Answering Your Personal Questions with MY MOM! | Ep. 106

0:00Welcome to the first episode of season three of the learning to mom podcast, mom friend. I am absolutely giddy for this episode and for the launch of season three. I hope you love the new cover photo. Now it is the same awesome podcast that it's always been, but it now has a hugely upgraded podcast cover photo that I think more accurately depicts the true vibe of what we got going on here in the podcast. So I'm super excited for it and it'll probably be here to stay for many seasons to come. If this is your first time tuning in, then this is a super unique, fun episode that I had the honor of having my mom join me for in honor of the new season starting.

0:42We cried a few times, we laughed even more, and I learned a lot from the woman who has given absolutely everything to me. So I hope you enjoy this week's episode, mom friend. And I do want to say with this being the first episode of season three, such a huge milestone. We've done just over a hundred episodes and I just really want to say thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the podcast, for sharing it, for reviewing it, for being a good mom friend back to me with your encouragement. It is so surreal that this is legitimately what I do now. So thank you. You're going to get a lot out of this week's episode, mom friend.

1:19So let's get right into it. So today we have my mom on the podcast. She goes by many titles. Sometimes and most often, she's called Sweetie. So Sweetie, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for coming on for the first episode of season three. Thank you. It's nice to be wanted. It's nice to be invited. Happy to be here just so that everyone knows this she is the reason that the podcast is able to function and to run so every nice review i've ever had any impact that the podcast has had on your life is all because of this woman right here you're gonna make me cry Okay. We had Patreon members write in to ask questions.

2:16So we're just going to go through them and we're just going to have fun answering them. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. Well, I guess the first one is for me. What made you want to start the podcast? Essentially, I was the first of my friends to become a mom. I'm a big podcast listener myself. there was just no podcast out there that I really vibed with I saw the need for one that like actually shared tangible information and one that didn't partner bash and just complain about the hardships of motherhood so that is what I created thank you for listening okay sweetie this is a good one would you ever homeschool why don't you share everyone your journey with homeschooling?

3:01In case you didn't know, I was homeschooled. We homeschooled our three for 12 years combined. That's not through 12th grade, but for 12 years. How I started homeschooling was my father was a principal, my mother was a teacher, and I grew up with people calling the house complaining. I heard a lot of the gossip in the teacher's lounge from the teacher's lounge. And so I knew the rougher side. And then I had a friend who was homeschooling, who was a couple years ahead of me. And her kids were amazing. And my oldest was in preschool with her middle. and when I would have parent-teacher conferences, I would go and ask the teacher a number of questions and there were two teachers and there were 12 kids.

4:01And the teachers would always look at each other in these conferences and go, huh, I never noticed that. Or, huh, I don't know. And I thought, I mean, there's not 35 kids in the class with one teacher. So I thought mine might fall under the radar in a bigger class. So that's why we started down that path. Why did you continue to stay on that path? Because it was so great. Teaching your child to read is the best gift. And seeing the child learn something. And physically seeing that light bulb go off. Good girl. Oh. um I yeah to answer that question I think for a long time I was like I'm never gonna homeschool and then the more I think about it I'm probably gonna homeschool but I will say that you homeschooled way before it was trendy and popular and it is like I think COVID kind of made it more trendy and popular or at least it made it more commonplace I guess And then post COVID people have caught on and it's now, I just feel like it's a, I don't know.

5:20I just think it's kind of trendy and I do have some issues with it. I feel like it's become a thing for influencers almost to be like, here's my Pinterest worthy homeschool room. And this is what I do. And I don't know if people really understand the responsibility it is to be your child's primary educator. And it can feel weighty. But, you know, even children who were raised in going to school, traditional school, have gaps in their education. So there's going to be gaps wherever they go. So you just have to decide if you want to be the director of that. Yeah. Or if you want to turn that over to somebody else.

6:05Yeah. Okay. The next question. Why don't you answer this next one, Mom? How do you come up with your kids' names? Well, the first baby, we were in the hospital for three days and we didn't have a name. And I don't recall us like having a list of names. Was that a thing in your time? It was a thing. Okay. It was a thing, but I don't recall us doing it. And so we just, you know, we saw that precious, perfect face and all the names that we thought we would go with, I guess, and our, even though we didn't have an official list, didn't seem right. And so the nurses kept coming in, you've got to name this baby and we can't let you go until you name this baby.

6:57the name that we came up with in my opinion is so beautiful and perfect and suits her the second one is a boy and he has a name that is also my husband's name and my father's name and my grandfather's name and my husband's grandfather's name and so there you go and then Layla sweet Layla is named after my mother who was also Layla and she passed three weeks before Layla was born. And so I'm so happy you have her name. Some backstory into the kind of mother that my mom is share what your pregnancy with me was like with having a preschooler, a toddler at home, and your mom? You know, God gets you through what you need to get through.

7:56And it was hard. So I had a four-year-old, a two-and-a-half-year-old, and I was pregnant. And then my mom got sick and we moved her in with us. And she had a terminal illness and passed in 10 weeks. Gosh, I did not know it was that fast. And then you were born three weeks later. Holy cow. It was like June 1st to August 23rd. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it was tough. We had just moved into the new house. We were in a new town. We didn't know anybody. It was a lot. Yeah. You forget. Wish I would have written all that down. Okay, how did I come up with our kids' names? Matthew came up with our oldest name as a loose mashup of his name and my name.

8:57And then our boy name was basically – so we didn't know if – for both pregnancies, and I think this is how we're going to always be. we don't know the gender until the baby is born and so we had to come up obviously with a girl name and boy name and we agreed on the the boy name as well then just because well because we knew we we had the middle name which makes it a lot easier because then we just had to figure out what name sounds best with the middle name so we had that and then basically two years later when we had a boy we still liked that name but there's no like special meaning like it's just like oh we we just really liked this name and we liked it for this long you might not tell your uncle that it doesn't have a special meaning oh yeah well then what's funny is my it's actually my uncle's name and i did not know that because we don't call him back yeah that is funny um

9:57the next question what's the hardest part about running the podcast there's a lot of hard parts but back to the beginning this woman right here makes it all doable she watches my children twice a week so that we can do the podcast so in those two days a week i meet with brands i record episodes i edit episodes right now we're recording from her house with both of my kids napping one of the most common questions i receive is what pregnancy or nursing safe skincare and makeup do you recommend? In case you didn't know, it is so important to be using pregnancy and nursing safe skincare during those seasons.

10:39I mean, I believe it's important to always be using toxin-free skincare and makeup. You're literally putting those products on your body, but it's especially important when you're pregnant and postpartum. You need to avoid anything that has hormone and endocrine disruptors along with formaldehyde-releasing chemicals and even some natural herbal ingredients can cause preterm labor contractions. And pregnancy and postpartum hormone shifts lead to skin discoloration, hormonal acne, and loss of collagen, which can cause pimples, melasma, and new fine lines to appear. And I'm probably not telling you anything that you didn't already know.

11:14So I understand the desire to find a product that works because you want to feel your best and be the most confident version of yourself as possible, which is why I've been using crunchy because it actually looks good and I have peace of mind while using it because their ingredients are clean and they're third-party tested. I could literally talk for days about them and why I stand behind them so freaking hard from both an ingredient standpoint and from a performance standpoint but I don't think you'll believe me until you just bite the bullet and try it and there's no harm in trying it. They have a 30-day money-back guarantee but but I literally have never returned anything.

11:53And the whole contents of my makeup bag is from them. And speaking of my makeup bag, I linked everything that's in my clean makeup bag to help you get started to see my go-to regular products, or you can go straight to their website. I linked both in the show notes below for you. I want to know the next answer for you, mom. So this is the question. How'd you figure out your oldest was allergic to dairy? Well, I guess I'll answer it and then I'll let you answer it. Cause you have your own story with allergies. I found out that my oldest was allergic to dairy. She was like eight weeks old, maybe.

12:27Everything gets blurry and it's only been three years. So yeah. Yeah. She started like crying all the time after she ate. And my mom was the one that was like, that's actually not normal. And here I was first time mom just thinking, oh, babies just cry, scream all the time. It's normal. And my mom was like, no, that's not normal. That sounds like it hurts. The pitch. The pitch of the cry. Yeah. And then she got really, really, really bad baby acne that was dismissed as baby acne. Mother's intuition is so real and you have it the absolute instant that you become a mom. It's not like it comes to you once you're on your second kid.

13:09I just, I knew it wasn't baby acne because this was, it was so bad that it was all consuming to me. It was my full-time job trying to figure out what this thing was. and we were dismissed by two doctors, maybe three, it all runs together. And we weren't really taken seriously until she had blood in her stool. So in her diaper, and then we got referred to a pediatric gastro and I can never say that pediatric GI specialist. We went in at this point, I had already taken out dairy because I had done the research. I'd been like, pretty sure this is what it is. And it had her baby acne started to clear up.

13:41I don't think it was all the way gone. But then when I went into him, he asked me more questions I've ever been than I've ever been asked. before in my life. And then I showed him videos because we all know videos is higher quality than pictures. Literally had videos of my phone of like the blood in the diaper and everything. And he was like, yep, it's dairy. So luckily she outgrew it at 12 months, but not everybody does. So that's our story. My brother was allergic. Yeah. On the topic of allergies, my mom, I would say, is a specialist. I am not a specialist. So tell a little bit about my brother's allergies.

14:19Okay. So he was a spitter upper baby and not a little bit, but a lot and all the time. The docs just said, no, that's normal. Some babies just spit up. He wasn't a crier or a screamer and he didn't have - He was a happy spitter as he would say. Yeah. He was a happy spitter.

14:42and I didn't know better. I didn't know that I should probably look into that. And then as time went on, he would get sick all the time. He was sick all the time, and it would be bad, and it would be almost like whooping cough, kind of. We would have to go sit in the shower in the steam, and then we'd go outside in the winter and sit on the stoop in the middle of the night. And the doctor just kind of, oh, some babies just, you know, some kids are just sick. They just, when they get a little bit of something, they just really get sick. And it just started to not sound right to me. And I was at a luncheon with a bunch of homeschool moms.

15:32And I was kind of throwing out my woes about him always being sick. And every single mother around that table, one after the other said, he's got an allergy and my family is allergic to this. And this is what we do about it. And they all went around the table and there were about nine or 10 of us around this table and they all had a story to tell. And so from that, I was able to find a, the only doctor in the city at the time that truly tested for food allergies. and he was so great. And he was like talking to Mr. Rogers of Mr. Rogers neighborhood. It was so fantastic. And it came, the panel came back.

16:23Actually, he had several tests done, blood draws. And how old is he at this point? Like, is he still a baby? He's not yet too. Okay. So he's like a year and a half. And the panel. So he was allergic to dairy, wheat, peanuts were off the chart, all legumes. He had sensitivity to corn, so he couldn't have peas. He couldn't have corn. So then I was able to talk to a nutritionist who was very, very knowledgeable and sent 60 pages of information. And she put us on a rotating diet. But I was the only one at that time that I knew that was dealing with anything. And so. So when you say though, that those homeschooling moms that had it, was that just like one would be like, it was like just dairy in their house or like just eggs or something.

17:20It wasn't like a laundry list of things. Correct. And they weren't moms that were in my circle. I was invited to this luncheon by somebody that I knew. It was my mother's helper's mom's friends. Funny. So they weren't my friends. I wasn't in constant contact with them, or I didn't really have relationships with them other than this one luncheon that God placed me at to give me that information to launch me. Yeah. And you were doing the whole allergy thing way before food became i don't know what they're like allergy brands exist allergy and free brands existed true yeah you couldn't find gluten-free crackers or bread or anything like that um so that's when we switched to the rice milk was the only non-dairy milk that was available because he was allergic to almond milk and everything else because he was allergic to nuts yeah so he couldn't have but they didn't make that then.

18:25There was no such thing as oat milk and almond milk and all that. Soy milk. Soy milk was a thing, but he's allergic to soy, so he couldn't have that. Yeah. So anyway, but yeah, we had to make all of our own bread and all of pancakes. We did the whole deal and shopped at the health food store before anybody else really did. we were in a food co-op where we would order this food from like wisconsin and it would come on a semi and we'd go over and unload the truck i have no memory of that yeah i probably had you staying with the mother's helper while i went and did that probably wow let's see what is the next question who's been your favorite guest do you have one i'm about to out my mom i don't think she listens to the podcast, which really no hard feelings.

19:20I listened to the beginning. That's totally fair. I don't, I don't fault you. It's not, I, yeah, you're not a first time mom. I've had really great guests. Like I love the episode about how to bond with your baby in the womb. I love the elimination communication episode. That's something we do. Obviously I was very impacted by that episode. But there are two episodes that I think get really overlooked. And I want to talk about them. They were both in season one. One is how to support a grieving friend. So like a friend that just had a miscarriage amidst your pregnancy. I don't think, I think that episode just gets really overlooked.

20:05And I think it's a really tender, like really tangible episode. And then the other one on that same line is overcoming the anxiety that you have if you're pregnant after you've gone through a loss. Really good. Like so good. But then, I mean, I could list off so many others, right? I loved the fluoride conversation with Dr. Stacy. Love the overcoming burnout episode. I don't know. They're all good. I think they're all good. Okay, here's another logistical question. Next question. mom why don't you start us off what's a parenting decision you've felt judged for um well homeschooling definitely it was so out there and my parents were educators and my in-laws were educators and my brother-in-law and my cousins were educators so yeah I felt judged for that.

21:05And then I felt judged for kind of how religious we were. So yeah, probably many, many, many more things. What advice would you give to someone who's feeling judged for a motherhood decision? I would say go with your gut and let it go. And I would also say, you know, if that's not somebody that you would take advice from, then don't let them get in your headspace. And if it is somebody that you would take advice from, I would say just be gentle with them and give them grace because they don't know. They're not walking in your shoes. they don't have your experience and you've got to trust your gut and go with your gut.

21:59And then lastly, I would say that I validate the fact that you feel like you're judged, but on the whole, people only are thinking about themselves. So if you feel like they're judging you, it's usually because of a decision that they've made. And people think and ruminate on themselves. They give you a thought that's a blip. They may say something biting that's just a blip enough to hurt you or get your attention, but they're not ruminating on you. Let it go. Do you want to answer that? Yeah. I would say, I think the one that really comes to mind now is when people ask us, so we have a girl and a boy.

22:46So then I think it's like, oh, are you done? No, I want, I would love so many more. And then I think there's a lot of raised eyebrows or just annoyingness. So I just feel judged for wanting a larger family because that's not normal in today's society. And I have so, so many thoughts about that. But the one comment that I hate more than anything is when we're getting into this conversation with someone, doesn't matter who it is. And I feel like it is a actual common thing. That's, oh, I only want two or I only want three because I want to give my children the same amount of opportunities that I had as a kid.

23:27Excuse me. What are you trying to say about the choices that my husband and I are going to make? First of all, like that's really rude. And then my husband hates it because are you saying that we're not going to make enough money to give our children opportunities? Like he kind of takes offense that way. something about me i know we're gonna give context to this is that i had the best childhood known to man i loved my childhood and but i think that there was some i think i loved it so much because we like did things so simply and so that's more of my vibe is less is more give your kids the same opportunities that you had.

24:10What does that mean? I'm not going to put my kids in, I don't know, extracurriculars that are hundreds of dollars every month just to keep them busy. Like I don't want them in that. What opportunities are we talking about here? Think of all the joy in your home. And the lessons that they learn by having so many siblings that other children have to learn on a sports team or, you know, whatever you get to learn at home. Yeah. All those valuable lessons. And that's how people, that's how it used to be done. Yeah. I think a lot of times it's coming from a place where it's like, well, they played travel soccer or competitive cheer.

24:50And I loved my experience growing up. My parents did so much for us. And I was on a very competitive soccer team growing up, I mean, we flew to games. Like I was 14 years old flying, like talk about that is privilege. And I'm very much aware of that. But I also, in my lens, I would sacrifice that and I would still allow my kids to play like travel soccer, but maybe not on that league, that division I was on. I don't know. I just, that comment really rubs me the wrong way. Well, just again, try to think of it through the lens of it's about them. Yeah. You know, you're so wise. You know how when you become a mom and suddenly you start paying attention to everything?

25:36Truly, I didn't give a flying crap about ingredients until I became a mom. It's just this realization that the choices you're making for you doesn't just impact you anymore. Your body wash, your makeup, your food. And then one day you look at your laundry detergent and think, what even is this stuff? I can't pronounce any of it and I don't know what it means. The label says clean, but the scent is spring meadow. And when you actually look at the ingredients, it's a whole mess of chemicals, fragrance, dyes, and hormone disruptors. That is just not it. Especially when your baby's going to be wearing these clothes that's being washed in it, sleeping in them, drooling on them, living in them.

26:15That's why I made the switch to Truly Free, and I'm never going back. It's a non-toxic refillable laundry system that I have no reservations about using in pregnancy, postpartum, and in my baby's clothes. There's no artificial fragrances. There's no dyes. There's no parabens, no greenwashing, just real clean ingredients that do their job. One of the things that I really love about it is that you get one refillable jug and then you just order their concentrated refills, which means less waste. No last minute runs the store and way less clutter in your laundry room. It ships straight to your door and you never run out.

26:51Honestly, it's one of those life systems that once you set it up, you never have to think about it again and it saves you money in the long run as well. So if you've been meaning to switch to a cleaner detergent but didn't know where to start, let me help you out and just get you pointed straight to the best so you don't have to waste your time with the others. Head to the link in the show notes and use that link and my code, learningtomom to receive 30 % off at trulyfreehome.com. Okay, mom, what's a hill you'll die on when it comes to motherhood? Okay, a hill I would die on is safety. You've got a gut or an intuition that you don't want your child being friends with another child.

27:44Or maybe you don't want your child going to that other child's house. you know, or maybe there's a coach that you just, you don't want to be alone with your child. Mom, this is great. This is so good. There's so many hills that I would die on. Something that I don't, I'm starting to, but up until this point, I haven't really, is I'm the mom friend. So I never want to come across in a way that makes someone feel judged or shamed. But I have so many. I just see the world so black and white. so to me so many hills that I would die on gosh they all just freaking poofed away well the I guess the mantra that I really try to live my motherhood journey by is I'm going to look back at this time when I have five children lord willing and be like I had it so easy when I only had two why wasn't I doing more keeping in mind that it's all perspective so you know that's why I took the kids on that four hour road trip of just me.

28:49Cause I'm like, it's easier to do it now than when I have four more, right? Like it's all just perspective. The hill that I would die on advice wise was it's not going to stress out a second or a third time mom. I'm not going to let it stress me out because I think first time moms, especially are stressed out all the time. And the advice that I was getting from so many people when I was pregnant with my first was, oh you just need to enjoy it i was so stressed the whole time like i didn't enjoy motherhood until i became a second or a third time mom when i and i like took a chill pill i was like oh i'm just gonna take a chill pill now love that i am so proud of the fact that you did that and lived it you didn't just say it but you've done it you know both you and your husband i do have i have to give him a lot of credit because he really from day one it was just like this baby's coming into our life not the other way around and that's just really how we've been we're not gonna abide by a super crazy nap schedule because in the summer we want to go be on the water for six hours a day and the baby is gonna have to nap on the boat if it wants to take a nap and I think there was a lot of beauty in starting young that was obviously unintentional because our first was not intentional.

30:10It wouldn't change anything now. But so I think our friends were still out doing stuff and we didn't want to miss out. And I think it's easier to conform to the baby's schedule and everything when all of your friends are already like doing that. Whereas it's like, no, we don't want to miss out on X, Y, Z. So we'll just bring the baby. So it was kind of forced us into that mentality so yeah um what's something you've changed your mind about since becoming a mom this one might be hard because you've lived more your life as a mom than you haven't at this point i think when i became a mom i became aware of how important it is what goes in.

30:58Into your children? You mean your children's brains? Yeah. Into your children. Well, you know, you're the guardian of your child. And so, you know, you have a finite amount of time where you can control what goes in their body and what goes in their mind. And that's really important. I had to be less careful in my day, allowing you guys to seize things, TV, movies. Then you guys have to be even more diligent. I feel like we were diligent. We didn't let you guys watch a lot of TV. We were extremely sheltered.

31:44I bet you could assume that we were homeschooled. oh it's kind of the family joke we were homeschooled and brother had allergies so we were really sheltered but prior to becoming mom i didn't give that a thought and i also it startles me that other people don't give that a thought yeah um family members don't give it a thought good yeah that's a good one mine something that's changed my mind since becoming a mom i think motherhood as a whole because i never really wanted to be a mom and that wasn't my mom's fault like i mentioned i absolutely loved my childhood well i think i had a lot of fear that i wasn't going to be as good of a mom as you you're a great mom thanks but i really believed all of the lies that society tells you of like children aren't worth it.