Some Good Things (an LV & SHU ep)

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah hart Unger. I'm a mother of three, a 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 says Laura. This is episode one hundred and sixty seven, which is first airing in mid October. We are going to be talking about ten good things apiece, in addition to a few other random topics, because that's what we do in episodes that are just LV plus shoe episodes. We've heard from you guys that you like these, which is great. I mean, I feel like we have awesome guests, but people still seem to like our having conversations as well. So we'll try to have a structured conversation or maybe it'll go completely off the rails. Hard to really know. How's it going for you? Sarah, it's going pretty well. I was just I was gonna name this episode good Things, and I'm like, maybe Martha Stewart has trademarked she might have that's true good things, so better things, best things, awesome, bobw things. So you guys are actually Annabel's going back to real real but like, yeah, that's school at the end of October, right, that's uh, well, actually there's been a development, which is that now we might have to rush back next week because of some state thing, and like the school is freaking out because they had planned on a date in mid October, like they had set it up and done all this careful planning and they were going to send the kindergarteners in I think k through second. I don't know, it did include Anabel's class, so I didn't pay attention first for a week and then bring in the older kids the next week. And then apparently there's like this mandate from the government that we cannot get an exception, so it maybe even earlier, but we will see. So this is the funny part about it is that well not funny, but I think it is playing out this way in some other schools. But it's online school at school. Yeah, and they actually have a slogan. It's called walk in, log in Learn. Well that's something because they're trying to keep it consistent. So if they have to shut down again, it's just like the same stuff that they were doing. Interesting, and they want to be able to have the teacher well because they're offering it as an option for students to come in person. There's still some families are choosing to stay home, and actually many people that I know are choosing that option, which is fine because then the school will be even less crowded, which is great. So that way the teachers can continue to teach both habs of the class simultaneously. It was funny because there was languages that said something like in some cases the students may choose to watch their teacher like live. I'm like, they're going to be standing in front of like no, no no, I'm just gonna stare at my screen. I'm not looking at you. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. So the way we're doing it here, which when this airs we will be sort of one week into our return to hybrid school, is they have it split in cohorts. We are in the morning cohort for elementary school, so the kids will go in the morning, they will have you know, live teacher teaching. They're supposed to bring their chromebooks, but they're supposed to have live teacher teaching and then do when they come home in the afternoon do the asynchronous assignment. So there's no synchronous virtual learning going on anymore. After they start back up in person, so you know that that sort of makes sense. The teacher teaches a full day of on you know, in live person classes, they just teach the same half both times, and then the kids are doing their assignments that they've put on Google classroom or blackboard. So does that mean it will be a short day, like four hour day or well, yeah, so, I mean what it means is that my kids will come home probably on the bus eleven fifty. They'll get home twelve fifteen or so, have lunch, and then they will be responsible for their assignments in the afternoon, which judging how this is gone, means they'll be done in another like half hour. So oh well, they can entertain themselves, but our activities are starting up again and everything, so it's not like they have nothing else going on the rest of the day, so I guess it'll just be some extra downtime. I hope they offer some childcare for some families. I don't know. I don't know what they're doing. I mean, you know, the middle school when they go back to hybrid, which will be the week after this when it's theirs, they will be doing two full days a week. So I think Josper's going Monday and Wednesday. Other people go Tuesday, Thursday, and then Friday will be the everybody in a day or something. So I sort of think about they're like, well, if the kids get the assignments done early, I guess we could start like trying to do weekend trips or something, you know, because you can leave early on Friday. So there you go. Well, yeah, it's interesting because that that certainly solves the problem of education, Like it sounds like, you know, your kids will be able to get that good live education again, But it definitely doesn't solve the logistical nightmare for a lot of people. Whereas one will give them credit, like they are dedicated to like having a place for kids to go during school hours for anybody that wants, which is wonderful, and I wish that our district would think harder about that, because it's you know, it's obviously it's a kind of ritzy district, but that doesn't mean that everybody has, you know, the money to cover it, or a stay at home parent or whatever it is that they've chosen to and you know, invest that money in. And so, yeah, it's all crazy, but we're going to move to good things. Good thing this episod that is supposed to be good things. Well, you know, you said you were finding things that are better and more efficient than they were in the That was funny because I was I was coming up with ten good things, and I was thinking we would do ten all together, but I started brainstorming good things and apparently I actually came up with ten. So there are a lot of good things right now, not necessarily pandemic related, but just pandemic adjacent because we're all alongside that right now, So why not we'll jump into some of them. So the thing that made me actually so my brain my idea came after finishing a two hour long meeting that I had kind of been dreading a little bit but turned out to have gone really really well. So, as you guys, know, I want half of my clinical jobs that I'm a residency program director. We now have twenty four residents, so it's like big time. We have all of them, eight in each class, and every three months we have this big faculty meeting that we run. Actually the associate program director kind of run the show, which is great because I don't have to do that anymore. I get to just like watch and we all review every resident and so like the you know, the er representatives there and like the NIKU person's there, and we all like just talk about each one. We focus on the problems, but we we kind of you know, review every resident in their progress. And I always was thinking, like, oh, this is going to be insane when we get to twenty four residents. This is the first year we've had our full compliment, and it's also the first year we're doing them completely online. We had one online one at the end of last year, but I felt like it wasn't like a real one. It was sort of like we were just getting through it. But actually it was super well organized. I felt like everyone was engaged the fact that it was online and we didn't even use video because it's just not the custom at my institution, which is interesting. We were all looking at the screen and the dashboards for each resident, and I was taking like furious notes on a word document because I was actually able to like kind of get some of the quotes from the faculty, which I usually have trouble doing because I'm also kind of there. And I actually felt like it went more efficiently and better than it ever has in person. And I'm sure it was much less disruptive to most people's schedules because we started at twelve thirty finished at two thirty. You know, yes, people started their afternoon clinics a little bit late if they're outpatient, but you know, without travel time. I think I think it was better on every level. So the APD and I talked after, We're like, we're keeping it like this, Yeah, no need to go back. Yeah, so that's true. That was my first good thing. I just think, I think, and I think I've complained about like zoom meetings and they're not always fun, and I will say the unfun kind or the kind we're like I'm addressing a group and I'm like waiting for their feedback and I can't see anybody's face, Like that's a little bit rough, but when you have a shared purpose like we did, like we're going to cover ex material or we're going to go through every resident and talk about them, it kind of works well. So and I feel like we've actually gotten better and better at it throughout this pandemic. It turns out that working from home is a skill you can get Rebeldy, Yeah, you can get better at it through through practice and and so you know, in March, a lot of people were like, oh, this is terrible, it's hard, or you know, I can't figure it out. How we ever going to do this? It's like, well, because you haven't you know, And it's like, you know, trying to play basketball and you've never played basketball, and by six months in of practicing basketball every day, you're going to be fairly decent. So glad to hear that's going well, yeah, so don't worry. I won't talk that long about each one or else. This will be the first four hour, four hour best of both worlds. And now you don't have a community either, so who knows how you're going to listen to it? All right? So was that number one for you? Number one? Okay, meetings are better. Number two is that my reading life has been really good this year, in fact, maybe even better than last year. I feel like it took me a little while to get my groove, like when everything was initially hitting and I was just reading CNN and that wasn't good. But now I'm like in the rhythm with my books. I'm doing library pickups, and I've just read a lot of good books this past couple months. Number three zoom calls with college friends, which we never did before, and like, why weren't we doing this before? I don't know. I mean a lot of people had like text chains, and we had a text chain that would be active every once in a while. But the zoom calls have been so much fun and there's always stuff to talk about, and we're no longer talking about pandemic related stuff. It's just like, hey, this is fun. And now we have a standing call and it's every two weeks, which I think is perfect because I think every week would be like a lot, but every two weeks, I feel like we always have new stuff to share. So that's been really really fun. I feel like the pandemic has helped me and a lot of others pay a lot of attention to habits and what is working and what's not. It's kind of that clean slate disruption that Gretchen Rubin talks about. And also maybe just a lot of time to be more self focused when you're not doing commutes, or maybe your telehealth visits are more efficient than your regular visit. I do feel like work is getting busier, but now I feel like I've built some good pandemic habits and that's been a positive. One of them is my number five, which is my workouts. I feel really happy right now. I've finished that eighty day Obsession program yay, and now I'm doing Lift four, which is four weights workouts, and then I've been running two times a week, so I've liked that hybrid. I think ideally i'd like to run three times, but I'm not sure I'm willing to give up one of the lift workouts, so I don't know. I'm not willing to work out every day, and I'm not sure i want to do a double, so there may not be a solution. But I really like the program number six as I'm really happy with Cameron's new school for him, just he seems to need a little more extra attention. We may have made that jump anyway, but I'm not sure because the thing that made us just finally make that call was when they announced that Broward was going to be online, So I'm really happy about that. So far, I don't know. I've lost count seven evenings. Okay, I don't know if this is a point of pleasure or happiness because I feel like they're work in progress, but I feel like I'm in a good mindset to be working on our evenings. This has kind of been a pain point for a while, but I've had some good ones in the last couple of weeks. I feel like I've started to figure out which ingredients really make them better and make them worse. Being on the phone makes them worse. Unfortunately, when I'm distracted, it is a recipe for my kids to go crazy, and it's kind of part of the fact that I'm really working on that anyway. So yeah, evenings have been kind of an improved bright Spot wardrobe. You're gonna get into this too, so I basically wear the same thing every day, even though I kind of felt like that was bad before, but now I feel like what I wear every day I'm more happy with. So even though I may not be wearing a lot of the clothing that Lannie helped me buy because I'm just not ready yet, and also because I now have this habit of like taking walks during my work day and I don't want to get it's like still really really hot, so I have to wear things that will allow me to breatheable, clothing that I feel comfortable doing that in. But I swear I wear the same top which Laura will talk about and we've mentioned before, and black pants and my necklace and like I bring my Moto jackets. We're on top like every single day. Like I'm turning into female Steve Jobs and I don't really care. I like it. Two more technology has been mostly working again. This is kind of parallels to the meetings, but I feel like I'm getting better at it. Like touching that mute button is now like a complete reflex for me. It always kind of shocks me when it's not for others yet, but I think people are getting there, and even weather, which is not as user friendly as Zoom, I feel like I'm finally getting a handle on, Like I can share my slides and start a whiteboard and do a breakout room and blah, blah blah, whereas I didn't know how to do it before. And then my last one is I feel like, you know, this year has done good things for our budget. I know. That's like I feel very guilty saying that in a way, because many people have had to struggle this year, but for us, we have been lucky enough to enjoy SETI incomes. I mean, we've been working throughout, so it's not like we were on vacation or anything like that. But I don't know, I feel like I finally have a real good handle on our inflows and outflows, and especially what our taxes should be, especially now that we're not homeowners, and that's a little bit different. We learned our lesson by having to pay like a lot of overflow taxes for twenty nineteen, and then before the end of twenty twenty we wanted to our accountant had us like prepay so that we had no danger of doing that again, because apparently if you do that twice you get like a large penalty. We didn't want that. So I feel like we're finally kind of out of the unpredictable part. We kind of know what we need to withhold for next year and I feel good about it. So yeah, there we go. The estimated taxes world is a fun, fun place to be. This is not just you know, meeting the quarterly payments that you also have to pay like one hundred and ten percent of what you owed for the previous year because the assumption is that your income will go up and so that way you are not underpaying. But yeah, it's it's fun when people are first in that world and figuring it out and they're like, wait, I have to pay all this money in April and June, in September and janu Well, it was like a double whimmy because it was like, oh, you owe for twenty nineteen, and oh my god, we don't want to make the same mistake in twenty twenty. So we sent like two large irs withdrawals. Oh those are fun. Yeah, but now they're done, and I feel like for twenty twenty one, I'm like armed with the knowledge and I'm like, we're just gonna like basically our paychecks are gonna be like a dollar every month, and like it's going to with hold everything. We'll be good. You'll be good. All right. Well, on that note, let's let's take a short break well, we are back talking about various our lists of good things. Sarah's been discussing her technology, wardrobe, and budget fun that she is experiencing over the last few months. I feel a little bit sort of inauthentic right now because I have a couple of big fun things going on in my life that I can't talk about yet, but we'll share those soon. I hope that everything not any more babies, in case anyone's wondering, like, that's not it, but so some other cool stuff that I hope to share soon. Let's see one one cool thing. I took a weekend trip with my big kids. This was, you know, my first time away from Henry, which was a little strange because I hadn't been gone from him at all in these first nine months of his life. But he survived, and I survived, and he and Michael had a great time to gather. I think he probably slept better because Michael would give him like ten ounces in the bottle right before bed, whereas it's hard to produce that sort of on your own. You can pump it earlier in the day, but it's hard to do it right before bed. So possibly there was more sleep going on which on some level was tough thing because I was in a hotel room with three children, Like I wasn't getting the full I thought. I was like, oh, I'll seek great without the baby, but you know then I have other kids kicking and storing. So anyway, but we had fun, so great speak of that spending time with the older kids. Another thing that's really been fun is I'm going on walks with my daughter. So she's had some breaks during her school day that have corresponded with when I might want to take a break, and she's also expressed interest and then doing something with me. I think my boys would rather play video games during their downtime that she wants to go for walks. We've been doing that and it's good to have a walking companion. Another really cool thing we got Ruth this watch. It was actually Sam's before but as the kids turn eleven, they get a phone, and before that they have a watch that they can call us on and text us. But she's got her grandmother's numbers in the phone, and so she just calls them and it's like she's very very good at keeping touch. I would say, much better than maybe other members of the family are at keeping in touch and so it's been good that she's been doing that. Sun Basket is another fun thing that's going on right now, so that they were an advertiser earlier a couple months ago. It's one of the meal kit things I've we decided to become paying customers. And it's just been fun because they it's different stuff than I would cook, like more ethnic stuff that is not you know, ethnicity is that I'm necessarily familiar with the cuisine, you know, Burmese something or you know, Polynesian dish or Korean food. So I've enjoyed getting to know those flavor profiles and you know, probably a bit more spiced in stuff that I than I would cook on my own. And so yeah, it's just been kind of fun to have those meal kits as a bit of variety. The changing leaves October it's just gorgeous. It's the best time to be here. I've said that in like six episodes in a row now, But I love fall. Fall is wonderful. Sorry for those of you in Florida who are not experiencing it. Another good thing is my uniclothed drape t shirts. So Sarah at one point and this podcast and on her blog mentioned these amazing T shirts that Lonnie our stylist had found and Uniclo had them either on sale or maybe they're always ten dollars. I don't know, but I found them for ten dollars, so I ordered four of them and they're great, Like there's something about the drape. So it's the uniclothed drape T shirt, and it just looks slightly nicer than your average T shirt and has a good sleevelength, the neck and drape, and so I would highly recommend checking that out. I've been wearing them a lot. Rothy's Shoes is another they advertised on my other podcast, and I actually really like them. They're comfortable. I have a pair of sort of grayish bone colored slip ons that you just wear through fall. I've realized I don't really want to wear boots and socks until I absolutely have to, so I'll keep wearying these, probably three to November at least. Another good thing is virtual speaking engagements. This has taken forever for this part of the business to start going, but we are finally getting people who are actually confirming dates, confirming events. I think it just took people getting their heads around that there aren't going to be conferences for a year, two years, who knows. So if you want to do something, you're going to have to figure out virtual programming. And so you know, it's not where the in person speaking business was. But if in person speaking is not an option for people, then we have to come up with something else. And so that's finally been going Vandercam Media LLC. Speaking of business related pivots, I finally incorporated myself and opened a business to checking account and other big girl business related tasks. You know, wasn't that hard use legal zoom, so go for it if anyone wants to become an actual business, which might be a smart idea given some recent legislation in various states and possibly coming into the federal but we weren't talking about that. And then my last thing, my tenth grade thing, is that my teeth don't hurt anymore. So longtime listeners know, I went through a long sequence of you know, dental related things. Although I think our Dentist is airing after this, but the episode we have interviewing a dentist is airing after this one airs. But I had a root canal and then a follow up root canal because they didn't get everything on the first root canal. But it is all all good now, life is good. My teeth don't hurt. It's really you know. Yeah, when your teethhurt, it's hard to focus on anything else. Will I will tell you this. It's a special and unique kind of pain. I have not ever experienced it, and I am scared. Well, I can tell you now they can deal stuff and do something, you know, if you can get into the endodontist. And it's not a pleasant procedure, and going through it twice isn't pleasant either, But at least it's mostly done. I have a temporary filling right now that I need to get the permanent filling in, but hopefully that'll be relatively minor, I hope anyway. All right, so should we do our Q and I first or our love of the week? I guess these are sort of all. Love of the weeks are ten love of the weeks each? Yeah that's true. Yeah, actually I missed my love of the week in there. I was waiting for your why don't you do years? It's very cute. Oh well, so Henry is eating finger food. I don't know how many people have heard about sort of baby lad weening. It's just more focused on the kids feeding themselves versus spoon feeding them mush and he would be transitioning into finger food now anyway, but it's just he seems to enjoy it more to have control of his own food. And so we put little bits of anything, you know, pork, tomato, avocado, whatever, on his plate, and he kind of MUSHes it on his face and some gets in his mouth because he still seems to be growing. So hopefully this will keep foods as a normal sort of experience. So I'm still hoping we'll avoid some of these selective eating issues that have plagued others of my children. I'm not counting on it because kids are what they are, but you know, we'll see. I it's funny that you mention it's like easier, because I was always like, oh, I kind of want to try baby LIDLEENI with that, I'll just be so messy, and the spoon is easier. Well, I mean I think you got a mess either way. Like, let's let's put it this way. You're feeding a nine to twelve month old baby, Like there's mess all over the place. Like, let's just acknowledge that my kids, like they were such eater, I don't think there was a mess. They like open up they really they were on the spoon. They were throwing it out at you, so yeah, and spit it everywhere. Yeah, every once in a while that did happen. That's true. That's true. But some of them were just like machines, like and they would eat it all in like thirty seconds. I'm like, well that was but yeah, of course the mess comes later anyway, because eventually you have to give them food. That's just whether you want to delay the mess. Yeah, you know, you sweep up the floor and wipe down the high chair, and you know, put in the bath. Sometimes the messiest space is like underneath my six year old. Now, I will say that my children eat a lot of parmesan cheese on pasta, and like those little flecks of parmesan, they are everywhere. It's impossible to get all of them. So there you go. It's always the rice, the rice shoulders. And a stute reader did say, you know, if you leave that rice, it does dry and get easier to sweep, and I responded that, like, that's like such a risk where we live pants little cockroaches. Big floor that cockroach? Oh yeah, we have We have plenty of cockroaches. Who wants to come visit? Kidding? Okay, My love of the week is I as one does when one has a planner podcast and feels like I need to just try every product. I did purchase a Q four planner and it's called the Amplify, And initially I was like, eh, this there's a lot of planner for one quarter, but I actually kind of enjoy it. I don't think it will be my like forever planner, but I think it'll be a nice fun thing to do for the quarter. So if you're looking for like and altern it to the full Focus that still gives you a lot of page for each day, but without a lot without as much specific goal setting prompting, you might like the Amplify. All right, we will check that out. All right, Well, let's get to our question. Do you want to consolidate this one? Oh? Yeah, it's two parts, but also you know, okay, part one, I'm going to consolidate. I'll read it, I'll short it. Okay. I have a nanny who is a lingerer, so when I get home from work, she will often kind of want to stay and talk to me for up to thirty minutes of conversation while I just want to go up to the room and bond with my baby and be by myself. I can't tell if she understands when the day is over and I do the whole thanks and walk her to the door and say, well, I need to go feed the baby, but she's not getting the hint. Question is it okay to consider her off the clock when I have walked her to the door and she has a clear opportunity to leave, And also any tips on kind of getting her to get the message. And then the second part of the question was she said she has a contract for her nanny, which can be a great thing to do, which includes household tasks she'd like done, but she doesn't feel like she's able to do them all. One of the things she wanted was the kid's laundry to be done, and it's not being completed. She has a four month old and a four year old, and she said, I think she feels obligated to play with and entertain the four year old all day. My question is, do you guys have an opinion on what's reasonable from a time perspective, she's working seven thirty to two, the baby naps about two hours, and she also does about four pages of a homeschool workbook with my four year old. Every day. She has popping meals and doing dishes. Is it reasonable to ask her to do laundry? Is that too much? She said, she's really happy with her. Otherwise, do you many to go first? Here? If why don't you go first? Okay, So for the second part, I'll just my short answer is, I think it does sound like a lot for that timeframe, particularly because you know, the writer says she doesn't need to play with and entertain my four year old all day, But like, if the kid's kind of trying to do school and she's doing homeschool with him, she's still watching them. And if she's already doing cooking and then helping the four year old with the worksheet and the baby only naps for two hours, I think if she was working a full day, like seven thirty to five thirty or or seven thirty to four, maybe maybe you could argue that she would have time to do additional household tasks in addition to the meal prep and dishes. But I'm not sure it is reasonable to ask for, you know, laundry in addition to watching these two kids for not even a full day. I don't know that I'd be able to get all that time myself. So there you go. That's my answer to that. And then the first one. My suggestion was just to be really direct and say, like, when I get home, I'm dying to have some bonding time with a baby. So you should definitely feel free to go spend time with your family. And if that is not understood, then just make sure you're not paying her for that time. And if she asks, you can say I was very clear that like you were done, and hopefully she'll get the message. So I don't know what are your thoughts. Well, I thought there was maybe something she could combine these two that, you know, I think maybe the issues this is a really short work day, and maybe this this nanny just doesn't have anything else she's doing afterwards, and so on some levels like well, you know, I'm some other person to talk to, like hang out, you know, kind of fun after work. So if there are extra tasks she wants her to do and she doesn't have anything she's going to like, why not just pay her for some extra hours, Like if you know that is at all a possibility for this person, she could have her stay till three thirty or something and then get to those household tasks that aren't going to happen between seven thirty and two. And especially since the mom is home with the baby at that point, she will have, you know, the capacity to do stuff that she wouldn't have had when she was taking care of the baby during during the hours. So I thought that maybe these issues could be combined into one beautiful solution to that. I love that. And they have a contract, so it sounds like you could make that really clear, like Okay, at two o'clock, I will come home and take the baby, and you will work on xyz household things, and maybe the nanny will be really happy to have a place to be in some extra hours. That is such a good Yeah. I think this is something a lot of people have their trouble getting their head around, though, is that you can pay for you know, childcare and household help while you are in the house. And I am used to that because I work from home and have for many many years, but a lot of people, I'm sure if you are in an office a traditional office job. The thought is, well, we have childcare while and gone, and so whoever gets home you know that first that's when the childcare ends. But it doesn't have to, I mean, you know, and it might in some cases make life function better if there's an extra hour or two. And especially since this you know, we're not talking like having the person stay eleven hours instead of ten, like you know, she's there for like five hours. That's a very different matter. And so if she doesn't have anything else going on, is interested in earning some extra money and working extra hours and that would help this woman, then I think that would be great. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking about our list of good things right now, a question about a nanny who sort of lingers at the end of the workday and what is reasonable to include. 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.