Our first Mother-Daughter guest pair, with attorney Christy Higgins Wilcox and her mother, pediatrician Dr. Karen Higgins!

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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 twenty four, first airing December seventeenth, twenty nineteen. Today we're going to have a great interview with Christy Higgins Wilcox, who's a lawyer, and her mother, Karen Higgins, a pediatrician who is one of the first women in her medical school and definitely one of the first doctors in her town who is building a practice, well building a family as a mom. So we're very excited to hear from them and about what Christy learned about life and parenting from having a pioneering working mom. In the meantime, the holidays are coming up, Sarah, what's it looking like for you this year? A lot of work, so, as I've discussed, Josh is fairly new to his position, so taking one for the team this year apparently involved signing up to work both the weekends flanking Christmas and then also working New Year. So honestly, I'm kind of gearing up for a lot of solo parenting. I am going to give a gift to myself and try to arrange some childcare for part of that so that I have a little bit of relaxation time, but there's also going to be some fun just kid time. We're not traveling. I think we're both on travel bands, as we have discussed, not really just that we're trying to wait till Genevieve gets a little bit easier, and felt like this might be a nice break to take a break from traveling. It is our best weather season in the winter, so sometimes it also makes more sense to save our big escapes for the summer months, and with my husband taking a lot of call this year around Christmas, this definitely made the most sense. Yeah, yeah, I guess that's pretty much it. I mean, as you know, like we kind of celebrate Hanukah so we're working on gifts. But we're not super religious in any respect, so we definitely enjoy Christmas traditions that have become very secularized. And I'm sure we'll do some sort of I think we're doing like a cookie baking thing with friends, so that'll be good, but not not too many grand plans. What about you, guys, you are kind of grounded, right, Yeah, yeah, at that point, I'm pretty much grounded. We're not traveling anywhere, so I can avoid giving birth on the road or on a plane. But because of that, we are planning ahead to do tickets for a lot of local events over the holidays. You know, we got tickets for a CIRQ Disola thing. We have tickets for a Longwood Gardens festival lights in the evening. We have oh just all kinds of holiday event tickets. I think my husband may wind up going into New York with the kids to see the rockets, but you know, it's I think I may also try to get a little ahead on work. We're not going to have childcare over the holidays either, but I think we'll split some of it. My mother in law will also be there so she can she can take an hour or two here or there as well, you know, because I need to get ahead on some things to prep for maternity leaves, such as it is when you are self employed. So exciting. Yeah, but I mean I'm excited. I like being home on Christmas anyway, because then we don't have to I mean, we've done Christmas at relatives and you're always like packing so many gifts and figuring out the stocking situation. And didn't we visit you on Christmas? You did? You did? Okay? Well, last Christmas we were to gather Sarah. That was fun. That's fun. Once we travel again, maybe we can make that happen again. Yeah. Well, although I think we may come to Florida after Christmas or something that sounds like much nicer. I think it's not a bad idea. It's a good thing when you live somewhere that people actually want to go to over the holidays, which is usually not suburban Pennsylvania. But we appreciated you making the trip. Well, I'm from there and my parents are there, so I have many reasons to go to suburb All right, Well, let's dive into our interview. So Sarah and I are excited to be here with our first mother daughter duo. I have a joint interview with Christy Higgins Wilcox and Karen Higgins, and so we said a little bit about them in the introduction. But Christy and Karen, if you could go ahead and introduce yourself to our listeners, that would be great. Well I'll start. I'm Christy. I am currently a human of resources, well head of human resources at a bank of nine hundred people. Prior to being an HR, I was the attorney for the same bank that I'm now in HR, and I was also in private practice for a couple of years before our Outside of work, rather, I have one kid, Levi, he's five, and a husband Andy. We have a bass at hound named Dale and a little dropkick dog named Gwen. So that's kind of my life outside of work. Well, I'm Karen Higgins. I'm a physician and I've been a pediatrician in a smaller town, Grand Island, Nebraska for the last forty years, and I will very shortly be retiring after that time. I have to not say quitting, Christy, quitting. That's not quite right. You're retiring. I'm tiring. I'm moving on to something more, something different. But a general pediatrician where I've treated three generations of some families from birth until they go off to college. So you know, I'm excited about doing this, but also as far as my future, and I think it's going to be a little because I've always worked and one of the reasons we're talking here but not working is really going to throw me for a Look. I'm quite sure you will find ways to fill your time. I'm not too concerned about that possibility. But as you said, you have been working for the past forty years, and that's after college med school in residence. So those of us have been through all of this. Yeah, and Karen jo med school in the nineteen seventies then, right, and there were not a whole lot of I mean, these days it's about half women. And yeah, even my med school class in the class of two thousand and two was almost fifty to fifty fifty fifty. But we started in two thousand and two, so what about you, that was not the case, right, No, I graduated in seventy seven, so there were eighteen women in my class. Was the most that had ever been. That was a class of one fifty. Wow. And the thing is is that three years before I started, there were like three women in the class, so you know, we exponentially increased. So yeah, it was different. I will say the women that we're in my class are very dedicated and continue to be very dedicated to physicians, although all of us are pretty much at the end of our careers at this point and probably have seen a lot of changes over the years. A decade. And so when you began practicing, then you had three children, right, Well, I did not have any when I started, because I'll tell you did not dare have a child in residency or med school at that time. It was just not heard of. And the few that did, they did not have a lot of accommodations for pregnant women. So you ended up, you know, maybe even six months behind your partner, your the residents before you finished. So yes, I waited. So I was I wouldn't say a late mother At the time. I didn't think so because none of my friends had children. But boy, when going into a smaller town, the first question I got from everybody was how many children did I have? So yeah, it was a real switch going from a large residency program to a small town where they were not used to having any kind of a professional woman working at all. Yeah, but you had three children while you're practicing, well I was, I'm sorry, Yes, while I was practicing between you know, between age thirty and forty, I have three children, and perfectly perfectly fine kids that be well, that's Christie. Seems perfectly normal, and they are all thriving professionals today, all are doing well. Christy, as she introduced herself, she's my attorney. My husband's also an attorney, so attorney. And then I have two other children who are physicians, ones of cardiologist that is on staff at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. And I have a younger daughter who's just starting her pediatric practice in Plaserville, California. Kind of learning what it's like to be out there with you know, I will say this demanding mothers, and so kind of fun because you'll call me to ask a question about you know, probably nothing really scientific, but just about general how do you handle this situation type thing? So, yeah, it's been fun, and so that's why I probably well, even though I'll be not working as a as a physician, so to speak, I will at least have a daughter that's going to be still keeping me up to date on the medical profession, which is fun. That must be so awesome. You'll be able to talk shop with your kids like that. I know. We went to Wine Country a couple of years ago and I was sitting in the back and the two of them are sitting in the front and they're just talking shop the entire time. And I have nothing to contribute here. You can talk with your father, because yes, I can't. I can't do that time to time. Yeah, and so Christy, I imagine there you you grew up as the daughter of a working mom at a time where that was less common than it is now. Were you ever aware that that was less common or just it seems like this is this is what my family he does. So it's very interesting. As I was growing up, I never thought anything of it, especially my mom was the breadwinner to I mean, she was the one working fifty sixty hours a week. But it was just our normal. It wasn't until I got to college and I had somebody that I knew in college who asked me, I can't believe you and your brother and sister turned out so normal when your mom worked, And it had never even crossed my mind that the way I was raised was different, or there'd be any reason that three of us wouldn't have turned out okay. So I didn't think it was different. I also had a great great father that I think was before his time in a lot of ways. He would cook us dinner every night. He did a lotter on the house. So it definitely you and Dad definitely showed us a true partnership. Well, his job was so much more flexible, and I think if I had married a physician who was determined to work his fifty sixty hours a week, I don't know what I would done. It would and as it was too because we had such different jobs, we didn't talk. We did not talk shop when we got home, you know. So it was just you know, family type discussions when we were there. And like Chrissy said, we always said that's one thing. We were always able to have evening dinners together, even if it was eight or nine o'clock. Yes, Chris, remember you came home from college when I eat at five thirty and we were looking at you, what, yes? Is that even allowed? I think at a sorority house they fed us at five thirty every day. I'm a creature of habit. Yeah, well that is us, and we're going to take a quick break for our ad and we will be back to learn more about what life looked like in the Higgins household. 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Best of both worlds podcast listeners get ten percent off your first month with discount code best of. So why not get started today? Go to betterhelp dot com slash best of simply fill out a questionnaire to help them assess your needs and get matched with a counselor you'll love that's betterhelp dot com slash best of. Well we are back with Christy Higgins Wilcox and Karen Higgins, our mother daughter duo, who is talking about their talking about their careers, their parenting strategies, what they've learned from each other. So when we left before the ad break, we were talking about what things look like in the Higgins house growing up and learns that mister Higgins had a more flexible schedule as a lawyer. And so why don't you guys talk about what strategies you use during this time of you know, the when things were still kind of not that many two career couples, certainly not that many female physicians and raising three children in a small town. What strategies did you guys use to make it work? Well, I think the main thing that we need to bring up was my daycare provider. We had the same wonderful, wonderful woman, Ruth was with us for twenty one years. Wow. And if Without Ruth, I could not have done it. She's a faithful person, loved my children, you know, just looked over them. But I think the thing is Ruth was a quiet person. You know. Sometimes I think you can get it if you want to call it a nanny home care provider, that really can influence your children. And I loved Ruth, but I don't think he was a huge influence on you. She other than loved you know, he gave me the love. Ruth was great. She would take us to all of our after school activities. She did all your laundry. I mean one thing when I when I thought of this idea for this podcast, I mean one thing my mom did a fantastic job, which I think again kind of head ahead of her time. Is you outsourced like nobody's business and you made it okay. I mean we did someone come and clean our house. Ruth did the laundry. You know, my dad cooked, so it was such a collaborative effort. There was not this role model that you, as a woman working this full time job, have to also come home and cook and clean. I don't I think that's pretty unusual, especially in the eighties and nineties. I think that's very unusual to both of you, or I guess especially to mom to doctor Higgins. So like, how did you did you was a mom guilt a thing back then? How were you How were you able to be immune to that sentiment or were things just more undefined? I was so overwhelmed by everything. I don't think I thought about it. And I will say I had a very traditional mother. I mean the kind of June Cleaver that everybody of the neighborhood came over. She had the cook I mean, you name it. She was the ideal. And she's at ninety five, she's still alive and kind of doing the same thing. But I think what I think was a difference was I really felt with what I was doing. I enjoyed it. It was very fulfilling, and I think I felt like, and I hope now at the end of this whole career, I think I made a difference in a lot of ways in the town that I was in. And it was because I'm not that Omaha. I know a lot of people don't think it's that big, but still, going from a town of over a million to a town of forty thousand, you know, it was a big switch. And especially one where your husband grew up in. So the people I associated with were his friends and they still are, which are good people. But so I just kind of made it my own way, and I just kept going and didn't think of me, you know, put one foot in front the other, I guess is what I always did, right, one thing that Mommy, you didn't know if I've ever told you this, and to all the listeners out there, I think you should. You know. It's about the big things, not all the small things. I think sometimes we get so caught up on having the perfect oh you know, cookies for to take into school, or being the room mother and all that's great. I'm not saying it's not. But what I remember is my mom being there for those big things, those big events when you know, my teenage years, breaking up with a boyfriend and having her undivided attention. I think as mother's right now, we worry about at least I do, maybe not everyone does, but worry about not being there for all those little things. And I have to constantly remind myself that that doesn't it matters, but the big stuff matters more. That's definitely true. And remember, at one time I was making rounds in the pediatric unit and Christy comes in just bawling. So here's I don't remember if I sent to the hospital like, so I'm just sitting here, you know, Okay, honey, let's go. So I mean, I don't think they knew boundaries, whether the plenty in the hospital house. You know, that's wherever mom is, That's where I'm going. Well, Christy, I'm curious when you became a mom, Like what sort of lessons you took from your own upbringing and from your mom that you find yourself now employing in your life and the way you think about parenting. Well you First, I'd say relationship with spouse. I mean that relationship is so critical. You two had such a true partnership and I'm finding my spouse Andy, He's amazing, But that was very important that we had to have a true partnership. And when we had a LEVI Andy takes the mornings, I take the evening shift, and we just have a very oh collaborative way that we raise our son. And I was able to pick that up from my parents. Second, just that whole concept that it takes a village. I'm not being able to do this by myself. I have wonderful in laws that live here in the same town i'm in. Also, my parents are an hour and fifteen minutes away. I have great friends here in the community that helped me too, and I really got that from you moment. There's just there're people want to help, people love to be helpful and share, you know. And that's great for my son too, to have so many people that care for him. The other thing I was thinking is just my mom's amazing at self care. We talk about it all the time these days. But you always made sleep a priority. Oh, I got it, Yes, And just little rituals. I mean you still take a bath every night before you go to bed, and just those little things seeing them over time. It's important to have whatever feeds you as an individual, and you always made that not seem like a bad thing. So I mean even now, I'm an avid runner, and you always exercised as well. And then I love to read, and I never feel like those things are selfish, but they're fulfilling. So I'd say those are the things. There's so many more, but those are the things that come top of mine. Is awesome and inspiring. I love that, you know, because I mean, if I had married my husband's not that much younger, but a little younger than I am. And I always thought if I married somebody two or three older years older than I was, their idea of what a woman should do was much different than what my husband thought. But as my husband's mother, she never worked. But boy, she was not your typical She was more like Maud you know from the series TV series. She just was out there all the time, very dramatic and again raised four incredibly dedicated to wonderful children. But I mean, I never felt bad if my house was messy when she came over. Let me tell you so. And has that carried on? Do you feel bad if your house is messy? Christy, you're horrible because my mom's house was always Yeah, I mean, Christy says that, but you know, yeah, it still bothers me when things aren't picked up as well as they should be. But you know, you think now she says about the cleaning lady, I'll tell you we might have. But boy, if I came home at you know, when I came home at seven, you would never have a clue anybody had cleaned my house. But yeah, but at least it was better than me doing it, and first layer of dust was gone. So well, And Karen, you just mentioned something about how you know your husband being two three years younger versus two three years older, that that there was such a change, And I think a lot of people don't appreciate how quickly the change happened in there. Well, I was thinking of that when I was when I went to university here in Lincoln. You know, two years before I came, if you were going, if say, through Rush, you wore nylons and stocky well dylon's and gloves. When I started, when I was a freshman, you did not wear bras. You wore the same pair of jeans for a week. And you had two years before me you had to wear dresses to class. I mean, how in two years and of course you had no guys whatever, there's curfews, no guys game. How in two years from nineteen sixty eight to nineteen seventy there could have been so many changes in the way colleges and women were in colleges. Just in fact, I was never told in high school that I could be a doctor, never, so that the fact that I ended up as one is just kind of a fluky type thing. Well, but how did you know that? Then? If no one ever said that to you? And well, actually what happened? I mean, believe it or not? And you don't look at my closet. I started out in fashion merchandising. Oh really interesting. What do you do? You do homech you do teaching, you do nursing. I was not going to be a nurse. Well that's but anyway, but I went before I even started classes, Like even though the huge university, they did have a hookup with a counselor. And he looked at my grades from high school and what I was actually taking, he goes, he just looks up at me. Have you ever thought about being a doctor? And that's all It took. That terrible the first time anybody in my whole life mentioned maybe this is something anything. I mean, whether it would have been teaching. Nobody ever told me what you know, to think about what I could do. I had no counseling whatsoever in high school. But you know, school was just different. I mean, you either failed or you succeeded. In highol. There was no kind of middle ground, and nobody cared if you failed. And if you're a woman, nobody, you know, thought that you do a bunch of anything. So yeah, I just took that fifteen minute little interview to change my idea. I don't have to change classes. I already had the classes I needed, just you know, to be pre med. So that is such a fascinating perspective that I guess until you said that, I don't think I realized how quickly things changed and how I've taken you know, I've taken it for granted that like you know, you go to school and you can do whatever you want, and that really was a reality. So that's going to gives me a little bit more hope, Like, you know, what are the next twenty thirty years envering? Because wow, that is amazing. Well, it's just weird, even me being her daughter hearing that, because I always felt like I could do anything. And it's not because I was a woman, is because I was a person. So yeah, how that changed and that that little amount of time is amazing. Well, and then you know, let's say the women in my sore already two years older than I was. You know, they were all engaged by the time they graduated from college, and by my year, there were plenty that got married that you know the June and how are there always the June weddings? But there are plenty of us too that you know, waited for another five to ten years that I was married at twenty eight, and I thought I was old to get married. Well, so you when you and your husband got together, and did you have conversations about this sort of explicitly like what you wanted your life to look like, what your career plans were. I'm given how much you know extra the perceptions of what was normal at the time. Did you have to consciously push against that. I'm very curious how you two navigated that at the beginning, you know, how you have a couple that doesn't look into the future. We never looked into the like I said, we took one day at a time. I mean he knew because when we met, I was, you know, had just been accepted to medical school and I never thought because he was down here in Lincoln doing you know, for going to law school. I was in Omaha going to medical school, and I just never thought it would last. Well it did, so I figured if it lasted, you know that way, No, and he knew, I mean obviously went through residences. See when I did so, I think he accepted the hours he knew I was going to work, which I think. I mean, I think that would be a lot of problems a lot of men would have, is that you know, their wives weren't there in the evening. I mean, he still doesn't care for it, even at this stage. He still wonders why I can't get home at a decent time. But you know, he's never really balked about it either. That's good to know, well, Christy. One of the things we talked about earlier, would I talk to you guys before this, is that you know most of your friends are of course working moms now because that's more than norm. But many of them don't have a role model, And I wonder if you, what are some of the conversations you have with them as they're like now figuring this out for the first time theirselves because they didn't have mothers who modeled that. I wonder what some of those conversations are like for you. I think there's a lot of uns certainty or am I doing the right thing? Am I making the right choices? Especially a lot of my friends are in professional type careers, and I tried to remind them, you know, this was my upbringing and this is everything turned out okay, And I'm not perfect about this. I get cut up in minuture that doesn't matter as well, But just remind them about the bigger picture and all those things. But it's a constant dialogue, I'd say, amongst my friends and myself, what you know. And the thing is too, me have so many more options these days than when my mom was working. You can't, like Sarah, like what you're doing now, you know, working eighty ninety percent or going back to go, you know, taking some time off and going back. I mean when you were starting your practice, those were an options. So I think in some ways that's amazing, But then it almost makes the landscape more complicated because it's like do I work full time? Do I work eighty ninety percent? All of those things. So yeah, it's a constant conversation amongst my friends and myself. Well, one thing, it was just kind of interesting when I I had to go where I was going to go because my husband's already practicing law when I was finishing my residency, so I knew I was going to go to Grand Island, Nebraska practice and I'd done quite a bit of work out there, because you know, I was able to do my community service out there and some other things, and so they knew I was coming out there and to be a pediatrician. And even though they more or less told me they didn't want me, I mean they had it was apparently there was quite an argument about whether to have me on, and I know it was because they just figured I wasn't going to practice that long or do my job, and of of course I'm the last man standing, so and then I do did have And even though there were only two of us as physicians in the tab, you know, as women physicians are like ten years after I started in this tab, one other one was my partner, very good friend, and without telling her, they thought, well, maybe we could ask Aggie if she wants to go halftime, and then you could go halftime without even talking to her about it. And she was not too happy about that, so I think, and actually I have to say having Aggie probably helped too, because she also had four very very talented children, and you know, worked hard, and her husband was an ob so it was particularly hard in their household. Although her mother did come to live with them. But I think the fact that she was so dedicated actually was my Segon even thought of that. Maggie was probably my role model because she'd been there about two years before I started, and so that she did make it easier that way. Now, I have to say, we kind of were in two different if I can say, crowds, so so socially we had a very different, very different things that we did. But I would not have thought that town was big enough to have two different crowds. Now, come on there, it's always that country club crowd. I'll have to tell you that. And you know, and I was part of that country club crowd that I don't think country club women were expected to work. Yeah, very different. Well, this has been fascinating. So we always end with what we call our love of the week, which is something that's just exciting for us at the moment. It can be related to what we've talked about, it could be totally different. I'm going to go ahead and throw out there that my current love of the week is our family's matching pajamas. So I elected to get on board the Instagram bandwagon and purchase pajamas for the holidays for every family member. So we can take that cute holiday photo on the hearth right at the fireplaces, all of us wearing our matching pajamas. And yeah, I'm quite sure one of my children will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming into doing this, but so it goes Sarah. How about you? What do you have for us this week? Just a shout out to excellent babysitters because they are really not that easy to find. And my advice to all listeners is it, if you do find one that is excellent, you should do everything you can to hang on to them, including, since this is a holiday season, give them me really nice gift. Totally. You guys have hung on to yours for twenty one years, which is pretty impressive. So what about you guys? What's your love of the week. Well, as we're taping this, it's November and my five year old son and I are doing something. Each day we are saying what we were thankful for, and I'm writing it down. It's been super funny and fun just I mean, one day he was thankful for the trampoline park. But my hope is to do it year after a year and just when he's fifteen or sixteen show him what he was thankful for when he was five. I love that. That's great, Karen, you got one for us. Mean cleaning out Christie's bedroom after twenty years or someone was talking about Actually I did that last weekend. I have some stuff in the back of the car, Honey to try to give you. Actually, I don't know. I do love reading, and I never is one thing I did not do when my kids were little. And there are certain series that I like and I don't know. Michael Connolly writes about Harry Bosh. I don't know if you know. Anyway, he just had a new book out last week and I'm about a third of the way through. I'm going to finish it. That's awesome, but it does get me easing into retirement. You know, you'll have lots of time, hopefully for reading the whole library of stuff you didn't get to before. So that sounds great. Well, thank you to so much for coming on the program. It's been a delight to talk with you. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. This has been fun. Well, that was great. I think we can segue to our question, which I thought was a great one that came through my blog. This comes from reader Erica, who, for background, has two children around each two and eight. At this point, all right, I have a question, maybe for best of both worlds, about how you handle afternoons with a napper. My toddler naps until about three point thirty. By that time he has a new diaper and a snack ready, and by the time we're ready to leave the house it's at least four, often closer to four thirty. That gives us about one and a half or two hours we can be out before dinner, bath, in bed, and over the summer we typically go to the playground or do other outdoor activities. But now it's pitch dark at four forty five, so at best we can spend half an hour playing. Other destinations like museums typically close at five, and this isn't a good time for running errands since the grocery store is mobbed with harrod commuters agree with that. I found that very often we just end up staying home, which is fine for about an hour, but around five my kids starts bouncing off the walls, and by then it's already dark. So what do you do in force an earlier nap, wake up and brisk departure to an activity, meander out for a sunset walk at four thirty, stay inside and practice meditation while your kid unravels every roll of toilet paper in the house. I like that, what do you do? Yeah, well I was. I was a little confused on this, so Harry communed. So she's talking about during the workday. So this is somebody who would be I guess, home with the kids during the day. So no, no, I think she's talking about wekends this she worked full time. She's talking about, like how when you go to the grocery store on Sunday. I guess she says, Harry commuters. I think she means that by like the people who work are all like going crazy. I don't know why she said commuters, but you're right. I think she's speaking about because she's talking about the kid days with kids here, I mean, the same thing applies. I mean, if you're home with little kids, yes, you still have that post nap spot during the workday to deal with. And true, you might be inconvenient to be out with the Harry commuters. I totally get that. Yeah, so you had some good answers. Yeah, so my vote was for Yeah, her first suggestion was, do you like just jump out of the house after the nap. That's kind of what we do, and I can be a little forceful about it, and I kind of get the big kids ready, so it's like, okay, when Genevieve is up, we're gonna like literally take ten minutes and you can eat your she can eat a snack in the car, like I'll give her a pouch in the car, especially if it is on the later side, and I know that that's kind of our only chance to do something. The other thing is, you know, you may want to think about moving nap a little early if you can. I find that actually benefits night sleep a little bit. Not to have the nap be too late, especially on weekends, because you can end up like really busy in the morning and then the nap starts and ends really late, and then bedtime is like a disaster. So I'm all about a little bit earlier nap or shorter nap. It depends on the kid. I've had some kids that if you you know, wake them midnap, it's like the world's biggest mistake and it's just not even worth it. Genevieve is actually not too terrible when you interrupt a nap, so you know that your mileage may vary depending on the kid. My other things are to look for the few places that are open later. I mean, we have one fantastic kids museum that's open till six on Sundays, and you can better bet we are members planning playdate dinners or other social events for Sunday night. In Miami Beach. Once we kind of had a nice social network going. We did a lot of this. We haven't built up as strong yet here, but it is kind of a nice way to cap your weekend. And even if you're in the house, the kids don't generally go crazy in the house when they have friends there. It's a little it's a different vibe. And then fine, you can always enact the nuclear option. No, I'm just kidding, it's not the nuclear option option. Screen time is okay. The winter seems like a very appropriate time for screen time. Make your morning super active so that you know when I often let the big kids do some kind of screen time while Genevieve naps, and then when she gets up she can watch what she wants and then they have to do something that's like inside. But I try to get them off the screen stall, but like, okay, you did two hours of iPad, so now it's time for you to play legos or draw or something and she can watch Pink Delicious. And then by doing that, I've kind of engineered myself, like, you know, four hours of fairly quiet time. I'm not saying this works all the time, and I think it would probably get old. But on those nights when you just you know, it's dragged late, or you've been active and you're tired, it is a fantastic option. Yeah. You know, some other readers responded to this, right, that got You've got some comments from other people who are answering that same question. Yeah, someone mentioned going to McDonald's for a play spase that that was a rate success and very cheap. That's a very good point because they don't have like early closure hours. And then somebody else just sort of gave empathy, but did suggest that the library is a destination that can be openly a couple of nights a week, depending on your location. What about you, guys, what do you tend to do? Or a bookstore? I mean a book bookstores have commercial hours, right, so they're not going to close that at five o'clock either, especially like a big chain store, like a local one might, but a big chain is going to Barnes and Nobles. Problem where Barnes and Nobles got the train table and it's open, so just head on over. Yeah, no, I I sympathize that this too, and this is you know, definitely something we're going to be dealing with when we have a little one, in addition to having our big kids too. You know, I'm a I'm a big fan of checking for later hours on certain museums or play places. You know, get outside for a thirty minute walk. It's it's totally fine, you know, push that you're out the door by three fifty or whatever. Go for a thirty minute walk, or go to a playground. If the playground has like, you know lights, which some do you know, the like baseball field type lights or whatever fits by one of those, then great. You know you could stay there while it's dark. You know, you could come back to your house and if you play in the backyard and the cold, I mean it's it's okay to do something like that. And you know you could also try doing later stuff. I mean, you can bust the evening, you know, dinner, bath, bed routine. If you want, Sometimes you go out to dinner somewhere. I mean with a toddler. It's not going to be fancy, but you could go to like a diner or something like that, to big stand that as well, like the or like a pub you know where it's like, okay, there's enough for them to do. Everyone's noisy anyway, so it's a drink a beer. It's it's good. It's good. It's good. And you know, you can also divide and conquer on this too. I mean, if if one parent can take other bigger kids, because it sounds like this family has bigger kids too. You know, one can take the big kids out to do something and or the little one out to eat. You know it. It doesn't have to all be on you or like, it's not automatically mom's job to figure out the post nap activity every day. Well, the good news is, oh, I was gonna say, I know this person, and I'm sure it's a collaborative effort. She's probably excellent, both of them. Okay, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been doing our interview with the Higgins Ladies about their life and we will be back next week with more on making work in 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. M