Sarah Baldwin Interview. Ep 53

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing position 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 fifty three. Today we'll be talking with Sarah Baldwin, who is a college administrator. She's a dean of student life at a small private arts, private liberal arts college. She is also a mom of three, including an older child and two youngers, one of whom has down syndromes. We're going to be having a great discussion on special needs parenting and what she's learned from that. Both of us, Sarah and I got chills as we were having that discussion, so I know you are really going to look forward to that one. So, yeah, how's everything going for you, Sarah? It's pretty good. So as we record this. It's mid July, and I think our listeners are going to start to figure out that we do tend to batch these sometimes, as I think many podcasters do. Yes, So I would say, I am, I am, like, you know, Genevieve's turning seven months tomorrow, and I'm starting to crawl out of that like baby hole, you know, like I actually want to go out and do things. I've been comfortable doing date nights recently without freaking out about her. You know, heaven'st Betsy getting a bottle at night and pumping later. So yeah, it's been, it's been. It's been pretty good. Have you guys been. We've actually had a couple of really nice date nights and we have one with my parents this weekend. Actually, we're in town. Oh it's cool. Are you guys doing we think fun recently? Yeah, well, we just got back from a week at the Jersey Shore. We rented a house and our nanny came along with us for much of it, so that had some elements of relaxation that would have been absent without that. And my husband and I went out for dinner twice, once just to a restaurant in town, and then the second time. We went to a beer garden in Asbury Park. I had seen it and wanted to go there. That was kind of fun. The being there itself was whatever. The service was very slow, that give us plenty of time to enjoy our beers up on the roof deck. But it was cool that we watch the sunset and you can see the ocean and enjoy large German beer Stein type experience. That lovely. Yeah, it was actually on my list of things to do, my summer fun list. I make these, you know, summer fund lists every year, things I want to do before the end of summer, and I had sort of forgotten that go to a beer garden was actually on that. I sort of thought we would do that in Philadelphia somewhere, but then we did it while we were on the Jersey Shore and it was great. So can check that off the list. I'm making good progress on my summer fun list, So that's good. I mean, you know, do you you're the date night planner? Yes? And well, you know your beer story reminded me that I was invited to a beer crawl with one of my friends and I was like, how late's this is gonna go? You need the bear crawl that starts at four pm, I know literally or maybe at like seven to ten. I could probably handle no. But yeah, so I'm not quite at that point where I'm ready for that, but I look forward to it. Yeah, I'm kind of like the social coordinator, and we've kind of touched on that. But I will say for me, it's it's for two reasons. Number One, because I tend to have more time to do well. Three, I have more time to do the planning. I have more inclination to do the planning. And I'm definitely the one that prefers to go out and do things socially more so if I left it to Josh, I don't think we would do very much. So I don't mind kind of taking that on. What about you guys, Yeah, I know I tend to be more of the planner for this sort of thing, although when we do stuff with other couples, often he is more taking the lead, just because he's more extroverted than I am, but it just doesn't I'm definitely more of the planner and I once, you know, was getting miffed about this and I was like, well, I'm just not going to plan any date nights until he gets around to doing it, and I think like three months later, I was like, yeah, it's gonna happen. Doesn't have any date nights any And I was like, wait a minute, this isn't you know us, But I've sort of what we wind up doing that with calendar meetings that we have occasionally, like almost always when we have a calendar meeting, we decide to do one and so then you know, we figure out when it's going to happen, what we're going to do, and so it's more of just a joint discussion as opposed to me planning it trying to get it on both our calendars, which that I just find that, like I feel resentful about it, like why is this my job? So you know, making it part of the calendar meeting tends to make it more feel like go back and forth as as opposed to would you say you make it on a date night monthly or do you have like yeah, I would say we probably do something at least once a month, which I might prefer more. But you know, then again I'm I'm the person who's working at home, so it's like I feel like I'd like to get out sometimes. Right, He's traveling and he wants a home restaurants, not wanting to be for the last three nights, you know, and so the idea of going out to eat is probably a slightly less exciting interesting I would say we aim for like one solo date night with just us and one like friend thing. Yeah, a month, and that's about right. Well, interestingly enough, when we do the friend stuff, we often go to Talula's, which is where you and I went. Oh, and I hope we can go again because I love that place. Oh well, it will have to do it. Okay, we'll have a joint date night or something, or maybe in Miami. I'm still thinking we'll get there at some point. Yes, you should come. But yeah, we'll have some live episodes coming up. Everyone, it's right, we'll do that all right. On to the main segment. So Sarah, we are like to have another Sarah on this on this program, Sarah Baldwin. I guess i'll have to use last names if I distinguish between the two of you. Can you go ahead and introduce yourself for our listeners? Yeah, Laura and Sarah, thanks so much for having me. I've been really looking forward to it. I'm a huge fan of your podcast and load of your books, and this is really a great opportunity for me. So my name is Sarah Baldwin, as you said, Laura, and I'm a vice president of student affairs at a small private college. So that means that I'm one of the university's executive officers, a report to the president, serve on the cabinet, and have some responsibility in the oversight of the university. And then I am responsible for everything that has to do with students outside of the classroom, so health services and counseling and student conduct and spiritual life and career development, leadership training, student activities and our cultural affairs, student crisis and all that stuff. That's kind of a lot. So I am married to Clint. We've been married for twenty four years. Wow, it's a lot. And we have three children. We have an eighteen year old who's a junior in college, and then we have this really crazy transition and we have a five and a half year old boy and a twenty month old who has down syndrome and epilepsy. So I've entered the world of special needs parenting and I kind of call that like this is my capstone course. In motherhood. So I'm doing it all right, I've got like the college and the little ones, and you are totally doing it all. And actually we've been looking for a guest that can take us into what it would be like, number one, to deal with kids in two completely separate worlds and to discuss the whole special needs aspects. So you are perfect well, yeah, no the parenting pro here, because I mean, what do you think is has anything really changed between you know, the first time around and the second time did you feel like you were really rusty or you could get right back into it? I mean between you know, the eighteen year old, five year old five year old? Yeah, that's a great question. You know there was there has been a lot of changes, like even a change a simple as when my daughter Mattie was born, it was all about sleeping on the side, do you all and you I don't even remember this, but they had like these little side wedges you could put in their cribs so the would sleep on their side. And then of course when my son was born, you know, it was all about sleeping on the back and the whole like you know, swaddling thing has been such a big deal, so like that transition has been different. And then all of the organic food stuff and like making your own baby food and all the you know, got to do all of those things in that specific way or you can. You know, that's just a thing, and I do think a lot of it. For me, the transition has been internal and who I am now versus you know, who I was with a toddler at twenty eight, and like that's almost twenty years ago. And so when I was starting this, I've been a working mom for eighteen years, so I've done it the whole time. And I was starting this journey as a mom, I didn't have as many role models as I do now, and I didn't have as many other friends who were choosing this role. I felt like more of an outlier. So that's changed. That's changed in my community and in my experience. So who I am has changed too, and just how I think about parenting and motherhood and think about work. So a lot of it's happened internal. Anything you would like advice from you know, now seasoned mother Sarah to give to newbie mom Sarah when she was twenty eight, I mean, what would you have dot? Yeah, I was thinking about this you know, a twenty eight year old Sarah mom. I wish I could have really breathed in some real grace into her, because I was really working it out, like I was working out my mom guilt. I know you all talk about that. I was working out my identity as a woman and a mother and trying to understand this cultural myth of the ideal mom, and trying to be who I felt like I was called to be in the way I wanted to contribute. And so I think what I would say to myself is I would say, Sarah, you can have meaningful work and have meaningful relationships with your kids. You can do this like it's very possible, and your kids can thrive and you can thrive, and it's not an either or conversation. So I knew that kind of intrinsically when I was young, but I've really had to I've really owned it and lived into it. So I think I would wish I could just pour grace onto her and just say, relax, relax, try so hard to get it all right. Relax. Well that's that, you know when you mentioned the fads changing about, you know, now people are making their own food, which I'm guilty for that, although we're already getting lazy anyway, and the different sleep positions. I guess like for me, when you said that, it would made me think, like maybe she has perspective that like there is not necessarily this end, I'll be all right way to do everything because you have this incredible perspective that most of us don't where you're like it was all different before, and we thought we were right back then. So absolutely, And one of the great gifts about being a mom of new little kids in my forties. So I had my son Kai at forty and my daughter Emily at forty four, so I'm I'm living it. I'm living large right now. So one of the great gifts about this time in my life is that since my peers are not raising little kids, the pressure of trying to do this like competitive motherhood is just off. So I remember that vaguely, like back there, like where I would go places with my friends and their kids, it was all like are you going to discipline this way or that way? Are you going to let your kids eat this or that or watch this or that, and all that constant pressure of how everyone was doing it. And now I don't think I really care anymore, but that four we care about a lot less. So yeah, so I do love that, like the freedom at this place to be like, Okay, I've heard cry it out, I've heard not cried out. I've heard. Everyone has an opinion, and everyone has a study to back up an opinion, and a lot of it really comes down to your personality and really your family culture, and that's what's going to drive most of your decisions. So yeah, yeah, well pivoting a little bit from that, I mean, obviously you know, family culture and other things like that. So you had a daughter, you said, twenty months ago, who has Down syndrome. Can you talk our listeners through a little bit about what that you know, actually entails and most people aren't even know familiar with it beyond the obvious external you know, manifestations of that condition. Can you just talk a little bit about that journey and like when you found out and what it's involved and how you've gone through that. Oh yeah, well, So when I was newly pregnant with Emily, my midwife said, well, hey, would you like to do this cool ten week test and you can find out the gender. I was like, gender it ten weeks this is awesome. So yeah, And when she called me back with that tess, she said, this is not a definitive, a final diagnosis, but it looks like she's a girl and she has Down syndrome. And truly, at that point, if I had to go back to that two summers ago when that, I really responded with a lot of fear. I really responded with fear. I didn't at that point. I don't think I'd ever talked with a mom of someone with Down syndrome. I had never really had a conversation with someone with Down syndrome. I can't believe that now thinking of how many people I know in the Down syndrome community already. So it took me a little bit to adjust. I mean, I probably, you know, the first part of the pregnancy to really contemplate this, and I was afraid. I mostly was afraid. I didn't know what to expect. And I wish I could say to my pregnant self, now, like you have you have no idea about the joy an abundancy that's about to show up in your life. But at that point I felt a lot of anxiety and I was unsure, like how to communicate, and all of these things. So I learned a lot about Down syndrome. I mean, it's simply having three copies of the twenty first chromosome, and it affects every cell of a human's body, so it is throughout. You don't have like a little bit of Down syndrome or a lot of Down syndrome. You have Down syndrome or you don't, and it has It can have all kinds of implications. It can have a lot of health implications like heart defect or eye issues or abdominal issues. It can have implications. Almost everybody with Down syndrome has some sort of cognitive impairment, so it has implications in that way. But we didn't really know what it would look like for Emily, and so when she was born, we knew at birth that yes, she did for sure have Down syndrome. And then everything changed really dramatically, because all of a sudden, this little person goes from some unknown this diagnosis to like this little human being who's darling and beautiful and yours and your her baby, your perfect baby, is like huge one sixty and in my heart, although a lot of that had been settled for me, I think holding her just changed it all and we've had we had a really challenging first year of life. She was also diagnosed with epilepsy, and she was diagnosed with this kind of epilepsy that is called infantile spasms, which is a catastrophe alorm that's actually and for our listeners, medically, I will chime in and say, I don't think that's a typical feature of dice. It's not my knowledge. No, Down syndrome can be a trigger for it, but it's a very small percentage. Yeah, that's so tough. It was, really it was. We were in it. But she's doing great. She received the kind of treatment that she needed and so that epilepsy has resolved and her neurologist has said she's out of the woods for that and she's doing really phenomenally. So we're kind of on the other side of what was a massive crisis last summer and kind of settling into this life together. And you know, I think what I would say is that I don't really even think very much about Emily having Down syndrome. I mean, she really is just simply part of our family and brings us a lot of joy and abundancy. Like she's just a Darling completion to our family. So it has radically shifted my heart and understanding. I think that that was a lot of it was just having relationship and experience. Yeah, but I'm curious if there are sort of things that would be, you know, an added layer of complexity beyond what you know a child without down tundra, like, for instance, choosing childcare. There's probably some childcare providers who are better at this sort of thing than others, or there may be more specialist appointments that you and your husband are trying to get to, for instance. So I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that aspect of it. Yeah, and as someone who's working like a big job, how did those two interplay? And I guess I would love to know specifically if there were things you were you able to sift through and decide what you wanted to be there for and what you didn't need to be there for. So tell us all about that. Yeah. Well, I can say right now, when we're not in crisis, we're in stability management. Things are going great. However, it has brought into our life a whole slew of therapies and I had no idea how much therapies would become part of our life. So Emily does have three therapists and she sees them either once a week or all three a week. It kind of alternates. And right now through age three, almost every state has a program where they come to your home or to wherever the child is, so that is really obviously logistically very helpful. So we have a nanny, or when she was smaller, my parents were doing a lot of her childcare, but right now we have a nanny, and so the therapist comes. They come to our home and do her therapies, and my goal is to be there for like every third therapy. So I try to be there and work my work schedule so that I can connect and talk to the physical therapist and talk about what our goals are. When I'm not there, they often will text me like, here's the update, here's what we're working on. So I have our homework plan, like this is what we're working on with Emily, and I write it on a whiteboard in our house. Everyone can see it. Here's our goals with Emily. Because at twenty months, for instance, she's not walking yet, and so like that's a big goal for us. Is like she's starting to cruise, so what's the next step to help her move from cruising along the couch to actually taking her first step. So she has a lot of development with speech and with you know, big motor skills, and so we're working really intentionally with the therapists. But it's been really worked out pretty well for them to come to our home because then our nanny is also getting trained, so while she participates in the therapy and so she can hear and understand and know what we're working on with Emily. But childcare has been quite a dilemma because we live in a smaller town near a larger city, but it's the childcare that I would want her in is very far away. So we've ended up going with the nanny route, which works great for us, but it does it makes it pretty complex because she would not thrive in a one to ten toddler setting. I mean she just would not. I mean not a lot of children said, and it would be hard. It would be hard with the therapies, right because they would daycare, but I mean they're not going to have the daycare teacher would not have time to like sit with the therapist, right, So yeah, a lot of challenge is in organizing the therapies, but we've made it work with our nanny system and me being closely involved with the therapist. So that's been a big shift. And then also just having a lot more developmental things to manage. And then she does have neurology appointments at a hospital that's about two hours from us, so we have to navigate whole days at the hospital to check on her. And so that takes a lot of logistical and advanced planning on like how to make that happen and how to plan it into my work schedule. Well, so how do you plan it into your work skinner, because let's say you know you've got this, I'm not sure sort of the level of flexibility in your job versus like you know, and the level of responsibility obviously you know, so how and it's probably not easy to get the neurology appointments, I mean just from like, I pretty much have to work my life around the neurology right there. And so then you just tell your college president like, no, I can't meet that day, so your husband takes it. I'm just you know, maybe that through with our yeah, our listeners and I could talk a little bit more about Christis in the moment, because that was a unique season of my work life. Yeah. So you know one thing I'm very thankful about, and Sarah, Laura, you all talk about this frequently, is that back when I was that new mom and kind of contemplating would it be better for me to go part time? And I'm so thankful I didn't because I'm really reaping now the benefits of having a twenty plus year career in my field and getting to do my dream job, which involves quite a bit of autonomy, and so I really am able to manage my schedule as I need to with not a lot of questions asked. So I'm responsible to get the job done and responsible to manage my staff and my team and our goals and objectives and all that. But I don't really have to be like accountable hour to hour for my time. So I have an incredible executive assistant, and so she and I are a great team and we work. You know, I put everything into the calendar ahead of time. She understands what's the priorities, and then she's awesome at kind of working behind the scenes to make sure that no significant meetings are scheduled when I couldn't be there. So she's really great at like making that work with the other administrative assistants on campus, you know, to kind of negotiate when are the meeting's going to happen, and so that there's nothing that would be a problem for me to miss because I've got people, I've got her looking out for me. So I also have done, you know, all kinds of things like take it. I've done interviews from the hospital, you know, I've been edited documents from whoever I needed to be or traded off with my husband and who was going to take Emily. So it just really made it work, mostly through a lot of logistical planning. But that's so interesting that it's it's partly because you it happened at the time that you had climb the ladder to a point where you had that ability to be more flexible. And I think that is such an important point that people forget that the being at the top can come with its privileges. Absolutely, it's been really beneficial in this season of life. And not that I mean I still have to get the work done and so that's pretty challenging at times. But it's more of a logistical game and a priority game that I'm accountable to myself, and so that really fits well with my personality and management style. Can you talk a little bit about the crisis time that you said, because you know, last summer Emily had some some serious issues. I think you said related to the epilepsy. Is that what is diagnosed with the infantile spasms, and that is a form of epilepsy very rare, but it essentially stops the brain from developing, if you can imagine that, and it causes regression. So it is a terrible, terrible disease. So essentially she went from sitting up as a happy six month old to not being able to sit up, not being able to roll over, not being able to smile, not being able to babble. She lost all of her skills. And oh my god, that must have been so hard. I mean, I know about the disorder, and particularly as you were probably so celebratory previously because you're like, Wow, my down's baby's doing a meeting. I mean, I'm I'm so sorry you had to go through that, and I cannot imagine how devastating. Yeah, again, it is rare for kids with down syndrome, although it's a trigger, but it's a pretty rare one, So yeah, it was. So last summer there was about a three months three month stretch where we essentially you went into crisis mode, and that means that we got I got really clear on what my priorities were, and it meant that I had to be pretty intentional about what needed to happen at work and what needed to happen with Emily. Now, thankfully, Emily was not in pain, so that would have been a whole other if I was managing a child in a lot of pain, but she wasn't, so I really we did have some hospital stays and other than that, though I was able to continue her care either with a nanny or with my parents. She was with my mom quite a bit, and we've chosen to live like right next to campus, so I was able to have a lot of close contact whenever I needed to with Emily. But I was pretty confident in the care that the nanny was providing, and my husband works out of our home, so who was also pretty connected. And yeah, yeah, it was the best case scenario in that way. But again, I worked really closely with my team at work, to make sure that I didn't miss the things that I really needed to have presents at and so that again was just tooking a lot of navigating to ensure that I didn't want to just simply be absent and I didn't need to be. But it wasn't like a life and death on a day to day crisis. It was more of like managing her treatment over time, and it took a long time for the treatment to work, so we had to kind of find a new normal during that crisis. So it was I mean, I would say that there was about nine months, maybe a year, because I was also like all the pumping and the sleep deprivation, you know, but it was, oh wow, it was during that time. I didn't even really think about that internet, let me tell you. But at some point, I mean truly it was also accepting that for that year my work was going to be in maintenance mode, like I was going to do the things that needed to get done, and I was going to I mean, I just wasn't going to be able to do like all the things that I would like to do. So I had to be pretty clear on what can be dropped or postponed, what has to happen. How can I make that happen? And I'm a fairly relational leader, so I've invested a lot in my team and they're incredible and capable and empowered people. So things that I couldn do, we rerouted to someone else. And again I had this incredible support through my admin assistant, who was really able to help make sure that the things that were critical were not falling off my radar. So, Sarah, on one thing that you know could have been easy to have fall off the radar during all this is obviously your relationship with your other children, and so I'm curious about how you've handled sort of life with the five year old sort of after having Emily, and how you've managed to sort of make sure that that doesn't always sort of right, you know, fall to the bottom of the priority list. Yeah, well, when I some of it, initially, right, is just the transition of a new baby and another person in our lives, And so you're always going to have transition whenever you have a new child. And I would say the vast majority of the transition would be very typical to like what other families experience and navigate. But then with the additional of the therapies, and of course the crisis with Kai. I mean, how did that affect him? You know? I mean probably in that really intense period of six weeks where we were in and out of the hospital, I really relied on community, my community, my family support, relied on my husband and I trading off and communicating as well as we could about making sure everyone's needs were met. I think I didn't really sense that he had a lot of trauma or upset during that season because his routine was able to be pretty steady, so as far as his childcare plan and his day to day life didn't switch up very much, and that was what I hoped to do. So he saw less of Mommy during that season, but as far as stability, consistency, caregivers involvement, that was stable. Now he and Emily really enjoy each other. I don't think we've told him. Of course, she has down syndrome. He doesn't get it at all, so he doesn't really understand what that is. And he's never had a younger sibling, so he doesn't have anything to evaluate it against. So to him, she's just Emily. So they just play and it's not even a deal with my older daughter in college. She was also in the midst of Emily's first year. She transitioned, went to college early, and was doing all of that. So I really did feel like I needed to be pretty intentional about getting our coffee dates or having focused time with her. But because she's a college student, it's a whole other ballgame, and we really can like go out to coffee and catch up, like we don't have to hang out on the floor of the living room like I do with my son. Right, totally different ballgame, different emotionally, but probably less physical presence you needed. I guess one final sort of question to ask you about this is taking care of yourself in the midst of all this, because I can imagine that, you know, working a demanding job and having multiple children, including one with special needs, it takes a lot of energy, and it sounds like you're a very high energy person, but you probably have to do something to replenish that. So I'm curious what you do and how you make sure that that has space in your schedule as well. Yeah, well, you know, I would say that this, like energy management and self care, is really critical in our lives as moms and as leaders or whatever we're doing, like it's really top because I have learned that it really is dependent on my energy level. So I have to be pretty conscientious about the care and feeding of Sarah right like on my sleep needs or exercise needs or social fun needs. And and we didn't even get into your your relationship with your husband too. That's part of that. Yeah, I do. Sometimes I joke with my friends that like, there's never a time that one ball isn't being dropped. It's like I just it's just we focus on the priority. Whatever is that I need to be focusing on is what I focus on, and then I can shift and focus on the next thing. But it seems like there's always something, you know, It's like work can be going great, kids are going great, but the house is a disaster, or you know, there's a big, huge work crisis and so that's not going great. But like the kids, we had a phenomenal vacation. So it seems like there's always like something where you have to be pretty in tune to your priorities. But I really love to have a lot of fun with my friends, and so I'm pretty intentional about creating space for that. And that doesn't I don't need a lot of time, but I definitely create space in my calendar for lunches with friends, our book club, like occasionally a friend's mine out and go to a movie or a date night with my husband. So for me, it's mostly a matter of getting it on the calendar and planning, so that is perf. We're definitely speaking our love language there. It's all have been very helpful to me, and this and this power of planning and getting it on the calendar makes it happen. I love that, and I love I sort of love your intentionality about realizing that perhaps you can't have every ball in the air at once, but it's okay. You focus on the ball that you have to focus on in that moment, and then when you zoom out and see the big picture, I mean, you've done amazing things. You've been raising these three children successfully, You're kicking butt at work. You sound like you're still enjoying life since very inspiring. Well, you know it is like I really do feel like I am living my best life, Like this is the life life that I've dreamed of, and I feel pretty fortunate to be able to contribute in meaningful ways. And also have a family that really brings me a lot of joy. And one thing that I think you talked about this and you're off the clock book, Laura, but one thing that has been really clear to me in the last couple of years of my life is that hardship and joy can thrive together, and that I didn't sign up for an easy life. I didn't sign up for a stress free life or a life that's just going to be easy street like. I wanted a life that is thriving and contributing and meaningful, and so a life like that is hard, and hard things have happened, but it's also been a very joyful season of life for me, and family and work has brought me a lot of joy these days. And I'm actually pretty thankful that I have work now and that my whole life is not revolving around an identity as a special needs parent or whole my whole life isn't revolving around managing my children, because I think that that would perhaps create more stress in me. I work a little bit better to have my energy going multiple places, and so I'm experiencing affirmation and meaning and lots of places great. And I wonder if you had any just one last question for you. Here is advice to any you know younger mom who are newer mom. I guess you would say, who is facing a tough diagnosis, either like prenatally or in a young child. Anything you'd want her to know? Yeah, you know, I would want her to realize that or to recognize that, Yeah, having a special needs diagnosis is not easy. It is hard. And certainly my life has more logistical challenges than it did three years ago, and it has things that are hard in it, But I honestly can say that my life post Emily is more joyful, Like I really enjoy her presence and our family, and it made me think more deeply about who I am and life and what it means to be human and what it means to contribute in really powerful ways. And it's connected me with a community of people that I had no idea were such amazing people. So I think I would want to say this may not and it probably will not be easy, but I can guarantee you it will bring you a level of joy that you can't even really imagine and anticipate, because this human being is going to bring more to you than you will to that person. So that's what I would hope she would know. That's beautiful. It was beautiful. Well, Sarah, thank you so much. We really appreciate your coming on and sharing your life with us. Well thanks for the opportunity. Wow, well that was amazing. I know, we was almost like crying at the end of that. There just is so inspiring and uplifting and you know, makes me feel like I need to be a more positive person. But agreed, absolutely inspiring and emotional. And I hope everyone I hope that came through on our records, that came through and yeah, if there is anyone listening to this who is facing a tough diagnosis, just to know that often life turns out in some amazing ways. And you know that was that was just something amazing to listen to. But yeah, so so pivoting from there, we forgot to act. We were so moved, we forgot to ask Stara Baldwin about our Literally we're like, wait, we just let her go and like, now we didn't ask her that, so oh well, this is you know, somewhat of a mishmash an amateur something that we do. But okay, so what's your love of the wake Sarah Sah, I have discovered, Yes, to be clear, I've discovered Gmail's tag function, which I didn't really uh you ever. Now we all know Laura has like fifty thousand emails and doesn't want it really empty, but I like to do inbox zero and makes me happy. But I kind of like wanted a separate folder for podcast things that were percolating, like questions, because you guys are all amazing and you send us lots of email questions and we kind of keep them all so we can figure out which ones will fit wear. And by the way, that's a nice reminder you can continue to send those either through email or Insta or my blog or Laura's blog or whatever anyway. So now I've started putting a little blue star on them, and I can still archive them so they disappear. But if I go to my start, I can see all the little blue stars lined up, so they're all carefully and neatly sorted there and it makes me super happy. Yeah. No, we definitely needed to come up with the personality rubric as like the people who need nothing in Box zero. Well, it's funny because I was just on on Twitter and you know Courtney Carver, who is one of our previous guests, who wrote, you know she does be more, she's super minimal. Yeah, minimal. She had a post about how she had let go of some of her books, so you know, this was one of the things she least wanted to purge, but she realized that she could, you know, pare it down her book collection and only have a few, and that they could come in and out of her life. And somebody responded to her tweet saying, well, you know, I moved to ebooks because of this, but now I just have a bunch of e books on my Kindle that I haven't read, and I need to get rid of them and sort them. I'm like, but why, Like, I don't understand why you need to get rid of or sort like an ebook and your kindle that like it's not taking you know, you have pretty much a space like that's even beyond my I get it, probably more than you get it, because I actually have been tempted to like, oh, it's okay if they're in the cloud, but I actually don't want them on my device because every time I open it, I don't want to see these books. If I didn't like it or if I've read half of it, like, I don't know. But at the same time, I actually gave up on that because it's actually pretty hard, and I decided who cares. Yeah, And by the time you have like maybe ten more books, it's off the screen anyway, like you know, it's pushes out so you don't even see it, Like, so, why is it even I don't know. That's one of these I'm with you on that one, but I get it. I'm wondering, if you know, I believe Gretchen Rubens writing her next book on this phenomenon, So maybe she's got these Rubers care about maybe, or maybe she's just gonna tell me I'm wrong. I don't know anyway, So my love of the week is I just ordered my twenty nineteen calendar. I think this is the first, the earliest I have ever ordered the two thousand, you know, the next year's calendar. I ordered it at the end of June, but I realized that was already writing stuff for twenty nineteen in the margins at the end of my twenty eighteen calendar, because I have a paper calendar. People who haven't picked up on this, I don't use an electronic calendar. So I was writing it and these margins and like, you know, that's really not a great plan, so I went ahead and ordered it. It's the twenty nineteen at a glance, item number G two fifty, I guess, but it's just this, you know, small weekly calendar that has spiral binding so it stays open. It's what I've been using for the last five years. Massive When a layout works for you, you just keep with it. Massively overpriced, of course, I guess maybe the just only price it for me that way because they know I'm gonna use its all. We're gonna charge me like seven bucks for Shavana, and anyone ordering their planner for the next year in June is like clearly wants that specific yann. So I wonder if the prices go down closer to December. They probably do, So I ordered. I joined some sort of like club where I got cheaper shipping or whatever, and then I found a coupon code so I got I got it for a little less, but it's still whatever. Anyway, that's actually really smart. I have a list forming in the back of myne and you're right, I should just I already know what I want, so I should just go ahead and order. Why not? So anyone listening to this, maybe you could go ahead and order your planner now for join the Club for twenty nineteen. All right, so that's my love of the week. Let's let's do our Q and A. Now, yeah, it's quite a meaty one, Laura, you're gonna read the question, okay. So our listener wrote in and said, I love your podcast and feel so inspired by it to live my life more intentionally. But I can't help but feeling like I just can't. I recently listened to your podcast about challenging times, and I am one in in one big challenging time ever since I had kids six years ago. There are a few challenging issues working against me. But the biggie is that both my kids have had medical sleep issues. The interrupted sleep zapp's my energy, productivity and mood. Not to mention my kids moods, because of course they're cranky with that too. The older one is now better, they're not one hundred percent better. Are still working with the sleep doctor on my two year olds. For years, I couldn't work at all despite wanting to work, and now I somehow manage a part time job, but I have not settled into a new normal that allows me to take proper care of myself and pursue my non work interests. I basically look and feel like a frazzled mom all the time, except when I somehow hold things together at my job. Do you think I can plan, strategize, outsource, and negotiate my way toward a better life? Or do I just accept that I have something difficult on my plate and be patient for this to pass? Wow? Yeah, that's tough, immediate. I love. I think it's a great question, and I think she sort of answered herself in that last part because my answer to her is yes, yes and yes, meaning do I think she can plan and strategize, outsource and negotiate her way towards a better life? Yes? And can she accept that she has something difficult on her plate and be patient? Yes? So I guess what I mean by that is we're not gonna be able to You're not gonna be able to fix everything in one go. And clearly this is a process and you've you've actually made some progress on it that you mentioned. Well, just baking this back to our main you know segment of this podcast right when we're talking with Sarah Baldwin. I mean, yes, the joy and the hardship can be there simultaneously, like being able to hold in your mind simultaneously like, yes, this is tough, but yes, there are also good things happening too, because I mean, you know, it would be horrible to just think like the last six years of my life are nothing but to blur. I mean there's probably like some good moments in there as well, and it's just very hard to do this mental gymnastics, but you can try to accept that both are simultaneously true, and the truth is I mean, even if this is extremely tough, you've now seen with your six year old that this is a temporary thing. So even if you can't get perfection right now, it doesn't mean you can't make slow progress and expect that hopefully things are going to continue to improve. I mean, my heart goes out to you with the sleep issues, because there's a physiological issue with that, right, I mean that can anything that's already going wrong or is difficult is going to be amplified times eight million when you are not sleeping. Yeah. Yeah, So if there's anything you can do logistically or in your life to add more sleep, then I'm sure you've probably already done it. But of course that's you know number one. I had a few other thoughts and then a large time and as well. So you mentioned feeling like you look like a frazzled mom, and I would say, looks are kind of like compared to sleep issues or mood issues like, looks are not that hard to fix, right, So I would take some time to yourself to maybe specifically address this issue. And whether that means ordering a whole bunch of clothes that you're going to return half of or three quarters of whatever, or trying trunk club, or you know, some solution to efficiently get yourself some clothes that make you feel better. And I think we actually went back and forth and started talking about hair. If there's something you can do to make your hair lower maintenance. I mean, Japanese straightening is not for everyone, but I'm just throwing it out there. You won't have any frizz if you go for that route. Makeup is you know, not necessarily important, but if it makes you feel better, it may be worth you know, taking the time to buy some and you know, committing to putting some on every morning. If that helps you. Not in no way saying that that's necessary for everyone, but if that's contributing to your feelings, then there you go. You mentioned that things are improving, so maybe there are little things you can do that you couldn't do before that you could really pay attention and celebrate, Like maybe it wasn't feasible to exercise at all, but now you could get up once a week or twice a week, so you know, really notice those little incremental changes if there are things that are getting a little bit better. And then my last thing, and both Laura and I kind of thought about this therapy. Both of us thought about possible depression, which I in no way diagnosing over an email. That would be completely wrong and unprofessional, but I'm just throwing it out there as something that could be going on and could be exacerbated by sleep issues. And I myself have gone to therapy in a trying time and it was incredibly helpful and it didn't even I mean, the funny thing is I sort of dreaded it, but the investment in time turned out to be I think I went for like a few sessions and I still felt a million times better just from having an impartial person to kind of vent to and sort out things. And depending on the extent to which you are needing assistance, you're either going to build a longer term relationship or you're not. But even some small connection might be helpful. So just from the tone of your email, like, if you're thinking that therapy might be helpful, then I would highly encourage you to consider it. Yeah, that was sort of my thought reading this is sometimes when there's language and an email like this that's you know, very you can read this sort of toughness and like the challenge they're facing in it. And sometimes when it comes across that way, I know this isn't the realm for self help. This is more maybe something that's a you know, medical mood issue that you know, I'm not certainly in any way qualified to help with Sarah. Sarah would have to see somebody to talk about that. So yeah, no, I didn't want to say too much in this one thing. I would say with sleep though, making sleep your top priority in your life when it is interrupted, it stinks to have to do that because you know, you want to do everything else right, You want to read, you want to do extra work for your job, you want to hang out with your spouse, you want to see friends, and you will get to do that, like as you can see, the six year old's better, so you know, you're waiting for the two year old to get to be where the six year old is, and so you'll get to do that. So at this point you kind of just have to prioritize sleep, which means going to bed as soon as possible after the little guy has gone down, you know, so you can have that early evening sleep, which is often sort of better. I know that a lot of new moms who are getting up multiple times in the night find that that early sleep is the best sleep. And you want to get as much of that. Oh yeah, like eight to eleven could be I mean again, I don't know that your children are going to bed at eight for that to be feasible, but that early chunk could be so therapy. Yeah, it can be so. And when I wrote I know how she does it, one of the women who tracked time for Me was in fact a single mom of three young kids who had horrible sleep issues, and it was it was tough looking at that time log of just you know, how many wake ups were happening but what was sort of also happening too, is that she was staying up late after the kids went down because she needed me time, right, Like she's a single mom, she wants the meat time, and I know it was so it's like this horrible dilemma that she was facing, right because she wants the me time and yet she also needs the sleep. And so it's you know, wondering if there was any way to sort of build me time into like breaks at work for instance, so that that early sleep could be protected more and just you know, telling yourself like I'll feel better in the morning, but yeah, you know, we really feel for you and and hope it gets better because sleep, losing sleep the long term is really just tough. So anyway, on that uplifting note, this has been This has been best of both worlds. A lot of deep issues talking about this in episode fifty three, both special needs parenting and you know question from a listener dealing with medical sleep issues and her kid. But we hope to hear more from listeners of all sorts of questions, So please write in let us know what you think, and we'll be back more next week on the ways that people make work and life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box 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. Oh boy,