Speaker 1: I got to Oh, hello, welcome that we does parenting.
Speaker 1: I'm Peter McNerney and I'm Beth Nowell in the woods.
Speaker 1: I'm in the woods. I'm outside of Richmond, Virginia. I'm
Speaker 1: down here for a book released party tomorrow night. Babes,
Speaker 1: it's tonight. If they're listening to this, it's tonight baby.
Speaker 1: By the time you're listening to this, it's tonight yesterday,
Speaker 1: depending on when you listen. Babes of Carrytown, Richmond, Virginia. Um, anyway,
Speaker 1: we I'm here with Jackie, my co author. Oh, we've
Speaker 1: got some kids waking up. Oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 1: this is gonna be extra Keep explaining yourself if I
Speaker 1: should be quiet. Um, the we've disturbed a second household
Speaker 1: with our loud podcasting. So where are you right now?
Speaker 1: I don't even know. I am at Jackie's house outside
Speaker 1: of Richmond, and she's putting her daughter back to bed,
Speaker 1: who just overheard us recording a podcast And she was
Speaker 1: asleep and she's like, why are people projecting? So clearly
Speaker 1: I must get out of bed and investigate. Is someone
Speaker 1: promoting a book event? That's what she was thinking. I'm interested. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we FaceTime you earlier with the kids. That was
Speaker 1: fun boy. I gotta say so. Jackie has two kids,
Speaker 1: very similar ages to our two kids, and they have
Speaker 1: they talked before they hit it off. They have talked before,
Speaker 1: but not in a while. So they were really connecting
Speaker 1: and and Britain said to Rocket, he was like, how
Speaker 1: old are you? Like? He clearly is like, this is
Speaker 1: a cool person and I need to know how I
Speaker 1: measure up. He's like, are you my peer? I think
Speaker 1: you're somebody I can connect with on an intellectual level.
Speaker 1: And then she showed him that she lost her two
Speaker 1: bottom teeth, and then he lied and said that he
Speaker 1: lost a tooth in the back of his mouth, conveniently
Speaker 1: that you know, the place where you can't easily show
Speaker 1: someone over FaceTime. I've lost one way in the back.
Speaker 1: He's a big liar. Um. So we're we're I'm home alone,
Speaker 1: solo parenting. It's going great so far. Can I say
Speaker 1: I took I took them out to dinner and I
Speaker 1: was in a good mood, so I was just practicing
Speaker 1: full deflection instead. Anytime they got cranky or said no
Speaker 1: to something, I just decided, no matter what, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not going to be a rigid wall. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna get out of the way and redirect and
Speaker 1: day positive. Did you say I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: a rigid mom. No, that would be very offensive if
Speaker 1: I said that, are rigid. I think I said wall,
Speaker 1: like you know, you know when they do something you
Speaker 1: want them to stop, and you media they are like, no,
Speaker 1: that's sort of like you're not getting by me at all.
Speaker 1: I picture it like when I'm doing my best parenting,
Speaker 1: not soft, but just I'm trying to redirect. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get out of the way of the conflict, like
Speaker 1: just like let it get past me, and then when
Speaker 1: it's less threatened, to point it towards a productive direction.
Speaker 1: And it was super successful. Um, okay, so we can
Speaker 1: talk about the really the best thing in the world
Speaker 1: that happened today, finally some relief on the housing front
Speaker 1: we were in. Did you feel it like I got
Speaker 1: that text that it happened and I just felt the
Speaker 1: weight of the universe lift off of me. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I was telling Jackie today, I feel like the energy
Speaker 1: is shifting around us. Yeah, that's an understatement. I'm offended
Speaker 1: at how how how underwhelming a description that is of
Speaker 1: how I feel. I feel invincible, and now we can
Speaker 1: do everything else. Now we can move on with our lives.
Speaker 1: Now we can talk about it, Now we can plan.
Speaker 1: We can plan our lives sort of. Yeah. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: I think that's why. That put me in the mood
Speaker 1: where I'm like, I'm gonna try positive parenting tonight. You
Speaker 1: know what, if they get mad, fine, I'm just gonna redirect.
Speaker 1: I wasn't any sort of special parent tonight. I was
Speaker 1: just in a good mood, which makes it a lot
Speaker 1: easier to deal with bratty children. Yeah, because like, I'm
Speaker 1: not taking things personally. I don't care. I'm fine. I
Speaker 1: have a house now, so you kids can't hurt my feelings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your homeowner invincible? Yeah, dude, I'm a home owner. Homeowner.
Speaker 1: You know I have no problems. I'll be super stressed
Speaker 1: in two days as like the reality of what's next
Speaker 1: comes into play. Yeah. So how does it feel to
Speaker 1: be free from your kids and your husband and with
Speaker 1: your with the best friend and and no responsibilities. Um,
Speaker 1: it feels good. I wouldn't say there's no responsibilities, but
Speaker 1: I mean I I went from hanging out with my
Speaker 1: kids to hang out with someone else's kids, so it's
Speaker 1: it's fun. It was a pretty similar trade in terms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like actually less annoying when someone else's kids are
Speaker 1: jumping on you because you're like, you don't take it personally.
Speaker 1: You're not like this person jumps on me every day
Speaker 1: of my life. It's also I'm not responsible for stopping this.
Speaker 1: I don't need to teach them anything. Go for it,
Speaker 1: kill me, you know what, jump on me. Go ahead. Um,
Speaker 1: Jacky's daughter Rocket said something, or she was she said
Speaker 1: something about me being a mom now, or she's like
Speaker 1: she was like, this is what it's like to be
Speaker 1: our mom. You never get a break. It was like
Speaker 1: very on point. I was like, oh, I know, tell
Speaker 1: me about it, Rocket. But on that note, I think
Speaker 1: we should introduce our guest. Um, alright, great, I don't
Speaker 1: want to keep talking about her while she's here. I mean,
Speaker 1: for the record, we've heard her giggling in the background
Speaker 1: for at least five minutes. Yeah, well, I've been trying
Speaker 1: to introduce her. I also quietly choked and ran away.
Speaker 1: She had a whole choking thing. If you catch it,
Speaker 1: go back. It's the easter egg in the episode Find it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have here Jackie and Ruise, my co author
Speaker 1: in There's No Manual and also illustrator of everything. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those illustrations are incredible and I love it. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I always look at all the pictures first
Speaker 1: before I read a word. Well, that makes me feel
Speaker 1: superior to your wife, and that basically my goal in
Speaker 1: doing this whole thing, So thank you very much for that.
Speaker 1: And all the illustrations are a lot of like vaginas
Speaker 1: and boobs, which I think and when anyone like passing
Speaker 1: by the book who picks it up, I think is
Speaker 1: going to be a little taken in by that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they are compelling. I think we have we
Speaker 1: we have dedicated a shocking amount of time to talking
Speaker 1: about the vagina illustrations in your book between last week
Speaker 1: and this week? Did we? I guess? This week Beth
Speaker 1: found out that I used that I've been drawing vaginas
Speaker 1: with spiderwebs coming out of them since I was a teenager.
Speaker 1: What seemed really offended that I didn't disclose that earlier. Well,
Speaker 1: I was to find out because last Christmas I sent
Speaker 1: Jackie a needle point I did of a human spider
Speaker 1: woman with a spiderweb coming out of her vagina and
Speaker 1: about her wall. And she never told me that she,
Speaker 1: as a child would draw spider women, because I just
Speaker 1: decided that it was like ancestral knowledge that you already
Speaker 1: had about me if you were to make me an
Speaker 1: embroidery like that apropos of nothing. Yeah, there's no part
Speaker 1: of you that was like, oh weird, I relate to this,
Speaker 1: Let me share it. You're just like, oh, yes, of course,
Speaker 1: she was like, and like when check out my portfolio,
Speaker 1: she was like she never acknowledged that, like, oh, this
Speaker 1: speaks to me on a soul level. Did so? How
Speaker 1: old are you when you started drawing, drawing cobwebs in vaginas?
Speaker 1: I think I was about sixteen. It was always the
Speaker 1: same pose of like a woman laying down and all
Speaker 1: you could see was like her belly and her boobs
Speaker 1: and then like her spread out legs and then a
Speaker 1: spider web emerging from inside of her vagina. Was like,
Speaker 1: that was my phone doodle for some reason? Was there
Speaker 1: because I could see I could see I could see that,
Speaker 1: I could see the tone of a drawing like that
Speaker 1: going a lot of different directions. I could see it
Speaker 1: as a like horror. I could see it as sad,
Speaker 1: I could see it as empowering. Um, how would you
Speaker 1: describe the tone of these illustrations. Um, I think they
Speaker 1: were expository. Mostly they were sort of like a medical
Speaker 1: a medical exploration. In my mind, I'm picturing a Shell
Speaker 1: Silverstein like quality. That's exactly what I was picturing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to be Shelley Silverstein. And um, it involves
Speaker 1: a lot of vaginas Shelly, Shelly Silverste. I feel like shell. Yeah. UM,
Speaker 1: I love this. This made a thing of something your
Speaker 1: daughter told me tonight on FaceTime. UM, I love her
Speaker 1: passion for snakes. Yes, um use me like my I
Speaker 1: love snakes. And then the first thing she told me,
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly what she said, but she was
Speaker 1: fascinated with, um, um, like the insides of snakes, like
Speaker 1: like the spine of snakes. Oh, she wants to be
Speaker 1: a veterinarian for snakes only. And she said, I want
Speaker 1: to see what they look like inside. She said, I
Speaker 1: want to be That's her like when people ask her
Speaker 1: what she wants to be, she says, I want to
Speaker 1: be a reptile veterinarian because I want to know what
Speaker 1: the inside of a snake looks like it's a very
Speaker 1: like psychopath esque, fascinating but healthy. She and you know what,
Speaker 1: she does, have like a weird connection with snakes. And
Speaker 1: we went into a pet store and there was like
Speaker 1: a a few pythons up on this top tank and
Speaker 1: I had to lift her up to look into the tank,
Speaker 1: and the snake just lifted up its head and went
Speaker 1: it just like in Harry Potter and was staring at
Speaker 1: h She is totally in Slytherin. She's a Slytherin with
Speaker 1: Griffin door rye sing, Huh do you want to talk
Speaker 1: about astrology now? Well, I just want to say, making
Speaker 1: astrology into a Harry Potter analogy is the first time
Speaker 1: I've been mildly interested in it. Um. I stole that
Speaker 1: from my friend Gina. I just want to admit that
Speaker 1: that's She says she's a slither with Hufflepuff rising, and
Speaker 1: I think it's really good. Yeah. I think I might
Speaker 1: be a Griffin door with a Hufflepuff rising. I think
Speaker 1: you might be a hufflepuff with a Griffin door rising. Wow,
Speaker 1: she just read you well. As I was saying that,
Speaker 1: in my mind, the first thing I thought is Beth
Speaker 1: would say the opposite of what I'm saying. And now
Speaker 1: you're talking to two best I really am, I'm really
Speaker 1: talking to the two of you. Is great, it's exciting,
Speaker 1: it's exhilarating, and it's also the worst thing in the
Speaker 1: world because you ready hopelessly I mean when I'm just
Speaker 1: alone with Beth listeners, No, I'm hopelessly outnumbered. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know what we're counting. I take up so much
Speaker 1: air and that's just Yeah, you take up more presents
Speaker 1: than I do, even though I use ten times more words. Literally,
Speaker 1: you cut every segment with you making a really funny
Speaker 1: joke and then cut it real quick. Oh somebody noticed, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's not the one that's going to give a
Speaker 1: ham fisted button so that we can move on to
Speaker 1: the next thing. No, I've been trying to move on
Speaker 1: for the last like five minutes, and you're not picking
Speaker 1: up on the We gotta sell it. I don't understand
Speaker 1: that you're done unless you mug to the audience. Clear
Speaker 1: your cash. Yeah, you should just be ending it with
Speaker 1: one of our catchphrases like clear cash anyway, clear your cash.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, um boy, this is going very well. Um
Speaker 1: so can you tell us, Um, I'm sad I won't
Speaker 1: be able to be at this at this event tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: What can folks expect? Um, I'm redirecting it away from
Speaker 1: me being the target. The two of us will be,
Speaker 1: There'll be books available. They'll also just be an event
Speaker 1: available at a lesbian bar to the event. An event available,
Speaker 1: is it the same event that is your event? Or
Speaker 1: is there another event available? I started to stress out
Speaker 1: about like what we needed to do to plan and
Speaker 1: prepare for our party, and like asked the guy at
Speaker 1: chop Suity Books who organized it for Asward, what I
Speaker 1: should do, like what my jobs were, and he was like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to do anything. And then Beth was like,
Speaker 1: I feel like at a lesbian bar, the less we do,
Speaker 1: the cooler it will be. Well. I also think, like
Speaker 1: I when you do events in other states, no matter
Speaker 1: how much communication you have with the people involved, sometimes
Speaker 1: you're like, you just don't know until you get there
Speaker 1: if there's a microphone or stage or even a room available.
Speaker 1: Like so, I sometimes think, you know, you don't want
Speaker 1: to you want to have a loose plan. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: don't know what's going to happen. You should definitely come
Speaker 1: and we're getting tattoos of tits snakes on our arms
Speaker 1: right before we go. Yeah, I'm sorry what you'll see
Speaker 1: when I get home? Did you say tits snakes? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean if you will want a clue, you'll have
Speaker 1: to leave through the pages of There's no manual, honest
Speaker 1: and gory wisdom about having a baby. Oh yes, I
Speaker 1: do know the tits snakes. But when you said tits snakes,
Speaker 1: I pictured first um, a snake with just a big
Speaker 1: set of boobs, and then secondly I thought of a
Speaker 1: chest that had two snakes coming out of it. There
Speaker 1: it's like, I have to tell you an unrelated story
Speaker 1: today Tonight Rockets stop the presses. Jackie' daughter Rocket Tonight said,
Speaker 1: she said, Beth, I like your voice. And then she
Speaker 1: was like, she was like, you're always like cool, and
Speaker 1: she goes, it's like you're tired. And it was the
Speaker 1: biggest read I've ever experienced in life. And she stayed
Speaker 1: on her for ten minutes. Anytime best said anything, she
Speaker 1: was like, there you're doing it again. Boy, Now you
Speaker 1: know what it's like to be married to you. She's smart,
Speaker 1: she's good. Boy. I want to see her and brand
Speaker 1: hang out. I can tell right out like she can.
Speaker 1: She can hang and she's one person. I think you
Speaker 1: could just destroy him. Yeah, she's a dumb He's gonna
Speaker 1: you know, he'll argue any point and she'll subvert it
Speaker 1: and make him instantly realize that. I think he would
Speaker 1: fall in line pretty quickly. I think he would have to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he could tell right away, like when he was like,
Speaker 1: how old are you? He could already tell, like he
Speaker 1: was like, she's lost two teeth. All right, you're my
Speaker 1: you're my intellectual. He's like, I can work with this.
Speaker 1: I'll just say I've lost teeth. They're in the back.
Speaker 1: You can't see him, that's all um. Anyway, should we
Speaker 1: talk about the book? Yeah, you know what. You know what, though,
Speaker 1: let's take a little break, let's hear delightful ad and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back. You know what, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to button this segment. You are all right? And that
Speaker 1: was time for everyone's favorite segment, segment, segment segment. Did
Speaker 1: you notice that my wife and Jackie wrote a book
Speaker 1: still and we're excited about it and it came out
Speaker 1: today every one's favorite segment. Guys, It literally is coming
Speaker 1: out today, which is very exciting, and I have a
Speaker 1: copy of the book in my hand, so I thought
Speaker 1: i'd play a game called flip to a random page
Speaker 1: and ask you about it. Sounds good, that sounds delightful,
Speaker 1: all right? Oh, I flipped to a good page. Pregnancy sex. Oh,
Speaker 1: Nancy sex. That's an illustration of my vibrator that you're
Speaker 1: looking at right now. Does your vibrator have little googly
Speaker 1: eyes and it looks like it's shouting with its alarms.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of good back and forth where
Speaker 1: I would assign Jackie illustrations. I would say, hey, could
Speaker 1: you do a little vibrator person, because it would be
Speaker 1: great if you just had like a little illustration right there.
Speaker 1: And then when we handled in the manuscript and there
Speaker 1: was like a hundred and nine illustrations and they were
Speaker 1: like your contracts said thirty five. Why did you do this?
Speaker 1: It was all Beth made me do it. I like,
Speaker 1: the little vibrator looks like it's going hi Hi, It's
Speaker 1: it's shouting to the heavens. This is this is fun
Speaker 1: where I'm just going to describe illustrations to people. Um,
Speaker 1: there's there's uh, there's two there's two segments. Chapter headings
Speaker 1: in Pregnancy Sex Clutorial pleasure is your friend, and the
Speaker 1: other one is Orgasms are different. I'm just gonna say
Speaker 1: right now, I'm intrigued by orgasms are different. Will you explain? Well,
Speaker 1: I think you know. One thing we talked about in
Speaker 1: the book is that when your pregnancy hormones funk up
Speaker 1: your whole body, it's kind of unpredictable how anything's going
Speaker 1: to affect any one person. So someone one person might
Speaker 1: be like vomiting all day and another person might not
Speaker 1: have that much. It may be orgasming all day, might
Speaker 1: be orgasming all day. So you have like increased hormones,
Speaker 1: increased blood flow. And for some people those kind of
Speaker 1: things can equal too much sensitivity or a newfound sensitivity
Speaker 1: that they wished they'd had, or a newfound desire that
Speaker 1: they wish they'd had before pregnancy. So it's like it
Speaker 1: can go all different kinds of ways. And then um,
Speaker 1: when you have a person, you know, weighing down your
Speaker 1: whole uterus, your orgasms cans start to feel different. Thing,
Speaker 1: that's the end. Yeah, they could be painful um or
Speaker 1: trigger contractions, or they can be just shittier than regular
Speaker 1: orgasms where they can feel like a hiccup and you
Speaker 1: feel cheated at the end of it. Yeah. Interesting, that
Speaker 1: sounded sarcastic, but it genuinely was. All Right, you guys,
Speaker 1: ready for another random segment? All right, here we go.
Speaker 1: Should I have a home birth? This is a flow chart?
Speaker 1: Um so, jackiees are a really cool flow chart of
Speaker 1: whether you should have a home birth or not? And
Speaker 1: I mean you have in front of you. It starts with,
Speaker 1: would you prefer a midwife or a doctor? Um? A midwife.
Speaker 1: If a midwife is appealing to you, then it says noise,
Speaker 1: is your pregnancy low risk? Uh? No, okay, this is great,
Speaker 1: but so let's segment to this a beth, Um, Jackie,
Speaker 1: did you you had did you had a you had
Speaker 1: a home Do you had a home birth? I had
Speaker 1: to home birth. I had one home birth in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: on the fifth floor of an apartment building in Flatbush.
Speaker 1: And um, then when I moved to Richmond, I had
Speaker 1: a home birth in a regular house where I wasn't
Speaker 1: afraid the pool was going to break through the floor,
Speaker 1: and in my old tenement. Um so I really run
Speaker 1: the gamut of home births. Boy, you saying that just
Speaker 1: now because we we were planning a home birth for
Speaker 1: Brian that didn't pan out and we ended up at
Speaker 1: the hospital at the birthing center, but that was for
Speaker 1: some reason. The thing I couldn't get out of my
Speaker 1: head is the idea that this tub would burst and
Speaker 1: just a full tub of water would leak down into
Speaker 1: our neighbors and we had just moved here, and that
Speaker 1: would be the fucking terrified all the time? Can you
Speaker 1: are left to Chris? Yeah, you just live in a
Speaker 1: state of like elevated fear when you live in New York.
Speaker 1: So the idea of a giant body of water being
Speaker 1: suspended instead of your living room is really stressful. That's
Speaker 1: why we got out of town. Um two weeks after
Speaker 1: I gave birth in Brooklyn, I was in the elevator
Speaker 1: holding my newborn baby, and um, this couple was like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's so cute, and I was like thanks, I had
Speaker 1: her in the building and they were like, oh, that
Speaker 1: was you. We thought somebody was getting murdered and they
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. Yeah, just like because they like it
Speaker 1: sounds like murder, but it's but not quite right. So
Speaker 1: we won't call the police as long as they clean
Speaker 1: up after themselves. That was That is something I was
Speaker 1: also really stressing out about. You know, I probably should
Speaker 1: have been more worried about my life and her well being,
Speaker 1: but I was like, should I tell the neighbors that
Speaker 1: this is going to happen in case they hear something? Yeah,
Speaker 1: to dress anyone out. They just don't People don't know
Speaker 1: if you're laboring before you go to the hospital or
Speaker 1: if you're actually pushing a baby out, Like, how would
Speaker 1: they know the difference? Right? Um? Alright, I flipped to
Speaker 1: another random Patriot right for this do we seem angry? No? Never? Um?
Speaker 1: This page has a I'm drawn to the illustrations no
Speaker 1: pun intended. Uh, here's a circle where it hurts illustration
Speaker 1: a postpartum activity sheet plus safe space to complain. And
Speaker 1: it's a lovely drawing of a naked woman in sort
Speaker 1: of a arms and legs splayed type of anatomical diet Graham.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the same position where the spider webs
Speaker 1: would come out of the vagina. I really see it now, um.
Speaker 1: And then there's a lot of labels and arrows, like,
Speaker 1: for example, there's an arrow pointed to to the crotch
Speaker 1: that just says destroyed. Question mark um fired and then
Speaker 1: the boobs have flames coming off of them, and there's
Speaker 1: a label that says hashtag fire tits but fires with
Speaker 1: a y exclamation fire fast because we're millennials. Yeah. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like this book came out too late to
Speaker 1: really to really hit the full potential of a firefest joke? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we didn't. If we had had a heads of
Speaker 1: the firefest was going to happen ahead of time, we
Speaker 1: would have time the release of the book for that
Speaker 1: joke to hit. I mean, this is a segment where
Speaker 1: I critique the book. Um, other labels. Brain seems gone
Speaker 1: up here? Uh, skin of a corpse pointing to the face, Uh,
Speaker 1: team level acne new third eye never stops crying. Well, boy,
Speaker 1: that's deep. I added that one. In the final edit,
Speaker 1: things got considerably darker. That's that's the one where I laughed.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's funny. And then there's layers. There's
Speaker 1: layers to that joke. Yeah, and I get it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you're writing a book for three years while your children
Speaker 1: tuget your sleeves the whole time, and then you get
Speaker 1: a divorce. Uh yeah, um, every time, I may every time,
Speaker 1: you guys say something really heavy. I'm about to make
Speaker 1: a big trans shift into a new topic, and it's
Speaker 1: just because I'm reading this. Um never mind saucage fingers
Speaker 1: A nope, nothing, I don't have time. Creaky and painful joints.
Speaker 1: Hair is falling out in clumps, walking hurts, ankles. Ankles
Speaker 1: are gone forever question mark with a little rest in peace, tombstone.
Speaker 1: This might be my favorite page so far. I don't
Speaker 1: know why. It's really satisfying to hear other people laugh
Speaker 1: at your jokes. It's kind of weird to hear illustrations narrated, though,
Speaker 1: as if this is like a listening service. It does
Speaker 1: feelbility training. Oh my god, in another life, that's my
Speaker 1: perfect job, miling and she doesn't look happy, but she
Speaker 1: doesn't look sad either. It's like she's doing her job
Speaker 1: and that and it's fine. That's actually the description of
Speaker 1: the book. That's um. Oh oh god, I found the
Speaker 1: best one on this. There's a word bubble pointing to
Speaker 1: the stomach says loose stomachs can assemble resembles map of
Speaker 1: Middle Earth. You got me with the nerd joke. It
Speaker 1: was specifically for you, But that's your joke. I am.
Speaker 1: I am eight feet away from the complete Atlas of
Speaker 1: Middle Earth book. Now do you care about women's bodies? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's what I've been saying all along. Just make it
Speaker 1: accessible for me. That will be your next book. It's
Speaker 1: like a journey to the center. The manual for being
Speaker 1: a affluent white male father, all written and Elvish everywhere. Um, alright, great,
Speaker 1: I'm going to women. That's the whole book. Let's just
Speaker 1: be nice to women in Elvish spelled out across the
Speaker 1: hundred pages, and it's a puzzy you have to translate it.
Speaker 1: Men are simple beasts. I'm not going to argue with that. Um.
Speaker 1: This segment is called the Weirdness of Labor. Ah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were trying to get out how weird it is?
Speaker 1: Why is it weird? I think, how is it weird?
Speaker 1: When is it weird? Why is it weird? Part of
Speaker 1: what we're trying to get out with this book is
Speaker 1: to try to put words to experiences that no one
Speaker 1: had ever told us about in our lives. Like you
Speaker 1: kind of like are like no matter how much information
Speaker 1: and you're given, it's not like no one really describes
Speaker 1: it in the visceral like the way that you can
Speaker 1: wrap your head around. Like I wish someone had told
Speaker 1: me that when you give birth, there is a very
Speaker 1: specific smell, yeah, which we describe as like an enormous
Speaker 1: hot like popped blister. It's not bad, it's not good,
Speaker 1: but it's just like you're sure of exactly what it is, yea.
Speaker 1: And being pregnant really puts you a dutch with your
Speaker 1: body in a lot of interesting ways. Boy, the smell
Speaker 1: of birth really is there's nothing like it. There's an
Speaker 1: emotional connection to it. I mean, obviously I'm speaking as
Speaker 1: as a dad. No one really talks about like after
Speaker 1: you push the baby out and you're like meeting your baby,
Speaker 1: like your body is shaking uncontrollably for no reason, and
Speaker 1: then there's a there's a reason, well there, yeah, but
Speaker 1: like no one's told you the reason. So you're like,
Speaker 1: am I having a stroke? Is something bad happening? Are
Speaker 1: these drugs hurting my body? Like? And everyone's like, oh no, No,
Speaker 1: that's just the thing that your hormones do. That happens
Speaker 1: like almost every time. You're just shaking a lot, But
Speaker 1: no one told you that, Like, yeah, I mean this
Speaker 1: is the one. The first thing I've said about the
Speaker 1: book over and over is that it is a visceral experience,
Speaker 1: unlike anything I've ever Everything else I read is clinical,
Speaker 1: and this makes me feel like I'm getting a taste
Speaker 1: of actually feeling the experience. Yeah, that's why we want
Speaker 1: all men in America to buy this book and read it.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly by it for their sons and their grandsons.
Speaker 1: Buy this for your teenage boys, your grandfather's for the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I've been reading it to brand a chapter at night. Good,
Speaker 1: that's not true. I haven't we read a We read
Speaker 1: a four page pamphlet on groundhogs that he brought home
Speaker 1: from school tonight. Yeah. If I mean, if if Brin
Speaker 1: read this book, then he would start doing like standard
Speaker 1: monologues about being married to a head of own sexual
Speaker 1: man like these men. Boy, Brin is gonna brands. It's
Speaker 1: not too long before Brent starts giving long lectures on
Speaker 1: feminism to anyone who will listen. Are you ready for that, Beth? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's convincing. Um, here's a right. What I just left
Speaker 1: to a new page? Does my baby have colic? Or
Speaker 1: is he just an asshole? It's a good question. How
Speaker 1: do you how do you answer that question, Well, the
Speaker 1: answer is right there in front of you. I don't
Speaker 1: have it in front of me, but it's colic. Is
Speaker 1: crying for more than like more than three hour than
Speaker 1: three hours certain number of days, Like there's a clinical
Speaker 1: diagnosis for it, Yeah, there's there's yeah. But also, even
Speaker 1: if your baby doesn't have colic, babies are very annoying
Speaker 1: and cry a lot, and it can feel like your
Speaker 1: baby has colague and you can still get just as
Speaker 1: tired as someone whose baby does right. And with things
Speaker 1: like colic and teething, there's just always this mystery where
Speaker 1: you never really actually know if that's what's wrong with
Speaker 1: your baby, or if they're sick or having a developmental
Speaker 1: leap or whatever. While you know is that you have
Speaker 1: to survive a weird week of an angry baby and
Speaker 1: no sleep. Yeah, no sleep, and just no answers for
Speaker 1: what is happening. That is the most in my own
Speaker 1: experience being a parent. There's the most insane feeling of
Speaker 1: of the there's nothing I can do. I've done everything
Speaker 1: I I thought I knew how to do to soothe
Speaker 1: the baby, to calm it down, and nothing is working.
Speaker 1: And this is the closest to true madness I've ever felt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a literal torture technique to not let people sleep.
Speaker 1: They're just dumb and they don't know how to live
Speaker 1: well yet, and it's our jobs. They are pretty stupid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they continue to be very stupid. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: they don't. They want to stay up when they're too tired.
Speaker 1: That is, idiots go to bed. It's good for you
Speaker 1: to bed. It feels so nice, the pillows are great.
Speaker 1: Eat your food. You're hungry. You're just saying no so
Speaker 1: that you can be right. So Brind's doing now, He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not hungry, Like you just told me about how
Speaker 1: you ate both of your snacks first thing in the
Speaker 1: morning before school started, and you were hungry with today.
Speaker 1: Eat these eggs. I fall into that trap like the
Speaker 1: they seem so smart because they can mimic adult behavior.
Speaker 1: And then I find myself just falling into that trap
Speaker 1: of negotiating with Maven, and then I get angry and
Speaker 1: frustrated that she's not being logical, and then I'm like,
Speaker 1: what am I doing? She's three years old? Yeah, three
Speaker 1: has been very tough. That like, there's just no I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm just waiting for for otis to have
Speaker 1: like a little bit more common sense, and there's nothing
Speaker 1: I can do until that happens. And so we're going
Speaker 1: to like he's going to scream at me in the
Speaker 1: hallway because he wants to wear his sandals and it's
Speaker 1: freezing and raining outside. He's going to be very upset
Speaker 1: because he doesn't get it, because he's still young and dumb.
Speaker 1: And it's mind to force it without being a mean mom,
Speaker 1: and that's a hard job. Yeah. I just had to
Speaker 1: remind myself recently Maven's has some really bad freakouts and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, Brin had a really really
Speaker 1: terrible period and it was at the exact same age,
Speaker 1: three and a half. Yeah, but they both had really
Speaker 1: terrible periods at every age. Like I feel like everyone
Speaker 1: about two andys about one, and they say every there
Speaker 1: it's all hard, like that we're creating imaginary milestones in
Speaker 1: a slug and then you instantly forget. And I love
Speaker 1: that you guys have talked about like, don't ask anyone
Speaker 1: about advice about having a baby who hasn't had a
Speaker 1: newborn baby within the last year, because you forget readjust
Speaker 1: to your new reality. So quick. That's what's supposed to happen,
Speaker 1: so we'll have another baby. Because if you remembered just
Speaker 1: how tired you were and how much should hurt evolutionary amnesia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all right. Look to another another page. Soft Instagram
Speaker 1: filter Weird second trimester pregnancy symptoms. So each of the
Speaker 1: each of the trimesters, you have this section, I believe
Speaker 1: where you talking about weird symptoms. The symptoms are like
Speaker 1: this one. Can I just read one that popped out
Speaker 1: to me. You've got the hiccups in your butt? Can
Speaker 1: you explain that when your babies inside you, you can
Speaker 1: feel their hiccups in various parts of your body, so
Speaker 1: sometimes it's like in your chest, or your butt or
Speaker 1: your vagina. Um. It's that actually makes more sense than
Speaker 1: I I didn't really think about it. I just thought
Speaker 1: it was really funny sentence. I just saw the word
Speaker 1: but and I said, let's read this one. You were like, here,
Speaker 1: you wrote the word but. Can you elaborate? Can you
Speaker 1: talk about butts? I mean, I'm not gonna lie. I
Speaker 1: just flipped through pages and I see something funny or
Speaker 1: or sexual or naked or naughty, and I'm like, tell
Speaker 1: me about that yeah. Oh, here's a picture of a
Speaker 1: man holding a woman in labor and they're in a
Speaker 1: witches cauldren and I think this is a midwife with
Speaker 1: a witch's hat on. This is my favorite drawing in
Speaker 1: the book. And I fought really hard to get this
Speaker 1: in the book, and I kept being like, there's room
Speaker 1: right here, will you please just put this back in
Speaker 1: because I love this drawing, and they finally did. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a winner. It's great. Um. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: even explain what it means or why it's in it.
Speaker 1: You'll have to buy the book to find out them. Um. Friends,
Speaker 1: before we end this segment, is there anything you'd like
Speaker 1: to tell us about the book before before we're done? Um,
Speaker 1: just please if you know any pregnant ladies, get them
Speaker 1: this book. Um. We it really, we're proud of it. Um.
Speaker 1: In spite of how hard it is to ever acknowledge
Speaker 1: that as women we are, we this is the book
Speaker 1: we wish we had had. We wish someone had handed
Speaker 1: us and told us, hey, these weird things are going
Speaker 1: to happen to you, or some of them are, and uh,
Speaker 1: you might want to know about it going well, I'm
Speaker 1: proud of you both and I've already learned things having
Speaker 1: read this, and I wish that I had read this
Speaker 1: before my wife had babies. So I'd like it. I'd
Speaker 1: like to interrupt you to make this bold declaration and
Speaker 1: say that if our book makes it to the best
Speaker 1: seller list, I will record my own version of lemonade
Speaker 1: Um because I am in the process of getting a
Speaker 1: divorce and I feel that it is the next logical
Speaker 1: artistic for me. So I'd just like to make that
Speaker 1: claim here tonight. Yeah, just when you purchase this book,
Speaker 1: know that you are funding our creative freedom to make
Speaker 1: any choice going forward. If you will co sign here,
Speaker 1: we will be free to be me and me hashtag
Speaker 1: tit snake. And now it's time for listeners want to know. Um.
Speaker 1: We got an email this week from ivan or von
Speaker 1: Um from I believe from Germany based on the country
Speaker 1: code of this phone number, which I won't say out loud,
Speaker 1: but here we go. I googled it. I didn't memorize
Speaker 1: country codes. Hey, Beth, Peter and family, how are you all.
Speaker 1: My son was born five months ago yesterday as a
Speaker 1: fairly big boy nine pounds and one ft nine inches.
Speaker 1: Since then, his growth s bird has been kind of insane.
Speaker 1: He's now seventeen pounds and two ft five inches. He
Speaker 1: is all proportional, but just has a very healthy appetite.
Speaker 1: I've been going to the gym and training a lot
Speaker 1: uh more just to be able to carry him as
Speaker 1: he is now just entering that phase where he likes
Speaker 1: being on on people's arms. He is not the most
Speaker 1: fond of of seating being restrained. He's still quite young,
Speaker 1: but my back is constantly killing me, and I feel
Speaker 1: he is getting heavier faster and I'm getting stronger. I
Speaker 1: tried those baby wearing approaches, but it's just not cutting it.
Speaker 1: Any suggestions. I'm afraid the problem will keep growing long
Speaker 1: before he can just walk on his own. And for hypothetical,
Speaker 1: I did the math and if he keeps his growth
Speaker 1: to the same rate at the time he's eighteen, he
Speaker 1: will be forty two ft tall seven inches. Let's say
Speaker 1: you are going through this with your quote unquote little ones,
Speaker 1: how would you do this? Um? You had your own
Speaker 1: little own little Kong. Thanks for a great podcaster and
Speaker 1: for shining light on what lies ahead. All the best
Speaker 1: lots of love, yvon Ivan. Okay, So I assume she's
Speaker 1: not genuinely worried that this kid is going to be enormous.
Speaker 1: I heard someone, oh, child baking a huge child. No,
Speaker 1: it's a huge child coming into the life. I think
Speaker 1: it was just a ghost. Um. I assume she doesn't
Speaker 1: actually think her child is going to grow to be huge, because,
Speaker 1: first of all, just to be clear, I feel like
Speaker 1: the size of a baby does not necessarily correspond to
Speaker 1: the size of the adults. But um, I will say,
Speaker 1: I don't. I do not know the gender of our
Speaker 1: of our writer, although ivan I would assume, uh, male,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It doesn't matter either way. Um, Okay, Sorry,
Speaker 1: I hear a lot of fear in this email, and
Speaker 1: I feel like I just want to say, hey, babies
Speaker 1: just don't keep growing at the same rate. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is very much a front loading thing that we've got
Speaker 1: a child. I don't think. I don't think that was
Speaker 1: the real concern. Or do we have a child that
Speaker 1: just woke up? Yeah? Well, I will say, boy, I
Speaker 1: don't know that there's any solution to kids keep getting
Speaker 1: But I still have to carry maybe in a whole bunch,
Speaker 1: and it's incredibly hard. Yeah, I don't have to still
Speaker 1: pick her up and put her in the car. I
Speaker 1: don't need to I need to stop that. But I
Speaker 1: how do you deal with this? Because I'm obviously incredibly strong,
Speaker 1: so I can't remember what age she said this child was,
Speaker 1: but I feel like or he said this child was.
Speaker 1: But they should maybe looking at different kinds of baby
Speaker 1: wearing options, like or just do stroller. I saw this
Speaker 1: thing once where you could wear it behind your head
Speaker 1: and the baby could sit around your neck and lean
Speaker 1: back and not fall. And it was like a cheating
Speaker 1: way of having a kid on your shoulders. Oh it's
Speaker 1: a little like crazy creek chair on your shoulders kind
Speaker 1: of Yeah. I love crazy creek chairs. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I haven't thought or talked about crazy creek chairs in
Speaker 1: a long time. Talk about some crazy creek chairs with you, guys.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the woods. Let's get some crazy creak
Speaker 1: chairs and roast some marshmallows. I need to tell you
Speaker 1: that there is a child sitting on the couch with us,
Speaker 1: and I think, do you want to say do you
Speaker 1: want to stay anything for the podcast tonight? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: we need to wrap this up because we have to
Speaker 1: put a child back to sleep. Okay, is this the
Speaker 1: child is this a child that loves snakes and wants
Speaker 1: to be a reptile veterinarian. Is it that child? She nodded, Okay,
Speaker 1: great rocket. I want to know what why do you
Speaker 1: love snakes so much? Because I think snakes are awesome,
Speaker 1: But I want to know why you think snakes are
Speaker 1: all I really like? Yeah, like as a king pobra
Speaker 1: has like something like sticking up from the sides of
Speaker 1: its head. It's got like a It's like it's wearing
Speaker 1: a hoodie. It's just a little bit fancier, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really likes fancy. It's the I think Kinkob is
Speaker 1: definitely the fanciest snake around. Is there a fancier snake? Yep,
Speaker 1: you heard it here, folks. That's gonna do it. I
Speaker 1: think we have to wrap it up because there's no
Speaker 1: more nothing else to say. Once you've talked about the
Speaker 1: fanciest snake. This has been another episode. We know his parenting.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our very special guest Jackie and
Speaker 1: Ruiz and guys have an incredible book launch party today
Speaker 1: February fourth. Tell us again where that is where people
Speaker 1: can see Babes of Carrietown in Richmond Virginia amazing. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to write in, send us some advice, asked
Speaker 1: us a question, you can email us at we knows
Speaker 1: pot at gmail dot com, find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we know as pod. And please rate review the
Speaker 1: podcast by the book wherever you buy books, leave us leave,
Speaker 1: leave these these wonderful women a positive review. For that.
Speaker 1: Ask your local library to get a copy of the book. Please.
Speaker 1: There's there's no manual, honest and gory wisdom about having
Speaker 1: a baby. Is that what it's called? That's right, great,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next time. My