A weekly conversation about the messy, meaningful reality of caregiving, told with humor, honesty, and the occasional slightly ridiculous life metaphor. Come laugh, reflect, and leave with a little more grace for yourself and the chaos we’re all navigating.
Miss Shannon Paul greets viewers, outlines her varied career roles, and sets up the Thursday edition of Comedy Through the Chaos dedicated to caregivers and finding humor in caregiving challenges.
She frames the episode's main idea about living with uncertainty regarding why loved ones do certain things and hints at a personal story to illustrate it.
Shannon explains her kiddo's long-standing affection for Grumpy Cat, describing paraphernalia in the home and the plushie's significance to their family.
She recounts finding the plushie drenched, the kiddo giving it repeated baths with delight, and her practical steps to dry and manage the messy situation.
Shannon shifts focus from seeking why to valuing engagement, encourages viewers to check the community's other contributors, announces the next episode, and offers supportive closing remarks.
Hello friends. Happy Thursday to you. I am Miss Shannon Paul and by career, I am a variety of word related things including a comedian, a corporate speaker, a voice actor, an event MC, and a benefit auctioneer. But I am also the proud caregiver of an adorable 18 year old kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. So I am happy to join you for this Thursday edition of Comedy Through the Chaos where we are going going to have hopefully a smile and a laugh over some complexities that we have going on in our life as caregivers.
I am running a little late for good reason. I've just had a bunch of things that I'm working on, but nothing bad. Today is my kiddo's last day of school for the year, so I'm gonna go after we wrap up, I'm gonna go pick him up. But what I wanted to share with you today, which I think is interesting, I'm sure I'll have more to talk about as far as moving into the way summer vacation and summer break looks for us for this year moving forward versus the way that I was thinking about it in the past. I think I'm going to cover that more on Saturday after we get an official first day of summer vacation under our belt tomorrow.
But today I wanted to talk to you about the reality of not understanding everything that's going on with people that we care for. Because I think that's just life. Like there's often people in our circle and people that we care about where we're like, I wonder why they do that. I wish that I could maybe just poke around in their mind a little bit. I always am leery of people that when if they could choose a superpower, they choose mind reading, I feel like that is a slippery slope. But there are times that you're like, huh, I wonder why they do that.
So that brings me to what we've been having going on at our home over the last two weeks. Everybody deep breath so we can take a walk. Here we go. Here we go. All right, so I need to introduce you to one of my kiddos favorite things. And it's been one of his favorite things for over a decade. So I need to introduce you to somebody. So I want to introduce you to Grumpy Cat. There she is. Maybe you remember when Grumpy Cat was internet famous way back in the day. We have been a fan of Grumpy Cat for a long time.
And Grumpy Cat was this adorable cat. She was lovely. She did pass away in real life a few years ago. So rest in peace, Grumpy. But we've been a fan of Grumpy Cat for, like I said, over a decade. So he's got a Grumpy Cat poster in his room. We have a giant Grumpy Cat. So there is a big Grumpy that is here. But his primary favorite thing has been this Grumpy Cat plushie or some previous iterations. We have had to replace Grumpy a couple of different times. That will give you a testament to how important Grumpy is to our ecosystem.
here in the household. And over the last couple of weeks, what I have noticed is that Grumpy, if you wonder why she looks even more sad than what she normally looks like, it's because I have on more than one occasion heard my kiddo in our upstairs bathroom. I hear the water running. I hear him laugh. I say some stuff. And I have come in to find poor Grumpy hat drenched. Like you maybe can't tell because I'm holding the phone. But I mean, she is soaked. And so the first time, like if I squeeze her, you can like milk her.
Poor little paws. Look at that. So for some reason, he's decided that she needed a bath in our upstairs bathroom sink. And I think the very first time he did it, he like wet her face just a little bit that he could tell here that she was damp. Like maybe he needed grumpy cat kisses. But that turned into drenching her. So she's been super soaked for a plushie, which is not what they do. We're gonna take a walk down to the dryer 'cause she has to take a Ferris wheel ride in the dryer 'cause she's that wet.
I could put her outside, but I'm gonna put her in the dryer and efficiently dry her to make sure she doesn't end up moldy. But now he's been drenching her to the point and with glee, you know, he's excited about it. He's been dressing her to the point that it ends up making a mess on the floor, and she's had to live in the tub, basically, where I'm like, put her in the tub. And he puts her in the tub. close that. She can go on less dry, just so you know. She's on less dry. So she's on less dry. And then I have him put her in the bathtub until I have time to start dressing-- squishing her out and putting her in the dryer if she's that wet.
And of course, I've told him Grumpy Cat doesn't need a shower. Grumpy Cat doesn't need a bath. And he goes, Hahaha, Grumpy Cat doesn't need a bath. And then proceeds to give her another bath a few minutes later when he has time. And I would love to be able to tell you why this is happening. But you know what? I got no answers. I got no answers for you. I don't know why. He's not in a position to tell me why. Why needs to be taken out of the situation because it's another situation where I'm not going to know why he does it.
You know, maybe somewhere down the road he will be able to explain to me what this is all about. But for today, I'm not going to have an answer. Today, it's just a thing. But what I can focus on is that he's still interacting with me. He's still out saying from the other room to get my attention, Grumpy Cat doesn't need a bath. Ha ha ha. To get me to interact with him or bringing me a soaking wet Grumpy Cat. Or once he knows that Grumpy's in the dryer, he's going, Grumpy Cat, like go get her mom, we have a process.
So the why isn't the important part of the story. The what and the interaction is what I'm choosing to focus on. And so do you have something in your life that that's it where you're like, I wish I knew why this was happening, but you've just released it and just gone with the process of here's what is happening. I'm just going to involve myself in that because I hope you do. And I hope that you get to anchor yourself on to the outcome. The outcome is that the person that you care for and about is still interacting with you.
They're still figuring out a way to go, this is something that I can use to engage with the person that's important to me in my life and giving care. And that's just as cool. Whether you know why it's happening or not, it's good that they're engaging. I'm glad that he's engaging. I'm glad that he's involved. And I'm glad that we are dealing with the first world problem of putting her in the dryer. She'll be okay. I'm sure eventually we'll move on to whatever the next thing is. And that'll be a whole different invention where we get there.
It might be something that requires a little less drier related activities, but hopefully it's another thing that we get to continue to interact about. And I'm glad that he keeps bringing me whatever variety of wet plushed animal that he has. Because I'm glad that he's like, you know what I need to do in this situation? Take this to mom and see what she does. Because he's right. I am happy to have the conversation with him. So we will keep doing that. I do want to remind you to continue to check in with everybody here in the cadre sphere.
We have a lot of wonderful contributors that are always sharing different varieties of information, hopefully to support and engage with you. For instance, my friend Kathy Joy Speak Wonder was on here earlier today. I do want to give her a shout out and tell her I'm glad that she's doing well and I'm glad that her mom is improving. You can check that out. She does a wonderful job talking about things from the perspective of harbor pilots and all those wonderful metaphors and is not only a wonderful poet herself and author, but also does a great job of finding just the right turn a phrase or lyrics to help support where she is and where we are as well.
So make sure you check her out and our other friends that are here. My goal is to check in with you again this Saturday morning at 10:00 AM Central for another edition of Comedy Through the Chaos. And as I said, my plan for this Saturday is to probably start talking about what we do as parents and caregivers as we move into the summer vacation and summer break season. So Feel free to join me for that. Always feel free to go ahead and hit me up in the comments and let me know what else I can do to continue to support you and amplify anything that you have going on.
One of the best parts of my week is being able to be part of this Cadre community and share a little something with you. Like I said, we're all gonna be alright. Why is not always the question we need to ask or expect an answer for. And I appreciate all of you. I hope that the day continues to treat you well. If not, shame on it, not shame on you. And we will see you all very soon. Poor
