Q1 Malibag Episode: Parenting Stages, Fitting in Fertility Treatments, Stroller Recs, Play Date Woes, Pumping, Screen Time and More!

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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 Hartunger. 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 is Laura. This is episode two hundred and eighty six, which is airing toward the end of January of twenty twenty three. This is going to be a mailbag extravaganza, lots of questions on lots of different topics, mostly pulled from emails that listeners have sent us and also from our Patreon community. Our Patreon community is growing rapidly. We are having a great time on our discussion forums talking about all things work, family, how we combine them. We would love to have you join us, so please come check it out. The best of both Worlds Patreon community. So we'll go ahead and dive right into these questions since we have so many of them. So starting off, Sarah, first question, what is your stroller strategy, So your favorite strollers by use case, what key features do you look for, what situations do you make young kids walk? Or when do you take the stroller? So I'm going to answer the last part first. We generally aired on the side of taking a stroller and almost never regretted it because worst case scenario, the stroller could be used to carry a bag or even a bigger kid for a little bit of time. And you know, unless it's some situation where I really want to be streamlined, if we're driving somewhere, it's just so easy to have the stroller with us. And even if a child is going to be walking and getting back on and off, that's easier than you know, walking and then throwing a tantrum on the ground when they're just so tired out for the day that they don't want to make it any longer. I feel like so again, Genevieve just turned five. We still own one stroller, but we are finally at the point where we rarely I mean probably in the last year, I'd say we rarely used it or brought it anywhere, but before that we often did. In terms of actual recommendations, I feel like I'm out of date. We had a Bob from twenty twelve to twenty twenty two that you know, was a very reliable model. Not the fanciest, but it worked great. And I will say a plug for any system where you can clip a matching or a different car seat and you know, either with an adapter or if it's the same brand. My sister had a lovely upp baby system that she got via I think Facebook marketplace, So I will throw out that pro tip that you do not necessarily need to buy your stroller new. This is an item that you can get some fantastic deals on. Like sometimes families will want to get rid of their single stroller because they are having another baby and they only used it for one year and they're getting a double or vice versa. So maybe one kid's aged out and they're going back to single. So yeah, lots of used fancy strollers to be found if you're interested in one of the kind of higher end but don't want to spend a ton of money. I'm always fascinated by places that don't allow strollers, right there's a couple. The one that stood out in I don't know if this has changed, but a few years ago the National Aquarium in Baltimore, And I know this because we went when we had like a four month old roughly or maybe even he was only like two months old, and the older kids as well, and so we had the stroller for the little guy and they're like, you can't bring it in because it's all escalators, which I presume they allow people in wheelchairs and there, so I'm not sure what they do. They must have elevators somewhere, but anyway, you couldn't bring the stroller in, and so they had these carriers that they gave me, like a carrier to put the kid in. It was weird like they had those. So anyway, digression there and our urban life we had, you know, back when I was expecting Jasper, so like sixteen years ago, I bought a Bugaboo, like the fancy, high end bugaboo, and then didn't wind up using it as much as I thought I would like by the time he was seven months older, so I almost always put him in this umbrella stroller, which was twenty dollars at Baby's r US because it folded up very small, so you could just stick it in the trunk of a cab or you know, if you were on the subway folded up or whatever, and like, it just went more places than this giant multi piece stroller that looked really cool but wasn't very usable. Once we had two kids, we bought a tandem fill and Ted's stroller, so it's double decker. The little kid is on the bottom and the big kid is on the top. Obviously the little kids view is not that great, but hopefully they're young enough that they don't care. The cool thing about that is then it's not side by side, so when you're side by side with two kids, you it's wild. It's wide, you don't fit through doors or elevators in places, whereas if it's on top of each other, you're you're more likely to make it work. And we wound up getting a lot of use out of that because then Sam and Ruth could use it together and it actually got a new life for a while with Henry and our former nanny's baby is about the same age, so the two of them would ride it together. So yeah, it was great for travel, like with Henry in particular, and I had done this for Alex, but then the stroller was too old, so I had to get rid of it anyway, But you use a car seat, like for a Greatco car seat model that you can just pull the car seat in and out of the car and then strap it onto the foldable base. And they have some that are like one hand movable. I mean, it's really great if you can get a stroller that you can actually kind of move with one hand. It's that maneuverable because inevitably you've got something else you need to be doing with the other hand. So I would highly recommend that. As for you know, I don't know, we don't bring the stroller many places anymore. Henry can walk he off and just doesn't want to though that's the problem. But then he won't stay in the stroller either, like a whine about that, so somebody winds up carrying him inevitably. So yeah, I guess you just got to be prepared for that. I think I did enough solo outings and I visit My kids were big chunkers, so like when they would be like two, I needed a stroller, like I could not survive without it otherwise I'd have like a kid flailing in the parking lot and I couldn't carry their thirty pound pot around. So your mileage, Mayberry, I forgot to mention that in the kind of zero to eighteen month age range, I loved just using their ergo for travel, Like I just found that super streamlined and easy. And that's you know, those like front pack kind of things. And yeah, memories of good, good trips and good like Disney vacations where we could do that because at Disney you have to park your stroller all the time, but you don't have to park your ergo, So BIXI a very true, very true. Yeah, I remember, Yeah, we did a Disney trip with the fill and Ted's and an ergo with Sam and Jasper in the fill in Ted and Ruth in the ergo. That was a lot of child volume to be moving around, but we made it work all right. So Sarah, question two, there's a certain assumption in this next question, how did you convince your husband's to plan with you? There are many assumptions in that question, many assumptions, and that is the question. So we will share. Okay, what is their level of involvement and do they take part in goals setting too. You can go first? Can I go first? My husband is probably more of a spontaneous sort than I am, though some of this has evolved as our level of complexity in our life has risen. In general, I do the family schedule, and I attempt to take into account everyone's input of what they would like to do. I'm pretty flexible to suggestions and open to the reality that teens in particular have veryous, spontaneous social lives, and so I have to deal with that reality. But our general agreement is I create the schedule and then he does not whine about it, and mostly that works, and I try to make spot you know, on the weekend, I'll make spots for him to go to the gym or run, and you know, if there's something he says we should do, I'll try to build it in there too, and he'll do the occasional family trip. But yeah, that's kind of how the split winds up working. So we do like bigger picture planning together, usually on like little couples trips, Like if we have like a forty eight hour kind of break somewhere, we will spend some time thinking about the months ahead. We've done this like at the end of the year before or in the middle of the year thinking about how things are going. So I feel like the big picture stuff we do actually sit down and plan together, but when it comes to like operationalizing it on a week to week basis, that does definitely fall more on me, and I'm just okay with it at this point. I think maybe ten years ago I would have bristled at it or have been really passionate about trying to find a way to make this, you know, more of a shared responsibility. But maybe I'm just mellowed, or maybe I just have recognized certain things that he does that I don't think about, and I think we're generally both okay with this. I think it is important that if you're going to be doing most of that planning, that you have a partner who is going to generally either help you do it or go along with what you say, because it is hard to put all the pieces together. And they do recognize that. And so when you're like, okay, you know this is their plan for the week, if they then are going to go back and be like, well, I don't like this, this, this, and this, then that I can imagine that they need to be creating the schedule with you. Yeah. Yeah, but that's not usually an issue for us. No, you can't. You can't have somebody do it and then somebody else like trying to change it. That just doesn't work at all. And you know, I'm not saying that, I mean because I know there's a lot of questions about like the mental load of various things. But i'd point out that Sarah and I are both really into planning and logistics. I mean in the point of like Sarah's you know, runs a podcast on plans and you know, all this stuff, and I write about time management, and so what we do may not necessarily be what others would do, and so that's important to keep in mind with that as well. Yeah, we will sit down and talk about if we have a lot of stuff going on, we'll talk about different things. And I would say it's also somewhat change of not having to do as much of this with my husband not traveling as much. Back when he was more on the road pre COVID, then there was a lot more logistics, tire and out with stuff like that. All right, next question, how would you define the stages of parenting? What stage are you in now? That's such a fun question. It was fun to think about. Okay, here are my stages. Why did you come up with SMA? We have the infant survival mode stage, when you're like leaking, bleeding, not sleeping, like literally like it's all a haze. That's like definitely one separate stage. And I feel like for me that's like the first two to three two months maybe. Then you have the baby stage, where it becomes a little bit more predictable, but you just don't feel like you're just like lost, and that lasts for me about until weaning. Like it's the pumping and the still the night wake ups, but it's very sweet and they're so cute at that age and they're cuddling and kind of missed that stage a little bit, but not the pumping part. Then there's the toddler stage, which is when they're they're walking, but they're totally irrational and maybe they're not very verbal, and they're they're really challenging because they can really get hurt very easily. This is to me, I feel like even the most hands on stage even more than baby, because baby you could just place them somewhere and like move on tyler, you certainly cannot. So it was my least favorite stage. I'm not afraid to say it, especially now that I don't have toddler's I'd feel bad if I did. Preschoolers it's like transitional, it's like more reasonable than your toddler, more verbal, can understand frameworks of behavior a little more, but still challenging. And then there's school age, which is like kindergarten plus, and I feel like we're Genevieve's in pre K but she turned five, and I feel like we are moving to the point where everybody is school age and above and I am here for it. I really enjoy it. I guess after that comes like tween stage, and I would say Annabel definitely fits into the tween category, both hormonally and socially and all that. And so I guess I have two one preschooler to school age, one school age, one tween, and I I I'll have to have Laura talk about the stages that come after that, but this is my favorite stage. I did love babies. Babies are really really fun, but there were some years in there when I had multiple little ones where I honestly felt like my day to day wasn't very much fun. I was trying to get as much joy out of it as possible, and there were wonderful moments and wonderful things to talk about, but I almost felt like I was waiting for something, And now I feel like I've I've arrived, and this is what I was waiting for. And I really like enjoy waking up on a weekend morning with my kids home. And so if you're in that middle, I feel like there weren't voices saying that there. It was more like just you're word it goes worse, Like, well, for me, it's didn't get worse. I love it now, and so you will have lots of fun things to look forward to if you're struggling right now with younger kids. Yeah, I sort of thought of it. It's like, you know, there's the baby stage, which I kind of included the littles in general, like so toddler's and I mean I often had a toddler and a baby, you know, together, so it's like, you know, that was like the little kids stage, and we are not in that anymore. I mean, for even Henry's three, so we still in kind of the little stage. It's not that level anymore. Right, then there's a stage where you have school age kids, which I include sort of preschool in that, and then I kind of view this like there's a teen slash young adult stage, and my older kids are definitely I mean getting into that. And you see it what they're hanging out with cousins and stuff, like there's all these you know, young people sitting around the table and like, you know, having their own lives and things they do, and I think it's I'm really I enjoy the big kids stage, but I'm kind of looking forward to having a house full of teenagers. And I know teenagers get a bad reputation, but they're people. They're finding their place in the world. They're often very interesting, they're fun to talk to, they do various adventures. It's kind of cool to watch them develop. But I guess the thing about having five kids is that you still have the little ones too. So I have literally Jasper starts drivers training later this month, and we're still working on the potty training on the other end of space. Many skills to be learned simultaneously. So yeah, that's we're in the middle of all of it. Why don't you read the next one? Sarah, Sure, I would love to hear your thoughts on dealing with fertility or pregnancy issues in the workplace that fall outside the realm of maternity leave and breastfeeding. Not that those two pieces aren't challenging. I just find that at least most workplaces have a clear structure for dealing with them. Fertility treatments can often involve a huge number of office visits for blood draws and monitoring, and also can require you to be ready for minor surgery with only about thirty six hours notice. Many people go through more than one cycle of IUI or IVF, sometimes back to back. There are times when travel or planning meetings, etc. Can be really challenging. Would you just come clean to your boss and ask for what you need, phone it in for a while and hope no one notices or claim vague unspecified health issues, Laura, I think that you want to. I mean, obviously, yes, this is very challenge and ideally you just be able to have like a closed door conversation with your immediate supervisor to talk about what's going on and just you know, ask for support and flexibility during this. I think in general, with this and anything else that anyone's going through. You want to figure out how to address your manager's main concern, which is probably the worry that you will drop the ball on something important. So if you are going to need to be out at some point unspecified or you know, miss stuff because you have to be in the office, you probably want to figure out can somebody else cover for you? Right? Like, is that an option in your particular line of work? Do you have a junior colleague who wants to learn more about what you're doing and you can work more closely with that person and figure out that they can take over for you if they need to. You know, I think the particular person who sent this in they're not in a place where they do something more specialized, so that would be a lot harder. And you know, that's it's an issue. You know, if you're in a business where you travel a lot, then perhaps you want to ask to be staffed on something more local for the next few months if that's an option where you work. Many places have this for whatever reason. You know that people can put themselves on a local track for a couple months and then open themselves up to more travel later. But you know, yeah, it's it's going to be hard to hide it, like I mean, especially if you are having to go in for blood draws like every morning, unless you Sarah was pointing out, sometimes you can get really early appointments. I mean, if you can get like a you know, seven am appointment every day and then you don't go to work till nine, like, yeah, you probably will just be able to work around the actual procedure itself. And then that's only happening once a month or whatever, so it's slightly less of an issue, and so that might be something to look into as well, right Sarah, Yeah, definitely, I would. I would say, you know, you want to choose a practice that's quality and you don't want to sacrifice that. But logistics are important. And because reproductive endochronology is a lot of you know, kind of a competitive market, there are a lot of practices that do offer like really early appointments, and there are more and more solutions that might involve like mobile flebottomists coming to your house, Like there is probably some of this medical stuff that, believe it or not, you could outsource more than not outsource, but like pay to make it easier more than you think. So just don't assume that that that's a lost cause, and maybe be communicative with your practice and say like, Okay, you know, I'm going to sign up for this you know, expensive fertility package, but I'm going to the extent possible need as many my ultra sounds first of the day at seven thirty in the morning or whatever it is. And again, this is so challenging, and it is unfortunate that we don't have a better, you know setup, And I hope, hope that you're able to like actually be able to talk to your supervisor or boss about this, because I do feel like trying to be secretive would add this whole entire layer of stress that you probably don't want right now. And I will say, like, if someone is completely obnoxious about it and doesn't want to be flexible, then they may not be the world's best employer once you do have a kid, So you can keep that in mind absolutely. All Right, we need to take a quick ad break and then we'll be back with more of our mail bag extravaganza. So we are back. We're doing mail Bag episode. Lots of questions sent in by people from email. You can always email me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Sarah, can you quick say your email address so people can send you questions as well. Yeah, there's so many different ones you might as well just use Sarah dot heart dot unger at gmail dot com. That's Sarah with an H and then Haart. Yeah. We also have a lot of questions from our Patreon community, so we would love to have you join us there. We have great discussion forums going. So here's another question from a listener who says that she has lots of routines with her kids. One that they have that's particularly well ingrained is having one pm screen time on weekends. I assume that this used to be nap time. As the kids got older, it became screen time. It's now something they do almost every weekend. But she says, how do I best handle it when we want to do something on weekend afternoons and sometimes one of her kids is a little bit less flexible about it and complains a lot and not want to do things because that's the routine that one pm is screen time. So any tips, she says, are welcome. We run into this. I don't know my answer is going to be necessarily what you're looking for But let's say we get asked to go and do something outdoors with friends at two o'clock and my kids know that screen time is usually like on the afternoons, and they talk about, oh, I might miss screen time. I kind of gently try to remind them that if they're that obsessed with doing screen time to the point where they'd be missing out on like actual things that are at least, you know, you would think somewhat fun, Like I'm not asking them to I don't know, let's go back to our last episode, tour a museum and look at art for four hours. Then we need to reevaluate the role of screen time in your life, and perhaps that means we might need to take a month off screens, which we've done before in our house, and usually that is plenty to get them to be like, Okay, fine, you're right, I can let go. And that might mean also that I'm flexible and might let them, you know, watch screens later that day. But I don't necessarily promise it as a tit for tach because I just don't want them to feel like I am guaranteed three hours on my iPad or else I am not like living a just life because I don't want them to have that degree of obsession over it. So so far it's worked. Yeah, so I've handled it. I don't know. I mean I try to be empathetic with this. You know, there's people who really enjoy video games, for instance, and that's what they would prefer to do, and you know, we may not be those people. I think there's a certain having four boys, I will tell you that that's a lot of how they kind of interact with friends sometimes. And you know, so what us could look as like a waste of time is in fact they're social time with friends, and so I you know, try to be a little bit empathetic with that, you know, and particularly for a kid who really does enjoy it. I would try to work out some sort of swap, Like if with the family schedule, if it's like if you get whatever two to three hours on weekends of screen time and one o'clock is not going to work because of the family schedule, like try to swap it out and say like, well, you know, you could be on from ten to one, or you could be on when we get back in the evening. You know, that'll be fine if you're on, you know after dinner and til bedtime like that would be okay too. If what the kid cares about most is having the screen time versus the exact time when it happens, that that would be My approach is to try to swap it out. I don't really necessarily limit my kids like in terms of hours, but I think because of that it can fit around other things. So it's not like that like one pm is sacred. It's like, well, we can go do stuff on the weekends, and they know before or after it. If we're having downtime, that's probably you know, when they can can play it. I would just double check he's not, like, I think that's probably not the case. But if you have a friend who is like arranged to meet his friends at one pm that's a little to play Fortnite together or something like, you are in fact disrupting a playdate that he sat up, like you know, somebody coming in and be like, no, sorry, you can't go to dinner with your friends because I've decided you should do something else. So I just you want to double check on that. I assume that's not what's happening, but you know, you want to see that's fair. If it was a specific occur and I guess it also matters what the family is doing instead. I don't know. I guess yeah, not to be hierarchical about it, but there is this thing rubs me the wrong way about I don't want to hang out with my but my kids are younger, I think teens. It's probably a little bit of a different scenario. Yeah, perhaps, all right, Sorry on that one. Okay, So the next one, this person writes, how do you resolve of having a goal that you care about but also don't want to do? My daughter wants to swim with me. It's very important to me that she learns how to swim. I also hate the pool. It's an ick factor for me. So if it's important to me, do I put down the goal of swimming with her? Or do I avoid it? Since I hate it already? I know hiring someone to teach swim is another option. But my question is more about whether you should create goals your better selves should want to do and that you know you'll be happy when they're done. Oh deep, Yes, I thought this was an interesting question. I mean because the first part was like, how do I get my kid to swim? If I hate to swim, and everyone's like, swim lesson, swim teacher, and you're like, oh, that was easy. But of course the question she's asking is more like, if there's stuff you hate to do but you want your kids to do it, like, what do you do about that? Especially if you know that they would take it more seriously if you were doing it with them. I think you know, for stuff like that, it probably can grin and bear it a few times a year. For stuff that you don't really love to do but you know that the kids would want to do it with you, Like it doesn't have to be every week, but you know, a couple of times a year would be enough to establish that you're not saying I'll never do this in my life. You can also choose the scenario like I mean, you know, I don't know making up something of like your kids like anime movies or whatever, and you don't maybe you could choose one that you'd watch, like you know, look through write ups and find one that is like the least offensive to you and seems vast, and then you know, have it be that, you know, choose at a time when you wouldn't be doing something else, and then know that all time passes and in two hours you will be on the other side of it, or you know, same with any other activity. I'm not particularly into board games, but I will occasionally do one that was of my choosing, like with kids at a time, again of my choosing, rather than never, but never. It's pretty close to it. I don't know. I mean, I don't like to do stuff I don't, but you could often redirect kids too, to like related stuff that's close that you maybe don't mind as much, right, Sarah, I mean that's kind of what you Yeah, this question is sort of layered because I feel like she has this vision of swimming with her daughter, and she says her daughter wants to, but I can't tell if there's really like, you know, has a daughter had alternatives like maybe daddy swims with you or your partner swims with the daughter, but you do this other thing with her. I guess that's a general rule. If I hate doing something with my kids, I do try to avoid it. Would you'd put swimming in this category, right? Yeah? I don't really enjoy and I do I have many times have I been in the pool with my kids, So it's not like, oh, I never do that, but if there's another option, like if my husband's there, then I don't. He does the swimming, and then it's not like I don't do other things with the kids. I love reading to them. You know, maybe you could think of some if this is sort of like an idea of you doing a one on one activity together, like that's what appeals to you, not just at teaching her swimm because we've already discussed that you can easily outsource that piece of it. Think of some other activity you might want to do together. Maybe you're going to take a mommy baby yoga or cooking class, or go on like random nature walks or like have a spot home. Like think about what you were actually looking for in this activity and whether it has to be swimming, and if it doesn't, I would look for ways to spend that quality time doing something that you enjoy. If you have to swim on occasion, you have to swim, I've done it many times. It's gonna be hard to avoid swimming for your entire life. I mean, maybe you could get away with it, but if your kids like it, you're gonna be in that hotel pool. Sorry, Okay, how much time do you spend on the pod on an average week. Well, let's see, we have about a forty five minute show usually, so obviously there's the recording time, which, if you figure you know, a little bit, a few minutes before and after, it's about an hour for the recording. We do maybe an hour prep or so, more or less. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. We do blog, I post on the blog about it, and I do this show notes out, you do the show, not like the equivalent, and then we record ads, which usually it's pretty quick, but it can take a little bit longer. But it's only a couple hours per week. It's actually not that many. Yeah so, but it's a very fun part of the week. We're glad that we're getting the chance to do it. Yes, very worthwhile. And we don't do the sound editing, and I never want to, so very grateful to have people help us with that. Excellent suggestions for this is really for Laura, because I'm not as good at the fun lists suggestions for spring fun lists. I'm not as keen on flowers as Laura. So my current ideas are mostly visiting a friend, going ice skating with my older kid, baking, but none of those are particularly springy. I'm in London, so it's wet and cold and windy without it being snowy or really terrifyingly cold. Yeah, I mean she was like spring list. I'm like, wow, we're at spring already. I was still working on my Winter fun list when we're recording this in early January, which is probably gonna have stuff like ice skating and using my hand warmers and you know, going sledding if there is snow. I presume there will be at some point. But there's actually flower shows. There's this flower show in Philadelphia in early March, so that will probably wind up on the wind A Fun list since that is still technically wintertime. But when I create these seasonal fun lists, it's more about activities that I will enjoy that are sort of associated with this season, so you feel like you had the experience of the season if you live somewhere that has four seasons, as London does for this particular listener, And so whatever makes London in springtime feel like London in springtime for you, and you know, for somebody that might be going to see flowers, but maybe for somebody else it's I don't know, some annual event that happens and there's a fashion week or something that they always go to in the spring, or if there's an activity that works better during certain months than others. I mean, if there's a you know, I'm trying to think of just like the Flower Show happening in winter. I mean, there's nothing wintry about flower Show, but that's something that happens here every year and I like to go to. So anyway, just think of it like that. What would make you appreciate the season? What some activities that are mostly available during that season? And then go with that? All right, Sarah, this question is definitely for you. This is from a breastfeeding physician. That's how she put herself. As she says, she has kids who are five years, two years, and three weeks, so congratulations for her new arrival. She's on a sixteen week maternity leave here, but she's trying to figure out when she goes back, how to do outpatient clinic notes from home efficiently or I guess the alternative is pumping at so I'm trying to understand. I guess she's making a choice here, right, does she? She's saying there's a trade off there's a trade off if she pumps at work, and so she's at work longer and she's having to do her notes at home versus, you know, trying to do it some other way, stay at the clinic longer, get them done there. Maybe you can talk about what the most efficient way is to deal with patient notes when you also have the time off from seeing patients for pumping as well. So hard, Oh my god, And yeah, I think she's saying pumping at work is in it. She's probably like me and that it would be so quick to just go home and feed the baby, but like you know, pumping takes much much longer. I will say, get your set up at home to be the best that you can. So take a nod from all those people that were doing telehealth at home and get two screens and whatever you need, like throw money at that problem to make your setup as good as you can. My husband definitely does his notes with two screens, and I think it helps. My home setup is not that good anymore because I don't do my clinic notes at home, but if I did, I would do that. I would also make sure you have the best pump that you can to make that part as efficient as you can, though you probably know that I don't know. I probably would plan to just like take one for the team a couple. If you can't get a home set up, that is great. Or you find yourself distracted at home because you're home and you have multiple little kids and nobody will leave you alone to do your notes, which is a distinct possibility, you might want to consider doing like a routine one to two nights where you just plan on pumping at work and then taking a longer night, maybe being home in time to do the babies like later night feeding, or do like a Saturday morning maybe between feedings, if you were like me and just wanted to avoid pumping it all costs, like be the baby in the morning, go to work as your nose for three four hours to catch up, and then come home. This sucks. All this sucks. I hate that you have to do this. I hate that you know physics. I mean, it's so hard to keep up with your documentation when you are pumping. And I will remind you that this is finite and you've done it before and it will be over and probably depending on you know, you have a four month leave, depending on how long you want to pump. Maybe it's just six months or four months. Remember, you get to decide this. There's no rule that says how long you have to do this either and either way it's going to be finite. So I have a question because I know some people, and I know this didn't really work well for you. Some people have had success with hands free pumps, or even just holding it on with one hand and that you can type with the other. I know that I answered a lot of emails pumping like with one hand while holding the pump on with the other hand, sort of elbow and wrist pressed up against it for mild pressure on it. I guess as the case. Maybe, so I'm just say, you know, it might be possible that you'll be able to do some notes, maybe not at your total level of normal efficiency, but maybe you'd be able to do some while pumping, and then maybe that would ease it up a little bit. Not everybody can, but if you can, and you're lucky that way, that would be helpful. Yeah. My guess is that this she mentions the inefficiency. Some people are very like like I have friends at pumped in five minutes, so like this wouldn't have been a question from one of those people mentioning that pumping at work is inefficient makes me feel like she's not a good pumper. Plus this is her third kid, so she she probably knows. She probably tried, yeah, trail, although I mean, I I'm old, so I no, I never got to try like the LV and the Willow, which is like the two latest or there's probably more ones since then, but like in the last couple of years, I feel like those are the two trendy hands free pumps, and so maybe they've gotten a lot better and they might be worth a try if you haven't tried them before. Yeah, yeah, good, because it definitely if you can get some of that time back for notes. I mean, that would be a major lifestyle improvement. Does so it's worth trying it even if it winds up not working. You want to know that for sure. So yeah, all right. Next question, how do you handle it when your friend's kids exclude your kid from their play, or say, create a thousand random rules that your kid has to obey, so basically making the play unpleasant for your child. When my own kid engages and sort of this kind of behavior, the person says, I can try to change it, but obviously at a loss for what to do in other people's houses. So, Sarah, what would you say, Yeah, this is happening recurrently, and my kid's miserable and doesn't want to get together with this family. I think I would probably just try to find other ways to connect with the person because and this may be age specific too. I mean, if I had like a three year old and they had a three year old, this might be more about like talking to the parents. Hey, do you think you could try to make my kid more more comfortable because they're just little and everybody's trying to figure things out if they're older and it seems like like actual bullying and they're just really not getting along. I was thinking about this. I probably wouldn't keep getting that group of kids together because at some point you have to make sure that the kids get along too where they're going to be unhappy, Yeah, I would say. I mean, if it's your good friend, I mean, obviously you can try to have a talk with them, but it may just be that this needs to be a friend for you, and that's fine, I mean not all. I mean people try to force their kids to be friends, but at some point you know, kids are their own people and you're your own person, and the people you like, maybe they're offspring, don't necessarily like each other. So that's you know, that's life. You can go do adult things with this friend, and if you're going to do stuff with the kids, you could go to a neutral place, like you all go to the zoo together, right, because they're not in charge of the play. Then if you're walking around looking at tigers or else, you know, have them over to your house, where again you are in charge and you can kind of make sure that everyone is playing in a certain way or you have more control over what happens. But yeah, that's what I because you don't want to subject your kid to this too much just because that's the person you want to hang out with. Yeah, I'm grateful I haven't run into this too much. I could think of a couple of like isolated occasions where I've been like, eh, this isn't the best fit and it makes parenting hard too, So like I think it naturally would phase out in most cases. But it doesn't mean you have to throw out the friendship and get together without the kids, all right. Last question that was not planted by the way Laura wanted to make that clear, but really wasn't curious to know what Laura is planning to do with her Norwegian Winter novel. I, for one, would love to read it. I had really enjoyed The Courtland Boys. I also would like to read Norwegian Winter, so Pleisa, all right, Well, good to know it's going to have an audience. At least two people will read it. That's exciting. There's probably novels that don't have two people reading. Anyway, revising it is on my list for the year, so to stay tuned. I just you know, have to figure that in like everything else. But in the meantime, yes, people can order The Courtland Boys as an ebook if you would like to read a novel that to Yeah, Sarah read that a couple of years ago. I guess it's very fun, very fun. You can check it out if you'd like. Anyway, this has been best of both worlds. We have been doing an all mail bag episode Mailbag Extravaganza. We had lots more questions that came in we couldn't get to. We're going to put some of those as the questions for the next few weeks. In the Q and A segment, and we'll do another mail bag in a couple months, so feel free to keep sending them in. We'd love your questions, we love talking about all these topics. 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.