OUT: What’s Actually Changed?

This week, we revisit the Fair Play Out deck and go card by card through the "Out" deck we talked through before.

From weekend plans, points/miles/coupons, and travel to birthday party logistics, auto, local packing and unpacking, cash and bills, and calendar keeping, we check in on what’s actually working, what still defaults back to old habits, and where shared systems like Skylight are helping.  

This is less about a dramatic overhaul and more about a real-life progress report: what shifted, what didn’t, and how household labor changes slowly over time.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Alright, everybody, welcome back to the Mental Load Chronicles. Today we're gonna circle back and do a revisit on one of the fair play decks. Uh fair play versus the book written by Eve Rodsky, uh, where she talks about the very things that we talk about on this show the mental load and how to distribute it in a house. So uh in these decks of cards, you go through and it has all the different topics. Uh they're kind of subdivided into different stuff. And today we're gonna revisit the deck out.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

So, one of the reasons I thought that we would do this revisit is because one of the cards is school breaks kids summer.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

So we just did an episode about summer and we're working through our summer planning. We can bring an update on this at a later date, but um, we talked about that last week, so we won't belabor that point. Um, and we did do an episode on it. We actually did something we said we'd do. I really love that, really love that for us. All right, so let's go through. So, one of the cards that I said I was taking was weekend plans.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Apparently, I took this. I actually don't remember the conversation around that, but apparently I took weekend plans.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Maybe it's because I typically do our weekend plans of just play dates and who's got what practices and different things. I'm typically the one asked, what do we have going this weekend? Or whatever. I need to do a better job of putting this in the skylight calendar so I can just direct people there.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

And then I also think I need to do a better job of enlisting your help and saying, Hey, here are a couple things I'm trying to figure out for the weekend. Can you help me?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

So, all right. So there's that one. Anything you would add to that?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

No, I just um I didn't even remember that that was a card because, like, you know, that's saying is like there's certain tent poles in our weekends with kids' sporting events that happen every weekend. So then the rest of it, you know, stuff kind of gets planned around that.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Um anyway.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah. Okay. Um, I also said I would do points, miles, and coupons. Okay. I have continued to do that. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

That's an that's an out card, huh?

SPEAKER_02 2:15

It's an out card. I don't know. Points and out cards. I I mean it had to go somewhere. I don't know. But I'm okay keeping that for now. Okay. So I unless you have a burning desire to do points, miles, and coupons. Okay. Um, another one that I said I would continue to do is travel. Now I do remember us saying, let's try to split that.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, and I and I think um, you know, our last trip down to Florida, that was all me, you know, by and large. Not not completely, but I took the the brunt of that. This one, we're planning on going back again as part of our summer uh vacation. That's where our oldest wanted to go. We told her she could pick where we go on vacation this summer because she's graduating, you know, and that's where she wants to go. Um, so you're more handling that this time.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

I am.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Um, but I'm happy to chip in and uh and we've had a lot of conversations. You're just kind of doing the grunt work and yeah, you you know, when when you're getting ready to plan a vacation, you start with a spreadsheet and me, I just kind of write a couple things down and say, let's just do this.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

You just go. Well, and and I think to be fair too, the piece that you really took on for Florida was the parks and the tickets and the all of that stuff. Because I had booked our airfare and got the kids packed and so like that kind of stuff. But we we have been sharing well, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

I think that's a good way as a as a model for this next trip is you know, if you handle the flights and that kind of stuff, and then I handle, okay, these are the dates. Once we pick the dates, okay, great. Then I can say, I'll get the tickets. Here's the days we're going, here's the parks we're going to, or you know, or days off or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Yeah, yeah. That could work really great. We just have to decide as a family if we're going to Universal or if we're only going to Disney. So that's the biggest decision point. Fun decisions. Lots of fun decisions. Okay, so another one that we had figured out before was um for you to take, and that was birthday celebrations, other kids.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

So birthdays for other kids.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

No, no, it was like shopping for presents, RSVPing to the birthday party.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

For other kids. For other kids. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

But I have sort of continued to do that. And so we have to be better about thousand percent. I what I would love to do is I would love to you're kind of you're gonna mock me. I would love to do a spreadsheet of the things that you said you'd take and the things I said I'd take, and then the things that are quote unquote shared, yeah, and put it somewhere, whether it's in our little command sender in the kitchen or whatever. Yeah, but just somewhere that reminds us, like, because I think I just keep doing things on default on autopilot without thinking, oh wait, he said he would take that. Oh, here's the invitation. You go RSVP. I guess.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I think that's a great idea. I think it's yeah, we gotta anyway. And the other thing too is um I also wouldn't be opposed to having like uh this is gonna sound really bad, but like the old school, like in out, in out boxes like you'd have 20 years ago at your office where it was like this is outgoing mail, this is ingoing mail. We could have a mail box for me and a box for you, and then like if I see something in the mail or something comes in that's yours, I'll drop it in your like uh for example, a point system thing. If there's something that I need to handle, that's mine. And I see it, I'll put it in there. But if you see it, you would drop it in there. We could tell the kids, hey, dad handles that, put that in dad's box.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yeah. Now you're thinking, now you're thinking, oh, I'm setting that up today. Okay. Today.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

You're welcome. My work here is done. Enjoy the rest of the podcast.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Wait, you can't actually walk away. Okay. All right. The next thing that was really funny. Uh, the next thing that we said you would handle is auto in terms of mainly handling our oldest car. Yep. And stuff that it have has to do there. Yeah, which which you have. And obviously you handle your own car and I handle my own car. Yep. All right. So let's go back to me. We said that um I would do packing and unpacking local. So this is not trip packing and unpacking. This is like the son, you forgot to unpack your backpack again. And there are papers in here that are a week and a half old. And like he still has. I know the change of clothes that he has in that backpack right now are like a heavy pair of pants, a long sleeve sweatshirt. It's okay. It'll be fine, but it's been like 88 degrees in color.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

It's better than wearing the garbage bag like you used to have to when I went to school.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

The garbage bag. Forgot about that. Oh, yeah, you're right. It is. It's way better than wearing a garbage bag.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

And again, here's the thing: like there's certain things uh with the mental load that you just have to be okay with them not being perfect. And it being warmer, and if he craps his pants, he's got to wear heavy pants rather than shorts. That's okay. That also helps remind him not to crap his pants.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

I don't think about a situation like that. I think more like they're in art and he gets the the water thing that you're supposed to dip your brush in all over him and wants to change. But I love that that's where your brain goes. Okay. Okay. So that was me. And and I like the way you frame that, that it doesn't have to be perfect. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Cash and bills was supposed to be with me. And there is a note on top of this card that says, going to start handing more to him. I don't think I've done that well. Nope. I don't think I've really handed any bills to you and said, here, say this. You've handled some. You've handed some. There's a couple, but it's been really true and far between.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Agreed. I would say it's not, it hasn't been uh a substantial difference, but as always, I stand ready.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

Wow, you're just super, super in helpful mode in this episode. Uh calendar keeper is me, but then I wrote on here Skylight to the rescue question mark.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Uh so is says has Skylight come to the rescue?

SPEAKER_02 8:04

I I think in the way that you talked about it in the last episode of the kids know to come down the stairs in the morning and go look at what do they have to do for the morning and start checking things off. They do the same thing after school, which I think has been really helpful. I know people still aren't checking it for what do we have this weekend? Do we have anything going on this weekend? And it's all in there. And and everyone can tap that and look.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

I think one of the big things that you've expressed issues with in the past is having to be the nag, right? And just nagging people all the time to do the right thing. Um, I think that it is that has probably helped. I can't exponentially necessarily because you don't have to come downstairs before you leave for work and be like, all right, kids, did you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this? Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Why haven't you done this? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

They it's they've already done it.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Right. So I do think that that has been helpful. I think we could be using and leaning on Skylight so much more than we are. And I would love in the next couple of weeks, months, whatever, to just figure out how do we like I even said to you the other day, when it comes to shared checklists, just things that have to get done. We know we're going to be hosting a graduation party here. There's so much work to do before we can have people over and feel like, oh, don't don't go in that room or don't go outside. We can't. There's no way that we can't spend it. So I think plugging all that in into a shared to-do list on Skylight where you and I both know if we've got an hour, we can go over there and be like, all right, what could I get done on this list in the next hour or 45 minutes? Yep. So we should probably sit down and do that and just go through like here are all the things that we really want to accomplish before her graduation. And then that way when we have spare moments, we can just go tackle it.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 9:51

Okay. All right. So we'll do that. All right, let's go through the pile that we said is quote unquote shared. It is an enormous pile. So if this starts to run long, we'll uh pause and pick it up next week.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Okay. The first thing in shared returns in store credits.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

We don't do a ton of those anymore. No. I went through our Amazon and removed everything that we didn't need on a recurring basis that we were returning. Yeah, we re but we really don't do that too much anymore. So that is shared. Charity, community service, and good deeds.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Yeah, I'd say that's shared again.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

That is shared. Yep. Okay. Civic engagement and cultural enrichment. And I have a note on here. Did you buy spam a lot tickets?

SPEAKER_01 10:43

I didn't, no. Okay. No, and I I know I looked at them. Okay. Um and I want to go, but the um the tickets are here's the thing, tickets for everything have gotten so crazy expensive.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

And it's one of those things where it's like, I want to go, but the only options is you pay 40 bucks and you sit in a horrible seat. Yep. Or you pay$200 and it's a decent seat, but not a great seat. And it's like, it's a great show. I love Monty Python. I'd love to go. But if two of us go, it's$400. And then I think about all the things I would rather do with that$400. And it's like, yeah, I'm I I'm I'm not going to spend it on that. So I looked at it. Um and it's just it, you know, and the only tickets that, again, that are available that are a reasonable price are on crappy days and times, right? Like a Tuesday night. Right. And it's like, yeah, like again, like it's just it's tough to do. So anyway, yes, I looked at that. I would have loved to have gone, but like it just, it's it is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

What was that? What was the show I want to do with Red Rocks for? But uh, Andrea Boccelli.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

And it's like, it's like$300 a ticket. And it's like, what? Like, I'd love to see him at Red Rocks. I'm not even like uh an opera fan, but that guy's got an incredible voice. Yep. And it's like, I'd love to go. And it's it's like, I'm not for for the two of us to go, 600 bucks? Yep. By the time you add in dinner and parking, you're you know, you're you're at like six, seven hundred bucks. Like it's it's crazy. It is crazy. It's nuts. Like it's just I I here's I I honestly one of the big things we come back to a lot with our podcast is just cost for everything, right? Like last episode was we we we both have good jobs, we make a good living. I honestly don't know how people survive who don't have that.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

It like it's it's it's it's crazy. Yeah, absolutely crazy.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

Yeah, just the basic essentials these days are so expensive that adding in extras is really expensive. And I so I've started to look at, I sent you one yesterday about a free thing that one of the universities in our area offers for kids once a month, and they get to go and they get to experiment with all these things and like it's this really cool open house. And so I I have started to try to look for more of those types of programs where we can go, it's either really low cost or no cost, because everything I think about doing as a family, when you think about a family of five, yeah going and doing anything.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I mean, it's just it's we I took our oldest to a movie on Friday night. It was 50 bucks for the two of us to go to the movies. It's insane. Like, like that's insane. It's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

That is and that was with no food, no nothing, just the tickets. That is insane. That is absolutely insane that that's what the movie theater costs. Yeah, it's it's crazy. That is crazy. Well, and we prefer to go on vacations.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Like for us, yeah, we prioritize like I would I would rather take the the$400 it would cost me and one other person to go see spam a lot to have decent seats. Not even great seats, like great seats are gonna it's gonna set you back almost a thousand bucks. Just decent seats. Like I'd I'd rather spend that uh like for example, when we went to Florida last year and I got you that massage while we were down there.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Oh that was nice.

SPEAKER_01 13:49

Right? Like I'd rather spend that$400 and do like the massage plus something else for you. Like that to me is$400.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

That dessert party, the fireworks dessert party was like$400 for our family.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

So at Disney or Disney World Magic Kingdom, they have a dessert party where they give you good seating for the fireworks display at the end of the show or at the end of the night, and then they take you back, and there's this private area where you get unlimited desserts and a whole bunch of other crap. It's really cool, but it's hella expensive. It was it's like almost$100 a person. Yeah. So it's like almost doubling the ticket price. But again, that is a better use of that$400 than going to see a show I've already seen.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

Yeah. Yeah. But it is tough because there are things that we want to do, but yeah. Absolutely. Okay, electronics and IT. And I have a note on here that we haven't put the apps on your phone yet. And so here we are about seven months later. We haven't put the apps on your phone yet. So I'm gonna add this to our shared to-do list. Okay. Because we have to put those apps on your phone. Okay. You still are tech support though. I mean, I have literally texted you in the middle of the day and said, Oh my gosh, the internet just went out. Help.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

And then remotely you try to log in. I mean, while I'm unplugging the router and doing all that stuff. But yeah. You I still rely on you for tech support. And I still think that's shared.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Oh yeah, I here's the thing. I would say 100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Um, okay. The note on this one is great. Okay. I'm gonna read the note before I read the category, and I want you to see if you can guess the category. Still not quote unquote sharing because he doesn't know what's happening and when.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Do you know what category this is? Extracurricular kids, non-sports. So non-sports. So this is like our oldest band concerts. Yeah. This is this is that kind of stuff. So it's all the non-athletics, because you're pretty good actually about knowing when our middle kiddo has gymnastics, which nights those are, and swim for our son and all of that stuff. But the the non-athletic stuff, you have by and large tuned out the schedule of that. And I've maintained the schedule.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Well, it's really just our oldest, because our youngest our middle two don't have or I shouldn't say I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

They do though, because like our youngest has art club, you know, and so like you'll say to me, What time does he get picked up from that again? And so there's there's that kind of stuff that they do. And I would imagine with next year being middle school, our middle kiddo will engage.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yep, and that's gonna be a problem because then she won't be able to take the bus home.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Uh, they have a late bus for activities, you remember? Our oldest used to take that bus. So we'll be fine. But we will have to rely, I think, on the skylight calendar more for this because Yep. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Hence I need to get the apps.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

You need to get the apps. We'll put the apps on your phone. Okay, we're gonna go through this off air, I think. Extracurricular kids' sports. I know your face was like, oh, goody, another conversation. Sharing in most or some transportation, but that's it, is what I wrote. For what now? So for extracurricular kids sports, yeah. I said that we share in some of the transportation, but that's it. You don't handle like when we have to cancel swim, I go in and cancel swim. When we do a makeup, I go in and do a makeup.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

When we have uh gymnastics meet, I get all the stuff ready and know what time she's gotta be there for march in and warmups and all of that.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

You've you've handled her gymnastics, so I've handled her gymnastics. Um again, that's something that did we say it was a shared thing?

SPEAKER_02 17:25

We said we want to be sharing it, but we aren't sharing it yet. Yeah, we're just really sort of sharing transportation.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

So we gotta try to share it more, is the goal. Well, and especially if we start getting him into ninja, if she moves gyms, ninja is gonna be there's ninja classes at her the new gym she might go to.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

Yeah. Isn't that cool?

SPEAKER_02 17:47

I know. I know. We share first aid safety and emergency. I think we have actually shared that incredibly well over the last year. And unfortunately, we've had two ER visits between our three children. Yes. Yes. And um, and our oldest has had some stuff. She's got to go to some specialist. She's had high blood pressure and different things, but we've shared that pretty well. Packing and unpacking travel. We said that we share that.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yeah, I would say uh you do the packing and I do the unpacking. I would say that that is like and we come and not and that's not to say that I don't chip in a little bit on the packing side and you don't chap chip in on the unpacking side, but like that is by and large the way it works. I'll I'll take bags up, distribute everything, put everything back where it goes, and then put the bags back in the basement.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

So Yep. Uh tutoring and coaching kids, we said we share that. I think we do share it, but I do think I'm by and large the nag on doing the at-home work that he has to do. Yeah, and that has been frustrating because it's but it's being the bad guy all the time.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Sure. But uh is that in the skylight calendar to do his to do his Kuma?

SPEAKER_02 18:49

It is, but he doesn't after school, they look at it a lot less than they do in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Their focus is just gone. They've spent it all day on school.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

But yeah, that that's something I'm happy to be more of a nag on, uh, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

And then we said transportation with kids, just writ large transportation, that when we're both tied up, I'm the one that typically frees myself up to go do it.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Yeah, I I would say yes. However, I think you know, you have the flexibility to work from home sometimes. A couple days a week, yeah. And I don't. And so I would say on days we're both in the office, it's more shared. And I would say on days when you're home, you figure out a way to free yourself up because I'm 45 minutes from the house.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Right, right. Yeah, and I think it's probably gonna have to stay that way for a little while, but but we could probably do a better job of sharing it than when we're both free. Yeah. So that that doesn't fall on me too. Social plans with couples, we said is shared. And school breaks non-summer. So school breaks non-summer, we really haven't talked about.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Well, because the here's the thing: there's there's the way our kids' schools are there's the one in October.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

There's Christmas, yeah, there's spring break.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Yep. And then they have the random like days off here on weekends.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

But like that's it. And so like Christmas, we're we're off this year. We are, you know, going somewhere. So it's really just about October and spring break and and then the random days off.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

And the random days off I typically do the planning for all of that. So we just have to get better at looking at the school calendar way in advance.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah, I think that would be a really good thing for us to do in like the first week of July.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Like sit down, look at the calendar, go through everything and say, I'm responsible for that, you're responsible for that, and then set up the requisite calendar stuff. Like I'd set up my stuff and then you could do whatever the heck you want. Just to know that, like, oh, okay, I'm responsible for X, Y, and Z.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Yeah, yeah. Almost like the summer plan that we have of one week on, one week off. We could do that with some of the school days off throughout the school year. And then the last one is school forms kids. I would say it is still shared, and the kids are doing a better job of going to you and saying, Hey dad, I have a permission slit.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

And I'm like, And when they put one in front of me, I sign it like immediately. It's like it's not a big deal.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

That is mind-blowing to me. The fact that our kids have learned they can go to you and put a form in front of your face and you will do it too. I think they previously thought these had to be signed by mom or like they had to be filled out by mom. So it's it is very cool to watch that shift happening in our household. I love your folder idea. I think we implement that because then they can put different paperwork in the folders, um, and that'll help with that too. All right. Any other comments on this category?

SPEAKER_01 21:38

I just want to point something out, and that is I think the average person listening to this sees that not a lot has changed.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

But I think what has changed is your mindset feels different to me, better, even though I haven't changed much. But I think that I've changed enough that you're you feel, oh. He's in this, he's progressing, right? We've been doing this for what, eight months now?

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

And so one thing I just want to point out is like if you are having these conversations with your partner, yeah, that like it's not going to change overnight. It does, it doesn't change like a light bulb, right? Like I I view this as we just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Um, I view this as like a multi-year evolution.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

And that's the way you gotta look at it, right? But that stay stay positive when you're seeing progress and when you have a person who's willing to to work with you. Um and then just keep just keep going a little bit at a time, and then over the course of a year, two years, three years, things will be dramatically different. Even the but in the moment, you're not gonna notice a huge change unless it's something like you know, me cooking dinner on the weekends. That's a dramatic change that happens overnight, and then it's like boom. But like the other stuff, it's it it takes time, right? And just just be open to that.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

It it it's without question, it takes time. And some of the changes are so small that without these weekly conversations that we have, I don't know that I'd notice them.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yeah, and and that to me is the the biggest uh difference with me is having these conversations every week is like a forcing function of I gotta do better. Right. And it's not in an accusatory attacking way, right? I think anybody who's listened to our podcast knows like you're not coming in here calling me a son of a you know what, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:26

I could if that would get us more listeners.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

No, I wouldn't care. No, but like that that's different because I think a lot of times these kind of conversations that we've had, and I don't want to say it for other people because I can't speak for them, but for us, that's how I took a lot of those conversations previously. Yeah, the approach was all off. Yeah, and um from my perspective, your approach was off, and that's you're so frustrated because you're burnt out, yeah. Yep, and but but I felt attacked, and then you're I'm less likely to do to change, and then you just have this perpetuating cycle. Yeah, I think that this podcast has is given that venue and it's given me the the forcing function that I needed to start making changes. So I I like I said I I would just say that again, if you listen to this podcast, you're probably like, oh, okay, like not much has changed, but you're not ready to kill me and throw me out of the house either.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

So I'm not. And I think if you listen to some of these cards and the notes that we have, like I okay, so let's go back to the civic engagement and cultural enrichment one. I would have previously hounded the DCPA website. I would have done everything I could to scour and try to get you the best possible seats to go see spam a lot. I would have stressed about how much it costs, but I would have known that that was something you wanted to do. And then I would have felt guilty if I didn't get it done or didn't get you tickets. I mean, you want to talk about a mental load and feeling like you're letting your partner down. A thousand percent. I mean, that's the worst. That was the real point of contention before. Yeah. And you want to talk about a shift. I let it go. I made like alpha and I let it go. Now I did find, because I always have a gabillion tabs open on my phone at any one point in time. I did find an old tab open to the DCPA to the spam a lot tickets. And I went, huh? I wonder if he ever bought those.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:22

But fortunately, I had already put a post-it on top of it to ask so that when we checked in, if you bought them.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Yeah, I did.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

And you on your own decided. Yes, I'm a big boy. No, but what I mean is like you on your own decided not worth the money. Yeah. And at the same time, had you said, you know what, I really want to go. So I'm gonna buy these tickets. It's gonna be$300, like whatever, whatever. I would have said, Great, I'm glad you bought them because I would have bought them. Yeah, knowing that was my charge to make you happy was to buy those tickets. So I never would have got gotten upset had you bought the tickets, but you decided on your own, I don't want to buy the tickets, and it completely releases any guilt or pressure from me that I didn't do it, didn't make it happen, wasn't looking into it because I knew you were, and I knew you'd make the decision you wanted to make. And so you want to talk about change. No, it doesn't seem like a ton has changed, but just that in and of itself is huge.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Well, and I also think when you're at the at capacity as you were, that every little bit that alleviates from that is has has tremendous compounding impacts.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

It's a lot like you know, people say, Oh, a pressure cooker environment or a pressure cooker, whatever. The mental load is a pressure cooker. And when you open a pressure cooker, you know, they always caution you, and there's huge warning labels when you buy one, don't ever just open the lid, right? Because if you open the lid, it explodes in your face and the hot food and the moisture and everything like people get burned. I think if you and I had tried to release this like a pressure cooker and just taking the lid off, absolute chaos. And I think that's what we were trying to do before when I would say to you, you don't do anything because I'm in that pressure cooker and it's like, take the damn lid off. And then you would try to take the lid off and you would go do a bunch of things incorrectly. And I'm using ear quotes for those who can't see me because you can't see me because it's a podcast. And I'd flip out even more, and then you'd get burned for taking the lid off, and I'd freak out. So it's one of the things so you can't do that. You have to do the little pressure release valve and release it slowly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

And one of the things I want to I want to point out, because this is a good, this is a good segue to that, is uh I'm planning our well, I'm not planning anything. One of the things I took on was birthday parties for the kids.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

Uh huh. And so I waited as I want credit for waiting a month before her birthday before being like we're we're five weeks from her party.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

We know, but you have to send invitation. I understand. And you said, What are you doing for her party? And I was already thinking about it. I already had a calendar note to talk to her about what she wanted to do. You had this whole idea planned out, and it's a great idea. Uh-huh. But it but but then it turned into like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do now because like you have the idea in your head, and it's a great idea, and you talk to our our donor and she's on board, and like you guys, you guys are are doing it. So, like, that's gonna be one of the things where we're gonna have to feel it out to see like who's doing what because it's my responsibility and I'm happy to do it. But then you you want to make sure your vision for this party becomes a reality. Well, well. So I want to make sure that it's that that that again, that it's something that I'm supposed to do. So I want it, I want I want to do it, but I also don't want to step on any toes. So it's put me in it's put me in an interesting position.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

I can appreciate that. And number one, that was not my intention, and so we can walk all of that back. Number two, I want to make sure you have an appreciation that girls' birthday parties are different than boys' birthday parties. What I am starting to learn, having both girls and boys, is is with boys, you throw them in some sort of like family sports center or whatever, whatever, and you give them laser tag pizza, bumper cars, whatever, picket, bowling, whatever, rent out a soccer field. Yeah. They're good. Yeah. They're good. They they they rough and tumble, they eat some pizza, they rough and tumble some more, and they go home and they're all very happy. It's really different with girls, most girls. Not all girls, but most girls. And in our neighborhood, there are very thoughtful girl birthday parties. They are not just go to a place, rent the place, throw them in the place, and call it a day. And and knowing what happened with our son's party, where I was like, Do you bring this? I think it was like the lighter or whatever, candles and all that. I knew they had it there, so it wasn't a big deal. Right? Did you invite all the kids? No, you forgot a couple.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Well, I invited them all. They didn't all come.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

You forgot our neighbors and you still owe them a trip back to the place. Oh, yeah, that's true. Oh, yeah, you completely forgot a kid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

So that's true.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

And I think some of the kids were invited so short to the party, and I know this from talking to some of the moms of some of the kids, that they were like, we totally would have come, but we already had our schedules booked. So I think getting the hang of, and we've talked about this before, you don't just throw someone into it and say, sink or swim, man. It's it's a learning experience. And especially with girl birthday parties, I think it was pretty great that the first party you did was our sons, low risk. Fifth birth, fifth birthday party. Fifth birthday party, his first ever. So, first birthday party ever is pretty easy to pull off. She has had several and she has had some pretty epic birthday parties. So I just wanted to make sure you had support on this one. I appreciate it. And I had an idea for a birthday party, and I thought you should at least know about it.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Great idea. It's a great idea. So and we'll talk about it after it happens because I don't want anybody to steal your idea.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

I actually want to share it with people because I think it's a birthday party concept that lightens the thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

We'll talk, we'll talk about we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

All right, we'll do we'll do an episode on it. All right, we'll do an episode on it. So anything else to add?

SPEAKER_01 31:21

No, no, I think I thought it was a great conversation.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

All right. Well, uh, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

See you next time.