Comedy Through The Chaos: Parenting Edition

Good morning, everybody. Happy Saturday to you if you're watching during a Saturday. I think this is garbage. I'll have to see. Hi, I'm Miss Shannon. By trade, I'm a variety of word related things like a comedian and a corporate speaker and a voice actor and event emcee. Hello, SpeakWonder. Good to see you. I had time to moisturize today, but I haven't had time to powder, so I'm gonna be shiny for a few more minutes. I hope that you are well, friend. I hope that you are well. I need to check in on your replays.

Thank you so much. Yes, thank you. Happy Mother's Day preemptively to you as well. It's one of those things. Mother's Day, I have a tendency to forget. I know I should. It's on the calendars like everything else, but it's it will slip my mind sometimes. So I'm glad that I had a number of people remind me already so I can one make sure to do something for my mother as well. So thank you for the reminder. I need to not be a inconsiderate daughter just because I get hyper focused on my relationship with my kiddo.

And so Holidays that are not focused on something I do for him, I do a bad job of going, you should know how this holiday works anyway. Which kind of brings me to what I thought I would talk about in today's edition of Comedy. And so you can let me know what you think about this, Kathy. This is one of my busiest times of year as far as work and events go. So it is spring gala and event season in the market that I work and live in. And so it's quite often where I have multiple events throughout the week and then also some days multiple events throughout the day.

So yesterday was a two event day where I hosted a conference during the day and then did a fundraiser last evening. So I run around A lot. And many of you, what often happens when I'm running around is that there's some things, especially in my journey with my kiddo, that require me to have capacity and patience to have them be instructional. And by that, I kind of get into that, was it Thanos, the big bad that said, I'll do it myself? There's so many things that are in our relationship Have it appeal the end.

Thank you very much. So I appreciate that. Yeah, I am a gad about, I know, but I've made it a profession. So what I mean by having the capacity to work on things that is good for him to do. A lot of that I'll do it myself comes especially around things like household chores, things like cleaning up his stuff, putting his laundry away, all these things that I'm trying to teach him as far as autonomy goes. Like there are certain things he is very capable of doing. And I think that we all have those milestones in our relationships with our kiddos where we should be teaching them to do it and getting them to do it.

But it's easier sometimes to do it yourself, especially things like cleaning up the house, putting your stuff away, picking up your toys, putting your stuff back, being in charge of plugging in your devices. Oh, that's your job. Like I do that a lot. And but when I'm in the midst and I am as Speak Wonder said gadding about, it gets very easy to just go, well, I'll just do it. Well, if I do this now, it's one thing I won't have to do later or something you won't ask me about later. Instead of being able to have the full presence of mind and the capacity to go, No, part of my relation with you as your parent and your caregiver is to help you know that it's in your best interest to plug in your devices so that they stay charged.

Or, I folded the laundry, you can put it away. Or, Help me clean up your room because both of us are happier when the room's clean. those kind of things. Because those do take practice and they do need to become habits. And if I don't help him allow them to become habits, then what the habit ends up being is that mom does it. Mom picks it up, mom does this. If I need something to eat, mom does it. If I need something else to drink, mom does it. If I need my device charged, I tell mom, come here, mom comes in my room, plugs it in.

You know, that's not As much as it may seem as though I'm being helpful with him, God bless you, he said. I just heard a big achoo from his room. Although it seems efficient because it's like, yeah, I can just do it. What I really am working on is him being able to be his version as autonomous as possible. A lot of these things are things that he needs to learn how to do for himself or to at least be involved in or to recognize that it's something that needs to get done. and then tell to recognize where it's appropriate for mom to step in.

So no, he's not in a position where he needs to be doing all his own laundry. But if the laundry's clean, he does very well at putting it where it goes. He knows these types of clothes go in this drawer, this is where my shorts go, this is where my shirts live, those kind of things. And maybe he won't fold it up as Appropriately squared and beautifully Marie Kondo as I would but he can put him away and that's something that's good for him is to go there are certain things that it's your job to do and it's stuff he can be proud of and hopefully get eventually as minor as it is a sense of accomplish for getting it done just like I get to look around the house every once a while and go look I put away a couple of things look at me so that is where I am resting today.

Today is in theory my reset day. And so of course I had a list of, and still do, have a list of things that I'm like, oh, I should get this done before I head off into another busy week. But as part of that reset, after my interactions with my kiddo before I came to talk to you fine friends, I was like, you know, part of that reset needs to be able to reset my interaction with him where today is a we don't have to rush at this pace day. It's a let me remind you that it is okay to take care of yourself in a variety of ways.

So that probably will also include some skincare for him as well. So it has been also a really good busy time period for me in the idea of this as well. This is a time of year where I have a variety of events that have become annual for me. So some fundraisers and some conferences that I've done for two of them. This is my fifth year that I've done them. So I took them back up immediately after things opened back up after our pandemic shut down and It's good for me to have things like this because they are tangible times where I can put a pin in then and go, what were you like last year?

And then what were you like two years before that? And what has grown? What has changed? What's evolved? And it's good to be able to have some of those milestones. And so I've just been using these particular things to go, well, you are calmer or more mindful, or you made it through this busy stress without feeling this busy stretch. feeling less like you're out of control, feeling less like I don't know how I'm going to make it through here. And that's something that for me personally, as both a caregiver and just a complex onion of a human being, I'm very proud of because I remember a few years ago, like the first time I went through this busy stretch after I made it through this sprint, that feeling of, okay, I made it, but it was so exhausting.

looking back at that time, I remember going, well, I don't necessarily want to be less busy. I want to figure out how I can maintain this capacity and how do I do that? And so it required some intentionality and required going, well, what about this did I enjoy? And what about this made it hard? Or can I put in different mechanisms to make it easier on both me and my kiddo? Is it preparing our support system, our backup caregivers differently for this time period? And sometimes is it also just giving myself grace to go, don't overextend all these other things in the midst because you know these things are going to have to be a priority.

And even in the midst of all the priorities that I do with my career, I always want to be able to have that moment that I can anchor back to my kiddo because as busy as I am and as busy and as complex of everything that I do outside of this house and outside of our relationship is, one of the primary pillars and one of the main motivations for why I do all the stuff I do is because I want to be able to take care of him. And so I do feel that this spring gala and event season I'm giving myself a pat on the back.

I did a better job of that. So figure out some ways that you can have those moments in time that can become snapshots for you to be able to see what the milestones are that you're achieving, to be able to go, you know what, this is really different in whatever variety of ways it is from the way this happened the last time. Maybe you have something that's year over year like I do. Maybe it's something that's a lot quicker where you can say, you know what, three months ago when I had to do this same thing, Here's how it felt then.

What can I do to make sure that it feels just a little bit better the next time you have to do it? So that is your homework assignment for today. m. Central. I will not be off and about, I don't believe. I won't be off tuning in with you from, I don't know, Moscow, Idaho or anything like that. I plan to just check in with you again from beautiful Crystal, Minnesota. So I'm always glad that I get to share time with you to share some things that might be going on with me and my kiddo. And hopefully it gives you just a little bit of inspiration, I hope, because it makes you feel a little bit better if all our complexities at least help you make sure that your life might be a little bit less complex.

So may the day treat you well. If it doesn't, shame on it, not shame on you. I will check in with you again soon. Enjoy your day, and as Speak Wonder said, happy Mother's Day if you're one of our mothers out there. So see you soon, everybody.