Whinypaluza Wednesday Live: Riding The Wave of Change

Happy Winey Palooza Wednesday, Ella Bella!

No need to whine, it's Winey Palooza Wednesday. Have some wine and join us on the Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Green Family. Cha-cha chicken!

Well, that'll cheer me up. Thanks for singing. Yeah, I appreciate it. You're making me smile. You want to run away now, right? Will you stay close in case your sister doesn't come down to close us out? Thank you very much.

Oops.

How is everyone doing today? We are live on Wednesday night and we are— oh, thanks, Seth. Hi, Seth. We are live on Facebook in multiple places. Hi, Kristen! She's even got her name going on, her picture and her little building. What is going on? This is so cool. She's learning the new technology with us. So you can always watch us every Wednesday night at 9 o'clock, or you can listen the following week. It is aired on my podcast to people who would rather listen. So there's a lot going on as usual. Is there ever a dull moment?

I think we've had a couple, 3, 3 maybe in 14 years.

A few dull moments in 14 years. So believe it or not, I am allowed in school this week. Don't fall over. No parents are allowed in school. And this week for spring pictures, I have actually been in the school system and can tell you 100% without a doubt that the teachers, the staff, the administration are amazing. And it's not that I forgot, I just was surrounded by their awesomeness. And I guarantee you that they care about your kids. That's where I wanted to start. But it is fantastic and exhausting to be back at school. And I want to— before I tell you my topic this week, I want to thank my fabulous husband who has been home. I booked Seth ages ago, months ago, and I said, I have 3 picture days and I need you and I'm so sorry. And I asked him to work at home for 3 days so that I could go volunteer at school. So I got a text message today. Do you remember what it said?

Why don't you remind everybody? Tell everybody.

How do you get any work done? Yes, is what he said.

When they're all home.

So thank you, honey.

I should not have scheduled any meetings. I should have just Had I not been off last week for spring break, I could have also been off this week. It did not work out, but they're, they're still alive and they all got fed.

Well, thank you, and I'm sorry, and I won't volunteer for 3 days again.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

3 days in a row.

Yes, 3 days in a row.

This is, this is very, um, that is Marcy Abramski. Oh, Marcy's here! Hi, Marcy!

Mrs. Paulzak.

Hi, Mrs. Paulzak! How is everyone doing? Marci, chime in when you have a moment and tell us what's going on in your school district. I'm gonna tell you our topic this week is ride the wave of change. Is that what I called it?

We're riding the wave.

Riding the wave of change. I don't even remember my title, but the reason why I picked this topic is because our school district just announced that elementary students are going—

are—

can go back to school 5 days a week starting on April 26th. So we're excited because the current model doesn't really work well for our 3rd grader, Lily. Um, no announcement about middle school or high school yet. That's staying the same, which I know parents— some parents are upset about. Um, So the elementary students can go back. I know that there are parents who are still going to keep their kids home and do remote. I know there are hybrid parents who don't feel comfortable with the 5 days and more kids at school and will keep their kids home. So that means that teachers might be shuffled around, which is making people feel— have lots of feelings.

Yes.

So Marcy, I would love to hear if there's any announcements in your school district.

Connie is here as well.

Hi, Connie. So the numbers I have been told, I am not good, I am not tracking them. I have been told that they're going up. So our school district continues to surprise me because with rising numbers, they're still letting the kids, the little kids go back to school. So I said to Lily at dinner tonight, I said, please do not get your hopes up. I said, this is the plan. I'm like, until it actually happens, we don't really know that it's going to happen. What if they make a new decision? And I said to her, when you do go back to school, you don't know if you're going back to school for the rest of the year. You don't know if things are gonna change. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Okay, so my point is, I have gone into this school year with the expectation of change. I cannot believe how the teachers and kids have had to adapt this year. I have had the pleasure of talking to almost every teacher in the building because they come in with their class for pictures. And one teacher said, "Wow, we had to be flexible before this year." She's like, "Now we really know how to be flexible." New definition of the word. So I feel bad for all of the— there's a lot of positive feelings. I think a lot of parents are feeling excited with the possibility, but I know that there's a lot of parents who are having other feelings that are not so positive, that, you know, they're uncomfortable with, you know, sending their kids back to school. They're uncomfortable with the thought of a new teacher. There are lots of of feelings. And I think that we can sink or we can swim is what I was thinking today. And I have chosen and decided to swim through this year and just kind of, um, the saying is learn to surf. And I'm just hoping that everybody can try to swim with me and learn to surf with me and to just kind of expect change. And I know that if you're like me, you might not like change, and you, you might like stability, and you might like consistency. And I don't think that we can expect any of that this year. And I wanted to talk about what do we have control over and what don't we have control over. And I think that that is going to help us through through the rest of the school year. And who the heck knows what next year is gonna bring? I am sending Max to high school next year, and I said to Max— Max is home, Max is remote— and it's really interesting how few kids are in school the older that you get. And I don't know exactly what's going on there. That's a whole nother topic of conversation. But I said to Max, what happens if you have school 5 days a week next year.

We're hoping.

I'm hoping.

I'm hoping.

Well, it's gonna be interesting if we send him to high school next year and he's home, you know what I mean?

Yes, yes.

Tanner, please stop.

The, the idea of remote high school starting is not thrilling to me.

Okay, so we're going to What do we have control over? Step 1, we have control over being mindful and being in today and being present in what's going on today. We have no idea what next week will bring. We have no idea what next year will bring. But let's talk more about what we do have control over. And we have control over how we react to things, how we perceive things, and we have control over our own emotions and what we model to our children. And I think one of the biggest lessons that I have been taught is that anxious parents have anxious children. And I know that's a hard nut to swallow, but they feed off of us. And I think that if we really focus on how we are doing and keeping ourselves in check and keeping ourselves calm and teaching them how to be flexible and roll with it, that they will follow your lead. And I want to tell you that Max said to us that— do you remember this? He said to us that one of his only constants has been his parents.

He said his wonderful family.

He didn't say his parents.

He said his family, said his wonderful family.

So there are moments in parents.

Yes.

Before, before we went live, I want to tell you that Lily was screaming up or texting me and screaming that she needed toilet paper upstairs. And I was like, oh my God, they always need something. So before this, I was not feeling very warm and fuzzy.

She was not.

Ella's singing cheered me up. But when Max said to us, one of my only constants has been my family, I was like, okay, so that warms me.

Doing something right.

I was gonna say we're doing something right. That he feels that way. So your kids might not have a constant with school. They might not be finding the stability with school, but they're finding the stability in other places. Like with their parents and not necessarily with their teacher. I have to tell you that when Lily got— Lily has Max and Ella's third grade teacher this year, which I love when that happens, and I love when they follow their siblings' teachers because the teacher already knows the family. And I—

and you get suckered into being room mom every time.

Okay, that's not the topic tonight. But I will say that when she got the letter that she got the teacher, I have not been attached to that this year. I love that it's the middle of April, it's the middle of April, and she still has the same teacher. But I will tell you that I did not attach to that. And I did not attach to even the hybrid model that she has had. I just kind of am embracing that it's waves this year, it's waves of change. So what else do we have control over? I had a conversation with my friend one day about how the hybrid model was not working for Lily. This was back when it really was not going well. It has shifted and has been easier.

You've made some changes too.

It's not really great. I mean, the Thursday, Friday independent work is, eh, for us. For us. Some people love it. But my friend said to me, well, what can you do to fix it? You can hire someone to work with her on Thursday and Friday. You can send her to private school. You can find a new solution. And she gave me all these options. Like, there are things that you can do. You do have control over hiring people to help you. You do have control over which school you send your child to. Now, mind you, private schools are pretty full this year and expensive, but I mean, everyone can't afford them and they don't— a lot of them, I think, have waitlists right now. So it's not like you can necessarily have control over that. But I will also tell you, a lot of people homeschooled their kids this year because they didn't want to deal with any of this stuff. So there is stuff that you can do. The other thing that I was thinking when I was writing this blog about this topic is that we want our kids and us, we want our families to stay healthy. So what can we do to encourage that? We can do stuff like, I was just yelling at Max to take his vitamins, which Seth is gonna have to help me with. He, for some reason, is now protesting vitamins. Good times over here. My children, I keep telling them that I am trying to be a good mother. And can you help me be a good mother and take your vitamins?

Yeah, they don't care about your opinion of yourself as a good mother.

So we can feed our children healthy food. We can make sure they are getting enough sleep. We can talk about the constant hand washing that I make them do. Anyways, there's lots of stuff that we can do that we have control over. What we don't have control over. I don't have control over what the school district is going to do. I can advocate, and I have done so. I can advocate for what I believe in. I can write letters. I can attend meetings. I can talk to multiple people, but I can't control the ultimate outcome. So, we might be upset with things that they do, But I mean, what are we— can only, we can only do so much. We also don't have control over how other people are handling it and how other people are reacting or what they believe. You know, one of the things about social media, here's my question. Do people really think that they are going to post something and change someone's mind? What do you think?

I don't know. I think people like to hear themselves talk. Or post, and they like to see people's reactions or get some type of feedback. But if they honestly thought that they were going to post something and somebody else can go, oh my God, I never thought of it that way, I'm totally changing my viewpoint— that's a very optimistic viewpoint to have.

I laugh, I laugh, and I almost feel like it's, uh, political. Is that the right word? Like a political— I'm not saying political about politics. I'm saying it just feels political to post things and try to sway people's opinions. We can't control what people think. We can't control what people think about us, and we can't control how people react, but we can control ourselves and we can try to have a good influence on our family. And I will tell you that attaching to any sort of outcome this year is probably just going to frustrate yourself. And I just want you to ask yourself, do you want— how do you want to feel? And what is your desired outcome? And my desired outcome most of the day, every day, is to be happy. And I will say to myself, you're being super negative right now. Is that working for you? Or Seth will say—

I was gonna say, wait a second, if I say that, you get mad at me.

Um, it's so— yeah, we are so overdue to do a marital one.

We should probably—

should we have a marital therapist sit in the middle of us?

Aren't you a marital therapist?

Yes, but marital therapy to yourself probably doesn't work as well, right? So the problem is that I don't have control over how Seth talks to me and what tone he talks to me. We were just—

I'm so far under the I am not innocent. What? It sure sounded like it a little bit ago.

Oh my God, I don't feel— no, what I said to Seth was that I— if you don't know this already, I am a very sensitive soul. And I will say, in June I am turning 45 years old And I do see that every year my, my skin grows a little bit thicker. I don't know. I don't know, age and experience and perspective, other situations. Right. But I'm saying that when I was younger, I would have been much more affected by maybe your tone than I was.

Not meant to upset you in any way.

So I think that A lot of us could probably work on our tone, and I don't have control over how Seth talks to me, but I have control over how I talk to him. I think that we tend to mirror each other. I can focus really hard on what I am doing and hope that he follows. One of the things that I was talking to my friends about today is that our children go down this negative road and we tend to follow them. You know, like, let's say that Lily is having a meltdown. Yeah, I tend to follow her and go with her. And I have learned just through the years and through experience and through my training that I have to focus on myself more than I'm focusing on her. And if I really hone in on myself and keeping myself in check and keeping myself calm And if I, if I stay there in a good place, then she goes through her stuff and comes back to me in a better place.

And faster.

And faster versus if I try to stop the meltdown or go with her in the meltdown.

Yeah, that just makes it worse.

Then it totally escalates and takes so much longer and takes so much energy. So my point is, in all of this discussion, is really kind of challenge yourself to think about what, what do I have control over? And if you don't have control over it, find something that you do have control over to make the situation better. And like I said, advocate, advocate all you want and find ways to do it. And, you know, we have a bunch of us advocated to change the first day of school next year And it, it worked. And it showed me that— it reinforced the fact that our voices work. So do what you can, focus on what you can. And the stuff that you can't change, find a way to manage it for yourself as best you can, just for your own sanity. And we are here. For you to vent to. Vent away. Come join my Whiny Palooza Mom group on Facebook and vent away. Tell us your struggles, tell us your successes. I'm focused on just building this like nice safe community for people to, I don't know, grow together. Grow together.

You are not alone.

Be together, grow together. And I have so many ideas for fun things to do. I've got my May challenge all cooked up. And what else do I want to tell them, Seth? I want to talk to them about the podcast.

Yep, who's coming up?

You know, let's not ask that question.

Okay, there's a podcast. No, no, I want to listen to it.

No, no, no, stop. That's not what I was gonna say. What I was gonna say was I messed up again. And I really need to prep before I go live to know exactly who's next because I screwed up a couple weeks in a row. And I want to tell you that last week, last Friday, if you missed it, I got to talk to Christy and Jamie about the Bella Kids Sale. And if you're local, the Bella Kids Sale is the weekend of April 23rd. It's an awesome consignment sale. I think they're still accepting stuff. It's an awesome way to clear out your house. It's an awesome way to go buy stuff that is reasonably priced instead of spending a fortune. And I learned so much from them about consignment business decluttering. So go listen to it if you didn't. I loved talking to them, learned so much. Every week I learn so much. I call it my weekly therapy session because I love it so much and get so much out of it. So I hope that you are listening with me because I do listen to it because I learn better when I listen versus when I have the conversation. So I hope that you are listening with me, and I am cooking up some contests and— no, prizes. What is the word, Seth? Prizes. Contest prizes. I'm going to give prizes to— we're going to give you more details, I think, next week, but we're going to do giveaways for people who leave 5-star reviews and ratings. And forgive me as I learn all the lingo. Seth is like so good at this stuff.

Well, we do do it all day, every day.

Um, I still have so much to learn and am loving the process of sharing all of this information with you. I hope that you're enjoying it. I welcome your topic requests. I welcome your podcast guest requests. You are welcome to come on and talk to me. I was listening. You were listening? How did it go?

I really liked it.

Yeah, we can send you the link if you want and you can join us live and ask questions. We should do that. We should do a marital session where people get to ask live questions of us. That would be awesome. What do you think, folks?

So, Lily, anything you want to say about school or change before we wrap up?

Yeah.

What do you want to say?

Um, I want to say that I agree with Mommy when she said to not get my hopes up, but I'm kind of excited to go back. I really hope that we get to go back.

I know.

And some people might like going hybrid, so that's just my opinion.

Well, and, and you're making an excellent point. That I want to reinforce that every child is different, and our 3 children are very different. And I will tell you, Max thrives with remote learning, and Ella and Lily don't like it. So every kid is different, and your decisions don't have to be the same for every kid, which we have talked about before. So thank you so much for joining us tonight, and have a fabulous week. Lily!

Thank you for watching Writing Blues on Wednesday with the Green Family. Cha-cha-chicken!

Thanks, honey.