Speaker 1: Apod Shape Production. Welcome back to another episode.
Speaker 2: About I a Bad Mom podcast, the podcast that continually
Speaker 2: gives and gives and gives and a bit isn't us.
Speaker 2: It's other people sharing their stories of parenting fails and
Speaker 2: I guess just the ups and downs of a day
Speaker 2: in the life of a parent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we love getting memes and stuff like that on Instagram. Actually,
Speaker 1: I saw one of our friends, Karina, put something.
Speaker 3: On because she's in toddler phase.
Speaker 2: Though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's in a completely different phase. It's so different,
Speaker 3: but it took me right back there.
Speaker 1: It was like one minute your sterilizing bottles and then
Speaker 1: the next minute you are reasoning with your toddler about
Speaker 1: wearing gum boots.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, ape bed, Yeah yeah, that is really where
Speaker 2: she's at right now, poor thing.
Speaker 3: Talk about where people are at.
Speaker 2: Though. One of our friends, Christy, she makes me lol.
Speaker 2: She's got two boys and a daughter. Her daughter is
Speaker 2: obviously the same age as Gracie. The interactions of mum
Speaker 2: with a teenage boy in comparison.
Speaker 3: To what we get because obviously you're two girls. I
Speaker 3: got two girls.
Speaker 2: It's just so funny, Katie, Like, I feel like, so
Speaker 2: she's screenshots what she chats to him about. It's almost
Speaker 2: like that age old Sorry, sir, I didn't do my
Speaker 2: homework because the dog ate it. That's what she gets
Speaker 2: every day about him needing another five dollars on his
Speaker 2: Spriggy card to buy a pie at school.
Speaker 3: Every day.
Speaker 2: Every day, Katie, there's a new excuse as to why
Speaker 2: he knew nothing copied. I don't even know if he's
Speaker 2: chat gyputeing it. It's like there is a new excuse
Speaker 2: every single day as to why he needs the five
Speaker 2: dollars for the same outcome, which is a pie at
Speaker 2: the tuck shop.
Speaker 1: My girls do this after school as well, Like they're
Speaker 1: always asking me for extra money, and I'm like, pack more.
Speaker 3: Lunch, yeah, more food, yeah.
Speaker 2: But every day, like there was one in there the
Speaker 2: other day that was exactly like the dog ate my homework.
Speaker 2: Didn't though, because if you just did what I asked,
Speaker 2: which was pack your fucking lunchbox this morning.
Speaker 1: The thing that I loved, though, is that there's a
Speaker 1: different excuse for every day, so instead of just I'm hungry,
Speaker 1: can I have five.
Speaker 3: Dollars for a pie?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: You would believe it. I was walking across the school
Speaker 1: playground and a bird came out of the sky and
Speaker 1: it took my lunchbox.
Speaker 2: It is like that, Katie, but every day she hits
Speaker 2: a new one that's creative, that's very creative, creative. Am
Speaker 2: I a bad mum for feeling like I was never
Speaker 2: going to reach the finish line? A forty eight hour
Speaker 2: bender was what I had last weekend. And I'm talking
Speaker 2: a fun parenting bender, not anything fun. Actually would have
Speaker 2: been longer than forty eight hours because it was Friday
Speaker 2: through to Monday. There was so much going on in
Speaker 2: the weekend that was so we had the normal routine
Speaker 2: on the Saturday morning of like the rush between netball
Speaker 2: from there to dropping one to the Cairo because she
Speaker 2: had the worst headache in the world, went back to
Speaker 2: dance pickup. Rush from dance pickup, I took them to
Speaker 2: see that Leela and Stitch but the new movie because
Speaker 2: I thought I was being a nice mom. Plus I
Speaker 2: was like, I just need to sit still and just
Speaker 2: decompress for a little bit.
Speaker 3: But then that night, Katie, on.
Speaker 2: A Saturday night, after a really lovely afternoon, they just
Speaker 2: blow up at each other.
Speaker 3: It's like seven.
Speaker 2: Forty five, right, I'd watched Behavior, It wasn't like me
Speaker 2: flying off the handle.
Speaker 3: Because one thing happened.
Speaker 2: Elsie went over to do something near Gracie, and I
Speaker 2: watched Gracey elbow Elsie so that she slid off the table,
Speaker 2: you know, like when you're leaning someone and someone knocks
Speaker 2: your arm and then you So I watched that, and
Speaker 2: then Elsie turned around.
Speaker 3: She was quite teary.
Speaker 2: Now it takes a bit to get there for else,
Speaker 2: but she was quite teary over that. So I just
Speaker 2: looked and went, pull your head in, Grace. Everything is
Speaker 2: calm and nice right now, like everything had been done, dinner,
Speaker 2: all the rest.
Speaker 3: It was calm. And then I turned around. Then Elsie's
Speaker 3: at it anyway. It was like three strikes Katie.
Speaker 2: And then after the third strike, I was like, still
Speaker 2: calm and preserved. I say that now, I said, you
Speaker 2: know what, the three strikes, You're gone.
Speaker 3: Go to your room. I don't want to hear anyone's story.
Speaker 3: I don't need anything.
Speaker 2: Go to your room, be quiet, read a book, decompressed,
Speaker 2: go away from me and each other. And that's how
Speaker 2: I stayed right centered, like no yelling, just really firm. Now,
Speaker 2: one thing that I suck at at parent is following
Speaker 2: through with the disciplinary part of it. Once they've apologized
Speaker 2: or can see the light to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm the same.
Speaker 3: I'm exactly the same.
Speaker 1: I'll throw out a punishment because I'm really angry about
Speaker 1: something they've done something wrong, and then the minute there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're on board, reasonable and nice again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll go, Oh, that's okay, Yes, you can sit
Speaker 2: and watch some TV with me. This particular night, I
Speaker 2: was like, no, Rachel, it's obviously not working, so I
Speaker 2: was like, no, go to your rooms. Plus, it was
Speaker 2: quarter to eight. You both didn't need to behave like that.
Speaker 2: You're both actually unkind humans to each other right now,
Speaker 2: and that's not what we're doing.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's tiredness that makes them more like
Speaker 1: that because they've had a big day.
Speaker 2: I've had a big day as well, Like Gracie dances
Speaker 2: for like three hours in the morning, Elsie's played netball.
Speaker 2: It's a big day, and you're coming off the back
Speaker 2: end of like a big week at school, and they
Speaker 2: both like have so much going on on a Friday
Speaker 2: afternoon at school, so there's so much going on. It
Speaker 2: was just not needed, though, Like it was really nasty
Speaker 2: shit to each other. Anyway, that happened, Gracie comes back out,
Speaker 2: and she just stepped up to the plate and she
Speaker 2: wanted to go for it.
Speaker 3: She wanted to fight. She wanted to like.
Speaker 2: Tell me everything that was wrong with me, why she
Speaker 2: should be allowed to come back out.
Speaker 3: She's apologized.
Speaker 2: I'm talking.
Speaker 3: Everything you can think of was thrown at me in
Speaker 3: a conversation, and I was like, calm, calm, calm, explode fireworks.
Speaker 2: I said, the more you keep coming back to try
Speaker 2: and make me change my mind, I am not.
Speaker 3: This is the problem.
Speaker 2: It went on forever, and then even that in itself, Katie,
Speaker 2: I can't see the finishing line. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: get into my bedroom to go away from them for
Speaker 2: a bit, like we'd been stuck like glue all day.
Speaker 2: Like I was like, I just need ten minutes away
Speaker 2: from you, and now it's made it even worse. Anyway,
Speaker 2: positive news out of that didn't back down. They went
Speaker 2: into the rooms. They read the books, and then I
Speaker 2: said lights out eight thirty, like usually on a Saturday
Speaker 2: we'll watch a movie and it might be nine oh.
Speaker 2: And she said, I'm so sorry for ruining your night.
Speaker 2: I said, you didn't ruin anything. If anything you ruined
Speaker 2: your own night.
Speaker 1: I sometimes, and even now with the girls at the
Speaker 1: age that they are at, I sometimes look back at
Speaker 1: when they were like little four, yeah, six kind of age,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, wasn't that nice that you could
Speaker 1: put them to bed?
Speaker 3: And I know not always like that.
Speaker 1: People, yeah up and all the rest of it. Only
Speaker 1: need to drink water for half an hour. But the
Speaker 1: ability to put them to bed.
Speaker 3: Early, yeap. Yeah, have your own evening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even you like eight thirty nine, If that's when
Speaker 1: they're going to bed, that's a big chunk of your night.
Speaker 3: It's gone. I find the same. I'm like, I'm the
Speaker 3: same as you, though, Like it's gone.
Speaker 1: I remember some days I used to change the clock
Speaker 1: so they thought they were going to bed later, and
Speaker 1: sometimes they would be lights out and in bed at
Speaker 1: six thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, my kids have never been I've never been that luck.
Speaker 2: But the thing is like, I just want time to
Speaker 2: just decompress away. I need to like just you know,
Speaker 2: move away, let me decompress, and then I'll probably come
Speaker 2: back a little bit better. Now I'm sort of trying
Speaker 2: to then get everything ready for Elsie's Network Carnival. The
Speaker 2: girls had to be up at six, to leave at
Speaker 2: six forty, for us to drive an Aaron a bit
Speaker 2: to get to the Network Carnival for her to be
Speaker 2: there by like seven forty seven point fifty. So we're
Speaker 2: getting to Netball on the other side of the earth
Speaker 2: at seven forty in the morning, and Gracie in tow
Speaker 2: she was like.
Speaker 3: Oh God, what am I going to do all day?
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: But we've got two camp chairs and an umbrella and
Speaker 2: food and water and everything that you need for a
Speaker 2: whole Network Carnival. And you know when we were leaving,
Speaker 2: when the sun was going down. The sun was going down. Katie,
Speaker 2: We've been at this Network Carnival for talk about finish line.
Speaker 2: I couldn't see the finish lines in my life.
Speaker 3: I was like, this is.
Speaker 2: A never ending day and it's a Sunday, and now
Speaker 2: the sun is going down and I'm still on the
Speaker 2: other side of the earth.
Speaker 3: With my one child.
Speaker 2: That is utterly exhausted. And then I've got Gracie, whom
Speaker 2: I have to give accolades to. I thought she was
Speaker 2: going to be twenty five thousand times worse. I thought
Speaker 2: she would have made it to probably about ten thirty
Speaker 2: in the morning and gone, I'm bored.
Speaker 3: I want to go home.
Speaker 2: I'm ah. From her side of things, I was really
Speaker 2: proud of her, But yeah, dragging my ass out of
Speaker 2: Neple Carnival watching the sun go down that even in itself, Katie,
Speaker 2: You're like, I've still got to get home. I've got
Speaker 2: to unpack, I've got to make dinner, I've got to
Speaker 2: feed the animals things.
Speaker 1: Because it's your weekend. However, it's not your weekend because
Speaker 1: it's entirely about them.
Speaker 3: I have my eyes where they need to go and
Speaker 3: what they need to do. Yeah, my life.
Speaker 1: No, oh invited you out on Sunday, I know, coming.
Speaker 2: Out on the boat. Oh yeah, I did. I really
Speaker 2: fancied it. And then I saw your fucking story. I
Speaker 2: was like, it was a glorious stay on the water.
Speaker 2: Anything look calm, and you had no kids in Doe.
Speaker 2: Of course I wanted to be on the boat with you.
Speaker 1: M