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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercam. I'm a mother of four,

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Speaker 1: an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger.

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Speaker 1: I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On

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Speaker 1: the side, we are two working parents who love our

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Speaker 1: careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds.

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Speaker 1: Here we talk about how real women manage work, family,

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Speaker 1: and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping

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Speaker 1: out long term career goals. We want you to get

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Speaker 1: the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds.

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. This is episode one oh seven, which

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Speaker 1: is first airing August twenty, twenty nineteen. Today we're going

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Speaker 1: to be talking all things back to school, our tips

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Speaker 1: for having a smooth start to the school year, and

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Speaker 1: our listeners tips as well. Thank you to everyone who's

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Speaker 1: sent those in through Instagram, through our blogs. We're going

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Speaker 1: to read a lot of them and hopefully everyone will

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Speaker 1: pick up something awesome in the course of listening. So

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Speaker 1: when this air is Sarah Summer is actually over right,

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Speaker 1: you guys go back to school mid August. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: so interesting. This is like the Northern and Southern divide.

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Speaker 1: I know you're going to talk about your calendar. But

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Speaker 1: our schools run from the middle of August this year.

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Speaker 1: Our county begins, believe on the fifteenth fourteenth, fifteenth, fourteenth,

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Speaker 1: and our last day of school is June the second,

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Speaker 1: so we barely have any school in June at all,

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Speaker 1: which is interesting. And you guys are like still in

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Speaker 1: the thick of summer, right, Yeah, yeah, we still are,

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Speaker 1: and we still have another summer vacation coming up. But

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Speaker 1: we start after Labor Day. It's always the Tuesday after

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Speaker 1: Labor Day in our district, and then we go till

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Speaker 1: about mid June, so shifting your calendar by about two

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Speaker 1: two and a half weeks. So we apologize if you

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Speaker 1: are an Arizona listener or even from where I am,

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Speaker 1: because I guess these tips will be getting to you

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Speaker 1: a little bit late if that's the case, but hopefully

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Speaker 1: we will catch you still when you're still interested in

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Speaker 1: hearing all about how to make that transition smoother. And

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Speaker 1: it'll be great timing for our Northeast listeners because I

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Speaker 1: know that's much more common to start, as I did

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Speaker 1: as a child, kind of very end of August or

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Speaker 1: even after Labor Day. Yeah, so you guys have Well,

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Speaker 1: you started your new school for the kids in January

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Speaker 1: after the move. Yeah, we've had lots of transitions. But

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Speaker 1: Annabelle and Cameron will be going to the same school

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Speaker 1: this fall, like the one that we moved to in January,

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Speaker 1: So Cameron'll be in kindergarten and annabel will be in

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Speaker 1: second so they they're reunited after a couple of years.

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Speaker 1: Spent a part with him in preschool. This particular school

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Speaker 1: does not have a pre K so that's why he

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Speaker 1: was not able to be with her last year. And then,

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Speaker 1: as we've discussed previously, yes, I'm sending my toddler to

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Speaker 1: school for better or for worse, So we'll see how

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Speaker 1: that goes. And she's going to a very traditional Montessori

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Speaker 1: program that we're going to see how that goes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you have high hopes or you think she's going

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Speaker 1: to have some separation issues or I'm curious. I have

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Speaker 1: pretty high hopes. I think it's a really lovely school

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Speaker 1: and she may be upset initially, but she's also she

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Speaker 1: kind of acts like a big kid sometimes and she'll

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Speaker 1: be interested in all the activities and we'll just you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it could really go either way, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure I'll update everyone. Well, we'll get the update on

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Speaker 1: how Genevieve's doing exactly. What about you, guys? Wow? What

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Speaker 1: do you say? What are you? What are your school

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Speaker 1: hours though, because it's a great question. So the school

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Speaker 1: hours are very early for my big kids, or at

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Speaker 1: least early as I see it, So they have to

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Speaker 1: be there at eight, and that doesn't sound so bad,

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Speaker 1: but as I've mentioned before, there is it's a very

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Speaker 1: overcrowded school, and there's a very long carpool line, so

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Speaker 1: that really requires leaving the house at seven thirty either

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Speaker 1: whether we're planning on maybe seven thirty five, but that

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Speaker 1: would be the latest, either whether you're driving into the

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Speaker 1: carpool line or if we're walking from the nearby playground.

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Speaker 1: Either way, that process takes about twenty five minutes, so

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Speaker 1: it's not efficient, and we're too close to the school

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Speaker 1: to qualify for a bus. Otherwise, I would love the

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Speaker 1: idea of just saying goodbye a thing on your driveway,

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Speaker 1: on the corner or something exactly. So, so seven thirty

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Speaker 1: five will have to leave the house and then Genevieve's

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Speaker 1: and they go till two, and Genevieve's school is. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think it begins at eight ten, but they did say,

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Speaker 1: you know, toddlers are on their own schedule, so whenever

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Speaker 1: she gets dropped off, she gets dropped off, and she's

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Speaker 1: done by lunchtime, so she'll nap at home before the

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Speaker 1: big kids are done. Now I kind of foresee an

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Speaker 1: issue because if the big kids need to be picked

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Speaker 1: up at two and she's napping because she, you know,

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Speaker 1: fell asleep on the way home, which she will. I

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Speaker 1: think what we may be doing is actually sending the

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Speaker 1: big kids to an after school program for maybe three

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Speaker 1: days per week, and there's a program where there are

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Speaker 1: some like fun enrichment activities, so it would be a

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Speaker 1: way of them doing sports. Now, our old elementary school

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Speaker 1: had that built into the school, and I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: I realized what a gift that was. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: did pay for it, but it was just so convenient

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Speaker 1: they could stay and do basketball or or agami or

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Speaker 1: book making or theater or whatever. Our current school is

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Speaker 1: a great school, but they really don't have their own

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Speaker 1: sort of activities built in like that. So I think

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Speaker 1: they're going to take a bus to another place and

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Speaker 1: do some fun stuff a few days a week and

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Speaker 1: then get picked up a little bit later so Genevieve

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Speaker 1: can have a decent nap. Yeah, I know the nap

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Speaker 1: thing is is always an issue with the early school pickups,

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Speaker 1: and I know that. You know, we did a carpool

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Speaker 1: occasionally with a family that had a toddler because they

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Speaker 1: were you know, every single time that person would have

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Speaker 1: to wake up the toddler to go get it was

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Speaker 1: just like, yeah, not not fun. Yeah. We have no

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Speaker 1: big changes from last year, which is is kind of

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Speaker 1: nice of a holding steady year for schools. Last year

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Speaker 1: we had the transition of starting middle school, our youngest

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Speaker 1: Alex starting preschool. But this year everyone's still at the

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Speaker 1: same school as they went to before. Jasper will be

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Speaker 1: starting seventh grade, Sam and Ruth will be fourth and second,

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Speaker 1: and then Alex is still in the same preschool, so

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Speaker 1: it's you know, pretty much exactly the same, which I'm happy.

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Speaker 1: It's actually great because the transitions are they're harder for

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Speaker 1: the kids. Annabelle went through a lot of I don't know,

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Speaker 1: emotional stuff when she started kindergarten. I think going from

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Speaker 1: a school where it was very much like do whatever

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Speaker 1: you want to all of a sudden having all these

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Speaker 1: requirements foisted upon her was tough and style. Yeah, your

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Speaker 1: kids are going to be just kind of like doing

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Speaker 1: what they did, so hopefully it'll be a nice smooth

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Speaker 1: start for you. Yeah. Well and you know, knowing that

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Speaker 1: the hours are the same, I mean that I presume, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: how do you handle all those staggered hours? I mean,

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Speaker 1: we will get to your spreadsheet a little bit. Well,

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Speaker 1: nobody is napping at the moment, so there's that, you know,

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Speaker 1: I am. We did our carpool to the middle school

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Speaker 1: with some neighbors because the bus was just going to

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Speaker 1: be so early and we really live I mean we

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Speaker 1: live less than ten minutes away from it, so the

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Speaker 1: bus service was just you know, it was going to

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Speaker 1: require a big early morning thing to make it happen,

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Speaker 1: and so we elected to do the carpool there. However,

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Speaker 1: we're not doing pick up takes the bus home. There's

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Speaker 1: some there's some grumbling occasionally about this, but like, you know,

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Speaker 1: you're getting a ride there so you get to sleep longer,

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Speaker 1: So it's gotta be some compromise. Hair, but you know,

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Speaker 1: we do that. Get the big kids, I mean the

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Speaker 1: middle kids on the bus. The bus was coming about

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Speaker 1: eight thirty ish Alex preschool starts at nine, but it's

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Speaker 1: really only like three minute drive away, so it's it's

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Speaker 1: not that big a deal. And yeah, so I mean

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Speaker 1: then we have I mean, we have our our nanny there.

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Speaker 1: She starts work at eight, so she's there to cover

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Speaker 1: the dropping off. So either you know, I do it,

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Speaker 1: she does it, my husband does it. He's there. So

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Speaker 1: you know, we sort of sorted out day by day

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Speaker 1: on who's doing what the end of the day. I

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Speaker 1: mean usually just someone's someone's here when the bus buses

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Speaker 1: drop off. I mean that's it could be me and

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Speaker 1: moost of your activities aren't straight after school, like they

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Speaker 1: come home at the end of the school day. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well some are, I mean, so they get picked up,

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Speaker 1: you know, like once a week for stuff. Jasper had

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Speaker 1: after school activities at school like a day a week

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Speaker 1: or something, and I think he may do more of

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Speaker 1: that this year, in which case somebody will need to

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Speaker 1: go get him. But you know, it's all relatively close.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean there's they're sorting it out week

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Speaker 1: by week and looking at it and seeing, you know,

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Speaker 1: who's got what, But you know, it is what it is.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just logistics. It's logistics which reminds

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Speaker 1: me that I need to make some sort of spreadsheet,

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Speaker 1: not just for activities, but actually I was telling the

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Speaker 1: kids this morning that I, you know, we'd be doing

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Speaker 1: some alternating because I don't want to always be dropping

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Speaker 1: Genevieve and I don't want to be never dropping the

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Speaker 1: big kids. So I'm gonna have to figure out with

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Speaker 1: Josh and or Nanny, like, maybe we set certain days

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Speaker 1: of the week because you know, Fridays, maybe is my data.

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Speaker 1: You know, we just have to decide what they are

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Speaker 1: because I think a little bit of predictability will be

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Speaker 1: helpful for them rather than every morning being like, okay,

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Speaker 1: who's taking to me? I mean we've been doing this

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Speaker 1: with camp drop offs. I mean, yeah, there's there's some

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Speaker 1: negotiation involved in it every single time, and I've just

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Speaker 1: been sort of an alternating like Okay, I do this

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Speaker 1: this end of town run one day and then do

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Speaker 1: the other the other day, and and whatever. There's going

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Speaker 1: to be complaining regardless, So I guess you can't kind

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Speaker 1: of build your life for the idea of no complaints.

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Speaker 1: But from your scheduling perspective, it's nice to know if, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, Friday, I shouldn't schedule meetings before yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: thirty or whatever, and it just gets rid of a

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Speaker 1: little bit of the negotiation, like, no, you know, this

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Speaker 1: is the day of this, and we don't have to

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Speaker 1: rehash it every time because it gets boring having the

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Speaker 1: game fight over and over again. So yeah, let's go

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Speaker 1: into our back to school tips. Yeah, So I organized

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Speaker 1: this as I often like to for our tips episode,

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Speaker 1: as a few of my favorite tips that I kind

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Speaker 1: of came up with before we crowdsource, and then a

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Speaker 1: few of Laura's favorite tips, and then I organized our

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Speaker 1: listener tips into different categories. So I think there's some

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Speaker 1: really good ones here and some things I didn't think about.

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Speaker 1: So I think this is going to be a fun

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Speaker 1: journey through back to school. So my tips that my

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Speaker 1: favorite tips that I came up with were one. Number

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Speaker 1: one was one that some listeners mentioned as well. Take

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Speaker 1: the school calendar and put it into your planning system

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Speaker 1: as early as possible, even if it's a year in advance,

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Speaker 1: because many public school districts in particular will release their

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Speaker 1: next year's calendar very in a timely fashion, and it's

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Speaker 1: usually available online and yet somehow you still end up

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Speaker 1: surprised that there's an early release day on like March

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Speaker 1: seventh or whatever it is. It's better if you just

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Speaker 1: all in one fall swoops stick get into your calendar,

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Speaker 1: stick it into your shared calendar, if your partner and

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Speaker 1: you work that way. One of our readers mentioned Google

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Speaker 1: Calendar that they use to put all that stuff in,

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Speaker 1: and actually another listener mentioned that their school district has

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Speaker 1: like a button where you can sync all of the

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Speaker 1: school events to your electronic calendar. Ours has not gotten

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Speaker 1: that high tech yet. It's just a PDF that you

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Speaker 1: can download. But that's pretty cool too. Okay, so that's

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Speaker 1: my first tip. Yeah, I've been thinking about how because

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Speaker 1: you know, there's some stuff that's not applicable to you, right,

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Speaker 1: so you know you've got like all the school board

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Speaker 1: meetings person said that they said they'd still rather have

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Speaker 1: all of it and ignore some of it than to

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Speaker 1: put it in manually. Yeah, that's not my style. I

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Speaker 1: would be annoyed seeing like fifth grade social event and

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Speaker 1: it's like, okay, I don't care, but some people would

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Speaker 1: just rather do one click and I get that too. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: all right, and school supplies number two by the school

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Speaker 1: supply box. Now, of course not everybody has the option

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Speaker 1: of getting everything in all one fell swoop, but it

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Speaker 1: does seem like this is sweeping the nation, and many

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Speaker 1: times it's a PTO fundraising type of situation. So you know,

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Speaker 1: it's interesting. I'm on a kindergarten list serve and some

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Speaker 1: of the moms are like, well, it's this cheaper if

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Speaker 1: you go to Target for this, and and I'm like,

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Speaker 1: how much doing this? It's one click and if the

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Speaker 1: PTO is running it, I assume some of that benefits

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Speaker 1: the PTA, so I PTO PTA whatever, and I'm considering

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Speaker 1: it a donation. So yes, I just love the life.

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Speaker 1: It's not worth getting the lowest price on the notebook, yes, exactly,

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Speaker 1: because we're not talking. I think our entire box for

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Speaker 1: each kid was like around one hundred dollars. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: some crazy investment, and then we had to buy a

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Speaker 1: couple of items outside of the box. But actually on

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Speaker 1: our district website it was clearly specified. So I can

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Speaker 1: get my baby wipes and print your paper now and

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Speaker 1: be completely set. So that's awesome. My third tip has

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Speaker 1: to do with well, this one's a tip for myself

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Speaker 1: because I need to work on it. I think our

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Speaker 1: kids have really gotten in the habit of sleeping later,

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Speaker 1: which sounds amazing, except it's only two out of three

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Speaker 1: of the children, so not helpful at all. But for

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Speaker 1: the school year, it's going to be terrible if I'm

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Speaker 1: going to be dragging the big kids out of bed,

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Speaker 1: so we need to streamline that out of door routine.

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Speaker 1: Our nanny has this great practice of keeping a set

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Speaker 1: of clothes and toothbrushing supplies and the downstairs bathroom so

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Speaker 1: you can just get out of the house very quickly.

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Speaker 1: And I do want to do some practicing, which comes

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Speaker 1: up in a later tip. And then finally, my fourth

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Speaker 1: tip is that you know, I'd like to do some

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Speaker 1: things with the school. I definitely don't want to be

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Speaker 1: a room parent, because that's I don't know, that seems

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Speaker 1: like too much of a commitment, but I do plan

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Speaker 1: on sending emails to whatever the room parents are and

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Speaker 1: the teacher is saying that I'd like to be involved,

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Speaker 1: so let me know if you have specific ass or

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Speaker 1: specific needs for donations, like if they you know, want

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Speaker 1: to get some books for the class or whatever. That way,

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Speaker 1: I can make sure to have some involvement and kind

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Speaker 1: of let my voice be seen that I'd want to

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Speaker 1: do things without without having it be all or nothing,

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Speaker 1: because remember, you you don't have to do everything, and

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Speaker 1: doing something counts and your kids will notice, yeah, oh

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Speaker 1: those are great. I think my biggest tip is not

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Speaker 1: to stress about it. I feel like the pull back

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Speaker 1: to school season gets blown up into this bigger thing,

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Speaker 1: partly because it's you know, it's like a news hook

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Speaker 1: so that you can do stories about it and you

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Speaker 1: can do podcasts about it, like you know you were

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Speaker 1: in the school, like you went to school the last year,

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Speaker 1: like you know, it's going to be school again, and

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Speaker 1: there's no real reason to make it a source of anxiety.

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Speaker 1: I think the biggest challenge with a school year is

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Speaker 1: that it's getting into a new routine, Like certain things

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Speaker 1: are different now. Again, if you're going to the exact

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Speaker 1: same schools you wear the previous year, that it's not

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Speaker 1: really that different at all, but maybe there's different activities

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Speaker 1: that are starting up or things like that. And whenever

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Speaker 1: you have a new schedule, like you have to pay

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Speaker 1: attention to it and that consumes mental energy, like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's not just on autopilot. Of who goes

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Speaker 1: where when you have to think about it, and I

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Speaker 1: guess that creates some mental stress, but it's helpful to

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Speaker 1: remember that it won't always be like that, Like within

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Speaker 1: two weeks it will be like, oh, yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: what we do, and so it won't be nearly as

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Speaker 1: as stressful for our scheduling purposes. I create the activity spreadsheet.

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Speaker 1: As Sarah mentioned, this is just one of my blank

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Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty eight hour logs that I use

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Speaker 1: for tracking time as well, and I fill it out

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Speaker 1: with you know, people's different activities, and a couple of

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Speaker 1: the kids have stuff that meets a couple times a week,

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Speaker 1: but you don't have to go to all of it. So,

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Speaker 1: for instance, the swim team may have practices four days

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Speaker 1: a week, but you only really need to go to two.

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Speaker 1: So then we can sort of choose well which to

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Speaker 1: work within the broader family schedule. And so I create

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Speaker 1: this spreadsheet to choose what will be our default days

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Speaker 1: rather than having every week we choose this, although the

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Speaker 1: good news is because there are more options. If it's

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Speaker 1: a complicated week for some reason, we can choose different ones.

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Speaker 1: As I create the spreadsheet, it just helps to show

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Speaker 1: like is this going to be a bad night, or

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Speaker 1: you know, we try to keep one night open. We've

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Speaker 1: often tried to do like Wednesday with no activities, just

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Speaker 1: because then it's the middle of the week and it's

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Speaker 1: a day that you know, you can kind of not

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Speaker 1: deal with stuff. Or if something's canceled and needs to

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Speaker 1: get rescheduled, like there's a space for it to go, so,

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Speaker 1: you know, helps me see open space, helps the kids

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Speaker 1: see that, you know, even if they feel like there's

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Speaker 1: a lot going on. Like the beauty of these hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty eight hour spreadsheets is you see there really

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Speaker 1: isn't Like I mean, there's a ton of space, you know,

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Speaker 1: which is which is good to see? Maybe you need

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Speaker 1: to post spreadsheat sheet printed somewhere, printed somewhere, Well, you

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Speaker 1: can go to my website and download them, you know,

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Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. No, I mean like for your

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Speaker 1: kids to see, Like if they start whining about being overscheduled,

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Speaker 1: you put it, you know, blow it up. I'm get

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Speaker 1: it on the Bridge Camp spreadsheet with them, you know,

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Speaker 1: so they see what's coming up and they're they're good

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00:16:17,160 --> 00:16:23,080
Speaker 1: with that. So yeah, let's see we big about prioritizing

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Speaker 1: family harmony. In the schedule, I mentioned doing the carpool

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Speaker 1: in order to not have to get up at the

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Speaker 1: crack of dawn and get people places, just because I mean,

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Speaker 1: there are occasionally days when you know it would be

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Speaker 1: difficult to make that happen, so you know it's good

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Speaker 1: to have options. I guess that is what And always

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Speaker 1: my favorite the backpacks, shoes and coats in one spot.

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Speaker 1: You want to have a launching pad where everything goes.

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Speaker 1: You're not hunting for it every morning. We're big about

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Speaker 1: Homework is either being done or it's in the backpack.

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Speaker 1: There is absolutely nowhere else it can be because if

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Speaker 1: it's left somewhere, that's when and it doesn't get in.

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Speaker 1: And but this year I am going to actually create

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Speaker 1: a homework spot. Do you have a homework spot? We

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Speaker 1: currently use the kitchen table for the most part, although

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Speaker 1: we maybe should use the dining room table. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: We have both. The kids also have setups in their rooms,

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00:17:14,440 --> 00:17:18,080
Speaker 1: but Animal is probably at the point where she could

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Speaker 1: work more independently and should work more independently. Cameron's only

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Speaker 1: in kindergarten. I hope to God that this school has

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Speaker 1: less homework than the old they went to No, And

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00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:30,480
Speaker 1: I've heard good things that maybe it's not going to

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Speaker 1: be quite the deluge that we experienced previously. But if

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Speaker 1: he does have some them, I think he's going to

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Speaker 1: need a little more hands on attention. So I think

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Speaker 1: the kitchen table would be right. Oh, when I was

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Speaker 1: going to I want to hear about your homework spot,

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00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:44,359
Speaker 1: but I was also going to mention that I know

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Speaker 1: you've talked about your mudroom, and for those of us

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Speaker 1: not fortunate to have of mudroom, we've made a great

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Speaker 1: mudrooms type thing out of our closet in this house,

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00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:56,320
Speaker 1: which is great because it's like a decent sized closet.

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Speaker 1: We put a cube organizer in there. You guys know

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00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:01,400
Speaker 1: what's my favorite thing. We put hooks for back and

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00:18:01,760 --> 00:18:03,879
Speaker 1: so it doesn't have to if you don't have a mudroom,

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Speaker 1: you can you can improvise. You can make one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, a place for shoes. I don't know if

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00:18:07,119 --> 00:18:08,920
Speaker 1: you need a shoe racker, like a cubby for them

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00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:11,520
Speaker 1: or a hook for the backpack. We use the cubes. Yeah,

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00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:13,480
Speaker 1: so all that stuff can can go there. There. We

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00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:15,919
Speaker 1: have a bin for each of the children, which is

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00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:18,199
Speaker 1: a default place where if they're ever like, where's my

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00:18:18,560 --> 00:18:23,200
Speaker 1: it's in there, awesome, and so yeah, yeah, no, where's

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Speaker 1: your where's your homework spot? I'm thinking it's going to

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Speaker 1: be the dining room table. And the reason is because

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Speaker 1: I mean the kitchen counter or the kitchen table are

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Speaker 1: the sort of automatic places where that goes. But the computer,

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00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:37,880
Speaker 1: the home computer and the television are both visible from

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Speaker 1: that spot, whereas from the dining room they are not distracting.

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00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:46,280
Speaker 1: It's just distracting. It's hard to keep everyone off until

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00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:48,959
Speaker 1: everyone's homework is done, you know what I'm saying. So

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00:18:49,560 --> 00:18:51,800
Speaker 1: that's I think that may be a more difficult rule

390
00:18:51,840 --> 00:18:54,879
Speaker 1: to enforce than guessing that your older ones are starting

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Speaker 1: to have some homework that is on the computer. Yeah,

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00:18:57,280 --> 00:18:59,240
Speaker 1: that's true too. Actually, you know, a fair amount of

393
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:02,280
Speaker 1: it gets done there, and that's how I like Josper

394
00:19:02,359 --> 00:19:06,679
Speaker 1: submits almost all assignments. There's a lot less that comes

395
00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:09,480
Speaker 1: home physically on paper, so he has his own whatever

396
00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:13,879
Speaker 1: Google account that they upload documents much. But yeah, so

397
00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:16,240
Speaker 1: that will be there. And then I think if I

398
00:19:16,240 --> 00:19:18,920
Speaker 1: set up the dining room table to have supplies there

399
00:19:18,960 --> 00:19:22,760
Speaker 1: like paper and pencils, well, experiment it could totally not work,

400
00:19:23,280 --> 00:19:28,080
Speaker 1: but we'll see. Oh, so we'll report back. Cool. Your

401
00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:32,560
Speaker 1: next tip is about going to everything or not. So

402
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:35,840
Speaker 1: you were talking about how I talked about how it

403
00:19:35,880 --> 00:19:39,040
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be all or nothing. What about you? Okay,

404
00:19:39,040 --> 00:19:41,600
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break and give you

405
00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:44,320
Speaker 1: guys a word from our sponsors this week. So the

406
00:19:44,359 --> 00:19:46,840
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409
00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:55,720
Speaker 1: getting dressed for work. You have much better things to

410
00:19:55,760 --> 00:19:58,919
Speaker 1: do with your time than go shopping. Then try stuff

411
00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:03,160
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412
00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:06,560
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413
00:20:06,600 --> 00:20:09,560
Speaker 1: some time. She's got dressed, she's got skirts, she's I

414
00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:11,920
Speaker 1: don't think you have pants yet, maybe pants too, Well,

415
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:14,399
Speaker 1: you do have pants, oh man, Yeah, that's true. You

416
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:17,280
Speaker 1: have black pants that are washable blue pants. I would

417
00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:20,600
Speaker 1: add as well, a greener of straight leg black pants.

418
00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:23,320
Speaker 1: You could just wear them over and over and over again,

419
00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:26,680
Speaker 1: you know, washing occasionally in the middle because they're machine washable.

420
00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:29,520
Speaker 1: But you know, if you're looking for these wardrobe staples

421
00:20:29,600 --> 00:20:32,560
Speaker 1: like a pencil skirt, a pair of black pants, a

422
00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:37,080
Speaker 1: black cart again, a good sweater, a good jacket, shift dresses.

423
00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:39,399
Speaker 1: M m laflur is the place you want to go.

424
00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:42,879
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425
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:45,000
Speaker 1: clothes that might interest you. So when I was shopping,

426
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:47,760
Speaker 1: I put in filters for petite friendly and a filter

427
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:50,000
Speaker 1: for washable, and I thought, oh, if I put two

428
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429
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468
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:04,959
Speaker 1: So where we left off, we were talking about Laura's tips,

469
00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 1: and the next tip had to do with going to things,

470
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 1: but not necessarily everything. Yeah, I mean this is true

471
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:14,160
Speaker 1: that you don't have to go to everything. I think

472
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 1: people get very stressed out of like, oh, there's like

473
00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:18,320
Speaker 1: three different back to school events. Well guess what if

474
00:23:18,359 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 1: you don't go to one of them, It's not going

475
00:23:20,160 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 1: to be the end of the world. There are plenty

476
00:23:22,040 --> 00:23:24,040
Speaker 1: of people who don't go to them. You should know this.

477
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:26,920
Speaker 1: You know, for many people, they just they can't make

478
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:29,280
Speaker 1: it work or something comes up. Other kids have to

479
00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:31,520
Speaker 1: do things. Two kids have two different schools that they

480
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: have to be at the same time. Like, there are

481
00:23:33,320 --> 00:23:35,679
Speaker 1: a million reasons parents don't go. So no one's like

482
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:37,920
Speaker 1: judging you. The parent is not sitting, They're like, oh,

483
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 1: that kid's parent isn't there. Clearly I should not pay

484
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:43,159
Speaker 1: any attention to that kid all year. I mean, this

485
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: is not how teachers think. So if that's how you're worried,

486
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 1: like like, just don't take that. Take that off your

487
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: list of things to worry about. You mentioned Terry like

488
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:54,199
Speaker 1: you don't have to be a room parent, and of

489
00:23:54,200 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 1: course you don't. I would say that I was one

490
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: this past year, and it was a lot less worse

491
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: then I sort of thought it might be. In our school,

492
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: they have it kind of down to a science of

493
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:07,200
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to do. They tend to have two

494
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:09,800
Speaker 1: people for each class because you know, then then you

495
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 1: can share the load of it. And the requirement was

496
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:16,959
Speaker 1: pretty much that you plan the holiday parties. So you

497
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: do have to in our case, you did have to

498
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,239
Speaker 1: have during the day availability for those parties. But like,

499
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 1: you know when they're going to be, like it's gonna

500
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: be Halloween, it's going to be around Christmas or something,

501
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:29,240
Speaker 1: it's going to be you know, Valentine's Day. So even

502
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: if you did have a job where you were generally

503
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 1: in an office, you could potentially, you know, decide to

504
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: take half of the day off on those days and

505
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:39,919
Speaker 1: do it. So it was great. You know, I've got

506
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:42,160
Speaker 1: a chance to be in my son's classroom a little

507
00:24:42,160 --> 00:24:45,000
Speaker 1: bit more often, get to know as teacher. So I'm

508
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,120
Speaker 1: really glad I did that. And I don't think I'm

509
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:48,600
Speaker 1: going to take it on this year for anyone, but

510
00:24:48,720 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: I've sort of thought, well, you know, it's it's something

511
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,440
Speaker 1: I could do, like once per kid, maybe you could. Yeah,

512
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 1: I was gonna say if you pick a grade level

513
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:56,160
Speaker 1: and say, like, you know what, I'll be the third

514
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,280
Speaker 1: grade room pairents it's the third grade. It's always grade Yeah. Yeah,

515
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: Well I miss because I didn't really understand the first

516
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: time that it wasn't going to be as big a deal.

517
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 1: I mean, they had this, you know, I have bless

518
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 1: our school, but like at one point, you know, they

519
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 1: were trying to tell people like, yeah, you need to

520
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: be available during the work day, but the way they

521
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: put it is like, I mean, it almost sounded like

522
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:17,919
Speaker 1: if you work, don't bother applying to do this. And

523
00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: I was like, well, geez, you know that doesn't sound good.

524
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: But it turns out not to be that way at all.

525
00:25:22,760 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 1: So I'm glad I got over that little hurdle of

526
00:25:25,800 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: worrying about it as a side note, and and you know,

527
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,360
Speaker 1: maybe this is one of these things that is sweeping

528
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:33,240
Speaker 1: the nation along with the buying the school supply box.

529
00:25:33,600 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: But we have a policy in our state that you

530
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: actually have to have security clearances in order to volunteer

531
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 1: at the schools we do. Yeah, okay, So I have

532
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: mixed feelings about this, Like I actually had to go

533
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 1: get finger printed because I hadn't lived in Pennsylvania for

534
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:52,159
Speaker 1: ten years, which strikes me as like what this is

535
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:53,720
Speaker 1: going to do is it makes it that much harder

536
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 1: for parents to volunteer, or you're going to scare off

537
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: people who I don't know, have like a shoplifting conviction

538
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:00,920
Speaker 1: from age nineteen, who there's no reason that volunteer in

539
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:02,399
Speaker 1: the school, but they're gonna be like, oh god, I

540
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: gotta have a fingerprinted or something, you know, Like, I

541
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm not a big fan. It didn't bother

542
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: me anyway. So if your district, your school, your state

543
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:16,880
Speaker 1: has those policy, you should probably just take a little

544
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: bit of time before the school's ear starts to go

545
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:21,879
Speaker 1: do it. That way, you can volunteer if you'd like

546
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:24,400
Speaker 1: to as opposed to being like, oh well, I wish

547
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: I could, but then I also have to do this

548
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: other step first, and there won't be time before the volunteer.

549
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: The good news is, at least in our district, you

550
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: only have to do it once, so like once you've

551
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,440
Speaker 1: entered the county system and you've been cleared, I think

552
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 1: they like automatically, or maybe it lasts for several years,

553
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: but like I already got a note that said I

554
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: don't have to do it this year because I'm already.

555
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: Grandmother did in exactly, So yeah, if that's something you

556
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,199
Speaker 1: need to do, probably just take some summertime to do it.

557
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: Back to school shopping, I think, you know, the past

558
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 1: few years, I've been approaching this from the perspective that

559
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: new stuff was kind of fun. You know, I don't

560
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: actually do that much shopping in my life through you know,

561
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: various like now that Alex is in school, we have

562
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: some of the hours of our nanny does a lot

563
00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: of their errands and shopping, so I'm not in stores

564
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: that often. So I decided to view it as like, well,

565
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 1: I can you know, go hang out with the kids

566
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: and target. They each get their own lists, like they're

567
00:27:14,760 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 1: responsible for finding the stuff. I'm kind of hanging out

568
00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: with the cart, you know, monitoring stuff as it comes in.

569
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:22,520
Speaker 1: And I possibly this year I might even like give

570
00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:24,199
Speaker 1: them a certain amount of money and see if they

571
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: can figure out the whole budgeting thing of it, which

572
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: which could be a good money experience for them as well.

573
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: So you know, you could approach it in ways like that,

574
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: or even if you have older kids, you know they

575
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:38,400
Speaker 1: got a phone or something, you could just go grocery

576
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 1: shopping next door to the target or something and they

577
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: can go figure it out themselves. You know, approaching it

578
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: from that spirit might might help. And finally I said,

579
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,400
Speaker 1: you know, we can go back to school ourselves. One

580
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,879
Speaker 1: way to make the back to school season more fun

581
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: is to think about what you would like to study,

582
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: like what new skill you'd like to add. It doesn't

583
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 1: have to be a formal class, so it totally can

584
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: be there's nothing wrong with taking classes as a working parent,

585
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:05,719
Speaker 1: like you can totally do that if you want to.

586
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: But it can also just be you know, a skill

587
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: you would like to learn in the course of the year,

588
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: like what would make you feel like you have moved

589
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,600
Speaker 1: forward a grade in your life in the course of

590
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: the next year and see if you can build that

591
00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: into your schedule, and that'll make it feel like you're

592
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,959
Speaker 1: getting some cool stuff too. Are you going to take

593
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: a class? Have you thought about this piano? Piano? I

594
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: mean now that I have the piano. So blog readers

595
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: know that my parents downsized as part of their move

596
00:28:33,320 --> 00:28:35,160
Speaker 1: to New Jersey and got rid of a lot of stuff,

597
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 1: and one of the things they got rid of was

598
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: their piano, which I now have. So I mean, my

599
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:41,160
Speaker 1: kids are learning to play the piano, and I think

600
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: I'm going to definitely do more practicing too, at least

601
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: I say that. Now we'll see you'll harness that back

602
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: to school energy. Yeah, it is a nice time to

603
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: sort of tackle, you know, maybe train for you know,

604
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: there's people have that kind of like new start energy,

605
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: Like why not capitalize on some of that for yourself?

606
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:59,240
Speaker 1: I like that exactly. All right, We've got some listener

607
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: tips and a lot of really nice ones, So let's

608
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: start with some gear related tips. This one comes from Sofia.

609
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 1: She says, we buy the boxer school yes, check, but

610
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: then she also notes that they reuse a lot of

611
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: gear from year to year, including backpacks, which are now

612
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: pretty well made if you get the right brands, and

613
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: I have found the same thing. So I've already informed

614
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: Annabelle that she'll be using her current backpack again and

615
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 1: we'll run it through the washing machine to get it

616
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: as sparkly as we can. And you know, maybe in

617
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: a year or two she'll need a new one, but

618
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: there's no real need if it's not falling apart to

619
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: run to get a new one. Shout outs for which

620
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 1: one of these catalog company is now I'm going to

621
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: forget was the LB. Some people mentioned Lan's End, and

622
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: another person on my blog mentioned Elbean, And we've done

623
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: the Pottery Barn ones, which the lunch bags from there

624
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: have not held up well, but their backpacks seem to

625
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 1: be doing pretty well. So so yeah, pick a reliable

626
00:29:51,400 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: brand and it will last. I'm not sure Cameron is

627
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: currently rocking this giant black backpack that I ordered on

628
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 1: Amazon for camp. I don't know he picked it out.

629
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 1: It was very ch and I'm not sure it will

630
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 1: last a year, but it's fine right now, so you know,

631
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: we're just going with it this year. Yeah, yeah, the next.

632
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: Oh and somebody mentions not specifically buying back to school clothes,

633
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: just buying clothes as their kids grow out of stuff

634
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: and need it. This person said they find that buying

635
00:30:15,360 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: a bunch of outfits for back to school increases clutter

636
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: for us. You know, back to school is certainly not

637
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: a cool, crisp time of years. It's not like we

638
00:30:23,320 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: need a new season of clothes. I do think some

639
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: of their clothes are kind of disgusting and I feel

640
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: sort of embarrassed, like holes in the pants and like

641
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 1: stains on the shirt. So I may have to indulge

642
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:39,520
Speaker 1: in some for them, But I get what they're saying.

643
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: You don't need to buy them a new wardrobe just because,

644
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:46,800
Speaker 1: just because. Yeah. Our next tip reader, Jillian Sorry, said

645
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 1: that it's a good time to start fresh with home policies.

646
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:52,640
Speaker 1: So meet with kids. Meet with each of your kids

647
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:57,080
Speaker 1: and talk about, you know, your home policies, like what

648
00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: rules are going to be during the year, what they

649
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: are excited about, because that way, you know, you're having

650
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: a conversation about what extracurricular activities they care about, you know,

651
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:07,920
Speaker 1: if there's going to be any big family changes or

652
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: schedule changes. But just keeping them involved, like it's you know,

653
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: we often get involved in our own logistics, but especially

654
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: as kids get older, they need to be informed of

655
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: them as well. So meeting one on one with each

656
00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: of your kids to talk through their hopes and goals

657
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 1: and aspirations for the school year and your hopes and

658
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: goals and aspirations is great too. There were some other

659
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: sort of publicy changes mentioned from some readers. One person

660
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: said they switched to a no screens approach. This was

661
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: Melissa from Mondays to Thursdays and puts nothing on Fridays.

662
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: But that's sort of a policy change from the summer,

663
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: and she makes sure that they all know about that

664
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: and that it's just the new rule and they've been

665
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: accepting of it and had success with it. Yeah. I

666
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: react that people mentioned and I was going to say

667
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: chores as well, that if you are shifting over chores,

668
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: this is a good time to discuss it as well.

669
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: Because every new everything's a new routine. So if you'd

670
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: like your kids to start doing something or shift it

671
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:02,239
Speaker 1: from one kid to another, depending on what's going on,

672
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: this is a good time to bring that up. Erica

673
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:07,680
Speaker 1: mentions also having a meet I love these meetings. I

674
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: don't know that I've had that many kid meetings and

675
00:32:09,840 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 1: now I'm sort of motivated to they set up new

676
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: routines and have a meeting before before school starts to

677
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: discuss expectations and how things will be different from a

678
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:22,240
Speaker 1: slightly relaxed summer. Yeah. So another tip we have is

679
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: being ready for the huge volume of papers coming in

680
00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 1: through the year. So one of the things that I think,

681
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 1: you know, drives people crazy at the start of the

682
00:32:29,640 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: years is there are all these forms coming home, some

683
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 1: of which you have to deal with, some of what

684
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: you don't, some of just you know, for your information

685
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: or like the policy, the privacy policy on some online

686
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: program they're going to be using, so you know, have

687
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 1: some space for it. Jen says. Each kid has a

688
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: large plastic filebox with folders for pre K through twelfth grade.

689
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: Anything super special gets put in the appropriate folder. The

690
00:32:50,720 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: rest is thrown away. We've also set up a command

691
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: center in a back hallway of the house that includes

692
00:32:56,040 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: an erasable calendar and a corkboard for notices. Well, we

693
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: also have similar boxes. I believe I got that idea

694
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 1: from the Happier podcast and it's worked really well and

695
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 1: I can now go back and look at things from

696
00:33:08,400 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: like preschool for Annabelle and I'm gonna have to make

697
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,719
Speaker 1: genevieva box. Yeah, it's kind of fun. Oh sorry, it

698
00:33:13,760 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: was the homework boxes related to that, right, that's the yes.

699
00:33:16,880 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: Melissa also mentioned that each kid of hers has a

700
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: homework box ready with what they need, so nobody is

701
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: looking for items or waiting for her to get started.

702
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: And in the homework boxes pencils, crayons, scissors, and glue,

703
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: which is so true. I can't tell you how many

704
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:31,920
Speaker 1: times I felt like finding the blue crayon was a

705
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: barrier to getting my child to do their homework, and like,

706
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: how annoy just have them all in one place. In fact,

707
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: this makes me want to also stockpile a million of

708
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: those little boxes of just eight crayons to have on

709
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: hand so I can restock when Genevieve invariablue like eats

710
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,040
Speaker 1: the crayons and yeah, exactly keep them away from the toddler.

711
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: We had a couple of people mentioned the idea of

712
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: making the first day special in some way regardless. You know,

713
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,280
Speaker 1: if you want to be part of the beginning of

714
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: the school year, this might be a good day to

715
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: arrange to come into work late, or take a half

716
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:08,280
Speaker 1: day or something like that. Maybe even take the day

717
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:10,359
Speaker 1: off if you think it's going to be a big

718
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:12,319
Speaker 1: transition for some of your kids and they're really going

719
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: to need to process stuff afterwards. Again, it doesn't have

720
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: to be a big deal, so you know, some kids

721
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:18,720
Speaker 1: is fine. I feel like this is just a normal

722
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: day and that may help them with some anxiety. But

723
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,720
Speaker 1: if it's going to create anxiety for you with the schedule,

724
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 1: maybe maybe that's a day to take off or do

725
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:30,760
Speaker 1: some other fun things. The pictures on the front steps,

726
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: we don't do the like chalkboard with the grade or

727
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 1: anything like that. We just we just take pictures. But

728
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 1: yeah too, no chalkboard. And I'm not taking the first

729
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:40,759
Speaker 1: day off, but I am gonna like go in a

730
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 1: little later so I can do the whole morning with

731
00:34:42,400 --> 00:34:44,480
Speaker 1: the kids and do drop off and I think I

732
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: get to go in with my kindergartener, so that'll be

733
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:50,480
Speaker 1: yeah cool, and possibly do something fun after school that day.

734
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 1: People will mentioned the ice cream tradition or love game

735
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 1: or a special dinner. And if not the first day,

736
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 1: like maybe the first weekend, there is the first Friday

737
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 1: night Friday or that there's you know, a trip to

738
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:05,239
Speaker 1: the beach, if it's still warm wherever you are on

739
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: that first weekend, but just something to be fun and

740
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: celebrate that we've had a great first week. Well, that

741
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 1: was kind of so. One reader, Jessica, was talking about

742
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 1: all of her tips had to do with planning, and

743
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: that was kind of interesting. She talked about kind of

744
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: making the first week very light, so not a lot

745
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,200
Speaker 1: of extra stuff, but then also purposely planning in something

746
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:27,880
Speaker 1: fun for the first weekend after the school starts, like

747
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:30,880
Speaker 1: an amusement park trip or a family barbecue, something to

748
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: kind of look back to the fun summer days. And

749
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:35,759
Speaker 1: then she mentioned having a family vacation. On the book,

750
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: she knows that by October everyone's gonna need a break,

751
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 1: and they like when they begin this slog of school

752
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: or it can feel like a slog to some kids anyway,

753
00:35:43,239 --> 00:35:46,439
Speaker 1: to know that there's something fun to look ahead to. Yeah. Yeah,

754
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 1: so it's not just all the way to Christmas break

755
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,759
Speaker 1: or the holiday break. I guess there's something in the

756
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 1: middle that can be awesome if that's doing. Another tip

757
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: on communicating with teachers, so one of our listeners writes

758
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 1: that if you have a kid with special needs, no

759
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:01,840
Speaker 1: matter how mild, always touch base with the classroom teacher

760
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,839
Speaker 1: before school starts. It gives the teacher a better sense

761
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 1: of how to deal with your child than any individual

762
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 1: education plan can. If things have been rather crazy for

763
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,040
Speaker 1: the teacher and they haven't had a chance to read

764
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 1: the IAP yet, this also will give a nudge for

765
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 1: that to happen. She says that as a result of

766
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: reaching out advance, my special needs kiddo has been, for instance,

767
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 1: seated next to a friend for the first day, which

768
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,480
Speaker 1: helped with making sure that the first day went a

769
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:31,360
Speaker 1: lot more smoothly than it could have given this situation. Yeah,

770
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:33,360
Speaker 1: that's so nice. It's like a little thing, but it

771
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:35,879
Speaker 1: could mean so much and the only way to get

772
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: it is to reach out. We had another blog reader

773
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: that stated that she always goes to meet the teacher

774
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: night with a gift card and note for each teacher.

775
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 1: She writes, it's generally for coffee and I leave some

776
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 1: acknowledgment on how hard they work. I want to start

777
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: this relationship off on the right foot since they will

778
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: be interacting with my child seven hours a day for

779
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: the next one hundred and eighty days. I would just

780
00:36:57,160 --> 00:36:59,240
Speaker 1: leave a note to be careful about what the school

781
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: policies are because some districts may not allow this kind

782
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:06,359
Speaker 1: of thing. I think it's a little controversial, but if

783
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: it works for her, so yeah, you know, I think

784
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 1: I think it probably stems from more like the high

785
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: school stuff, like people are worried about like they're you know,

786
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 1: trying to get recommendation letters and stuff, and then you

787
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: give a really nice gift card or something and shage

788
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:21,760
Speaker 1: like it's just they don't want to go down that route.

789
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: So we have we have a new gifts policy. But

790
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: no gifts for holidays too. M hm oh yeah, wow, yeah,

791
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 1: no class gifts, no nothing, no nothing, no nothing. You

792
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:32,880
Speaker 1: can you're if you're going to do something, you can

793
00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: donate a book to the library, or you can give

794
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:38,479
Speaker 1: to the scholarship fund in the person's name. That's wow,

795
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: that's a lot. But that is a that is a

796
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: different culture from from how it is. That's very interesting.

797
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 1: But okay, so lunch, let's do lunch. Yes, lunch is big,

798
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 1: as we know. I think Laura is a big proponent

799
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: of buying, and as are some of our the people

800
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 1: who wrote We tend to pack, although again our nanny

801
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 1: tends to pack. So it's a little easier on me

802
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: to make that decision. I will say, if you're going

803
00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 1: to do the packing route, I agree with Gillian. The

804
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:06,879
Speaker 1: Bento boxes are just so easy and they hold up

805
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 1: so well to just like throw different things in a compartment,

806
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: and it's just so much easier than dealing with a

807
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: bunch of disposable containers and stuff doesn't get squished and

808
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:19,279
Speaker 1: it doesn't mix together. She uses Planet Box. We use

809
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 1: lunch bots, and we've got the same containers that I

810
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 1: bought years ago that are still completely fine, and we

811
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,400
Speaker 1: throw them in the dishwasher. Instead of using a fancy

812
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 1: insulated lunch box, we just use the kind of neoprene

813
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 1: ones that are like ten bucks on Amazon and can

814
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 1: be thrown in the washing machine and to just put

815
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,799
Speaker 1: ice packs in there. So you know, I don't know

816
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:43,399
Speaker 1: if we would pass a food inspection, but no one's

817
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:47,280
Speaker 1: gotten sick yet, so that's good. Yeah. We've been working

818
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 1: with camp lunches for the past week and or two weeks,

819
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,719
Speaker 1: and it's just it's a reminder of why do the

820
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,799
Speaker 1: school lunch. There's been all kinds of you know, there

821
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: was a leak of azer pack, there was you know,

822
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,680
Speaker 1: squish stuff people complaining about what because of course they

823
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:08,279
Speaker 1: can't bring peanut butter, you know, with various allergies that

824
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 1: are present in different programs. And so then you're trying

825
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 1: to figure out what to pack. And there's been a

826
00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:15,399
Speaker 1: lot of sun butter. Sun butter, Well, they don't really

827
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:17,080
Speaker 1: like that. There's a little bit of cream cheese. But

828
00:39:17,080 --> 00:39:19,319
Speaker 1: then people could play and the cream cheese tastes bad

829
00:39:19,360 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: when it's been in there all day. Yeah, and they

830
00:39:22,040 --> 00:39:26,879
Speaker 1: like their hot lunches, which is good. Yeah, so lunch

831
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,399
Speaker 1: you got to strategize your plan. And I cannot tell

832
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,800
Speaker 1: you how how much I laugh when I see those

833
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:37,720
Speaker 1: like posts with like the cutout lunches, flowers and stuff.

834
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure there are people that love that.

835
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: I cannot imagine now, I know, but I mean I think,

836
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 1: you know, if you're doing it to entertain your one

837
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:50,759
Speaker 1: hundred thousand Instagram followers, I mean, that's your business. Like

838
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:53,480
Speaker 1: that's it's a different thing. It's not you're just doing

839
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:55,360
Speaker 1: it because but I think then a lot of moms

840
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: think that's like not their new job now, because I know, anyway,

841
00:39:59,600 --> 00:40:03,720
Speaker 1: we give you permission to just make it utilitarian whichever

842
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:07,359
Speaker 1: direction usual I'll definitely a lot of leftovers. If they

843
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 1: can't get fed, it's good exactly. Yes, that's that's my

844
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 1: thought about practice school in general. All right, well we

845
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 1: should go to our question. Yeah, thank you everybody for

846
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: sending those in, and you know, feel free to browse

847
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: around on our blogs that we've We didn't get to

848
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: use all of them, but lots of helpful stuff there.

849
00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 1: So shall I read this or do you want to

850
00:40:31,239 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 1: read it? I can read it you had you had

851
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 1: a good first answer, and then I'll chip in. Okay,

852
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 1: this is a long term best of both worlds listener.

853
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 1: Writing in, she says, I'm married with two elementary school kids,

854
00:40:41,880 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 1: one that has a chronic health issue and the other

855
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:45,359
Speaker 1: one that needs therapy a few times a week at

856
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: least for the next year or two. I started a

857
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 1: new job a month ago. Prior to this job, I

858
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: was always non exempt, paid hourly, had no flexibility, had

859
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 1: to use PTO for all my kids doctor's appointments, sick days,

860
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 1: snow days, et cetera. There have been several years where

861
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: we couldn't even take a big because I had no

862
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: time off left. My husband does almost all the appointments

863
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: and snow days for that reason, but it gets stressful

864
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 1: due to his work responsibilities, commute, et cetera. I'm really

865
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: enjoying my new job, duties and everything it entails. My

866
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 1: position is exempt, so I will have more wiggle room

867
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: to say work from home if one of my kids

868
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 1: has an appointment. But my challenge is that, after years

869
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: of having zero flexibility, I don't know how to ask

870
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 1: my boss to do any of these things. I'm not

871
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:26,120
Speaker 1: sure if it's a case of imposter syndrome or insecurity,

872
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: but I almost feel as if I don't deserve it

873
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:31,279
Speaker 1: or I'm being too presumptuous. I also wonder if my

874
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: coworkers will frown on that as well. Even though they

875
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 1: have the benefit, they don't seem to have the need,

876
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:41,840
Speaker 1: desire for flex alternative schedules. Do have any advice? Yeah, well,

877
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: I mean this is it's so challenging when you've built

878
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:49,919
Speaker 1: your career with one set of assumptions and then now

879
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 1: there's different ones, but you feel like you still have

880
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: the same limitations. I think one of the things that

881
00:41:57,680 --> 00:41:59,799
Speaker 1: might help her is to just sort of track her

882
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:01,960
Speaker 1: work hours for a while, even though she's exempt and

883
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: she's not getting paid hourly anymore. It might help to

884
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 1: assure herself and to have a record that she's definitely

885
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:10,759
Speaker 1: putting in, you know, sort of whatever the expectation is

886
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: thirty five to forty hours or so, and that might

887
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 1: give her a little bit more confidence to ask for

888
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: these things. I also said, I wouldn't be sure that

889
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,320
Speaker 1: her colleagues aren't using the flexibility. A lot of people

890
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: just probably don't talk about it. This isn't the kind

891
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:26,280
Speaker 1: of thing that people walk in and you know, somebody

892
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:28,600
Speaker 1: who's only been working there a month, and everyone announces

893
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 1: to guess what, you know, I worked at home yesterday

894
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 1: morning because the plumber was coming. Like, this isn't the

895
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 1: sort of thing people necessarily announce, but you can ask,

896
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: especially as you get to know people, so as you're

897
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: you know, having lunch with someone in the company cafeteria

898
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:44,200
Speaker 1: or and I mean be like, yeah, you know, how

899
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 1: is it like I've got this thing coming up where

900
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 1: I think I gotta have to meet a plumber. You know,

901
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: you don't don't even put it kid oriented, just to

902
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 1: so keep it in you know, the realm of things

903
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: that might happen to anyone, or like, you know, I

904
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 1: want to do my dentist appointment, they've got these really

905
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 1: limited hours, Like how have you had to deal with that?

906
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 1: And then you can find out like is this something

907
00:43:01,440 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 1: that people do? I'd also, you know, if she has

908
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,320
Speaker 1: a good relationship with her boss, this is certainly something

909
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:11,879
Speaker 1: she can ask in her first performance review. I mean,

910
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: get the person to sort of be talking about what

911
00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: an awesome job she's doing, and then you can ask

912
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 1: about one, you know, a one off accommodation that would

913
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: be helpful. Maybe there's a particular specialist one of her

914
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:24,520
Speaker 1: children needs to see in a couple of weeks, and

915
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:26,920
Speaker 1: she could broach the topic like somebody who's just been

916
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: singing your praises is probably not going to be like, no,

917
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: nobody does that here. And then once she does it

918
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,720
Speaker 1: once and sees that it's fine, like the earth doesn't stop,

919
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 1: she doesn't get fired, Like I mean, it's probably she'll

920
00:43:39,680 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 1: see that she can do it, and then it's just

921
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: you know, it's about working in the way that works

922
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: for you. I Mean, they went through the trouble of

923
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:49,440
Speaker 1: hiring you, they probably want to keep you, so you know,

924
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: don't abuse it, but you're not going to abuse it,

925
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: like just it's it's probably okay. But then again, I've

926
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: I've not really had a tradition jobs, so I'm maybe

927
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: not the best person to comment on this. So and

928
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 1: I'm not an HR expert, but I can tell you

929
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 1: what I've learned from my experience as an exempt employee myself.

930
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:13,800
Speaker 1: I want to remind you that part of the beauty

931
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:18,080
Speaker 1: of exempt is you are exempt. No one is going

932
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: to ask you to scan your badge in and out,

933
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 1: and your job is probably a little bit more now

934
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: about getting things done that are expected and less about FaceTime.

935
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:30,760
Speaker 1: I think you need to remember this and probably start

936
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: experimenting a little, maybe little by little, to figure out

937
00:44:34,040 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: what goes over well. And I think that when you

938
00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:38,560
Speaker 1: get a little bit more in tune with the work culture,

939
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: it'll become more natural. I wouldn't assume that your coworkers,

940
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 1: just like Laura said, aren't doing these things. It's just that,

941
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:46,279
Speaker 1: like when you go to the dentist and then walk

942
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: in later, you know, how can you tell if someone

943
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,319
Speaker 1: did that versus went to an early meeting. A lot

944
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: of people have off site meetings and other things, so

945
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: you know, when their butt is not in their chair,

946
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 1: you probably assume that they're doing work. But maybe they're not.

947
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,760
Speaker 1: I think one strategy that I I've definitely employed before

948
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: because I tend to be on the self conscious side

949
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 1: about this as well, Like you know that, for example,

950
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 1: this podcast is not being done on work time. That's

951
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:14,000
Speaker 1: why I am specifically a point nine fte, although my

952
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: job is different because a lot of it I need

953
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 1: to be very physically present to do. But I guess

954
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:20,799
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is what I used to do when I,

955
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:23,000
Speaker 1: let's say, had an obe appointment that I was gonna

956
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 1: run out during lunch but it might go over is

957
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:27,839
Speaker 1: I would sort of make a show of either coming

958
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: in early that day or or staying late, or like

959
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,239
Speaker 1: you know, casually walk by my bosses on the way out.

960
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 1: If I stayed late, oh yeah, I had to finish

961
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 1: because my boss is always there by the way. But

962
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: I had to finish this late because because I ran

963
00:45:39,640 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: to the OBI like kind of just making sure that

964
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 1: they knew that I was making up the time, even

965
00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: though probably if I think about that, I was ridiculous

966
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 1: because nobody cares if my patients were being seen and

967
00:45:50,480 --> 00:45:52,359
Speaker 1: my goals were being met and my charts were being

968
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:56,279
Speaker 1: done and everyone was satisfied, Nobody cares that I moved

969
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: one patient to a different day and did my notes later,

970
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:00,600
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I I think that

971
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 1: I guess. So number one, maybe try to just be

972
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: less self conscious about it. But number two, you know

973
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 1: you can. You can kind of emphasize that you are

974
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:13,279
Speaker 1: doing everything. If it makes you feel better, Yeah, tend

975
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 1: to send an email at nine pm to yes, yes exactly.

976
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: Or I think I even said you could. You could

977
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:21,160
Speaker 1: be if it makes you more comfortable, you could say

978
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 1: at a meeting, like Laura said, there's a few days

979
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 1: when I have to leave a little early, but I'll

980
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 1: be working from home in the evening to catch up

981
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: on anything I missed. I'd be shocked if someone had

982
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: an objection to that, because you're not saying I'm going

983
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:36,359
Speaker 1: to do less work. You're just you're just shifting things

984
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 1: around a little bit on the rare occasion that you

985
00:46:38,160 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 1: need it. So hopefully she becomes more confident on this,

986
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 1: and I'm really hoping that she gets a vacation because

987
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 1: that sounds like it's been a tough situation for a

988
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:50,240
Speaker 1: few years too. So here's too new jobs and more flexibility.

989
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 1: So this brings us to our love of the week segment,

990
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 1: so mine is in fact starting school after Labor Day.

991
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:00,600
Speaker 1: I actually like this setup because I'm really like the

992
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: idea of having August still not be school, you know,

993
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 1: I don't know something about it feels like summer just

994
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,360
Speaker 1: keeps going. And last year, in fact, we the older

995
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 1: three kids and Michael and I were in Colorado on

996
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: September first. I remember taking the kids to a diner

997
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 1: on September first for breakfast. I'm like, wow, that's September

998
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 1: and we're still on summer vacation. Like this is kind

999
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 1: of kind of cool. So I like that sense of

1000
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: stretching it out, you know, even if we do go

1001
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: to mid June. No, I'm jealous. I mean, I the

1002
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: Northeast does summer a lot better than South Florida does.

1003
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: But because we have summer all the time for you guys,

1004
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: well no, it's just like summer's our worst weather. So

1005
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 1: it's not like we you know, I look forward to

1006
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:45,919
Speaker 1: summer for the more relaxed schedule, but I don't really

1007
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: look forward to summer for being summer. So I guess

1008
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: for us, it just doesn't matter as much when it

1009
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 1: starts or ends. It's not it's not a season that

1010
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 1: we relish, I think the way I remember doing so

1011
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: when I was a kid living up north and we

1012
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:01,399
Speaker 1: had winter. Yeah, but yeah, I think your situation sounds great.

1013
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:03,440
Speaker 1: If I lived up there, I would particularly want to

1014
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 1: stretch it out as long as possible. I think down here,

1015
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: I care less. Yeah, my love of the week is

1016
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,520
Speaker 1: field Notes. I may have had that boem before, but

1017
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 1: you know what, that's okay because it is a tangential

1018
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: school supply. Field Notes are these little sort of I

1019
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe three by five size small notebooks, are

1020
00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:24,400
Speaker 1: very durable, and they come in all these cool specialty editions,

1021
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:27,800
Speaker 1: and the most recent specialty edition was National Park themed

1022
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: ones and they're so pretty. I'll put a picture of

1023
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:33,120
Speaker 1: them maybe in the Instagram, because like they're just these

1024
00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: little nature scenes and I tend to share them with

1025
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 1: the kids now, Like Annabel likes to write stories in them,

1026
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:40,800
Speaker 1: so I'll give it to her the maybe document I

1027
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 1: don't know the end of her summer or something like that.

1028
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: But you can subscribe and get these special editions for

1029
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 1: like one hundred dollars a year for four shipments, and

1030
00:48:48,080 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 1: it's just like an immense amount of pleasure and I

1031
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:53,239
Speaker 1: just felt like this summer slash Fall edition was one

1032
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:56,240
Speaker 1: of their best yet. So field Notes is my school

1033
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: themed love of the week. Well, I will have to

1034
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 1: check that out. Well. This has been our back to

1035
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 1: School edition, Episode one oh seven. We'll be back next

1036
00:49:04,160 --> 00:49:06,240
Speaker 1: week with more on making work in life fit together.

1037
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the

1038
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,

1039
00:49:15,920 --> 00:49:19,960
Speaker 1: and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

1040
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 1: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please

1041
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: join us next time for more on making work and

1042
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:27,400
Speaker 1: life work together.