Just Winging It

After a week off, Patrick and John have a monstrous mash-up of catching up to do. The dads talk about how to level up family vacations, take advantage of nature hikes, do Halloween costumes, and more.

How many children do we want to have? How will we know when we have the right number? The decision on whether or not to have more children can be jam-packed with financial, logistical, emotional, and practical considerations. John and Patrick sort through it all while it's a fresh conversation they frequently have with their spouses: should they bring a third child into the world?

There are some big decisions that come along with making the choice to get a pet, particularly when we've already got little ones running around. There's another set of tough decisions when it comes to treating a sick pet. Patrick and John recall their experiences with pets, before and with kids, as John weighs the options around putting his cat down and (eventually) bringing a new one into the family.

In their first ever live show, Patrick and John chat with an audience at the Somerville Armory Cafe to explore what the fudge they are doing. As parents, we're faced with this sort of question constantly; am I making the right decisions with my parenting style? Where do I find meaning in life? And what the flip-phone am I doing recording a live show about parenting? 

In 2005, the writer David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech that would take on a life of its own, traveling far beyond the audience he delivered it to that day. It spread all across the world and would deeply influence countless people. Patrick shares how he came to discover the speech and why it and Wallace's work left such a lasting mark on his life. He and John unpack the significance of this speech and how it informs their lives as parents. Listen to the full speech or watch this short film with an abridged version of the speech.

John is traveling back in time to bring episode four, FOMO For Parents, back to the future. Yeah okay, it's a fancy way of saying Patrick and John had a hectic week and couldn't record a new episode for you. Sometimes, going back to the advice you gave yourself a year and a half ago is just what the doctor ordered. John begins the episode with an original, never-before-listened-to (and never-should-be-listened-to) reflection on what made episode four such a great one, and why time management for parents remains an important practice in insanity.

Wouldn't it be handy to have actual guides to planning activities for young children? Author and former educator Autumn McKay decided to turn the creative activities she planned with her own kids into a range of useful guides for other parents. Her engineer husband, Seth, decided to create coloring books to teach kids how things are made. This enterprising duo talk to Patrick and John about what it's like to author their own books while managing three kids of their own. And because we all like you so much, they offer a special free resource for Just Winging It listeners: bestmomideas.com/justwingingit

There are some children's books that stand out and strike a particularly strong chord with only a few words. That succinct power became a trademark of the prolific author Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Many parents know her from reading one of her many children's books. Even more know her from an essay that quickly went viral after she wrote it for the New York Times only days before she died of cancer, "You May Want To Marry My Husband." John shares excerpts from one of Rosenthal's memoirs, Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal, and contemplates with Patrick the unique perspective she shared with the world.

Much of this podcast has focused on how to break out of auto-pilot mode in our everyday lives as a parent. What would it look like to take it up a notch and totally disrupt life to discover more as a family together? Cully Lundgren made this choice with his family when they decided to pickup their life and move it all to a rural village in Nicaragua. Cully joins John and Patrick on the show to talk about what spurred them to live abroad for nearly a year and what it has meant to them now that their back. You'll want to read the full story after listening: MOM, THERE'S A SCORPION IN MY PANTS: One Family's Year of Living Purposefully in Rural Nicaragua by Cully Lundgren.

Each year the end of summer seems to come more quickly. Back to school season hangs in the air. Anticipation, anxiety, excitement, worry; our kids go through the spectrum of emotions, and so do we. Patrick and John chat about this latest back-to-school season, with a mix of kids just starting school and going back again, working through how they support their kids and get through it themselves.

Going on vacation with young kids often means hours-long car rides. If all goes well, the journey can be as much fun as the destination. If not, it can make for a rough vacation. John and Patrick talk about their approach to enjoying family road trips, or sometimes just getting through them.

Remember life before social media? It's difficult to recall how we stayed connected with our network of friends before Facebook, but somehow we did. Social media is here to stay, so Patrick and John ponder this question: Has this powerful connector of people across the world made our lives better or worse?

Getting into a rhythm is pretty essential to parenting. But what happens when routine becomes a little too routine and we fall into patterns that might benefit from being broken? John and Patrick dig further into how to stay motivated, change up our repertoire, and make the choice to actively parent.

The task of thinking up new ways to keep our kids engaged each day can be exhausting. So how do we keep it from feeling like a burden? Sometimes we just need some fresh ideas. Patrick walks John through the crazy, creative festival of activities he planned for his kids, and breaks down how other parents can have fun with planning out engaging—even educational—activities.

A trip to the beach is typically equated with rest and relaxation. But now going to the beach with little kids is pretty much the opposite. And yet, we still decide to do summer outings to the beach as a family. John and Patrick chat about how to beach with kids and keep it from being awful.

Healthy eating and exercise will get you pretty far in life, yet there's still the major mental challenge in our day-to-day that is stress. In this latest of the healthy living trilogy of episodes, Patrick and John navigate practicing mindfulness to stay present (and sane) amidst hectic parenting life.

Working out is one aspect of taking care of yourself and living a while, but a healthy diet is equally important. And with this too, being a parent means we've got to model what it looks like to eat right. So... what does it look like? John and Patrick talk about their continuing journeys to find healthier diets; from junk food college days to the modern day foodie adult times. Needless to say, they've still got some work to do.

We all know we're supposed to get in some exercise every week in order to live long, healthy, happy lives. How exactly do we pull it off when work and parenting devour most of our days? Patrick and John haven't necessarily figured this one out all the way (as you can tell looking at them), but in this episode they talk about how they've managed to cobble together some workout routines that get in that critical physical activity even amidst full schedules.

When's the last time you had a real conversation with your neighbor? Or asked someone at work more than the obligatory, "How are you?" These days that kind of connection to people in our real everyday lives can feel pretty distant. John and Patrick reflect on how they operate in their day-to-day with people beyond their close family and friends to consider how they might disrupt things and maybe serve as better examples to their watchful kids.

After a couple weeks off from recording, it's time to catch up on what's going on with Patrick, John and their families. A smorgasbord of topics, featuring some of the latest challenges with food, tales from Great Britain, the art of dance, and, as always, pee and poop shenanigans.