Whimsy and Spring Delights EP 450

00:00:09
Speaker 1: Hi.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

00:00:15
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

00:00:24
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real.

00:00:27
Speaker 2: Women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.

00:00:33
Speaker 1: Term career goals.

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Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.

00:00:41
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.

00:00:43
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in mid March of twenty twenty six. If things sound a little different, if there is perhaps some background noise, like I heard the fan just came on in my hotel room, I'll go turn that off in a sec. It's because Sarah and I are here to gather in Vero Beach, Florida, as we often are at this time of year. We're recording several episodes, plus some intro and questions for other guest episodes, and enjoying spending some time together thinking about the podcast for the next year.

00:01:11
Speaker 1: So Hi, Sarah.

00:01:12
Speaker 3: Hello, So excited, and we will get to this retreat a little bit more maybe in one of the elements of this episode itself.

00:01:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this episode is first airing on Saint Patrick's Day, March seventeenth. If I've got that correct, You guys don't do a whole lot to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day, and you're it's not as much a Florida thing if you are Irish people.

00:01:33
Speaker 3: No, yeah, And I really didn't think about that until you asked me the question, and it really made me recognize that when where I grew up, we did have a lot of Irish people, and like everyone were green, and we ate these things called Irish potatoes, which were these.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: Weird, almost coconut tasty. I think they had cinnamon on them. They were kind of good. Actually, yeah, yeah, well this sounds good. I mean, I think the whole Irish nation subsisted on potatoes for a while.

00:01:56
Speaker 2: So I guess it's a familiar food. I like the soda bread. I like the soda bread up right.

00:02:01
Speaker 1: I think my mom would often make like corn beef to corn beef. Yeah, No, I'm not into that.

00:02:07
Speaker 2: But Island's an awesome place to visit if anyone's looking for a trip destination. It's about as easy to get through too from the East coast, as like London, there's a couple of flights from the New York area to Dublin.

00:02:17
Speaker 1: And even to Shannon.

00:02:19
Speaker 2: I believe a couple places in beautiful country to visit, so throw.

00:02:23
Speaker 1: That out there.

00:02:24
Speaker 2: We celebrate Saint Patrick's Day a little bit in sort of a whimsical way with the leprechaun. And I did not know that leprecuns are another sort of magical creature that visits the house. Obviously, Santa Claus might come in your house, or the Easter Bunny or the tooth fairy. But it turns out many years ago one of our nannies introduced our children to the idea of the leprechaun, which is that you build a leprechaun trap, and you know, hopefully you catch the leprechaun. But if the leprechaun escapes from your trap, he will leave you candy. I guess, as I don't know that his payment to consolation or got away and is bribing his way out of it or something.

00:03:04
Speaker 1: I don't know what happens.

00:03:05
Speaker 2: If we actually catch a leprechaun, I guess then we have another pet in the house. I'm not sure how Max the dog would deal with the little Leprechaun. But we've been constructing the trap. Henry has been putting an elaborate one together in the pantry. So I presume no leprechaun was caught last night and candy has been had.

00:03:24
Speaker 1: But stay tuned. Maybe in a future episode, I'll tell you about my new pet.

00:03:28
Speaker 3: That's awesome and it's definitely a whimsical little tradition in your household.

00:03:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's lots of different ways you can have whimsy in your life. I know this is a topic that's been batted around on social media lately. It's kind of just this idea of playful, fanciful stuff in your life. There's no real larger purpose to it, but it is done just for fun.

00:03:51
Speaker 1: And I know you have some things like that in your life.

00:03:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I kind of like it when the whimsical and the practical like merge a little bit. So I have to say that the planners I use have a very whimsical element, which is that Hobininji, the company that makes them, comes out with limited edition covers every single year, and that covers them like that's a whimsical concept, first of all, because like you don't need a new cover every year. But the designs themselves are also very whimsical, almost too much for some people, but I often love it. You know, there's different like animated things, or there'll be things from your childhood, like they had a little House on the Prairie cover last year that was super popular. And yeah, even though if I don't choose one that's super whimsical, I just love the tradition of seeing them all and thinking about which one I want to get, and then maybe looking at something a little bit quirky on something I use every single day makes me very happy.

00:04:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:04:40
Speaker 2: Well, in that category of practical, I bought this container of mushroom pencils when we went to Department of Note a few weeks ago up in my neck of the woods, and I mean, they're just fun to use. A pencil is a pencil, but these have all these sort of woodland flora on them, and that's not a thing you're normally looking at. So I'm now have the whimsy of woodland flora on my pencils.

00:05:07
Speaker 3: I love it, and it's just, yeah, there's no real point except it makes you happy.

00:05:10
Speaker 1: So what are some other whimsical things you've been up too lately.

00:05:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think if you are going to an event that might be construed as cheesy, if you instead just choose to fully embrace it and lean into it and not be cool, that you might have more fun. And there's a whimsical element to that. So my example is that this week, and this is a few weeks before this episode airs, but fairly recently ssairs, I'm going to a Tiffany concert and Vanilla Ice is going to be there too, so it's going to be a rock and party. And I bought a Tiffany T shirt that had like the cover of the album that I listened to nine thousand times growing up, and then decided I needed to accessorize with an armful of Neon Glow in the Dark jelly bracelets. Completely unnecessary, but I feel like will greatly enhance the experience, and certainly in a whimsical type of way.

00:05:59
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. Yeah.

00:06:01
Speaker 2: No, if you're making the point of going to something like that, you're not cool anyway. You may as well just embrace it fully. There's no detachment whatsoever. Sometimes home decor can fall into the whimsical category, like you're probably not going to do your whole living room in whimsy or your master bedroom because you get tired of it pretty quickly.

00:06:20
Speaker 1: But a small room like a powder room could.

00:06:24
Speaker 2: Be done with a cool wallpaper pattern.

00:06:29
Speaker 1: That's a really great place to experiment.

00:06:31
Speaker 2: And I lucked into having what I call my zoom room is my closet in my office. Either the prior owner or the one before that had put this wallpaper up that looks like library shelves, that looks like bookshelves with all these old books on it, and people see me in it and they're like, are those books?

00:06:50
Speaker 1: Are those real? And it's just no.

00:06:52
Speaker 2: But it's a more fun background than I guess a lot of the fake zoom backgrounds you can put in.

00:06:57
Speaker 3: Yes, spluse, I feel like anything that tricks the eye is a little bit whimsical in and of itself. I do feel like whimsical decor, especially when people have thoughtfully chosen art pieces they might have, like a humorous angle can work really well.

00:07:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I love that, especially if some old photo where people are doing something odd. Yes, it's gonna make you laugh every time you look at it.

00:07:18
Speaker 3: Totally well, I think that it can be whimsical to choose manicure or pedicure colors that have nothing to do with anything that would.

00:07:26
Speaker 1: Be found in nature. Okay, so what kind of colors are we talking here? What's your go to for?

00:07:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like a mint green can be fun or leaning into something seasonal, so like maybe for Saint Patrick's dale, I'll get some bright green nails or going ridiculously hot pink or white, or like a dark dark I don't know, but like not pink.

00:07:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:07:50
Speaker 2: I don't know how my Apple maps got switched to this voice, but it's a somewhat bossy lady and she tells me she's like, turn right like that.

00:07:59
Speaker 1: I mean literally, it is like that.

00:08:00
Speaker 2: And I just get such a kick out of the fact that it's not this random robotic voice. It sounds like, you know, it is obviously AI, but it sounds like a real person who might be like in my life.

00:08:10
Speaker 3: Well, and I'm suspecting that perhaps you can get like various celebrities to read your.

00:08:14
Speaker 1: Directions at this point, but I actually think the fact that you named her makes her extra wims O.

00:08:20
Speaker 2: You can share or not share the name you've told you No, maybe no, because we don't want to offend anyone with that name with that name, so we'll just because you know, I've just said it was really bossy beauty, we will leave it to your imagination.

00:08:30
Speaker 1: But it works.

00:08:32
Speaker 2: You have bought books based on just liking the cover, just like your hob Anici's right, totally.

00:08:36
Speaker 1: I bought this.

00:08:38
Speaker 3: I was at a birthday party and one of the moms was like, oh, I'm reading this series and it's called like the Unauthorized Diaries of Emma Lyon. And I didn't even listen to her talk about like what was in the books, but I saw the cover and I'm like, I must have that, and I clicked. I just I don't know, and it felt whimsical. I mean, it felt impulsive as well. But I think sometimes it can be fun and doing something like that will force you to perhaps try something that you might not have otherwise chosen if you knew more about it.

00:09:04
Speaker 1: So I think sometimes when.

00:09:06
Speaker 3: Decisions are not high stakes, just letting it kind of happen.

00:09:10
Speaker 1: Can be a whimsical way to go about things.

00:09:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, now there's the idea of using something inappropriate to the situation, like your fancy china, Like if you're having pizza or something like that. That can be really fun too. You know, most people don't use their good china nearly often enough. I guess we're worried about breaking it, but then like, it'll never get used, so pull it out, maybe have something like regular Tuesday night dinner on.

00:09:34
Speaker 1: It feels a little different.

00:09:36
Speaker 3: I'll give my parents credit for that, because at some point I came back and visited and I'm just like, oh, you're just eating off of your like quote fancy plates.

00:09:42
Speaker 1: Now, well good, because I mean, what are you saving them for? Right? Yeah? So I like that.

00:09:47
Speaker 3: I like, yeah, I think also just randomly pulling something out and using it for pizza would be kind of fun.

00:09:53
Speaker 1: Kind of fun.

00:09:53
Speaker 2: Now we need to hear the story of why Sarah had the whimsical thing happened in her life where she set her alarm for TI two fifty am for an online shopping experience.

00:10:03
Speaker 3: Sarah, Well, we're going to share it after the break, so cliffhanger, we will.

00:10:06
Speaker 1: Be right back.

00:10:19
Speaker 3: All right, we are back, and sorry for the teaser there.

00:10:23
Speaker 1: It's not that big. But so tell us about shopping in the middle of the night.

00:10:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Annabel was really excited about the Target Slash Roller Rabbit pajama collab. Well, actually they didn't just do pajamas. They did all sorts of housewares, but she particularly wanted some pajamas. Roller Rabbit is like a higher end pajama brand. We have a couple pairs of those as well, but this Target collab was Roller Rabbit designed items at like a fraction of the price, and we knew they were going to go like hotcakes, And I mean, I just decided to think of it as like, this will be fun. And it was extra fun because it happened to be on a night but the other three members of our household were out camping, and so she set her alarm and we went up, we got out, we shopped together, and we went right back to sleep. And then bonus, you get to gloat in the morning when everything's sold out.

00:11:06
Speaker 1: So yeah, I.

00:11:08
Speaker 3: Mean, the pajamas themselves are kind of whimsical, and the experience of buying it in that way was really fun.

00:11:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it. I love it so indulging.

00:11:17
Speaker 2: In a hobby that has no real point. I would definitely put my miniatures in this category, and I put them on shelves in my office, so when I'm just sitting there working, I can look over to my left and there are all these little miniature scenes. I mean, there's a miniature library. Now, there's a miniature bedroom. There's a miniature kitchen, there's a miniature bathroom, there's a miniature laundry room accessorized with like some lovely attendees of BLP Live last year gave me miniature Starbucks cups for the scenes, so now I have those in there too. It's just fun and even like doing I've done miniature tourism, Like I went to the Philadelphia Miniature Show in Cherry Hill was leaning all the way in. That's leaning all the way in. Yeah, I'm gonna be in Chicago soon and hopefully we'll stop by the Art Institute of Chicago and see the Thorn Rooms again. I love seeing the Thorn Rooms every time I'm there. At sixty eight miniature rooms that are all carefully collected and put together.

00:12:17
Speaker 1: There's actually a wide variety.

00:12:18
Speaker 2: Of miniatures in Chicago because the Science Museum of Science and Industry also has a huge dollhouse in the basement.

00:12:25
Speaker 3: Well, maybe we'll have to go at the same time if they have the there's like a big pen and planner show. It's like huge, and actually it's sold out in like two hours a year because that stuff is so hot right now. Yeah, so we'll go together again indulge are like random hogs.

00:12:39
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, we'll do stationary conference plus going to see all the miniature stuff that is on display in Chicago.

00:12:47
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. Now the gift you gave Josh recently for Christmas? Right or hanaka? I guess yeah. I think it was for his birth, which is at the same time. Yeah, so that's why I was confused.

00:12:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I got peanut butter in the Month Club, And I do think that getting really into something totally mundane is so much fun and whimsical. But also these peanut butters are like wild, like what's in that coffee people? Well, so, every month there's usually one fairly traditional one, but often sourced from another country. The best one, by far, in my opinion, has been from a brand called One Trick Pony that apparently sources all its peanuts from Argentina.

00:13:24
Speaker 1: Like they have to be Argentinian peanuts, super good.

00:13:27
Speaker 3: But then there's also a peanut butter that is weirdly flavored like a maple one or a coffee one.

00:13:32
Speaker 1: Or the chocolate one. Went real quick.

00:13:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so much fun. What makes a peanut butter good? In your opinion, most peanut butter is good. Most peanut butter is good. I mean, but why did the Argentinian peanuts blow your mind? Yes?

00:13:46
Speaker 1: Is the other ones?

00:13:46
Speaker 3: It was a smooth peanut butter that was like beyond smooth. I mean there was no so it's like pretty much all these peanut butters are natural like, so they're not. I don't think the subscription was framed that way. But none of them have had like palm oil, so they don't have that. Like I don't like the texture of like Skippy or Ja, but this one managed to like I don't know, it's just super silky.

00:14:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, to be even without the palma. I'll fascinate.

00:14:07
Speaker 2: And now when you when they come, do you like taste test them like on bread or crackers or what's the just straight in a spoon out of the.

00:14:16
Speaker 3: Usually Josh just like opens it and then yeah, often people will taste it with a spoon or they'll have it on His favorite is on cinnamon raisin Bagels's that like every day.

00:14:24
Speaker 2: Let's go well, a present that has been used that story is great when you've got a whimsical present that is not just sitting on the shelf. You know the person well enough that it's become a household fun thing every month. So the second part of this episode, we're sort of transitioning to we call this spring one off delights and not one off is then you'll never do them again in your life. But they're sort of like a moment or a thing that happens in spring that we are either in our lives or in general things that are cool that happen in spring, which official spring will start, Yeah, a round at the time this episode later in the week, I think the twenty first, twenty second whatever the vernal equinox is. So for us, you may hear again people screaming in the background because my hotel room is right next to the pool our spring trip, right, Sarah.

00:15:10
Speaker 3: Yes, this has become a little bit of a tradition, and I feel like we've started to anchor it generally to the beginning part of March, which works really well because it's not quite the time of spring break and the weather you're usually just getting sick of it in Philadelphia and in the past few years. Actually we've made it down to Florida, but not like well, one year we did do it at my house, but that was not on purpose. Usually we pick some really cute touristy destinations.

00:15:35
Speaker 1: So we can both get a little bit of a trip out of it. Yeah, so we've gone to Vero Beach twice.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: Now, we went to the Florida Keys, we went to Naples, so lots of options. And this is where many people come for spring break. So I'm of course happy to come down here.

00:15:48
Speaker 1: That Sarah lives in such a desirable tourist destination. It's nice. It's a nice tradition. I like it.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: So here are some other fun things. The certainly always the flowers. What's one of the you're into.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: I noticed this like two days ago.

00:16:02
Speaker 3: I was taking a walk with Genevieve and we went through this playground and I'm like, and all of a sudden, it was like the scent of the honeysuckles returning.

00:16:10
Speaker 1: I know, we're in Florida. That might be a couple months away. Yeah, we're going to say, what's more like May June for us? But okay, March works.

00:16:17
Speaker 3: But it's such a characteristic and heady scent, and yeah, I hadn't smelled it for a while.

00:16:21
Speaker 1: I guess we do get a little break from it. So it's just like nice to see that coming back. Yeah, totally.

00:16:26
Speaker 2: All the flowers are of course the obvious spring one off delights, but something that happens each spring for us, you know, the time change happens the first or second weekend of March, I guess the second weekend of March, and we are able then to go outside after dinner for our toad time time outside after dinner. And so this past weekend, for the first time, on Sunday night, we had gone out to dinner as a family and then dropped Sam off at Scouts, and so it was about seven to ten and it was still light, and so we got our bikes out of the garage and rode up and down the driveway and around our area, and so yeah, it was fun to just have that.

00:17:07
Speaker 1: Little extra time.

00:17:08
Speaker 2: That's a spring one off delight as first, when you can first do stuff outside in the evening, toad time return. Toad time returns, it does, it does all right.

00:17:20
Speaker 3: Well, there's also some seasonal treats that seem to come around in the springtime. I already talked about on a prior episode the delights of the Irish Potatoes, but there's other ones as well, Easter treats.

00:17:32
Speaker 1: What do you like, Laura, Well.

00:17:34
Speaker 2: I've been too anything sweetheart related, so this time of year with Easter you get sweet tart like bunny shape things, I guess, or egg shape. But I like hearts and Valentine's Day. However, we thought we'd you know, peeps or Cadbury cream eggs. Are you into those, Sarah at all?

00:17:52
Speaker 3: I used to like Cadbury cream eggs, like the big ones when it's growing up, and honestly like it's just a little too much cream in there. But I can get around a Reese's egg. A Reese's egg okay, somehow, like the egg shape is like a little bit better than regular Reese's cup. I know there are people who get really into peeps though, and like do like recipes with peeps or like cake decoration with peeps.

00:18:14
Speaker 2: But there is this whole thing about like exploding your peeps, exploding microwave or something I don't know that crosses the line from whimsical to just weird.

00:18:21
Speaker 1: I agree, I'm not into it.

00:18:24
Speaker 2: So if you are a peep fan, have a picture of some fantastical peep creation, please send it to us.

00:18:31
Speaker 1: We will happily take a look at that.

00:18:34
Speaker 2: So one spring, one off to light for me is a seasonally appropriate iced coffee. So the first day, when you want to order an iced coffee, not because other people in your group are doing it or whatever like that, but just because it is warm and you would like something in the afternoon that is.

00:18:51
Speaker 3: Iced, I think I'm going to work on finding a good Starbucks order for the summer. Maybe I do tend to gravitate toward hot, but it is kind of disgusting when you're holding a hot cock like eighty five degrees.

00:19:05
Speaker 2: Well, I still drink hot coffee in the morning, like that's a season or your round thing for me. But if I was going to have like a afternoon right coffee related drink in winter, that might be a latte, like a hot latte. But Jasper has gotten me into iced vanilla oat milk lattes.

00:19:25
Speaker 1: Delicious, delicious, you know.

00:19:26
Speaker 2: So it's the creamy but oat milk, so it's fine for me, and the iced of course, and then the vanilla just makes it a little sweet.

00:19:35
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, So you got.

00:19:36
Speaker 2: The sweet and the bitter with the coffee, and it's very good, very good. I'll have to try one.

00:19:40
Speaker 3: All right, all right, well, this one's more for you. But there is a moment that the weather changes and you're like, socks are done with it.

00:19:47
Speaker 1: Socks are done with now. It takes a while.

00:19:49
Speaker 2: It might be into May in my part of the world, because the weather is highly variable through April and early May. But there is some point in there where you just stop wearing socks all the time except for exercising, pull out the summer shoes, put away the sweaters. It's a moment when I decide, Okay, now is the time I can go get these cleans, like, send all my sweaters to the cleaners, then pack them up. They pack them up to their stored for the summer. And it's kind of a definite seasonal moment there.

00:20:19
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, I have toes.

00:20:22
Speaker 3: Well, we wear sandals year round. But I will say this will probably be like my push to put the my ug minise back in the back of the closet.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:20:30
Speaker 2: Well, let's take one more quick ad break and then we'll be back with a few more spring went off delights. Well we are back, so coming into spring. Of course, the schedule often picks up in terms of the sheer volume of kid related end of year stuff. Some of that can be a bit tedious at times, press less of a delight, but there's often at least one or two things you are really looking forward to, Sarah, you have at least one or two, right.

00:21:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a couple, and I mean sports too, depending on what the seasons look like. Like the gymnastic season comes to a close, so that's kind of exciting, and I'm.

00:21:18
Speaker 1: Looking forward to this year.

00:21:20
Speaker 3: I guess my first middle school graduate. I have a number of events for wrapping up that chapter of my oldest life and that'll that'll be kind of fun.

00:21:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we've got an eighth grade graduation as well, no different graduations. Last year we had a high school graduation and a pre K graduation, so I had the whole gamut. We have obviously a couple of holidays that it can be fun to celebrate Easter, Passover, and Mother's Day.

00:21:46
Speaker 1: So this will be our annual.

00:21:47
Speaker 2: Public service announcement that to avoid any sort of disappointment around Mother's Day, people in your life may or may not celebrate it for you as you might wish, or if you need to be part of extended family celebrations that are fun but maybe not exactly.

00:22:03
Speaker 1: What you were hoping for, really like for you, for they're not really for you. I know you're celebrating various family matriarchs or whatever, which is wonderful we should. But you know, if you want something for you, you can always do.

00:22:13
Speaker 2: What one of my blog readers suggested, which is have a Mother's Day observed. So whenever a holiday falls on like a Sunday, the post office will usually observe it on Monday to give people that day off. So you could have Mother's Day observed at some point in the week before or after, where you maybe take a day of PTO or a half day or something like that and go do something that is for you, celebrating you, hopefully at the time where your kids are in school or in childcare already because it was a workday.

00:22:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't even have It could be like a few days later. You could schedule it wherever you want, but great way to have an excuse, not that you need one, but to celebrate yourself, especially if you're in the thick of it, and then you know that you might have a tiny bit of resentment spending Mother's Day maybe focused on someone else.

00:22:59
Speaker 2: And then there's spring break, so Sarah, you have us somewhat. I don't know if it's ill advised or not. Hopefully you'll have a great time.

00:23:06
Speaker 1: Yes, And it's funny.

00:23:07
Speaker 3: We were having a discussion about like when spring break was and Laura was like, well, of course it's around Easter, and I'm like, no, no, no, because like where we live, it.

00:23:14
Speaker 1: Could be any time depending on the school district beginning of.

00:23:17
Speaker 3: March and of March, middle of April, like it seems to move around like crazy.

00:23:21
Speaker 1: So we always have it in our area.

00:23:24
Speaker 2: If Passover and Easter are together in the calendar, it will be that week right now. The every seventh year or so, they are far apart. It's I don't entirely understand it. But and then we just get a day off or Passover and have the week around to Easter. But yeah, so we have that weekend, so do a lot of other districts, which means where are you going, Sarah.

00:23:44
Speaker 3: We're going to Disney World, which is probably not the smartest And you're right because like that's when myce my niece is off. So it all kind of clicks together. But I had told myself, oh, well, you know, this is just one of many spring breaks, so it won't.

00:23:57
Speaker 1: Be that bad.

00:23:58
Speaker 3: But it all makes sense as to why the flights from Philadelphia to Orlando were like running at eight hundred dollars for Frontier Airlines.

00:24:04
Speaker 1: Like now it all it all makes sense. So yeah, it's gonna be crowded, but you know.

00:24:08
Speaker 2: But you got your reservations, as Sarah does. We have booked long ahead of time for things.

00:24:13
Speaker 3: Of course, I've got my hotel, which we booked many months in advance. We have our Disney dining, which we did I did right at the moment that you're allowed to. I didn't use a planner this time, partly because well, long story, but I didn't book the Disney direct so I wasn't.

00:24:25
Speaker 1: Sure if I could use a planner.

00:24:26
Speaker 3: But we have stuff, and I also do not have the world's most adventurous ride riders. I mean, Annabel does like roller coasters, but most of the rest of this crew does not. And the good news is like the slower, tamer rides tend to be the rides with less of a line. So I think we'll be able to kind of get what we need to out of this Disney World experience, even though there will be whares of people.

00:24:51
Speaker 1: Please let the weather be good.

00:24:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, well if you have I feel like if you get on like three rides and have a character dining and you can do like Lightning Lane for at least two or two right, So you have that and you have the character dining on one thing, that's a good day.

00:25:04
Speaker 1: That's a good day out of street exactly. Yeah, yeah, that is a good day.

00:25:07
Speaker 3: And we can I think our hotel. You can even see the fireworks from the hotel.

00:25:10
Speaker 1: Like, well, we'll make it work. Yeah, No, we went. I know we've gone more than one year on spring break and I have one memory of a spring break time when like you almost couldn't move through the park. I remember so many people. Yeah came.

00:25:25
Speaker 3: Actually I think I went President's Day weekend thinking oh this is random.

00:25:29
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, once again, if kids are off school, Disney is going to be crowded.

00:25:33
Speaker 3: It's just you know, I've heard the Super Bowl is actually the best time to go to Disney because so someday I'm going to try that out.

00:25:39
Speaker 1: If Josh Bull. Well, but he wants to watch the Super Bowl. I mean, then we go to a sports bar and Disney Springs and be fun. That could work.

00:25:45
Speaker 2: That could work, all right, Well, those are some of our whimsical ideas.

00:25:50
Speaker 1: So we have a question.

00:25:52
Speaker 2: This was posted in our Patreon group, So we'd love to have people come join us over there. If you go to patreon dot com and then find Best of Both Worlds podcasts, that's us.

00:26:03
Speaker 1: We do multiple threads a week there. We have monthly Zoom meetups.

00:26:06
Speaker 2: Is a wonderful community of people who are combining work and life and love both and we get great ideas from our community members.

00:26:15
Speaker 1: But this was posted in there.

00:26:16
Speaker 2: It was what do you do when your child doesn't want to do any activities? So, you know a lot of people talk about, oh, we're so overscheduled. We have all these activities as the kids were constantly in the car, and that could be an issue on its own, but sometimes you have the opposite thing. So this child complains about not wanting to leave the house. So the person asked, should we still require one to two activities or maybe aim things that are life skills like swimming, or not push for anything at all.

00:26:43
Speaker 1: What would you say, Sarah, Well, I like that.

00:26:45
Speaker 3: You mentioned swimming because that's one where I'm not sure how negotiable I'd want it to be, because it could be life saving someday depending on where you live in the age of the child. So I like that you're thinking about, well, what's actually important here versus like, you know, what will be on their third grade resis may or something like that, So that's good. I have kids that have varying enthusiasm about activities, some who want to do way more than actually really fit and then others who is like, eh, you know, and we have with the children that are less enthusiastic just gone pretty like low volume, low preparation, So not activities where you need to come to show up whatever having done a bunch of work or are you having experience, but things you can just show up and enjoy it. And also low time commitment, so like for tennis is like the example I'm thinking of, you can sign up month to month, so I'll tell the child that we've paid for March, we're going to tennis. But like you know, if they prefer to try something else in the future, then they only have four that they have to go to before they could.

00:27:42
Speaker 1: Think of something different.

00:27:43
Speaker 3: And I also don't mind dangling a little carrot, like with tennis specifically, and it is hot where we live. They can get their cold beverage of choice afterwards, and if that makes the whole thing more appealing, I am fine with it. Just generally sticking with the rec version of whatever it is. Like, places like dance and gymnastics have ways you can get very very intense, but mostly a lot of those places also have wreck classes. So if it's a kid that's not soenthusiastic, making sure that you stick with the low key version.

00:28:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. We do Starbucks and wahwa trips sometimes after activities and it definitely ups the motivation factor. I have a child who definitely said he would continue doing something because of a wah Wah trip that was promised after basically every time, oh well you get something at Wahwah, it's okay. Yeah.

00:28:26
Speaker 2: Also, second, the low volume, easy stuff. Some of our kids do tennis lessons because that's something that tis relatively low commitment and easy to do. We have a general rule in our family that you do something physical and something musical. Now, other families may not be pushing the musical angle. But I would say something creative, perhaps in something musical, so the I mean something creative in something physical, So that could be drama, it could be an art class. We've had some luck with a pottery class, like kids who are not into other things might enjoy that or Yeah, so I think that's been a good rule for us. And that's really only two things like that could be satisfied by a thirty minute instrument lesson and a forty five minute tennis lesson in the course of the week, and with one hundred and sixty eight hours, that means multiple days they're not doing anything after school or on the weekend they might have a free day. So I think two is fine to aim for for a kid who is not that excited about doing things, and hopefully there's something within this vast wide world that they can tolerate. But make sure you're also counting stuff you do as a family if it is sort of like an activity. I mean, I know some people listening to this might be involved in a house of worship and have activities that kind of naturally happen as part of that, Like if your kid goes to youth group during the service. I mean that is an activity that is something they're doing regularly that gets them out of the house and involves other people, and so you can have credit for that as well totally.

00:29:59
Speaker 3: And I just a panic about the Oh no, if I don't get them into this, they're gonna close off avenues.

00:30:04
Speaker 1: I mean that might be true for certain things.

00:30:05
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm telling you, like soccer, it can be hard to you know, make your school team if you haven't been playing since you were three. For many kids, however, there are so many things where that's not the case that you don't have to be worried they'll shut out, be shut out of everything. And just off the top of my head, I think about like cross country usually takes everyone. Rowing is a sport a lot of people don't get into until way later. Different forms of art like yeah, like pottery, ceramics, things like that. Your book, that's something that you can get really active in later on, So try it. If there's any part of you that's like panicking because you're missing the boat, I would try to move beyond that.

00:30:36
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:30:37
Speaker 2: Now you can get involved in singing later in life, you know, And people might come.

00:30:41
Speaker 1: To sports later as an adult.

00:30:43
Speaker 2: Certainly running or cycling or those are things that you can do lifelong. So if your kid just likes to ride bikes a lot, they don't have to do it necessarily in an organized way. But if they are biking regularly, that is a cool thing too. Like you know, say we go on two family bike rides a week, that would be an activity, right, That is something physical, It doesn't necessarily have to be in an organized sport kind of thing. Well, this has been best of both worlds. We often end with a love of the Week, but this has kind of been an all love of the Week episode because of.

00:31:12
Speaker 1: Our Spring one off delights.

00:31:15
Speaker 2: We'd love to hear from you about any Spring one off delights you have as well. You can always reach me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Sarah loves comments on her blog for instance. We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

00:31:30
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.

00:31:38
Speaker 2: And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.