The MamasteFit Podcast Episode 158 – Entering the Child-Rearing Era (For Real This Time)

Gina: Welcome to the MamasteFit Podcast. In this episode, we’re going to be talking about our own motherhood journey into our child-rearing era, Roxanne?  

Roxanne: Yes.  

Gina: We are for real.  

Roxanne: Out of the… We are for sure-  

Gina: We are for real this time …  

Roxanne: Out of the childbearing era.  

Gina: For real, for real.  

Roxanne: The child-birthing era.  

Gina: We have previously done an episode similar to this, talking about the transition to this new era, and then JK lols, Roxanne got pregnant, and we-  

Roxanne: I changed my mind. I wasn’t ready.  

Gina: We rewind a little bit, but for realsies this time. So we’re going to be sharing about what it’s like to be in this new era, some, words of wisdom that we have as moms of four, who are super experienced now.  

Roxanne: Just rocking it.  

Gina: And just things that we’ve been seeing on social media, and things that may or may not be helping your confidence as a mother. 

So for real, we are in our child-rearing era. Yeah, there’s no more pregnancies for MamasteFit in this generation.  

Roxanne: Yes.  

Gina: Maybe our daughters or sons- 

Roxanne: Yes 

Gina: … will continue on the lineage of MamasteFit, potentially. My oldest, Adeline, her dream is to be an animator, but she doesn’t know if that’s realistic, so she wants to be a doctor. 

Roxanne: She, her backup is being a doctor.  

Gina: Her backup is a doctor. so maybe- Yeah … she’ll be an OBGYN or a midwife- 

Roxanne: Yeah 

Gina: … Or who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if she chose a medical field.  

Roxanne: She did choose a stethoscope. 

Gina: She did … 

Roxanne: On her first birthday.  

Gina: So we’ll see. Maybe she’ll be the one that takes it on. Sophie’s star chart, my third child, my second daughter, was that she was going to be in fitness.  

Roxanne: Oh.  

Gina: So maybe the two of them together are going to carry on.  

Roxanne: Albert kids kicked out MamasteFit, Conley kids carry on.  

Gina: So for this generation-  

Roxanne: We’re done.  

Gina: We’re done.  

Roxanne: We’re done.  

Gina: We’re done. Although, I did struggle for a moment, not because I wanted more children, because I didn’t want the chapter to close. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: ‘Cause then it gets very dark very fast for me, where, oh, this chapter is ending. The pregnancy and birth chapter is closing, therefore, we all die. 

Roxanne: There’s only so many chapters that you get-  

Gina: There’s only so many chapters 

Roxanne: … in your life. 

Gina: So it gets dark- 

Roxanne: So when one chapter ends- 

Gina: … super, super fast. 

Roxanne: … that’s one less chapter left in your life 

Gina: And every single chapter has to end. 

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: And this shit keeps me up at night. 

So with the pregnancy and birth chapter closing for me, it was just a big reminder that all of my children, who are super cool at every phase- there hasn’t been a phase with any of my kids that I’m like, “Oh, my God. I cannot wait for this to be over. I can’t wait to be in that next stage.” Obviously, there are moments where I’m like, “Can you just take a nap?” Like-  

Roxanne: I don’t think that, like, when we get frustrated with our children, which is not never-  

Gina: I mean…  

Roxanne: Often …  

Gina: Some of the time. 

Roxanne: I think that, one, that’s a normal interaction of parenting. But I think that we are never, in the moment, “Oh, I can’t wait till you grow up.” 

Gina: Yeah.  

Roxanne: I think it’s more like, “Oh, just eat some food or take a nap and you would be so much happier.”  

Gina: So for me, personally, I’ve never been like, “I can’t wait for the newborn phase to be over. I can’t wait for toddler phase. I can’t wait for this next step in motherhood, or this next step- in childhood.” I’ve always really enjoyed each-  

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: … phase. And so it gets hard when I realize that we’ve moved to the next step, where that chapter of baby has closed and we’ve moved on.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: So that realization has always been very hard for me. But I think, something that I saw recently that was like, “that, that is a good reminder,” there were two different things that really resonated with me of, what helped me to accept that our family was complete, which I do genuinely feel my family is complete. I have no desire for any more children. If we happen to have another child, it’s a miracle, first of all. That child needed to be born. 

Roxanne: Harvey is a little convincing, though. Harvey is convincing. 

Gina: He is. There are moments where I hold him- 

Roxanne: He’s so cute. 

Gina: … And I’m like, “Oh, these cheeks. Ooh these cheeks. So cute.” And then I’m like, “Just get a dog, Gina.” Not that a child is a dog, but.  

Roxanne: You just need another baby.  

Gina: Yes, your baby is fine for me to hold. And then our brother’s babies, as he, him and his wife- 

Roxanne: If they have more. 

Gina: If they have more. 

So the two things that have been really helpful for me to truly accept that my family is complete is the first is: I’m never going to have this baby again. Like, Zoe is never going to be a baby again. 

Roxanne: Mm-hmm. 

Gina: So I can have more and more babies, but they’re never going to be any of my current kids again. I can’t repeat this moment with that child again. It’s like a whole new child. And with every new child, I love all of my children the same, I have enough love to give all of them, but I only have so much attention and capacity that I can distribute amongst them all. And the more children I have, the less capacity that I have to give a lot of one-on-one attention. And the kids that I find get the least attention- which they also get a lot of attention from me, four is a good number for me- is my older kids. My older two kinda get, “You can take care of yourself a little bit more than this infant can.” 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: And so I feel almost like I’m, like, neglecting them, even though I’m not neglecting them, but I can’t give them as much attention as when it was just me and them.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: And so I’m like, if I continue to keep having kids ’cause I don’t want to let go of this chapter, eventually it’s going to impact my ability to have a relationship with my older children. And this is just for me personally. There’s other people that have more children that do a really good job with it, it feels better for them in that way. But for me personally, I feel like any more than this is going to impact my ability to enjoy my older kids as well. I’m never going to have them as babies again, so I can’t rewind the clock and relive that timeframe; and I also, only have so much bandwidth, and I have to truly understand and accept that. 

And so for me, those two things really helped me to be like, “Okay, this chapter is closing. It sucks ’cause this is just a big reminder that they grow up, but it needs to close in order for us to progress as a family to the next step,” which is still super fun! It’s still super fun. Like, when you kinda come out of the baby years, toddlers are really interesting, for lack of a better word. They’re very interesting! 

Roxanne: They, they keep you on your toes, for sure.  

Gina: So what has been helpful for you in deciding that this is it? As cute as Harvey is, I guess you’re still in the- 

Roxanne: I’m still in it.  

Gina: You’re still in the early part …  

Roxanne: The woes of newborn life. Honestly, though, he is a perfect baby. That it has made it great. I think I’ve said it in multiple podcasts, he’s just amazing and perfect.  

Gina: We’ve been really big on manifesting. 

Roxanne: The perfect bookend baby. And I think that his transition into the family has been very easy, but I do feel the same where I have to provide everything for him. Granted, I could pump milk and someone else could feed the milk; but, mostly I have to feed him and take care of him and make sure that someone is watching him, or someone is going to be watching him if I have to leave, and that there’s milk there. So he still takes a lot of my attention, and I … My older kids sometimes will express their grief with me not being able to spend time with them as much as I did prior to Harvey being here. I think my oldest says sometimes, she’s like, “Why do you always hang out with Harvey and never hang out with me?” 

Gina: Never.  

Roxanne: Never. It’s very, like-  

Gina: Dramatic? 

Roxanne: … Dramatic! I never spend time… we just got our nails done together, a week ago. “You never hang out with me.” I’m like, girl, we just hung out for three hours. But I think that, like, when they say that, I understand that it’s because they do, they miss being able to spend the same amount of time that we used to. And that, similarly, like you, I, like my children, and I like spending time with them, and so the fact that I can’t spend time with them all the time because they just want to touch Harvey’s face and wake him up immediately after I put him to sleep ’cause they are obsessed with him so much, that it makes it hard to spend time with them and Harvey when he’s in his nap time, which is a lot of the time as a newborn. Yeah.  

Gina: Yeah, he’s a little sleepy potato. Yeah. Although he is getting more- 

Roxanne: He is more, he’s more of a mobile, rolling potato now. Now he’s like a potato on a hill, which is like- 

Gina: He’s like a rotisserie chicken.  

Roxanne: Yeah, a rotisserie chicken. Yeah. He’s more mobile. You can’t just leave him there on the bed anymore. It’s a little dangerous now. It’s a hazard.  

Gina: And now everything’s on the floor.  

Roxanne: So now he, we have a mattress on the floor for him to take his naps, just in case I need to go to the bathroom and he decides that’s the time he’s going to learn to roll from his belly to his back.  

Gina: But it will get easier, in the next year or so. 

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: As he gets a little bit more, quote-unquote- independent. Like- 

Roxanne: But also more interactive.  

Gina: Yeah.  

Roxanne: I think that’s what the kids are… Like, they get bored after a while of just staring at him, ’cause he doesn’t really do much except smile and kick and giggle at them, which, they love, ’cause they’re just like, “Ugh, he thinks I’m so great,” which, yeah, they are great. Once he started rolling, the kids got more excited ’cause they’re like, “Oh, watch me roll. Watch me roll,” to get him to roll. Once he starts crawling and walking and doing all the things, I know that they’re going to be more willingly entertaining to him and spending time with him and us together, and not- “Hey, wake up. Play with me.”  

Gina: Yeah. It’ll also free up your time as well. So I don’t remember when the transition happened for us with Zoe from potato baby to independent playing toddler.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: I know right now, she’s 20 months. She is… She will go and independently play. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: She will go into our play area, which is essentially my whole house, and will sit and play dolls with Sophie or next to Sophie. And they… she will go and, entertain herself with her toys. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: And she’ll go and she’ll color. She’ll just, she’ll work on a puzzle. Yeah, obviously very simple puzzles, but, like- 

Roxanne: Yeah, three-piece puzzles. 

Gina: She’ll go and, do stuff on her own, which frees up a lot of time for me that I didn’t have when she was, like eight months old. 

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: Or six months old- 

Roxanne: To spend time with other people. 

Gina: … Or three months old. Yeah, like the first year I think is definitely the hardest- 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: … With how much attention you have to give this baby. And so now we’re outside of that window, and we’re kinda nearing the two-year mark for her. She’s really interactive with her siblings. She independently plays. Obviously sh- she still sleeps with me, and she still nurses. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: And I don’t know when she’s going to not nurse, but, um, there’s still like an attachment, that she has directly to me- but it’s not as intense as it was when she was, like a baby, and so I have more freedom. 

Roxanne: Yeah. It’s still intense. She still loves you very much.  

Gina: It’s still intense. She does. I’m definitely her favorite. Which is fine. 

Roxanne: Yeah, totally fine. 

Gina: But, like a big shift- 

Roxanne: But not as, like, when they’re a baby they like actually need you.  

Gina: They need you. They need you. Right now, she desires me, very much. 

Roxanne: Without you they can’t drink milk unless you, again, pumped milk. 

Gina: Yeah. 

Roxanne: Or like skin-to-skin, and holding them, and the smell of you, that’s like a need for development. Now, it’s just like she really loves you. 

Gina: It’s comfort. 

Roxanne: And you’re the best mommy in the world. 

Gina: She says, “I love you.”  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: Which is adorable.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: She’s, “I love you. Love you.” 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: But something else that has happened as the months have progressed from her being a little potato, which I love saying that babies are potatoes, ’cause they really are just the cutest potatoes. 

Roxanne: The cutest little potatoes. 

Gina: Is when… So I got back into running in the past year, so it’s been like a good year. I think we looked at the timeline of when we did our first run together, and it was- It was like- … very slow. Last, like April timeframe.  

Roxanne: I was seven days pregnant, didn’t know it.  

Gina: I was like, “We’re going to run a marathon in two months because we have to submit a point of, a proof of time for the Disney races,” which I later learned we coulda just done a half marathon. We didn’t need to do a full! So we were like, “We gotta train for this.” And then somebody got pregnant and didn’t train with me anymore. But that was kinda the start- 

Roxanne: I was very tired … 

Gina: of my, like running journey, and Zoe could only tolerate, like maybe 20, 15, 20 minutes in her Pack ‘n Play while I ran. I had to have somebody else there to like help, otherwise, like I was going to have to break up my run a lot. Now, homegirl will sit in her Pack ‘n Play for two hours, like playing. Like I put like Magna-Tiles, I put like a little puzzle, books, her iPad obviously. Play-Doh. Like markers. And she just kinda will rotate through different toys- inside the Pack ‘n Play for like the period of time.  

Roxanne: You get like a play pen.  

Gina: While I get, like my whole run in, which is super awesome, and she’s… Very rarely will be like, “Get me outta here.” And when she is like, “Get me out of here,” one of her siblings comes and grabs her and brings her into the playroom, and they just play, like all together in there. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: So my freedom to do things has really increased because she’s a little bit more independent. Like we are working on an 18,000 piece puzzle…  

Roxanne: And Harvey’s really holding us back.  

Gina: He really is. It’s really all his fault that it’s not done. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: But Zoe is not holding us back. 

Roxanne: As Gina took a nap with her yesterday or the other day for two hours. 

Gina: It was not that long.  

Roxanne: As Harvey was asleep. 

Gina: He was. 

Roxanne: So I worked on the puzzle myself. 

Gina: You worked really hard. We’re, almost a quarter of the way done.  

Roxanne: Like one-eighth of the way done.  

Gina: But having her grow her independence, freeing me up to focus more on things that I really enjoy doing for just me- and getting back into racing has also been really motivating to be okay with the chapter closing. Because I know that if I get pregnant and we have another baby, this progress that I’ve made for myself is going to be reset. Which sounds- like silly in a way to be like, oh, running is more important than a baby. For me right now, yes. Like- 

Roxanne: Yeah. But, I know- And I think it’s like you need- 

Gina: … all of that progress would be reset, and I don’t want it to be. I’m having a lot of fun, getting faster in my races. I have time goals for myself. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: I have things that I want to do. My kids are really excited to do Disney races now, and I want to do it with them, and- Yeah … so there’s just this, new chapter that I’ve been, like, very slowly discovering is really fun- even though I know it’s finite.  

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: It will end eventually, and we’ll, move on to the next phase of our journey. But it’s still, it’s less heartbreaking for me to be like, “Oh, the baby years are over.”  

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: Cause Zoe’s a really fun toddler.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: I also, we, were talking about this, I manifest a lot where I say that my babies are perfect children, or perfect angels. 

Roxanne: They’re perfect angels.  

Gina: Perfect angels. 

Roxanne: They are. They never have tantrums. 

Gina: Every day we tell them that they’re the best, or my favorite, or something. Like, I only have one son, so I tell him, “You are my favorite son. You are the best son in the whole world.” And then he, his response is, “You’re the best mommy in the whole universe.” And I’m like, you up me- you one-upped me there. And then since I have three girls- 

Roxanne: The galaxy. 

Gina: …It’s you’re the best biggest sister, you’re the best little girl, you’re the best baby girl is the three, in the whole world, universe. You’re my favorite baby girl, my favorite little girl, my favorite big girl, is like their, like titles. And then they’ll go and say it to each other- and then it just makes this whole vibe of, “Yeah, we’re all amazing. We’re all incredible.” 

Roxanne: And they also have their emo, who’s also “Yeah, you are amazing! And incredible!”  

Gina: A lot of self reinforcements of how amazing they are, and then they end up just being amazing. And I just casually ignore- 

Roxanne: All the other times 

Gina: … any tantrum or meltdown that they have. I’m like, “They never do that.”  

Roxanne: They never have big emotions.  

Gina: I just did a week Disney trip by myself, and I tell everyone that they had no meltdowns. They probably did. I just blocked it out. I was like, “They didn’t have any meltdowns.”  

Roxanne: As Gina’s son yesterday cried because he wanted a pink lemonade LMNT. 

Gina: I was like, “He never melts down.”  

Roxanne: Never has a meltdown, as he cried. 

Gina: Speaking of which, pink El- pink lemonade LMNT.  

Roxanne: Oh.  

Gina: Delicious. Delicious.  

Roxanne: Grab it now while it’s available. 

Gina: It’s a summer flavor. 

Roxanne: Only available if you get an Insider Bundle, though. Like, it’s only available if you are an Insider, so you have to get the four box  

Gina: We’ll link our code down below. We- I drink LMNT every day. It’s so good. 

Roxanne: Literally every day.  

Gina: So good.  

Roxanne: Their sparkling, their LMNT powders, triple electrolyte drinks. It’s so good. So good. 

Gina: So good.  

Roxanne: Yeah, but Eoghan, Gina’s second, her son, her only son-  

Gina: My precious son. 

Roxanne: We donated a box to the winner of the running race.  

Gina: Which I won. 

Roxanne: And Gina won, so she could have taken the box back, but-  

Gina: I left it for the- we gave it to another winner … the other parents …  

Roxanne: The other parent winners. And Eoghan was like, “I wanted that!” And we’re like, “We have it at the gym.” 

Gina: I was like, “We can go to the gym and I can get you some.” 

Roxanne: We literally have this boxed at home. 

Gina: Poor guy.  

Roxanne: Poor guy. He was just so thirsty. 

Gina: He’s so sensitive.  

Roxanne: We love him, though. But nope, he didn’t have any tantrums ever.  

Gina: Nope, he doesn’t have any. 

Roxanne: That was, that was all made up.  

Gina: Yeah, I’m like, I, he, they probably did have a meltdown and I just, like totally blocked it out and I’m like, “They didn’t.”  

Roxanne: Yeah. I-  

Gina: They didn’t. It was a great time. Yeah. I had a lot of fun.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: So what are some things that you think have helped you come into motherhood over the years? ‘Cause I’m- ‘Cause you’re a different mom than you were with your first-  

Roxanne: And I think that they- 

Gina: … Versus your fourth 

Roxanne: … they say that, like you, you are a different parent or mother to every single one of your kids. Definitely more patient with my, when there was just one, I think.  

Gina: I feel like my patience has grown- with each child.  

Roxanne: Oh.  

Gina: But maybe I didn’t have a lot to begin with.  

Roxanne: Maybe. I was definitely more patient with Lily, but it was because she slept amazingly well, so we would nap together and- do everything together. And she was, like, an amazing bottle taker. The girl, everything I needed her to do, she would just do, and it was great. and then Colin did none of those things.  

Gina: Right.  

Roxanne: He didn’t like sleeping, napping, taking bottles, or really even drinking milk very well at first. So he was a different baby, and I had less patience. 

Gina: You also that the transition from one to two was the hardest.  

Roxanne: Postpartum depression, anxiety,  

Gina: For me, the transition from zero to one was the hardest.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: And I think it’s because I had a lot of expectations over- 

Roxanne: I had no expectations. 

Gina: … How I was supposed to do things and how things were supposed to go. 

Roxanne: But you’re also, one of the first ones of our close proximity group to have a baby.  

Gina: Yeah.  

Roxanne: We had one friend who had a baby, but she didn’t live near us, it was, like, out of sight, out of mind almost. 

Gina: Yeah. 

Roxanne: We don’t really know what happens when that… you’re a mom. And I’ve had friends who had, older kids, but, not babies. So you were the first one. so your only expectation was…Instagram.  

Gina: I think I found that there was a lot of rules-  

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: … that I was supposed to be following and doing. And, there was a specific way you were supposed to do things, and I was trying to follow that. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: And it was not working for us. And once I realized that I can literally do whatever I want-  

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: … In whatever way that I want, it was really freeing for me. And so I think the biggest shift for me was the sleeping situation was, like, the biggest shift that we made. “The baby’s supposed to sleep here, this is where the baby sleeps,” and it was just not working for us. My oldest just did not want to sleep in this bassinet, she wanted to be right next to me. And it was, like, a month or two of me essentially not sleeping, trying to get this baby to sleep, who did not want to sleep by herself, and hallucinating ’cause I was so sleep deprived, that I was like, “I don’t think that this is working. I think I need to make a different decision.” And once we started our shift into bed sharing, and we made our space safe, and we set that up for us, it was a big light bulb moment for me where I was like, “Oh, maybe I don’t need to do everything the way that I’m, quote-unquote, ‘supposed to.'” 

I thought I had to track every pee and poo that she had. I had an app on my phone. 

Roxanne: Oh my God. I don’t even know the last time I tracked that. 

Gina: And then there was a moment where I was trying to track stuff, that I was like, “I don’t think I’m paying attention to my baby because I’m so obsessed with this tracker that I don’t know why I have to do” I don’t know why I have to do this. I was in the hospital, and they told me to track this. I was in the hospital, and they told me I needed to wake my baby up every three hours to feed her. And so I was waking up that little chick in the middle of the night when she was fucking sleeping ’cause some nurse told me that I needed to do this. And I was like, “Roxanne, when can I stop waking her up?” And Roxanne was like, “Why are you waking her up?” And I was like, “‘Cause some nurse told me I needed to wake her up.” Yeah, so I had all of these, rules- yeah … that I felt like I was supposed to be following that didn’t work for me.  

Roxanne: They’re like the unspoken rules that, you were just told growing up. 

Gina: And some of them are spoken. They’re like guidelines that people put out.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: They say, “This is how you’re supposed to do it.” And once I realized, hey, there’s some stuff that we do want to do. I want to follow this, this, and that. These three things, I don’t know about. We’re going to do something a little different for those ’cause that works better for us as a family. And I started to build my confidence over the first year or two- of motherhood where I was like, “This works for us. This doesn’t work for us.” And I started making decisions that better aligned with, our family, and I felt more confident about making those decisions and telling people that I made those decisions. I didn’t feel like I’ve… some stuff you feel like you can’t. “Oh, I have to keep this a secret. Oh, what we do is a secret.” But I’m like, why? Why does it have to be a secret? And then what I was discovering with, like, when we had MamasteFit at the beginning and it was just me and a bunch of, new moms trying to figure out, what the fuck we were doing, they were all like, “Oh, I don’t have to put a cover on when I nurse. I can just whip my boob out and feed my baby right here. That’s what Gina’s doing.” ‘Cause I also thought that I had to wear a cover, and that if I didn’t wear a cover, somebody was going to come and get me. And so I was like, “I guess I’ll just put on this really big cover to cover me as I breastfeed to be, like, modest.” And then I was like, or I can just feed my baby and literally nobody cares. And so then other moms around me were like, “Oh, I can also just feed my baby wherever I want.” And so we were all figuring out how to just be moms in a way that worked best for us.  

Roxanne: I feel like after you had your baby though, and like you did this entire process of coming into being a mother, and obviously I got to witness all of it ’cause I lived like 15 minutes at that time, it was 15 such long minutes away. 

Gina: It was so far. It was so far away. 

Roxanne: I think it was like 17, 18 minutes actually. But, because we lived a lot closer, and granted, yes, I still worked full time because I was still in the Army, but I was able to witness you come into yourself as a mother and make that transition of being confident about the decisions that you were making, to include like the decisions that you were making for your family with other people- so who you were letting into your space, and like the boundaries that you were creating as well with your space. That gave me more confidence, and I think that might be why my zero to one transition wasn’t as hard, because I felt comfortable making the decisions for our family confidently, and that if you don’t like the decisions we’re making, then you- 

Gina: Can go. 

Roxanne: You don’t have to parent my child. You don’t have to be a part of their life then, like, in regards to the decision making that has to happen, which they wouldn’t be a part of it anyway. But I think our mom still like likes to put in her two cents, but I was still in a, I was in a space that I still feel confident to either be like, “I will try that,” or, “No, that doesn’t work for us,” and I f- I feel okay about that. 

Gina: She’s really come into her grandma role as well too from like the first baby to the eighth, now, where she’s like, “You can do it in the ways that you want to do and I will support you in that way.” 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: “And it may be different than the way I did it, but it’s okay.”  

Roxanne: Yeah. “If they’re at my house, I will do it th- this way, but you can do whatever you want at your house.”  

Gina: Yeah.  

Roxanne: But, I think that’s why my zero to one transition wasn’t as hard, because I felt confident. Like breastfeeding out in public, I don’t think I ever owned a nursing cover. I was just like, we just, we breastfeed a baby. If you want to stare at me whipping my boob out, that’s fine. But if you’re uncomfortable about it… 

Gina: I don’t think I ever saw anybody breastfeed before I breastfed. 

Roxanne: No. I didn’t- I think you, and then I think we, our other friend who had a baby, I’ve seen her breastfeed in public as well, and it was like no big deal for her. And then you breastfed, like whatever, out in public, and I was just like, “That’s fine.” One, like you don’t have to be like, take off my entire shirt, like- Ugh. Look at me! 

Gina: Or you can if you want. Whatever. 

Roxanne: Yeah, I guess you could do that. But it’s like it’s when you’re breastfeeding a baby it’s not to show everyone your boobs, it’s to feed a baby. Yeah, so it’s- Do you eat in public? So does this baby. And I know not everybody feels comfortable, and I’ve met many people that don’t feel comfortable, and that’s fine. But I felt very comfortable, immediately. I think the only time I used a cover was because I just sprayed milk places, and it was more the blanket was there to catch it when they decided to pop off and spray the world. 

Gina: Yes.  

Roxanne: So that’s… It was really just a spray blanket at that point. But I felt very comfortable and confident coming into being a mom. And I was also, I loved babies from the beginning of my life. Our brother, I was obsessed with, and, like, all babies I was always obsessed with so it was like I’ve looked forward to this moment to, be my own, to have my own baby. 

But zero to one, not bad. One to two, though, I had no support. And I was not sleeping … 

Gina: Huge difference.  

Roxanne: And then I had this other baby who, I spent 24/7 with… 24/6 maybe, ’cause one day a week I did work, but, 24/6, but, most days with. We slept together. We snuggled and napped together. We did everything, almost, together. And her best friend, Adeline, who also entertained her, was no longer there. So it was just me and Lily and now this new baby. And I was like, “I can’t hang out with you because he is refusing to go to sleep, but he is hangry, and sleep angry, and you are also sleep angry ’cause you also need to take a nap. And I don’t know what to do, and I have no one to watch and entertain you while I attempt to put anybody to sleep.” So that was harder because I felt comfortable and confident in making decisions, but my decision usually ended up being, “I’m just going to stay home and not leave this house,” ’cause that is easier than having to navigate the world out there with two babies versus one. Which is probably not the healthiest choice, but it’s how we navigated it and what I felt comfortable with. 

But then Joan, back home with my village, my tribe, as we say. So I… That transition was super easy. But I also think with our second, my husband was like, “We’re good with two. I’m good with two,” and I was like, “I would really love a third.” So that transition of accepting just two kids was really hard, ’cause I always envisioned having three kids. And but he was, like, very full on, “We good with two” and I was like, “Fine.” So I had accepted my child-bearing years were ended after we had Colin. I think I sob cried as I put my oldest’s clothes away in a bag ’cause we were having a boy and I didn’t need all these fluffy dresses anymore. And Mom came over and was just like, “I’m so sorry. I’ll keep these clothes for you just in case.” Which thankfully she did! But I had accepted, I was like, finally I was like, “Whatever, we’ll just have two. It’ll be fine. I’ll bring it up every once in a while that maybe a third would be fine.” And then two years later he was like, we could have a third.” And so then we had Joan, and I was like, “I did all this acceptance, and so I’ll just carry on the acceptance-“ 

Gina: This seems to be a trend …  

Roxanne: …after a third. And then after Joan I was very complete, I felt. And so I, I was ready to move on from the childbearing years. So I think I’ve done so much accepting that these years are over, and I was ready to move on to just raising, and getting to know my kids as they got older, as, big, bigger adults- they’re tiny adults pretty much- that I’ve nev- I don’t feel like I’ve had as much trouble with every closing chapter because I just keep adding addendums to the same chapter. Addendums, upon addendums, upon now a third addendum. But, I’m like, every time I’m like, I’m ready to come back to who I was and what I enjoy doing, because they really do take up so much of your time and attention when you are immediately postpartum. And after having a baby, like, all of the things that I enjoyed doing, to include just freaking reading a book with my eyeballs, kinda just gets pushed to the wayside. And now eight years later, I finally read a book with my eyeballs instead of my ears.  

Gina: I did see an Instagram post, so take this with a grain of salt, that reading with your eyeballs or listening with your ears- 

Roxanne: Is the same.  

Gina: …Is the same.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: It’s the same kind of activation in your brain. 

Roxanne: I think some people say- 

Gina: It was an Instagram post, though, so. 

Roxanne: It, yeah, if it’s on Instagram, it’s real. 

Gina: Yeah. 

Roxanne: I have seen that a bunch, though, that it’s like you process it the same. The only difference is that with a book you can turn back, to reference things easier. So if something happens later in the book and you’re like, “Oh,” you can reference back to be like, “Oh, yeah, these two things make sense.” Like, when they drop, the little- Yeah … what’s the word?  

Gina: Foreshadowing?  

Roxanne: Foreshadowing, but it’s like the little…  

Gina: Hints? I dunno. 

Roxanne: Ugh. 

Gina: I do find that with audiobooks it’s easier for me to be distracted, and so I’ll miss really important things.  

Roxanne: There’s a word for it. It’s like, secret nuggets. 

Gina: I don’t know …  

Roxanne: Where the, it’s like a hint for the future. But, and then you get to the reveal and you’re like, “Oh, this was-“ 

Gina: Somebody will comment on this video and tell us- 

Roxanne: Yeah, please let me know … what it is … it’s going to bother me now that I don’t, I can’t… Like of the… r- no, it’s not a rabbit’s foot, but it’s… an Easter egg! There we go.  

Gina: Yeah! A rabbit’s foot. 

Roxanne: Oh, I was like, it’s a rabbit’s something! 

Gina: A bunny tail …  

Roxanne: It’s an Easter egg. 

Gina: An Easter egg, yeah. 

Roxanne: So like they, you drop little Easter eggs and then you like, the Easter egg explodes and surprise, this is what it was. But you can reference it if it’s like an actual physical book. 

Gina: Yeah. 

Roxanne: Whereas with, or even like a Kindle, you can still reference it, whereas with audio it’s, you can’t be like, “What chapter was that? How many minutes into the book was that I need to reference back?” And it’s harder to do that, but also easier to get distracted as well. I do find I have to restart a lot of books ’cause I’ll just zone out on my drives and be like three chapters later, I have no idea what the last three chapters were even about. But I like, I really enjoy reading and like listening to books, so that’s been nice to get back into after Joan, but like I just continue it. And I think that now with the fourth kid, I feel more confident to continue doing the things that I enjoyed for me, and not just Mom Roxanne, and how to like balance better. 

Gina: Yeah. Which it gets easier as they get slightly more independent.  

Roxanne: Yeah. But I feel like with Lily and Colin and Joan, like I didn’t have like routines. We just winged it and I just figured it out by the minute. Now with four, I feel like I need to have more, somewhat more of a routine, and so we’ve just established things where you like you have to set time to do whatever. 

Gina: Time management is-  

Roxanne: Set time to puzzle, and school, and work, and eat… clean my house, that one usually just gets thrown.  

Gina: I think I, I saw a reel recently where this lady was like, “My kids are asleep. Watch me reset my house,” and she just like walks back and goes sits in her bed. And I’m like, “That is kinda what I do.” 

Roxanne: Yeah. Yeah, same. I get it. 

Gina: So there are definitely things that you and I do that are different from one another, and there are things that like we do that are different than other moms, even within our gym and people that we interact with pretty frequently. And so when it comes to like social media or even just interacting with other people in your life, it’s really easy to compare. “Oh, they have this type of life that seems different than mine.” And so occasionally, like we obviously post a lot on our social media, we share about our lives and our families- And so I think it’s really easy to compare, “Oh, Gina and Roxanne’s life is like this. Gina can go to Disney with her four kids by herself, and I can’t even go to the grocery store with my two kids. I’m failing.”  

Roxanne: with my four kids … 

Gina: You know what I’m not posting? I’m not posting the videos of my kids crying. I’m not posting, like, the hard moments of my life. I’ll talk about it, later on, but I’m not going to, like, post this moment. So I’m always, I always get weirded out when somebody posts a video of this traumatic thing that just happened to their kid, and they’re like, “Oh, let me just share this moment with the world because it’s funny to go viral.” Like, we’re not going to post that kinda stuff. And so it’s really easy to see our highlight reel and be like, “Oh-“ 

Roxanne: ‘Cause we’re not going to post the bad stuff.  

Gina: No. we’ll mention it, but we’re not going to… It’s not going to be, like, a live feed of my life.  

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: And so I think it’s really easy to do the comparison game and to assume that, maybe you’re doing something wrong.  

I feel like there’s  

Roxanne: just so many, polarizing opinions on social media as well of just, like, how, the picture perfect mother, this is what you should be doing.  

Gina: Yeah.  

Roxanne: And, this is how you should raise your kids. Gentle parenting was, it’s, like, all the rage, and if you yell at your kid, you’re being bad. 

Gina: You need to work on your emotional regulation- which I probably do.  

Roxanne: But, yeah. 

Gina: Which I probably do. 

Roxanne: Which I do.  

Gina: But even between the two of us, even not thinking about the whole ecosystem that we are a part of, we make different decisions as moms, and it would be easy for us to be like, or easy for you to be like, “I should also homeschool ’cause all- I was like- all of my problems are ’cause of this, and Gina doesn’t have any of those problems ’cause her children are perfect angels.” Or, for me to be like, “Oh, maybe I should also have some sort of additional career that I’m building towards. Should I go back to school and get my PhD and do some stuff?” So it would be easy for us to compare between ourselves of what could, what should we be doing differently-  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: But then just recognizing, we’re different people-  

Roxanne: Yeah …  

Gina: Even though we’re sisters and raised by the same people.  

Roxanne: Different parents though … 

Gina: we have different preferences, our husbands are different from one another … 

Roxanne: I guess our parents are the same people, but they were different people when they raised each of us, I should say. Not Different parents. 

Gina: We have the same parents. 

Roxanne: We have the same parents. As I said that, I was like, “Wait a second, someone’s going to hear that and be like, ‘Wait, you guys don’t have the same mom.'” 

Gina: They acted differently with each of us. 

Roxanne: Yes. 

Gina: So it’s, it would be really easy for us to even compare, the different decisions that we have made as parents- 

Roxanne: Oh, yeah. 

Gina: .. And also to accept that the other person has chosen something different. 

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: So for me especially, I will see things that you do with your children, and I’ll be like, “Why do you do it that way? It would be so much easier if you did it this way.” Recognize, but I need to recognize that you have a different setup for stuff, and it’s okay if it’s different than what I think maybe would work better, ’cause that’s not my kids, not my family. Like-  

Roxanne: Yeah …  

Gina: what works good for us doesn’t necessarily work for everyone else. And I think once we can kinda come to that understanding of, the way that I do things is the way that my family does things, and it’s okay if other people do things differently.  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: It doesn’t belittle what I wanted to do. It doesn’t mean that I’m wrong. It just means that we have different preferences and different priorities, and it’s okay. It, it doesn’t mean that they’re, like, that they’re, like… Yeah,  

Roxanne: Yeah. 

Gina: I think that’s a big conclusion that I think we were mostly coming to.  

Roxanne: Yeah. I think, you obviously, social media is, everyone’s on it mostly. You can compare yourself to a lot of people, but you can also just compare yourself to the people that are in your direct, immediate surroundings. And even me with Gina, we do things very similarly, but we also do things very differently. My kids go to traditional school, Gina’s are homeschooled, blended. 

Gina: Yeah. 

Roxanne: Gina just now sent her kids to the first five-day a week and she hates it. 

Gina: It was so hard.  

Roxanne: Whereas, it’s a nice, it’s nice for me, ’cause my kids love going to school, honestly. The one time I tried to not send my kids to school and they cried.  

Gina: My kids would love it if I was like, “Let’s take a day off.” Yeah. They’d be like, “Hell yeah.” 

Roxanne: Now my kids like having, a special, they call it, little mental health days. I call it mental health days, they’re like, it’s just, a little free day. But, they really enjoy going to school and playing with their friends. Even, Joan at two and a half, she’s “I go to school! I see my friends.” She lists their names, I’m not going to list their names on this podcast, but she, loves going to school. So for me, that works really well for our family because it allows me to also time manage a little bit better, and spend just one-on-one time with Harvey now. Before it was just me and Joan, but I enjoy that; Gina may feel different opinions on what I do, and I feel different opinions on what Gina does, but we are not going to tell each other that they’re doing anything wrong. 

Gina: But I also am inspired by you, too. Just like I was influential for you, you are influential on me, too. 

Roxanne: Aw. 

Gina: And so I think there’s positives that we can pull from people being different. 

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: You are much more patient with my children than I am with yours, and I am inspired by that. 

Roxanne: Gina’s kids are perfect not because of Gina, but because of me! 

Gina: It’s really easy to be patient with them because they are perfect angels.  

Roxanne: Yeah, they’ve, they’re great. They’re great kids, and I take small, tiny claim to their greatness. 

But no, I think that you can learn something from everybody, and whether that is something that you want to implement into your parenting or not implement in your parenting, but that doesn’t mean that you need to judge people or be like, “Oh, you’re doing this wrong.” Obviously there’s safety things, yeah, we should feed our children and wash them and-  

Gina: Basic needs, yes. 

Roxanne: Basic needs, yeah, if you’re not giving basic needs, like yes, I’m going to judge that, okay? That, that’s a safety, that’s a safety thing. But if you let your kids watch Bluey, or you only let your kids play with Play-Doh and no screens, okay, that’s fine. Do you. 

Gina: Different preferences.  

Roxanne: Do whatever you want to do. I support you in making those choices as a fully grown adult, just like with everything in life. And I think that once we all just let people do whatever they want to do on how they be a parent, and we can all just cohesively decide motherhood is really great, it can be hard, but also really great, then the world will just be a better place. 

Gina: I think the, the current trend is miserable motherhood is out. We’re all here having a good time.  

Roxanne: I love being a mom.  

Gina: I think mindset is a huge thing, too. Yeah. there are some days where I’m like- 

Roxanne: I love my kids. 

Gina: … I am moody, but yes- I- … I do love being a mom. … I love it … it has been the greatest adventure. 

Roxanne: There are days I don’t think I’m very good at it, but I think that means that you’re a great mom if you think that you’re not great at it sometimes.  

Gina: Maybe that’s just what we tell ourselves to feel better in those moments. 

Roxanne: I know. Maybe. 

Gina: But you are a great mom.  

Roxanne: Thank you. 

Gina: That was like a compliment that Dad gave me, I’m going to cry now, that dad gave me once where he was like, “Gina, you’re a really good mom,” and I was like, it was just like, that, sticks with me, but.  

Roxanne: Oh, my God …  

Gina: Yeah.  

Roxanne: But I feel just like-  

Gina: I was surprised that we made it through this episode without crying, honestly … so here we go. 

Roxanne: The greatest thing, I think, I love my kids, a- and I always want to be a good mom, to raise, a good kid, and I think that that’s always my concern is that like I’m going to do a really bad job and they’re going to become like a really like the bully or like the really mean person at school, and it’s not them, they’re not the reason that they’re like bad, it’s because I did something wrong. And so sometimes you just need that not like the validation, but it’s like nice to hear it. And so like fricking Bluey man, every time I watch the Baby Race episode, it’s like a freaking seven minute episode, it just gets me in my feels every single time, because it’s oh, the baby race like Bluey was like rolling over first, but then like the other baby beat her at crawling and walking and whatever. And Chili was just feeling really bad about parenting. And that one mom just comes over and she’s, “I got eight kids,” and she’s, “You must be such a good mom,” and she goes, “Chili….” oh my God, I’m going to cry just thinking about this scene! And they like, I read that they did this, like the scene because it’s not just talking to Chili, but it’s like talking to all the moms watching Bluey. But the mom just goes, “Chili, I have something to tell you.” And she’s, “What?” And she’s, “You’re doing a great job. You’re doing an amazing job and you’re a really good mom.” But it’s like just her face looking at the camera saying that. And every mom is, “I am a good mom. I love my babies!” 

Gina: I think it’s a good reminder, that.  

Roxanne: But yeah, motherhood is beautiful and so rewarding. And yes, it’s hard just like everything in life. I think there are hard points always. But we’re all doing the best we can and we’re all doing a really great job. And I think if you’re worried that you’re not doing a good job, it’s most likely you’re doing a great job.  

Gina: Now that we’ve been-  

Roxanne: Yeah.  

Gina: Now that we finally made it to the tears, we’ll see you next week. 

Roxanne: I did finally get Joan to tell me that I am her favorite. So I think that’s a great way to end this. 

Gina: I know. I know.  

Roxanne: My dad was really number one for a while.  

Gina: Oh my gosh. He is a great dad. He’s also a great dad. 

Roxanne: He’s a great dad and grandfather, hadabaji, but… 

Gina: You are Joan’s number one. 

Roxanne: I am now the favorite again. So all is right with the world.  

Gina: Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of no educational value, just us kind of chatting about our feelings in motherhood. And we hope that you also feel very confident in your own motherhood journey. And let us know in the comments below how you are feeling and if there’s any insight that you would like to offer for us.