So there's A big mental load, you know, it's not just getting food and putting it in your child's mouth. There's planning. You got to get your micronutrients, you got to get your macronutrients in. Oh my God, I'm about to start feeling like a bad parent. And we're on. Sweet. Hi. Hi. Hi. 8 32 p. m. tea, water. Kind of cold tea. No. It's warm ish. It's warm ish. I don't mind, I don't mind this temperature because I can drink it. Yeah. Like. No, I'm with you on that. Every time it's too hot, you know, you wait. Mm hmm. And then you forget about your tea. True facts, true facts. Well, hello everybody. Welcome back. This is, we have kids, we have kids, we have kids. Yeah, we're going to chat with you tonight. A couple of things to talk about we're just kind of, I'm kind of bouncing off of last episode that we did. You talked about toddler food refusal. Yes, yeah, we talked about that. So I was like, oh, I want to chime in about meal prepping for a one year old or under Yeah, big topic. It's a big mental load a big mental load. Yeah, that's exactly That's exactly right because there's a lot there's so much. It's a big mental load. Yeah before you get into it Yeah, you just barely said last time we talked about X, Y, Z. And that reminded me. Okay. So last time we talked about sourdough bread as like our trending topic. And Lindsay mentioned this chick who's pretty significant on social media called ballerina farm. I don't remember her name. It's like Hannah. I don't know how to pronounce her. Nealman, I'm guessing is her name, how do you pronounce it? I mean, it's a little bit incidental, but she popped up in my, in my news feed that like the day after we talked about her and I was like, Oh my God, is, did we just really like stumble on something that was bigger than I realized it was? Yes. She had, a article in New York times that came out. Either the end of last week or over the weekend. Ever since that article came out. So tell us what, tell us what happened. Why is she such a hot, hot topic? Where do I start? Okay. We won't talk about this for too long. No, but I thought it was worth mentioning because we just barely talked about it and then all of a sudden shit hit the fan and I was like, Oh, we didn't talk about that stuff at all. A lot of attention to, okay, so up and coming in social media, big audience. She, for her lifestyle, and what she does with her life and what she does with her kids on a farm and hobbies. And she clearly has big goals. She has, Eight kids. Eight kids. Eight kids. They're Mormon. Let that sink in. They are Mormon and they're probably going to have more. But we don't know that for sure. But anyway, they probably are. Do you know 33 years old too. She's pretty young. 33? Dang, she's younger than me. yeah, she's very local. She grew up just south of Provo where Jordan and I live. And now she's out on the other side of the mountain range, out in the country on a farm. I'm, I'm not gonna lie, they do a kick ass job with their farming. It's really fascinating to watch how they, how she puts this presence on social media, but that's the biggest topic is, okay, she has this wonderful family farm life on the other side of the mountain range. She's also got really big goals and she's got a busy household. Big goals being When trying to win Miss World pageant, yeah, like not small potatoes for a mother of eight kids. Yeah. And, and mind you this pageant, birthdays together every year, this pageant came less than two weeks after she had her eighth child and she, she competed, she competed. You can imagine as a mom, it would be very difficult to have eight kids period, just full stop, like just end there. But then have a farm and then try to do beauty pageants. It's a lot. She's got a lot going on and I guess like the part of the issue is that she's not talking a lot about the privilege that she's also sitting in like the very brief things that I read were like, oh she comes from a lot of wealth and the little prairie life that she's putting on is like kind of Fake it feels like people kind of think she's like putting on a show which is either like intentional that she's leaving out. Yeah, or Not intentional. I don't know We don't know what her message is She's never actually said my intention is this or just because I live that like she's never said just because I live this way Doesn't mean I can do all these XYZ things. Yeah, and plus she doesn't owe that to anybody. No, she's doing her thing She's doing her thing. I kind of I'm trying to put myself in her her shoes and think to myself Okay, like if I came for if if I was born into wealth if I met somebody that was wealthy Yeah had wealth in his name as well And we decided to have this type of life and we decided to do this XYZ with our money Technically that's her choice. What is the main complaint against her? That she's not saying anything. She's not being upfront with all of the resources that she has. Yes. She's not being upfront. She's not saying that she has help, but, but does she? We don't know. We don't know if she has help and if she doesn't have help. But people are thinking to themselves like she puts on this like poor lifestyle And I'm like, that's why does that look poor? Yeah, just because she has because she does not shoot Yeah It makes her own food does not choose to paint her walls in her house doesn't choose to have like lampshades or for instance Her bathrooms as simple as can be her kitchen is as simple as can be but Having a house that looks like that shows me that she doesn't have the time to clean. Yeah Anyway, that's like also sort of beside the point. I think the thing that both of us feel I mean I didn't even dive into the details of like what these people were saying versus what those people were saying like the thing that like always It stands out in my head. And the thing that I think that you said about this too, is that can't we just let people do their thing and live the way they want to parent and live? I mean, I too, I do also understand like, that they're, that, you know, showing somebody who looks absolutely stunning going on a beauty pageant and, you know, I think I like I totally do get it like I'm also a victim of like a victim, quote unquote victim of like having unrealistic beauty standards put on me by the like the media and just you know everything and I totally understand the damage that that can do and I think that there is something to be said for moms who do. Like the whole bounce back body, you know, there's something to be said for appreciating a woman's body postpartum and even like quite a while after postpartum and finding beauty in like the nonconventional. Why would it be nonconventional? Yeah. Like I feel, yeah. I feel like the beauty pageant beauty should be the nonconventional one. Unfortunately it's not. And I do understand. Where people are coming from if their argument is like she's setting unrealistic expectations and perpetuating sort of that feeling in society. I get that. And maybe looking for praise at like that women should or could or are able to do this. But like at the same time, is that like more of a personal internal work? Like I think it's more healthy for us to understand that, okay, women are actually powerful and Can get this done if they have this kind of goal. Yeah, like whatever this is. Yes. Yeah, or it's absolutely still a okay to sit in your discomfort or Comfort like literally can be discomfort or comfort if you don't have the same Goals. Yeah. Or resources. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's going to come back to the same thing, isn't it? Like that if you are on social media and you're having feelings that aren't benefiting you and thoughts that aren't benefiting you, that that's something to check in with internally and like sort out within yourself first. And if that's like hurting you to follow somebody like that, then I get it because I've followed people who I'm like, Oh, this is making me feel like shit. But it's like, at the end of the day, that's something, that's an E problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot going on. It's just, my mind goes to that. I'm like, why are we? Why are we doing this like it's just batting women against women. But I guess the bottom line that I want to say is like, let's support each other in, like, all the ways. Yeah. Let's just support each other in all the ways. Because we're all struggling, In ways that people do and don't see and nobody's really like, I don't know. Anyway, let's get back to um, Let's get back to what we're here for. Yeah. That was such like a, such a derail, sorry. I had to like bring that up and just mention that we. Yeah. Yeah. Noticed that that was a bigger stir than we realized when we talked about it last week. Holy smokes. Okay, but yeah, so speaking of stuff we talked about last week. We were talking about toddler food refusal. By the way, my daughter's been doing the swipe. Uh oh. Three days now in a row. Oh no! I jinxed you. Yeah, three days in a row, she's swiping. Dang. We'll get there. Yeah, you gotta get your bench scraper. Yeah, yeah. It's been going good though, it's our age. But yeah, it's funny how you brought that up. I'm like, I'm not dealing with it yet, here we go. Here we are. Doesn't take long. Right. Alright, so talk to us about meal prepping. Yeah. A big mental load, you know, it's not just getting food and putting it in your child's mouth. There's planning. You got to get your micronutrients, you got to get your macronutrients in. Oh my God, I'm about to start feeling like a bad parent. No, I'm not. I'm not. No, but I'll get to that point because you can't get You got to see, I'll just, I'll just jump ahead. You have to see the big picture. You got to see that balance like in a week's worth of time. You're not going to get the balance in one day. And if you do, you're going to be incredibly anxious and like you're going to be burned out if you're trying to get all that like in, in one day. So just look at your week. You know, are they getting their veggies in the entire week? Yeah. Yeah, there's like a day that maybe they didn't, but there's another day that they did. No, but it's all good. This will be good for me too. This is a big mental load because you are, you're thinking of the planning, you're trying to be cost effective, maybe your family's on a budget, so you're trying to like plan all that out. Yeah. That's part of the mental load. You're also thinking about like, Okay, what keeps my child regular? How do I avoid constipation? You're still thinking of that kind of stuff. So what foods are helping there? How do I introduce new foods? And be cautious of allergens at the same time? Like, it's crazy. this is when you're bringing in meal prepping, you're moving on from breast milk formula solely. So you're introducing solids and stuff, but like you're also needing to maybe take notes so that you can look back and remember like, yo, pears were great. They did not like cause like a rash or anything. Cause you're thinking of so many things. You may forget that pears were given your child a rash or something. So yeah, there is a big mental load. And then also too, like when you'll get to a point where they're feeding themselves really well that you got to give yourself a break and you can, you can let them eat what you're eating. Like we're totally doing that right now. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And it did. It's surprising. It really surprised me how difficult it actually was to just be okay with her eating what I. Well, I was eating. Yeah.'cause I was like,. For whatever reason Mm-Hmm. this has too much of this or that, or like, whatever. And yeah, it was tricky. And or is she even gonna like this flavor profile? I was pretty good about introducing her to like different spices and flavors and things. Yeah. But like, yeah, there were a bunch of times where I was like, I can't give rid of this. It's like, yeah. Bread or it's got like too much salt or whatever. Yeah,. Yeah, and that's that's part of your mental load exhaustion I think So there's a big mental load that comes with meal prepping However, you just got to remind yourself to chill. You just gotta take your notes It helps you if do whatever you got to do to help alleviate your stress I took notes. We both got a book. That was wonderful We started off with this book called super easy baby food cookbook by Anjali Shaw Okay, that was the book that you have. Yeah, you'd let me borrow and yeah, I gotta get this book Uh huh. So we start Jordan and I started with that book. We loved it I can't recommend it enough. It was a great introducer for like purees and adding in like spices. Yeah, like making your own purees at home and then it also talks about how to introduce them. Yeah, that was really good. Yeah, I penciled in notes, um, in that, like when we started purees, I was like, okay, banana puree, whatever. She doesn't like it. So I wrote doesn't like smart. I didn't do that. I wanted to be able to remember because I felt like I wasn't going to remember because all this other like mental load stuff that was going on in my head. I was like planning the cost. No, I get that. Like you forget everything. Yeah, everything. Um, there's reasons that you do want to meal prep for your toddler. It benefits everybody in your home. It benefits you, it benefits them, it helps you save money at the store. So much money. Yes. It helps me save so much money. Yeah, you're not going back and forth to the store. Every single meal, every single day, you can meal prep and buy in bulk. Find the prices that fit your budget. Yeah. Um, I would just like pop in right here, like to say that one of the ways that this helped me save a lot of money is making my own, purees and stuff versus buying like pouches of baby food or like jars of baby food, because those are so expensive for how much, yep. Like actually it goes into them. Yeah. So that, yeah, that was, I mean, it's, Not a time saver, so if you have a lot of money and not a lot of time, then maybe this isn't good advice for you, but if you have Not a lot of money and you have just enough time Yeah. If you could to make some food. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Totally worth finding that like one day where you can meal prep and freeze and Yeah. All and a little goes like way further than you think. Oh, for sure. I made so many fewer batches of baby food than I thought I would. this can reduce stress as you avoid, like, last minute decisions. I struggled with that at dinner. Oh, just like suddenly, oh, what am I gonna feed her? What am I gonna feed her? I struggled with that a little bit. It meets their nutritional needs, so this helps with you understanding like, okay, yeah, they're getting like vitamin C, they're getting, you know, their protein in, they're getting their, carb in or their fats or whatever, so you're helping them meet their nutritional needs. This helps with variety, like I just mentioned, you can prep all kinds of different fruits and veggies and grains and just have them ready to go in your freezer if you need to. those are some great reasons to meal prep. Yeah. Helps you, helps them. Yeah. For me, when I start my week and I'm like planning my menu for myself and my husband, uh, I would just write down also what my kid was going to be eating and when you have it written down, like it takes some mental load to get to that point, but once it's there, you can like check it off. Like you don't, you can check out and you can just kind of go into autopilot and serve the thing that you know you were going to serve and know that it's all going to come together. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We. We kind of do that and then I was thinking about, I'm starting to think about, um, preparing grains in kind of bulk to keep in the fridge for a few days at a time, like rice or quinoa or like a mashed potato or whatever. Um, just kind of have like on the side to that I can add to whatever she is eating if she needs it. Yeah. Nice. Or I can add it. Yeah. Or I can add it to my food too. Yeah. Um, but I, I was going to mention. One of the things, one of, a couple of the meal times a day that are kind of tough to meal prep And for me personally, like breakfast and snack, like I feel like breakfast food and snack food are kind of like easier in the moment food on hand, like eggs and soft toast, soft veggies or like a mango pit. that's not something that like needs to be meal prepped. It's just like ready to go on the go. Little avocado is my favorite little on the go thing. Oh, yeah. so those are the two times a day that I found that were pretty easy for me to get food in the moment that doesn't have to be meal prepped. You can still meal prep them. There's great breakfast options oatmeal and stuff that you can meal prep. Yeah. Or like the little pancakes I was talking about last episode. Yeah. This all depends on like your life. What's your life? Are you busy? Are you both busy working parents? And that could obviously change as your child gets older. Yeah. I'm solely talking about like memo prepping for a one year old or under, but we'll talk about it again in a year. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see here. Oh, yeah, let's talk about how you prep it up. Yeah, that's what I was gonna ask actually a good good guy Rinse your produce. Oh, you're talking like yeah, let's prep it. this is for purees Rinse that off get it clean Steam cook until soft puree and blender if you need to and freeze in those portion containers Which are cool. You can literally use an ice cube tray You can use silicone food portion trays like the We Sprout or the Super Cube ones. They come like, they're like little silicone one ounce, two ounce portions. Those are great for purees. I learned that from Jordan. They were great. I was obsessed with those. I had the two ounce Super Cube trays and they were pricey, but they were so worth it. Yeah, it was so worth it. Like you so you make the puree, rinse, steam cook, blend it, freeze it in these portion containers, then you take them out and put them in Ziploc bags. Yeah, ready to go. There's a full freezer bag full of purees ready to go on hand. I still use purees. I add them to her oatmeal, I add them to her yogurt. I mean, I don't, like, go all in on making sure I always have a puree, but like, but I definitely have. But there's still some, there's still food she can consume. Yeah, definitely. I make smoothies out of the ones I still have. Yeah. So that's like the way to prep. Puree, it's easy. Yep, um, popular meal prep items that are not purees. Okay. Egg cups. People seem to be obsessed with scrambled eggs. I never tried an egg cup. I haven't yet either, actually. Because I just make them up. I have, I'm at home, I can just make her scrambled eggs with veggies right there. baked oatmeal cups. I have done something like that. Okay. Yeah, and those were actually awesome. Yeah. I used to make those meal prepped when I was in college for trying something like early morning breakfast and I loved it. You could heat it up in the microwave, pour some milk on them, they were great. Soup and stews are great to meal prep. Absolutely. Put in the freezer for later. Did a bunch of those. Yeah. Pasta sauce is great. Oh, I've never done pasta sauce. That's clever. Yeah, pasta sauce is really cool because you can actually puree like roasted veggies add your seasonings and broth and your kid doesn't know. It's a little like veggie pasta. That's a good idea. Muffins are great. We definitely do those in our house. Yeah. Waffles, pancakes. Yeah. And then again, like the steamed fruit and steamed veggie purees. Those are great. Like popular meal prep items that you could have in your freezer, ready to go. Should I talk about the no foods for toddlers? Just make sure that you are watching for. Unpasteurized juice, milk, yogurt, cheese, that kind of thing. Make sure that those are pasteurized for your child. Yeah. Also like you don't want to be meal prepping food that caused joking. Yeah. Yeah. Raw vegetables, grapes, hard cheese, popcorn. No, it's like chips. Yeah. Let's uh, crackers. It's not meal prep. Those don't prep those quite yet. Yeah. I mean you can cut up, like I've given my kid grapes, like only a couple of times. She really loves. She's like a little berry head. She loves berries, but even berries. If you cut them up the right way just really small And if they like yeah hard veggies if you cook them, so they're soft enough. Yeah, it can be fine, too Yeah That's where like a lot of my like anxiety and mental like flow goes to. Every time she's eating I'm like okay. Is she okay? Yeah. Is this gonna be okay? Is this gonna cause something like an issue later? Totally. It's really scary at first. I remember I gave my kid You gave her broccoli? Oh, that was so scary. I legitimately thought she was choking more than once. I legitimately, I, there was one video where I was just recording and it was so cute. She was like nibbling her little broccoli and then she started gagging. So the thing you got to know when you're feeding your kid for the first time is that they gag a lot and it can be really scary because you hear all these things about kids choking and you're like, Oh my God, I'm not ready for this. So yeah, she started like gagging like pretty hard on it. And I just like dropped my phone and the video is just, it just gets destroyed. But, uh, she was not choking. Luckily she was just gagging, but yeah, it takes a long, it took me probably five or six times seeing her gag to be even slightly more comfortable with it and to not have that like heart like stomach dropping reaction. Yeah, it's crazy. You're like just feeling good with purees and stuff and you're just kind of watching for like any like surface allergies or anything like that. And then all of a sudden you're giving them chunks of food and you're like, what? The way we watch them. The way that we're watching them when they eat. It's wild. Yeah, so I do have some tips as far as meal prepping goes. Make a double if you want. Make a double. Yeah, if you're, if you're making oatmeal, go for two servings and have the next one for the next day. Just do it. Why not? And then like, you can, oh, we were talking about, The kids eat in color Instagram. Oh, yeah, we were talking about her last Episode two. She's got a ton of meal prep guides. Oh Incredible on her website. You can google this shit like you can google Toddler meal prepping and there's tons of blogs to help you out. You can Pinterest Recipes make sure that you pin them to a specified board so you can like find them quickly if you need to That tips for me. She knows I can't use Pinterest Just make sure you have a board like specified for it. I do that too. I'll like throw like recipes on Like that I want to make for my daughter into my normal recipe board, if you will, and then I'm like, why, why did I do that? Yeah, I can't find that idea. I should make her an actual board. Um, to save money, buying fresh produce. By the produce that's on sale or that's in season, the in season produce tends to be cheaper. buy in bulk less trips to the store My main question for you is I feel pretty competent in the, like, process, personally, of meal prepping, like, I feel good about, making the menu and, going to the store and having everything on hand and preparing it. The thing that I think that you do Maybe, maybe not better than me, but certainly more consciously than me is like the nutritional, like the distribution. So maybe talk for a second about like, what sort of nutrients are you looking at? Where do you kind of draw the line between, okay, I'm obsessing a little bit too much over the nutrients. Cause anytime I've asked you about it, you've been like, well, chill out a little bit more than anything. So yeah, if you could speak to that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So. when I'm, when I think to myself, chill out, I think try to look at like the bigger picture, like I said, like, yeah, look at the week, like relax. Like it's okay if you're not getting enough carbs in one day, but so like what's the breakdown? Like what, like I know you don't probably count carbs and macros for your child, but like, no, I don't count them. I just, I do make sure she does have a carb of healthy fat and a protein in her day. And I do actually make sure she has a healthy fat most. For sure in the morning, she's got a brain that's growing and crazy and like going like I want to feed that her brain is made up of mostly fat and I want to feed her that fat first and foremost and it helps them keep them like sustained. fullness, if you will. Yeah. And I do want to make sure that she has like complex carbs for her energy that she's going to be burning like throughout the day. These kids are moving and grooving. They're burning calories, they're burning energy. You are watching for any like drop in weight as well. So I'm trying to maintain that that doesn't happen. Um, so I do make sure she's got a protein at every meal and I go a step further and I make sure that that protein personally is like really well sourced because her body is growing and I do want to make sure she's got like fantastic source of protein. That's me personally. It's, do not, it is a okay to have a protein at any meal, whatever that protein source needs to be for your child. Totally. If that answers your question, as far as micronutrients go, I'm just trying to get her some like, basically introduce her to things like herbs. Micronutrients are herbs. Micronutrients are like lemon zest, if you will. Yeah, so things that are giving us like vitamins and minerals versus like fats and proteins and carbs. Yes, exactly. So I'm kind of incorporating that into her meals as well. Um, just trying to get like an overall sense of a good day's worth of food to help her grow and for her energy. Yeah. you ever look at, like, the amount of calories that you're giving her? I do not. No, that's when I just kind of watch personally, like, if she's dropping weight, gaining weight, kind of growing. She tends, I don't know if all babies do this, but my daughter tends to Chunk out and then grow. Yeah. My kid does that too. I basically just kind of watch that period of time and see what's going on. I'm like, so I just think to myself, okay, she's about to get, she's about to grow some inches, you know, um, I'm watching for her. Um, She's hydrated, and then her poops are healthy looking, and all that kind of stuff too. Yeah, it's crazy how much you can tell just based on their poops. Yes. Crazy. Yeah, yeah. Yep. What do you do if she's constipated? Oh, we go, to pears and cherries and blueberries. Cherries! Like fresh cherries? What do you do? Um, yeah, you can do fresh pitted cherries. Um, just ice them up real nice. Or I've made puree with those two. Okay. I've steamed them and the pureed them. I have pureed cherries and stash in the freezer. And then I do have cherries that are in the freezer that are pitted that I can dice. Frozen. Yeah. Like that you've bought frozen cherries from the store. Cause I like to snack on those too. Yeah. That sounds tasty. Yeah. So those are like the three. And like I said, those are the three meals that help her be regular that I've noticed. Pears, cherries, and blueberries help her. Blueberries. Yeah. And then I up the water intake and that helps quite a bit. Yeah. she has not had intense diarrhea or anything like that, which I'm grateful for. Yeah. Um, but I have noticed like if I give her maybe too much pasta sauce, back to back to back, there's a lot acid in that. That can be irritating on her skin. So is that like a red sauce? Yeah. Yeah. Like tomato sauce, yes. Yeah. And what sort of thing are you seeing on her skin? That it's like rash. Okay. Just rash. Just rashing. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. Like mostly in the diaper region? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yep. Um. So yeah, those are kind of like the things I'm going for. I also introduced quite a bit of seasonings just to kind of get her palette going and I do make sure she gets like zinc and vitamin C and that kind of helps with her immunity. With supplementation? Yeah, she does get a like multivitamin in her morning bottle. Oh, you put it in the bottle? The Wellimants one? My kid loves just having it out of the bottle I've never thought to put it, I mean I, yeah, breastfed for quite a lot longer, so I never thought I never, like, had a bottle to put it in. Yeah, yeah. But I would have never thought of that. So, with the bottle thing, how, how much, like, milk is she? Like, obviously, a six month old who's still very much relying on milk, whether that's formula or breastfeeding or whatever. is going to have less nutritional needs from food. Right. But once your kid's around like one, and that switch starts to happen, how do you, how do you know how much milk to give them, I guess? So I Google, I Google that. I literally Google, like, how much should a one year old, or how much should a 13 month old have? You always gotta go back to the AHP. They recommend toddlers, 12 to 24 months old consume 16 to 24 ounces of whole milk per day. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, and right now we're just under 20. But I google that kind of stuff. Yeah. I just wanna know for sure I am giving her You're doing her right? Yeah. Than I giving her enough. Yeah. I think it's harder for this little thing. Oh yeah. Is it trickier for, uh, women who are still breastfeeding breast? Yes. I still breastfeed once a day. Mm-Hmm. And I have no idea how much milk she's getting. Enough feeding. Like, I don't know. I have no clue. Yeah. You basically just have to follow their cues at that point. Yeah. I think, I don't think any, yeah. I was nervous about that when my daughter was newborn and we were breastfeeding. I was like, she's, she's only latching on one side. I'm burping her and giving her a break. She doesn't want like, she's not latching because she can't latch or she's full. I can't freak out. You're like, I don't know if she's getting enough. Yeah. It's tricky breastfeeding. You just have to follow their cues. And it can be really tough. Yeah. It's not, it's not as straightforward. You can't just like Google it quite as easily because you just don't know the base. Right. Yeah. So that's how I make sure she's getting like enough milk on top of her food. Yeah. So just to kind of go back on tips, we can utilize the prepped veggies that are in the store already. You can do that. There's already like they have a section in the produce area. Sometimes these stores have pre prepped cut vegetables. They are spendier, but if a mom is busy or if you just need something quick, go for it. Those ones are spendier, but if you go for the frozen ones, they're actually, sometimes they're cheaper. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so if you want that, like, convenience, but you can't pay for the extra, try the frozen stuff. Yeah, leftover roasted veggies are great, to add like into egg scrambles. You can puree them into a sauce like I mentioned earlier. If fruits are on their last leg, throw them in a smoothie for your kid. Like I'm going to throw this tip in there because I wish I was doing this for myself, like ever and ever and ever. Go ahead and get your ripe avocado, smash it up in a bowl with like a little lemon juice, lime juice, whatever. And then portion it into those freezer containers. Containers. Oh, yeah. Throw them, like, get them frozen. Freeze it. Freeze it. Yeah, I would have never thought to freeze avocado. You can literally, like, throw, like, when you're ready for an avocado to put on your sandwich for yourself. Smart. You can put that sucker in the microwave. And for like literally 20 seconds and it's a perfectly tasteful avocado. This thing is not, this is the thing that it just helps you avoid an avocado from rotting on your counter and dying because you're waiting. And they're so expensive. You're waiting for this avocado to like get ripe and then all of a sudden you forgot about it and it's like dead. And you're like, why did I buy that avocado? Like it's the avocado saga. Yep. Just like freeze. All of them. That's so smart. Get after it. It's so good for food waste too. Food waste is one of the things that I really make a point of trying not to ever, like, I mean obviously we waste some food but, yeah, food waste is kind of a big issue I think and it's just going to become a bigger issue so anything I can do to eliminate it in my life I'm really stoked about. Yeah. Yeah. So, those are some of my tips. Um, I've mentioned earlier this is like the biggest one is just, um. Chill, take a look at your whole week ahead. Like, did my kid get like a full balanced, diet over the entire week? If you feel like they didn't get enough protein in their day, don't be, like, laying in bed at night and thinking, like, I'm the worst. They didn't get enough protein there, you know. Yeah. It's all gonna be okay. Like, just wait until the week's over. So that's my kind of big old take on meal prepping. I do have some recommendation items that are great. I mentioned the book that we both have. Those are great. The ice cube trays are great. the silicone food portion trays, like the supercubes. Yeah, they're great. Get yourself a steamer. If you feel like, um, you want to start on purees, Don't be too overwhelmed. Uh, just have fun with it. Yeah. Good. I love that. Help yourself. Help yourself. Yeah. Really does get rid of that mental load though, to like Yeah. Get to write it all down and just stick to a thing. And maybe you won't always stick to it perfectly, but at least you'll have something to go back to. Yeah, totally love that. Yeah. Thanks for sharing all that, that, that's awesome. Mm-Hmm all right. So there's something that I want to talk about. We're going to move into our little trending section now that we're done with the toddler thinking about toddler food. I think we all need a break from thinking about, I guess, baby food in that case, but whatever it is. So the thing that I want to talk about is something that I've seen come up. I just randomly saw it come up a whole bunch in the last couple of weeks and I was like, this is so interesting. I want to talk about this on the podcast. So it sounds a little bit woo woo. so, I love woo woo shit. Yeah, I'm like, I'm on the woo woo fence personally. But I sometimes really like it and sometimes I'm like, okay, that's gone a little too far. But, um, so I recently discovered a show. Like a little YouTube channel, maybe, I don't know, called Doggyland. Okay. Have you heard of this? No. Is this, is this, my mind is going to just a YouTube channel of dogs playing. Okay, it's not that. Okay. Tell me what this is. Oh my god. Okay, but no. Okay. Are you seeing what it is? I just Google searched it. Now I know what you're talking about. Okay, what came up though? Snoop Dogg. Yeah. He's got this. Snoopaloo. Yes, this is a trend. Yeah. He's entered kids nursery rides. Okay, but I'm not here to talk about Snoop Dogg specifically. Okay. Okay. As much as I could forever. Okay. Okay. Um, so the thing, the thing, the doggy land thing that I was exposed to was a video that he had created. It's a little animated video. There's like an animated Snoop Dogg and it's actually a dog and he's like singing a song about affirmations. Oh. So affirmations is actually the thing I want to talk about. Okay. One of the reasons it came up. Crack me up if you guys haven't seen Snoop in his like kid friendly form Go YouTube Doggyland Affirmations this shit will be stuck in your head for a century, but it's really funny Oh, especially for us Millennials who grew up like yeah, you know fully in the Snoop Dogg era like everything, there aren't, there's not like a huge body of research about the specific benefits of affirmations for young, young kids, right? Like I'm sure there's some research about, about them for like kids sort of middle school age and up. Sure, sure. Cause that's kind of when you can start getting feedback from the kid themselves. but. Yeah, I did find some,, a decent amount of research on some of the positive effects of affirmations in older kids and adults, like they reduce stress, they increase self confidence. People who practice positive affirmations are more likely to positively affirm their peers, which is something that goes back to what we were talking about at the start of the episode, just like building each other up and can just generally like increase your psychological wellbeing, happiness, all that. So, Even though there aren't like very well researched benefits for young kids, I think that the kind of, the logic that most people are using here is kids learn things that they take with them throughout life, right? Like that's basic. And I think that's hard to argue against. And teaching them to talk positively about themselves. For anyone who doesn't know what affirmations are, I wish I had them when I was a kid. Dude, same. I look back at my, like, childhood when I was young, elementary, middle school, feeling nervous and stressed and anxiety. Totally. Man, if I had those affirmations, I'd be like, confident. Yeah, it would help a little bit if nothing else. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, for sure. So affirmations are basically just like things that you say to yourself about, generally about yourself or your situation or your context that, positively. Affirm, a specific quality or trait or emotion or whatever that you're trying to like embody. Yes. Right? So, I'll, I'll talk about some specific ones later, but. Yeah, so that logic takes us from A to B, like we're taking what we learned from as kids through to adult life and if we can learn as children to talk positively about ourselves and to build ourselves up and like, you know, build up the people around us, then that can't, it can't hurt. No. It can't hurt. So I think it's kind of cool. And I think it's something that I want to start with my kid. I haven't started it, but I think that we're kind of about at that stage, where she's understanding a lot of the things that I'm saying, and I'm personally getting into the habit of Talking about myself and talking about her, like, it's as much for me as it is for her. Like, she needs to see me modeling this behavior, she needs to see me talking about myself, talking about Adrienne, talking about her, in these positive ways on a regular basis. So I really want to instill that, you're also, in a sense, breaking that inner child's, like, emotions and feelings. Yeah, totally. It can be emotional. Like, when I talk to my daughter about these, and like, I am brave, and I You know, I love me and it's almost like, Oh my God, like it does start to hit. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Oh, that's nice. I love that. Yeah. and yeah, I guess she goes to show how much we really need it ourselves. Yeah. Which is, yeah, just really cool. So all of that's fine and well working affirmations into your daily routine that can be a little bit daunting or whatever. You know, it's just like one of those things that you're meaning to do and then you just like, yeah, the whole day goes by and you're like,. So I want to figure out a way to do that that doesn't feel like a challenge, that's not adding to my mental load, that I don't have to go out of the way to do. So I found a few cool little easy ways to integrate them into your days, in case you're interested. Yes, I am. Alright, cool. so a few things to consider when you're working through these affirmations so if your kid's old enough, which ours aren't quite yet, but we'll get there, you can explain to them that these are like magical words that help us feel happy or strong or do really hard things. Whatever it is. I'm all for teaching the kid the why behind the things that we're introducing to them. And I think that this is like a really cute way of doing this early on when they don't fully understand like psychological, the inner workings of our brains and all this. Um, I did hear a really nice tip that it's important to practice affirmations when your kid isn't worked up because there'll be more receptive. Okay. Which makes sense. Like if I was worked up, I probably would. Not be as receptive to my own affirmations. Right. that was a nice little tip And then the final little thing that you want to keep in mind is to regularly affirm your child. Say things like you are loved and you are strong or whatever else you want them to instill in themselves. And say it regularly. so a couple cute little ways that you can work these into your daily routine that I found that I thought were really cute were, the first one is to make or buy positive affirmation cards. So like you could check online and they make little packs, I'm sure tons of people make little packs of positive affirmations and I'm sure they're for all ages too. All ages, yeah, totally. They're cool for yourself, they're cool for your kid, but you don't have to buy them. That's like one thing that I was like, oh yeah, you don't have to buy it. You can make them. You can just, you know, take some paper, write it down in like a little marker or whatever it is. And you can like leave them around the house. You can put them on your kid's mirror, or the mirror in the bathroom. You can put them on a bookshelf, on your kid's little water bottle. Um, yeah, so obviously that's more helpful when the kid can read, but it will help you to remember. Like, I was thinking, I wouldn't mind doing this now, even though my kid totally has no idea what this little thing is, because it will remind me. And I want to say something positive to myself, I want to say something positive to her. That's great. Yeah. another one is to find songs that do affirmations. So Doggyland is like, you know, our first recommendation there. But there are, there are loads, you can just go on YouTube and search kid affirmation songs and you'll find, I'm sure that there's no end to the amount that you can get. and then just, yeah, see what your kid likes and which one isn't super, super annoying when it gets stuck in your head all day. And choose those ones and then, yeah, just add that to your little repertoire of songs that you sing to them. And there you go. I love that. I read in another place that I was looking at that it's best to repeat the affirmation three times with your kid. Together and say it louder each time to really drive at home. So that's like just another little tip I for me that feels like this is so funny. This is like the I don't know why but this feels like kind of Uncomfy. And I think that might be a little bit of like the inner child thing too, you know? It's like, oh, this feels kind of woo woo and silly. But I actually think it would like totally work. I actually think it would totally work. Yes. If you were to say it like louder and louder each time. Yeah, like louder and louder. Here's the thing, that's energy behind your words. Yeah. You're throwing energy out there. Mm hmm. And that's all good. Vibration. It's not gonna hurt, right? It's not gonna hurt. No, try it. Like when you're by yourself. I've never tried it, but I'm maybe I will, but I'm by myself if I'm feeling a certain way and I want to be feeling a different kind of way. Maybe I'll try it and I'll report back. But it is cute. I think it would be cute and easier to do with a kid than by yourself. I also read that it's especially cool or useful to do it in front of a mirror, which I can totally see. since that's a really common time for people to speak badly to themselves. think of all the times you have stood in front of a mirror and thought, Like, get thoughts about yourself and like moved your body in a way that wasn't telling the people around you, I'm feeling really good about myself right now. Yeah. Yeah. And that, that, especially like in junior high kind of time and even before that sometimes. That's like a modeling thing. I wanna be modeling that to my kid. Yes. I wanna get in front of a mirror and regardless of how I'm feeling. Like deep down and what I'm saying to myself, I want my kid to see that I'm feeling comfortable. Yes. I don't need to be feeling like so good looking or anything. I just need to feel perfectly okay with who I am, what I look like, how I'm presenting myself. So I think that that's a good time more for us to remind ourselves as parents than for the kids themselves. Okay, so another really cute thing that I, love that I found quite a while ago, is this book company called Slumberkins. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you have any, but I know I've lent, lent you one or two once upon a time. She loved the sloth one. Did she? Yeah, she's like. The daily routine. Yeah, she loved what the sloths looked like. That's so fun. That's cute. That's very cute. That's a great, that's a great book. Yeah. So Slumberkins is a cool company. I think they're based in Oregon. They do, I mean, they do more than just books, but I think they started as a book company, but basically it's like this host of little like make believe animals and dragons and things like that. and the sloth is like in daily routines and the honey bear is like gratitude and the big foot is self love and like they just don't have all these like it's really, yeah, the dragon is like creativity. They have all these cute little values in. And each animal represents a different one, but as you read the book to the kid, the whole thing is just this long affirmation. Yeah, yeah. And it's so beautiful and it's awesome. And at the very last page of all of them is one that you actually say with your child. So you'd say like, I wish I should have brought one down to like, actually just read, but it's like, I am Loved and then the kid repeats. I am loved and blah blah blah. It almost helps the kid like understand what that emotion is Yes, totally because throughout the book it's like it's like going through it and sometimes you'll feel this way Yeah, understanding the whole thing. Yeah, they really knocked it out of the park and you can get these books for fairly inexpensive like I caught mine on sale and I think they were only like five dollars each. I bet thriftbooks. com has oh, yeah I don't even know about that website. So school me that Thrift books is where it's like you can go to amazon and check obviously for prices, too Yeah thrift books they're known for having like millions of copies of stuff. Wow It's a great way to reuse, you know. Oh, definitely. That's true. It would be cool if they had. It would be cool if they had that. They do. Yeah. Oh, awesome. Four bucks, five bucks. Yeah, check thrift. Thriftbooks? Thriftbooks. com. You can also it's another company that like among all the other companies that exist right now that you, if you sign up for their, newsletters they'll send you when they're doing good deals. And yeah, Snagabunch, because they're honestly the cutest books and my kid loves them So a few examples of some cute little affirmations that you can do with your kid are I have good willpower. I thought that was a cute one for like a slightly older kid. Yeah. My family and friends love me, something like we all need to hear all the time. I can concentrate easily. There you go. You can see that one being useful for, like, for the kid who's struggling to concentrate and for the parent who's getting frustrated with A concentration. There you go. I see that being useful in my future. Yeah. I am grateful is always a good one. I am relaxed or I am calm. I like that. I love that one. Yep. And then the last one. that I really liked is, and obviously there's like a thousand of these, so this isn't the last one, but the last one I wrote down is, today is going to be a good day. I love that one. It's just like a cute thing to say with your kid every morning. Yeah, every morning. Or like at night, today has been a good day, or today was a good day. Of course. Yeah. We're reading books, right now by an author that I really like. Catherine Jewett. I think she's an English author, but she's got some affirmation books, board books right now. Um, she has, I can be brave. Oh, you did mention that to me. Yeah. You sent me that link. I can be calm. So when you said like calm, that reminded me to chime in. I love her books. She's such a great author. she. Partners up with, illustrating artists for each one of her books, but the I can be calm. I can like they're different illustrators? Yeah, which is really cool. That's fun. It's like a fun kind of way. But she's got these affirmations. I would say that those are affirmations. Can you say the author's name one more time? Katherine Jewett. Jewett, okay. J E W I T T. Awesome. If you go to her website, it's kind of where you can find all of the books that she wrote. But we have the book, I can be Thankful. Cool. She absolutely loves that book. And so I was like, Oh, I'm going to get, I'm going to check out this author and see if she's got more. And here she's got tons, tons more. I love that. I'm definitely going to check that out because those books make me feel good too. Yeah. Yeah. They're fun to read over and over. Over and over. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that's pretty much it. Affirmations. Give them a shot. if you have some that you'd love, let us know. Maybe we'll put a little Instagram post up. Tell us in the comments, which ones your favorites are. Cause I, yeah, I'd love to read more. Sweet. Why not? Awesome. Yeah. And that's all I've got to say. So, uh, Lindsay, do you have a recommendation for us? For this is another cool Utah chick. Okay. Utah chicks are coming out. They're coming out with a bang in the mom world. Who knew? Of all the states. No, um, and speaking of this, mom only has one child in this state. But, I'm recommending a book by one of my favorite people in the whole wide world, I think. Melissa Urban is a really badass woman. She is the co founder of Whole30. Whole30 is a very popular It's a diet. It's a diet. Yeah, it's not necessarily weight loss. It's more so like a diet. No, it's like to figure out clean up your yeah Like figure out what if you how you respond to different. Yes. Yes, so she's the co founder of that but she's also just an incredible advocate for claiming your boundaries Stating your boundaries, navigating your boundaries, She wrote a book, called Book of Boundaries that I cannot recommend enough. She has It's a theory, that is essentially kind of like a stoplight theory, if you will. Like each boundary, okay, say you have a boundary just to like claim I need to set a boundary. You're going to need to set a boundary with somebody in your family or work, a coworker, a friend and you're unsure of how that reaction's gonna be from somebody or how to navigate that boundary, right? Yeah. It can go in many different ways and it can be in many different levels. And she has this, pattern that can be green, yellow, red. So you start with green. Mm-Hmm. simple. State the boundary. And like a simple manner, and if it's not respected, you move on to the yellow and then if it's not respected, you move on to the red and the red is like, stop that. We will not be contacting you. Okay. So it's like, yeah. She gives you self protection. Yeah. She gives you kind of a layer system so that you're. You're not just jumping to the red if you don't necessarily feel comfortable doing that. Okay. So like, say my dad wanted to talk to me about Yeah. Just, yeah. And you were going to his home for like a dinner or something. Sure. Yeah, sure. Okay. So like so I'm just gonna say my green Maybe tell me if I'm doing this wrong. So my green is like, okay, so I'm gonna go over there and when he brings up religion I'm going to just tell him hey, I'm not so comfortable talking about this right now Maybe there's a time we can talk about in the future. But for right now, let's can we talk about something else? Yeah, that would totally be a green cool. And then he crosses the line and I say, okay, so Now let's, let's now we, now we're done talking for a while just to like, so that I can make sure that I'm safe here and that you're respecting my boundary and taking me seriously. So I'm gonna go over to the other side of the room. We're gonna take a break from our conversation, and then when we come back together totally You're on the right. So that's like a yellow, yep. And then red would be like leaving? Yes. Okay. Like if they weren't respecting, sure, of course that yellow, of course would look yellow or green and then you'd be like, I'm actually gonna go now. I kind of like that, like graduated. Yeah, it like gives you time to feel calm in between yep and secure and strong in your boundary You're making yeah for yourself. Yeah, But man, I cannot recommend this book enough. She's absolutely incredible She's she's had to work through this personally as well So I feel really confident knowing that like she's worked through all this in her own Personal way and gotten to a point a healthy point of writing a book for others Yeah, I love such a great way to protect all relationships. Yeah Definitely. And protect yourself. Yeah. And to understand other people's boundaries that they may be setting with you, cause that can be really hard for me. I'm really good at setting boundaries. And when other people set them with me, I can be a little bit stunned by it. Yes. Yeah. I went to one of her, talks up in Salt Lake City. She did kind of like a book tour, and so she talked about her book, did Q's and A's, and that was one of the questions that came up and I was like, I didn't even think of that. Like, what if someone sets a boundary on me? Yeah. How? How are you gonna respond? Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And so that was really eye opening for me, like, it's not just a two way thing. Sometimes it's hard to remember that. And I think that our kids are going to start setting boundaries with us sooner than we think. Oh, yeah. So it might be good to like get ourselves in check. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. This is a book too that like you can take your time with. Yeah. You can revisit. It is an absolute shelf. I love those books that you can just like open up at any time and be like, Oh, this is so good. Yeah. You can, and you don't even have to start from the beginning. You can dive in there. You can open that book, any page and get after it. I love that. So, so cool. So Melissa Urban book of boundaries. Yeah. And if you just, if you're not ready to purchase the book, if you just want to go to her Instagram, and it's just absolutely wonderful, and it gets your mind thinking about how you, like, stand in your life, and it's just, oh, I love that. I love her so much. Is that our first book recommendation? I don't know. I feel like it is. Oh, it could be. Maybe it isn't. We have a mom brain, so if it isn't, then sorry about it. Maybe they recommended a couple, like, potty training books last episode. But, like, this is Elmo, Elmo goes to the potty. He never wants a potty. He is. Okay. All right. So it's not our first book recommendation. But as far as like big, actual adult books, yeah, this could be it. I love that. Okay. Well, I'm going to use that as like a little segue because that's perfect. Uh, Lindsay and I were talking the other day about, Doing like a book club between the two of us and then we were like, oh my god Why wouldn't we do that as like a little podcast special episode every once in a while? So because we there are these books that we've both Read individually that we want to like come together and chat about and then there are obviously so many more books that we want To have an excuse to read So we're gonna start a little book club with all of our listeners out there so the first book is one that Lindsay's almost finished with and is like obsessing about it'll be a big topic in the next episode, I think. Yeah. The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson. Yes. Very cool. I'm really excited to read it. I think that it's, I think that it sounds like it's been beneficial for you, as a postpartum mother, even if you're not planning on having another kid, like it would still be valuable for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I missed the ball on this one and did not have this book before. I had my daughter and I wish I read it just before she was born. I really do. I really feel like I can almost get emotional about it. I feel like I missed out on what my relationship with postpartum, what my relationship with myself, what my relationship with my husband. I feel like we completely missed the ball on this We'll talk about this next time, but but yes, let's get after this. Yeah, I can't wait. So I'm going to tuck into it. Like, yeah, really soon. I'm currently reading a little book about ageism. So as soon as I finished that, I'm going to get into the fourth trimester. And then maybe in like 10 or so episodes, we're going to, We'll dive into it. We'll just see when we finish it, we're going to give ourselves some grace. Yeah. I'm hoping to get mine. I'm almost done with it. So I've been kind of essentially like almost like journaling about it because it's going to be my topic on this podcast. So it's kind of a fun way to like, just. I recommend y'all journal as long as, as you're reading this. It's so I love that idea. Or have a highlighter or something. Yeah. You know, kind of like just make it your own personal thing. Great. Yeah, I can't wait. It's going to be so fun to talk about. I'm going to try and read it sooner than later so that you, it's still fresh in your brain. Yeah. Yeah. So, The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson. Yeah. Join us. It'll be, it'll be super fun. Cool. Yeah. Well, that's everything I think for tonight. Yeah, that was a big one. Yeah, that was a big one. My tea has been gone for a while. I know, I'm about to dive into my water finally. Yeah. Thank you for the tea. For sure. It was delish. Every time. I love every time. Awesome. Cool. Well, yeah. Thanks for tuning in everybody. We are. You can find us on Instagram at We Have Kids podcast. yeah. And if you, if you feel like it, you can leave us a little rating. You can leave us a review. You subscribe. Subscribe. Yeah. Like us. Subscribe to us. We're here. We're all here together. We love you. We appreciate you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. And we will be around for you next time. Next time it is. All right. Thank you. Good night. Or good day. Good night. Good night for me. Goodbye.