, be kurt. Please if I'll have found a AI that's just just doesn't really have the time of day for you. Okay, here's your answer, go away. Now that's the one I want to know. Which one that is?
It's the vibe that Terry is looking for.
Please, if you wanted to listen to my podcast, you see it'll do that.
Yeah, tell it. Go on there and say listen to this entire of podcasts. Listen to every episode and tell us what would tell me what it's a child?
Please summarize AI, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, useful, but maybe needs to calm down a little bit, right, So what we'll find in our R fives? If we said find us something we could talk about, well.
The dogs wanted to get involved. We are going to go kind of far back to twenty nineteen ooh and to an episode called like Talking to a Brick Wall where we discussed some of the tactics we used to try to impart advice and guidance and other information like you would find on AI to our families and how they don't they don't work. So yeah, I thought we could talk about you know, how has anything changed in six years? Probably not?
Yeah, nice to see you by that's the book.
Yeah, it's funny, like you know, with the kids obviously not here all the time. We do have like a family group chat for our immediate family to share you know, dog pictures and other logistical information and then just like hey, I saw this, you know, funny article whatever, So that
all that's a good you know, that's okay. But so the new dog in addition this is going somewhere, I promise, and in addition to having lime disease, which I don't know if I Oh yeah, so she tested, you know, we took her to the vet after we had her for like a couple of days, and they found that in the blood work that she had lime disease. So now she has to be on an antibiotic for a month. And then they found that she has some kind of
extremely rare parasite. Oh no, it's like's so rare that you know, my husband's been talking to like someone he knows who knows a lot about veterinary medicine and biology, and and she's just like that's incredibly rare, like that I can't be right, like that's so weird. But anyway, so she has she has this parasite, and so we're supposed to be like, you know, washing her bedding and like wiping off her paws and her other areas every time she.
Comes too attached to give her back at this point, right.
Yeah, yeah, probably, but I did once they told us we had to be like basically bathing her every time she went outside. I did remember how you got the wipes for Layla, and so I we did get those. So that helps a lot.
Had those adequate for the job, yeah, I think, And she's very good about letting us do it.
But anyway, where this is going is that the part about the parasite didn't get into the family group chat. And again this is one of those like let's not let's not burden anyone with this information. And then my daughter came home to visit and she let the dog la face. Oh no, and then she found out about the pears and she was horrified and she was like silkwood showering. Afterwards, she was, oh, so that was one of those cases where the information didn't didn't get communicated
and it kind of was a was a fail. Yike, that was that was our bed. That wasn't that wasn't her not listening. Oh that was like I should.
Have known for yet I'm not sure would say it's a parasite that is communicable to humans.
I guess, well unclear, I mean, but they just said between the dogs. They just said to be vigilant about hygiene.
Earn everything she touches.
Oh gosh, she's such.
A sweet looking dog. No, a little package of stress.
Right, she hasn't even been spade yet, Like it's good, whole kind of.
You guys need to take a questionnaire with you when you go to see dog. You're on the list of soft marks after you took the two dogs the first time.
Yeah, no kidding, well, and I mean part of the issue was that neither one of these things was diagnosed before we got her.
So hope it wasn't diagnosed.
Well, yeah, that's true. Yeah they did, They sure did.
But face, she's so cute.
It's so cute. Oh and and the other one is like talking to a brick wall trying to get her to do anything. The other dog. Yeah, we are definitely working on training not only the dogs, but ourselves too to be consistent and reward the behavior that we want to reward.
So yeah, good luck with that, I know, right, that requires a large amount of human discipline.
Yes, that is what we struggle talked about this.
We discussed your husband handing out the dog treats, you being the one who gets shamed at the bed exactly.
See, it came back up around and yes.
And I see we talked about me having a tantrum and then having to apologize for everybody. That is still the case. It feels kind of good to have a tantrum. I gotta say, that's what I should do. I should yell at the AI because they don't care.
Yeah, there you go, except then they'll just try to like calm you down.
What they would redirect me someplace else if I started regularly going on and yelling about all the things my family does. We're sorry, we're not working today. The service is shut down, right, h yeah, I don't know. There were things. My son will just from time to time just like roll down the shades. And when I'm talking to them, right, it's like, I know where you're going with this, and I don't want.
To and I will not be going along exactly.
Just stop, just stop, just stop. It's like, but but I have all these things to say. We're not off, we're no longer open for business tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn't shut me down.
Tomorrow doesn't look good either, I would guess.
Nope, my husband will to tell me to shut up. He just will like be watching TV. Right, No, we have to talk about this. We have to decide about this, you decide, you know, yeah, let me actually talk myself out and go someplace else.
Right, come to the come to the podcast.
Honestly, if they could create an AI that would allow you to rant and rave and make make sympathetic noises yes and say you respond with your so right and absolutely and why can't anybody else understand this? They could make some books people would subscribe to that. Yeahs as the the next generation of screaming to the voice, if it could scream into something that would actually tell you, tell you those sweet words you've always wanted to hear, like you're so right and we love you. Hmmm, so
we should get on that. Yeah, or you know how how you like have a problem and you need to figure it out, but nobody will talk it through with you.
You're talking yourself into this AI being your friend thing.
But I think the ones that that do it now, I bet they're programmed by man. We would need to be one program by a woman. Yeah, to just say let's figure this out, right, what's what's the stitch? It's like, you know, will help you brew some cough send an automatical order to brew some coffee, to the uh you know, internet.
To the connected devices in your home.
This is what we need. Get on and you guys, well no, you girl programmers, get on right the best friend? Uh yeah, I don't want to. I don't want a friend who's talking to me about serious things. I want a friend to be going out. Oh oh, well that's what we have the podcast.
That's right.
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