Benefits of family mealtime, baby shower do's & don'ts & the Karen Read trial

27:58Whoa. Really tragic. Really, really tragic. Okay. But the point is, where this person nailed it on the comment around this whole thing was we had a Saturday night, like, Chinese and movie night. And, again, I made a TikTok about it, and somebody commented and said, because it was the fastest we've ever chosen a movie to watch. It was a documentary, but still. Somebody said, my rule is no food is ordered until the movie is picked out, which is genius. Because we spend so much time time i how much time we spend trying to decide a movie where we don't even end up choosing movies sometimes and we just give up harrison there are so many times where we end up we we spend the hour just like thumbing through our options then we say we're good we'll go to bed yeah so i like this no food so the food isn't served until you pick the movie well no i don't even think the food isn't certain i think she's saying the food isn't even ordered okay or prepared like you choose the movie like at 11 a.m that day and then night rolls around and like all day this is actually good then all day you're looking forward to watching that movie and then okay you watch it i kind of like that so we had said one time how a problem you and i have is all say anything sounds good and then you bet great sushi and i don't want sushi and he's like but you just said anything sounds good and i saw somebody say the three two one method so you actually give me three options so you say sushi steaks or italian three you give me three options i eliminate one so then i hand you back two so i say sushi or steaks i eliminate italian then you pick the final one done what are picking?

29:49Sushi. We're in Vancouver. We're every sushi restaurant. It's great. Do you guys have good steaks here? You didn't ask me. I'd say the best steakhouse in Vancouver is Elisa. Okay, I would love to go. But it isn't a classic, like, it isn't like a classic New York US style steakhouse. But it doesn't have to be. It can be its own Canadian style. Like, it's good enough. It's good. It's good. Like, we may go. it's just not your best it's just like I don't think that steak houses oh Heys Heys is a phenomenal steakhouse but that's in Whistler they have a Heys down here I think the Heys down here is better and the cheese bread at Heys is one of the best dishes I've ever had so when I was pregnant I could have it and it was so good because when I was pregnant I wasn't lactose intolerant for those that don't know that and so I ate all the cheese and cottage cheese.

30:48Okay, I was thinking about this the other day. So I was at the grocery store and I was passing the cottage cheese and I thought, what like a top 10 food for Bubber? Woo. Because it's like high protein. But then I thought, we're not like into the spoons yet. So then I thought, what if I got the cottage cheese and instead of making cottage cheese bread, which is actually a great thing for her to have, what if I froze the cottage cheese so it was teething cottage cheese? It was like teething protein cottage cheese. Yeah, it's a really good idea. Maybe I'll do that. Really good idea. I'll make her little cottage cheese bites.

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32:11So you guys elevate your fall wardrobe essentials with Quince. Go to quince.com slash Alex for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash Alex to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash Alex. Okay, so we're going to discuss because we had our neighbor's baby shower. And we talked about it last week. But now we need to do like a little, I want to do a little baby shower, what we did well, what we could have done better. Okay. Okay. So, and I made some notes in my phone and so I'm just going to pull them up really quickly because I have written down in front of me like the loose guidelines, what we're talking about.

32:57Okay. Tips for baby showers. I think this is my personal idea and I would love to know if you don't agree. You can tell us on YouTube. We love reading those comments. But I think something like one personalized item is a really, really, really good idea. So cups. At my baby shower, one thing that my friends did was they had a hat bar. So all the hats were blank. And they had like Canadian patches. They had Oklahoma patches. They had hearts, baby things. And so everybody got to make a custom hat. So it was true to them, right? But it reminded them of my baby shower. So that was a really cute idea.

33:33um one thing that i loved that your mom and sister did was they got baby photos of you and i and they made those all into cookies which was adorable like i think that's a really good idea um then my friends also did a coffee table book so it's called the mother book it's claireborn swanson and frank there's no way that's right those are the authors of it and it's because, and I only know that because it's sitting on our coffee table. Anyways, they got a coffee table book that had to do with like mothers, like mother daughter. And they had everybody that came sign the inside of it. So now it's like this beautiful pink piece of art that sits on our coffee table, but everybody signed it.

34:14So it like always reminds me of my baby shower. Great gift. Which is really a good gift. Okay. Now I've got two more for you that you probably like haven't heard of. Okay. So breast milk freezing bags. Okay. So you set those out and you get a Sharpie and you have everybody write a nice note to you so when you're like pumping in the middle of the night and then let's say you're like gonna freeze that bag or put it in the fridge then you have like a sweet keep going mom amazing is that not the best thing ever such a good idea such like a good like and let's say your last minute and you're like i didn't do anything cute you just go and get freezer bags and you get a sharpie and then another one that i love is riding on diapers i don't know if i understand that one Well, because then when you're changing a diaper and it's in there, the newborn size diapers.

35:00So you're like in the first month of like parenthood and you're changing diapers and you see like a little note from Alex Koss saying, go get them. And you're like, that's cute. OK, yeah, I'm into it. I think. Yeah, I'm into it. I think the breasts. I think the. Yeah, I'm into it. You like the breast milk bags a bit more. Yeah. I just think it's a really cute thing to do. Like you could add a touch like that. OK. now the mistake that i made at this shower was we're passing the celsius back and forth because like we're gonna talk don't don't let me forget to talk about phantom cries here in a moment um i don't want to lose my train of thought okay so one mistake i made and i made it at my friend And Lacey's baby shower as well.

35:48I didn't make a mocktail. It sounds like the most obvious thing on the planet. But it's my second time to do this where I didn't do it. And I was like so mad at myself for these happy hour showers. Right. So like and it was Irish themed. So we had wine. We had Aperol spritzes and we had Irish car bombs or we had some like. I don't know. I didn't drink too much of everything. We had some like Irish themed drinks. Right. but I didn't make a mocktail. It's a, you can't take the full blame on this. We're a co-host. We're a co-host. Wait, wait, no, no, no. But I know better. Hold on, but I'm just saying like, it's my second time to not make a mocktail and I should have, because I think it's a really simple thing that could be so cute for the mom.

36:30And then I think if you took it a step further, if you put them in like little jars and like used her name or let's say, you know, the baby's name and you like make the little mocktail. I just think that's like a really sweet thing you could do. And then one more thing that I, so like we did a good job for dads because we had a game. So the game we did was bottles, right? And we had dads, we had all the dads or all the guys drink beer out of the bottles. And the dad won, right? So our neighbor T won because he took the bottle a bit like a hole in it. I was so proud of him. I was like, no, he said, if you're not cheating, you're not trying, which is what my volleyball coach used to say.

37:09So I was like, you know what? True. I came last. Not wrong. True. You did come last. I was so shocked. But one thing that I think is cute is like including the boys in some way. So at our shower, what we did was we had, you know, we had the dads do the activity. But I think a good area to do that would be at the bar as well. You could have a mocktail or a drink named after the dad, which would be a really cute way to like include the dad. Yeah. I mean, obviously this is all about the mom because the mom is the one doing all the heavy lifting. And so do you want to make sure that they're getting the love and attention and appreciation they deserve?

37:46But I think a lot of moms like when like would like when the dad was included. So I just think it's like a cute little way. Yeah. Like that. But what I'm talking about, too, is specifically if you're if it was an all girl shower. It's like one nod to the dad. Do you see what I'm saying? in our case it was easier because it was a it was a couple shower do you know what i'm saying for sure okay so the other thing i want to talk about okay you got a lot you want to talk about i love it we were gonna leave thursday not tuesday for vancouver so i went to the store on monday i'm really into this like go to berries then go to the store because i had the energy right then right and i drive right by whole foods on my way home so i just pop over there and i went in and i got my friend Shannon who had her baby a salmon stir fry that I was going to make her and then I got some extra salmon I got a bunch of things I went home put them in the fridge and then we decided we're going to go to Vancouver on Tuesday so I didn't have time to do any of it so we took all the stuff in our refrigerator down to our neighbors and we dropped off we're like you guys make this enjoy it for the week and I made a tick tock on our way down there and somebody commented and was like, whoa, the four salmon fillets you totally should have put in the freezer.

39:01And I was like, true, didn't even think of that. Not that there's room in our freezer. But I was like, wow, should have put it in the freezer. And then somebody commented below that and they were like, well, hold on, since when is the freezer better than sharing? And I was like, true. Like, I kind of love that as well. A couple comments. We're not good with the freezer. We're so bad with the freezer. We're not, like things go in the freezer and they never come out. they so what's the number one thing that went in the freezer and just never come out oh your placenta fact yeah yeah the only thing that comes out of the freezer is if we freeze fruit for bubber's teeth like the frozen strawberries came out literally on monday yes um the second thing is you did still do something for the friend who just had the kid you just didn't make them stir fry i don't want us to think we forgot about the friend oh no i'm about to give tips on what i you should give a new mom.

39:53Okay, let's hear it. Well, but you don't want to talk about freezer versus giving it to the neighbors. Like, I kind of think it's a bond. Like, okay, here's what I'll say about it. I think, I think that... I thought it was a cute exchange of the people. Amazing exchange, very cute. I understand, like, you know, the... I understand why, like, people would say a higher value item, like salmon to freeze, versus, like, the bread and the other things to give. Totally. I get why people would do it both ways. If our neighbor, so it was kind of an extreme move on our part, right? Because if our neighbors weren't our neighbors and we didn't have like, I have like three neighbors on our block actually that I would have given it to because the new people diagonal from us, C and J, who we helped hang the TV, would have given it to them because they would have loved it.

40:41They would have just like giggled, right? But if we didn't have like that relationship with our neighbors. We have a lot of great neighbors. I don't want to isolate to just two of them. There's a lot of great neighbors. No, but I'm just saying who... A lot of great families on the street. We give them to a lot. There's... Harrison Daniel. Half a dozen to a dozen. I agree. There's a dozen. But you have to be able to... Number one on my list, James. Oh, my God. I love James. I mean, he'd be great. But you have to be able to identify... He is... That was not... He's... You have to let me get this sentence out, H.

41:06Okay, I'm sorry. You have to be able to identify which of your neighbors would get a kick out of you dropping off your groceries. Who had a lime cake? Yes. And just being like, here, eat this. I wish we gave you the James. I kind of do too now that you're saying this. So James is our neighbor that was in our house when we were moving in. And he walked up from the basement. He was like, I was just checking it out. And we were like, hey, James. I thought he was the landlord. He was just in the house. He was just in there taking a walk around. He is truly the best. Okay, so anyways. Friends who have babies.

41:37So what we ended up doing. So our sweet friend Taylor is a private chef in Austin. And whenever I was first postpartum, she made me these like wonderful meals and lactation cookies and quiches and like she boxes them all up and it is like truly the best ever so i texted her and i was like hey i'm going out of town this is a bit last minute but a shannon likes salmon b can you help me with meals she took she made her six meals i think and dropped them off today okay and that's better than me cooking yeah no that's the best no no i i think they're both great you're being way too nice here said I'm not a very good cook but the thought the thought well that that was the thing so this is so I've tiered in my mind like things I think that are good for somebody who's had a baby and they've changed because before I had had a baby I would have gifted you baby clothes but now it's shifted because I think something that girl to girl that would be really sweet is something for the mom and what I think is a really good gift is number one if you can cook a home cooked meal.

42:35That is such a nice gift. Okay. And just like you drop it off on the porch. I wasn't going to say hi to them. We were just going to drop it off and leave, text them and say it's on the porch. You know, second though, have food just delivered or groceries delivered, right? Like snacks. Cause I think it's fun if somebody else picks out snacks for you. If you know, they're like pumping or breastfeeding, add cookies in because they could have a sweet or like I wanted in the handfuls, the monster trail mix. So like something like that, I think is really sweet. And then number three, if you don't want to do either of those two things, like you don't want to get into the, cause there's a lot of people have meal trains and you can sign up on a specific night, but I'm a little too like last minute for that.

43:18Then I think getting the mom pajamas or a robe or a sweatsuit because she's going to be in loungewear for a while is like really nice. So what about doing a gift like 30 days out or 60 days out or 90 days out? I love it. I love it. Because I feel like initially, you know, obviously every situation is different. A lot of time, like right after birth, a lot of people are kind of trying to get in the mix. You got like family around, people sending stuff in. And then there's, you know, generally or hopefully there's a lot of support out of the gates. But then like 60 days in, there's no more gifts arriving.

44:01And so you can kind of like you do the dinner and 60 days in, you're still in the thick of it. And 60 days in a dinner would be, I feel like it would stand out in a big way. I think that's a really nice point. So I have coming, I've gotten so much better at my baby gifts now having had one. I think I used to not give them because I was just like, I don't understand. but what I have coming for her baby is um a monogrammed something monogram that my friend Rachel's making but that we can give her like the first time we go meet them which I think will be really nice but the only thing I have to say about like doing something 60 to 90 days out is you would have to tell them like it's coming like I didn't forget that's like where my my mind goes I'm like wait I don't want them to think I forgot about them why are you looking at me like that well i just remembered something and i don't know if i want to say it say it no i have a fourth recommendation yes a it's a common theme i've seen with moms we really look forward to going and getting a manicure i see a lot of moms post their first manicure out of the house or a facial so and you like leave the baby with dad or grandma or grandpa or sister or something and i mean and then you go and get your manicure or a facial and so i think giving a gift card of that is a really sweet thing.

45:21Yeah. These are great gifts. But I want to know what you were going to say. You can't do that to us. You can't say like, oh, and then be like, no. Come on. Spill the beans. Nope. Why? You just thought of a gift that you never gave me? Somebody sent? Best baby gift we got post having her. Thinking of like some blankets that said her name, which were really cute. her little bath stool from Alex's parents. Really cute. Bath stool. Very good idea. Really cute. Cause like no duplicates. Really stands out. We only got one. It says tape. It's precious. Like blankets are awesome. Cause you can never have too many.

46:09And we got a lot of great blankets. But, but there definitely is quite a few blankets. I feel like we are blanket givers as well. And the clothes are fun because you love, like, I love to get her dressed. Yeah, the clothes, I think the clothes are the one that after now having a kid is what I'd stay away from most. On? Okay, that's, you know what? Yeah. And here's why. Because, like, in the first, like, zero to three months. Jammies. With how small she was and how delicate she was, if all we wanted to do was put her in the most basic Carhartt jammies from Target. Carter's. That's really funny.

46:54And then it felt like we got these really cute outfits, and they went in her closet, and then she just kind of outgrew a lot of them. Because we didn't know when we would ever... We're like, oh, we'll put her in this for a special occasion, but then a special occasion would come, and she would just be in the pink Carhartt onesie. Carter's. In the pink Carter's onesie. But three to six months, jammies, like that was where we, because that was the holidays for her. No, that was still like two months. I loved putting her in themed jammies. Yeah. Themed jammies are great. I love jammies. Like I love the gift of jammies, honestly.

47:30We love jammies. I think a zipper is nice. I'll say that. Zipper jammies. Those button jammies are hard. Magnetic me's are great. You clasp one, you clasp them all. You know what I mean? Like those easy ones. What was I going to say? Oh my gosh. I can't remember what it was. Gifts. Blankets are good. I had something to say. Oh, on Pottery Barn, we got a rocking sheep. And you can personalize it. That was a fun thing to open. That was really fun to open. It says Tate on it. somebody the other day somebody today i mean asked asked me again i get this question i'll like really what's her real name it's tate tate's her real name i think i confused people one time by saying like we were thinking about not doing tate or we were going to do tatum or something it's not tatum it's actually tate t-a-t-e it's actually bubber bubber she's so cute okay saying how you feel out loud is terrifying but that's what hinges new free audiobook No Ordinary Love is all about.

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49:23Visit homedepot.com. How doers get more done. I want to do Things BDM'd. I love our Things BDM'd this week. Kick it off, please. So I DM'd you the most attractive hobbies that a guy can have. The most attractive hobbies a man can have, according to women. Do you want to hear them? Yes. Well, I've read this, but I do think you should share for the listener. Okay. Number one, reading. Thoughts? so uh here's here i'm gonna i'm gonna kind of go a bit of a different direction with this the most obvious ones well we got to read them all those everyone knows our options so the top 15 most attractive hobbies to a woman reading foreign languages playing an instrument cooking woodworking painting writing gardening swimming photography astronomy hiking archery blacksmithing and traveling shocked traveling can i just give you my thoughts really quickly yes so i'm shocked traveling isn't higher up um i very quickly understand like with the woodworking painting and blacksmithing like that's just being a handyman so i think those can all be grouped in the same one.

50:48Gardening. Very surprised to see that so high. Don't need gardening on there. Don't need archery on there. 94 % of women, 93.8 % of women find gardening in a man attractive. Like, so photography would be nice, but I think it's cute. You can only take bad photos. Like, I love that about you. Swimming also don't get it. Oh, uh, no, because that guy on the Disney cruise that jumped over to save his daughter, he was probably a heck of a swimmer needing to know how to swimmer is being a good swimmer so sorry writing i thought i thought the first ones were pretty stereotypical playing an instrument piano would be cool or guitar like girls love a guy playing guitar girls love a guy who reads like all those love a guy that will cook him a dinner all those lined up to me you're a great reader Do you know foreign languages?

51:39Yep. Which one? Honk?

51:46So here's what actually jumped out to me. The top 15 least attractive hobbies to a woman. So what stood out to me was, and this is, okay, let me think about how to describe this best to the listener. So the list shows what percentage of women find the hobby attractive. And what shocked me was certain hobbies, which I would think women wouldn't find attractive at all. They do. And there's some sneaky winners in this. So comic books. 33.8 % of women find men interested in comic books attractive. way higher than i would have thought the other sneaky sneaky winner in this crypto bros 23.4 percent of women think men interested in crypto is attractive so the two on here that surprised me are crypto and cigars because crypto could be classified as like an early adopter maybe like a crypto investor so like i could i you love crypto and i like that about you.

52:59The other thing is like cigars. There's a time and a place for a cigar. And I think it's very like I'm in on that. Now, the biggest shocker, because every guy does this. Spice smoking is not on here. Is only 6.4 % of women. So the second lowest ranking hobby was gambling. And I am very surprised that women find gambling so unattractive. that 96 % of women find gambling unattractive. Because especially with how much guys love to talk about gambling. I just think the listeners probably think, is he saying woman and he's trying to say women and he does kind of woman it. I don't know. I don't know.

53:38You got your tenses. Your tenses are a little confusing. Okay, what'd you DM me? That's a very good question. Adult passies. Yes, I DM'd you that Gen Z adults are sucking pacifiers to calm their anxiety. So when I saw that, I thought that's not real. There's no way that's real. Yep. But where are they? I'm going fake news on this too. I think that a couple people have done it and they may even be doing it for the attention, but I don't think this is a thing. There's no way it's a thing. Yeah. I can't believe what percentage of women find sucking on a Pasi attractive I would think zero but there was a couple on that list that I wouldn't have thought would have made the list that to me is just like wild it's wild okay so the last thing I want to talk about is things we learned and I really love this because I know it's something that you and I want to do we've already started doing it but basically dinner is one of the most powerful things you can do for a child's brain.

54:50Kids who eat with families five times a week are, I don't know where we got these statistics, but I am just reading you what it says, 42 % less likely to drink, 59 % less likely to smoke, and 66 % less likely to engage in risky behavior. Not because of what's served, but because of what's shared, which I thought was really cool. And researchers were talking about how family meals quietly outperform nearly every other parenting strategy they boost emotional resilience lower anxiety and strengthen long-term mental health which i think is like a lofty way of saying you have a safe place every night and something sturdy where you know you're gonna go you're gonna eat with your family you're gonna talk about your day and it's like this really all i can describe it as like this like warm cozy feeling yeah i love when there's like things that you want to do and that you inherently like think hey like this is something nice that we that we should be doing for our family and then when you get the stats behind that behind them supporting those those actions i think for me like the add-on to it is you know you're making those family meals fun as well and keeping them you know um like keeping them yeah like lively bring yeah bringing life to to those family meals and totally and finding the right midweek family activities as well so like the way going to that the neighborhood pool last week.

56:27So much fun. That to me was one of the most fun things we've done since. Did we talk about that on here? How we took Bubz and Binks to the neighborhood pool and it was so much fun and they were like they were so cute. They were enjoying it. They were like splish splashing in the bath. There's a pool like four blocks from our house at the public park. And there's four ladies who go to it and they were singing. They were like acapella singing her. Did we talk about this last week, Jules? I think we did. Yeah, I think we did. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well. I think that that's all for this week. And because we are going to go to Tate's cousin's swim lesson, which is very exciting.

57:04I actually can't wait. It's going to be so cute. Vancouver Lawn and Tennis Club. Van Lawn, as they call it. Yes. Vancouver Lawn and Tennis. Well. Without further ado. Thank you for listening. We love you guys. Thanks for listening to another episode of Two Parents in a Podcast, powered by Just Media House. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to like, subscribe, comment, rate, and review. Stay connected on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook at Two Parents in a Pod. Welcome to our home. Sorry it's so messy. New episodes every Thursday.

57:39I just want to give you the space to process it, Michael said. Elena paused. I don't think I want to see anybody else. This is the love story of real hinge couple Elena and Michael, written and read by me, Raven Smith. Listen to the free audiobook now.