Jenny: 0:29

happy new year.

Caitlin: 0:31

It's tuesday oh, it's 2025 and we're back, right, yes, okay, so welcome back to how to be a grown-up, the show that teaches you the things that grown-ups need to know. Uh, I'm glad you're here. I've missed you. I, I've missed you too. Yeah, I think we've missed each other.

Jenny: 0:54

Flash Caitlin Right, I also missed you.

Caitlin: 0:57

We've missed all of you guys, all of our listeners, but also I don't know about you I've missed the routine of work and school. I have worked most of the day today and I am struggling. Yeah, I'm struggling, yeah, I'm struggling, but usually getting back on schedule after the holidays means that you are missing the joy, the flexibility, that family time of the holidays. If you have a family, that doesn't make you crazy. So today Jenny's going to guide us through titrating off of that holiday spirit I love that you like the word titrating is a fun word off of that holiday spirit so you can get back into the routine with minimal whiplash and, I don't know, hangover.

Jenny: 1:42

Well, that's what I was thinking. I was like you don't want to have, like the holiday DTs, yeah, so like what can we do? Yeah Right, yeah right, so okay, but before let me introduce with you, or to you, with me, as always, is caitlin, and um, I'm gonna call her a new year's resolution, because I've been waiting all year to make her mine.

Caitlin: 2:05

Oh, hey, I don't know, I, I did.

Jenny: 2:09

New Year's Eve. I did New Year's Eve Pick up lines yeah.

Caitlin: 2:13

Well, I'm yours, baby. That's Jenny by Tenacious Honey Badger. Oh, that's a good one, thanks.

Jenny: 2:22

One of the lines I decided not to use was the ball isn't the only thing that's dropping tonight. How about your standards? Oh, the only thing that's dropping tonight. How about your standards?

Caitlin: 2:46

oh, that's mean to you. Don't talk about my friend like that. I died. I thought it was so funny. Guys, can you tell we're a little rusty with the or something? Something's going on, anyway. Okay, so let's go ahead and get started Again. We're talking about curing that holiday hangover so you don't feel all yucky about going back to work.

Jenny: 3:03

Yeah, so we have a source it's called Tips to Help Families Get Back into the School Routine After Winter Break from the Sally B Howard School in Wilson, north Carolina. Oh, and I actually don't remember a lot from the article because I read it a while ago. It actually just spurred this idea of getting back in the routine and again titrating off, like trying to make it a less jarring transition.

Caitlin: 3:32

Yeah.

Jenny: 3:33

This episode is set to come out on January, the 7th, which is possibly your first or second day back to school after break.

Caitlin: 3:42

Did you know I actually one of my colleagues has a daughter going to school in the Northeast and they went back to school on January 2nd. Can you even imagine?

Jenny: 4:01

Sorry that is so early, but also it makes sense, because then it's like two days to get back in the routine, then you have a weekend, yeah, but like this is like starting school on a Wednesday, it makes sense. I don't like January 2nd, I don't like saying that out loud no. No, but I do like the idea of like starting midweek but like maybe January 3rd and the teachers go back on the 2nd.

Caitlin: 4:14

I don't like saying that out loud, no, no. But I do like the idea of like starting midweek but like maybe January 3rd and the teachers go back on the 2nd so you have a day to make some copies or something. Anyway, sorry, january 7th, you may be back at school.

Jenny: 4:24

I read this article like when the month was still November, I maybe, or December, I don't know, but I read it a while ago and basically it just spurred a thought for me. So, yes, there's some information from it, I think, but for the most part it was just. This, was the uh impetus for this okay, topic, all right.

Caitlin: 4:42

Well, we'll. Either way, we'll post the link and you guys? Yes, of course, if you want to um.

Jenny: 4:46

So first thing is you're getting back into routine, so you need to start by restocking supplies, and supplies I'm talking about like pencils, pens, paper, notebooks, the kind of stuff that you normally have around the house for schoolwork. But also it is normal for your kids to run through a year's worth of school supplies in one semester. A hundred percent. I don't know about you, but if someone paid me my whole year's salary in one paycheck, I would be on an all ramen diet by the end of the year.

Caitlin: 5:13

A hundred percent.

Jenny: 5:15

There's no way, there's no way that I could be like oh, this is all I get Right.

Caitlin: 5:21

You get a box of pencils. There's 12 in here, one per month. Make it work, child, it's not going to happen.

Jenny: 5:29

So check on their supplies. It's okay if they need more pencils, even though you already bought 48 pre-sharpened pencils T Condoroga brand. It is possible that you might need another box in January. But another supply is school clothing, especially if your child goes to a uniformed school. You purchased these in july or august, yep, and it is very likely that, like most children, they grew and it's and their clothes may not fit in january the way they were intended to. Yeah, and just because something fits around the waist doesn't necessarily mean it's the right length. Um, just because you can get it on over your head doesn't mean that shirt actually fits Right.

Jenny: 6:16

We're talking accidental crop tops and right and my very favorite was when a kid came back after break wearing a school polo that was clearly like five sizes too small. It was like he had put on a little kid's clothing and we said what happened to your shirt? He puts his hands up like he's Popeye for me, showing his biceps and says I grew, I love kids, like yeah, you did grow, but your shirt didn't.

Caitlin: 6:45

Yeah, right, exactly. If anything, it shrunk in the dryer a little bit, so yeah for sure, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, they might have lost their water bottle or their lunchbox.

Jenny: 6:53

Can they put their hands on their gloves Like they're going to have recess? Whether they have gloves or not, make sure that you have everything that you need. Yeah, the other thing for going back to school is transitioning back to normal bedtime. Now, I am not telling you anything that you don't know, right? Most people who have someone who is over the age of six and has done the transition one time is like oh, we're backing up the bedtime earlier. Yeah, so I know that you're already doing that.

Jenny: 7:22

But remember episode 121, when we talked about the restraint collapse and we talked about kids having to work to self-regulate all day long at school and then by the time they get in the car, it's meltdown time and for little kids it might be crying or going to sleep. For older kids it might be. Hey, I don't want to talk to you and I don't want to have anything to do with you, but that's going to happen again. So don't just worry about backing up the bedtime. Expect that collapse and build in some extra time for transition through that first week. Back. If you can hold off on after school activities.

Jenny: 8:02

A lot of schools won't even offer their normal sports or clubs or anything that first week, not just for kids but also so that the teachers can get their lives in order. But try not to do anything after school that first week. If you can Create space for the kids to decompress in the afternoon, maybe it's that you stop at the park on the way home or you play a board game before you jump into homework, or maybe you take a walk together in the evening while you talk about anything but school. Yeah, just expect that. It's going to take more than just backing up bedtime to get back in that routine.

Caitlin: 8:38

That's absolutely true. I'm really glad you mentioned that, because that after school restraint, collapse, relapse is something I had not wrapped my head around yet, and then that reminder is very helpful.

Jenny: 8:53

And so the last one, about just getting back into your routine, is teachers are also trying to reset and so it's very possible that with a new semester, you are going to family, grown up, get new homework Yep, you might have emails to read, newsletters to catch up on, look over the new syllabi. It's possible that, especially if your child is in middle school or high school, that they have new classes that semester and whatever forms they send home, fill them out Yep. All of that is just getting back into the routine. But we didn't really talk about, like, the titation, we didn't talk about fighting the blues that come with after the holidays.

Jenny: 9:39

Oh, and you know, it's for adults, it's for kids, like everybody is noticing, because the holiday break is not summer vacation, right, it's summer vacation. There's time for boredom, there's time for, oh my gosh, I'm so tired of you, right, and I know the song is mom and dad can hardly wait for school to start again. That doesn't really happen until after Christmas, right, Like those first few days even. You know, our family this year celebrated Christmas on New Year's Day. So, like, even then, like, leading up to that, it was a 14 day intensive, lots of fun, lots of activities, lots of special time. It was not like, hey, go outside and play and you cannot come back in until I tell you.

Caitlin: 10:21

Right, there was not time for that. That didn't happen.

Jenny: 10:24

So one of the ways that you can kind of work on that is building in some anticipation for activities that are not happening anymore. It was like nonstop there's something special every day and you know I've heard you say this before that like Christmas magic, holiday spirit, like all of that comes from mom planning stuff, so like maybe you're not planning things every single day anymore which is totally normal and human.

Jenny: 10:52

So what you can do is build some anticipation around those things. You probably have a visible calendar somewhere in your house, right? There's always some way that you are showing everybody what's going on. We have multiple one that's just what's for dinner this week. We have one that's actually a month at a glance, and then we have another one that's all icons for when our kids weren't readers yet. But you can put things on there that they can look forward to. That are just silly things that you were already going to do anyway, but now you're building anticipation.

Caitlin: 11:26

Put that tip to the library on there.

Jenny: 11:27

Yeah, I love that Family or friends are coming over or you're going to meet up with them, even if it's just hey, or you're going to meet up with them, even if it's just hey, we're going to have lunch with so-and-so next Sunday. Put it on there. And my favorite is like just mark when you're going to have dinner at the drive-thru, like yeah, this is the night we're going to sonic like let them get excited about that, I'm excited about it.

Jenny: 11:47

I don't have to cook dinner this is great, yeah, so mark it on the, it on the calendar. And again, if your kids aren't readers yet, use icons, like and do it with them. Say, oh, what day should we go to the library? This day or this day? You don't need to give them all 30 days to choose from.

Caitlin: 12:00

Like, make it work for you, right.

Jenny: 12:02

But still build in some anticipation so that they don't feel like all the magic and the. I am always looking for a cheap and easy and fast good time, ever since high school. Okay, anyway, no, but seriously, I am looking for something that we can do, that only takes a few minutes, that we can do in the evening or weekend. That's not an entire activity. It's not like, okay, let's go play putt-putt and drop $150 on two hours worth of fun. Like, let's do something that's pretty cheap. Maybe it takes 15 or 20 minutes at home, but it's a funny little memory. I like it, okay. So one that we do a lot in our family and I've talked about on the show before is a tasting party. Yes, over the holidays we did a brand comparison of powdered hot chocolate mix.

Caitlin: 13:01

Oh, you sent me a picture of this and I was like inquiring minds, like I need to know, okay, so we bought like as many single serve pouches as we could.

Jenny: 13:07

Okay, make it cost effective. Yeah, um, and no one needs to drink that many bottle or that many cups of hot chocolate, so it was good to just like do a sip of each one. Yeah, um, we sat and we decided like, should we make it with milk or should we make it with water? And we're like, okay, we'll make it with milk, because that's like giving it a more fair chance and yeah, we followed the instructions for each one and then we did a tape test.

Jenny: 13:31

um, ironically, the one that tasted the like got the highest score. In our family is a brand I've never even heard of, and it was like a little one-off pouch. Oh, okay, ghirardelli also scored high. Well, yeah, that's delicious.

Caitlin: 13:46

It's like the only that I only make my chocolate chip cookies and my brownies with Ghirardelli chocolates.

Jenny: 13:54

Right, yeah, it's funny Like if you had Godiva. I'm sure it was good too, but anyway, I mean, it was a brand comparison, it was funny. We have also done the different varieties of Mountain Dew. Like our corner store had like seven different flavors one day and I was like let's just taste them all.

Jenny: 14:09

That's hilarious and ridiculous, and for 99 cents or a buck 99, a bottle, like it's not expensive for us to do this, and we poured it in tiny little shot glasses and everyone got to taste all different flavors of mountain. Perfect, that's a fun one. We've done different varieties of apple, okay, and again, one apple is enough to serve the whole family, so we just buy one of a different kind. I'm like hey, tonight we're going to taste apples. You could do conventional versus organic produce. Like hey, we're just going to taste bananas. Which one do you think is organic versus organic produce? Like hey, we're just going to taste bananas. Which one do you think is organic? Um, I was thinking it'd be fun to do different pasta shapes.

Caitlin: 14:45

You know I have to say this. I'm going to put I'm going to put my friend on blast here. This is my new favorite new year's resolution. Okay, my, we have talked about them before. My girlfriends that are like there's four of us in a little group and we all just talk all the time. We met when our kids were babies. So, um, she, this very sweet friend of mine, goes um what's everybody's new year's resolution? Like, do you, do you have one for this year? And hers and hers, joey, I love you so much. My number one is to try as many different pasta shapes as I can. My number one is to try as many different shapes of pasta as I can. I found a specialty site, so I'm going to order in bulk. I just answered her with like this is my favorite.

Jenny: 15:47

I need like a field guide, like notes situation where she like draws the noodle and then like labels the things that she knows about it.

Caitlin: 15:50

I love this. I do have a new favorite pasta. It's didolini. Have you ever seen it? It's like super teeny, tiny. Oh, it's adorable pasta it looks. It's like smaller than like a um, a risotto, like a or one of those little like orzo pastas they're really little and I love them.

Jenny: 16:05

They're so good it makes me think of chicken and stars soup, I'm sure yes, that's what it's.

Caitlin: 16:09

It's like that tiny, though. Oh, oh, I love it it looks. It reminds me of like if you took like a macaroni noodle and then you chopped it up like to even smaller little macaroni bits, like little holes, little tiny. Oh, I love them. They make it makes me so happy. Okay, but taste it like I don't know.

Jenny: 16:28

But yeah, I clearly also I have talked about this on the show before too like we did not do a tasting party, but we did the oreo slam dunk contest. Yeah, like that morning I said, hey, tonight we're gonna do this, so practice your moves, because, right, you get to dunk your Oreo one time. And again like what did it cost? A glass of milk, yeah, and a bag of.

Jenny: 16:48

Oreos, and because there's only four of us, I could even buy like the sixth set of Oreos from the gas station if I wanted to, but I know that that's the same price as the full size one from HEB.

Caitlin: 16:57

Right.

Jenny: 16:58

Yeah, okay, that's the same price as the full size one from hb. So, right, yeah, okay. So here's another game that I like to play. You are familiar with the game that we will call kiss, marry, kill. Yes, yes, okay, um, so this is the diners, drive-ins and dives version of it. Oh, okay. So it can be any TV show where they eat a lot of food, yeah. Or you can even use a cookbook, okay. The name of the game is Scarf Share or Skip. Okay, all right. So either you would eat it all, you would share it with someone, or you don't want to eat it at all, okay.

Caitlin: 17:35

I like that. That's a fun one Okay.

Jenny: 17:40

We play one, two, three and then you call it like rock paper scissors, so you cannot call for the same thing. So if you're looking at the hot chocolate and the off-brand nobody knew it would be that good hot chocolate and we call one, two, three and someone says scarf and another person says scarf. They now have to duke it out. Oh okay, that's a fun way to do it. So if scarf and another person says scarf, they now have to duke it out.

Caitlin: 18:02

Oh okay, so if you're last to speak.

Jenny: 18:03

You don't get it at all you are you in the games.

Caitlin: 18:06

You guys are so good.

Jenny: 18:07

We're always playing games okay, um, another one again. Nice and easy 10 minute costume contest. Okay, if everyone say, okay, I'm gonna set a timer in 10 minutes, you have to come down in a costume, we're gonna vote. Um, it's helpful if you have a theme. You could do things like movie characters, famous people, specific time periods Depending on the age of your kids. You can get pretty snarky and do people in your family. How cute would dad look in Lulu's and a crop sweatshirt?

Caitlin: 18:33

There was one that I saw that was a one minute. Everybody in the family has to run into Nanny's Pantry and find the oldest possible thing they can find. Oh, that's amazing and it was hysterical. It was like a bottle of olive oil from like 1987. It was hilariously disgusting and so so good, but something like that would be really really fun. Zero dollars, zero dollars. It's a short amount of time, right, exactly.

Jenny: 18:58

Okay, so not campyy, not a game timed read aloud, okay, and I say timed, that's very important, okay. So pick a book that you think the whole family will enjoy, which is a lot easier to do when you know it's going to be read aloud, everyone in the same space, and it's not an independent silent reading that you're then going to have to do a book report on. Yeah, totally okay, right, even though my daughter is 13, she enjoys having Ramona read aloud, because the story doesn't oh.

Jenny: 19:26

Ramona's is the best. But set a timer, decide on a time that is reasonable and sustainable. Say, okay, we're going to read for 10 minutes a night, or we're going to read for 15 minutes every other night, or on Tuesdays we're doing 20 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever it is. But set the timer and honor it. When the timer goes, you as a family can decide whether or not you want to read more. Oh, just one more chapter or whatever, or stop it because it does give you an out if the patience and interest is waning. Yeah, someone's getting antsy and you can tell they're not enjoying it. Say, okay, well, the timer went. I guess we're done. Yeah, like it's not one of those things. Okay, well, there's still 15 more pages in this chapter. We have to get to the end of it no, you don't.

Caitlin: 20:08

No, you don't. Yeah, you can just, I love that okay.

Jenny: 20:12

And then, um, try and make something routine an event. Okay, we're in playoff season. You watching a playoff game, whether it be college or NFL football. Make it a party. Gear up, decorate your living room, make special snacks. You don't have to invite other people, but you can still like throw yourself a football watching party.

Caitlin: 20:34

You're going to watch the game anyway.

Jenny: 20:36

Great, if you're making a meal plan for the week, I love this. Okay, have everyone put their ideas in a hat and then you pull out 10. And I say 10 because that gives you, as the meal planner slash prepper, a chance to decline some of the ideas, because I know my kids, I know 16-hour smoked brisket is going to be one of the things they put on there. Or there's going to be 17 requests for pizza, right. So I pull out more than there are days in the week. But I can say say, okay, everyone had to say oh yeah, this one that's a no, we're, we're not gonna have, um, just hostess snowballs for dinner. So I'm taking that one out. But um it, it turns it into a game.

Jenny: 21:19

If you're hanging out at the school bus, stop waiting, um, for the bus to pick you up in the morning. Bring chalk and play tic-tac-toe until the bus comes. That's cute, right? I mean, it doesn't cost anything, right? Um, running errands on a saturday afternoon, bring a scavenger hunt list with you and listen to what I said. Bring a scavenger hunt list I did not say, make one.

Jenny: 21:39

No, a quick google found one for the grocery store, for target and for costco, and I've linked those.

Caitlin: 21:46

I will put them in the blog post for this episode. For sure, go get those all I did was just write google.

Jenny: 21:52

Or I just wrote grocery store scavenger hunt list and they have some for kids, they have some for teens, whatever, whatever. But you don't have to buy these things, you're just looking for them and then, um, the last thing that you can do to kind of like wind down that holiday spirit is leave some notes. You may already be putting a note in a lunchbox, but think of some other places around the house that that might be meaningful. Put on the bathroom mirror, put it in between their sheets and their bed, put it in their shoes or their gloves or their hats, or put it right on the fridge, and it can be something sweet and encouraging, or it can be a snarky little comment, or it can be a dad joke. But like just bringing that connection, because that's really what happened during this two week intensive of family time.

Jenny: 22:42

So kind of bring that connection back and it's something that's really easy to like stop doing. If you wrote five in the first week and you write two in the second week and then the third week, people forget about it. It's fine. Earlier this week Abigail was making a joke about the difference between 79 and 80. She's like oh, you get a 79 on something. You're like you get an 80. You're like, yes, well, guess what? I drove down a road today called Highway 79, took a picture of it, sent it to her. Oh, meh, like that's it, like that's hilarious, like that's it, it's just like a little funny.

Jenny: 23:22

Right, she knows that we're laughing about that difference between one point.

Caitlin: 23:26

Right, and it's just a little way to let her know that you thought about her and remembered what she said. Yeah, I love that.

Jenny: 23:32

And I'm making fun of her but she likes it.

Jenny: 23:35

Okay. So here's the thing. The number one recommendation that I have is do not expect too much from yourself. All of this was about the kids, all of this was about the family, like feeling that switch, but you might also want more attention, or more family time, or more holiday spirit and magic, or more of those holiday foods. It's okay for you to be sad or disappointed, and these are the types of feelings that, using age appropriate techniques, you can actually discuss with your family. Yeah, you can say this week, guys, I really liked all the extra time we had during the holidays. I'm so glad to be back in our routine, but I need a family date. What do you think we could do this weekend to reconnect?

Caitlin: 24:21

Oh, that's a sweet thing to say. I think that everybody would be like, let's, let's do this, they'd all have some ideas. I think that everybody would be like, let's do this, they'd all have some ideas. I think that's a great idea. I love that.

Jenny: 24:31

And it's just the idea of expressing like hey, I don't know if you feel this way, but I do. And the reason I feel this way is because I miss how close we were.

Caitlin: 24:41

Yeah.

Jenny: 24:42

Now also. I'm glad you're back at school.

Caitlin: 24:46

I'm a better parent when you go to school, but still so.

Jenny: 24:51

The biggest thing here is going back into routine has a lot of steps that you already have done. You have already backed up bedtime and you've checked backpacks and you know all of that stuff is there. But there's some sneaky things, like making sure that you have the right number of pencils, even though you already bought them all in August, and this feeling of you know the post-holiday blues. What can you do to beat it? You can play games. You can make routine things special. You can play Scarf Share or Skip next time you watch.

Caitlin: 25:24

Triple D I watch that show way too often.

Jenny: 25:28

It's always on. I've been watching it for like 20 years at this point.

Caitlin: 25:31

It's always on, it's always on, and there's like 95 seasons on Netflix, yep. Yeah.

Jenny: 25:37

Okay, that's all I got. Let's take a break. I love it.

Caitlin: 25:40

For links to resources mentioned in this episode. Head on over to ckandgkpodcastcom slash blog to find everything you need, and be sure to follow us on social media. Head over to your favorite social media network and find us at CK and GK podcast. And now back to the show.

Jenny: 25:59

Okay, we're back. Yeah, we're back, and it's time to talk about what we're obsessed with. Tell me Dill pickle hummus what?

Caitlin: 26:07

That's a.

Jenny: 26:08

Thing okay, so it's a limited edition, according to the container, which makes me laugh because it makes me feel like it's a tennis shoe. Um, yeah, not available for a limited time, but limited edition, like people are gonna like this, I don't know anyway. Um, it's made by boar's head, which you know makes like pretty much everything in the deli um but it's pickle flavored hummus and it is so good.

Jenny: 26:31

Okay, all right, I feel healthy that I'm eating it. Well, because it's hummus. It's hummus I'm eating with celery, like that. That's his food. That's like healthy food right, it's.

Caitlin: 26:41

Celery is negative calories, so it's got to be fine.

Caitlin: 26:44

I'm actually working out Right. And then I get my protein from Arisa's Christmas tree, right? There's protein in that, yeah, okay, yeah, mine is also food. It's Austin Nuts Christmas tree pretzels. Have you had these? No, well, I've already looked for them again at the store post Christmas and they are not there. But it's Christmas tree pretzels covered in that, like yogurt covered pretzels, right, but then they put like green and red sprinkles on them. You could make them at home if you wanted to, but they won't be as good they're so good. I went through two bags of them. Oh my gosh, that's amazing In the two weeks I mean, it was two weeks. Yeah, that's like that's nothing and the bags are small, but I still went through two bags of them.

Jenny: 27:31

No, you don't. I don't care if they're big.

Caitlin: 27:34

That's one bag a week.

Jenny: 27:34

That's normal. They're so good. Gosh, that's mine. Okay, so my break was not fabulous.

Caitlin: 27:44

No fabulous. No, there were parts of it that were incredible, but there was something that was really not.

Jenny: 27:51

Yeah, I'm going to tell everybody what it is. I was um, jumping for joy, celebrating Christmas, passing out Christmas presents to teachers. I thought it would be cute for me to leap into someone's classroom and when I did, my knee made a noise and um, it hasn't worked since, yeah, gotta love being 40.

Jenny: 28:09

Right, right, I mean, and that's it. Like it has to be funny and luckily, um, it happened like not the last day of school, but like the second to last. So the next day it's when I'm like, hobbling around, everyone's laughing at me. I'm like yeah, I'm just old yeah guys. Um, but I have been on the phone with insurance. There was one day where I'm not kidding you I spent five hours and 47 minutes on the phone with them. I and you know I'm not kidding because it is that specific Right.

Caitlin: 28:37

I am not condoning any of the behavior we have seen towards healthcare officials Not right at all. That said, the frustration is real and the backlash is incredibly relatable.

Jenny: 28:55

yes, yeah okay, so at one point it's like six o'clock in the evening.

Jenny: 29:02

I'm working on hour four at this point oh gosh and uh, william is not being helpful and my husband starts telling him like hey, william, william, william, you just gotta escalate us. William, you just need to bring us to the next person. I just you just need to find the highest level of supervisor who is online right now, and give us their call. Yep, and I hear myself say out loud I don't care if you have to change my name to karen in my profile, you will give me the manager and ladies and gentlemen, this is not any offense to my lovely mother-in-law, whose name is karen.

Caitlin: 29:46

she is wonderful, she is. Know, I know she is a Karen for good. She really is.

Jenny: 29:52

Oh my gosh, I feel badly that that's what this has become Like. If your name is Karen, like, you are not necessarily this type of person.

Caitlin: 30:00

No, you are not, but.

Jenny: 30:01

I was not going to handle it anymore, and I actually said that phrase out loud.

Caitlin: 30:10

What? Five hours and 47 minutes?

Jenny: 30:12

that's five hours 47 minutes and you were four hours in the other days.

Caitlin: 30:15

No, I know you were four hours in like the frustration had to come out somehow. Right, I just had to. Oh gosh, okay. Well then I'm gonna. I'm gonna share two gems that I have this week, then, and the first one is um. One of the Christmas gifts that we worked on this year was a new bike for my child. Love it. We worked really hard to make this happen and um it. I don't want to say the name of the bike company, but it is one of those kids bike companies that I'm seeing in Instagram feeds a lot. So right, we're right, there's that. It's that Um and my child was very good at riding his balance bike during the pandemic.

Caitlin: 30:58

We were out on it all the time he was little. It's like you know, those are the cute little tiny bikes that there have no pedals. The kids just go on them and I think, just somewhere along the way, when we switched to a bigger bike, he lost confidence in his ability to balance. And like the brakes are different, right, because you want to balance bike, there are no brakes you just put your feet down and you drag your shoes and destroy the bottom of your shoes and that's how you stop, but it's like Fred Flintstone. But that's not what these newer, these bigger bikes are like. Right, there's the handbrake and the back pedal and it's just a lot. So we switched to a bike that only has a handbrake and it's a very responsive handbrake and within an hour and a half of practice, like and not even all at once like 30 minutes here. Stop and take a break. Another you know 32 minutes. Another day he was up and getting himself going on his bike on his two wheeler and now he's obsessed it's so cute. The other day he's like riding by and he's like mom, this is the best. And I'm like by, and he's like mom, this is the best. And I'm like the baby's grinding, like you know. It's one of those moments where you're just like my kid is growing up, and when they're riding a two-wheeler, it just is one of those moments where you're like my kid's grown up. It was a very cool moment.

Caitlin: 32:21

But the other gem I have to share is to just give a little shout out to Karen in my life. Um, so I have, I have a baby blanket. That um was in a pile of linens that had been stored at her house. She went through the pile of linens to see what she could donate. She found the baby blanket. It was something that had been handmade for me by one of my mom's very best friends and I had forgotten it was in there.

Caitlin: 32:50

And I, um, and I maybe Karen told me that she had found it or not, I couldn't remember, but she restored it. She restored the whole thing. She put in new batting. She, um, it had all been hand stitched so it was pretty loose stitching for the border. She fixed all of it and I she was like I would just like you to open up your Christmas gift. And I opened, I saw that. I saw it from the edge, I knew exactly what it was and immediately burst into tears.

Caitlin: 33:19

I sat there crying for like 15, 20 minutes, took a picture of it, sent it to my mom. She was like this, my mom. She was like this is maybe one of my best friends in the whole wide world. Like, she handmade this for you. And I was like no, you can tell. Like, but the only thing that she, that she replaced I mean she had to replace some of it, but like, the front is all exactly the same. She, she just judged it up and then clean. Like it took so much work. It was such a labor of love. So she's a Karen for good for sure. Oh my god, it was the nicest. It might be one of the nicest gifts I've ever received in my life, just in terms of kindness and effort, and don't you love the love that had to go into it? It was very special.

Jenny: 33:57

So, karen, thank you so much, and she's a Karen for good, karen for good they are there, they exist, all right guys when you are watching triple d, oh my goodness. And the burger made out of ground bacon comes up. You count three, two, one. You have a chance. Scarf, share or skip. Make a good choice.

Caitlin: 34:24

Scarf right battle you for that one rock paper scissors and go bye.