Men-tuition

I feel a thousand percent underwater right now. The amount of things I need to accomplish before we leave on Saturday is over. You better get on it. I think this whole month is like, it's not been bad, It's just been a lot of little things where you're just like, I can't stop focusing on all these little things I

need to get done. Like I found this year more than ever, I feel like as kind of a factor of having kids is like the amount of people who sort of work for me in some capacity or watch my children, or like sort of helped me day to day that I feel responsible for in terms of getting a small token of my appreciation, which for me is mostly cash. Um the the sheer number of people is just crazy, and I feel, I feel honestly very grateful that we have these people in our lives that make

our day to day life function pretty smoothly. And the fact that we're in a year in our lives where we have money to give them. I feel so grateful for that. It's still a staggering amount of things to think about in terms of preparation for the holidays. Like it's just like, okay, I need to say that much. Oh there's also this person and this person, and like

you're just I don't know, but I'm glad. I'm just very glad that like there's a number of people I can just throw twenty bucks to or whatever amount that feels on par with the amount of work they do for us to day today and then feel like just feel like I can do that for them and it's not a strain on us at this moment. Yeah, that's not That is not any more stressful than just getting

that done right. It's like, it's nice to know that the stress is just getting it done in The stress is not like tallying up meticulously the amount of money we have available to expand on this You know like it's one thing to have a checklist of things you need to get through another where each item just you need to weigh against all these other factors and can we do this is the right things? Just do this, do this, do this, do this? Yeah, because yeah, there's

just a lot of I can do it checklist. I'll get through it. I don't have room in my brain right now for nuance, for big picture. I just need to get through the stuff. It's gonna be. So it feels I mean, I'm I'm stressed, but I'm happy, but it does feel it feels like finals week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was telling someone this week where I was like, there's a lot of things to get done. I feel like I'm pretty on top of them getting them all done. But I'm very eager to move into the portion of

the holidays where we all just drink. Yes, we all go, and then most seasons I go, I can relax. So I instantly get sick because my body is like, well, you don't need to pull through. Well, the good news is we've all been coughing all month, so I think it sounds terrible. I feel this week a very like I'm just I'm annoyed at myself at the level of guilt I feel about these coughs because more than one

person has made a comment. It's always some older woman who is like, our children are coughing, and there's always someone who asked to step in and be like, did

you realize your children are sick? Like? And it just is very dramatic because it's like kids get these colds and then the costs linger, and that's what happens, and there's really not much you can do besides waited out, keep the humidifiers on, rub eucalyptus oil on their feet, you know, like you do all these things and it's just a matter of time, and then you get these comments.

You really take these comments. I know it's so are not too though, because it's like I feel for you, but I don't understand it because I couldn't care less. I know you don't. I just feel like are So. We had a babysitter Saturday so we could go out to a party for a holiday party, which we almost never do. We went to an adult so we're letting loose.

We're like, We're I'm going to have two drinks tonight, Like we're kind of We're like relaxing for like the two hours of a six month period, and then we get a text from our babysitter that was like, are you aware of Brin's cough? Harsh and consistent cough? Is harsh and consistent cough. And I'm sure she means perfectly well,

and she's trying. I think in her mind she's just trying to appear concerned and she's trying to look like she cares about our kids, and I think she does, and she's I think the cough was genuinely, genuinely concerning to her. Yeah, but it's also just like when you're leaving your kids for like three hours on a Saturday, it's like, yeah, I know they have a cough. I should break She texted me, and I showed you this text, and it had an effect on you. I did not anticipate.

You shouldn't have shown me this. I I really regret it because I saw it and I was like, Okay, it's not like I'm gonna come home, and it did not bother me in the slightest. Um well, because the text was also in the context of us we sat in a lot of traffic to get to our friend's party, and then by the time we got there, we were like, oh my god, we'll have to leave soon to get back for When we told her so, we were like, can you stay a little bit later? And she was

like fine, and then she actually she said absolutely, have fun. Yeah, And then she sends this text that is like, are you where your children are? On death's door? With a cough? Are you just out there partying the night away like that? During this I'm illustrating this really terrible sounding cough. It's just it's just a cough. I know. I I don't um I she's a good babysitter, meant anything bad by it. I just think the timing of it is it's I'm

not saying I'm having a rational response. I'm just saying that's that's okay. Your society has heavily conditioned me to be hair trigger responsive to this kind of mom j mom judgment. And it's like, and I don't even think she's judgmental, but she it's because she's under her own spell of feeling judgment for like being like, I'm responsible

for these children tonight. I have to look like a care I have to like when we leave, she leaves the door open to their bedroom, Like they're three and five. We haven't kept the door open while they're sleeping in years. But she's like, we've never done that. Whatever. But she's she's like, what's going on? Are they okay? Like she's like very tuned in, and I know she means well, and she concerned about the cops. Yeah, she worked them to give the water. Which when you grew up, Um,

did you sleep with your door open? I think I did. I don't think so. Our kids always have the I mean because we live we sleep right next to them. I feel like the house I grew up when the house when I grew up in similar to our current apartment. It's like the walls feel like cardboard, like like the doors are very thin, and it feels like even if you shut the door, you're never quite alone. Yeah, do you know what I mean? I mean, that's definitely why

we do it here. Yeah, because we're gonna wake them up because we're right there. Um. So I went to another birthday party. Pause for a second. Okay, I just had a coughing attack which was which was intense, and I'm gonna have a cough trop in my mouth during this, so you're welcome. I went to a birthday party. Brand and I to a fifth birthday party from his old daycare and pre k bus buddy. And how did I do? Beth?

Is that your question? Did all right? Go on? I was a little more a little more social than the last party, but not by much. I got in there and I said, it was at the California Pizza Kitchen all the which was a great simple birthday where they bring out, you know, some dough and sauce, the kids make their own pizzas and then they cook him in and then then they eat them. And they addison the corner or where the kids can run around, and I said him picked this seat that was like in the corner.

I was just trying get out of people's way, and then I got trapped as and became just like the kid wrangler because I was the parent closest to everybody, and all the other parents were all moms. Um, we're all fast friends and knew each other and chatted the day away. And I was there and I tried to ask somebody about something and the waiter came at that moment. Then I gave up and trying to be an adult so when I said I did okay, what I meant

was I didn't do great, but Bernard had a lovely time. Well, while you were doing that, I was trying to convince Maven to get dressed so that we could go to the nail salon, which she was very excited about. But she took an hour and a half to get dressed. Getting dressed is it's like a holiday. She Here's what I have to say about Mayben is that she is such a taurust, which is I don't know what, okay.

So two of my very close friends are tauruses, and they love tactile pleasures like the experience of putting on makeup or skincare, or like lotion or like massage, like something like that. Like they're just sort of kind of reveling in the moment of that experience that feed into Like if you try to push, maybe to get dressed quickly,

she will exponentially get slower. Yeah, and she'll sort of she and she's developed this method where she I think you one day as a fun thing, laid her outfit out for her as if it was like a mini me on the ground. I want to get her excited

about putting it on and it worked. But now, but now every time she gets dressed, she wants to lay out her outfit as if it's a person on the ground, like like a talk figure, and it has to go in a very specific order, with underwear on the bottom and the socks, and she's meticulous and if you try to take anything out of the drawer as a suggestion of what she might add to the outfit for the day, she freaks out. She's like, that's not what I wanted

to pick. And she's like slowly picking this out. So like Saturday was a Saturday or Sunday, So I was like I was way less urgent about getting her out the door because it's just like we're just going to go for a walk and maybe get nails done or whatever, and so it's not I'm just like I'm not going

to force you, just like go get your clothes on. It. Like she just kept getting sidetracked by so many things, and it's so it's very funny because I have to like basically best friends who are also touristic is and they both have been diagnosed with a d h D, which I think is maybe like there's some connection there. I think to sort of being like I kind of relate to this, like it sounds like you have a

thorough data set data set. No, but like this is kind of what you actually love to talk about sometimes, which is like attention blindness, which is like you I think maybe maybe this is like you know, this is beyond just Toruss, but like a sort of creative type of person or whatever, like a right brained person will sometimes get in a mode we're the thing that we're excited about in the moment, we're just so completely sucked in. Do you know what I mean? It's just like you,

it's very hard to perform a linear task. Yeah, Well, she's really locked on to some idea and it makes her totally blind to the simple thing you're asking her to do. Right, we have to go and you have to get her like excited about this. Yeah, you can only read. You have to find where her attention is in order to redirect it. But a lot of times it's a real mystery with Mayven. She's locked onto a thing I cannot see. Yeah, whereas Brandon, I know exactly

what he's thinking about. I was reading something about people with a d h D. Maybe this was like a Twitter threat or something. But someone was talking about how like part of what gets them stuck in the AD to B C D whatever process is like in order to have an executive function and to sort of map out a task in your mind, you have to be able to sort of picture the beginning to end result and like map out steps and sort of like you

have to get a big picture. And it's very hard sometimes for people with a d h D to like figure out that route so that they can like plan a worse to hyper attached to the current moment. Yeah, like because they would like take out their craft supplies or whatever and throw them on the table and then sort of they just get stuck there staring at them like sort of like what wait, what am I trying to do? Like it's sort of like and and that

kind of makes sense to me. I've had that moment with certain things, like with I guess with like newer tasks where you're sort of like, wait, how do you like? Yeah, I mean that's I can relate to some of that. Whereas I've built this workflow that allows me to start

at any point and just start going. And this thing leads to distance, leads to disting leads to this thing, and I have enough systems so that I don't totally miss things, but it leads to certain moments where I suddenly am like, oh my god, I need to do that thing, and now I have almost no time. Um, and so it's it's just it's not the most efficient way to do it. And now that I'm saying out loud,

I'm I should figure it out. See, I think I do sometimes get stuck with this, but I think I'm actually really great at the big picture part when I when I let myself go with it, when I let me when I let myself take the time to plan instead of trying to rush through. I like, I think I'm actually really great at the plan. I agree, you're not a great communicating that any of it's happening, and I'll come home one day is suddenly a meticulous, extremely

complicated plan has been executed. I'm like, oh, I guess you've been thinking about this. Well, yeah, I get frustrated because I have like a master plan that I've been really thinking over and then you interject some thought that presumes that I don't have a master plan, and yeah, because you never told me anything. Well, so I'm like cool, and you're like you think I haven't thought of that, And I'm like, I didn't know you thought of any of this because it takes so long to catch you up.

It's just like you you have no tolerance for catching people up. Sometimes it's hard. You're doing better, it's hard. I told you. It is a detective trying to map out a serial killer on the wall. That's how my brain is attacking any issue at any time and free thumbtacks. Well,

get away from my board. I had this. I had a moment in meeting years ago where like someone asked me a question and then I paused for a second because I was like thinking over like what the mechanics of the question were, and then they were just there immediately were like you don't like it. It was like what they were like, you're mad, and it was just like when there's like no, I'm just thinking, like like ever,

I don't know. I was like, other people are just reacting in the moment, and I was like I don't understand that. Well, that's that's mavin you where there's she's in a certain mode's processing. She's like and I just let me get this right. But she doesn't show you that. It's just like you're not there, and she wishes you weren't there. But if I didn't know you, I might be worried about this child, and said, I just I just learned quicker that like, oh, okay, she's in this mode.

I gotta get out of her way. It would be good. I think. I know we don't realistically have the time to do this all the time, but I think it would be helpful if we let her plan her outfits the night before. I've thought about I think it's just it's a thing she cares about for whatever reason, this

is her passion. It's like she like she got dressed on Saturday and she put on on a tank top for no reason in the middle of the winter, and a skirt and pants and then mismatched socks, like she purposely mismatched and she yeah, she was like having a lot of fun with it. And then I was I was going to take her to the nail salon. And this was again after like a full hour and a

half of like coming it going, what's happening? And she insisted on wearing a fleece vest over a tank top so like nothing had sleeve and she refused to put sleeves on, and then I said, and then I took her to the nail salon. And then this is just to reinforce my point from earlier about judgmental women, is that at the nail salon, she insisted on taking off her jacket, and then she insisted on also taking off

the fleece. So I'm like, so you're just in a tank top in the middle of winter, and she's like, she wouldn't have it any other way. And she and this older woman at the nail salon was like her cough and like like literally this woman like I was like, oh, she's sick, Like she like told me as if I can't hear the cop and I was just like, I didn't. It wasn't my decision to put her in a tank top in December, Like I don't like, but you were

the one who allowed it. It's so funny. I know, well, in the morning when I get her ready for school, I can't let her do those things. So I'm always like, no, you gotta do this kind. You can pick but this kind. But I can't remember the last time I was like, hey, pick whatever you want, and that's what you get. Well, it's a Saturday. I think they needed to day. That's like just whatever tank top skirt day. It's a weird kid's days. Let's go put on your costumes and let's

get our nails done. And now it's time for Did you notice this is where we share thing we read. We're thinking about Beth. Thank you? What do you got? Thank you? Peter Um Peter Longer, that's my name. I want to talk about this article from fatherly dot com. It's by E J. Dixon and she wrote U sort of response to It's an advice column. She wrote in a response to a dad who says, my wife and I recently had a baby. I'm I'm just going to

try to summarize it. He says. I'm involved, dad. Everything is mostly great, except that my wife's postpartum body is confusing me. I have so much respect for my wife. Blah blah blah. And he says things like milk trips out of her breasts and her body seems so animal. I'm an animal too. I get it, but also I don't. My image of the human body is radically changed, and her body is the place where that is manifesting, which seems unfair. Um. He goes on to say, I'm attracted

to her still, but something's different now. She's some kind of goddess, beast animal mother that my libido doesn't know how to respond to. I'm almost afraid to touch her, which I think she's picking up on and wish. I'm afraid of making her feel bad. It certainly makes me feel awful because I'm also more in love with her than ever. Blah blah blah. Anyway. Um. Their response to this, which I liked, was sort of just like, hey, your wife's going through a lot of ship with her own body.

I'm sure she's not exactly attracted to you right now either, And then this sort of like you're you have to put your issues on hold right now, like not worry about this. Why did you write that? And it's like I didn't. I mean the headline here, which I should say on fatherly dot com is um, oh shoot, sorry, I meant to take this from prepared the twitter, the tweet, but it was just that attention men, your wife's post part of body doesn't belong to you, and it doesn't

belong to your baby. It belongs to her, and the sooner you realize that the better. Um no, ship, Yeah, I think sometimes it's Here's the thing I don't. I don't blame men for their skewed, bizarro perspective of the world because it is reinforced by literally all medias that

surrounds them and people and things. But like the like we have all these movies, like we have like Father of the Bride, we have movies where we see a man experience pregnancy, And then what drives me literally insane is that we have not You are literally insane because I'm literally insane and I was diagnosed as a result

of the lack of representation in media. Uh my for it. Yeah, anyway, I what drives me literally insane is that one I get interrupted when I'm trying to But two is that the like this very core human experience that women have, who women who happen to be more than fifty of the population and also responsible literally for the lives and the existence of of the population, the story of how that comes to be is literally never represented fully or

completely or interesting lee in media from their perspective in any meaningful way. And then the representations we do get of it are about and four men nine months is not a perfect representati I'm talking. I'm talking exactly about movies like Nine Months, where we explore the frustration of a man watching a woman have this transformative, difficult experience. We watch a man ask Tom Arnold about his experience, and we're supposed to feel empathy for them and sympathy.

I'm just still stuck on that. Uh what what does he think he's going to get out of this email? This letter? He just wants some This is what men want. They want someone to pat him on the head and

say it's okay, they're selfish. We want you to be selfish. No, this guy wants to be congratulated for being self deprecating because he goes, I feel so guilty about this thing, and like not guilty enough to like put your emotions aside for one minute while your wife heals the gaping wound in her uterus were a placenta detached from her body while she created a human being. I gotta say I did not have the experience of of of this guy. Because you love my squishy body. You're like, oh, that's

so squishy. I guess there was something in a like uh you know, like, oh, there's a body has changed because of this process. You were too overwhelmed with pride of being a Yeah, I was just like I did this. I did um um is it's it's I under fand the fascination and it's really what are the way he describes like this animalistic thing, and it's a reminder that we're that we're not what society paints humans to be, but we are truly animals, you know, And it is

sort of an indicator of of that. And he's grappling with, you know, his own morality and his own like we're just animals, you know, if I'm going to give him credit, which I'm giving them too much of right now. And I think I can relate to that. But I found that affirming life affirming and exciting because you were like,

we're all animals, Yes, nothing matters. I think if you can watch a person come out of your wife's body and then find a new, an interesting way of being attracted to her, then you you're sort of more animal than ever. You don't have to find I mean find a way. Makes it sound like how do I figure this now? No, but it does. I think you sort of have to grapple. It's like this moment of like, oh, we're all dirt, you know, like you have to face your own mortality and be like, she made a me,

she gave me another me. That's that's a woman. She made a me. I am nothing and not neither I, nor it nor her. Nothing is anything. Nothing matters. You have to move through that. The concept of mattering is imaginary. My penis is not so big and important as I thought it be is to me. I'm mad at I'm mad at me and my little pen And then he was like, Peter, hey, focus up. You've been talking to yourself in the corner for twenty minutes. But why am I here. You have to go pick up your kids.

You're a father, Now do something. I pay the bills, pick up your kids, cook some food. I was telling. So I went tonight to my sister, her company's holiday party at her apartment and her she has a business partner for her political consulting company. Who is this guy? And he was there with his fiance and he did he was doing something where he took ice out of the freezer and then he went to put it back in the freezer, but put it in like a totally

different place. And his fiancee was like, what are you doing? Why would you do it like that? And I was like telling her that me and me and Jackie in our book, there's no manual have February four. In the book, I we had a little sidebar where we gave a definition for men tuition, which is just the opposite of intuition. And that's kind of the mail. I'm not gonna argue with that. It just takes us. It takes a second

to catch up every time. I'm too busy thinking about a different thing than whatever the thing is I was supposed to do. Uh. So we're holidays, We're gonna go on a trip. Um so next week I don't know, I don't know what our episode will be. It's going to be something weird, a typical um but that's not the point. But just be ready for that. Just but we're getting on an airplane and I think this, unless it snows a bunch, I think this will be the just one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably we gotta well what

you gotta charge up all the devices. It's a short flight, will be okay, it's fine. They I'm excited to be on a plane with Brian for a long time. And do you know, like puzzles and word games and facts and figures, because that kid can lock in on that stuff and I love it. I'm literally never excited to be on an airplane, but I am less dreading this trip than every other trip we've taken with children. And our last one was to Atlanta and we were in

that airport for like ten hours and it was not bad. Yeah, we did pretty well. We can handle anything. We can do it. One of my friends was taking her two kids from New York to l A for the holidays by herself, no other parents. She has a two and a four year old. This is what my mom did all over Europe by yourself. Yeah, your mom is like your mom's like next level and her ability to just like shrug things off, detached and go, we'll get there.

It's fine. Uh uh uh boot boot. It's the worst cough and you wonder why the babies did their next You guys right in with your cough remedies. We're literally dying. We're gonna not make it. Oh I was gonna say, is that my little brother Sam and his new baby. Um, you heard all about it if you've listened to the podcast their baby announcement on the show. Um, they're bringing their little baby, and they we didn't know if they're going to come, and they are coming. They're putting that

little guy in an airplane. And we need to get read of these coughs so that we can squeeze that baby. A perfect elf baby, he has like a little elf. He's so cute. Um, I want to I want to throw him around like a football, but not really, but metaphorically, I want to hold him Buttaphorically, I want to throw him around like a football. He's so tired about Peter, don't. I'm not going to, I'm saying metaphorically, I want to throw him around like a football, like the old pigskin

wrong with men. Just I want to put him in my pocket. This is toxic masculinity. Chest bump that baby metaphorically, but to be clear, his sweet smelling little head. I mean, literally, that's what I'm gonna do. But metaphorically, we're going to get into the trenches. Metaphorically, we're gonna teach him how

to be manly. We're gonna kill some ship. We're metaphorically we're gonna get into into the woods with a six pack and and uh, you know, shoot things literally I'm gonna smell his baby head, hold those little onesie, You're gonna hold his little him and his little snuggling ones. I just picture you're in his room when no one else is around, bling his drawers, just sniffing his onesies. Creepo.

Oh my god. I mean, last time we saw him, he was like still I think he was still kind of like sleeping off the billy ruben and he was like just completely out of it. But this time he's going to be a little guy. Those eyes are gonna be open, he's gonna be checking things out. Who knows what he's like. It's a totally different person for the last time. You know. It's crazy. You know, every you know, three months or so, babies and little kids become a

totally different kid. And then at a certain age, it's like every six months or two a different kid. Blah blah blah. They seem like, ol, here's a totally new person. But when you go back and you watch videos of you know, Brin at four months old, you're like, oh, that's Brin a hundred percent same kid. Always been that kid. This has been did you know? This next segment is called Listeners want to Know is where we take questions and comments from you guys. Alright, this email comes to

us from Mandy. Mandy. Hey, they're Beth and Peter. I've been listening since episode one came out, and I finally have a question about a parenting situation that you seem to have a life experience with. My kids are almost exactly two years apart, as in almost shared a birthday, but I missed it by three days. They're also both Leo's throwing that in there in case Beth further advice. That's signed related. Anyway, we have one bedroom for two kids. My almost two and a half year old daughter is

still in her crib and uses a crib tent. It's wonderful. She also got a twin bed in the room that we lay and read on, and she knows it will be her big kid bed when her five and a half month old brother takes over the crib. She seems pretty excited about it. Little brother sleeps in a pack and play in my room, and eventually we're going to need to introduce him to sleeping in the same room as his sister. This is mostly out of sizing needs, because he's going to outgrow the pack of place sooner

rather than later. He's in twelve months clothes. He's in twelve months clothes and a very tall baby. As of now, they're both going to bed at seven pm mission wake up around twelve hours later. I know we are extremely luckily they both love sleeping. I don't tell many people about it. Also, except the podcast, you just did tell how many people? That's okay. Also, we have a never We have never co slept and don't nurse, so there's

no special transition needed there. Since Brittain Maven are of similar age difference, it sounds like they share a room. What did you guys do to make the transition work? Was it sort of kindness? Smooth? Um? When did you do it age wise? I know kids have shared bedrooms for millennia and it's obviously doable, but I'd like to hear how it went for you and the kids. This is a bit long, but I appreciate any insight you may have. Your podcast certainly helped me through my second

pregnancy while I was also chasing around a toddler. Your podcast will not help me through a third pregnancy, because that never ever, because that's never ever happening. Cheers Mandy us too. Mandy us to, you're officially declaring it. I never ever again pregnancy. Done with it. I just don't want a kid that's so far age different from these two. I'm pretty done with pregnancy. But why do you think the age difference is big? You and your brothers are

like four years apart. Uh? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Let's let's not have this conversation here. You're so scared of this conversation that you brought up, Mandy, did I love it? Um? So, I was a little confused as to what her question is. She's asking, how do you do the transition to putting the kids? Yeah, so the four and a half month old is in the pack and play and her daughter is in the crib, So how do you transition the daughter to the bed? Yeah?

Exactly the situation we were in. I'm struggling to remember exactly. But didn't we put this off for a long time? May even slept with us for a long time. But then there I feel like there was maybe like an attempt at this that didn't work. Maybe I'm just confusing it with potty training. Brin's bed started as a mattress on the ground, yeah, with a guardrail, which I just found a picture of and I forgot that was like,

that was a weird choice. Um, that's the choice of first time parents, you know what, I think we just I mean, Bryn was twenty months old when May was born, and how long did she sleep with us? I feel like maybe a long time. I don't remember this six months very much A blurred to me. It might have been like six months. All I know is that I think when you have two, it's that age two and six months ash or whatever they're doing. Um wait, there's this four and a half, four and a half months

and two and a half years. Okay, okay, so similar. So you do what do you have to do to survive? And if you don't transition them from one thing to another at the time you thought you would, it doesn't matter at all. I was just talking to my friend who was like she was saying how she was talking to her mom. We were talking about like holiday traditions and how she was trying to remember her Hanukah traditions

growing up, and she had this kind of memory. But she was also the youngest child and she was like, I probably remember like a more organized version of this than what actually happened. So she was telling her mom, like, I don't understand how you had us all sitting down to dinner every night for dinner and like all eating together, because she my friend currently has two and a four year old, and she's like, it's just chaos. You just

like throw them food, you know what I mean. And her mom was like, oh, no, when your brothers were little, I definitely didn't have a dinner together. Like she's like, you're just remembering when we got through that, Like that's so funny because I was thinking the exact same thing because I remember every night and I'm sure this is

not true. Everyone sat down and we had dinner together, and you you couldn't leave till everyone's done, you couldn't start until mom picked up her fork, and all these rules. But it's because I had two older brothers who could be good enough to sit still well. And that's what my friend was saying about her Hanuka presence, because we were talking about like do you put the presents out where your kids could grab them, or do you hide

them all until Christmas morning? And she was saying her mom laid them out, but like she was the youngest kid. So the older kids would be like, do not touch the presence. Were not allowed to touch the presence, and she just believed that that was the rule. Yeah, you know, like well, it's like, remember, okay, we earlier relationship, our first big fight when I told you you weren't invited to Christmas because I was very certain that there were

very specific rules. And when I asked my brothers about it, they were like no. But I asked my little brother. He was like, oh, yes, a hundred percent. Those are the rules. And it's just like but it's also the same thing brand. We got him an advent calendar and he immediately opened all the doors and I was so upset by this, but it is older siblings are like, here's the deal, you don't open these. Yeah, he's not modeling that for his sister. He is, but he just

makes up his own rules for her. He makes up rules about everything. Yeah, because he's copying you to make a rule. I know, new rule. Don't remind me alright, So I think, Mandy, when it comes time whenever, that is, if you want to follow our model, it was just just do it. Just you put the baby in the crib and you go all right, it's it's the baby's now sleep in the bed, and then they will react in the way they react, which is different than the

way our kids reacted. Also, I will say, putting two kids in the same bedroom, there was a period of time that I've partially blocked out of my memory, which was just kind of hell of trying to get them booked to sleep, which kind of continues into today on

a less a lower key level. But like when you're when you're trying to rock mayving to sleep, and Brin would be like NonStop talking as a two year old, all these things like it was just impossible, and you just like you just resign yourself to the fact that on any given day, any given bedtime, it's just going to be hell. Any even Sunday, it's going to be hell. Um, you know, until it's not. Maybe it never is that it sounds like your kids are chill, it goes away.

It just every transition feels like a nightmare for a little while, every transition is a nightmare. Every kiss begins. Um, alright, So can I just say an incredibly spooky thing happened and loud and scary before you came home. I was sitting here working trying to catch up on things, got a lot of work done, and then out of nowhere, our sound system starts blaring radio Internet radio and in the loudest level I have. I even knew our speakers were.

It just turned on a radio station on our receiver. And so I had my headphones in, and how can you interpret the sign if you didn't pay attention to what was being sent by the radio station, Because it was I had my headphones in. It was so loud, and I jumped up. I couldn't tell where it was coming from. So I jumped up and I was like, hey, theoried off And it was like, nothing's happening, you idiot, what do you mean? And I jumped up to the basics,

that's what it sounded like to you. And I jumped up to the speaker and realized it wasn't an Apple project, it was this, And so I ripped our the door off the thing. And it was so loud for so long, and I was so scared. And then I turned it off and I was like, how the hell did that happen? I still don't know. Wow, that's my story. There's a ghost. There was a ghost in the receiver. Um it was. You know, it's just like a random pop station. All right, you ready for this last email of the night. This

is from Ashley Night Diapers and Toxic Masculinity. What a combo? Hi, We knows I've been binging your pod for the last few months and I've just caught up so I can finally send you an email without you thinking why is she writing about old shit? I don't. I won't go on about how much I like the pod. So Beth is an annoyed at Peter with Peter reading every week, but knows that I really enjoy your woke yet realistic perspective.

Woke is in quotes. I'm a mom to a nine year old and a five girl and a five year old boy, and I have a few recommendations for you listed with headings for Peter. Thank you. One night diapers. My daughter sleeps like a rock and doesn't yet have the active hormones, so she still wets the bed. We had a great success with the target brand Up and Up night diapers, so I highly recommend as a cheaper and more absorbent alternative to Good Nights. Two non stereotypical

book reference with a male subject. My household loves the book Big Mean Mike by Michelle Knudsen uh Um. It challenges a few aspects of toxic masculinity and entertaining way through a tough guy dog main character and his encounters with some cute fuzzy buddies. Opportunities to read in fun character voices included enjoy your holidays, Ashley, that sounds like a cool book. I like that the sound of that.

We should get that. There's still type for Christmas. Um So, Brin has a weird Britain now because I got all these good nights. He has a weird attachment to his old pull ups, which were too small, and the first time we got them, I was like, we've got a

fight about it. I'm like, put because you're leaking through the butever, and so now, in order to avoid putting on the good nights, he sneaks off and he peas in the toilet before bed, and then refuses to have help getting dressed so that he can secretly find a pull up and put that on and then put his jammies on. And he thinks that if I see it, I'm gonna like be upset and make him change. But I'm like he's getting ready for bed all by himself

and doesn't need me bugging him. It's perfect. And honestly, we have a whole box of pull ups that I would rather just get rid of than waste. Yeah, so I solved that problem. Congratulations, thank you, and not in the way that I intended. Accidental good parenting, that's the net. You know your book mentuition, and yeah, my books called mentuition, or it's called oops. Some of the things I did

were good. Accidentally got kids, accidentally got kids, and not all my decisions are disruptive, not disruptive, destructive or disruptive. Men's men. Man inspiration is something else, all right? Do you think on that man inspiration means mands, mentuition, menstruation, menstruation, mandella. Anyway, thank you guys. Another episode of We Know His Parenting. If you would like to send us an email, kive this advice, how about would you know scenario? You need

some of those? You don't have some of those in a while? UM, you can email us at you know spot at gmail dot com, or you can leave us a voicemail at three four seven three eight four seven three nine six. Find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and we knows pod and go rate, review, subscribe, Everybody's doing it, this podcast laps. Somebody did right a review with that. Write your review of our podcast subjects having Everybody's doing it, Everybody's doing it, five stars, and we'll see you in

the new year. Babies, Fine, it's a new year.