Butt Slap Bill

We're mostly doing good. It's been a little bit of a bumpy ride here. Um, but yes, relatively we're great, um compared to people who are really struggling. But yeah, we're very lucky. But we're also having to deal with each other. That being said, we have our own challenges. What are some of yours this week? Elizabeth? Um, it's just trying to carve out space and time to be alone and away from you all is my number one concern. That and my allergy situation. How are they compared to

last week? Better than last week? But it's still like it feels like in terms of keeping the kids away from me, it feels like there's like a strong effort early in the week, and then as the week goes on, it's kind of like our regular weeks where everything just slowly starts to fall apart and the kids become more tired and everyone's trying, like it becomes sort of every man for himself and it devolves and it's not fun by the end. The end of the week fell apart

in terms of our rules. But today boy being back on track and being very clear about who's in charge of what when, Yeah, better. It feels like it feels good for it to be a Monday and be like, Okay, we're hunkering down, and it kind of feels good to be the weekend when we're like, okay, we're not really going to try to work that hard, and then everyone's

like a little bit more relaxed. Um. But Friday, when you're almost there, Yeah, Friday, it was hard because you're kind of like neither here nor there, Like the kids are too tired to actually uh do anything productive or be left alone, and then like our efforts to get work done are increasingly futile and we really should already be throwing in the towel we should, except today they

got a lot of education. Today. Daddy school was back in full swing, and I I saw the Brent's teacher has been sending At the beginning, I think every educator was suddenly wildly trying to figure out how to do their job digitally, and especially were a kindergarten teacher, Like

what the hell do you do? So I feel like the the resources she was sending our way were a little hodgepodge and weird, and I would just ignore them because I was The emails that Brent's teacher were sending were so frequent that I just couldn't even like catch up to read the first or second email. And then I was just like, you know what, I don't read these emails. So I emailed her and I gave her up because she uh is great, and she she reached out to us individually, as I assumed she did with

all the kids. She's like, how's it going? And I explained, I was honest. I was like, we're not really following what you're sending us, but here's what we're doing. It's a lot of stuff, and she's like, that's fabulous, don't worry about it. So that took a load off. But then today actually went in and started reading her notes and she has this, uh this online resource there. She

signed up her class for like these reading challenges. And I ignored it at first because I'm like, Brin is a great reader and he's reading all the books here. But I opened it today and it's a very simple you know, Brin, here's like twenty books. Um, They're very simple, and he clicks on the button to read them, and he reads the book and then he takes a quiz

about it. And uh, we started actually open this up and logged in and created his account and started doing it, and I was shocked at how into it he was. He read like twenty books in a row, and I was like, this is great. And then I was like, let's take a break, because then you you get points and you build up all these like stars, and then you can take the stars and go into a spaceship and build your little special spaceship room where you can

buy ro about the aliens. And this immediately destroyed the whole thing, because as soon as brain realized he could spend these stars on cool things, he rushed back to the books and started reading them too fast, and that then he started he had a perfect score for like twenty books, and then the next three he started getting questions wrong because he would just want to get the stars and he'd rush back to like buy an alien, and he got so mad when he missed a question,

and I'm like, you're overloaded, man, you gotta take a break because you're not remembering anything from the books because you've just read now thirty books, and so he's got a lot of points. But I'm like, this incentive was all wrong. I should have left alone when when the incentive was just reading. Yeah, it's hard enough to fall in those traps when you're doing homeschool and just like you say something offhand and then suddenly it like derails

the whole day. That that is I think my big suggestion for parents trying to do any sort of homeschooling. Schedules are great, you know if you can get them to work, but ultimately, desire drives learning. So if your kids attention and excitement is pointed in a direction that is in any way productive or educational, don't try to don't try to push, take a hard right turn into

something else. Ride that wave and just say they're into this right now let's just get everything educational out of it we can, and if it means four days of complicated additions, which it was for Britain, for our kids, I think this advice is pretty applicable for our kids

who are three and five years old. I feel like for other people, like for us, the learning resources seem kind of like a waste of time because it's like very time consuming to look up the resources and figure them out, and it's just it's like for a five year old, so it's not like it's like we could challenge them on our own. If our kids were older, though, I do think I would be like, what is common

core math? How does life work? Like? I would need more help, And I do think like kids at those ages might want to be stimulated in ways that I could not directly provide. I would. I think in some ways I would love it because I think the common core, like what you need to figure out is a little more tangible. Well, this is what I like about Daddy's school being more structured, is that you love to set

the rules and be the leader. And I don't. I don't enjoy like repeating things like I just don't like I want to be doing something new and interesting. So like mommy school tends to be more free form, and we take a walk on the beach in the afternoon, like like these kids need to get outside. Sometimes mommy school is like a task that allows mommy to clean the kitchen. Sometimes mommy school is a walk and that's what. We had a really good walk today and they were

like playing and like we were on this adventure. And then we drew a square door in the sand and we jumped into it into like a different world, and then like they were loving it. So it was like it's very Jacqueline West Books of Elsewhere. Yeah, well then we when we were jumped through the sand one on one of the times, burn was like we're in a book. And then they just kept saying that over and over again.

They were like, we're in a book. There. Their make believe is getting like Narnia level, you know, like the kids that in the Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe are in this giant empty house and so they just explore and create their own world. To I feel like there are in that mode, and they're starting to have like call backs, like they're always like okay, your winkle, I'm tinkle and your ankle like they have, like go to characters. Can we talk about the fake mustaches? I don't know

where they got this. They just started. They just walked into the room when I was there. They're both holding we're holding fingers up to their mouths as fake mustaches in disguise, and they Brin said, I'm Mr Rogers and this is Mrs Rogers and I love Um. Somebody pointed out on Instagram that Mrs Rogers has a mustache as well. Yeah, that's my favorite, really rather inconspicuous. And then I said where are my children? And Prince said they what did you say? They went on a hike and they're never

coming back. If they win the woods and they're never come back, you'll never see them again. Um. So there's mommy school and there's Daddy School, but periodically there's also Ali School. Yeah. Today my sister had a really good homeschool session with them. So she I told her. I was like, you should teach them civics and she did. Boy did she teach them civics. So she, my sister with along with Brendan Mayven, created a household government for

us with a constitution with different branches of government. So there's the legislative branch, which is composed of the five of us in the House, and then the judicial branch, which is my parents, well your parents and my brothers and your brothers, and the executive branch, which is your parents because they own this house that work currently in. Yes. And then so then my sister wrote some bills with my with Brenna Maven. Each of them had a bill

that they sponsored, and some of them medic sponsors. So, for example, one of the bills brands said, there's a little bill he wrote that says if someone else butt slap, then everyone has to slap their butts ten times. They don't, they go to prison forever. If they go to prison forever. So that bill did not pass. I think a lot of us felt that. Actually, Ali wrote a bill if someone says jumping Jack's, do you have to tend juppy Jack's if you don't go to prison forever. That was

voted down. That was voted down. The slap butt slap was passed. Yeah, that was a three to five vote. And then Maybn historically her bill passed unanimously, which was a bill that said everybody should have a brain. Everyone is supposed to have a brain. Everyone is supposed to have a brain. That's the full text of the bill. Yeah, not unclear what the penalties are or I don't think that is interpreted, but doesn't say you must so you're

supposed to. So that bill passed unanimously, and then it went to the executive branch on a zoom conference with all three branches of government. Nana and granddad and grandma and grandpa. You're dad and my dad both had some good singers on the call. They were in there their element. Yeah, when we said, we said the ten butt slabs rule when someone else but slab, and my dad said, isn't

everyone already doing that? And then your dad had one about uh, the executive branch, I don't know something about legislative branch not having brains. So they signed into law the butt slap law. The executive branch signed it. They vetoed the everyone is supposed to have a brain. I think on solid grounds it was wishwashy could be interpreted too loosely, you would have a legal challenge. So they vetoed it, but it was unanimous to vote, so we

overturned the veto and UH, so we have two new laws. Yeah, and then at the of the call with them branded yell butt slap um, and then he did not slap his own butt, so he was taken to court. Um. And he argued that as the person who yells but slap, he doesn't have to slap his own But he had a pretty good argument. The law said that when anybody says butt slap, you have to slap your butt ten times.

So there was an implied sense of other in it. Um. But the judicial branch said they needed six months to deliberate. It's tied up in court. My sister is going to work on them to write some more specific laws going forward to account for these kind of issues and interpretation of the law. Um. Can we talk about how much ice cream we've eaten? We've eaten a lot of everything lately, a lot of home cooked meals. Um, some really really

good recipes, I would say, really good improvised recipes. Um. I gotta say, I love I love how much we're eating, just immediately eating all the leftovers. I feel like at home we waste so much food, but here we're like, we don't want to go to the grocery store. Pandemic and so we're like, Alie just made a a taco salad from our from our tacos. The other night, I made a tortilla cast role from our tacos. That was three meals from that Taco night. Yeah, Taco Night is

really prolific versatile. Um, oh boy, we're really We're really isolated out here, aren't we? Are we? Yeah? I suddenly, just five seconds ago felt in just talking to you know, thousands of people who aren't here. It was a weird moment of oh my god, we are alone. And I'm sure a lot of people are feeling that right now, especially people who are literally alone. I've got a good number of friends in apartments that are literally alone. My brother is literally alone. It's tough out there. I'm I

am really you know. I don't want to be too dark on the podcast, but I am getting increasingly worried for an increasing number of people. Um. So I hope everyone listening is doing okay mentally and physically. And I gotta say, I really am enjoying. I'm online and on social media more than I then I normally would want

to be. Um, but it feels like a lot of time there is a nice balance of boy, we're taking this, at least in my like sphere, in my bubble, people obviously taking this very seriously, but there's also a nice balance of well and then beyond that, let's be positive and let's be here for each other and let's let's find healthy diversion um and again like that's great, prepared

and positive. I feel like I feel that way when I interact with people directly, like if I have a Zoom happy hour with my old improv team, or like when I'm texting my close friends, or like my coworkers if we're on Slack or whatever. I feel that way.

But when I go on social media, it's like very overwhelming between the news and then people's anger about the news, and very understandably, it's just really overwhelming, and I do it's I think it's just really hard to find a balance of like taking this seriously and trying to be somewhat informed and also making sure that you're taking care of yourself and you're like not making yourself crazy for no reason, because I think for a lot of us,

we're not, you know, healthcare workers. There's not a lot we can do day to day, and I don't think it's like helpful for anyone for us to make ourselves crazy about it. Yeah, completely adjust what I what I said. That's not general social media. I go to my Facebook news feed and it's oh miserable. But these targeted, specific online communities, you know, like I talked to all the Story Parts company members and it's it's a it's a specific and positive focused group or like a Zoom zoom

hang out with people, uh for sure. Yeah, but going down the social media drain in general is the opposite of that. Even though I made it sound like that's what I was having. Well, I mean there's some good things on social media. I don't think it's all bad, and I think a lot of people are just reporting the facts as they should. But it's just like I do feel like you really have to monitor your media intake in general right now. Yeah, it's just how curated

are your feeds? You know, I've got my Facebook feed is is the wild West, and so I don't touch it because it's thousands of people that I don't really know, and so I'm stressed for no reason. Whereas my Instagram is nice and tidy and focused and shallow in the number of shallow in that in that your shallow. I mute almost everybody so that I not because I don't want to know what's up with people, but so that I run out of stuff to look at quickly. And

that's what that's what maintains my sanity. And then every once in a while I go through and I'll un mute people I miss, and I'll re mute people that I've seen a lot of. I do think since we've been here, I've I have I've never looked at social media less over such an extended period of time done it. I mean, I still feel crazy because it's like proportionately it's still sort of crazy online, but I don't like because I'm with the kids and I can't really look

at it. And then when I'm working, I really need to focus on work because the news is so distracting, Like I just can't be on it as often, like just browsing things. It's too taxing right now. It's like it's just too emotionally exhausting to hear how badly everyone is doing um, And so yeah, I just can't and I think it's I feel good about trying to limit it to some degree. I still feel like I need to check in and not like completely become a hermit um.

But our job right now is as as global citizens, is to like not jump the gun on anything, hunker down and literally get out of the way. And there's and if I get too far into it that I get that sense of like I should be doing something that's the in for the the most for the most part, that's the opposite. Well, I just I just want to be aware of what's happening two people in our home city of New York, where people are really suffering, Like I want to be tuned into the conversation and like, no,

what's up? And um, you know, it's getting dangerous for people we know. And but I do think like our primary objective right now as parents is to take care of ourselves so that our children don't remember this as like a scary, traumatizing time where their parents were upset all the time. You know, Yeah, no, and I don't. I think they're having a great time. I did have my first like serious talk serio quote unquote serious, not serious, but very upfront talk with him about what was going on,

because I took him to the dump. So here there's no garbage collection where we are, so we have to go to the dump or the the the transfer center and recycling center, and uh so I took Bryn. Obviously, I was like you have to stay in the car and he's like why. I'm like, well, we're all staying away from each other right now. And then that led to along conversation about all this, and that was the most like here's literally what's going on. Here's how dangerous

it dangerous it is. We talked about people dying, and but I also let him know that he's you know, he's safe, he's low risk. And he had a lot of very thoughtful questions. He also told me, he goes, well, it's happening because um because Chinese people ate bats, right, And I was like what. And then you know, it's like they don't really know what the source of this was, but it could be from like people think, from animals and initiating in China, or bats or panguins or whatever.

And I was like starting to get into the like, well, you don't want to just start saying Chinese people eat bats. That's you know, trying to get into racial sensitivities. And I was like, is this this is too complex? I feel like at his age sometimes you're better off changing the conversation rather than like creating an elaborate story around Chinese people in bats that he's going to continue to misinterpret. Yes, it's like I was like, well, we they we don't

know what happened. He was like, my friend told me there's Chinese people eating bats. And I was like, well, we don't know. And maybe somebody did, but obviously not all Chinese people are eating bats. And I was like, let's let's talk about statistics instead. Let's talk about statistics. I really was. I was like, listen, five year old son, let's talk about statistics. I talk about death rates instead of uh, you're talking about death rates. Not not really.

I mean I did talk about how it's dangerous for certain people. He was very thoughtful. He's not scared, but he could sense. He could sense the gravity of the situation. What are we gonna do for episode one? I don't know. Listeners right in and tell us how should we celebrate in uh here at the end times um, And that's been our week. This next segment is called Listeners Want to Know. It's where we take questions comments from you guys.

But first I'm going to adjust my chair loudly. I wasn't as loud as I thought it was going to be. Oh boy, okay, we got a lot of listener mail. You are all at home, you have thoughts, you have time, and so you are sharing. Thank you. UM. I think we're actually we're definitely going to be in an era where we can't get to as many emails as we'd like to, and an era we're getting more than the normal, which is great. Please keep sharing even if we don't

we don't get your um. Great alright, So this email comes with from Craig question colon behavior um. This to me feels like ah, this is a British or maybe Canadian spelling of behavior b E H A v I O. You are behavior um. Not a criticism, just an observation. So I have a five year old girl, a two year old girl and a week old boy. Well, with these times of physical distancing, we are spending a lot

of time in a smallish apartment together. My question is what do you guys do when your kid zero is in on a behavior and won't stop nor listening, nor listen to interruptions or change requests. My two year old has so many ideas in her head but often will not accept any deviation or distraction from those she focuses on in a moment, such as stealing the one book the five year old is trying to read, even though

they are hundreds there are hundreds of books around. The two year old will retry after separation or break down into tantum rather than perform a different task with either parent. The five year old will ask the same question to the same thing over and over, regardless of what you just told her two minutes ago, even if it was yes, but wait five minutes. I'm struggling with being able to break into my kid's head during these moments, and find

myself getting frustrated. Any suggestions are at least similar stories to share us. I don't feel like the only parent feeling like this. I've read some articles, but they seem focused on what not to do, which I can already check most of the list, and esoteric suggestions on what to strive for without ideas of actual things I could attempt. Love the show and quite enjoyed Beth's book As a Man as a Man, as it candidly let me further into a world I will never experience myself. Love Craig

he didn't say love, but it is Craig. Thank you Craig. To answer your question, no, you're the only one. No one else has ever experienced any of those things. Just kidding. Only your kids are difficult. Boy. I related to everything you just said. I started to formulate an answer to what he was saying, and then he mentioned that one of the kids is two years old. And then I was like, oh, never mind, I don't think there's anything. There's no hope. You're living with an insane person. Um,

I don't. Yeah, the two year old, we fall into the traps two and most of three, I feel like we fall into the trap of thinking they are more mature than they are, especially with the second kid. Like today, Maven was doing so like she was writing her letters and she was trying. She was asking me how to spell words, and she was writing the words backwards, and I had such an urge to be like, that's wrong. You need like you need to write in this direction.

And then I remember that Brin, who was like almost two years older than her, I was probably doing the same thing like a few weeks ago, you know, like I just like I was like, I just you like expect so much of the Brinn wrote the end in his name backwards for a year because I pushed to correct him, and then he was like, fuck you, I'm

doing it this way forever. Yeah. I think unfortunately with some of this stuff, I like, depending on the behavior, obviously, if it's like hitting or something, you have to have kind of harsh, consistent punishments. But um with other stuff, I do think, like when it's just like them arbitrary, like like picking an argument or re asking a question, I think the best thing you can do is like try to convince yourself that you don't care at all.

But it just saying stop does not work. I mean with Bryn, who's nearing six, it's sometimes that is starting to work, where I just say don't brand stop, or it's the brand stop, or there's no ice cream. I'm going to counter three and like you can stop him that way. But any younger and it's it's the only time I'm successful is when I'm able to redirect. But I don't know, I think we have pretty stubborn kids.

I'm not saying other kids people's kids are like easy all the time, but I do think like there's different demeanors and children where some people have, like a kid who follows directions. I mean, at the times I'm successful. Is the story Pirates model, which is, you know, when we're in a school and we're trying to get the attention of six screaming excited kids, we don't ever try to stop it. It's uh, the job is to always be more interesting than the thing they're interested in right

now that's distracting them. So like the only time I've ever able to get maybe to calm down is like one don't get it in her way. She's upset, and I can tell that she's upset, so I need to let her calm down. And then when I come in, I'll just I just start looking at something across the room, Like I'm like, was there a spider in the corner. I don't know about you may even, but I'm ast

afraid of spiders. I'm gonna go check. And then I'll fall down and pretend to hurt myself, and then she'll start laughing, and I'll do that ten more times until I know that she's truly forgotten what that first thing is. I also sometimes if they're arguing over something arbitrary lately, I'll just try to like talk about something more interesting

or exciting that they want. Yeah it is. I mean it's you if I can trick them into thinking I have completely not heard anything that they're complaining about, and then I'm like, oh my god, I think there's a horshoe crab outside. I'm gonna go. Look, they'll follow you. But if you're like, guys, stop fighting, you know what we should do, Let's do something else. They know that you're trying to redirect them and it doesn't work as well.

But I just like ignore them and then redirected, and again, this is like my my batting average is probably i'll say somewhat related. Something I'm realizing in the age of coronavirus is that I need to wear headphones more often when I'm trying to do anything or work or just like not feel insane because there's always so much noise and like arguing happening about like things that I don't need to be interested in, Like I don't need to care about the outcome of like who's allowed to read

the book? You know. So it's like I really need to find some new coping mechanisms to like not be tuned in. I'll tell you my mind, is AirPods bro those noise cancelation you have it? Does? It was expensive? It's expensive. I paid for it quality purchase. I think regular headphones are also equally good. Hey, I'm not I'm not dissing anyone else's headphones. I'm just a love in mind. Right now, a lot of people will probably be purchasing

noise canceling headphones in the near future. People are purchasing a lot of things. Read some just a headline where it's like Walmart or some online retailer is selling disproportionately far more shirts right now than pants because everyone's going to work on Zoom, Yeah, and they just need shirt. Well.

I also say I read somewhere that like delivery people are operating at like Christmas time level of purchases, so they're like working a lot, and it's like people need to tone down a little bit with the purchases because you're putting delivery people at risk to have them working so much. Uh So, but we also need stuff. Well yeah, it's also just I think we I am trying to like tone down the non essential purchases because I mean, granted, we've purchased a lot because we are in a home

that is not ours. But um, I'm trying not to like jump on every like you know. I think like we're all kind of going to our coping mechanisms right now, which is like food and alcohol and TV and like retail therapy is a real thing that I think we all do to some extent um if we can afford it.

And I think it's like it's I'm trying not to follow that urge or like today I would like look at I would browse like sweatpants online and I put it in the car and then I go to a different store and put something in the cart there and then I just closed all the tabs. It was like, I'm not I was like, I don't need this. Boy, I've never had that problem. I just like was fantasizing about like all the comfy outfits that could be wearing right now. I mean, if you're gonna do it, put

it all in one big cart. Well That's what I was trying to do. But ultimately I didn't really find a store that was satisfying, so I just gave up. You m Yeah, but it was fun. Okay, I know this is listeners one who knows, but we're gonna do one quick. We knows what they look like. Because by the way, we're still getting a lot of baby picks, and we love we love them, We love all of them.

We've now hit the saturation point where we can't do our our weird live reaction to your baby fotus, but we're gonna keep doing some just because I need to show bath this picture. This is from jen baby Pick. How to share this one of my son Atticus this first time taking a bath in the sink. He was a huge newborn of German ancestry. Enjoy ready, Beth, we're closer together, so I can just show you one, two three, first time in the sink. Oh my gosh, His little

scared brownie mouth is so cute. He has a look on his face that says, why are you doing this? He's the wide eyed pure terror. He's like, why am I wet? I thought I thought I had trust in you? What is this? That is terror? That was beautiful, But there's still it's not. That's so cute. You know what. We got a lot more listener mail, so we're going to take a quick break and then I come back with more listeners. Want of those. Now it's time for more listeners want to know? So many listeners they got

to knows so little time, so much listening. That's not true. We have a lot of time these days. This email comes to us from Sarah. Great subject line how important is preschool really? Hi, Beth and Peter Ignoring the current pandemic parenting anxiety and choosing to be anxious about more normal parenting issues. I have a listeners want to know this question for you. My eldest just turned three, and I suddenly started panicking about preschool, which I never spent

a single second thinking about before. We live in rural Ish Virginia, and all the public preschool programs around here are only for at risk students. The only private preschools I can find within an hour here are through churches. But we aren't at all religious, So is preschool all that important? I don't remember going when I was a kid name for my husband. Our son is pretty smart already. He knows his colors and shapes and alphabet and count

and count to twenty. He learns new things all the time. Somehow, I swear I don't know how or should we send him to a Christian preschool? And try to dodge slash tastefully respond to the inevitable questions about religion and faith that we're in no position to answer. Thanks for the hours of excellent contact content. Sarah ps sharing a picture of my babies just for the heck of it, beth Ready one, two three. Oh yeah, that's an almost naked baby and a diaper very cute, and a toddler pool

very cute. I love the matching colors on that shirt. And anyway, anyway, is it that important? Yeah, I don't. I mean, I'm ignorant to the like nuances of religious pre schools in Virginia, but um, I do think like daycare is often not that far off from preschool in terms of structure and learning opportunities. And similarly, if you're just keeping him at home, I think if you're doing anything remotely educational, it's the same level. I do. I

think the value of preschool is socialization. Yeah, I'll take back I mean, I'm going to take back my you know, my flippant no, because it's it's not across the board. No, it's Preschool is a huge advantage in a lot of situations, but not everyone's situation is is the same. I think like preschool is a huge advantage in terms of people's ability to like, you know, go back to work and like, you know, for like the average American who you know

what I mean. But, um, but if your child is I mean, honestly, if your child is just turning three, are about to turn three, and knows all of his letters and numbers up to twenty in shapes and colors, then content wise, he's doing great. He doesn't need school. There is a benefit to the social aspect of things. Um. But yeah, and if there's like if there's some daycare,

if he's around kids at all, then yeah, great. I think also, like some preschools, the hours are like it's like two hours a day, twice a week or something. And I think you could get similar benefits if you want to like a library sing along and sign him up for like a soccer class, you know, like just a couple of chances for him to interact with other kids. You know, I think that would be helpful. Um. But but if but I don't, Yeah, he's gonna be fine if you don't do any of those things. I mean.

The fact that you clearly, um, you you are asking the right questions, you have the right concerns you are articulate, smart, seemingly educated parents, so that you're doing a great respect of it. Your child has a leg up and is covered. There are some kids who don't have that advantage, in which case younger having preschool at a younger age is like a major benefit. Um. But from the very little I know about you, which is you know this well

written email, um, uh, you're fine. This is the kind of thing where I think, like we uh, when we look back on a child's life to their toddler years and around there, I don't like, these are the kind of decisions that I think have very little bearing on who the person becomes. So we're going through a big I don't know if we're talking abou this last week, but so our kids are out of school obviously we've talked about that a lot, and we're trying to move

to Brooklyn and that's you know, probably going to get delayed. Uh. Um as are you know, for a lot of reasons, and so you know, we might not be able to move before the school year starts. And so if we stay where we are, I haven't registered Maven for pre ka um, and I'm like, you know what, it's fine, They'll probably be room. And if there's not, she's fine.

We've learned how to do school. Yeah, I mean, I will say, like, if you had asked me like a month ago about the idea of starting them in school in the middle of the school year in Brooklyn, I would have been like pretty stressed out about it. But at this point, so many things have gone off the rails. I don't pandemic has really moved the goal post. Yeah, I don't like that. No longer feels like a pressing concern. Yeah.

And at this age again though, if you know, if my kids were twelve, I would be a lot more stressed about Yeah. I mean, you know whatever, even then, those kids are resilient, they survive. I'm not worried about them surviving being out of school. But but yeah, three boy, this is a this is a good time for a weird interruption to education. Yeah, um, all right, next one ready. This is a part of a similar theme Pandamonium. This

comes from Casey. Hey, Bethan Peter, long time listener, First time, right, you're here. My name is Casey and I'm from Saskatchewan, Canada. I'm currently working as a nurse at an acute care hospital. Things have been super crazy. They're lots of policy and procedure, lots of emptying out, emptying up the hospital, awaiting the surge as as has been called. When I'm off work, I'm now a teacher of my two daughters, Ruby eight

and Hazel five. My husband works residential construction, which is considered essential, so we are both working full time and calling on my parents to help support us a day or two a week to help with the kids. Controversial. I know the constant caretaker role is taking some adjustment, as I had just reached this uh sweet sweet place of having days off during the week with both kids in school, which had improved my mental health status to

somewhat stable question mark prior to this pandemic. For schooling, we started off with a schedule which included worksheets, outdoor play, arts slash creative stuff, and learning apps. Some days we are nailing it and sometimes we don't. I admire your different styles of schooling, and it sounds like Daddy's school, coupled with the more open nature based learning, will compliment the learning slash teaching styles of everyone, which seems crucial

to sanity today. In quote unquote, Mammy school, my kids bailed on worksheets in favor of sweeping up the dirt in the alley, giving me an allergy attack. I had to sleep for a night shift to sound my life, I had to sleep for a night shift tonight. So they watched two hours of television and eight snacks while I tried to sleep. My youngest daughter, Hazel did self explore did did self explore some math at lunch, where she discovered that one apple plus one apple equals butt cheeks.

See photo below a very cute little girl holding two apples together and smiling as the together they make a butt Thanks for adding so much laughter and empathy to these crazy weeks, and good luck and managing all the hats all at once while trying to function as an autonomous professional at work. We're all doing the best we can, and humor is the key to making it through. Alive. Casies from Saskatchewan. Here's the picture, Beth. That's so great, Casey.

Sounds like you're doing a great job through all of this. Thank you for this email. Um, I'm glad to hear from someone who's trying to, like, actually do their jobs and have to leave the house and deal with all this because that's a whole other stress that we're not

having to deal with right now. Um, And I what she was saying about the how it's controversial to be using her parents as help right now, I gotta I have to say, like, everyone needs to get through this the way they have to get through this, and there's no judgment from us on how you need to do that. I know, we've all got our own economic concerns and health concerns and otherwise. It's also, you know, there's we

can't expect. Uh, you know, the entire healthcare system right now needs everybody, right and there's a yeah, there's a lot of parents who are working in various industries that we need right now. It's a great example of, uh, the sacrifices that people are making for everybody else. Yeah. I know someone whose husband is a doctor and she is pregnant with a toddler, and her husband has chosen to live away from her right now to protect her

from the virus. But then she's dealing with her own nightmare of parenting a toddler solo through all this while she tries to do her job, Like anyway, It's it's really a dumb joke, but the way you said it made it sound like she was pregnant with a toddler. Like she's not pregnant with a toddler. She's like, I'm just not having this baby until the pandemic is over. So with the toddler now, which is fine, no rush, no rush is our priest will know, no rush to

have the child be born. It's always funny to have these like pandemic type conversations with people who aren't parents, because people will say things to you where they're like, well, I shouldn't get pregnant now, no one should bring a child into this and you're like, well, some of us

already are. Life is going on, like you like, um, yeah, it's very like it's so interesting, so trying to you know, I actually have a lot of work these days with story parts, and I'm trying to organize actors from their apartments, and there is a huge difference between the availability of

people without kids and people with kids. Yeah, and well, people without kids will start to have conversations with you or like people who have less, you know, like maybe their job is not happening right now or whatever, and they just have all this time to kill and You're like meanwhile, you're trying to like homeschool kids and do your job and all these things. You're like, I can't just have this conversation casually, like we need to get

to the point. Like I emailed story pirates who I know don't have children, and I was like, are you available for a thing tomorrow? And within ten minutes everyone was like available. And the few parents that I've emailed I have still not emailed me back. And I don't blame them because they've got less time to do work. Yeah. Well, like I a couple of weeks ago, I had a when we were first trying to get settled here and

we didn't didn't have a schedule. I had a conference call I was supposed to be on that I just didn't call into, Like I just like got so sidetracked by these children. Um, and it's just like there's stuff

like that. And I was like, I was on a conference call this week with three other moms and it was just like one person was late to the call because her kid fell off a trampoline, and then one person had their kids like me in the background, like another person had their kid come talk to them, Like it was just like did I was supposed to call into so the Story Privates Radio daily daily at eleven am.

Check it out. But h I periodically have called into the show, um, and I was supposed to on Saturday, but you and I got in a fight and I got mad and I stormed out and I went for a long walk and I didn't bring my phone. And when I got back to the house, I had forty texts from Lee saying I'm calling you in I announced you Everyone's waiting for Peter and I was like, oh no, I missed my live appearance on Story Pirates Radio, which was was real bad. It was real bad. I mean,

when do I ever leave my phone? And I left my phone. I was like, I feel so free. You have never in your life left your phone. I mean, how how often am I truly away with my phone? It's kind of groundbreaking. It was great. And then I came back and I was like, I'll never leave my

phone again. I'm trying to through this, get better at like walking away from my computer, like because we have we both have these work schedules and then and we're taking shifts and sometimes I'm with the kids and I have to just like try to achieve this news and where I'm like, I'm getting emails and messages and questions from people and I just need to not care and they're just going to have to wait, you know, like

it's just like how urgent could anything be. I have to constantly remind myself, like, you are a comedy writer, and no one is going to die because you don't reply to this question right now. I got an email from my agent tonight a S A P voiceover audition, and it was like, right in the middle of making dinner, my my shift with the kids was on, and I was like, A S A P. What does that mean? I gotta record a podcast? And I was like, can I do this in the morning. She's like, yes, do

by one pm tomorrow. I was like, Oh, Normally I'd be freak out about it and I have to do it immediately. But now I'm like, there they're saying a SAP on account of like the other clients that are like twenty two and they're just zoom calling everyone all night. You know, they're just not going to sleep because the zoom all kids in the zooms, um, anybody going to zoom date. I want to hear about it. My sister

has been zoom dating. My brother's been zoom dating. I mean, this is kind of like their love is blind, except they can see, except they're not blind. Love is as no techtile, love can't smell. Brian had a really good joke tonight where you were like, I haven't showered in two days, and brand goes, I think you mean two years. And with that that's been another episode of We Knows Parenting. Hey, if you want more stuff for your kids, please check

out story Prides dot com. We got story Prides Radio Live every day to love They Am Sorry, Price University where they can learn some creative writing techniques at thirty uh, start a creator Club membership, visit the podcast. A lot of great stuff for kids. That's my gift to you. Buy my book for someone you know who is pregnant. There's no manual, honest and gory wisdom about having a baby.

Can they get digital copies? They can. You can get the audio book or the Kindle version wherever books are sold. Email us said we knows Pot at gmail dot com. We want to hear how you are doing, or leave us a voicemail at three four seven three eight four seven three nine six. We'd love to hear your children yelling in the background. Uh. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, we knows. Pod rate review, leave us a review. Stay safe out there, Wash your hands, stay home your face. You're doing great.

You're doing a good job, even if you didn't do any home school this week. Bye bye,