Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mom and Maya acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
Speaker 2: waters that this podcast is recorded.
Speaker 3: On Unpredictable, Chaotic, hard fun magical.
Speaker 1: The Baby Bubble with Claire and Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: It's definitely not a parenting advice podcast. Jesse, something I've
Speaker 2: been really surprised by since having a child is how
Speaker 2: quickly you can tell their personality, like you know who
Speaker 2: they are pretty soup. Well, maybe it's like confirmation bias,
Speaker 2: but like Matilda's almost nine months now, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: you were you when you came charging charging out of
Speaker 2: the van. You looked around and you said, to my
Speaker 2: the drama and everyone said a little bit, a little bit,
Speaker 2: And that's why you're my everything. And we've often said
Speaker 2: that our two girls, despite being technically half half siblings
Speaker 2: because of their DNA with identical twins, as mums mums,
Speaker 2: they are very different people. And the thing about Luna
Speaker 2: and Matilda is that we are able to look at
Speaker 2: them and be like, Okay, in life, you have Lunas
Speaker 2: and you have Matilda's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're only two types pop.
Speaker 2: There are only two types people, and they are it
Speaker 2: and so one kind of litmus test I had recently
Speaker 2: was Matilda goes through a cafe. She gets a baby
Speaker 2: Chino four cream milk and a pastry.
Speaker 1: That's the kind of gal. She is like a.
Speaker 2: Croissan, like a brownie, like a brownie. Okay, all right,
Speaker 2: yep do Luna Luna? Yeah one, she's like Toserin or
Speaker 2: she was. She's working through it. So she can't have
Speaker 2: the foot greenment. No, So Luna has a long black
Speaker 2: which is wrong a lot for it's heaped because she's
Speaker 2: only fourteen months old.
Speaker 1: I have a long black is you know? One a day?
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's fine. Yeah, it's not. And a cigarette. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she has sick because she's very her energy is very.
Speaker 2: It is and she's also I've had this ye she
Speaker 2: I've spoken to some experts about it who've said she's
Speaker 2: just not driven by food. We've got some issues with
Speaker 2: her lack of enthusiastic. She's very like she's very Parisian
Speaker 2: in that way, whereas Matilda is like a cake.
Speaker 1: How about pasta?
Speaker 2: So hang on, they go out to a restaurant, like,
Speaker 2: is Matilda ordering a steak? So Matilda could order I
Speaker 2: think like a big creamy pasta, Yeah, a big creamy
Speaker 2: pasta and a coke, whereas Lunar has a glass of
Speaker 2: red wine. Yeah, and like she really likes a hot ship. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like definitely, just aside she's not ordering a mate.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And you were saying the other day just in terms
Speaker 2: of holiday preferences, you we used to play this game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can do it with celebrities, with people, you know,
Speaker 2: I highly recommend. It's called would they holiday to Kuda?
Speaker 2: And you would choose people in Australia and you'd go
Speaker 2: Kyle Sandalance for example, he'd love he'd love Koda. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Sofi Munk love Cooter And then you go, okay, how
Speaker 2: about I was going to say Larry Emda he'd love Cooda.
Speaker 1: How about how.
Speaker 2: About like then you go carry bigmore. She wouldn't love Koda, No,
Speaker 2: she's got other places she wants to be. So would
Speaker 2: Matilda love Cooter. So the thing this is the thing,
Speaker 2: Matilda would love Kuda. I think Matilda would buy a
Speaker 2: bintang sing she would, whereas Luna would not be caught
Speaker 2: deaddah nah, She'd hate it. She'd be like too much noise.
Speaker 2: I'm more of a Semenyak Galley, Yeah, or Changu.
Speaker 1: I'll go to Changu. Yeah, but I'm not even passing
Speaker 1: through Kood.
Speaker 2: Matilda's still stuck in Kuda having a dance, having the
Speaker 2: time of her life. Our guest this week is Sam Mack.
Speaker 2: You know Sam Mack as Sunrise's beloved weather man, traveling
Speaker 2: all across the country to wake people up in the morning.
Speaker 2: He's also an author. He has a debut book called
Speaker 2: Suddenly One and it is a celebration of the milestones
Speaker 2: from a baby's first year of life. It is out
Speaker 2: now and you should definitely go and get it. And
Speaker 2: most crucially, he's very much back in the baby bubble
Speaker 2: with the arrival of his second daughter, Mabel, just this August.
Speaker 2: Welcome Sam, Hello, good, how are you really well?
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for having me on today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us. Sam.
Speaker 2: Can you please describe for our listeners what your family
Speaker 2: looks like now?
Speaker 3: Chaos. We are in transition.
Speaker 4: We've gone from one beautiful daughter to two beautiful daughters
Speaker 4: literally in the last couple of weeks. So it's a
Speaker 4: big adjustment and it's a bit of a mess, but
Speaker 4: it's a beautiful mess. Everything is great. Everyone healthy, mostly happy.
Speaker 4: Things are awesome.
Speaker 2: So today, as we're speaking, how old is your elder
Speaker 2: daughter and how old is your youngest?
Speaker 4: Margo is about to turn two in just over a
Speaker 4: week actually, so almost two, and Mabel is three weeks old, so.
Speaker 1: Too under two.
Speaker 2: Oh God, you're in the newborn bubble again right now.
Speaker 1: I need to know what you had forgotten, because I
Speaker 1: wonder dies like the.
Speaker 2: Trauma of being in the baby bubble, just to raise
Speaker 2: your memory. And then it happens again and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I forgot this was a baby. Has there been anything
Speaker 2: that has surprised you?
Speaker 3: I've forgotten how tiny they are.
Speaker 4: And a lot of people say this, you know, if
Speaker 4: you go from one to two, A lot of people say,
Speaker 4: you know, before you go in to have that second baby,
Speaker 4: take the time to really feel your oldest and get
Speaker 4: to feel every part of their size of their hands,
Speaker 4: the size of their feet, because suddenly they will feel
Speaker 4: like a giant.
Speaker 3: And it's so true. As soon as soon as we
Speaker 3: brought Mabel home, like the tiny feet really get me.
Speaker 4: It's now they are like minute like they pretend they pretend,
Speaker 4: you know, when like you used to have a packet
Speaker 4: of twisties and you put it in the microwave when
Speaker 4: they shrink down to it like it's shrunk feet, and
Speaker 4: they're delicious and glorious.
Speaker 3: And I sound like a creeper, but.
Speaker 2: I must ask you because I see on my Instagram
Speaker 2: and my TikTok, I see a lot of videos of
Speaker 2: siblings meeting for the first time, and there's romantic music.
Speaker 2: They walk in, they hold that even though they're tiny,
Speaker 2: they hold the new baby and they say I love
Speaker 2: you for ever, and they give them a kiss and
Speaker 2: they're so gentle. Is that exactly what happened when your
Speaker 2: two girls met?
Speaker 3: Well, this is the great thing.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of what I'd love to
Speaker 4: chat with you guys about today is, you know, expectation
Speaker 4: versus reality, And you're totally right.
Speaker 3: I had.
Speaker 4: I think we all have visions of what that moment
Speaker 4: is going to be like, and I had all of
Speaker 4: those thoughts in my mind, and.
Speaker 3: The reality is just not that.
Speaker 4: The reality is people are stressed about how long they
Speaker 4: can park in the whole hospital car parks. Grandparents have
Speaker 4: forgotten to dress them and the thing you asked and
Speaker 4: to dress to me out to the grandparents. There's all
Speaker 4: of these things, and when it comes to like, I'm
Speaker 4: in the business like you guys, of making content like
Speaker 4: we make it for TV. I do live TV every
Speaker 4: single day, a lot of social content. So you've become
Speaker 4: a bit of a perfectionist or there's ways that you
Speaker 4: like to do things in certain look. You know, you
Speaker 4: guys had me move my position of this camera because
Speaker 4: you can see the back of my head in the
Speaker 4: mirror right right before, you know what that So I
Speaker 4: went in with all that in my mind. But then
Speaker 4: the reality was Margot, who was almost inconvenienced immediately by
Speaker 4: the fact that there was someone else number one taking attention.
Speaker 4: But the first word she said when she held Mabel
Speaker 4: was stuck as she felt like, why am I stuck
Speaker 4: with this thing on me?
Speaker 3: Like with the video thing.
Speaker 4: And I definitely wanted to catch that moment because I
Speaker 4: know it's so important, not only for us. So I'm
Speaker 4: lucky enough to have a beautiful following who really loved
Speaker 4: to see what's going on in our lives, and we
Speaker 4: share little bits and pieces, and I love the idea
Speaker 4: of Mabel and Margo being able to watch this when
Speaker 4: they're older, and you know, eighteen twenty first all of
Speaker 4: that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to have a nice video.
Speaker 4: But I realized when I looked at the video footage
Speaker 4: a couple of days after it happened, that I had
Speaker 4: to make two videos to make reality. So expectation was, Yes,
Speaker 4: we had some beautiful tender moments, the kiss on the head,
Speaker 4: the classics.
Speaker 3: You know, that was so sweet.
Speaker 4: But then the reality, which was probably my favorite video
Speaker 4: because that's that's what actually happens is Margo tried to
Speaker 4: poke Mabel's eyes, Margot touching her lips, throwing toys at her,
Speaker 4: telling us that she's stuck into the portable bacinet, and
Speaker 4: have an absolute meltdown because she wasn't allowed in the bacinette.
Speaker 4: So eventually, like a lot of parents who just go
Speaker 4: all right, we'll put you in outside. So Margot wanted
Speaker 4: to go outside into the main area of the hospital
Speaker 4: whilst holding her you know, one day old, and of
Speaker 4: course that I go out to do one little lap.
Speaker 4: The midwives start to walk past it like we are
Speaker 4: not seeing this, Yeah, So it.
Speaker 3: Was just it was chaos.
Speaker 4: But I think that's as I got home and thought
Speaker 4: about and had time to look at the video, I'm like,
Speaker 4: that's all we've got to look forward to. That's the
Speaker 4: reality of parenting. It's not what you've planned. You might
Speaker 4: have things in your mind, but they are their own people.
Speaker 4: They will make their own decisions and you just need
Speaker 4: to work around that, work with that to the best you.
Speaker 2: Can, exactly, and in terms of those kind of expectations
Speaker 2: versus reality, you have a brand new children's book out
Speaker 2: called Suddenly One which made me cry. I had a
Speaker 2: rough week with my baby having a fall that was
Speaker 2: my fault, and I was looking at the book and
Speaker 2: being like, oh, this is so sweet. And then there's
Speaker 2: a line about babies first fall, and I.
Speaker 1: Was like, I'm a terrible mother. They got me.
Speaker 2: Was the one about the last and it said like
Speaker 2: the last time will swaddow you, the last time we'll
Speaker 2: feed you to sleep, And I was like, I do not.
Speaker 2: I haven't slept enough to deal with these emotions. It's
Speaker 2: just it's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: How old are your little ones?
Speaker 2: Mine's eight months, yeah, and Luna is fourteen months?
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, cool, Yes, I'm that book park, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: What we want to know is my little girl loves books, right,
Speaker 2: Like I think if I ever wrote a children's book.
Speaker 2: It would blow her little mind when you showed your daughter,
Speaker 2: look at what daddy has done. Can you even believe
Speaker 2: it was? She just blown away by your talent and skill.
Speaker 3: Oh where do I start?
Speaker 4: I'm glad we've hit on this expectation because well, I'll
Speaker 4: give you a little bit of.
Speaker 3: The backstory first.
Speaker 4: So the backstory is when we were approaching Margo's first birthday,
Speaker 4: and as you know, that first year of parenting, it's
Speaker 4: a whirlwind. It's you know, amazing at times, really hard,
Speaker 4: total adjustment.
Speaker 3: You lose a bit of yourself.
Speaker 4: You gain this thing that you know you never imagine
Speaker 4: was even possible and exceeds all of your expectations of
Speaker 4: love and care. And it is so emotional and so overwhelming.
Speaker 4: And I'm a writer. I've written a book. I like
Speaker 4: to put things into words, and I travel a lot
Speaker 4: with work, so I always do a lot of flights
Speaker 4: to do itbut one hundred and twenty flights a year
Speaker 4: with sunrise, traveling as the weather man who doesn't really
Speaker 4: know much about the weather.
Speaker 3: But that's a different podcast.
Speaker 4: So on one of those flights, I thought, Okay, her
Speaker 4: birthday's coming up. What do I want to do. And
Speaker 4: then I started looking through photos of you know, her
Speaker 4: first couple of months up to more recently, that last
Speaker 4: couple of months, close to one year of age, and
Speaker 4: I thought, oh my god, like, look at all these
Speaker 4: little things that she's a shed, these little milestones that
Speaker 4: we were more excited about than she was. You can't
Speaker 4: help but go, oh my god, Like she's fine with solids,
Speaker 4: Oh my god, Like she initiated a hug. Like it's
Speaker 4: like wow, because they sneak up on you and they
Speaker 4: come out of nowhere. They happened yearly, expect them. So
Speaker 4: I started jotting down thoughts and I thought, this is
Speaker 4: its first and last. That's how I described my first year, because,
Speaker 4: like you say, it is emotional when it's for beck
Speaker 4: you know that last time that she was breastfeeding, you know,
Speaker 4: close to one year mark. And it became emotional for
Speaker 4: me as well because I know how how much of
Speaker 4: a bonding moment that is for mum and baby. So
Speaker 4: it was so many emotions, and I just put it
Speaker 4: down and wrote it really within a couple of days,
Speaker 4: and then I thought, luckily, you know, I have one
Speaker 4: terabyte of storage on my iPhone, so I've essentially got
Speaker 4: video that matches almost every little thing that's happened.
Speaker 3: You know, my daughter is really almost living the Truman
Speaker 3: Show moments.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, you've got a second angle on it.
Speaker 4: Well done. Back needed the drone up for that one.
Speaker 4: So I put it on a video and really with
Speaker 4: the intention of I love the idea of her looking
Speaker 4: back on this, and I always worry about losing my phone.
Speaker 4: At least if I've put a couple of things on
Speaker 4: the internet. We've got some goods out there that I
Speaker 4: overthink this stuff. But anyway, put it up and literally
Speaker 4: overnight it had over a million views, which was totally
Speaker 4: unexpected to me, mainly on TikTok, but then you know,
Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands on Facebook overnight, and now I think.
Speaker 3: It's in the couple of millions of views.
Speaker 4: So obviously a lot of people connected and resonated and
Speaker 4: really identified with yes, that they are big things in
Speaker 4: your world that first year. And so I was lucky
Speaker 4: enough to be contacted by Penguin reached out to me
Speaker 4: and said we'd love to turn this into a picture book.
Speaker 4: So then the process was finding the right illustrator, tweaking
Speaker 4: the words a little bit to get it to it's
Speaker 4: almost taken a year and Margo's about to turn two,
Speaker 4: and the book is ready to be enjoyed by grandparents
Speaker 4: and little ones and what have you. But in answer
Speaker 4: to your question, it only happened two days ago where
Speaker 4: I finally shared the book with Margo.
Speaker 3: So it was like, you know, unwrapping it, and my.
Speaker 4: Expectation was she would go wow, because some of the
Speaker 4: drawings are loosely based on her and me in a
Speaker 4: couple of moments, like I played guitar and there was
Speaker 4: a moment where I had her sitting on the should
Speaker 4: that you see it in the book, and she could
Speaker 4: not have been less interested. Like she was so like
Speaker 4: before I'd even finished the unwrapping part, she was already
Speaker 4: not She was in a different room before it even
Speaker 4: opened the book. And I'm like, look, Daddy wrote this
Speaker 4: about you. Suddenly, while this is this is how we
Speaker 4: felt when you came into the world. The only thing
Speaker 4: that managed to keep her in the room was the
Speaker 4: fact that Penguin, the publisher, the Penguin stickers that Penguin
Speaker 4: had sent through kept her attention for a matter of
Speaker 4: one minute, and that was enough to kind of go
Speaker 4: all right, we got a video of her looking at
Speaker 4: the book.
Speaker 3: That'll yeah like what I expected.
Speaker 2: Otherwise, I guarantee that there will be ten books for
Speaker 2: her to choose from, and yas will always be the last.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, who does dad thinking?
Speaker 2: So first birthday parties are interesting right because they're turning
Speaker 2: one and it's not like the baby is going to remember. No,
Speaker 2: And I don't know about your child, but even at
Speaker 2: eight months, my baby can wake up and just be
Speaker 2: shitty for no reason. She's like, today is not my day.
Speaker 2: Today I am clinging, and I don't like anyone. Yeah,
Speaker 2: did you decide to have a first birthday party?
Speaker 4: Yes we did, and yes, like a lot of I'm
Speaker 4: sure a lot of parents listened to this, we went
Speaker 4: way over the top. Yes, it was probably more about
Speaker 4: us than the child. Look, we went with a very
Speaker 4: hungry caterpillar theme because that had been her her first year.
Speaker 4: Beck and one of her dear friends, Bella Hamish Blake Style,
Speaker 4: were up to four am making a caterpillar cake. Not
Speaker 4: easy to make, I must point out, So after you know,
Speaker 4: three hours of sleep, they're obviously sprightly and ready to
Speaker 4: rock and roll.
Speaker 3: On the day of the party.
Speaker 4: It was more a chance for family friends to get together.
Speaker 4: You know, some of our friends into state hadn't even
Speaker 4: met Margo, so it was kind of more about that.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to get two down or too
Speaker 4: negative about first birthday parties because any opportunity to drink
Speaker 4: in a park at ten am and any repercussions is
Speaker 4: a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: For parents who are battling through parenthood.
Speaker 1: Oh so true.
Speaker 2: You've just really got your values in the right place.
Speaker 2: It's all about getting together. And also mummy and daddy
Speaker 2: want to see their friends. Yeah, and mummy and daddy
Speaker 2: want someone else to hold the baby while how about that, Well,
Speaker 2: mummy and daddy have some champagne and it's like, what
Speaker 2: a present for mummy and daddy on this day, which
Speaker 2: is really more significant past Yeah, I did exactly. Can
Speaker 2: you give us a ten second play by play of
Speaker 2: the chaos of your morning when you're at home, So
Speaker 2: like the last few weeks when you've been at home
Speaker 2: newborn toddler, what do those mornings look like?
Speaker 4: Okay, so Margo, we will actually hear on the monitor
Speaker 4: starts get a bit chatty at about a quarter past
Speaker 4: six six.
Speaker 1: That's a little early Margo.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 4: Now that she's almost two, she's you know, got quite
Speaker 4: a few words. So she go Daddy, Mummy, Daddy stuck,
Speaker 4: Margo stuck, Margo start, and then it'll be Margo jumping high,
Speaker 4: Margot jumping high. So we'll just it's kind of like
Speaker 4: our morning entertainment. We'll watch it on the screen or
Speaker 4: ten minutes and then go, okay, time to go get her.
Speaker 3: We'll bring herpect will feed Mabel.
Speaker 4: We recently got a TV in our room, which is
Speaker 4: one of the greatest investments I've ever had, because Pepper
Speaker 4: Pig Slash Blue Slasher wiggles for twenty minutes, just while
Speaker 4: Margot has an early morning bottle.
Speaker 3: You know, Mabel's being fed.
Speaker 4: We kind of it extends your sleep, so it's not
Speaker 4: like the band aid where you're up and straight into
Speaker 4: the day. You've got that little buffer of twenty thirty
Speaker 4: minutes where you kind of ease into it. Then you
Speaker 4: get the showers and the get dressed, get changed, all
Speaker 4: that kind of thing. So that's really the first half
Speaker 4: an hour, and then it's you know, breakfast. Why does
Speaker 4: it take so long for breakfast? Why does it take
Speaker 4: so long to make breakfast? For as tiny human. Why
Speaker 4: does it take so long to eat it? Why does
Speaker 4: it take so long to clean it up? Like breakfast
Speaker 4: is a two hourd.
Speaker 2: Somehow, just he said to me when we started solids.
Speaker 2: I was like, so, I just I'm so confused. And
Speaker 2: Jesse said, my life became easier when I realized meal
Speaker 2: times for a two hour process.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, okay.
Speaker 2: I don't eat breakfast, and now breakfast has become a
Speaker 2: real event in my day and so, oh my god,
Speaker 2: it's insane. You've got to make three different ones in
Speaker 2: case I don't like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I true, And that's that's exactly what Beck does.
Speaker 4: I kind of I'm more of the opinion of, like,
Speaker 4: you know, make one or two things, Max, and like
Speaker 4: that's your breakfast and if not, you have a bigger lie.
Speaker 3: That's fine. Beck will literally put on a digust station.
Speaker 4: Yes for Margo, and she'll be hand fed her peeled
Speaker 4: and cut grapes, and it's just like it's an experience.
Speaker 4: But it's great, she's eating healthy and it's awesome, but
Speaker 4: it is kind of like, wow, we you know, two hours, it's.
Speaker 3: Almost lunch time. Now, now we're going to start prepping lunch, breakfast.
Speaker 1: It's never not meal time. That is never, it is
Speaker 1: never not a meal time. That is the thing about.
Speaker 2: As soon as they start solids like, oh, bottles were great,
Speaker 2: bottles were real easy. Well, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: your time today. It was so great to chat to you.
Speaker 2: And everybody should buy suddenly one. Just brace yourself because
Speaker 2: you may cry a little bit ugly cry.
Speaker 1: That's what I like. The ones that are sentimental for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are ones that Luna loves, but I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: this like, guess how much I love you like the
Speaker 2: ones that you go No, this is making me feel
Speaker 2: reflective and cuddly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you very much, ladies.
Speaker 4: I think that the great thing about it is that,
Speaker 4: you know, kids, I don't know if your little ones
Speaker 4: are already in that stage where they love seeing them
Speaker 4: pictures themselves on the mobile phone and they'll want to
Speaker 4: see more and definitely loves that. So they love hearing
Speaker 4: about themselves, their little megalomanias. You know, I love little
Speaker 4: egocentric twerks anyway, So they love that, so telling their story.
Speaker 3: But this was the first time.
Speaker 4: Well you haven't done this one yet, but soon you'll
Speaker 4: be able to do that at the park or so
Speaker 4: it's little milestones. But also I love the idea of
Speaker 4: grandparents going through it with their little ones or giving
Speaker 4: it to, you know, their children who have just had
Speaker 4: children as her first year of birthday present. I think
Speaker 4: there's lots of ways to kind of families to you know,
Speaker 4: take a little breather, read through the book and go, oh,
Speaker 4: we've achieved a lot.
Speaker 3: We're doing all right in this field.
Speaker 2: It's such a good point about birthday presents, because what
Speaker 2: you don't want is piles of plastic staff. I just
Speaker 2: feel like there's so much clutter. I love a book.
Speaker 2: A book is my number one present because I put
Speaker 2: it on the shelf and like it's also educational.
Speaker 1: I feel like we can kick that off.
Speaker 2: Matilda hasn't look if she slow to crawl maybe, but
Speaker 2: her one skill that I think she learned early, she
Speaker 2: knows how to turn a page.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she be very very.
Speaker 2: Good at this one. She'd say this is lovely. She
Speaker 2: sometimes doesn't wait long enough for me to read it,
Speaker 2: but that's no. She'll point to the fall one. You
Speaker 2: be like, that's why I've got a booboo on my head. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'll be like.
Speaker 3: Shut up until I look forward to their.
Speaker 2: They'll jump on good Reads, They'll have something to say
Speaker 2: as I always do.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Thank you really nice to chat guys.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on Crab Crap Crap Advice.
Speaker 2: Jesse, it's time for our advice segment. Aham, are you ready?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: My sister looks after my seven months old three days
Speaker 2: a week while I go to work, and I've been
Speaker 2: back at work for a couple of months now. I'm
Speaker 2: so grateful for her help, and I genuinely don't know
Speaker 2: what I would do without her. But she doesn't follow
Speaker 2: any instructions about my baby's day. She feeds her whatever
Speaker 2: she's eating, which isn't usually appropriate for a baby, and
Speaker 2: won't put her down for a nap until she starts
Speaker 2: crying and is clearly overtired. She also makes a huge
Speaker 2: mess in my house, and when I get home, I
Speaker 2: have to clean it up and deal with a baby
Speaker 2: who is out of her routine. How do I tell
Speaker 2: her I need her to try more? Just a quick
Speaker 2: question before we get into it. What do you think
Speaker 2: the food is it isn't appropriate for a baby? And
Speaker 2: why is the first thing that came to my mind
Speaker 2: o Porto. I was more thinking ogarlo. Okay, thinking like
Speaker 2: a burger. M. I think a burger is not appropriate.
Speaker 2: KFC isn't fully appropriate. Yeah, yeah, I'm saying that because
Speaker 2: it's a CAFC near your place.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I have gone to KFC while looking after litit.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Look, this is actually a really easy one
Speaker 2: and I'm going to go full hure because that's what
Speaker 2: you need to do. You need to put your sister
Speaker 2: on what we call a PIP.
Speaker 1: A PIP is.
Speaker 2: A performance improvedment player gay and she requires one. So
Speaker 2: put a meeting in a diary. Don't say anything face
Speaker 2: to face, Just put a meeting in a diary via zoom.
Speaker 1: Even if she's in the house.
Speaker 2: You both have to join, yes, and you can be
Speaker 2: with your baby, and you can be with your baby
Speaker 2: and like change your background so it looks like you're
Speaker 2: in a co working spacestairs. It's very much you and
Speaker 2: your baby against her.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well I think that a complaint has been brought against it.
Speaker 1: You're not there. It's the baby.
Speaker 2: So then you talk about a PIP and you say
Speaker 2: we need to work towards some clearer KPIs, you're being
Speaker 2: performance managed because there are some issues with your performance,
Speaker 2: as indicated by my baby. I would also say that
Speaker 2: when you're being pipped, the surveillance really gets up. So
Speaker 2: I think follow her around yelling what am I paying
Speaker 2: you for? And from what I gleaned from this? But
Speaker 2: money is changing hands, so I think you make a
Speaker 2: sign a contract. I think you need an official contract,
Speaker 2: and it's like remuneration, nothing but responsibilities.
Speaker 1: Here are seventeen age.
Speaker 2: And you're really exasperated all the time by your performance,
Speaker 2: and you call it her performance. And then you start,
Speaker 2: as you would in an office, giving bitching about her
Speaker 2: behavior to colleagues. And by colleagues I mean obviously a baby,
Speaker 2: but also like mom, dad, husband, friends. Yeah, start a
Speaker 2: group chat where you just kind of gossip. I've got
Speaker 2: real issues. I've got this employee who're okay, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Isn't that your sister?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, Really that.
Speaker 2: In terms of surveillance, you've got a good point. So
Speaker 2: when you're on a PIP, that's when they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we've got to keep an eye on this person to
Speaker 2: know whether they're filling their KPIs. And in terms of
Speaker 2: surveillance by cameras. You need cameras in every corner. But
Speaker 2: even if you've got cameras in every corner and you're
Speaker 2: sitting at work watching the cameras, at which point I
Speaker 2: would say maybe you should just be at home. But
Speaker 2: let's say you are just watching my cameras.
Speaker 1: What can you do?
Speaker 2: Oh, so you see her and she's not put the
Speaker 2: baby down, or it's like that thing some people have
Speaker 2: for their dog. Also, the baby needs a camera strapped
Speaker 2: to it so that when she takes the baby out,
Speaker 2: it's like from the baby's perspective.
Speaker 1: It's like the dog thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where you compress a thing and you're like God,
Speaker 2: and you yell give her her snack.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you go put her to.
Speaker 2: Bird, you idiot, like you really you're communicating, and your
Speaker 2: baby's gonna love that. She's where mummy, where's mummy? Where's
Speaker 2: mmy coming from?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I think definitely buying cameras. The other thing is
Speaker 2: just your idea of obviously you're on a zoom call,
Speaker 2: you're having that HR meeting. I think baby needs to
Speaker 2: give some feedback. I think you're like, look, I've been
Speaker 2: as the both the complaints come to me yeah, but
Speaker 2: I don't want complaints because then I have to act
Speaker 2: on it. But I do want an open line of
Speaker 2: communication in this work Yeah, where people feel they can
Speaker 2: come to me. And so I'll give the floor to baby.
Speaker 2: This is the complaint that was Because it depends on
Speaker 2: the policy. In some workplaces, you wouldn't show the complaint
Speaker 2: directly to the person that it's been made about. But
Speaker 2: in this case, I think it's relevant. And so Baby says, yeah,
Speaker 2: your baby would say My baby would say ga yeah,
Speaker 2: And you say, oh, oh she didn't.
Speaker 1: Did you hear that?
Speaker 2: She's like ga dad dah yeah, dadda interesting mathilda, interesting insight.
Speaker 2: The other thing is just you know, if we are
Speaker 2: going to make this about the workplace as a whole,
Speaker 2: if you've got a pet, the pet joins, you give
Speaker 2: them a mic.
Speaker 1: What have you seen? Oh wow, wow, it's a full intervention.
Speaker 1: Actually it is. But you also need written warnings.
Speaker 2: Oh great, quite publicly like a white Here's the issue
Speaker 2: with the written warnings. You get to three and you
Speaker 2: think still need it. It's time to go. The business
Speaker 2: can't a forge to keep her on. You're not paying her,
Speaker 2: you don't have a backup plan, No, so I feel
Speaker 2: like that's the tricky thing.
Speaker 1: That is a tricky thing. It doesn't mean don't give warnings.
Speaker 2: It just means probably have a plan for what you
Speaker 2: do when you've delivered seventeen of them and she's still
Speaker 2: not changing. Your sister holds a power, unfortunately, unfortunately. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I do think the camera and you're just giving
Speaker 2: live feedback, Yeah, is a great thing for your workplace.
Speaker 2: We hope you enjoyed not just this episode of The
Speaker 2: Baby Bubble, but this season and didn't in this entire
Speaker 2: season of this podcast find anything that could pass as.
Speaker 1: Helpful, because if you did, we failed. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, leave it complaint. Please don't
Speaker 2: leave it complaint. Only leave a five star review. Yah,
Speaker 2: that's the rules here. Thank you so much to all
Speaker 2: of our wonderful guests who have made this season of
Speaker 2: The Baby Bubble so ridiculously fun. We've touched on everything
Speaker 2: from traveling with babies to solo dadding, and even the
Speaker 2: existential crises of the very hungry caterpillar Claire.
Speaker 1: Have we become wiser? Absolutely not? But did we have fun?
Speaker 2: Yeah? All episodes of both season one and season two
Speaker 2: are ready for you to listen. Back to all in
Speaker 2: the feed right now. If you have someone in your
Speaker 2: life who's just had a baby needs a little bit
Speaker 2: of a relief, may we suggest you send it along
Speaker 2: to them. The Baby Bubble is produced by Taylor Strano
Speaker 2: with audio production by Teagan Sadler.
Speaker 1: Bye Bye