Mornings. Ep 15

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercam. I'm a mother of poor, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of two and soon to be three and a practicing physician. 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 fifteen. We are discussing mornings. What we do with our mornings or don't do with our mornings in my case, but Sarah does a lot more with her mornings. But this is related to our opening topic of sleep, which as parents of small children, has become somewhat of an obsession for both of us. How much are you sleeping these days? Sarah? I sleep a fair out these days. You know, I'm kind of like you, like I'm not necessarily an eight hours kind of person. I know you'll get to your very specifics number where this podcast, but like normally seven will do it. But lately it's definitely even closer to the eight. But the only thing is I have insomnia, which is so unlike me. Like normally I can sleep through anything, Like if I want to go to sleep at any moment, I can and I can stay asleep. But right now, if something wakes me up in the middle of the night, which random things often do, like my husband coming upstairs or one of my kids, then I can't get back to sleep. So I'll be away from like two am to four am. And it's crazy, is that keeping you up? Or is she sometimes it is that, Yeah, she starts to and it's funny. I'm actually very comfortable in bed, which is like I think it's because we have a better mattress this time around, honestly, and I like kind of have the pillow technique down, so it's not even like, oh, I'm so miserable. And by the way, for reference, as we're recording this, I'm like almost thirty five weeks, so who knows, maybe there'll be a baby by the time it air. But yeah, no, I don't. I think it's hormonal. I think it's a insomnia type thing. Yeah, so what do you do? Do You just lie there? Or do you try. I try to lie there and then I give up and I read a book and then usually if I read for like an hour, I can fall back asleep. So at least I've kind of enjoying that, like, and I have the perfect book for it. I'm reading Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner, and it's sort of plotting, but in a nice calm way, and it's like it was designed to be read. Say, there's some books that are good for insomnia, there are some books that are not good for insomnia, and you got to find the right thriller. Yeah, maybe sort of like slow poetry or something. I've been reading this Mary Oliver book of poems, and it struck me as I was reading it, Yeah, this would be a good book for two am if I was, oh, yeah, maybe I should get a little bit there. And you're pretty uh, your kids are pretty good sleepers though, right, Oh yes, so I will say, like I guess it was two nights ago my three and a half year old did wake up at two am, and that's what woke me up then. But like ninety eight percent of the time they sleep great, They go to better around eight. They get up between six thirty and seven, and you know, I'm past that point where it's like, well, my kids sleep through the night, Like, yes I do. I am not quite at that. But you are, my little guy. It's only a year younger than yours, So this is not even a year younger than you're. You're little guy. But he's just he's just rough. He's been rough. But I so I sleep. Sarah was joking about the specificity of this. I sleep seven point four hours per day. That doesn't mean I sleep seven point four hours every day. That's an average. That's a long term average, because I'm the time management freak who's been tracking my time for two and a half years. And what was funny about that is that I learned that seven point four hours was my number. So I, you know, did my tallies on the six months after I made it through six months, and it was like seven point four hours. No, it's interesting, Okay. Then the next six months was also seven point four hours. And when I did the second year, it was also seven point four hours. I mean literally the average between year one and year two it was like seven point thirty nine and seven point four oh four. I mean it was within a minute that is so interesting. I guess it's and you didn't track during pregnancies. Yeah, I don't have that, and I do know. I mean, people can sleep less for extended periods of time if they have to. But what I think, what I think actually happens for a lot of people who don't have chronic insomnia, which again is like a medical condition that has to be treated and all that. But most people who don't have that have a set point that I do believe they will catch up to one way or the other. And you can catch up to it in very miserable ways, like falling asleep in meetings or you know, like you know, sleeping through things you should have been in. But what'll happen. I'll see this on timelines is people will say, oh, I sleep six hours a night, And what they mean is they slept six hours Monday and Tuesday, and then things fell apart and then they cracked and snap through their alarm on Thursday. They took a giant nap on Saturday and Sunday. So yeah, you did sleep six hours two nights of the week, but added up it came to like fifty hours, which is seven point you know, eight or whatever. You know, it's a different it's a different thing seven point oh eight. Sorry my math is wrong. Well, I'm definitely one of those people who does not follow the adage of like keep the exact schedule every day. I have like my weekday kind of schedule, and then I have a weekend, and I definitely I probably make up sleep to some extent, but mostly I just shift everything later. Well, I and I don't have set hours either. I tried to. I've tried to for a long time, especially when my little guy was waking up at ridiculous hours four forty five, five five, and then I really during the week had to be asleep by ten thirty because there wasn't really much opportunity to make it up, and so I try to get in bed at ten and so i'd hopefully get ten to five and get the seven hours, and then I would average to my seven point four with getting to take naps on weekends and stuff. But it's gotten a little better, and because it's been getting a little better in the morning, I start staying up later because that's my natural inclination. Inclination donation. Yeah, So, which which brings us if I may to segue into our main episode on morning routines, because I am somewhat obsessed with people's morning routines. I wrote a book about people's morning routines which had this really clickbait headline called what the most successful for Breakfast? But Sarah is one of these people who has a really good morning routine. So what does yours look like these days? Well, thirty five weeks pregnant, but like, okay, during a time, Well, no, I'm doing the same thing now thirty five weeks pregnant that I do not pregnant. So actually that part's fair. And as an aside, I said this before, like to me, third, try like, I'll take it any day over first, try like, I feel pretty normal most of the time, to be honest, but I was gonna say, total disclaimer is that I'm like one hundred percent lark like and I know that's in my nature and my parents actually both I would say lean that way. Well, my dad more than my mom, and I must be genetic or something, because I just I have a much easier time getting up to an alarm and getting up early than I do staying up and that's not always a great thing. I mean, it's rewarded in our society because you can get a lot done in the morning. You know, you're not late for stuff. But then it's kind of like less fun sometimes because I know, if I go to a movie and it's starting at nine, like unless the movie is riveting, I'm gonna fall asleep against my will. So it's not necessarily I feel like it's seen as this like great thing, and I think it has good size and it has bad. The good side, I's able to stay up till one am on the party night or something. I really do, I mean, and I try, but like even in college. I mean in college, being a lark meant you got up at like nine, although sometimes I would take eight am classes for that reason cause I was like, I don't mind, I'll do you. Actually, I'm going to get it like one on classmates exactly, But then I would be jealous of my roommate who would like sleep till two pm every day and stay up till like five or six eight, you know what I mean. Like, so it's all relative, but currently okay, So my morning routine definitely different from college. I usually get up between four fifty and five am. Sometimes I set it for four fifty because then I just feel like I can get downstairs by five am. So that's a little maybe a little compulsive, but whatever, I kind of like it. And then lately, actually I've been trying really hard not to look at my phone before I like as the first thing, because I'll notice that the minutes just go by. So I saw it somewhere, probably on my phone ironically, but really like I just don't look at it. I come downstairs, I kind of plan out the day. I have been going back to trying a short little meditation like five minute kind of a session, so that's kind of fun. And then I either write a blog post or I sort of do my own organizational tasks or journaling, like you know, something that's gonna stay private. And I don't have like a plan like Monday I do those Tuesday do this. It's just like whatever feels right that day. I don't usually do work work. It's more like strategic planning, like I'm planning out the week or I'm planning out the month, or I'm you know, thinking about what I want to do for the weekend or even like if I have I don't know, an intricate day with a bunch of moving parts. I'm thinking about how that's gonna work, so that I drink my coffee. I kind of hang out that last till about five forty five forty five, and then I usually if I'm gonna if it's a workout morning, which I try to do like at least two usually three weekdays, but sometimes it's two, but usually it's three. Then and by five forty five I start running or doing our workout, and then I'm done by before six thirty. I shower, and then the kids are up by then. So once the kids are up, it just becomes kind of like family hangout breakfast, and then our Nanni comes at seven thirty and I leave for work at seven forty five, so that's pretty much. I get a lot done in that, I guess, and at two hour and forty five minute firing, you got the long term planning, right, So that's sort of I think of that as workish kind of thing, even if it's not, you know, your main job focus necessarily, but and the long term stuff. Sometimes I'm thinking, like this morning, it's the beginning of the month, and I was like sort of putting together like my work goals and my personal goals and what do I need to get done work wise and home wise before the baby's born. So yes, it can, it can. There can be some work flavors, and then you've got the personal in the form of the workouts and the meditation, and then you've got the kid time in the morning that you have family breakfast. Yeah, and I've that kid time counts. I mean, that's you know, it's not it's usually an hour. It's not tons and tons of time. But between the time that I'm done with my shower and the kids are up and I have breakfast with them, it is a fairly quality hour. And Wes, we've talked about dinner everyone's cranky, but breakfast everyone's usually kind of happy and cute. And I really so just a logistical question here. Does your alarm wake your husband up? Or is it? How does he feel about the four fifty alarm? No, he doesn't get to ever complain about my alarm because he tends to set his for like even earlier and then snooze fifty times. So sorry, Josh, I mean, actually he's really trying. But this morning I think it went off. His went off at four because he had some ambitions to do something, and then I said, please don't snooze, Please don't snooze because of my like sleep issues, because currently it didn't honestly never would bother me, but now it does. And then he didn't snooze, and then mine went off at four fifteen. I don't think it. We're both really what is he doing at four am? I think he was planning on gutting up, probably to do some patient notes, honestly, and maybe run because last night was Halloween and he did not get to get in a run that he wanted to do. He wants to get a lot done in the morning, but I think he is much less naturally able to wake up early and much more easily able to stay up late. So in his case, I think it's tougher because there's a bit of fighting the natural tendency. But I don't know. Neither of us really bother each other with the alarm. Plus mine is not that loud. I have this kind of it's like, you know, I set a custom one on my iPhone and it's like a song that starts and it's pretty I usually hear it right when it first does, because again I wake up pretty easily, so it's not like some loud thing jangling over and over again. It's like two bars of like a fairly quiet song and like, yeah, I'm out of there. And that's what they cautioned people if they're trying to do morning routines that if your spouse is not also getting up to do their morning routine, you need to come up with a system that is not going to massively annoy him or her. Well, it's so funny because I guess some couples like the morning wake ups, would bother each other. But you have to keep in mind also like he did residency and surgery and be like out the door by five am, and I never remember, and I just don't think it really ever like bothered, Like I didn't hear it. I don't know. We're good at like ignoring each other. And the book's good. It didn't bother me, and I don't generally bother him. So I think we're just good sleepers. Except I'm pregnant. Yeah, But so you get all this time to do all this productive stuff, and by getting up early and to make that happen, you go to sleep at nine thirty at ninth though, right, yep, you got it, at least by ten. I mean usually I'm like kind of headed upstairs by like nine, nine thirty, and then if the book is really good, maybe I'll last till ten and then I'll pass out. So it's usually it usually turns out to be about seven hours most weekdays. But I don't run every day. So like, so I didn't run today because yesterday was crazy. I couldn't believe how many steps I got, and I'm like, I need to rest. So I think I got up at like five thirty, So I'll alter it. If I don't want to run, I'll wake up a little later. And then this morning, like I just like it was five thirty, so I guess I slept a little bit more and I think I went to bed a little bit after ten. So there's flexibility that it's not exactly the same every day. Well that's yeah, that's great. I don't have a morning routine, not at all. Well, I mean there is one, but it's not really dictated by me in the sense that I would say most mornings of the week, I wake up to the two year old shouting, Mommy opened my door. Mommy opened my door. Because he is he is not safe to wander around the house by himself, so we have a child block on his door, so he hasn't figured out how to get himself out of there yet. But but that doesn't mean he wants to stay in his room. So he's screaming, like open my door, open my door. The good news is that has good news is it has moved later. It is seldom yay, it is seldom before six am now, which you know to some people listen, Oh, some people listening. I've seld before six am, like I'm I'm not going to have children, but it was. It was much worse than that for a long time. So six am I can kind of deal with. Anytime after six is great, and often is after six thirty now, which is good. My older children at is much later than this. I usually have to wake up the older children around seven fifty to get ready for school, so that first hour is all two year old time. If I'm home alone with him, meaning my husband isn't also home, well we'll get up, we'll watch some form of cartoonish television. So I'm partial to I've been, you know, trying to manipulate this because I hate some of the shows. So I can tolerate Go Diego Go. I hate the Adventures of Chuck and Friends. Unfortunately, he really likes the Adventures of Chuck and Friends, so we have our little showdowns about that occasionally. Paw Patrol is more doable. I don't mind paw patrol. That's not bad. Have you tried Daniel Tager Ye, he was word by it. I don't know. I mean, he's like a fast paced like my kids was my even my five year old was sit there. You know, he doesn't He's watching it occasionally, and he needs He even has gone against them. Kayu. We like Cayu for a while, and then he decided, you know which, Kyu's occasionally like obnoxious four year old too, So I don't really mind the passage of Cayu into the dustbin of our television history. Dinosaur, Yeah, Dinosaur pretty tolerable. So, you know, we're watching Go Diego Go, and I'm drinking my coffee and I'm reading on my kindle. App if I've got a good book going, so often I can get you know, like the equivalent of forty five minutes of reading in in the morning. So I guess in that sense, it's like a morning routine of doing something I want to be doing, but it's uh, you know, reading reading on the kindle app while he is yelling for things occasionally like mommy commercials or mommy want whatever, cheerios mommy want Yeah, so uh that happens, and tell you know, seven forty five, and then I'm getting the other kids up to get them ready, and that's about the time ur nanny comes. If my husband's here, you know, he'll he'll do the hour with the baby and I'll you do other things. I'm I'll sleep oftentimes, or I'll get up and do a quick run on the treadmill if that's an option. And the two yearld's getting better. It's getting to the point where I can shower at least while he's watching TV. And I think pretty soon I will be able to at least run in like eight minutes spurts and then go check on him. You know, if I'm running on the treadmill downstairs and he's watching TV, and I'll be able to go down for like eight minutes and run and come up and like make sure that if there's commercials, I forward through and then go back down so slowly I will get my morning's back and it's not like running on a rolling running his strollers and options. I've got the other three, so I can't be not old enough yet exactly. Yeah, No, it was showering in the morning. The good thing. The thing is, though, with with morning routines is that it's really about doing stuff in the morning that you would not be able to do the rest of the day. And so when I've written about people's morning routines, it's often with that in mind, Like, you don't have to get up at five am just to get up at five am, And you don't have to have a morning routine if there aren't things in your life that would work for that. Right. So the truth is, I mean, if I think about what would I do if I got up early to do a morning routine, because I have experimented with it in the past in particular, but you know, I'd get up, I'd run, I'd probably spend an hour doing focused work like planning and strategic thinking and maybe cranking out drafts of you know, stuff that really needed my attention and focus. But the honest truth of the matter is I can do those things during the day. That's the upside of self employment, right, And I totally cannot. You can't just be like, sorry, I'm taking a little bit of flexibility while I have four patients sitting in the waiting room waiting for me, and I'm going to like, you can't do that. Whereas if I'm you know, looking at my day, I say, well, I intentionally didn't schedule a call between let's say one and two pm, so I can take that time and go run. And that's so if I couldn't do that, then obviously I would have to get up in the morning and run every day, and I'd probably be a lot more disciplined about it, and you know, i'd be waking up at five to make sure I got up before the two year old. But you know, yeah, because it's sort of like you in my case, like would I rather get up? Wouldn't ID rather just wake up when I wake up? Kind of But it's it's it's really not it's a choice. I guess. It's a choice. Do I want my free time to be in the morning, before my day of work and before I've had all the time with the kids, or do I want it to be in the evening. And in my case, there are like nine factors that make the morning more desirable, like the main one being my energy level. But you know, there's just sort of like, to me, my ability to accomplish things, my desire to accomplish things, the clear headedness of my mind, my physical energy, those are all there in the morning, and none of them are there after work, which is the only other real time that I might have a little discretionary window. Like I know some people are super productive after their kids go to bed, but because that doesn't work, I don't have that much of a well defined evening routine other than like hang out with the kids and then pass out with a book, whereas my morning is really orchestrated to take advantage of that. So I think you kind of have to figure out, if you have a non flexible job, like which one works for you, because there's not a right answer. I mean, tons of people do runs and all kinds of stuff after work, but for me it has to Yeah. But the thing is, even people who think they will after work or think they will at night still wind up with the issue of their energy levels being lower toward the end of the day. There are some people who are yes, total night owls. They are truly writing the great American novel at night, or you know, planning out their great business ideas at night, or they can go run at night or whatever. That's great. Most people, like if they look at what they're doing before they're going to it tends not to be really high value activities. I mean, that's we have leisure time at night, but we spend it kind of puttering around the house or like on social media, watching a lot of TV and stuff, and many hours can pass that way, but it's hard to motivate yourself to do some of that, like you know, important but not urgent stuff that Sarah is doing with her morning routine. And so for a lot of people, it would work better to try and cut that puttering off earlier at night, go to bed a little bit earlier, wake up a little bit earlier, turn some of those unproductive evening hours into productive morning hours. Like you know, people say I'll do it at the end of the day. It's like, well, you'll do it with whatever time is left over, But then it turns out that there's not any time left over. Yes, it's factory and energy too. I mean that's a huge part of the equation. Do you have any more any morning routine on weekends because I have much less of one. Yeah, I mean some some weekend mornings I've tried to every couple of weeks, I go for a long run with one of my friends around here. We go to a local trail and run, you know, some number of miles eight usually or ten if she's training for something, and it's it's good because she's fast and I'm not really that fast, but it forces me to be fast. So any of my long runs that have actually been done at a speedy pace have been because she's been pacing me pretty much. So you know, we do that like and that's get up and do that. I love when I can do that. In the weeks. Sunday mornings, I'm now getting myself to church relatively early because I joined the church choir, and so we have rehearsals at nine o'clock on Sunday morning, and so I have to get up on time to get myself there before the ten o'clock service. Then, so we have rehearsal at nine and ten o'clock is the service. So I guess that's my Sunday. So in other way, yeah, I mean sometimes I do I like to get up on Saturday and run and Sunday go to church, and it's not quite as early as it would have to be during the week, but you know, it's so kind of nice. That is nice. I always like waffle between wanting to just sort of like get up early and get my runs out of the way on weekends, but the truth is I want to stay up later too, so it doesn't really work unless I know I can get a nap. So I typically just kind of sleep till the kids wake up, and then my husband and I will like try to take turns all those Sometimes it ends up being me just because I am the more natural morning person. And if I'm like naturally awake when they are awake, I'm not gonna like, you know, force him to get up if I'm awake in the bed, But then I'll just get in my run, like after he wakes up or whatever. So I don't have as much of a routine on weekends because there's just not the necessity. And I think, you know, even if you don't have like Sarah's built in two hours and forty five minutes for her morning here, but you know, even if that's not gonna work, like still just taking like thirty minutes to do something that's cool for you. Can I think make life feel a lot better in many ways. Absolutely, it's definitely because the day started on like, oh well, I've already done something for me, so you know, how bad can I get? And I've heard a couple of people who've even done things like you know, it doesn't work to work at home or to go whatever. I mean. I know one man who went and did focus work in the waffle house near his house. He had a waffle house nearby, and he'd go and order eggs, not waffles, because eating waffles every day would probably not be a great idea. Eggs coffee, he sounds like coffee. But you know, could use that hour to work and then come back as everyone was getting up. In that way, he didn't wake up other people as much by being there. So you know, you just sort of have to figure out like what works for you, and you know, again you don't have to do a morning routine. People are often like surprised to hear that I'm not, you know, up at four thirty doing stuff Like no, I am not up at four thirty on purpose, except I've been thinking about it. What am I what am I going to do? Like, let's say something beautiful happens in the sense of my two year old suddenly starts sleeping like the older kids, and oh yeah, that's a good experiment because it is going to come true. Like if I had to wake all of them up at seven forty five to get on the bus, I yeah, I mean, I it's hard to because I do like to stay up late and read. So I don't know if I would stay up till midnight and read and then I would wake up at seven, get myself ready and then get them ready, huh, which I think is totally I mean, as long as that's your intention, and then that's valid because it's true. It's like why why why get up earlier to fit in a run if you enjoy staying up to read when you can get your run in later, Like I know, we'll see. I mean, I especially in the summer, it's good to do the runs in the morning. So then i'd have to I'd have to shift that too. But yes, oh my gosh, whetherwise that must well, because you which I hate the treadmill? Necessary evil? Yes, all right, well, speaking of necessary evil, is how we get that into our Q and a here I that was? That was. We have a listener question this week from a longtime blog reader who wrote in that she had a question about school fundraisers and events in an already time crunch She's got. So, this woman and her family recently moved to a new state. They're now sending their kids to the local public school. They had been at a private school before. And she said, our new public school literally has multiple fundraisers and events every single month, like selling stuff, dine out night, spirit days. I can act for the life of me, imagine how two working parent families keep track of all this stuff? Maybe they just don't. Also, how do they make time to volunteer in their kids' classrooms on top of all this stuff? And figure out where your time is better spent volunteering versus fundraising. And this woman is saying, you know, she moves so she currently doesn't have a job. She's going to find one there in her new location in the next few months. But she says, I don't even have a job, and I'm struggling with this right now. Maybe it's just that it doesn't take much to make me feel guilty that I'm not doing something. So how do we handle school fundraisers and events? What a great and timely question. I'm interested to hear what your public schools like. But ours is the same thing. Oh my goodness, it's like crazy, Like there's still citations. I feel like it's actually maybe more for money than for time at this juncture. But they do tend to like love to have like this event and that event. Well, I mean, first of all, if the goal of the event is fundraising, then your presence at the event doesn't necessarily matter. Right. So if if I mean I got invited recently to some like swanky thing that's like gonna be at some nice bar that's a week before my do it, and I'm like, h yeah, that sounds fine, not gonna happen. But I can donate and then do that really quick online or in an envelope or something, and then like move on, you know, so because they'll still get their fund raising that they want to get and I don't have to participate. I mean, my general rule for like the actual events for fundraising is like, if I think it will be fun, then I'll think about attending for the fun social aspects for the networking perhaps and if it doesn't sound fun or like doesn't like seamlessly fit, then forget it. Maybe I'll give some money. Maybe I'll do the next one, because there's always gonna be a next one coming. Yeah, I am. I'm a big fan of like noting the wrapping paper. You know, I don't want or need the wrapping paper, and it's it's so I don't want to buy stuff. I'd rather literally just check because it is such an inefficient way to get the school money. So yeah, I'd rather write a check donate stuff for a fundraise or whatever. And so one thing we did, I mean, so we can look for opportunities to do that. So, for instance, my fifth grader, they have a fifth grade activity fee, which of course is not required. I mean this is a public school, Like they're not going to make you pay for your kid to participate in in fifth grade special activities. But you know what I did is I just doubled the fee and I wrote a check for that, and so so I like, give this to somebody who cover. So that's a very simple thing to do. Like, if there's something that is a fee that they're asking people for, just you know, top it up if you can and that's one way you can you can do that, you know. And as for volunteering, I think it's a tricky one. I've I certainly like to do stuff with the kids. I also know that sometimes it seems almost like there's a bit of a make work element, because we do have a district that has a lot of parents who are home with their kids. Yes, like they want to I want to feel needed, or like yes, no, I I do. I know what you're saying. And and I don't know if your district is like mine, but there are a lot of stay at home moms, and and that's great, I'm I'm you know, if they enjoy doing lots of stuff, then awesome because it's only benefiting the kids. But sometimes, you know, I really have to question do they really need extra bodies there or yeah? And it is amazing. I know. Even the other morning, I had to come into school at nine am for a meeting, and of course there's the crush of children coming in at nine am, right when school starts, and I was walking in, they this woman could in the lobby could see how sort of angling toward the office to get myself, you know, permission to come into school and she's like, no, no, come over here, and then she was signing in parents who had meetings or any you know, contractors who had things that were going on at the school so that the school administration didn't have to do it right, And I was like, Wow, that's pretty amazing that somebody just does this, you know, and they have a different parent there every morning basically doing this, and it's a way to free up capacity. They have parents doing the sign outs in the afternoons, and that's an incredibly valuable thing in terms of freeing up school staff capacity to focus on other things. So I mean, I'm thrilled that people do it. On the other hand, like, you know, there's many parents who you simply are not going to be able to commit to be there from say, you know, eight thirty to nine forty five every Monday. I mean, that's not something well, And that's that's the nice thing about I feel like I don't even have to like, like, actually there were I think there was a PTA meeting today and I was like, I didn't even like write it down because I'm at work. And then the truth is like, I guess I don't feel like I'm missing that much. I know, that they give announcements, and I do read the announcements, and if there's something that affects us, then of course that's great to know. But like my actual presence at the meeting, I don't think would have been all that helpful for me or them's well, and so you know, what I've done also is if it's something that really matters to my kid. So I at first was being a bit ba humbug about the school book fair, Like they have asked parents to come in and volunteer for the school book fair, and I did it the first year, and I was like, well, this is insane. They don't need me here. They have like five other parents in the library. You know, the kids are not even really needing us anyway, because the librarian is so incredibly confident she's running the whole thing anyway, so it's not like we were necessary. But my kid was then so excited to see me in the library during the time that he was shopping for books, and so I realized, well, this is a day I could come in and help out and see my kids there at school and they get excited about that stuff like that. Yeah, and then that makes it fun for you. You You know what I mean, Like, so yesterday I went in for some class stuff, but I wasn't really volunteering. It was more like, oh, this is fun for ann about and it's actually fun for me. So I think if you ask yourself that question like is it really good for your kid? And do you want to do it, You're going to naturally be inclined to do it. And if it doesn't fit those two criteria, just move on. There'll be more then, and then vote for your local public schools to be well funded and donate, and really do donate if you can. I mean, there's some really great causes. There are students who can't afford lots of things, and a lot of times, you know, people may be more willing to put in time than money, but if you are working and have the ability, then putting in the money is probably pretty So I would say that's definitely how we handle that, all right, Sarah, I love of the week. Let's get to that, ah, my love of the week. I wanted to stay on the sleep theme. I love sound machines. And it's actually not how you guys hear each other's alarms, is that you have no we actually we don't use one in our room, although I think we will put one back in there once the baby's born, because I think it helps to like mask those little tiny noises that you really don't need to wake up from. But no, our kids each have one in their room and it just plays like the sound of rain, and I think it really helps them not to wake up early in the morning hearing us get up. And I think it really sets the mood at night when it's like part of the bedtime routine and they hear that song go on. I think there's a little bit of a Pavlovian element to it that I am not about to give up anytime. Story, so we are all about the Sam machines. We use these little like twenty dollars ones from Amazon, and I will admit that like every time they get dropped, we end up having to buy a new one, So they're not the best made things ever, but usually they last a year or two and well, yeah, that's a lot of sleep, yes something. Yeah, so my my love of the week. If I want to stay on this sleep thing here, I'll say Max pillow soft earplugs. So unfortunately they're harder to find out. I can only on a target like CBS started only carrying that's our you know drug store around here, they started only carrying their brand, like their house brand, and they are not as good. I will put that out there that the Max are batter and there they're supposed to reduce the descibels while twenty two decibels or something, so if you you know, you can wear them for concerts if you wanted to. But they're kind of ugly. So they're like this big wax chunks that you stick in your ear. So it is possible that my husband's snort. We'll put that out there. And so for years, the Max pillowsoft earplugs were kind of, you know, the sanity saver in that regard. Yes, anyone else has that issue now, I mean I sometimes, you know, wear them even in hotel rooms though, because you never know like what random noises there are going to be, and so it's a nice way that if you are the kind of person who wakes up relatively easily, just you know, if there's somebody deciding that they need to yell something in the hallway, maybe that'll be the difference between you waking up and not waking up and getting a good nights, and they're not complete sound blocks. Do you hear that? I mean, you sound like it's the fire alarms that's going off. You'll hear that. I feel like they're a version of a sound machine, because you know you don't. It's in my years. Anyway. This has been Best of Both Worlds Episode fifteen. We've been discussing mornings and sleep in general. Tune in next week for more on how to make 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.