Episode 371: Ella's Internship at Shakespeare in the Park

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 Winey Palooza Wednesday!

Happy Winey Palooza Wednesday!

How is everyone doing? We're a little late. It's a little after 9 o'clock.

But we're here in our normally regularly scheduled time rather than being 8 minutes late because—

Are you having me tell them?

Yeah, that was your cue. That was a drum roll.

That was the drum roll for the topic. Okay, I'm too busy fixing my hair.

Your hair's fine.

My hair is not fine. Okay.

It's terrible.

So we are back to our regular scheduled time because Ella's internship at Shakespeare in the Park ended and our almost 5-week commitment is over and man was it a lot.

Lots of driving, which we're going to talk about, so I'll be quiet.

You can talk about whatever you want to talk about. So we are going to talk about Ella's internship. This was a topic request made by somebody.

Lessons learned.

And lessons learned from the internship and let's dive in and tell them about it. We did tell you that we needed to be early for a while, for several weeks, because Seth had to leave to go get her. And Seth made— we're going to talk about the commitment. Okay, let's start with the commitment. I walk in, so I take Ella downtown to have her interview for Shakespeare in the Park, and she's dressed all cute and I'm in my workout clothes, and I'm like thinking I'm like dropping her off and going to my car. Like, I don't even know if there's a waiting room. So I literally just like walked her in to show her where to go, and I was ready to leave. And the women, the two wonderful women, were like, no, Mom, you're coming in the interview too. And I was like, oh well, I'm not dressed for an interview. Seth would have showed up in a suit. I showed up in workout clothes. But in my defense, I did not know. They did not warn me that they were also interviewing me. And the reason why they make parents come into the interview is is because they know that it's a huge commitment and they know that parents, not only is the child committing, but the parents are committing.

Am I allowed to talk about how we got there in the first place?

Yeah.

So we had heard about Shakespeare in the Park, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, oh, I wonder if I could audition to be in the show show. We looked it up, no, you gotta be over 18. Then she finds out there's a Shakesperience, which is a high school internship, and the deadline for the application, the deadline for interviews has passed. And it's over and she missed it. And she's like, oh bummer, oh well. And I said, well, why don't we just take a shot? And I sent an email to the program and I said, I'm so sorry, we just found out about this, we missed the deadline. Any chance you would still get Ellen an interview and an audition to be part of the experience? And because I didn't just say, oh, we missed it and give up, they said, yes, bring her. We went back and forth a couple of times and then they were like, okay, bring her.

So there's a giant lesson in that.

Yes.

And the giant lesson that Lily and Ella's teacher taught me, their kindergarten teacher, is that you should always ask for what you want and don't be afraid to ask for what you want because the worst that could happen is they say no.

Right.

You know, like I can't even tell you how many people are like, I'm not asking that. Well, why not? What are you afraid of? Them saying no? That's like the worst that could happen.

You don't have it now, so you didn't lose anything, right?

So if he would have asked and they would have said, no, sorry, Mr. Greene, you're late, then we would have tried again next year.

Yeah.

So I'm glad that Seth reached out. I'm glad that it worked out.

Persistence pays off.

I'm glad that Ella and I passed the interview.

Yes.

I then was excused for— well, there's a couple things I want to tell you about this. Seth and my commitment. Okay, let's forget about Ella for a minute because I was like, Ella, this is going to be long hours. And she was like, pish tosh, whatever. I guarantee you she did not say I guarantee you that she did not care that I was telling her that it was a lot of hours. So, so the commitment— and let's, let's not even just talk about the driving commitment. It's in the middle of the day. Like, forget anything that you're doing. You have to stop whatever you're doing in the middle of the day and forget what you're doing at night because guess what? The show, it might rain rain and the show might get canceled and you might have to pick Ella up early. So I feel like multiple times, I feel like our life revolved around it. And I'm not complaining, I'm just explaining the commitment. Like, I felt nervous. We went to dinner one night. Yeah, next door at the Terrace, at the Terrace. And I was like, well, the good news is we're next door, so if it rains and it's canceled, we're right here to go. She can just come eat with us. But it was hard. Like, I really wanted to go to the movies and I was like, I don't know that I feel comfortable going to the movies because I don't really want to have to leave in the middle because it's raining and we have to go get Ella.

Yeah.

So you had to be on call. You had to commit. You had to be able to get her there in the middle of the day. You had to be able to pick her up late at night. Definitely a huge commitment for us. As far as Ella was concerned, Ella, Tuesday through Friday, went to classes at Buff State from 1:30 to 4:30, and then from 5:30 to 9:30 worked on Comedy of Errors, the professional show, Tuesday through Sunday.

Yep.

So the only day off that she got was Monday, and Mondays she rested. Yes. Because she was really tired. She was so tired that there were days she was like, oh my God, how am I going to do this? I'm so tired. But she learned a lot. She learned that even when she's tired, she can do it. She learned that she doesn't have to be 100% and that she's good enough with whatever she has to give. She learned how to be part of a team because she didn't want to skip ever. Well, you're not supposed to, but she always wanted to go no matter how she was feeling. Because she didn't want to let her team down and she felt like she was part of a team.

Yes, and there were other nights that other people didn't show up and then she was like, see what happens when they don't show up and we get to do more, we have to do more work to make up for that. I don't want to do that to them. It was very nice of her.

Very nice of her. So in 8th grade, Ella went full throttle, took honors classes, high school classes, joined everything under the sun, worked her buns off to the point that Summer came and she was like, "Mom, I'm fried. I am resting this summer." She's like, "Don't sign me up for anything," which she has never said before. So Ella took last summer off and found that she was bored. And then this summer she was like, "I can't do that again. I need to sign up for stuff." And wow, did she sign up for stuff.

She signed up for the one thing that was a massive undertaking.

Well, let's talk about the friendships. I think that you should talk about that because you understand this.

Yes. So as someone who did many, many theater shows in high school and college, you get an instant family, right? You're instantly in a group of people that you see every day for long hours, and you're doing something together with them as a team, and you bond, and you form friends that— friendships that can last a long time or even a lifetime if you maintain them. And she bonded with some of these people and was, you know, I think just FaceTiming with one of them 5 minutes ago.

She made such good friends. Tanner, please stop. She made such good friends and they were together so many hours every day. I loved it. I loved that she made so many friends. I love that she got close with people with the same passion. I loved so much about it. Happy Wednesday.

Thanks, Michael. Happy Wine and Blues Wednesday.

So now, um, tomorrow she's having them over swimming, so she's excited. She's excited for that. So let's talk about the Erie County Fair. So we go to the fair, we leave, and it's raining, and then it's pouring, and Ella is drenched. And the plan was we're gonna go to the fair, which Ella wanted to go. We did ask And then we're going to take Ella from the fair to her internship so that we're not rushing. So bring all your stuff. We're going to go straight there so that you're on time. Well, I didn't bring a change of clothes, people. Like, I didn't know it was going to pour on us. So I was like, you have to go home. Like, you don't have a choice. I will tell them you're going to be late. We went home. We were so drenched. We went home and Ella walks in the door sopping wet. And spills on the floor and hurts her wrist in the process. So Ella is crying and crying and crying.

She really hurt herself.

She— I didn't even ask her how her wrist is doing. I guess I should do that when we get off of here.

I would assume she's okay because she's not complaining about it.

So the wonderful thing is that we had scheduled— now we didn't think it was broken, but we had scheduled well visits and the doctors actually got to check out her wrist in person and clear her. So that was wonderful. But the night that it happened, there were a lot of tears and Ella was like, "I'm gonna go, I'll be okay," and then she'd keep crying.

So, wrap it up, I'll just go do my job.

So how did you— because I left the room. One of the tricks is knowing when to leave the room as a parent. Parenting trick. So I held her for a long time. And then Seth was like, my turn, go change. So I left. I wanted to let her decompress with Seth. Seth has very calming energy. I'm like, let her cuddle Seth and feel better and figure out if she's good enough to go. And so how did you convince her to rest? Because Ella did not want to rest.

She would be in— my theory was she was going to be in pain the whole time. She wasn't going to be 100%. She was gonna feel bad if she couldn't do her job the way she normally does. She was gonna feel— she would have to explain what happened to everybody. She would feel bad if she was like crying because it hurt, and she had been going non-stop for however many weeks. It's like, listen, you notice that when someone else isn't there, the world— the show doesn't end. Like, you guys pick up the slack, it'll work out. People have been absent for far less reasons than physical injury take the night off, relax, recover, keep icing it, and you'll go back tomorrow.

Um, there was 100% more of a chance of her listening to Seth than me.

Also true.

That goes for both of our daughters.

It does.

Um, there's a— there's definitely a gender thing for sure. I don't know, do you see it?

Yes, there's a difference between a mother-daughter relationship and a father-daughter relationship. And there's a difference between a mother-son relationship, which might err more in your favor.

I'm just saying. That the opposite genders is so interesting.

Yes.

So again, know when to leave the room. So I had said to Ella, so this is mistake number one, people, take notes. You really should stay home and rest. Is that what you should say to your daughter? No, it's gotta be there.

You gotta do inception. It's gotta be there.

Okay, so what sucks is that I am really bad at mind games. Really bad at.

First of all, you gotta change what you call it.

Okay, call it marketing.

I wasn't going on, but that works. Michael resonates with that, right?

Uh, Seth, what would you call it?

Um, positive psychological manipulation.

Oh my God, I hate every word you use.

So helping someone get to the right decision and think it's their own idea.

Okay, so I am very authentic and real. What is on my face is on my face for a reason. Seth is the actor in the family other than Ella, and he is very good at strategically talking to our children. Yes, I just give it to them straight, and that is not the way to get what you want.

Not with teenagers.

No, it, it's like they have to come up up with it. They have to cut— we have to guide them with questions and little comments. And yeah, it's like we have to get them to get to a place to make the decision on their own. We can't make the decision.

It's a sales job.

Okay, so that is why he is so good at it. He is a natural salesman. I am not.

So I've worked my butt off. You know how many courses I've taken and how many reps I've got at Selling things.

Okay, so you're saying that I need— so the book that we need to write together is Selling to Your Children.

Oh, that's really good. We could also do Selling to Your Spouse.

Hey now, are you manipulating me?

How long have we been married?

A long time.

There you go, you're still here.

What does that mean?

I am doing a great job.

Okay, we're going to talk about this.

We're not moving right along. Getting myself into trouble.

Oh my God.

Every idea you've ever had in the last 19 years has been 100% yours. I had nothing to do with any of them.

Okay, first of all, that's bullcrap. And second of all, I think that the bottom line here is that you need to sell yourself to your spouse every day for the rest of your life. And you have to—

I got to keep wanting you to want to be married to me every day.

Well, we have to decide to want to be married every day. Yes. Yes. So it is a sales pitch. It's a giant, huge—

never-ending—

it's the biggest sales pitch of your life.

Yes. Most important deal you ever close.

Oh my God, we are so off topic. But, but he does— he is the man who can sell to our kids. And he will even say to me, just leave the room. I will talk to Lily. We will get there. Just go. I'll talk to her.

Yeah.

I have to learn from the master.

I don't know about that.

We're going to talk about—

that's a future episode.

I think that that's a future blog on you being a salesman to our children. We're going to talk more about that.

Okay. I like the book idea too.

I like the book idea.

I have a publishing company.

You are so funny. So Seth led Ella to the decision of resting. And what I want to tell you about that as a parent, There is nothing that I really strongly dislike when people try to win the attendance award at school. I don't know if they give out perfect attendance awards anymore, awards anymore, but they should not. And I want to tell you why. I want to tell you 2 huge reasons they should not give out that award. In fact, they should give out awards for— there should be a free mental health day for kids every year at school.

So more than one day.

Okay, so 3 days.

I take more than one a year.

Okay, so here's what I want to say to admin. If you are a superintendent or are in charge somewhere, I think that kids need to be able to call into school and say that they need a mental health day and that it needs to be excusable and not an unexcused absence. And I give my kids mental health days. They don't always take them, but it is an option and they have taken them. And I don't think that we should want our kids to have perfect attendance. I think they should know when their body needs rest and their mind needs rest. Or I've also seen— I love this, my friends have taught me this— their kids are exhausted. Maybe they had a game late at night. Maybe you let them go to a concert, which is okay. Maybe they were up studying too late. Whatever the reason, they let them sleep in and they take their kids into school late.

Yeah, you have done that, I know that.

I have done that because I've learned that from my friends.

Yes.

I didn't come up with that. But what I wanna tell you is not only do we need to teach our kids how to take mental health days, as an adult too, I need to X out days and say, this is your mental health day. Like, you're gonna rest, you're gonna recharge, and you're not gonna do anything.

Yeah.

So I have not done that as of yet, but I think I'm going to this year. And the other reason that I have a huge problem with perfect attendance is that— don't give your children Motrin and send them to school with a fever. I can't stand that. I'm sorry if you have to work and you have no one to watch your kids. I feel bad for you. I understand.

It's a lesson for you.

I, I listen, part of me wishes that I had a job to go to every day. There's, there's—

out of the house.

Yeah, I have, I do work at home every day, but I'm by myself. So the kids go to school and I'm by myself working unless you're on Zoom, unless I'm talking to someone on Zoom, unless I'm going to a meeting for Seth, whatever. I'm usually home by myself working. And I think that there's something to be said for our mental health to actually go to a job. I do possibly see that in my future because it's good for me. But I'm home. So I know I have the luxury of saying my kid is sick. I'm home. It's okay. I understand that parents have that problem. But like, I hate these perfect attendance things. And I'm off on a tangent.

You are.

And I'm really sorry. But I don't want—

I didn't want to hop on your soapbox.

I didn't like that Ella was like, I got to have perfect attendance. So she did miss—

She did not learn from us.

She did miss one day. We okayed it. They okayed it. The show went on.

Yes.

And she went back.

Fine.

Fine. Okay. So she learned commitment. She learned hard work. She learned perseverance. She learned teamwork. And during the classes at Buff State, they were prepping for the intern show, Twelfth Night, and Ella was Malvolio. And Ella had to learn a ton of lines. Ella had to do a monologue by herself on the stage. Huge stage in front of 1,400 people, 5-minute monologue by herself.

She crushed it. It was so proud of her.

So she not only did she work on her acting skills, she had professionals working with her on her acting skills, and she had professional actors giving her feedback after the show. So what is amazing to me as a parent is she hears from family and friends how talented she is. She got to hear it from objective people who just met her, who saw her act and were like, Ella, you were the perfect Malvolio, right?

Yes.

So, so many lessons. And as a mother, I think one of the awesome things about this is when your kids are passionate about something like music or theater or football or whatever it is, it's awesome to find other different opportunities for them to explore their passion. Like Ella is finding herself fascinated by journalism and she's like, I want to go to this camp at this school for a journalism camp.

I think it was a summer program. I don't know if camp is the right word.

Okay, I'm sorry, summer program.

That's all right.

Wrong word. It's okay. I appreciate the correction.

Sorry.

So she's researching, I like finding other ways for them to explore their passion. So like, this was different and new and exciting, right?

Yes.

So anything else that I'm missing that she learned, we learned? What did we learn?

Commitment, perseverance, hard work. All those things.

We learned teamwork because you and I were a team, a driving team. We were a driving team.

You drove her, I picked her up. There were times that you couldn't do one thing and I took her during the day. There were times at night I was like, oh my goodness, I'm so tired or whatever, and you would go get her. We switched on and off.

We definitely, you definitely need a spouse who is a team with you. I was spiraling yesterday. It is quite the time of year, people. I was spiraling and he was like, and I forget, I think what mothers forget is that they're not alone. Especially like if you're a single mom, you still have supports, you have to find your supports. I'm not a single mom, I'm married to this guy next to me.

That's me.

And I spiral and don't share it with him. And I don't say—

I see, I think I got some of the spiral yesterday.

Well, yeah, but it's not like, it's not like I'm going, listen, I'm really stressed because of X, Y, and Z. 'Can you talk me through this?' Like, I'm not doing that, right?

Yes, that is correct, that yesterday you did not have that calm, logical, rational expression of feelings. Hence why you called it a spiral.

Yeah, I don't even remember what you're talking about.

I don't know what we're talking about either. Never happened. You're perfect.

You're perfect, don't change.

I love you, you're perfect, don't change.

That's the name of the show.

I get stressed out.

I got stressed out, I got stressed out this morning and I'll tell you why and I'll move on. I, when I have to pick up another child to take another child somewhere, I don't care if I make Lily late, if Lily makes herself late, if Lily is dawdling in the morning and she's going to be a little late, that's on her. But if we have to pick someone else up, I'm not making the other kid late. So it was quite the morning getting Lily out the door.

Oh, I'm sorry. I was at work. I missed all this. I haven't heard about this yet.

Oh yeah. I told you I had a horrible morning.

That was okay. You did not use the word horrible. There was a much less intense word you used and I did not get all of the details.

I'm happy to give you the details.

I'm sure you are. I'm so glad I asked.

I won't give you the details.

I would love to hear all of the details.

So the bottom line, minute by minute. The bottom line of this whole entire topic is that we are beyond extremely proud of Ella.

Yes.

And what I love is that Ella now knows what it looks like. Not that she's never done—

she's been in many shows. However, what you're gonna say is that I really— I was thrilled for this idea, willing to do the driving because I wanted her to experience what a professional level show with like paid actors and real stuff is like, because she had been judging her theatrical experiences based on the theater she went to or the school and the other kids. And I said, you've never seen what a real tech week looks like. You've never seen what a real show looks like with professionals where everybody knows their lines, everybody knows what they're doing, everybody's good, and it runs a lot smooth. I'm like, you need to go experience— this is a great opportunity for you to see the real thing and then decide, is this something I want to do or not?

I love that you said that, but that's not what I was gonna say.

Okay, go right ahead then.

So Ella is an extremely hard worker and she works really hard at school and everything that she does, but this was a different level of hard work. This was different hours. This was long hours. This was getting home at 10 o'clock at night and then feeling like, okay, I'm not gonna go to bed because I'm wired and I want to stay up and like, and relax and unwind. This was a totally different experience and she saw what she is capable of. And I have never doubted that she's capable of hard work, but this was another level.

Yes.

So that, that is part of why I'm so proud.

School's nothing now. You just did 1:30 to— you got home at 10. You just did an 8-9 hour day. Your school day is a lot shorter than that, so no more complaining about 7:45 to 3 or whatever.

Um, yeah, it's shorter. It's a shorter day. The school day is shorter. You're absolutely right. Yeah, you did the math already.

I did.

Okay, well, I am very happy that you are not now leaving to go get Ella.

Yes, that is much— that is nicer. I miss the time with her in the car. I do not miss the drive at, you know, 9, 9:30, 10 o'clock at night.

And you didn't— we don't like the actual drive down there.

I, I, there are worse drives, but whatever.

You complained about the drive. You didn't like it.

I did.

I did.

Transit would have been easier.

And what I, what I'm going to say is our daughter is done with her internship and now sports have ramped up.

Yes.

So now Max is at school constantly for football and Lily has cheerleading every day. Every freaking day for hours.

So there's some crazy people driving on the thruway at night. So yes, I would have preferred an easier—

oh, we're back to that. Sorry, we backed up.

I backed up. I apologize. Yes, now sports is crazy.

Now the internship's over and sports are crazy and summer is pretty much over for us because, I mean, there's sports every day. Yes. Yeah, so that is our topic for the week. We are proud parents. Ella is proud of herself, which is the most important. Oh my God, after that show I couldn't stop smiling and I was like, I wish I could see it again.

You can, I did video it.

I know you videoed it, but I feel like maybe they should have done another show.

I hate it. If they had gotten a couple performances, like 3 instead of 1, that would have been awesome.

Like, how about one on the Thursday that we went and one on like closing night? How about 2? So I wanna say thank you to Lisa and Gretchen for giving her the opportunity.

At Shakespeare in Delaware Park.

At Shakespeare in Delaware Park. And thank you for saying yes to Ella. When I left the room for her to audition for them, because not only did they interview us, she had to audition. So she prepared a monologue.

Yeah, we prepared Shakespeare.

So they sent me out of the room to wait in the waiting room. When I heard them laughing at Ella's monologue, my heart melted and I was like, I think she's got it. So thank you to them. And I want to thank Amelia for being a wonderful teacher. And I want to thank Rebecca Greene for being an awesome stage manager and for taking care of her. And I'm very thankful that she got to be a part of that.

Yes. And thank you to every— all the other interns and everybody in the cast and crew who was in the whole project who made it a good experience as it could be.

Yes, the actors were amazing. Yes, they were so good and the other interns did great too. So who's on the podcast on Friday? Dr. Jenny Woo is on the podcast talking about master emotional intelligence in the home.

We can always use more of that and I loved talking to her.

That was a really fun interview. You're going to learn from her, you're going to love her and go find me on Facebook at the Free Winey Poohs of Mom group. We just did the August challenge and I picked 2 winners and it's a free supportive community. So come join us and bring your friends and share this with a friend because maybe your friend's kid will want to do this next summer. So share this around because people don't know about this. And what else, honey?

Go to whineypalooza.com and read the entire blog and then go to the Linktree, check out all of Rebecca's amazing resources including sign up for the free 3 times a week email newsletter. And make sure to like, share, comment, rate, review, and subscribe because when you do it helps the platforms like Facebook and iTunes share Rebecca's content with other moms who can use it. So help us help more people for this wonderful lady right here.

Aww, thanks honey, I loved that. And I wanna tell you something extra special about this blog. Go read the blog. Because I wrote a section and then Ella wrote a section.

Oh, I didn't read— I gotta read Ella's.

You didn't read Ella's section?

If I did, I don't remember.

Okay, Ella wrote a section. Ella's an excellent writer.

Yeah, she really is.

And you're gonna love hearing what she had to say about it. So thank you everyone, have a wonderful week. We will be back next week. Thank you for tuning in to the Whiny Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, Please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time. This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com/podcastoffer.

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