Episode 264: I See You

No need to whine, it's whiny palooza. Have some wine and join us on the whiny palooza podcast with Rebecca Greene.

Welcome to the whiny palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Greene. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, happy Whiny Palooza Wednesday! No need to whine, it's Winey Blues Wednesday. Have some wine and join us on Winey Blues Wednesday with the Greene family. So Ella, I have a task for you. Our neighbors asked for the song to be longer. So they want me to write more lyrics? They want you to write more lyrics to the song that you wrote. Okay. You think you can work on that with your guitar? Sure. And make me a song? Sure. Maybe we could make it longer. How long are they talking? I don't know, like a song. Like a real song? I don't know. They want me to sit here for 3 minutes playing the song every night? No. Or Wednesday? Maybe. How long do we want the song to be?

I don't know, how about one more? How about a couple more lines?

Okay. So like another verse?

Sure, how about another verse?

I have a couple. We can try that. You try it without my feedback. If you're stuck, I have some ideas. Ella came up with the song, right? I did. Yeah, so we got a request to make the song longer.

Hey, we take requests.

We do take requests. We take topic requests. So every Wednesday we talk about a different topic. So we take topic requests about family and parenting and marriage.

I'm in favor of all of those.

Yes. You gotta block the ring light. Thank you.

Oh, this has been like this the whole time. Let me, let me put a pillow behind my back to support this new angle. I'm so sorry, I won't move at all.

I'm— I don't like to see the ring light behind us.

All right, I'm ready.

Okay, so we are home, we are back to reality. My mother put it perfectly when she said reality hits hard. It was—

oh, Rebecca Greene gave me a giant hug.

Oh, I love that. I knew that you, you all think that I'm like positive all the time. Mr. Greene behind me is the one who's positive all the time. Sometimes he'll, he'll sometimes maybe he'll have a complaint here and there. Maybe he'll have some work bumps here and there, But you are so much more positive than I am.

I'm positive that you're positive about that.

So I didn't quite— I didn't quite follow that, but we came home to the kids all having stuff today, and, um, I went from fun in the sun with family—

yes—

to living in your car, back to living in my car, and I wonder why my hip hurts. But, um, I definitely have a driving injury. I definitely need to work on that because I'm going to keep driving for many years to come. So, um, I'm sure the 8-hour drive to, to Virginia and back from Virginia did not help.

Yes, I would agree, it did not help.

It did not help.

You were not driving all 8 hours, so hopefully the hours you were not driving helped a little bit.

Well, so I, I greatly appreciate— Seth and I have figured out that we split the drive.

Yes.

When we drive.

Yes.

And that seems to work well. Um, I, I thought Seth was going to end up doing most of the drive on the way home, the way home, but I, I would have— I know, I missed—

I was geared up.

I missed my stop.

You did.

I missed my stop. So we're still figuring out which route to take. Um, we should probably talk to some more people.

I think you made your decision. Take the longer route with more stops.

Take the longer route with more stops because the shorter route— so the payoff is that it's shorter.

We save half an hour.

But it's— you think?

We looked at the difference. We saved half an hour, about half an hour.

I don't know if it's worth it because there's not many stops.

Nope.

So we might end up sticking with the longer route to have more stops. With children and life, and I'm the main culprit. They would be happy if we didn't stop at all. In fact, I was really upset when we got home and Lily was like, thank God, I've been holding my pee.

Well, you should have told us.

If you would have told me, I would have pulled over. Like, I can't read your mind, right? So let's talk about our weekend. Yes, we went to Virginia. Um, we are very blessed that my brother and Seth's brother have, um, have families in areas super close to each other.

Yes, within like half an hour.

I think it's 20 or 30 minutes from each other. And, um, yeah, that's really cool that we get to see both of our brothers when we go to Virginia.

Yes.

And their families, and their wonderful families. They both are married with children, so we get to go see everybody.

Yes.

And we went The purpose of this visit is that our nephew had his bar mitzvah.

Yes.

So I was very excited for this, and he did an awesome job.

He did.

And I think I got to see what I had originally planned for our son 3 years ago that got canceled, and I think I got to like see it actually happen. Don't you think?

They had a bar mitzvah and a big party.

Yes. So are you following what I just said? I am.

We were having an even bigger party, but yes.

Oh God, and that felt really big.

Weren't we having like twice as many people?

Wow. Okay, so I'm just digesting this.

You didn't think about this part.

So maybe it was too many people for you. Okay. So I thought I had just seen what I had planned to play out, but apparently Seth just proved me wrong.

I wasn't trying to. He just— they had— you were inviting more people to Max's, I believe.

Yes. So he did a great job.

Yes.

And the party was a ton of fun.

Yes.

We had family from California come in. We had family from New Jersey come in. It's okay, honey.

Don't worry about it.

I have the pillow.

No, honey. Don't worry about it. Um, we had family from Maryland come in.

Yes.

And, um, yeah, so it— I thought it was perfect.

It was awesome.

I thought it was wonderful. We danced, we had fun, we played the— we played games.

Yes.

And my brother got a pool. So if you don't know, Virginia is very hot in the summer, so normally when we go there in the summer, we just sweat. And we go outside and maybe we play for a little while and then we go back inside to the air conditioning.

Yeah.

So, so it's very hot. So it's like such a difference that they have a pool. Did you feel the difference?

I did, because we spent lots of time in the pool.

So we spent most of the weekend in the pool, a lot of the weekend in the pool.

Yes.

And it was very entertaining to the kids. And, um, we just kept having more and more people in the pool. I thought it was a lot of fun.

It was a lot of fun and a lot of family. Yes.

And you seemed to have a good time.

I did.

And I noticed a lot of things.

Okay.

So I originally— so I write about a topic every week. Um, my blog is at wineinclusa.com if you didn't read it today, and it's called I See You. And I originally was going to write about the bar mitzvah I was going to write about the weekend and what we did and all the stuff. And, um, and then I realized that I noticed so much about Seth. Okay, this weekend that I took a spin and made it a little marital-y.

Marital-y is good.

I, I made up a word.

You did.

And you read it.

I did.

What did you think?

I felt very appreciated and seen and loved.

So did you know that I saw all that stuff?

No, I did not.

You did not. Do you think—

I wasn't keeping track of you keeping track of me.

Do you think that I notice things that you do?

I maybe I don't realize how many things you actually notice because you don't tell me that you notice them, but that was a great job of you telling me what you notice.

Okay, so here is my problem, and, um, it's, it's not a bad problem, it's just something that we have noticed about me. I will tell Seth if something is wrong. I will say the complaint department is here to complain about—

No, I'm get stuck being the complaint department. You're the one with all the filing all the tickets.

Okay, so I will say I have a ticket, you violated.

Oh my God, you violated. No, it would help. I would say I'm sorry, the complaint department is closed, so, uh, we'll call your number in a couple days.

I think we could make it much more funny. We could Um, and I'll put up some tickets for you. And I think that humor in our marriage is great.

Yes.

But I do come to Seth to tell him if something isn't working for me.

Yes.

Like something that he did or said or didn't do or hurt my feelings or meaning to or forgot to do something because he's a very busy man, which I totally understand. Um, anyways, I, I think I've got that part down.

Oh, you It's a science.

I don't think I need to work on that.

You can work on doing less of it.

Okay, noted. Okay, but what I don't do enough of is I don't tell Seth what's going on in my head all day.

Yes, you could come to the praise department. I don't love the 5-star reviews.

So we've talked about the fact that we all have different love languages, and Seth loves to hear things, and I know this as his wife So I have increased, but I have so much work to do. And I'm telling you this because there is so much that I noticed about Seth this entire weekend that we were away, and I don't think I said one word to you about it.

You did not. You were a poopy head. Hey, you saved it and you told me later, which I greatly appreciate.

Did I tell you how handsome you looked?

You might have told me that.

I think I told you that he looked very spiffy in his suit. Very handsome. Um, did I give you any more compliments besides that?

That's pretty much it.

Oh, did I smile at you?

You might have, yes.

Okay, so I have a lot of work to do because I notice almost everything that Seth is doing and I don't tell him. So perfect. So here is a perfect example. Um, I noticed that you did the dishes tonight.

I did.

And I really appreciate it. And I noticed that when I went outside to work on the pool that you followed me to help.

I did.

I noticed that stuff and I appreciate that stuff, but I don't say anything.

If you don't tell me, it doesn't mean no good.

Okay.

I don't get these psychic messages. So I need to work on your telepathy skills.

So I think about things a lot and I don't tell him. So I'll think For example, this morning I thought to myself, he's up really early. I know him, he's already working. He's downstairs working.

Yep.

And he's about to go to work.

Yep.

And he left super early and he got home at like 6-something. So you had a super long day.

Yep.

And I noticed. Yep. And I appreciate it.

Thank you. Bless you. Bless you.

I noticed everything you did this weekend, every little thing you did. I noticed you being kind and charming with my family. I noticed how patient and compassionate and understanding you were.

I worked on that.

Oh my God, rounding up, how many of us were there?

15.

Did you count?

I did. Well, we needed reservations, so we had to be able to tell them how many people.

Did you tell them how many people?

I went— when someone asked me, oh, we— I wonder if we can get a table for this many people, how many people do we have? I said 15.

Okay, so there were— and I think one of them had already left. Oh, what a— one of the family members had already gone home, so we were down to 15. So it was a lot of people, all my family, and Seth was very kind and engaging and, and flexible. Yeah, I think flexible was your word of the weekend.

It was.

So I think that Seth and I went with the expectation of— tell them what your expectation was.

None. Go with the flow. It's not your event. You're just here to be a supportive uncle. Um, just be flexible and do whatever is asked of you, and with a smile.

And how do you think that went?

I think I did exactly that. I think it went really well, right?

But how did you feel about that? Like, you went in with no expectations. You went in with no expectations. And how did that feel through the weekend?

It felt good. Okay, so I did— okay, I didn't have no expectations. I had expectations. I specifically made expectations of what I thought was going to happen is my guess as to how it was going to go, and I went with that as opposed to how I might have done an event. And it was much better to let go and assume, hey, this is probably what's going to happen, and prepare yourself for that. And my main preparation needed to be, be flexible. It's not about you, and just be patient and flexible, which was exactly what I needed to do and is what worked.

So were you happy?

Yes, I was much happier with that attitude than if I had been going, "They should be doing this differently. I would do it this way. This is inefficient." Like, I would have been annoyed, and you would have been observing that, and you would have been annoyed at me. And it went much better being flexible and patient.

So what I have noticed about Seth in general, um, and you could tell me if I'm wrong, is that you do everything Faster than most people.

I have not compared myself to most people because that's a lot of people, but I tend to be very efficient. Yes. I wonder why that looks like faster to other people, then it's probably true.

Why do you think that is though?

And I get that, that issue with my staff all the time where they're like, I think, oh, just do this, it'll take you 10 minutes. Like, that takes an hour. I'm like, it takes me 10 minutes, right? Does it take you an hour?

Right. But why does it— I have a couple thoughts on this. Why does it take you 10 minutes but it'll take me an hour?

Most likely I've probably done it before. I'm probably really good at it. I probably know— have trained myself to do things quicker and with less interruptions. Um, and I'm really, really efficient and productive. And if I'm doing something, I try not to do anything else except do that thing till it's done.

He gets very annoyed if I get distracted.

I have learned to let that go. I have gotten much better. No, no, no, I'm not upset. I've worked on that. Because I read— I took the Allison Armstrong course about understanding women, and I realized genetically your brain is wired differently.

Okay, so tell everyone because that'll help.

So men stereotypically in their brain have singular awareness. You know, it all goes back to caveman days, like kill the saber-toothed tiger, hunt the food animal, bring it home alive, with you still alive, feed family, right? And you had to focus on that one thing so that something didn't kill you. So women had to have diffused awareness, which is being aware of everything all the time all around you, because they had to watch the kids, they had to make— cook the food, they had to harvest, they had to do whatever. They had to do a million different things on the home front in the wild. So you— I used to get mad at you and be like, can you please just focus? Can we have one conversation about one thing and resolve it without you going, squirrel, jewelry, diamonds? I see all these different things popping up. TikTok. And it didn't go well because I'd get annoyed at you and you'd be like, no, I can't do that, you're trying to make me resist my nature. And when I realized, when Allison taught me, oh my God, she's not— she can't— she physically, it is harder for her to do one thing than for her to do many things. So I stopped trying like 70% of the time to get you to focus on one thing, and it's gone much easier than when I was trying to say, no, I want your undivided attention on this one topic and only this topic, and no, you can't look at your phone and the TV and talk to So I think that we are happier when we don't try to make each other be each other.

When we, when we realize that we're different people, we do things differently, and that we need to appreciate the differences versus get annoyed by them.

Yeah, there were many years in the beginning of our marriage where I kept trying to shove your round— your square peg in a round hole and go, just focus like I do. And it did not go well, and I apologize, and I've learned that lesson, and I don't do that much. I still— I'm not perfect, but I don't do it much anymore. Well, and when I now recognize, like, literally when you got your phone, I would interrupt you and be like, 'Can't you see I'm texting?' I'd be like— now I'm like, 'Let me know when you're done and I can talk to you,' and then you're much happier.

That's true, that's true. Um, I was gonna say something and you interrupted me.

Well, I wasn't done with my thought, then you had your thoughts, so you interrupted me, and then I interrupted you, and then you forgot.

Okay, what did I want to tell you?

Focus.

Oh, what I realized with the kids home— so the kids are home this summer when they're not at their stuff that they have going on. They're all home, not like being at school every day when I have time to work. So whenever I try to accomplish something, they will, you know, like Lily's like, can you do my hair? Can you do my hair? And I'm like, I have to send this to Kristen, just give me 5 minutes. I'm trying to work. And I'm like, why did you try to do anything with the kids home?

And I can't not work all summer.

Well, and I laugh about it. It's drastically decreased. Yes. Um, but I was like, so I could hear like other mothers and Seth saying, you know, you can say no. You know, you could tell them to wait. Yeah. And like I want to help my kids. So like, I've had mothers say, let them make their own food, let them do their own laundry. Do you know how much joy I get from taking care of them? I get a lot of joy from it. I get a lot of interruptions. I can't get anything done. I'm interrupted all day. And can they do more for themselves? Absolutely. Do they do more for them, for themselves? Absolutely. But, um, I did get my work done. It wasn't easy. It took much longer than it would take if they weren't home. Yeah, but going back to I see you, I want to tell you that it goes back to you packing up the car. You took everything from upstairs downstairs. You put all the luggage in the car. You made it fit. And I noticed and didn't say anything.

Correct.

I didn't say thank you so much for lugging everything downstairs and packing the car. Thank you so much for starting the drive, I'm so tired, you know. Thank you so much for being so flexible all weekend. I see how flexible you're being. I see how easygoing you're being, and I notice and I appreciate it. Thank you for the tolerance of 15 of my family members. Like wonderful, like I know, but I noticed all of it, you know. And you know, then he took— we were staying on like the third floor. Why do they call it the fourth floor? Is the basement the first floor?

Maybe.

Okay, so my family was staying on the fourth floor, and I noticed that Seth lugged everything downstairs and took it all into the car. I mean, I noticed everything. And I think that part of me wanted you to see how much stuff I noticed.

I appreciate that.

I noticed you being Minka's bodyguard, and like, she went and got— our niece is 5, and she got her hair done, and it looks so pretty for the bar mitzvah. And I saw Seth being like, you can't go near the pool, you got to come sit here with me. Like, I saw you Protecting her, right?

Well, she was walking in. If she had fallen in or slipped or gone involuntarily and wrecked her beautiful expensive hairdo, she'd have been very upset.

Well, I know— I think I noticed probably a lot more than you thought I noticed.

Yes, I— based on what you wrote, you absolutely noticed more than I knew that you noticed because you didn't tell me most of it.

Okay, so I want to apologize for not telling you more.

Forgiven.

And I know that you'd like to hear it.

I do.

And one of my goals in our marriage is to tell you more.

I appreciate that.

So I will tell you, um, what I'm thinking, because I tend to just—

positive things that you are thinking. You're very good at communicating the negative things that you are thinking. If we can work out, balance it out.

Okay, so why am I so good at telling you the negative things, but I'm not so good at telling you all the positive things that I notice?

We got lots more reps on the negative.

Seth Green!

You asked a question.

Stab me in the heart.

Stop with the dramatics. I'm not stabbing you in the heart. You asked a question, I gave you a factual answer.

Oh my gosh.

Why do you think that is? Okay, so other than the fact that just numerically that's what's happened, maybe you think, maybe you have thought for many years you didn't need to tell me the positive stuff. You only needed to tell me the negative so I could go fix whatever terrible thing I was doing wrong.

There, you know, there's nothing terrible that you do. Can we not use the word terrible?

I would love it.

I—

yep, that'd be good.

I do not use the word terrible to describe you ever.

Okay, not to describe me as a person, you are correct. Oh my gosh, might be to describe an action. Maybe I did a terrible job on the dishes, I don't know.

Why do you always go back to the dishes? You just did the dishes and I said thank you. I didn't have one negative thing to say.

I'm very impressed and proud of you.

I've come a long way.

You have, you have. There might, there might be, there still be a dirty dish in the sink.

The perfectionist has left the building. I'm not gonna lie, she shows up sometimes.

She hasn't completely left the building, but she's halfway out the door.

Oh my gosh. Well, I will tell you more. And what I want to say, um, as far as marriage goes, is that we want to tell our spouse what we notice that they're doing that is wonderful, or how they're being wonderful. Like, I noticed that Seth was just smiling at me all weekend. And I think that we don't realize how powerful smiling is at each other. You know, when your kids walk in the room, smile. When your spouse walks in the room, smile. You're happy to see them. And it warms my heart when you smile at me all the time. So I noticed that too. So I will tell him more.

Yes.

And if we tell our spouses, it will make both of you happier. And, and if we purposely try to notice what our spouse is doing right or what our spouse is doing well, we will find it. Like, if we want to find things they're doing wrong, you're going to find it. If you want to find things they're doing right, you're going to find it. So focus on, like, let's find what they're doing right. Yes, right?

Yes.

So just some marital stuff that I noticed from the weekend, and I so appreciate Seth, um, going with me because I was not gonna go. I was gonna go.

Oh, did you ever— was it— is there even— why would there even be a possibility that I wouldn't go with you?

I'm just appreciating the trip. Okay, I'm appreciating that we went, of course, to our nephew's bar mitzvah. I'm appreciating the long weekend with my family. Yes. I'm appreciating that you changed your work schedule when I had a fit.

You did have it.

I had a temper tantrum, people. I want to tell you Seth works so hard and I so appreciate it. And I have to try to respect— try, I'm not very good at it— I have to respect that he's a very busy man and that he can't just say, okay, I'll take Tuesday off too. I'm like, what do you mean we can't drive home Tuesday? Um, he changed his schedule for me.

I did.

I I will ask nicely next time instead of having a temper tantrum. I'm not so proud of that. I'm not always proud of my behavior, and we're not going to do everything right. In fact, at some point this weekend, I said to myself, do I say anything right?

It wasn't to me. I didn't criticize you one bit.

It wasn't you.

Okay, good. I was going to say I was really well behaved.

No. You were well behaved. Were you trying to be well behaved? Oh my God.

I wanted you to come home and do this, a list of things that I did right, because there have been times that the trip did not generate those positive, warm and fuzzy feelings.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

None at all. Of course not.

Okay, well, you succeeded.

Yes, awesome.

And we learned a lot.

We did.

Um, what do you think your biggest takeaway from the weekend is?

Flexible, go with the flow.

I knew you were gonna say that.

I think that I can be at times— no, you're gonna be shocked that I could sometimes be rigid.

What is so interesting to me is that we lighten each other up on totally different topics. Yes, like I make you go with the flow more of life Yes. And you make me go with the flow more of— think of an example.

Business.

Business.

Oh wait, I make you go with the— when do I make you go through with the flow? Oh wow.

I feel like you lighten me up, but I'm trying to think of an example.

Um, what did I lighten you up about this weekend?

Um, I think that you just always have a good perspective on life. And if I get too negative about something, you help me see the positive side of it. I like to think that I'm a wonderful reframer.

You are.

But I'm not going to tell you that I don't ever get negative.

Of course.

And sometimes I think that I don't understand why someone is acting how they're acting, and you always help me find the reason. And I think that I've really learned to take things less personally.

It's not about you.

It's, um, people's behavior is not about us. They have their own stuff going on, and it's a reflection of their own life. So give it back to them and don't take it personally. And you always make me laugh. I do. So if I get super uptight, you tend to make me laugh.

I gotta lighten your mood.

So you can keep that up, and I'll, and I'll help you Go with the flow of life.

That sounds like a good deal.

So we had a wonderful time. We are back. Yes, we are back to a green pool.

It's not supposed to be green.

When we left, our pool was perfect.

Yes.

I don't— we're new pool owners.

Yes.

We don't know what happened. According to my friend who I ran into today, and I'll tell Seth all about that.

Oh, okay.

Um, She said that it poured and she said that the rain changes the pH levels of the pool.

I did not know that.

So I had no idea. I don't know exactly what happened. Was it super warm while we were away?

It was warm and rainy.

Maybe it was super hot while we were away, but we came home to a green pool, so we're working on that and hopefully we can actually swim tomorrow.

Yep.

And I Oh, the podcast this week. I'm really excited about the podcast this week, and it is the 10— it's just me, it's a solo episode, and it's the 10 biggest marital mistakes that we make.

It's how to overcome the 10 biggest marital mistakes.

Thank you for reframing that. I, I talk about the mistakes that we make and how we can overcome them and do better.

Yes.

And I really like this one. I think you're gonna love it. And I think it's perfect because we just talked about marriage.

Yes. And it's really good. I learned a lot.

I'm so happy that you liked it.

I did.

And I gave the July challenge winner and the birthday winner prizes. I sent them sunshine boxes. Do you know that?

I did not know what that was.

Boxes of sunshine for summer.

Okay.

I'm not sure what you mean by sunshine box. It's female fun, womanly, you know, I don't know.

Female fun sunshine.

There was a list of stuff that women would like with the sunshine theme.

Okay, okay, you say so.

So, um, thank you for joining us. We hope that you're enjoying your summer. Feel free to, um, tell us your requests, and we love when you like, comment, share, review. All that stuff.

Yes, please.

And anything else?

We'll see you next week.

Okay, thanks everyone. Have a wonderful week.

Thank you for watching Winey Blues Wednesday.

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