Episode 381: The Homecoming Whirlwind

Happy Winey Plousa Wednesday. I wanna apologize for being late. I was picking Lily up at a football game and rushing her and we're still late anyway. So it is gonna happen a lot during the football season because there's lots of Wednesday night football games. Yes. So we're gonna do our best to get here as timely as we can. Thank you for your flexibility and understanding. I hope you're having a wonderful week. We're gonna talk about last week, we're gonna talk about— so I think the thing about my husband, what we were talking about before we went live, is that what I'm finding with Seth, and I don't know where this stems from, so I need to do some, I need to do some more analysis of him to understand him better, but he needs consistency. He craves consistency, and he wants me to be consistent. And he wants to know, like, that I want reminders. And if I say that I want reminders and I don't want to have to remember everything, he wants me to stick to my word of what I said. So then when he's reminding me of stuff today and I'm like, I know, I know, I know that I was reminding her of things.

I reminded you of 2 things today.

So I I already knew what he—

on your—

yes, you're right. So yes, so you didn't—

you are not necessarily at home at 3 in the morning, you're operating on like 3 hours of sleep. You might be a little tired, cranky, and unresourceful.

What about you?

I'm good.

Oh, okay, okay, you're good. I'm tired, but you haven't been cranky at all tonight. Not at all. We're gonna tell you about our night last night. I want to tell you about my night last night. I was supposed to pick Seth up from at the airport at midnight, and I geared myself up for it. And it was 10 o'clock and I was feeding Max dinner, and I was like, this is okay, I still have 2 hours, I still have a list of stuff.

I did offer to take an Uber or drive myself.

Okay, I still had— I was not gonna go to sleep until he was home. You all know that. If you can go to sleep when your husband is flying, power to you. I cannot. So I was like gearing myself up. I'm like, you have 2 hours left, you've got a list of things to do, it's gonna fly by, it's gonna be midnight, he's gonna be home soon. So midnight comes and goes, it's like 12:20, and I'm like trying not to hyperventilate because, yeah, it was so loud, it scared the crap out of me. The thunder and the lightning were so loud last night. My dog was going nuts. So I was going nuts because Seth was in the air while all this was happening, and my dog was going nuts, and he was making it even worse. So I was like spiraling out of control. I was like, can he— can they fly in this weather? Are they here? Where did they go? Is he safe? Did lightning hit the plane? I'm like going off into a tailspin of emotions of— he's in the air, I don't know if he's okay. And I was not in a good place. So I was like, okay, I was like, you don't know anything. You don't know if he was detoured somewhere. You don't know if he's still flying and not here yet. You don't know anything. So wait. I, I think I texted at some point and you texted back.

Well, I texted when we landed in Rochester because we were diverted to Rochester due to the weather.

So when I got the text that he was on the ground in Rochester and that they detoured, I cannot begin to tell you the relief that I felt. I was like, "I'm never letting him fly again!

This is too many emotions!" There's a lot of emoi and I was experiencing a lot of emotions in the air as well.

And lots of turbulence.

It was the bumpiest plane flight I've ever been on. It was not pleasant.

The weather last night was insane. Did you hear it? My kids slept through it. Not only did my kids sleep through the very loud thunder, they also slept through the dog going absolutely crazy. They slept through thunder and the dog whining, scratching at their door. I finally decided to put his leash on him and bring him downstairs and make him sit next to me because I didn't want him to wake up the whole house. So I got the dog going crazy, I got Seth flying with lightning and thunder, and I'm like— so anyways, Seth landed. I picked— he— you got in my car around 2:30 AM, right?

We had to refuel, turn around, fly back to Buffalo after the weather cleared.

So 2:30 AM he got in my car, 3:00 AM we went to sleep, 6:00 AM I got up And that was our evening. And so yes, I am definitely unresourceful and cranky and definitely not letting things roll off of my back tonight. So Seth reminding me of things and I'm like, leave me alone, I know that already.

Yes, not your normal reaction.

Uh, what would be my normal reaction?

Thank you for reminding me, honey.

So that's not the topic.

That's not what we're here to talk about, just catching you up.

But your husband flying in bad weather, not a good experience. I, I wouldn't recommend it. I, I definitely— I'm wondering about all the people who are flying all over during all the bad weather that's going on today. There's like a hurricane warning in the south Right? Yes. I mean, okay, I'm going to move to my topic. So we're late. We had a football— I was picking up from a football game and I'm exhausted from 3 hours of sleep. So that's where I'm at. But we're going to do this and we're going to, we're going to help talk about homecoming and the whirlwind of homecoming. So let's talk about last week, honey.

That was a very busy week.

Whoa, Max was leaving the house again. Max left the house more than usual last week and was like, there is so much going on. And I was like, my sentiments exactly, Max. So Max was in the Powderpuff game. So what that is, is the boys are the cheerleaders and the girls are the football players. And what that entailed was a bunch of practices that he had to go to. So not only did he have his regular football practices for his football team, he also had the Powderpuff practices. So here's what I'm gonna say about Ella, because I love how it went for Ella last week. Ella has gotten more involved in school, and almost every morning is like, I'm going in early for yearbook, I'm going in early for the executive committee, I'm going in early for drama club, Like, I'm driving her into school early like every single day. So I love that she's gotten more involved. And what that meant for last week is that when you're part of student council, you are involved in all of the events that are going on. And so she helped plan and decorate and create all the things. So she was a part of everything last week. Did you notice that?

I did.

So They did— I don't remember this for us, so you're gonna correct me if I'm wrong. Corey, Sean, Bill— oh my God, Julie! They all went. Okay, Julie, where did you go to high school? A lot of you went to East with us, so tell me if my memory is incorrect, but South did an outdoor movie night one night. The next night was the JV football game. The next night was the pep rally, the parade, the Powderpuff game. The next day was the community Billy's Bash, followed by the varsity game, followed by the homecoming dance. I don't remember having all— I remember the pep rally.

I don't— we didn't have— I don't remember a movie night. Um, no, we had a pep rally, a football game, and a dance. I don't— there was no East Bash that I knew about.

Nikki said that she that they do a fire pit outside at East? Stop, Tanner.

Nowadays, I don't remember.

I don't remember that. No, but like there were like, I just remember a pep rally, a football game, and a homecoming dance. This was a whole big rigmarole. So we're gonna start off with telling you, get your kids involved because be in the rigmarole. If they are part of the planning, decorating, creating the float. If they're part of all the things, then they go to all the things. So tip number 1 is encourage them to get involved. So we talked about all the festivities, and I know that we get overwhelmed as parents, but why does he come when we're doing this?

And he wants to be in the show.

Are you asking to be part of the show, Tanner?

He's got FOMO.

Oh, so I know that all of the things are overwhelming. We understand. But here's what I want to say, and I really want Seth's response to this. As we were going through all the things, and as I saw like Ella getting all dressed up, and as I was shopping with Ella for her dress, I was like, soak this in. Like, smell the roses, enjoy the journey, and don't just feel the overwhelmed feelings. Like, actually, like Soak it in and enjoy it.

Yeah, I agree 100%. I would much rather have her be involved in everything and out doing stuff with people and having fun and participating than her sitting home bored on her phone.

Oh my gosh, I love when they're doing stuff at school. And here's what I want to say: sometimes your kids— there are lots of places to see what clubs and sports there are to join. There are lots of signs and stuff all over school. There's a, um, there are TVs around their school that like rotate.

Digital displays.

Yes, thank you. So there's lots of opportunities for your kids to see what's going on, but what I'm gonna say is I think sometimes kids don't know what to join, and I think that if they could talk to maybe their teachers or their counselor, their guidance counselor, that they can steer them towards things like drama club, like art club, Ella's friend loves art, so she's joining all the art things. So it's like there is a place for every kid and every kid is so different. So I'm learning what each of my kids— like Lily's on 2 cheer teams. Lily has picked cheerleading, so she's super busy with that. And Ella has her array of things, and Ella wants to be very involved with drama club. So we just have to find the little nuggets of what our kids love and what their strengths are and help them get involved because that's where the happiness lies in high school. Wouldn't you say?

I would.

So let's talk about the clothes for homecoming. So I hope that there isn't— I'm sure there's a child out there that had this issue. I hope that somebody didn't skip the dance because they had nothing to wear. That would make me really sad, and maybe I can find out more about that so that I could maybe help with that. But I hope that everybody who wanted to was able to go because, you know, you have to pay for the ticket, you have to pay for the clothes, and I want to say that if money is the issue, you know, we have to figure out what are the barriers to homecoming. 'cause there's a lot. It's not all fun and games and roses and sunshine. Like some of you might have had smooth sailing through last week and it might have been all roses and sunshine. I love talking to moms, you know that about me. I talked to so many moms last week. It was not all roses and sunshine. So, close. If you can't afford a ticket, if you can't afford the clothes, I guarantee you the school will help you. I hope that people don't get embarrassed. I hope that they reach out. That's just one barrier. But let's talk about clothes madness. So my mom used to say to me, you don't need a new dress for every dance. And I totally disagree with her. Like, I'm not even gonna discuss it with Seth. Like, you, I am acting like a spoiled brat right now.

You said it.

I want my girls, I can afford to pay for my girls to get a new dress for every dance. And I want that for them. That's not a necessity. If you want your kids to wear the same dress, please, that is totally fine. I'm just saying to Seth, I wanted to take Ella out to get a new dress. I just had to find the time. So you wanna talk about homecoming barriers. If your kid is involved in everything and if it's homecoming time and there's more stuff and she's at play rehearsal and she's at all the things, I'm like, dude, you have Sunday to shop. It's 80 degrees and we might wanna be in our pool that is still open, but we gotta shop, this is our only time. So I got to watch her try on a ton of dresses. It was so much fun. And Seth is like, I thought you were done at 2:30 picking a dress. Well—

Right, when I thought we had decided via text message on a dress.

I was texting Seth pictures. Um, everybody picked— oh, you picked the black, the bow dress. Okay, a lot of people— she was texting and I was texting— most people picked the blue sparkles. But Ella— I have to tell my friends this— Ella said she felt more elegant and older in the black dress. All right, so you liked the black dress better?

It was my first choice.

Okay, so after the dress, Seth, We got shoes and jewelry.

Of course. It's not like she doesn't have school shoes and jewelry that she could wear. It's gotta be new to go with the new dress, right?

Well, I was gonna, I was gonna give her my jewelry, but that's a whole nother story. She wanted new jewelry and she picked it and whatever. So let's move on to Max and clothes. Max bought a ticket to homecoming. I'm going to give you a mom tip right now. That works wonders. Be casual and nonchalant with your children. The whole homecoming experience, I was like, are you gonna go? What do you think? I wasn't like— I was not gonna say you have to go. I was like, you don't have to go. Are you gonna go? Did you buy a ticket? I was very nonchalant, which I think worked best. I think it worked really well.

Way better than the other version that just drives them away.

Right. We don't want to drive our kids in the other direction. We want to— we need to be just like calm, peaceful, nonchalant. It works. At least it works with Max.

Right.

So we knew that Lily— Ella bought a ticket. We found out that Max bought a ticket. Max was like, don't get attached to the fact that I bought a ticket because they planned the football game the same day as the dance, and I might be exhausted, and I'm not going if I'm exhausted. So I was like, whatever, Max, like, if you go, you go. If you don't, you don't. Whatever. So I was like, you know, you have to have clothes. Every woman out there is going to relate to the fact that your son does not want to shop for clothes and doesn't want to try on clothes. So I called in reinforcements. Yes, mom tip: call in reinforcements. So I asked him at least 3 times to try on his clothes, and I'm like, my only day—

if it doesn't fit, right?

I'm like, my only day to shop is Sunday, so you have to tell me by Sunday if you need clothes, because I will grab you stuff. I won't even make him go. I will guess all the sizes. I will guess your size. He doesn't even want to come with me. I literally go grab him stuff that I think is his size. So, ah, so I drove myself nuts with the clothes and finding out, okay, finding Ella a dress, making sure Max had clothes and the clothes actually fit. My friend is brilliant, okay? So mom tip from my friend, she measured her daughter, took her measurements ordered her dress online.

Pretty smart.

I want to tell you, Seth, I never thought to do that.

Surprise you. The fun of trying on 27 different dresses before you pick one.

I really like how Ella and I did it, but I like how she did it too.

Yes, hers was very efficient and yours had a fun bonding dressing room experience.

So she invited us to do something that Sunday and I was like, I would love to go do that with you. But it's my only day to shop with Ella. And she was like, oh, I ordered it. And I was like, ah, you just saved yourself the hours of time that I just spent at the mall.

Yes.

Okay, so Max had his clothes. We played it cool. He went, he had a decent time. I did volunteer at the dance. Max told me that I wasn't allowed to volunteer at the dance. Sophomore year, freshman year. I said to him on the day of the dance, I said, listen— I didn't want to turn him off from going— I'm the vice president of the PTA, I should probably go volunteer. And he was like, okay, that's fine, but like, don't like come through the crowd of dancers to like find me because they're like in one big there was no way that I was gonna try to go find him. I was gonna leave them alone and stand in the corner. I literally stood in the corner with the drinks, with the drinks and the refreshments and the snacks. But I want to tell you, I did get to see Ella dance the whole night. I couldn't find Max, but Ella was easy, and Ella was dancing with her friends the whole night and having a ball. So that was amazing. Okay, so let's talk about our 3 kids in the 3 different scenarios of homecoming. Okay, let's talk about Lily and what homecoming is going to look like for Lily. Are you ready for this?

I'm ready for your hypothetical projection.

Okay, hypothetical projection of Lily in the future in homecoming. Lily is— wouldn't you say Lily is what people would call my mini me?

Yes.

So she's a social butterfly, the more the merrier. She's going to want to go with at least her best friends, probably a big group. She's probably going to have a date. Lily's going to have a whole plan, and I won't even put out there the other expensive things that I'm thinking Lily's going to ask for.

Oh boy.

But Lily is expensive and high maintenance and is going to have a whole thing planned out. Okay, moving on to Ella. Ella is— she's got her group of friends, her little tight-knit group of friends, and that's who she wants to go with. She doesn't want a big group, and she doesn't want a big rigmarole, and she just wants to take some pictures with her friends and go to the dance and dance with them.

Seems to be your word of the night, rigmarole.

Yes, because it was a big rigmarole.

I'm normally in your everyday vocabulary.

Ah, okay, I'll stop saying that.

It's okay. No, it wasn't criticism, it was just an observation.

So I would say Ella is low maintenance.

Yep.

Easy.

Yep.

Wants a small thing.

Yep.

You know what, Ella's bat mitzvah wasn't even a huge thing.

Well, you were also traumatized, and it was also relatively post-COVID.

Okay, moving on to Max. Yeah, Max does not want to make any plans. Max wants to see how he feels.

5 minutes ahead of time.

Um, I couldn't tell you if Max was going to the dance. I couldn't tell you what his plan was. I just left him.

Yeah, I didn't know. When he said, Dad, can you come tie my tie? I said, what do you need the tie for? And I went upstairs and said, what do you need a tie for? And he was dressed and ready other than the tie. Like, oh, I guess he's going.

I was like, if he goes, he goes. See, I unattached. Unattached. I was like, and, and he had a decent time, and I saw him talking to people. Whatever. Um, Max doesn't want to make plans. So here's my proposition to you. How about if someone makes Max plans? He has a group of friends who make plans. I don't think Max is making the plans. And for prom, he needs someone to make him a prom plan, or he won't make a plan. That's just how he is. Not everybody likes to make plans. Oh, Ella's plans. Okay, Ella wanted to have her friends over for pizza and pictures before the dance. I was like, who's coming? I think so-and-so and so-and-so is coming, but I'm not sure. And I asked her the whole week, so I gave up.

I texted enough food for 10 people.

I texted the mothers. Well, I didn't know if parents were staying, right? I wasn't—

invite them.

I wasn't very clear about parents staying. I didn't know if parents were gonna stay and eat and take pictures. I didn't know who was coming, so I texted the mothers. I mean, sometimes we still need to text the mothers. That's my mom tip. Like, we can encourage our kids and teach our kids to make plans, and Ella's learning, but sometimes we need to text the mothers. Am I right?

You are right.

Okay.

Can I, can I ask you a dumb question?

Mm-hmm.

So you have the parents come and drop off the kids at our house. And then you talk to them over there by the door for 15 minutes. They stand there and talk by the stairs. I'm like, why are we standing here? Why can't— if they're going to talk for longer than 30 seconds to drop off, if they're talking, why don't we actually have them come in? Why don't people come in and sit down? Oh, stay a while. So maybe we should have said, why don't you actually come in?

Well, I did.

They didn't listen?

No, because, um, they had other things they were going to do. Okay, so they wanted to— I think that if I read between the lines and if I'm right, they wanted to go outside and take some pictures, and then they wanted to go do their things.

Okay, that makes more sense. I did not know that. Yes, thank you for telling me.

Yes, so I've been wondering about that. There were definitely sad moms last week, and I want to talk about that for a minute, and then we need to tell our kids good night. But, um, there were definitely sad parents last week. There were definitely sad kids last week. Not everybody was included in things, not everybody wanted to go. I think that the, the first thing that I would love to say is that we shouldn't assume that our kids are being includers, and we shouldn't assume that our kids are being included. So I think those are two assumptions that we shouldn't make. And I think that the best way to raise an includer is by being an includer. So I'm trying to show my children how to do that. I'm trying to teach them the more the merrier. The— that is a big lesson that I learned from my mother. My mother is a good includer.

Awesome.

So she taught me to be this way. I learned it from her. And the problem with that is that my kids are not me. And I'm a good— I want to include people. I'm an extrovert and I like the more the merrier. But if you're Ella, who is not me at all, Ella doesn't agree to those terms. So Ella, you know, as much as she's super sweet, and if she sees someone sitting alone, she's the girl who's gonna go talk to them, but that's a one-on-one thing, so that works for her to to be sweet in that way. She doesn't necessarily want to be sweet and have all the sophomore girls over to her house. Like, that's very sweet. That's overwhelming to her.

Yes. So, I mean, to me—

so we need to realize that our kids aren't us, and we need to realize that we need to teach our kids to be includers. And I don't want you to assume that your kids are including. And that goes for me too. I talk to my kids about it too. As far as helping your kids to be included, I'm really big on encouraging my kids to reach out to people and not wait for people to text them. Like, if my kids want plans, I'm like, don't sit around and wait for people to ask you. You do the asking and encourage friendships, encourage joining things. I think the best way for our kids to be included and have a group to do things with is to join things at school. And I wanted to say something else about including— oh, I know what I wanted to say about sad parents. There were lots of kids who did not want to go. And I was at that dance. I was there the whole night. And it was loud. There was music. There were tons of kids. I can totally understand that that's not everybody's scene. Like, your kid might excel in a totally different area. Your kid might join the band or, or, you know, be, be first violin or have straight A's, or your kid's strengths might have nothing to do with enjoying a dance. So I think that we need to understand what our kids are about and what makes them happy, and I don't necessarily think that homecoming makes every kid happy.

Right, and there were probably some kids who were sad because they wanted to go and they didn't go. You're talking about sad kids that didn't want to go. There are probably more sad kids that wanted to go and didn't, in my opinion.

Well, and one of the things I wrote about— you can read the whole blog at wineinclusa.com. I did write about this topic, and one of the things I wrote is that as a parent, I think one of our jobs is to be a private investigator. So we're listening for clues. So, like, we might not know why our kid doesn't want to go. They might not want to talk about it, but as you keep the lines of communication open and listen, things come out. So, like, there's little nuggets throughout the week that you might figure out what's going on. So, what are the barriers? Is it something that you can help with, or is it something like, "It's way too overstimulating for me, please don't make me go. Like, that's totally different, right? You know, um, there were kids sitting at a table the whole night relaxing. Good for them. Maybe they don't like to dance. There were kids like Ella who danced the entire night. Like, that would have been me.

Yes, I'm sure.

So if there are any reasons that anybody is sad about homecoming, I really want to tell you that after talking to a ton of moms last week, I can promise you 150% that you are not alone and that someone else is feeling exactly how you are feeling. Not everybody had a great week. Not everybody loved all of the hoopla. I didn't say it!

I'm impressed, you switched it up.

And some kids are big social extroverts and they were in their element last week, so let's just embrace who our children are, let's help them find their strengths, and let's ride the wave with them. And we got through a crazy week, Seth.

We did indeed.

So we'll see how— last thing about homecoming, just because they didn't want to go this year doesn't mean they won't want to go next year. So I'm just putting that out there to you from experience. Yeah, so I Are you timing me?

No, it was for something else.

Okay, so let's talk about who's on the podcast because I brought her book prepared.

I love it.

Okay, Unconditional: How a Mother's Love Rescued Her Rebellious Son. I interviewed Suzanne Rorigan. This is her book. If you want to borrow it and you're local, let me know because I read it and I enjoyed it and I'm happy to share. All about— I talked to— I loved talking to Suzanne. You're really going to enjoy her. It comes out on Friday, and she talked all about raising her rebellious son. We didn't even talk about alcohol or any of the dangerous things about homecoming. That's another topic that we'll have to get to, but, um, that's another stressor for parents, is, you know, she talked about her son's drinking and his rebelliousness and drugs and lots of things that I didn't even— she educated me. Um, so listen to the podcast. And what else, honey?

Like, rate, review, share, subscribe, please. And make sure you go to winepalooza.com, check out the Linktree for all of Rebecca's amazing resources, and make sure to sign up for the 3 times a week free parenting and marriage email newsletter that has over 8,000 subscribers right now.

I don't know how you do that. There's no way. Like, if you don't do this with me one night, you still have to show up and do that part because I cannot do that part.

Yes, you can, but I'll write it down.

But I want to say, I would love for you to come join our free Whiny Pooza Mom group on Facebook. It's called Whiny Pooza Mom, right?

Yes, that's what it's called.

And you know, it's a wonderful supportive community for parents, so please come and find us and share this with a friend that you think would benefit from it. So we're gonna go say goodnight to our kids. Have a wonderful week, and we will see you 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.