Finding Humor In Parenting Right Now: Mashup Episode with Amy & Margaret from the What Fresh Hell Podcast

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and forty five. We will be interviewing Amy and Margaret from What Fresh Hell, the podcast that is about laughing in the face of motherhood. I know we have a lot of listeners who are also listeners and fans of that podcast, so we're really excited to have our crossover episode here today. So we are still recording this in the midst of pandemic social distancing quarantining. Sarah, has this shifted any hours in your house? I know that we had talked in the past about how early your kids had to get up, and now they don't. I presume right yes, now they don't, and we have certainly become rather relax about bedtime as well, So everything is a lot later when a little bit more relaxed. On the upside, my mornings are a lot more chill. I can pretty much count on the kids staying asleep till seven fifteen, seven thirty, which gives me a little bit of personal time. I try to get my workout done most of the time during that time. But on the down sort of downside, I mean, we've been enjoying later evenings. We've been doing family dinners a lot, which is wonderful. Sometimes we go outside in evenings. The one thing that has suffered is that my husband and I have less time together at night without the kids up because we're letting them stay up till like nine thirty. I think last night was like nine forty. Yeah, so I that's been our shift. I'll be interested in your shift. And if you guys have figured out any workarounds for any kind of date night or quality time together, you're shaking your head. Nope, there is no mommy and daddy time. In essence, it's it's been I mean, they're just all here all the time, and the varied ages means that there's kind of multiple shifts of when different kids are up. Alex is not waking up nearly as early as he used to, so great, I'm excited about that. However, he's still up in the morning and the baby wakes up relatively early to eat. My older boys, I go through the charade of putting them to bed, and then as soon as I'm asleep, they pop back up and go hang out with my husband. So they're having their boy time. Well, you're they're like old enough that they're they're especially your oldest. I'm sure he's biologically driven to like want's day up till midnight or later. Oh yeah, we're getting there. We're definitely there. And then they don't want to wake up in the morning and there's nothing they I mean, they have to be up by Well, we have nine thirty morning meeting. But this morning, unfortunately, we had an incident with I hadn't checked the schedule and talked to my middle schooler and he had a math class this morning that he did not get up in time for. So that was too bad. But everything's past fail for the term, so I guess we are making do with what we can at this and he's learning personal responsibility. Personal responsibility. That's right, that there are ways to set alarms that don't involve mom. So yeah, that's where we are right now. Do you feel like you missed datement? Well, you guys didn't go out for date nights that much anyway, did you. Well? Sometimes we were on a good street covet when we had Saturday childcare, but that's gone. So yeah, I don't know. I mean we've you know, it's sneak it where you can. I mean sometimes if i'm you know, if the baby's happy, I'll just like hold him and the two of us will go chat somewhere with the baby. But no nice. But you know, this will not last forever. Eventually we will be able to go to a restaurant again, and we can look forward to that. And you know, at some point the kids will have to wake up at seven o'clock in the morning again, and then they will have to go to bed at ten, and then there will be you know, time to briefly say hello at least before I pass out. Yeah, sometimes all three of mine will watch a movie and then that can be a time that we can, like at least talk and Genevieve will pay attention to a movie. Oh my god, an entire movie. Oh wow, well that is she's count of your blessings. They are. It's weird, I mean, it's good, and then it's also like wow, she's sitting three inches from the screen, like absorbing every word of like, you know, a movie that's designed for slightly older kids, like what, oh well, the only I wonder what's going on with her little brain exactly. So that's where we are. She does drag a toy over there, which is cute. Like if she's not entirely into it, she'll like she still wants to be part of the club of watching the whatever, so she'll bring over a bunch of duplows and be doing it in front. Yeah, she's just good in that way. All right, Well, we'll be talking with Amory and Margaret here, so tune in for the rest of this episode. Well, Sarah and I are delighted to welcome Amy and Margaret from What Fresh Hell, the podcast that is all about laughing in the face of motherhood. So Amy and Margaret, can you introduce yourselves? Amy, how about you go first? Okay, So, yeah, I'm Amy Wilson. I am an author of a parenting book club When Did I Get Like This? And a blogger from back in the day, and also an actor and sketch comedy writer. And so Margaret and I have been doing What Fresh Hell since twenty sixteen. We've known each other, We've been acquainted with each other for many year, but we've gotten to know each other very well through doing this podcast over the last couple of years. Yeah, Margaret, I'm Margaret. I am a reformed stand up comic and television writer and now mother of three kids who are eleven, nine, and seven. And yeah, co host of What Fresh Hell with the lovely Amy Wilson. So, tell our listeners how What Fresh Hell came to be? You said you guys had known each other for a long time, though I don't think you were like childhood best buddies or anything like that. How did this all happen? Well, I actually we were not childhood best buddies. We were My sister and Amy went to college together and they were in an improv group, and so I knew of Amy and I knew she was funny, and then over the next many many years we kind of would see each other. She was an actress. I was a television writer. I was working developing some stuff for Nickelodeon, and she would be in videos that would come across my desk. We were orbiting planets, kind of orbiting to planets orbit. Yes, we were like satellites or something. Anyway, my science metaphors are not my strong suit, but we were in each other's universe. Then, about three years ago, I had been a nick Mom, which was Nickelodeon's offshoot for Moms, and and that went away, and I kind of had a What's next moment? And I had just seen this video of Amy on my desk and I called her and I said, what are you up to? How about a podcast just like that? How about a podcast? It's true? And it was. It was this moment for me where I was also sort of like what's next. And I had tried to write a novel by myself and realize I don't like working by myself. I don't you know, I need I need external things to be responsible to. Tried to work on a video company for a while with just somebody. We didn't have the same long term goals. It was a bad, nice guy, bad match of goals. And then this just like came from the heavens. I was so happy. Did it take a while to kind of find your footing for this? I mean where they do you listen to the early episodes now and wonder what was going on? Or did you guys really click right at the beginning. I feel like the right answer is that it took a while to gel, but we clicked really quickly. I mean the premise, which we didn't. I didn't approach Amy with this premise in mind, but we don't. At the time, we really did not know each other very well. I knew, oh, that's my sister's friend, Amy, who writes books and he's a funny person. And so the conversations were able to be really organic. And then one nice thing that evolved naturally was that we have very different parenting styles. So Amy is very like I read a book, I have an article, I have a solution, and I'm kind of like, come on, people have been doing this forever. It all works out fine, don't worry about it. And so it evolved very naturally into kind of an odd couply take on parenting. Yeah, I definitely get that vibe. I mean, you know, Amy, your personalities are kind of different. I mean at the Burt to markets Ernie, I like to say, exactly, and how do I mean when you disagree about stuff though you I mean, how do you approach that? To just sort of live and let live? You each do things separately. I'm honestly curious about about how Margaret will approach whatever the topic is. I mean, these days, I usually think I know what she might say about how is quarantine life going or whatever. I have a sense, but I'm not always right, nor is Margaret. Like we're not always the I have everything perfect and Margaret doesn't know where anything is, like you kind of think that, but we still surprise each other. And I honestly think that the best approach to most issues is somewhere in the gray area. And that's why I think, that's why I really like our conversations. They're helpful for me. They help me figure out a more nuanced approach to whatever the problem of the week is. We're talking about have you changed? And I think a conclusion that we've come I feel like a conclusion that we've come to on the podcast is opening ourselves up. That the process of the podcast for us is can we be happier, better parents. And one of the things that maybe in the beginning was blocking my path to doing anything better was like, I got it, I'm fine. Not a thing doesn't matter. Researches isn't interesting. And in the process of doing the podcast, I feel like both of us have come at each other with a really open mind, and that's what makes the podcast really work because often Amy will produce a piece of research and I'm like, nonsense, not interesting. My grandmother didn't do it that way. But as we kind of talk stuff out, we always say on the podcast, you only take the advice that makes it easier. We're not here to give you advice to make it harder, to give you a longer to do list. Well, can you guys share some concrete examples. And it's interesting because I feel like a lot of the podcasts I like have a very point and counterpoint kind of personality. I don't know that we offer that on Best of both Worlds, although Laura and I can offer very different jobs, so maybe that helps a little bit. But no, I'm very curious give us give me some specifics of things you've done very differently or come out from different angles, because I think that would help paint a picture here. I feel like a good example is home structure. So I am like a whirling dervish, disorganized person in general. I had my first child at thirty seven, so I led a very free life for many years. And when I had kids, I was kind of like, they're coming along for the ride. Here we go, guys. And one of the struggles that I was returning and returning to is that lost keys, what's for lunch? You know, this constant chaos in my life was not actually serving me very well in terms of raising three children. And one thing I feel like Amy has really helped introduce to me is the idea of like a structure helps you function. It it's easier to be spontaneous if you kind of have the stuff done. You can't be spontaneous if you're spending three hours looking for your keys, because you ruined the whole day looking for keys. And so Amy's kind of like, here's how I structure my day, which before doing the podcast, I would have been like crazy person who structures their day. It's really taught me this thing of it makes our lives genuinely more enjoyable if we kind of don't have to fight for six hours about what's for dinner. It's already on the whiteboard. You're speaking my love language there, Margaret. Well, it's funny, it's not my love language. My love language is like I'll just stop for a cheese sandwich while I go about my day. But like, it doesn't work now. I always say, like the person who still has the baby at the bar when they're six months old, you just want to sit them down and be like it's over, friend, go home, it's over. Like bringing your baby to the bar does not make it the same experience. Like I was a little bit stuck in baby at the bar mode, where I was like, my life doesn't need to change just because I have kids, and it does. I remember you saying something to me, Laura about planning for the weekend that you want to be spontaneous. We'll do something fun today, but you need to get the pumpkin patch on the calendar or else it doesn't happen right. Or you can say from twelve to two, we're all going to go somewhere. But that spontaneity is only of a sort. You have to create space for it. Yeah, that's definitely something we talk about here, but Amy, you've occasionally maybe lightened up a bit as a result of hearing how things are happening in Margaret's house. Yes, I have. You know, Margaret greets everything with a good humor and perhaps a little more curiosity about what the day might bring instead of a pred side did result, you know what I mean. And I definitely go with the flow a little more because of Margaret And something that is ascribed to me that we've developed in the podcast. We say it all the time, but I feel like it's something I probably got from you. Margaret is the idea that you should never interrupt a happy toddler, and in these days, like you never interrupt a happy, quarantined person, like if they're doing the puzzle and English class start of ten minutes ago, who cares? Like leave them alone. If dinner's ready and nobody's downstairs but they're all quiet, leave them alone, Leave them alone. And I feel like that's that's the quote I get the credit for, but I feel like that's more of a Margaret approach and I probably got it from you. I can imagine that, Well, we're going to just take a short ad break and we will be right back in a few minutes with Amy and Margaret. All right, well we are back with the ladies from the What Fresh Hell podcast laughing in the face of motherhood. So this pandemic is producing a fair amount of fresh hell for many of us. So firm, Yeah, exactly, how have you both been coping? And we did another episode maybe two ago, and I know you guys did too, about you know, what we're taking away from this, like what we're learning from this, adjustments we may make in life and in parenting as a result. And I'd be very curious what you guys would like to share with our listeners that you have taken out of this, how you're coping, and what you think you might do differently. I mean, my opening statement is that I'm very tired of the learning, and I'm tired of the lessons, like I have to keep learning them. Thank you. Yeah, I'm upset. I get it, I get it. I'm ready to go back to my real life. Like our first you know, we were five weeks in our first we do a weekly episode. Our first two weeks were like it really is good to peel away the soccer practices and the play rehearsals and realize how much we really enjoy each other as a family, Like, there are plenty of lessons inherent in it. And I do think that like the busyness for busyness sake, I love to see that peeling away. I do think we're going much deeper on family conversations because we sit together for half the day, you know, and so we're finding that there's something on the other side of our boredom, that there's you know, if you go through the maybe half an hour of complaining about boredom, I find an hour later the kids are upstairs kind of making like a Harry Potter fort in their closet. I mean, I have found that letting go of like I must control the day in terms of keeping people happy, so I never have to listen to whining that there's something on the other side of that. But we've always definitely reached a part of the podcast. We're like, we're done check lessons learned. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we don't want to we'd like to stop learning our lessons now we're good. We got it. Yeah, I would like to move on. I will not reschedule overschedule the kids in the future, but can I please schedule them for something, but we got it, we learned it. Okay, let's go back outside. Yeah, Amy, how about you. I'm such a go go go do dooo doo. These just ten more things and then I can go to bed kind of person. And I've definitely brought that personality into the home life with me. And one lesson I've learned just in the last couple of days is I'm getting a lot of friends are reaching out right friends, cousins, like college buddies, whoever, like, let's do a zoom call, let's just talk, let's just do this, And I feel like at eight thirty or nine pm at night, I'm tired. I don't want to talk to people on the phone. I don't want to be Mary, and I have ten more things I have to do. But I keep learning this lesson just in the recent days that if I do the zoom call and I connect with people and I put the to do list down, I you know, I come out of it feeling great. And so connection is in fact a priority. It needs to be at the top of my list right now. I need to be making time for it instead of putting it last. Yeah, people turn out to be a good use of time. Oh I love that expression. No, I've heard you say that before, and it is it's it's that's a touchstone for me during this time. Yeah. I also feel like one other thing that we've really are one of our big takeaways is that we give a lot of advice on the podcast. You know, make it easier for yourself, have a whiteboard, like, solve problems earlier, only answer the questions that you're asked. We have a lot of things that we go back to again and again on the podcast, And one thing that I do find during the pandemic is good advice is good advice that all the advice that we give we now keep going back to. It's like I have a someone once said to me about special education for children, it's just regular education that is more turned up and more individualized. And that's what I keep saying about our parenting advice, that all the advice we give is now just more turned and you have to individualize it to each of your children. Agree, a lot of things have changed, and then a lot of things are still the same, both the good things and the challenges. Although one good thing, as I heard from a nice little piece you guys did on the podcast recently is the invention of the drive by party, and there are so many parties that are so much better when all it is is a drive by party. I have not necessarily mourned some of the loss of those things. I don't know about you guys, what do you think? Yeah, we do a lot, like I might know where high heels again? Right? Are we really going to go back to the way we were with the I don't know, the spanks and the heels and the false eyelashes. Is there ever a reason to use a curling iron? I don't know full return of that stuff. I like to think that I will do a lot less of all of that. It should be a super false eyelash filter. Why is there not, Tony? The things we wind up going to are somewhat out of obligation, But then the amount of time that is invested in them versus maybe the amount of obligation you actually really have or feel is different. So I enjoyed the idea of, yeah, drive by, let me just leave a twenty on your kid's lawn for an honor of their first communion rather than actually sitting through the entire mass. So you guys have a pretty big Facebook community, which I now have been learning perhaps how you drive engagement on Facebook. So'm I was curious about these things. But what have you been hearing from the people in your community about how this is all affecting them and how they're changing parenting as a result. So we have a Facebook page, but then we also have a Facebook group, and just for listeners who might not understand the difference. A Facebook group is a closed conversation where you can go on and post things yourself, so our listeners can talk to one another, and it's become very active. And in the early days it was like you are homeschooling links, here are you know some great video ideas? And as the time has gone on in Quarantine, I feel like the posts have gotten There's some funny ones, but there's also some very real ones like I am having trouble with momentum today. Today I just lay in the couch and ignored my kids and looked at my phone and I just I can't do this anymore. And it's it's been a great place for our listeners to go. It's a great place for me to go and feel connection and real life honesty that in some ways social media like it's easier to tell the truth to two thousand strangers than to your mom, Right, So I think I think it's been a real opportunity for connection and we love it. We love having that and you know, put stuff on it every day. We're doing some videos now now that we're we're stuck in quarantine. That's outlet for our creativity. I think the one thing that's fun too about the Facebook community is, like we were saying about zoom calls, people are craving connection and whether that connection is help how do you manage to potty train if your child is anxious or whatever some kind of real problem or whether it is look at this funny, silly meme. The community thing is just a nice place for people to be able to just see that other people are kind of in the same boat, which I feel like is the human experience that everyone's looking for, because you can't really get that by going out in the streets. Yeah. I'm curious what you guys think has been the hardest part of this. I mean for you personally, is it that lack of in person connection or I mean because I work from home anyways, so I feel like it wasn't that much of a difference. I mean, for me, it's more that there are more people around constantly who weren't all here before. So I'm curious what you're finding to be the biggest challenge with us. I feel like for me, it is the human connection. And I have come to realize more than I did before this happened that there is a spectrum of people. And I mean you see a lot of kind of memes and jokes about introverts and extroverts, but my daily life generally involves I don't know thirty five different connections with people. I'm always out and about. I like to chat with people. I just love to go through the day and interact. I'm a teacher and so I see students and I'm in a challenging teaching environment a lot, and I am finding I feel like I'm like a little plant withering without my sunlight and water. I find I know people. I think for my husband, who's an engineer who works in the basement, He's like, this is my happy play. So I love it down here, and I am exactly the opposite like I want to and I now we're in New York, so we're full mask all the time and I went out to the sandwich shop the other day, and you really you can't have small talk at all with it anyone, because it's very hard. You don't realize how much you look at people's mouths until you try to order a sandwich. And so it's not how's it going? Is business? Okay? It's just you're just basically screaming the word avocado six times until the person can understand you. And so those small human interactions I'm dying for some And Zoom's not the same. No, zoom is not quite the same. I mean, it's you know, got upsides to it. Although I should add here that Margaret is just on the phone. We couldn't get the video and the phone working simultaneously for her, so she's she's not even seeing her when she said she was a little plant. We all made this sad face and unfortunately face all the time. She couldn't see it. Amy, how about you are? You see? This is where the opposite making machine that made Margaret and me that comes into play. I am you know, I'm an introvert. I like my quiet time, I like my privacy. I have been working on the book of a musical, which for me requires, you know, just a hyperbaric chamber of silence and no distraction at all and the headphones on and that time. I have zero of that time right now, and so that's okay. So I'm sort of, you know, I'm giving myself the grace of like that will be there. That's going to go on the shelf right now, because I've taken on more meal prep. I mean, I have two teenagers home for lunch every day now that would usually have like three empanadas at the cafeteria, Like can't. I can't keep food in the house. And even though they're learning and helping, I'm still, you know, I'm still the one executive function of how many cans of super left? Right? It's just it's more laundry, more everything, never being alone and older kids. The good thing about older kids is that they also are on zoom six hours a day, like they're busy. Their lives are very structured right now, and I'm extremely grateful for that, and their teachers are doing a great job. But they also need more help and oversight because they aren't seeing their teachers. So sometimes there's tears at night, there's you know, the homework is harder and more complicated, and does every sentence in the third paragraph follow the sentence that came before, and does the topic sentence, you know, like just just that sort of drilled down stuff. They want more help than usual, so I'm finding my sort of silent alone time. I'm missing that one the most. And then do they hate you when you help and yell at you? Of course, just was wondering if that was just my house. Guys, I need your you need your dumb yes, oh man, yes, fun fun adolescence. So you guys were, from what I remember correctly, doing a comedy tour, and you know, not a whole lot of events going to happen. I think in the next six to twelve months even small events may happen, but not the sort of packing a concert hall kind of event. How are you guys gonna gonna pivot the What Fresh Hell? Team? Looking forward? Well, we we have had so we have a ninety minute comedy show that goes along with the podcast. That's you know, Amy and I both come from performing background. So it's been really fun and we love again like that's my photosynthesis sunlight, like being out in front of a crowd. I just love it. And so It's been another kind of tough development in terms of not being able to do it, and we've been exploring whether we can adapt it to be some sort of zoom thing, but it's really a show about it's people call it like a happening. It's getting moms out, everyone's in the same room, you know, is this worse or this worse? And people are cheering, and I just it's very hard for me to imagine a zoom version of it that would be super satisfying. So we have instead, we're trying to move over towards like just fun short video content. So we just did one that was the one that we're talking about drive by What if everything was drive by? So like the communion is throwing a twenty a bill on the lawn and the holiday party is just beeping through the manager making dopey jokes, and so we've been trying to move into that direction and we just have a new one up today about the difference between being quarantined for one your aspirations for quarantine and how it really turns out. And so that's where we're living right now. We'll see we may have some zoom revelation, but right now that's what we're up to. It was a great meme that I saw that was like quarantining without kids, and then it was like a lady doing yoga and a lady watering her garden, and a man and a lady like hugging each other in bed, and then it was like quarantining with kids, and it was like every mess you can imagine, and like a crying kid with food all over their face, and I just I sent it to everyone. I knew it's so true. It's very like ours is like day one, let's have a mommy daughter book club, you know, I mean, it's like you have these as we were saying, we were back like this is going to be chuck full of good lessons and let's get into family baking. And then we're just at the point now where we're like, yeah, let's not get into family baking. Here's a pizza that flixes your parent now so exactly, and like at the beginning, oh, this homeschooling, we've really got to work on it. Now it's like there's you're never going to use that order of operations in your room. Just forget about it. No one cares. Toss it off. Tuzz it off. I don't use it frequently in my life. I can tell you, well, we always end our episodes with a love of the week, which is something that is fun for us now. And I okay, I get it that we've had enough lessons of the quarantine, but if there's something that you are finding fun at the moment, we could share that. Sarah can go first. Also because the two of us basically have the same one. Oh really, I know what yours is going to be. It's going to be. Okay, Well, mine is Minecraft because I personally do not enjoy Minecraft. My husband does enjoy Minecraft playing it with the kids. The kids are obsessed and it makes them happy and I can use it as a bribery mechanism and it provides quiet time every single day while my young one takes a nap. My kids are like the same age spacing as Margaret, but just like five years earlier. They're two, six and eight. Anyway, it's the best Minecraft, and it's not like horribly bloody or violent either, so I don't feel like bad about it in that way. Yeah, we have some bloody and violent, violent video games that go on around here, but I will give a shout out to the group Minecraft Games. Yeah. Now we've sent the four school age children down into the basement with four devices basically, and they play in the same world. And you know, I feel like they're learning emotional self regulation, that if you destroy somebody else's structure, they will then want to destroy your structure, and that this is a learning opportunity. And yes, there may be some screaming involved in that happening, but mostly they work it out. So group Minecraft is my love of the week as well. Do they play in creative mode or are they in They go back and forth. Yeah, I'm curious, Amy, how about you. Let's have to figure that out. Minecraft is also huge at my house. I won't make my love of the week, but I'm very happy with Minecraft as well. I have a seventeen year old who's running a server for his school friends, and he's just been asked to start one for a group of seventh graders and sort of monitor it. So I think I think there's a lot of good about it. So my love of the week is a yoga class that I'm taking. It's Rhythm Yoga on Facebook, and you can find rhym Yoga on Facebook and look up the classes and My favorite teacher is Cat, and I am sort of like pinning that, like that is in the schedule, non negotiable. I'm taking class with Cat three times a week. She's got great perspective for the moment and she's funny, and it's it's getting me through. That's awesome, Margaret, how about you. I have to figure out the Minecraft thing because my kids are they play it, but we haven't. We haven't joined others yet. It's on my list. You should try. My love of the week is my husband and I after we get the kids in bed. We have been really struggling to find a show. People keep recommending shows, and I'm like, I can't invest in anything upsetting or dark or even anything that involves a lot of concentration. By eight thirty at night, I'm just burnt out. And we have found fashion competition shows, which I guess other people were turned into onto before, but we now there's three different fashion competition shows and we watched them all. So it's Project Runway. There's one that's called Like on the Runway. There's one that's called First in Fashion, World of Fashion. I don't know the names of them, but we're watching only people make clothes for each other and it is it's getting us through the weeks. That sounds awesome. I am a perfect escapist possibility. It's very it's it's but it's not. I'm not quite at escapist where like it's the island where you're not allowed to make out or you lose money, like I can't go quite that far. It's exactly the center of escapism for me. That's perfect. All right. Well, we've been talking even with the Amian Margaret of What Fresh Hell Laughing in the Face of Motherhood, so please be sure to check out their podcast. And you guys, thanks for coming on, Thanks for having so much, for having us so fun. Thank you, Well, that was fun. They are always a delight to talk too. So our question for this week is from a listener on Instagram, which, remember you can connect with us there Best of Both Worlds podcasts. What kind of routines do you have to separate work and home as you are starting or ending your day? And this is definitely a question of the moment, since in many cases in the past the answer is very much you get in your car and drive there, and this separates work at home quite nicely. And now people have less of that. So Sarah, how about you? What have you been doing as your transitions? So I don't have that much of a morning transition, Like I do have things that I do in my morning that's kind of like pre kid wake up, but I don't feel like I have like a post kid wake up pre work ritual per se most of the time. I mean, sometimes if I am not like rushing to get to my first patient, I'll check my work email and my work lab results just to see if anything is terrible or pressing, and then move on to my first thing. That I will be honest, like, there's no fancy work pump up ritual. Really post work, I find it to be more because I don't feel like I have that much problem with the on ramp to work. I have more of a problem with the off ramp. So I've tried to be a little bit more intentional with my post work ritual and most days if I can swing it. So remember that I do have a nanny at home, which is very lucky. Right now, my husband and I are both considered essential, so we are complying, you know, with local regulations. But I've been trying to sneak in a walk outside, like around four forty five or five. Sometimes I actually have a zoom meeting like at four, but I don't know, it's not video, it's audio, so I can take a walk while I'm on my meeting, and that walk is like a really nice way to end the day. So somehow, if I'm able to get outside. The other thing I've done is to like go outside either with the kids or that tends to be the most logical time for the pool because it's very hot. We have our own small pool, so we'll go in that. And then sometimes sometimes a glass of wine can be a helpful transition. Not gonna lie that every night, but it's certainly nice, nice when it works out. Yeah, I can't say that I have any really good transitions. I mean I go in and out of my office a lot, especially with all the homeschooling kids home and all that stuff. So it's not that there's one time when I start and then I am in work mode and then I am not in work mode. I am in and out all day. I do try to be good about shutting my laptop at some point that I actually shut it down. For many years, in fact, I was not doing this. I just let it go. I mean, let it go to sleep and then open it up whenever the next time. I was going to do it, but at some point it turned out that was not healthy for the laptop and I burnt out the screen, so I shut it down at night, and that's kind of my Okay, now I can be done for the evening and I'm trying to relax in the evening and have a beer, you know, sometimes give the baby to my husband and go take a soak in the tub. That's nice, but no, I mean, part of working from home for years is that there doesn't need to be as much of a transition for me. I think that I'm more of a work life integrator anyway. Some people are less so, and they do need stronger transition rituals just for their own sanity. So it helps to know yourself and if you're finding that you do need something, then make a short transition. I mean, you can invent whatever you want. I mean, maybe it's that you open your planner and read a daily affirmation. Maybe there's always some cool quote that's on your planner, so you read that quote and think about it and then you start work. Or maybe you can write in a journal for three minutes and then start work or look over your to do list, set your intentions for the day, say what would make this a great day, and then you start work. Or maybe it's that you make a cup of coffee and that is your transition, or go pick up the newspaper or walk around the block or something. But these you can think about what it is and reverse that at the end of the day. It's that you make yourself a cup of tea. At the end of the day you go walk around the block again, or whatever it is to clear your head. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We have been talking with Amy and Margaret from What Fresh Hell, and we will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, 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.