What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood

What makes a “go-to dinner”? One pot is good. 30 minutes or less is better. But we’ll use every cookie sheet and pot in the house if it’s 1) not pizza and 2) all of our kids will actually eat it. Here’s links to all of our own go-to recipes that we discuss in this episode, plus the ones our listeners swear by: Margaret’s Go-To Dinners Beef Empanadas  (use refrigerated pie crust for the dough) Green Soup (Margaret adds chicken) Slow Cooker Pork Shoulder  Savory Muffins  and, believe it or not, Lobster Thermidor (Lego Batman’s favorite, natch) Amy’s Go-To Dinners Roasted Broccoli with Shrimp (ten minutes, one pan. If you don’t have the spices, skip em.) Sheet Pan Fajitas Taco Night (this is a super-easy recipe from Laura Fuentes) Our Listeners’ Child-Approved Meals Rebecca’s Loaded Potato Soup Mollie’s Chickpea Tikka Masala Diane’s Asian Noodles (kudos to this brilliant bit of improvisation): and Nancy’s Spanish Rice (thanks, Amy’s mom!) Here’s some of our favorite places to get go-to dinner inspiration : Amy’s sister loves the  Weelicious website Margaret’s favorite cookbook: America’s Test Kitchen: The Best Simple Recipes Amy’s favorite recipe app: Treehouse Table And our new obsession! Our podcast’s latest sponsor: HelloFresh. HelloFresh delivers weekly recipes and fresh ingredients straight to your doorstep. Last night Amy made their Veggie-Loaded Orzo with Sausage. Margaret and her husband made the Chicken Cheddar Fajitas. People, they were devoured. No planning, no shopping, no complaining. We are huge fans! We think you should try HelloFresh for your family-and you can get $30 off your first HelloFresh delivery by going to  hellofresh.com and entering the code mother30. What’s your go-to dinner? Tell us in the comments or on our Facebook page!

One day out of school? Fine, here’s the remote. But by day four of a low-grade temp— just enough to keep the kid home— most parents get rather desperate for ideas. We are both unfortunate experts on the topic of kids’ sick days, and in this episode we discuss what you should already have around the house in anticipation of those “Mommy, I don’t feel well” moments how to decide if your kid is really sick enough to stay home why sick days are not the time to introduce a new skill how kids will act better before they report feeling better why even sick days need a semblance of a schedule the importance of “blank-facing” and why we must always beware secondary gain. Here’s links to some research and articles with great ideas for sick-day kids that we discuss: Devon Corneal for Real Simple: 16 Clever Ways To Entertain a Child Who’s Home Sick Parenting Magazine: Activities for Kids on Sick Days Stephanie Morgan for Momtastic: 10 Activities When Sickness Has You Stuck At Home Carrie McBride for Apartment Therapy: 5 Survival Tips for Being Sick at Home from NPR: Should My Slightly Sick Child Stay Home? The Rules Often Conflict and most importantly, this sobering read, from Heather Murphy for the New York Times: Fish Depression is Not a Joke Want to help a sick kid in the hospital who is really super-bored? Donate a LEGO set to Sam’s LEGO Drive! One of our favorite sick day hacks? Audible. (Amy’s daughter has listened to three Harry Potters and the entire Incorrigible Children series, saving her mother’s sanity while she listens.) Get your 30-day free trial at audibletrial.com/whatfreshhell- and help support our podcast at the same time!

Have you a short fat dictator in your home? Do you cower before a 24-pound child demanding pizza– no, not THAT kind of pizza! the other kind, the kind she likes NOW, which apparently has neither sauce nor cheese?  What is *UP* with toddlers? In this episode we discuss * why toddlers’ tantrums may have, at least at one time, been biologically necessary why taking your toddler’s french toast sticks away makes him feel like he’s suddenly swimming alone in open ocean how expecting a toddler to be “magically cute” is extremely problematic why, if you really must ice-skate with a toddler, you must always, always take your own skates off first And here’s links to some fascinating research, helpful tips, and funny toddler stuff we reference: Kate Gammon for Popular Science: Birth Of Memory: Why Kids Forget What Happened Before Age 7 Patrick Sauer for Fatherly: What’s Going On Inside A Toddler’s Brain, According To Science Alison Gopnik’s TED talk: What Do Babies Think?  Mo Willems and his perfect description of how a toddler goes “boneless” Toddlerography with James Corden and Jennifer Lopez …and from England’s First Steps Research, a study indicating that a toddler’s daily caloric output is the equivalent of going 83 rounds in a boxing ring. This episode also features our interview with Heather Spohr, co-author of the new book The Toddler Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Whiny Unfed. Spohr’s book is hilarious *and* has practical advice (our favorite combo) for surviving the inevitable onslaught of the Toddler Apocalypse in your own household. Take heart, and plan ahead.

It’s a new year, and we’ve got goals. Some of them are perhaps the same as last year, but Margaret says that 2018 is all about Widening the Window of Acceptability. Isn’t that a lovely notion? If redefined to include regular ambulatory activity, “get in shape” might indeed be something we accomplish this year. Either way, we are here to *win 2018*, whether through Amy’s Word For the Year (“Clarify”) or Margaret’s Phrase For These Times (“Say Yes to Less”).  In this episode we both agree to avoid the Cookie Committee, or whatever it is we really don’t want to get roped into this year, by taking Brené Brown’s advice of choosing discomfort over resentment. Here’s what else one or both of us hereby swears to do on the record in this episode: * read more books (Margaret says she’ll read 30 in 2018) * drink two glasses of water with lemon every morning (okay this one might be just Amy) * meditate * organize kid-free time * soften into with-kids time * dock our phones in the kitchen at night Here’s links to some other sources of inspiration discussed in this episode: for stuck creatives: Jon Acuff’s book  Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done for those in a tough moment: David Foster Wallace’s  “This is Water” for those of us who tend to conflate busy-ness with worthiness: this clip of Joan Rivers from “A Piece of Work”  to make meditation easier: the Headspace app to read more articles instead of your Facebook feed: the Pocket app What are your 2018 goals? We want to hear from you! Tell us in the comments!    

One day you have a munchkin who yes, gets up at 6 a.m. and survives on only the outside of chicken nuggets, but who also calls you “Mommy” and makes you valentines. The next day you have a grunting giant who sleeps until noon, eats entire loaves of bread at a sitting, and communicates with you exclusively through text messages even when in an adjacent room. Congratulations! You’re the parent of a teenager! In this episode, we discuss just what exactly is up with teenagers, including getting over the weirdness of disciplining someone who is taller than you are * how teens today are physically safer, but psychologically more at risk how when you have a teenager who is a boy you will be literally the last to know anything how to let your teen feel like she’s getting away with something while still keeping her within the bounds of what you consider safe Here’s links to a must-read and some useful teen-handling tools we discuss Dr. Jean Twenge for The Atlantic: Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? We also recommend following Dr. Twenge on Twitter if teens and screens concerns you (as they really probably should) Amy swears by Sneaker Balls  to make life in a home with two teens bearable for all concerned. Amy also recommends using an app like Tiny Cards to bone up on whatever your teen really wants to talk about, whether it’s NBA players, types of Pokémon, or Star Wars ships. Dazzle your teen with your sudden kaleidoscopic knowledge! We also had the great pleasure of interviewing Dr. Jess Shatkin, author of the new book Born to Be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks, and How We Can Help Keep Them Safe. Dr. Shatkin explained to us how teenagers are hard-wired to take risks, and why “scaring them straight” doesn’t discourage them in the least. But don’t despair– this book has useful and specific takeaways, and we’re giving away a copy to a lucky listener who is brave enough to share one of her own (perhaps regrettable) teen photos! Come visit us on our Facebook page and post one of your teen photos- we’ll be choosing a winner at random to receive a copy of Born to Be Wild. Here’s another tip for living with teenagers: label absolutely everything. This week’s sponsor, Label Your Stuff, means you have at least a fighting chance of seeing that $75  hoodie again. Shop their stuff- and support our show- with this special code: https://bit.ly/freshlabel.   

This week’s *bonus* episode is a recording of our first live show! On December 1st, more than four hundred of you showed up at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center for “What Fresh Hell LIVE!” A few brave husbands were also in attendance; they were moved to the safety of the “Men Pen” for their own protection. (Scotch was served.) The show was such a hit that we can’t wait to do it again. So we are now booking dates for 2018! We’re talking local theaters, school groups, PTAs, fundraisers, moms’ nights out. If you’d like to talk to us about bringing What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood to come to your hometown in 2018, drop us an email at info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com. Special thanks to SheBee Jewelry, the sponsor of our very first What Fresh Hell LIVE! SheBee jewelry adds a touch of chic to elevate the everyday. Get a little something for your mom, your sister, your babysitter– or get some ideas for your own letter to Santa–  at shebee.com and get 15% off with code FRESH. Thank you to Chad David Kraus Photography for the fabulous photos!      

Bedtime routines: whether your kid is six weeks or sixteen, PLEASE tell us they have one.  A 2009 study in Sleep magazine found that bedtime routines- regardless of what they even were- improved not only children’s sleep but “maternal mood” as well. That’s right: do it for you. In this episode, we break down bedtimes by age groups and offer solutions to getting to lights-out a little sooner, discussing topics including * when to start sleep training * why under-rested kids have even more trouble falling asleep * why routines are important even for babies * why older kids should be allowed to establish their own bedtime routines, even if their individually tucking in eighteen separate stuffed animals makes YOU a little crazy * the importance of introducing dark and silent sleep spaces at an early age * why Margaret goes by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation to “Brush, Book, Bed” Here’s links to some articles and studies discussed in this episode: webMD: How Much Sleep Do Children Need?   Parents: How to Develop Bedtime Routines Deena Blanchard for Momtastic: How To Stick To Your Kid’s Bedtime Routine Tim Herrera for NYT Smarter Living: Feeling Groggy? Here’s How to Stop Robbing Yourself of Sleep  For parents of teenagers, this 2017 study from Sleep Health is fascinating reading: it suggests the more face-to-face interactions adolescents have (as opposed to screen time), the higher their “sleep efficiency.” For infants and toddlers, we think Dr. Harvey Karp has the best advice and we recommend his books highly… And if your grade-schooler has a hard time falling asleep, Amy swears by Audible- her fourth grader listens to books on tape every night (on a sleep timer!) Use our link to get a free trial: audibletrial.com/whatfreshhell.

Do you go on a moms’ night out and talk about … your kids? Does morning dropoff chit-chat feel  like a middle school cafeteria? In this episode we talk about deepening bonds with your mom friends, and keeping those relationships going when your kids graduate from whatever preschool or karate class brought you together in the first place. In this episode, we discuss: how to make the leap from a “mom chat” to a mom friend whether you have to be a phone talker to be a good mom friend (Amy hopes not) what to do when it’s your third kid and you’re plumb out of friend-making bandwidth the Bechdel test and its useful application to your mom-friend conversations (if you don’t know “Bobby’s mom’s” first name, try harder) imposter syndrome, sadly universal in the mom friend world what to do when your kids don’t want to be friends anymore but you still like each other how to maintain your relationships with friends who aren’t parents (remember them?) We love this advice from Darcy Shapiro for Scary Mommy: “How Making Mom Friends Feels Just Like Dating” A wise friend once told me about the rule of threes- that is, she always makes sure when she likes someone (male, female, friend or date), she makes a point of hanging out with that person three times in quick succession, thereby never letting the momentum lull. After three times, a level of comfort is generally established whereby it becomes acceptable once again to take things for granted and get lazy. I fully ascribe to this strategy.   If you’re looking for another great parenting podcast, check out Joyful Courage. Hosted by Casey O’Roarty, Joyful Courage is a “conscious parenting podcast” featuring real talk with parenting experts designed to support, inspire and inform those of us on the parent journey. Casey believes our kids choose us, and that the challenges they present us with are exactly the challenges we need. How’s that for perspective?

City versus country (versus the great strip-mall in-between): where’s the best place to raise your kids? Amy hashes it out with guest host Meagan Francis, founder of the Life Listened podcast network and co-host of The Mom Hour, one of the top parenting podcasts on iTunes!  For the other half of this Host Swap, our very own Margaret Ables is talking Regional Parenting Differences with The Mom Hour’s Sarah Powers this week. Give it a listen in your podcast app or right here: If The Mom Hour isn’t on your podcast subscription list yet, it’s about to be! In our own What Fresh Hell episode, Amy and Meagan discuss differences between big-city and small-town living like: * kids’ sports * academics * diversity * independence * culture * peer-led play time * minivans with trunks * high school interviews * friendships * basements, the lack thereof being perhaps the largest drawback of city parenting life. As Andrew Cotto put it in the New York Times:   …any movement is mitigated by the fact that we have neighbors downstairs who don’t want to live below the circus. “Please stop jumping” is the sentence I repeat more than any other while at home. Where are you raising your kids… and does it have more benefits or drawbacks? Tell us in the comments!   Check out primary.com for adorable basics for babies and kids that are sparkle, slogan, and sports team-free. Just stylish basics in vibrant colors! Get 20% off your first order by going to https://bit.ly/primaryfresh.

A couple weeks ago, we asked our friends on our Facebook page to tell us what battles they’re currently fighting in their homes— or choosing not to. As we all know, there are some parenting buttons our children push that are perhaps best left ignored. Then there are dishes left in the sink instead of the immediately adjacent dishwasher, which we believe we have no choice but to interpret as a spouse’s call to arms. In this episode we decide once and for forevermore which of the following battles are worth fighting: * messy playrooms * messy kids’ rooms * food outside the kitchen * co-sleeping children * co-sleeping pets * matching outfits (for school, church, family weddings) * shorts in the winter * picky eating * hats at the dinner table * saying “like” like, every third word Even if a battle is worth— let’s say “skirmishing”— there are more and less productive ways of making your point, and in this episode we lay out what does and doesn’t work for us. We also love Stephanie Dolgoff’s article for Parenting: How To Choose Your Battles. Stephanie suggests creating a short “family-values list” of non-negotiable points (like no name-calling) in a non-confrontational moment. And when all else fails, don’t be afraid to compromise. As Stephanie writes, “When [your kids] see you work out what’s really important, they learn how to work out for themselves what’s really important.” See that? Choose your battles, and you just might win a few. This episode is brought to you by Pip & Grow, makers of the Smitten Sleep System for babies. Inspired by the Finnish tradition, the durable and lightweight Smitten is ready to go wherever your infant goes. You can assemble the Smitten in five minutes or less— no cursing required!– and the Smitten meets all of the safe sleep recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics.  Use the code “FRESH” to get $10 off a Woodland Smitten. (That’s the gray baby box with the cute deer silhouette and birch pattern.) Find out more at pipandgrow.com— and tell them we sent you!  

Do our kids have too much homework? Yup. Agreed. But since moving to a yurt and living off the grid may not be an option for your family, here’s how to make the homework slog a little quicker and less painful at your house. Perhaps even tear-free. (We can dream.)   In this episode we discuss whether the kitchen table is an acceptable homework location (one of us says yes) whether you– or your kid– should be checking the nifty new school website with every assignment listed  (one of us says no) how to help your older kids ignore the distractions of the internet when most of their homework– and many of their textbooks– are online how to invent a system that supports your kid… and then back away from the oversight Our favorite advice on this topic (besides our own) is from KJ Dell’Antonia, who provided these “three cardinal rules of homework” in her most recent newsletter: 1. It’s not yours. 2. What kids learn from homework is rarely on the worksheet. 3. You don’t want to make tonight’s homework better. You want to make ALL the homework better. Here’s links to some other advice and research discussed in this episode: KJ Dell’Antonia (she’s good at this) for NYT Motherlode: Creating a Homework Habit Bruce Feiler for the NYT: The Homework Squabbles The Learning Habit Study (American Journal of Family Therapy) The Learning Habit: A Groundbreaking Approach to Homework and Parenting by Dr Stephanie Donaldson Pressman  With this episode we celebrate our podcast’s first birthday! Thanks to all of you who listen, laugh, and tell your friends. It’s been a wonderful first year for us and we look forward to continuing the conversation!  This episode is brought to you by SheBee Jewelry. Women who wear SheBee (like us) love to express an individual sense of style. SheBee jewelry adds a touch of chic to elevate the everyday. Get a little something for yourself— or create some hints you can not so subtly drop for your next birthday– at shebee.com and get 15% off with code FRESH.

Should your family get a pet? Heavens, no. Take it from two extremely reluctant pet owners of the cat, dog, and fish variety. Okay, pets have upsides: their cute little faces. Their tolerating humiliating headdresses. But there are downsides as well, and in this episode we elaborate them for you in enough detail that you will vow never, ever to cave to your children’s demands for a pet. Barring that, we hope you will at least consult our extremely useful Pet Matrix in order to balance your future pet’s fun-to-hassle ratio. In this episode we discuss why getting a pet will not, despite popular sentiment, make an animal lover out of you if you’re not one already why you should or should not let your kids pick the pet’s name how you, once you have a pet, will either travel less, travel differently, or have to find a relative with “pet bandwidth” why you shouldn’t get a hamster cause you can’t handle a dog why birds are an absolutely not Here’s some useful links for further reading on the topic: from Lifehacker: Where To Start When You’ve Decided You Want a Dog (first step: “Make sure you’re sure.”) from PetFinder: How Much a Dog Costs Per Year from The Orlando Sentinel: Study Says Cats Would Kill You If They Were Bigger Are you a doting pet owner? A absolutely not-er? A slowly-being-beaten-down-by-clamoring-children holdout? Tell us in the comments!    This episode is brought to you by PastBook. With PastBook, you can make gorgeous hardcover photo books of your Facebook or Instagram feeds in seriously one click. (And you know that’s where you put all your best photos already.) PastBook does the photo arranging and can also include the captions from your feed as part of each photo. To get started, go to pastbook.com/fresh. 

America has 3% of the world’s kids… and 40% of the world’s toys. We’ve got clutter, right here in River City. In our opinion the best decluttering advice, from Joshua Becker of Becoming Minimalist, is to “slow the accumulation of new possessions.” In other words, don’t let all that junk in the front door in the first place. But assuming your household missed that memo— as ours both have— in this episode we discuss: * non-vehicular nonsense * our kids’ anxiety about purging toys, even long-forgotten ones * the personal blind spots we have when clutter-clearing (Margaret has T-shirts from HIGH SCHOOL) * the procrastination-enabling, problem-compounding reality of owning a storage unit * the great unused potential of the back of your closet doors * why the roasting pan you use once a year can become your toy room’s greatest strategy * the surprisingly plausible “super-fun cleaning party” Amy organizes a little bit at a time; she thinks emptying a junk drawer a day is the key to a tidy home.  Margaret says her house is way beyond the help afforded by cleaning out her makeup bag on a Tuesday afternoon. But wherever you lie on the clutter continuum, this episode is full of ideas for eating that elephant. One delicious bite at a time. Here’s some links to research and resources discussed in this episode: * the UCLA social science study in 2012 that shows our collective clutter-induced doom: Life at Home in the 21st Century: 32 Families Open Their Doors * “low self-worth apparel”  as defined by creativity guru Julia Cameron * the “decluttering burst,” from  Courtney Carver of Be More With Less * the “30 Day Declutter Challenge,” from Liz Neiman of the Love and Marriage Blog * from Beth Teitel for the Boston Globe: Today’s Families are Prisoners of Their Own Clutter  This episode is brought to you by Blinkist, which distills the best takeaways of popular non-fiction into 15- minute “blinks” you can listen to or read while you’re on the go. Check out decluttering “blinks” like Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up or Julie Morgenstern’s Organizing from the Inside Out with our special code: http://bit.ly/freshblinkist. 

[sgmb id=”1″] Babysitters: whether you have a full-time nanny or a college kid two Saturday nights a month, finding and maintaining good childcare is an ongoing process. You find someone your kids adore– but he’s graduating this year and moving to Southeast Asia. You have someone your kids used to adore, but she has no idea how to help with 5th grade math homework (we mean, who among us does). As your needs shift, so does the sort of childcare you’re looking for– but doing the right groundwork on the way in can prevent starting all over again in a month. In this episode we discuss: * whether Margaret’s “fog on a mirror test” is an effective way to choose a caregiver * the virtues of a “someone at home, someone on the move” system * heeding the warning signs that someone is not working out, even if they were once terrific * why you should check a caregiver’s social media as part of your research * the three types of caregivers as laid out by Tammy Gold, in her book Secrets of the Nanny Whisperer SUPER SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: What Fresh Hell LIVE! Friday 12/1/17  at 8 pm Chappaqua Performing Arts Center, Chappaqua, NY Tickets $18.50! Grab your mom friends and come laugh with us. Tickets available here: https://bit.ly/WFHlive  

[sgmb id=”3″]   Back to school: while some psychologists say we parents must “maintain a positive attitude about summer ending,” we say the end of summer sucks for all concerned and we might as well admit it. Do you try to impose some order on the countdown to school in your house? Or do you just run hard until the night before and take the pain all at once? As the first back-to-school photos creep into our Facebook feeds, these are the questions we are here to answer.   In this episode we discuss: * back to school shopping * the batching of unpleasantness (haircuts, dentist appointments) into those last precious moments of freedom * all the summer reading and math sheets our kids haven’t done yet * how we really better start moving bedtime a little earlier now * and the one great upside: the return of “Mom office hours” Here’s some links to resources discussed in this episode: * Meghan Leahy for Washington Post On Parenting: 4 Ways to Ease the Back-to-School Transition   * Bethany Hardy for PBS.org: Back to School: Transitioning Your Family From Summer to School How are you managing the back-to-school transition? Join us on our Facebook page and show us your happy (or not so much) back-to-schoolers! We’re proud to be sponsored by SmartyPants Vitamins. SmartyPants makes a 1-for-1 nutrient grant to Vitamin Angels , which helps expectant mothers and children around the world get the life-changing nutrients they need. That means that every bottle of SmartyPants you buy improves your children’s health– and the health of children around the world. And SmartyPants has just passed the four million mark: 4.2 million women and children helped! Find out more here.