four_Cheryl

The podcast episode discusses the emotional roller coaster of parenting and how it impacts relationships. The hosts talk about the lack of sleep and the importance of self-care. They also touch on the pressure to be a perfect mom and the need for a support system. They emphasize that there is no perfect parenting or routine and that each parent and child is different. They discuss the challenges of finding a routine and adjusting to life with a baby at home. The hosts also mention the responsibility of keeping another human alive and the initial fear and worry that comes with leaving the hospital. Welcome to Wizarding Moms in a Muggle World podcast. I am one of your hosts, Rachel, and today is episode four. We're diving into the second part of parenting. And I am your other host, Cheryl. And before we get into, I know last week when we ended, we ended with birth. So we went from pregnancy to birth. Today we're going to do bringing baby home, toddler, kids. But before we even get into that stuff, I wanted to talk about some things that, again, I wish I knew or maybe somebody talked a little bit more in depth about before I had kids or maybe things to expect because I think there's a lot that when you have kids, you know certain things, but I have a list of just different types of things that affect your life and the things around you once you have kids. So first thing, parenting, having kids is an emotional roller coaster. Clearly, I think everybody knew that, but I don't think you realize how much of an emotional roller coaster it really is. I thought that having a emotion of being happy and then going to almost like extreme rage in like a short span, I thought that that was like unheard of. Nope. That is absolutely normal. But I can go from zero to 60 in less than a 30 second span. Yeah. Oh, I'm the same way. And I'm still like that. And I know a lot of it after you have baby is your hormones, but then it's after that, it's just the frustrations that you go through, which in this list, a lot of this stuff is what affects that emotional roller coaster. So here you go. Parenting, having kids impacts relationships. So I'm not just talking about your marriage or your relationship with a significant other. I'm talking about family relationships, friendships. Oh, yeah. I lost a lot of friends when I found out I was pregnant. I did too. And the one, it's not even, there was one friend that I lost because of being pregnant and it was because she was angry with me for being pregnant before she was. She had just gotten married and six months before I found out. So she was angry at me and our friendship was ruined because I was pregnant before her. I actually had a boss that was, I started with a new salon when I was pregnant and I was showing and everything else. I was visually hella pregnant and she hired me and she got pissed off at me because I would sit there. I had no clientele at this new salon, so I would sit there doing absolutely nothing and yeah, I would focus on my belly because number one, I was pregnant and it was huge. So she got mad at me because she and her husband had been doing in vitro for so long and couldn't get pregnant and was mad that I got pregnant and I wasn't married and wasn't in an actual relationship at the time. It's insane. You see people's true colors come out when you become a parent and it's like, I get being upset, but to be actually angry with someone and to ruin a friendship or relationship over having kids is stupid, but in the same sense, it shows you sometimes you're better off without those people, which it took me a long time to realize that, but it can affect so many different relationships. You can have family members who are angry at you for having kids and I just, it baffles me and it blows my mind because these aren't things you think of. You don't, that's not something you think of when you're pregnant like, oh, how is this going to ruin my friendship? No. You're trying to focus on you and your child and your family, but I don't want to stick on that one too long because I feel like we'll touch on more stuff on like friendships, relationships in a different episode. I know people are going to laugh when I say this one, but again, it's one of those ones obviously you know about, but you don't realize how bad. Sleep deprivation. Yes. I did not realize how much freaking sleep you lose during pregnancy, during birth, during having baby, home, having toddlers. You will not sleep ever. You think it's going to get better? It's not. You're just, deal with it. You're never going to get sleep. Yeah. It's not even better when they're older. Yeah. Your days of sleep that you used to have are completely gone. So take advantage of sleeping until noon or one o'clock and take advantage of, you know, being able to go to bed at like three or four o'clock in the morning because you've been out partying and you can sleep the whole next day because... Yeah. Those days are long gone. Yeah. You'll never sleep again. No, you won't. Sleep is gone. And like I said, you know, you know about not getting sleep with kids, but it is not just with newborns. It is all the way through. Either they're waking up all the time or they're sick or they don't sleep well as it is or they're teenagers and then you're worrying about what are they out doing and stuff like that. So sleep. You're never going to get it. Sorry. Yeah. It's the truth. Self-care. So important. I think that one needs to be like more circled and highlighted in neon signs. Yeah. Because your self-care goes so out the window, but it needs to be so prevalent. And it's not because you are so busy taking care of everybody else that you just aren't taking the time to take care of yourself. And again, this doesn't go for everybody because I'm sure there are some people out there who perfectly fine having a brand new baby at home, getting up, getting dressed, taking a shower, all of that. And that kind of falls into finding like a routine. Yeah. That's it. It all interconnects with each other. But it's crazy because you just don't realize it. Like I, self-care was always so important to me, taking care of my hair, taking care of my nails, like having my nails done, all that. And I'm not saying you have to go out and get your nails done to do self-care, but taking a few minutes, putting on a face mask. You know what I mean? If it makes you feel good, that's self-care. That's self-care. Anything. Getting dressed. You know, all of that stuff is self-care. It's taking the time to take care of yourself and not just everybody else. Another big one is the pressure to be a perfect mom. There is such a huge social media presence out there that makes everybody think that you have to be this perfect parent and you have to be dressed to the nines all day, every day. You have to be doing all of this stuff with your kids and not yelling at them and everything else. That's not realistic. So one of the things that goes hand in hand with what you just said, you are going to try about a million, bajillion different techniques to find your rhythm. And I'm going to be the bearer of bad news to pretty much everybody out there. And if you're a parent and your kids are kind of the same age as ours, you kind of already hit this realization. There's no such thing as a natural rhythm. No, there's not. Because Cheryl and I can both attest to this. These past three weeks in both of our lives have been nothing but shit shows. And our self-care has gone out the window because we're trying to take care of the other things in our lives that we're trying to take care of. But not only that, but we have our little crotch garlands that we are trying to take care of. I'm sorry. Well, it's true. I know, but I wasn't expecting that to come out of your mouth. If you think about it, they're little mini terrors of yourself. They are. And by the way, grandparents, don't ever say, I hope you have a kid one day so you know exactly what they're like. Mom, that one's to you. Because guess what, shoes on the other foot, you're going to be the one babysitting that kid. So just saying. Yeah. You get the little mini version of your child that's probably 10 times worse than your child was anyway. But you get to spoil it, which is obviously an amazing thing for being a grandparent. But here's the deal. You can try all of these techniques. You can take a piece out of Cheryl's life that she does, out of my life that I do, out of your mom's life from when you were growing up, out of your husband or significant other's life and piece every single thing of those together because you like the sound of it. And then you get it together and it's like a jigsaw puzzle. Those pieces aren't going to fit correctly and you can't shove them in to make them fit just because that's what you want to do. The challenge is you have to try things over and over and over and fail. One of my favorite quotes is by Michael Jordan. It's so funny because a lot of people know how big I am in sports, but basketball, totally not on that radar. But Michael Jordan has one of my favorite quotes of all time. You miss 100% of the shots that you do not take. If you shoot that ball one time and it goes in, you just made that shot. So you're not missing 100% of the time. You're not setting yourself up to fail 100% of the time by not shooting the shot. Right. And don't compare yourself to other mothers either because what works for them isn't going to work for you. And guess what? Even if you find something that works, that routine is only going to work for so long because guess what? Your child is all of a sudden going to be like, hey, I don't want to nap anymore. And that routine that you had that you perfected is going to go straight out the window. Oh, 100%. So there's no perfect parenting, there's no perfect routine, there's no perfect anything. Don't compare yourself. Every parent, every family, every child is different. I can't stress that enough. If somebody tells you you're doing something wrong with raising your child, look at them and ask them where their medal is. Right. And I can guarantee you once they fall off that high horse, they're going to realize it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Right. You might have a few great years and you might have that support system where your significant other is there for you 100% of the time. You guys go into that parenting 50-50 and everything else like that. But there are other times where you go into it and the parent is there 75% of the time and the other parent is there 25% of the time. Right. Or the other instances where you are 100% that parent and both parents and the other parent is not there at all. Right. Until a situation happens, you have no control. You might think you do, but you don't. You don't. You can fall into taking Sally and Joe and all of your other kids to dance, sports, school, anything else like that all the time, but the problem that you're going to have is one day Sally is going to get sick on the same day practice that Joe has for his sports. Yep. And then it's going to throw a wrinkle in it because if Joe missed that one day of sports, now he is going to be benched because he missed that all-important day of practice where they were going over a really important drill. Right. Or Sally is going to miss a recital because Joe had a championship game and now she is distraught. Right. Or in my very amazing example, you have things to do during the week and your kid looks at you and says, Mommy, I'm sick. I don't feel good. So your whole week gets thrown into a thing because you can't go anywhere. You have to stay home with said sick child. Yep. And so you get all these wrinkles thrown into your plans and we don't think as parents, we think that once we've been doing something for so long, like, hey, we got this. We got this. There's nothing that's going to, even if they do say, hey, Mom, I'm sick or they say, hey, Mom, I have this project that's due tomorrow and you don't even know about it for three months. Right. Even if they say all that stuff, guess what, guys, that's going to throw a total wrinkle in everything. Yep. And the first person that gets neglected in that is Mom. Yep. Or Dad. Or Dad. It depends on who the main parent is or whatever your case may be, but yes, the parent is typically the first one that, because whoever that parent is and whoever got that bad thing thrown at them just took their self-care and put it down at the very bottom. Yep. I'm not saying, guys, be selfish. I'm not saying that. But be selfish a little bit. But you have to be in a certain extent because if you aren't, then you are not going to be good enough for those kids. Exactly. If you are not taking care of yourself, you cannot take care of them properly. And we are perfect examples of that because I feel like you and I recently have both been on the weight loss path, and I think it's us taking care of ourselves more now because we're realizing how badly that has affected our family life and home life because we're not taking care of ourselves, and that's making us miserable, and that's going to make us snap at them and everything else. And it's a system, and it just keeps working. And if you don't stop it where the problem is, it's just going to keep going downhill. So do we have more details? I have a couple more things really quick that I just want to say. You already touched on this one, so I'm not even going to get into it, but the importance of a support system. Support systems are huge, whether it's pregnancy, birth, baby, toddler, kids, you know, teenagers. No matter what, you need to have some sort of support system because without it, you're going to drive yourself crazy. You need a break. Everybody needs a break, so make sure you have a support system. Social needs, I don't want to get into this too much, but do know that sometimes when you're pregnant and you're getting into parenthood, clearly we know that kids are born, some are born with certain disabilities and issues and things like that. All I can say about it is don't beat yourself up too much over it. I am guilty of it with both of my boys, of beating myself up a lot over things that, you know, the issues they have, the disabilities they have, because you get it. What did I do wrong? Did I do something to cause this? Don't beat yourself up over it. Your kid is special. They're still your kid. They're still perfect. They may have issues, but don't let that throw a wrench in your relationship with your child or how you feel about them or anything like that because if they do have some sort of special circumstance, that just means they need you even more because they need you to be, like we say to you guys, they need you to be that voice for them, especially if there's kids who cannot speak and cannot say the things for themselves. You're your child's advocate. So the biggest thing I want to say out of that is if you have a child with any sort of special circumstance, be the advocate for them. Make sure they're getting what they need. So we're going to go into bringing baby home, but I do have a medical issue that I'm going to touch on a little bit with my kids when we get into the toddler talk. So we'll get into that here in a minute, but let's talk about when we bring baby home. So we've had our blissful little excruciating moments at the hospital where we had baby. Baby is now okay. Baby is now home. So we take baby home. What is one of the things that you wish you would have known? The biggest thing that you would have known when you brought home baby number one, fresh new parent. What is the first thing that you wish you would have known? Oh my God. I'm at a loss for words here because I feel like there's so much. I guess it's just that it's funny because I've heard it before. When you get out of the hospital and you're taking baby home, you've had all of these nurses and staff and all that coming in and out to help you in the hospital. And then you walk into your house and you're like, okay, now we have to figure this out. The biggest thing I wish I would have known was just trying to find a routine and a kind of positive place. Does that make sense? Because you're literally walking into your house with this thing that you've never had before in your home and it's like, where do you even, where do you start? What do you do first? How do you make everything work? And I think honestly, the biggest thing when you get home with that baby is just figuring out like, okay, how can we get into a routine and kind of just go from there. I agree. I think that finding that routine is the hardest thing and we all want it to become like a natural thing that we just fall into it because we are adults at that point or unfortunately sometimes kids. But we kind of fall into this thing like, okay, like we've done this for a few days, like we did it, we got to feed, we got to change, we got to do all that kind of stuff for baby. So finding that routine, we hope that it just comes natural. But it doesn't always come natural and I'm not saying like immediately walk into the house and get into a routine, but I think it's important to know that everything isn't going to be perfect when you walk into the house and it's just about finding balance at home because now you're bringing something completely new in and you have to find this huge balance because your life is completely shifted now. Right. You have all these different things that you now have to make an atonement for that you've got to try to get figured out. Right. Again, it's a jigsaw puzzle. Yeah, it is. You got to try to fit every piece correctly. So my biggest thing that I wish that I would have known was that I have the ability to be able to keep another human alive. Yeah. No, I'm laughing because it's funny because I'm thinking I can't even keep a houseplant alive but I can manage to keep my kids alive and my pets. Exactly. I have been a notorious pet person ever since I was a kid. We've always had pets in our house and my brother and I, we're like pet whisperers. Nobody will tell you like growing up or whatever, I, they have this one animal that never gets along with like people. Yeah. But for some reason they always get along with us. I can get along with a pet. Yeah. Cannot keep a plant alive to save my life and all you got to do is give that one water. Right. Now all of a sudden I have a literal human and I am now not only responsible for it being fed but changing it, making sure that it's comfortable but I have to sustain its life too. Yeah. And then when you have a second, I have to now sustain three lives. Yeah. I wish I would have known that I had that capability beforehand, before because all of the worry that I had when I got through the threshold of that hospital into the real world where I didn't have the support of the doctors, I went, holy crap, like I can literally touch this thing with my finger and break it. Yeah. And I am now responsible for keeping it alive. So that initial leave of the hospital. It's so scary. It's scary. I always used to laugh when I used to see like shows or movies where the mom would ride in the back seat with the baby. Like I used to always laugh when I saw that. Yeah. Until I had my daughters and then I was like, I'm riding in the back seat. Oh yeah, I did with both of mine. I was like hands touching like, because it's still so surreal, like this is my person. I made this, like this is mine. Oh my God. Because I think when you're in the hospital, I don't think the realization actually sets in, like you said, until you literally walk out those doors and then all of a sudden it's like, oh shit. And that realization hits and you're like, oh, oh, okay, okay. And then you kind of panic a little bit because you're like, I don't know what I'm doing. But the thing is, you probably do. You know, you know that you do because here's the thing, guys. One of the things that I have been animate from pretty much day one that I found out that I was pregnant was there is a person in my life that dictates whether I am going to be a parent or not. And I do believe in God and I believe that God is the person that made me a parent and is the reason why I am a parent. If he didn't think that I was ready, he would not have given me the positive test. Right. So there's something there. Now I'm not saying that in my life I was ready. God might have thought I was ready. You're never, you are absolutely never ready. You can think you're ready. You can think I'm financially set. You know, you can think that every single thing in your life is stable and perfect where you're like, okay, I'm ready. But you will never actually be fully ready for a child. And you'll never be financially ready for a child. No. Ever. You won't. Like, you, you, even if you plan for a baby, double it because especially now. Even on throw those plans out the window anyway, because you can, like, look, we had, we didn't have a baby shower for my second daughter. We only had one for my first, so we got a bunch of stuff for, for when we were at the baby shower for when she was born. Right. Right. Thank God we did, but it wasn't enough. Yeah. So I thought, oh my God, we have like a closet full of diapers and wipes and like onesies and stuff like that. Now the clothes were extreme because my mom loves little girls. Right. And bought all little girl clothes for my daughters, but the amount that you're going to need for diapers, for wipes, for just in general for that, say that you, say that you planned on breastfeeding for some reason you can't, then you have to, then you have to factor in formula and everything like that. So you might think that you have a plan and you might think that you know what you're going to do. But again, that wrench gets thrown in there and you have no idea. It's like with me, I wanted to breastfeed. I wanted to breastfeed because I wanted that bonding moment and I had been producing during my pregnancy. So I was like, okay, like my mom had issues with me and my brother, so I knew that that was a possibility. Right. But I was like, okay, I was doing everything the doctor was telling me. I had my daughter, she wouldn't latch. Yeah. The lactation specialist came in, she still wouldn't latch. She couldn't get her to latch. She refused to latch. So then I'm pumping. Well, nobody told me the amount that I was supposed to do. Right. So I was doing it when I was starting to feel like full and everything else. But because I wasn't doing it enough. You weren't producing. I wasn't producing. So then I had to go into formula. And I'll tell you what, guys, if it wasn't for formula, I don't think I would have made it because I dried up within three months. And then you guys, something that they don't tell you and people need to know this. If you go into postpartum depression and it's common. If you fall into postpartum depression and you get prescribed antidepressants, you are no longer allowed to breastfeed. You are cannot breastfeed. I struggled with that very, very much because I went into a huge postpartum depression. And it was put on antidepressants, but I didn't want to be because I wanted to continue to breastfeed. But there are two sides to every decision when it comes to medical decisions after you have babies. Because guess what, guys? It's not just you know, right? So you weigh in that baby thought. The problem is, guys, if you're not there, there is nobody to think for baby, right? So you have to take care of you first. And that means that taking care of your mental health, because guess what? Even if you can't breastfeed baby, you can still formula feed, that baby needs to be fed. And if you can't breastfeed, like you say the whole entire time you're pregnant, you're like, I'm going to breastfeed. I'm not doing anything else. I refuse to use formula. Guess what? Sometimes shit happens and you have to do it because baby needs to be fed. And not only that, guys, but I had a friend that breastfed until her daughter was six years old. If you do that, that's fantastic. I applaud you. Right? Great. But don't hold it against me that I couldn't, right? Exactly. That's the thing. That's the other thing that I hate is seeing people judging women out in public for breastfeeding. Now I was terrified to breastfeed in public. I breastfed with my oldest until he was one. After his first birthday, we weaned and I would pump and then started to give him regular milk when he was allowed it and all of that. But when I would try to feed him in public, I would get so scared because the looks you would get out of people. Well, here's my thing. Fuck you. I'm feeding my kid. My boobs are there for my child. So I don't care what your opinion is because here's the thing. I wasn't sitting out in public with my boobs hanging out for the world to see. I was freaking covered and I hate the judgment and the stigma that comes along with breastfeeding and formula feeding because all I give a shit about is that your baby's being fed. However, the hell you need to feed it, you do what you need to do, but people need to stop judging others for how they're feeding their child. They were a baby once. Exactly. They were fed once by a tit on their mother. I get it. I get boobs that people think boobs are sexy. Great. Cool for you. But if you're looking at a mother who's feeding her child and all of you're thinking, oh, look, tits. No. Those boobs are feeding and helping maintain a human life. Don't be disgusting. The whole thing, and we talked about this in episode one, we have to stop sexualizing things so much. Sexuality is meant for the bedroom. My body is made for more than just sex. I am a living, breathing human factory and my body does a lot more than just please my significant other. It's not meant just for that. People need to stop doing that to women and telling women that that's what they're good for because they're not. They're obviously meant for other things because we can have kids and men can't. The whole thing, and I'm in no way, shape, or form, but in every way, shape, or form, I am a person that would be like, a guy can do that better than a woman. Right. Fuck you. No, you can't. Yeah. Because number one, I am that person. If you tell me I can't do something, I can do it better than you can. Right. Because I'm going to make sure I can. Yeah. So now you just told me I can't do something. So yeah, now I'm going to do it better and I'm going to blow you out of the water doing it. Right. So you just did a double-edged sword. Yep. It goes hand in hand with calling other people with how they're doing their mothering. Right. Stop telling people how they're being a mom because they're going to do it better than you are. Yeah. Because you just put them down about it. And those aren't their kids anyway. It's like if you're out there judging somebody for how they're feeding their child, well, that's not your kid. That's not your body. So mind your own frickin' business. Like I, people, and I get it, we're a podcast and we're obviously expressing our opinions, but I feel like people are so opinionated anymore and it's like, well, if you're, if you're not listening to my opinion, it's not right. Well, no, but who are you to judge me for feeding a child and keeping them alive? They're, they're being fed and they're alive. Right. Okay, cool. So at the end of the story, your judgment and your opinion don't matter to me because my child is alive. My child is fed. My child is happy. So we have said this, I believe it was the first episode, where you are more of the aggression, like you go more, oh, I'm confrontational if that's what you're trying to get at. Yeah. I couldn't find the word. No, you're fine. I am, and I am very, very passive. Yeah. It kind of goes into that. If I were out in public and I needed to feed my baby, I would. You had a problem with it. Yep. I would. And I, but here's, here's why I bring this up. I am that person that if somebody tells me I can't do it, it makes me want to do it more. Right. Okay. So if somebody tells me you can't feed baby out in public, well, yes, I can. Because I'm eating in public. Right. So if I can eat in public, I can do it. Now, mind you, I'm not going to bring out my boob and I'm just going to bring it out. I will cover. Exactly. Okay. But I will do it and I will have no hesitation about doing it. Right. Not because of my issues with being able to breastfeed. Right. But if I had that opportunity, whereas you're the confrontational one. So I find it actually funny that you shy away from it. So I shied away at first. So with my oldest, because I was a brand new mom, I was just nervous about everything. And I remember the first time I was out in public with him, we were at a Chinese restaurant with my parents. And I was like, he's hungry. And I was like, I'll just, I'll go sit out in the car and feed him. I'm like, no, I don't want to go out to the car. Fine. I'll go sit in the bathroom and feed him in there. And I did. And I sat in there crying because I felt like this isn't fair. I shouldn't have to sit in a bathroom with my newborn to feed him where people go to the bathroom. Yes. And that is what moms end up doing. And I don't think that's fair. And I applaud like airports that have nursing pods now. Yes. I feel like those are becoming a lot more popular. But they shouldn't have to be. They shouldn't have to be. No, you're right. I understand. I understand for people that do want their privacy and stuff like that. Right. They feel like that's a private thing. And I understand that. I get that. But guys, when it breaks down to it, I should be able to do whatever I need to do to keep my said human alive. I should be able to do whatever I need to do. And fuck what you think that I need to do to do it. Because it's none of your damn business. Exactly. My daughter is actually just you want people like everybody's like, oh, you have to have kids. You have to have kids emotionally. But then as soon as you do, it's like, oh, well, everybody's going to pass their judgment off on you. And I just I think that's one of the hardest parts of parenting that I have come across is the judgment of others on your parenting. And I think if your kids are happy and they're healthy and they're fed and they're not little jerks and they're not bullying people, well, then you're doing one hell of a freaking job. I am only going and I try not to judge people because I have been in situations where I've been judged. The only time I'm going to judge another parent about anything is if your kid is a frickin bully. And we'll get more into this in a little bit when we talk about like older kids, because I feel like this goes hand in hand. But I'm only going to judge you if your kid is a bully, because guess what? That is learned behavior most likely coming from home. So with that, we'll we'll move on, because I know we want to I know we've talked about with baby, you know, bringing baby home, what to expect, what you wish you knew, which, again, there's so much more, but being pressed on time, we're kind of just picking the easy things, the things that we felt were important. Is there anything else you want to add about not on the baby? I feel like baby were kind of and mostly with babies, it's eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep, poop, eat, sleep. And no sleep. And no sleep for parents like you're going to get into that routine. But now you're getting into they go from newborn to baby and then you're getting into toddlerhood and oh my god, buckle the fuck up because you are never going to be ready for toddlers. So this is where my fun fact comes in. And this is 100% me wanting to share this for the necessity of maybe somewhere out there that listens to our podcast is going through the same struggles that I am. Because when you go through potty training, kids and this is one of the biggest things with being a new parent that scared me was the potty training because you always hear horror stories. So you're always thinking, like, especially if you have a boy, like I feel for you because you know, you got to teach him how to aim and all this other stuff. I know that that is one thing I the aiming and all of that kind of stuff. Like we are working on potty training with my three year old right now because and he will do it. And he gets so excited when he goes, but it's the consistency of getting him to go. But the aiming and all of that kind of that is all on my husband because guess what, mommy ain't got that part. And I am not going to attempt to try to show you how we haven't tried that. So with my oldest speaking of potty training funny, we he potty trained himself literally in a day shortly after his brother was born because they were like, don't you want to go to school? Like you're going to be starting kindergarten. You need to be potty trained to go to school. And he goes, OK, and we're like, he's not going to do this. And we were like, but maybe maybe for like, hey, if you potty train, like, maybe we'll go let you pick out something from the store. We were trying to figure out however we could get this kid to potty train, because at that point we were like, OK, we now have a toddler and a newborn can't afford two sets of diapers. And we're like, let's get you into underwear. And that kid went in one day and just he went in, he peed on the potty and we're like, oh my God, yes, that's awesome. Later on that day, he went in, sat on the potty, he pooped. And since then, he has been potty trained. And it's like the thing with potty training for most kids is they'll do it when they're ready. With toddlers, unfortunately, they are little dictators. Everything has to be on their terms, on their time. And it's like, you can try and force them, but their little brains are going to be like, nope, not if they're not ready, they're not ready. But something else can happen if you have a little girl. And it's more common in little girls. It can happen in little boys, but it's more common in little girls. When your child goes to the bathroom, and you won't know when it happens, they go to the bathroom and it hurts them when they go poop. And they don't tell mom or dad. And it's traumatizing because it hurt them so bad and they don't realize that that's just part of life. Sometimes you'll get constipated. So unfortunately, it stays in their head and traumatizes them to the point where their sphincter stops working. And this is a medical issue that my daughter is going through. She does not correctly know how to poop. Now she's seven years old. I am one of those people that I consider myself to be a helicopter parent. Oh, I am too. And I am over the top of my kid, but it's because my oldest does suffer from anxiety. And she is anxiety riddled and has a hard time with it. So whenever she had this traumatizing poo, she stopped going and her sphincter stopped relaying to her brain of when she needs to go. So my seven-year-old has to wear pads to school in order to not go into her panties. She basically needs to be in diapers. So I never knew that this was a thing because being a girl myself and, you know, I never went through that. Right. And so it's hard because I don't know of any other parent that has gone through it. Right. We have tried everything. We've taken her to doctors, GI doctors. Their recommendation is the same every time. And it's infuriating because it's always laxatives and stool softener. And if it doesn't, if it hasn't worked the first five times, it's not going to work now. Stop putting her on the same thing. Stop putting her through this thing. Now she has to have every single day stool softener. Yeah. And we have to give her capsules, not a capsule, capsules because it gets that bad. She will fold her poo for a whole week. Right. And then decide, okay, it's okay. And then my youngest sees this and my kids kind of grew up without anybody else but mommy and daddy. So they're best friends in every essence of the word. Right. So when my oldest does something, my youngest mimics it and is like, well, since he's doing this, I can do it. Yeah. So then she started doing this. So now we're having to do it for my five-year-old. But one day my five-year-old came home and just was like, I'm going to poop. And she went. And we're like, she'll do it every once in a while. Right. But it's not bad. Yeah. But with my oldest, it's like we're having the issues of this all the time. And it's so hard because, you know, we talk about friendships and, you know, or relationships that you lose. I lose a lot of relationships because, number one, I can't put her in any organized sport. Right. Because, like, she wanted to do gymnastics and because of that condition, she can't because she came over to your house one day and was jumping on a trampoline and just happened to have an accident. Yeah. And she was in, like, little, like, one of the small indoor trampolines and, you know, she hopped off, went into the bathroom, and then, you know, I was like, okay, she's been in there for a few minutes. Like, I knocked on the door and I was like, are you okay? And she's like, no. And it's like, okay, like, calmly, like, you know, let me call mommy and we'll handle it. And you have to handle those kinds of situations as calmly as possible because the last thing I wanted to do to her was get her anxious more than she probably already was. And the thing about it is, and, guys, I'm going to tell you this, and obviously I'm giving this piece of my child's dignity away with telling this story on a podcast where hopefully millions of people will hear it, but I have nobody to sympathize or empathize with me because when you tell somebody that that is a parent and you look for that sympathy or the empathy, you don't get the reaction, or not necessarily a reaction, you don't get, you get what you always hear back. And you don't want that. You want someone with empathy and who's going to sympathize and who is going to understand. Like, I've looked up to the fact that when that accident happened here at your house, you called me right away, you were calm with her and everything else. Thank God my husband was home so he was able to come and grab her real quick. But that was a big thing because she was at her best friend's house and she had this accident. Now, we can't do sleepovers, we can't do going out and hanging out. I have to be with her when we go out in public. I have to be with her because if something happens, I have to be there. Or if she has an issue where she does need to use the restroom, that she needs to. I have to email teachers at the beginning of the school year. I have to tell teachers about her incident and it unfortunately has to go all the way up to principal level because if for some unknown reason a bully gets knowledge of it, then it escalates. And this is why I said we would talk more about the special needs and stuff like that. I'm not saying it's special needs, but it's a special situation. It's a circumstance that is beyond our control. So it is a special circumstance. And these are the things that you're never prepared for and these are the things that can affect everything else along the way, like you said with friendships. Now with me, my oldest was diagnosed as autistic and has apraxia of speech and things like that. And with him, it was very hard because all of that made him very upset, very aggressive when he was younger because he couldn't talk, he couldn't say what he needed to, he couldn't get those words out. Now the autism diagnosis, they took that away. He still has apraxia. He's been in speech therapy since he was two. But having to go, and the same thing with my youngest right now, my youngest has a speech issue, but a lot of him is because he was born right before COVID and literally didn't spend any time around people until after he was two years old. So that affected his life a lot, but you have these circumstances and then you meet people or you go to hang out with people and then it's like, okay, well now I have to explain all over again. This is what's wrong, this is what's going on, or you take them to a playground and kids are mean because they can't talk right and they get bullied in school and people say, oh, well, you're stupid because you can't talk. No, it's not that you're stupid because my seven-year-old is actually incredibly smart. He just has this speech issue and he didn't start talking until he was five. Yeah, because he was still working on it hardcore when we first met. Yeah, so it's like, and now you would never really know, except for the fact that they took him out of speech therapy and after we realized he was starting to slide downhill real fast, they put him back in and now he's back up on this upward hill where he's doing well again, but this is the stuff that you're never prepared for, that is the kind of stuff that can affect friendships and relationships and affect a parent and makes you want to stay home because you don't want to have to constantly go out and be like, okay, I have to, you know, if we go do this, I have to explain to people, oh, this is why he can't talk or this, that, and the other thing, and it gets so overwhelming and exhausting that it kind of makes you just want to shut in and I had to realize that after a while, that we can't shut in just because this, this, or this happened or because they have, you know, because I don't want to keep explaining to people, now with your, with what you have going on, it's completely different because you have to, you know, for safety and everything like that, you have to make sure if you go out somewhere, there's a bathroom nearby, things like that. So, coincidentally enough, I made a new friend this weekend, I know, shocking, I don't make friends, but I made a new friend this weekend, and for all intents and purposes, we're going to call her Amelia, Amelia had asked if we like to go swimming and do all this other stuff, well, we do, we love doing that stuff, but we can't, and obviously, like I told her, you know, like we love doing that kind of stuff, that would be amazing, we would love to be able to get together and do that, but it makes me feel bad, because I'm like, first of all, I'd have to explain it, which hopefully she listens to the podcast and I don't have to explain it, wink, wink, Amelia, but it's hard to get into that thing, because we have Right, and that sucks, and it's hard, because you don't want to, you want to get out and be able to enjoy and do stuff with your kids, but when you have to, when there's so many different channels you have to go through first to make sure that you can take your kids to do this stuff, it's like, man, is it worth it, but then you also don't want your kids to be like, well, why can't we go do this, well, you don't want to put the blame on them, and you don't want them to, you don't want to make them think that they're to blame, but it's so hard when you have special circumstances, that it's like, okay, how can we go about this, can we do this?