#292: Spring Bucket List

0:00Emma You're listening to the Beautiful Mess Podcast, your cozy comfort listen. I'm your host, Emma Chapman. Elsie And I'm your host, Elsie Larson. Emma And in this week's episode, we're sharing our spring bucket list. Since it's officially the first week of spring, it's still pretty cold where we live, so a lot of this is wishful thinking, but it's fun to plan things to look forward to. And we're also sharing an extra hot, hot take debate about kids and iPads. Oh, get ready for that.

0:10Elsie You know it's gonna be bad when people evoke the word iPad. Emma iPad, kid you're like, oh. Who you talking to? What are you gonna say? Everyone's gonna be mad one way or the other. Elsie Yep, yep. Okay, before we jump in, I have a little tale to tell so yesterday, okay? So to back up every month, once or twice, every month, I order this beautiful, gorgeous sandwich from big mamas, and it is one of my favorite lunches of the month. What's it called? It's called the Jacqueline, okay? And we it's this coffee shop that we used to live on the street when we were younger, and it's just very special.

0:20Their menu hasn't changed in 20 years, which is pretty cool. Emma It's next door to our old store that we used to have. Our store is not they are. Elsie Yes, yes. Now our old store is now an old lady tea room, and it's awesome. It's so good. My daughters love it. One of them just went there for her birthday and bought a whole bunch of cocktail rings. It's just wonderful. So anyway, I ordered the sandwich a couple times a month. It's our special thing that we do.

0:27And so I was sitting down to eat, like my half of my sandwich that I love so much, and I don't know, I walked away from the table for one minute, and then I see that one of our dogs has jumped onto the table, stolen my sandwich, and is running around the house with the sandwich. And they're both like, they're so excited, you know, like the run where they're like, butt is down. They're so excited. So they're doing that running their full speed for pugs, and I cannot catch them. I'm like, chasing them around the whole first floor of our house trying to get it back. At this point, I'm like, not even trying to salvage it. I was just trying to get it away from them. Yeah, the mess. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, finally, I get the sandwich away from them, and I reach down to pick them up. So I'm gonna put them in their kennel while I finish my lunch, try again round two, and I, like, all of a sudden have like, the worst pain in my life, like my back, like, from just like, I don't know, chasing the dogs or whatever. I like, could not even barely stand. Oh God, and I know, and I was like, crying. I put them in their kennel. I was like, walking

0:38around. I was like, scared. I was terrified that this was like, the first of a long term, like, because my husband has been through physical therapy recently, and like, that kind of stuff is, is just like, I like, could barely stand. I couldn't sit. I was like, kind of trying to stretch. And it was like, the most painful thing I have ever experienced. And so anyway, more than an hour later, my husband comes home, and I'm laying on the couch crying.

0:43Emma You're like, my sandwich. Elsie Yes, yeah, telling him what happened with the dog stealing my sandwich, and he just starts laughing. And yeah, it's fine. It was fine. And to be to give a good end to the story, I took to Advil and later on, even by, like, later on the night, and then we woke up this morning, I was like, Thank God, it is gone. I'm not even like, hurt. It was just a moment. It was weird. It lasted for like an hour, and then it went away.

0:50Emma I've had a few little things like that lately, not quite as bad as that. But I'm like, Emma, this is your sign. You need to get back in that yoga. Elsie Come on, girls. Like, I know, I know. I'm like, do I need to, like Pilates. Emma Do I need more strength, or do I need more stretching? And that's like, well, let's try a little of both here, because let's focus up. We got some years to go here. Can't be losing it the sandwich, though, what a loss. I know it's always a bar when you've been looking forward to the little thing. You know, even if it's like, I have this every month, it's still like, this was my moment. I was about to sit down have my little moment here, and you totally screwed me.

1:01Elsie They did. They thought that was one of their worst moments, but it was cute dogs, yes. So in this episode, we're gonna do our spring bucket list. It's one of our favorite traditions we do every year. So we're just gonna do our back and forth each five things that we want to try or do, or just little miniature goals we have for this upcoming season. Emma Yep, okay, I'll do my first one. So my first one is Easter baskets. Oh, so, as we all know, Easter is coming up, whatever you celebrate for Easter, whatever, man, I kind of just view it as so here's my thing with Easter baskets. I was also. So this way, with, like, doing a little Valentine's kind of, it wasn't a basket, but, like, gift assortment. I was like, I love Christmas because I like slowly collecting things that I like, know my kids are gonna love. Like, I like the kind of like, Oh, here's a book that I know that this one will love. Oh, here's this weird little hat that has, you know, like, my kids are kind of weird. They're kind of random, and I just like slowly buying things for them. But I don't like giving them presents every

1:14single day, because that obviously is not good for kids. Like, that's not a good thing to do. So I like, kind of slowly buying all the things for the Easter basket, and I slowly bought things for Valentine's. I actually feel like it's been a little bit of, like a thing that's helped me through this, like, winter season, just spending a little bit of time here or there, buying random for my kids. And right now, it's Easter I'm pretending to be the Easter Bunny, as we all do, I suppose. I don't know, we're not big on I'm like, yeah, there's an Easter Bunny. We don't talk about it that much. It's It's whatever, but yeah, I'm just like, finding little things that I know that they'll love, and it's just fun. And so if I have, like, a few minutes in the evening, sometimes I'm online looking, or if I'm like, out at a bookstore buying something, for me, I like a look in the kids area for them, because I never buy it in front of them, you know, because then they would want it. Rule number one, of course. So it's just sort of like a little I'm like, noticing, like, Oh, I like this. So I'm like, Okay, I think I'm gonna try to, like, you know, always be buying for the next little

1:25thing, because their birthdays are in June. So after the Easter baskets over, I can be thinking about and it's sort of nice, because a little bit kids interest can change kind of quickly. So it's like, you don't want to buy everything. The minute you think of it, it's like, I kind of like, I have like, little screenshots in my phone, and I kind of like, kind of keeping them there until a little bit before the actual event, in case they've changed their interest, like, they're no longer into Paddington and so I'm not going to buy the Paddington hat anymore, you know, or whatever. Anyway, this is sort of a thing that's like, kind of obvious, but I guess I'm just coming to the realization of, like, this is a good way for me to be constantly buying stuff for my kids, which is what I like to do, but not giving it to them, because that's not something I should do. So this is how I'm going to get around all of this.

1:34Elsie It's nice. No, it works for every season. I think that, I think that you're right. It is a treat. It is a treat. And it's like, fun. It's joyful. Yeah, it's fun to buy. I like collecting gifts for people. It's like making like a gift basket or a package is one of my favorite things to like, show love. Okay, so my first goal, or whatever, my first item bucket list, yeah, is I really want to get new hair. So I have had my black hair for a couple of years now, and I have been putting, I'm like, I need to get it put back to Brown, but it needs to be done by a professional. Obviously, I can't do it myself, so I need to find a professional again. And so I got a referral, and it's in my neighborhood, I can walk there nice. So I just need to book it. And then, yeah, I would like to just have, like, a little miniature glow up, like, get my nails. Like, that was one of my New Year's goals. I've only gotten them. It's almost March, and I've only gotten one nail set.

1:44Emma I saw them, though, and they were great. Elsie I tried, I tried. I'm still trying. And that's, like, a cool I think that's a good way to approach like, when you have a goal and you kind of fail right away, keep trying, you know, and don't just give up and be like, all the years over now, because it's kind of not, it's only Definitely not. So I can still have cute nails, and then, yeah, I want to try to get, like, an occasional spray tan, like, just kind of little things, like, I want to dress up more. I want to feel good about myself. So that's one of my goals.

1:52Emma All that stuff's just fun too. You know, like, your daughter, Marigold, loves all that stuff. Oh yeah. Like, girl, I get it. It's fun to, like, have someone do your hair, get your nails done or, yeah, it's, like, super fun. Yeah, it's nice. Okay, my second one is, I want to, so I've kind of been, like, slowly decorating our house. I'm starting to do a little more for years now I feel like we've talked about this. You were like, your house is so cute, but it's not decorated. And I was like, Yeah, and it won't be for like, five years.

1:58Well, I've kind of started this year adding a few things. We got a rug in the living room. Whoa, we got a rug. And I recently got these, like, bookshelves, and got them put up in the living room. So now we have more storage. It has storage underneath for kids toys, and then it has areas for books, and they look really cute, and they balance the room out. And we ended up, like, swapping some couches, like the the way that they fit in the room, because it just made more sense. And it's actually way better. And I didn't even see that coming Elsie I mean, that interesting.

2:06Emma It's been great. So I'm like, because it kind of like designates more of a play. All the play stuff is over on one side, and there's more of a sitting area on the other side of that. And it's really good. And, yeah, so anyway, so I'm, I'm like, Hey, this is good. Let's keep going. No pressure. But let's what area do you want to look at next you know? And so next up on my spring bucket list is I want to do our entryway. Yeah, so our entryway, it's like, when you walk in our front door, we have a split level, like I said. So there's stairs that right away go up to kind of the main living room and kitchen. It's sort of an open area, and then the stairs keep going up to the bedrooms. Or you can also, when you walk in the entryway, if you don't go up the stairs, you can kind of go straight, and you'll go into this other living room, and there's a laundry room and how you get to, like, the garage or the back porch, and that's like, where we have our TV and stuff. So anyway, the entryway is, like a pretty good size entryway, and there's nothing in it, except for one piece of commissioned art that I had done years ago. And we love it, but it's just

2:18hanging there, and there's nothing else around it. So it's almost like not even I got it framed. But other than that, I haven't done anything. Haven't done anything. And then our stroller, because I think you go on stroller walks, and that's where the stroller goes, nowhere else to put it. So it's just right there all the time, and that's it. There's like, no rug, no nothing. So anyway, so my goal is to do something with that entryway. And in my mind, I'm like, you don't have to make it like how it's going to be forever. Just make it better than it is right now.

2:24Elsie So like, maybe, like a little side table, or something. Emma I have two chairs that now don't have anywhere to go, so one or both of them could go down there. I would like that piece of art that I had commissioned. I would like to showcase it more. And I feel like if the space gets done a little bit more, then it will be shown off more, and then also the stroller. Like Hugo's now, like, not as interested in being in the stroller. He's much more, like, wanting to walk around.

2:31He also has this little tricycle that, like, I push, and we do that a lot, and he's just not as interested in being in the stroller. So I don't know if I'm gonna get rid of that big stroller. Elsie You can put it in the garage or something. Emma I think I'm gonna move it, and then probably this summer though, we will actually get rid of it. We still have, like, travel stroller that, like, I always have one in my the back of my car, that's like, for when I take them into the library or just somewhere that. So we still have that. But, like, big step i Yeah, I'm like, I think there's stroller errors over. This is kind of weird. But also I'm like, that means I'm gonna do this entryway, because this big old stroller is gonna go somewhere.

2:41Elsie It's definitely not over. Keep the travel stroller. Emma We still have the travel stroller. We still have the trouble. Yeah, now Oscar still needs the travel stroller once in a while. Yeah? Like, yeah, it's still good for that. But this is the big, my big stroller that's, like, for going on a long walk. And Hugo's just not as interested in that. He wants to, like, be walking himself. So I'm like, Okay, I think this is, I think this is getting moved so wonderful. Anyway.

2:48Elsie Okay, so my literary goal for the season, I feel like this could actually stretch. I'm gonna say, like, spring and summer for this one, is I really want to read all of the Bronte novels. So there's seven. Most of them are short. It's not hard. It's just like, I don't know, I'm like, nervous to start it. Emma Something about classic sometimes can be a little daunting. Elsie Yeah, I agree. And I think that that's okay. Like, I have read books before where I needed, like, to read analysis afterwards, to under, you know? And, yeah, that's okay. That is all fine. I don't I don't know what they're gonna be like. I've listened to people on Tiktok, like, talk about, like, What were their favorites, and things like that. So I feel like I have a little bit of an idea. But it's like, it's seven novels written by three different sisters, and one of the sisters only wrote one, so it's mostly written by two different sisters. And, yeah, I'm just curious and excited to go on that journey. And I kind of want to put them all in. The reason why I want to put them all in one year together is so that I can, I don't know, like,

3:02enjoy them as a group, you know, and kind of like, be able to, like, maybe pick my favorites and things like that, like, before I start forgetting things. Emma I'm also very excited for you to see the movie Wuthering Heights. Yes, I just saw it, and I'm just very curious to know what you think. Elsie Oh, yeah, I think we're going on Friday. So I'm I cannot wait. I was like, not sure I was excited. Okay, so here's my hot take. This is my hot take of, like, a long time I usually I try not to, like, ever give anything that's like, gonna like, yuck, someone else's yummy.

3:11Emma I know same. I just want people to enjoy their life. Elsie But the reason why I wasn't sure I wanted to see Wuthering Heights is because I did not really enjoy salt burn very much. I thought it was, like, very emotionally flat for me. So it was like, I felt like it was like internet rage bait. But like, I wasn't enraged, and I just, like, didn't really, like, get a lot out of it. I thought it was beautiful. So I was like, just kind of like, I'm not sure if I like, if it's just for the costumes. I'm not sure if I'm like, interested in that. But then my friends told me that it was pretty sad, and then I got interested. So, yeah, I'm excited now. I'm gonna try. I loved it. I want to cry.

3:20Emma I wasn't expecting to love it or hate it. I had no real expectation. I just thought it looked beautiful and I liked the book, but I did read it in college, and I am 40, yeah, so it has been admitted, so I'm not going. Pretend like I remember everything from it, because it was a long time ago that I read it, but I thought it was gorgeous, and I thought it was definitely emotional. Okay, I think it's great. I have heard I'm not super in touch, but I've heard that the Internet doesn't love it, but I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was great adaptation, if you're expecting something to be true to the book, I couldn't say because, again, I read it so long ago, but I thought the vibes were high and fun and something I hadn't seen in a long time. I felt very inspired after seeing it. And I was like, I think Elsie should watch this, just for the interiors, but I think she'll like it anyway.

3:30Elsie Well, I am excited to go on that journey. What's your next one? Emma Oh, okay, so my next one is, since it's spring, I feel like it's time for us to refresh our fairy garden, which, to be fair, our fairy garden is really more of a rock garden. So ours is in the front of our house. We have a little free library that's on a stump. It was a tree that was dead when we bought the house, and so we had the tree removed, but we left the stump and I added a little free library. And it's a little bit like you do have to walk into this kind of, like, rock garden area in order to get to it. So it's not perfectly ideal for the neighborhood, but it was just the stump I had. So this is what we did, how we've made it more inviting to, like, make sure people know please walk into this area we're not bothered by that is my kids paint rocks and seashells and bricks and all sorts of things all the time. We paint all sorts of random things, and we put them out there. And I've noticed other families have started adding things once in a while too, like love kids have painted little ceramic ghosts, and I know they didn't come from my kids, and

3:43they're just out there. And so I and I love that. I also it doesn't bother me if no one adds anything. But if you happen to know where I live and you've seen my rock garden, feel free to bring some stuff, because I love it. My kids notice too. And Oscar talks about the ghost. He's like, they just showed up one day. Oh, like, he's, you know what happened? I'm like, well, another kid painted them, and their mom brought him. It's great. But anyway, so it's kind of a rock garden, and I think it'd be a good time to refresh it, because it gets kind of like all weird in the winter, and many of the rocks are kind of ready to be repainted, because they're almost missing all the paint now. And so anyway, I just thought that I'd get the kids out there and we would kind of clean it up, pick up anything that could be repainted. Kind of work on that. And then there's also this Paddington book that I read with Oscar fairly often at bedtime, where Paddington gets a garden, and he accidentally spills his marmalade into this quick dry cement, and it makes these orange rocks. So I don't exactly know how I'm going to do this, but I figured we'd

3:54have some kind of marmalade rocks Art Project One day after school where we could make a whole bunch of orange rocks and put those out in the rock garden to make our own little Paddington rock garden. So we're going to do that too this spring. I love it. Elsie I need to do that also. My fairy garden is also trashed, yeah, and it's ready for a refresh. And that sounds really fun. The Spring is the time to refresh. It's a wonderful thing, and so fun to like make little things. It is okay. One of my goals, I've had this goal for a while, and I just still have not gotten to it, is I want to start buying fresh flowers and practicing making little arrangements. And I found this place in town that's supposed to have weird flowers. And I, you know, you have to have a business idea. We have one that's fine. I need to just do it. I need to go there. I need to figure out, like, what's the deal with it? And then I need to start, you know, going, like, a couple times a month and just getting weird flowers and filling up my house and, like, I want to practice making the arrangements. When I was really young,

4:06I worked at a flower shop for a little while. It was one of my favorite that's a fun job, minimum wage jobs. It was so fun. And, yeah, I just think it's a joyful thing, and it's a gift I can give myself in a year when, you know, the there's like, emotional ups and downs, you know, and it's, it's a comfort. Emma So, okay, my next one is to start going on walks outside again. So I this is already kind of started even by the time we're recording this, so I'll be well into it by the time you're hearing this. But I love going on walks, and I don't do it as much in the dead of winter. I will if I'm desperate, like I will put on my ski outfit, as I've mentioned before, and go for a walk, but it's just not as frequent. Whereas I like it to become, if not a part of my daily life, then at least, like, two or three times a week I get out and go on a walk, mostly by myself. I used to it a lot with Hugo in his stroller, but now that he's not as into the stroller, I have to kind of figure out a new method, and I push him on his his little tricycle, but usually we don't go that far, and then he wants to hop off and pick up sticks or and that's great, and that's

4:18wonderful, but I don't really, for me, that's not really a walk. I have to, like my mind has to be able to wander while my feet are moving. It can't be just stopping and doing sidewalk talk with my kids. That's fun, but that's a different activity to me, so I have to kind of find a new way to fit this into my life, either with my partner or by myself, because my kids aren't as into it at the moment. So. But I just love our neighborhood. We have a really lovely neighborhood that it does have sidewalks, but there's also lots of areas where you have to walk in the street, but there's kind of a lot of hills, which can be nice if you don't have a kid with you, and it's athletic, it's feels kind of good. You feel a little winded when you get up that hill. That's nice. And then we also have a lot of ponds in my neighborhood where we have geese, and there's also, like, these two swans that you'll see fairly often. It's just like, sort of special. So it's fun to be out there and to see them be like, Oh, I see the swans today, you know, or whatever.

4:28Elsie My kids love trying to spot your swans. Emma I don't even know why they're there. Like, what the deal is with those swans, but they are kind of special. Elsie Okay, my next one is to paint all the time, so I just moved my painting studio home, and I just want to be out there painting a little bit every day is the ideal amount. And sometimes on the weekends I do like a big, long session, but a lot of times it's like an hour before bed, or right before I pick up my kids from school or something like that. And I just want to take advantage of the fact that it's now back in my home, I don't have to drive anywhere. I don't have to do anything. It's, you know, it's all just their way there. I always have a half finished painting laying out on the table pretty much at all times. And I can just go in there and do a little bit and, you know, enjoy that. So it's kind of like my activity in life, like, it's the most like peaceful activity that I've ever found, and where it like, it really does, like, clear my brain and I feel just like perfectly at peace when I'm doing it. And I've never, I've heard people say they feel

4:43that way about exercising, and I'm jealous for those people, but I've never experienced the way I feel painting with any other activity. It's just kind of clear and peaceful. That's special. Emma Yeah, I like that. Okay, my last one has to do again with kind of how I've been slowly decorating a little bit in our home, yes. So I have this one area in our kitchen where I think it could use some wallpaper that probably sounds weird for a kitchen maybe. My house is actually very minimial.

4:49Elsie Is it behind the bar? Emma Yes. Elsie I think that's a great place. It's kind of it's an open shelving situation. Emma Yes, most of my kitchen counters, I also so I have this like quartz, and I the backsplash around. Most of it is the same quartz, but there's this one area where it just was different. It's kind of like has pantry cabinets on both sides, and then it has these floating shelves in the center. It's where we have our coffee stuff, and then we have some liquor bottles and some like, like a giant salad bowl that I bought recently is there, and some cutting boards, like, some more decorative things that I use sparingly are there, and it just like has always looked nice, but like a little bit unfinished, and I just think some wallpaper would look really good there. I haven't totally gotten my husband on board with this yet. He's not against wallpaper. We have wallpaper in the house in a number of places, but I picked two that I ordered samples of that I'm just gonna like tape up and kind of look at and see what he thinks about those. If neither of those work, then we'll order some more samples. But I am kind of into one of them

5:06especially. But I ordered the other one because I liked it too, and it's a slightly different vibe, and I just wanted to kind of see what we think. But I have a feeling he's gonna feel like they're maybe a little too traditional. Oh, interesting. So we'll see. But I don't know, he may be like, I love it. I have no idea. I think it's easier to to kind of, like, work with your partner on design stuff, if you have something to show them. So I was like, I'm gonna go and order these samples. They're like, $4 a piece, whatever. And once they come in, then I'll be like, imagine one of these all here. It's also one of those things where I'll have to hire someone to help because, like, we can take the shelves out, but the metal can't really be removed.

5:13I mean, you, I couldn't do it. Yeah, someone else could do it. I couldn't do it. So I don't know if the wallpaper lady will, they can go around it. Yeah, it's, it's sort of like a small area, but still kind of a tricky job. Anyway. It's kind of a whole thing. But I am hoping to have wallpaper this spring. I'm at least going to be moving towards it. If we have to order more samples or whatever, though, that's fine, yeah, you can go in summer. I don't care, just moving towards it.

5:18Elsie I think that could be really nice. Emma Yeah, I think it would feel cute, like, and just more finished and just like, have a little bit of a thing, Elsie My last one is to finish our mouse mansion. So we started, we had the idea, I think it was on a snow day to kind of we have this, this small section of bookshelves in our living room, and we took all the books off of two shelves and divided those up so it's each shelf is two rooms, and we're just making a little doll house in the bookshelves, that is. It's kind of low to the ground where all the children in our life can reach it. And yeah, it's just really fun. But it has been unfinished now for more than a month, and I am still and I posted it on Instagram the day we started, so I'm still getting messages of like, when, when did you ever finish that? I'm like, oh, because I didn't yet finish it. But yeah, our friend Kelsey, her daughter, was, she's in middle school, and she was getting rid of her dollhouse stuff. And so we traded, I traded her something she's interested in, and she traded me all her dollhouse furniture, which was

5:32cool. So I have all this, like, new furniture. You have plenty of stuff I just need to, like, take probably a day or two to do all the crafting of it, you know, like securing everything painting. I always, I had this little part where I wanted to add bricks made out of paper clay. You know, how I get, like, it needs to be a whole thing, and I can't let it be easy. So, yeah, that is my dream. But I just think it's so fun. Our piano teacher had this doll house that was like in her little bookshelves, and I always just loved it. We went over there, and then finally, we're making our own, and I think it's gonna be so fun when it's done. No, I love that.

5:39Emma But speaking of Kelsey and getting rid of her dollhouse stuff because her daughter was getting older, I got the doll house. Elsie Oh, you got the doll house? Emma Yes, because so a little bit of backstory. We had a podcast listener write in about a book that she wrote with a friend, and it's called mouse town. And I bought the book. I read. I do read all your emails. Like I've said before, it's true. We read every single one, yeah. And I was like, Oh, this book looks amazing.

5:48So I ordered mouse town. I wrote down the names. It's by Jody Levine and Margaret McCartney Grover, and it's really cute. I honestly kind of bought it, I mean, just because, you know, as podcast listener, it looked like a cool book, but also I was kind of buying it for myself, but it came in the mail. I opened it up. It was just sitting on the counter, and my older son, Oscar, who's four and a half, saw it, and was like, Mama, what's this? And I was like, oh, it's called mouse town. Do you want to read it?

5:53And it has like little parts where the mice talk, but it's mostly a crafting book. And certainly you could do this with kids, but it is slightly more advanced crafting than my kids can do, because my kids are pretty young, but my son got really into it, and he was like, I want to do mouse town. We need to make a mouse town. And I was like, Okay, well, we could do that. So mouse town, this book does a lot of with recycled materials, which is very cool. But I just kind of knew my son kind of wants to do a lot in a day.

5:58He doesn't like the idea of slowly collecting things is going to be tricky for him anyway. I just kind of knew, like, I'm going to get a blank doll house, and we're going to have a mouse house, and then we will slowly add other things from the book, here and there, and that will be the way to go for us, for his level, and for, you know, just how they are. So Kelsey was getting rid of this blank doll house. So I was like, perfect. Can I have that dollhouse? And she brought it over, which was so nice of her. And now it's a mouse house. I sent her a picture. We put wallpaper. I had extra wallpaper that's in Oscar's room, in Hugo's room, so I put those in two of the rooms. We painted some of the other rooms. Oscar wanted to paint a lot of it pink, so he did that. And we have two mice that they got them for Valentine's Day. I told them they were brothers. It was actually a boy and a girl, but I just took the skirt off. Doesn't matter.

6:07Doesn't matter. They're mice, and it's called mouse house for the for them, but it's a doll house. And I bought some, like, blank doll house furniture, and we've painted some of it, some of it just is what it is. We framed a bunch of art. Oscar, like, picked things out of magazines, and we spent that was, like one craft one day was we framed it, and then I glued it in there wherever he wanted. So it's kind of like a dollhouse that I'm letting it be very much like what he wants. And his little brother plays with it too. But I also kind of try to help steer it so it doesn't just become like a trash pile, you know. So anyway, it's really fun. So it's funny that you're talking about your your mouse mansion, because we are on the same journey. We're on the same journey, and it was all from mouse town. So thank you to our listeners, amazing.

6:16Elsie No, I just ordered it on my phone. Emma The day I was like, were made these little pies. It's from Mouse Town. Elsie Yeah, in bottle caps, yes, the pie pan is so cute. Make mouse town a best seller. Emma It's really cute. It's a really cute book. Elsie Yeah, all right, I love it. Would you like to read Kayla's hot take? Emma Yes, here we go. Okay. She says, Oh no, I feel so bad writing this, but here I am. Don't talk to me about your kids inattentiveness, poor impulse control, listening skills, reaching math comprehension and so forth. If they have unlimited access to a screen, especially an iPad mic drop, I'm assuming, yeah, oh man, oh man. Okay, so just to clarify, because I'm not always the best at reading between lines. She's saying, if they have unlimited access to an iPad, of course they can't pay attention and be good at these things that she's listed, listening skills, impulse control, because the screen's making them a terrible kid kind of thing. That's sort of the message here.

6:34Elsie Yes, okay. She's saying, if your kids have too much screen time, don't complain about these things. Emma Okay, that's what I thought. I was just making sure that I wasn't like, mm. Yeah, sometimes I feel like I just totally miss things. You know what I mean? So okay, I mean, I don't have kids the age of iPads yet, like my kids aren't old enough for that type of thing, so I don't want to be too here's my strong opinion about something that I don't know about yet. You know what I mean. But it does seem to me that iPads kind of suck for kids a little bit. So I don't know. I guess I'm with her, but it feels, feels a little harsh, but also, yes, question mark, I don't know.

6:43Elsie Okay, I'm gonna take the opposite side. I think, sure, okay, it's very easy to villainize screen time. It's very easy to blame screen time, especially if you're in a phase of life where your kids are having little amounts or no screen time, right? Yeah? Like, you know, high horse. Like, I get that. I've been on both sides of this. Emma I love a high horse. Yeah, I'm always sad when I'm not on a high horse. Elsie I've been on the high horse. And I've also been in, you know, my survival eras. I think that iPads can be good. I think iPads can be very good for kids. I think it's better when they're limited, sure. But I think that, you know, there's lots. I think it also depends on it's your job to set it up where it has the things you want them to have on there. There's lots of learning games. There's lots of things. My kids make videos of themselves with their iPad.

6:56Emma It's really cute. Show me a few of them, and they are so cute. Elsie Yeah, and our iPads have no YouTube and no internet browser, so they don't have access. Like the main thing I don't want them to have at this age is YouTube, and that's just my opinion, you know, and like other, you know, I'm not shaming on anyone else. I just think, like, just be careful where you throw these kind of hot takes. Because I think that for like, single moms, for people who are, I don't know, going through a hard time, kids who are, you know, sick or in bed for whatever reason, or, you know, we have limited like, child care or resources. Like, there's just all kinds of different reasons why people rely on iPads. So I don't know, I feel like it's like, it's a there's a judgmental thing in our society, like, my husband, like, doesn't ever want our kids to bring their iPads in public, because he feels like people will judge us that they're like on it all the time. And I don't know, I wish it wasn't that way, because I think that the main thing that I think is an area that I'm interested in thinking about and talking about, is that

7:09it's very, very easy to say, like, kids should have absolutely none of this stuff when they're little, right? Like, when they're like toddlers and like, Emma's kids age, sure, it's easy. And when my kids were younger, we had our iPads were only for traveling. And then, as they've gotten older, they now, like, ask for it constantly. So now it's only for weekends, you know, and we we've changed our rules over time, because that's just like, going to happen. So the thing I'm thinking a lot about is, like, our kids are kind of in there, like they're eight and 10, so they're, like, kind of approaching that tween age. And I have lots of friends with younger teens who both have phones and don't have phones, and I'm starting to think about, like, what are we going to do? Because there's, this is a hard area that everyone has to face.

7:17And my biggest thing is, like, instead of, how am I going to limit them for as long as possible? Because, sure, I'm going to try to do that, right? That's what that goes without saying. Like, I think most people try, but how am I going to prepare them to be able to use the internet and phone without me there? Like, in a good way? I think that's something that we don't talk about enough, is like, How can I teach them to have a healthy relationship with it? Because they are going to have a relationship with it.

7:22Emma Yep, I totally agree with that. I think too. I was talking with a friend of ours recently, and I won't say who, because she didn't, I wasn't like, Can I share this on the podcast? But she mentioned her kids are also approaching the tween age, and she mentioned that her husband has been kind of researching basically better and worse video games. Yeah, that kind of teach you, like, problem solving versus just kind of, like, dull your brain kind of stuff, you know? And I was like, that's an interesting approach. If not, like, we're just a harsh no on video games. It's like, you know, we're gonna be okay with some, but I'm gonna research and, you know, figure out which ones, and those will be the ones we have.

7:30Elsie And I think, you know, it's really smart there. We've, we've learned already, there's, like, vast differences in the different types of games. And some of them, they learn so much like, and sometimes you think they're gonna learn one of my children did like, I think, six months of Duolingo, and she cannot say a single word in French besides Bonjour and croissant. Like, that's it. That is it. Emma She probably knew croissant already. Elsie It didn't work at all. And I and I let her use my phone every day.

7:39Emma Burn dual lingo. Elsie I mean, I hate to say it, but it sucked. I don't know, but it's like, it's a thing that you would have thought I was doing this big educate like, at the time, I was like, I'm doing this big educational thing, you know what I mean? But like, you don't know until you try things sometimes. Yeah, so it's kind of interesting. Anyway, I don't know. I think, like, let's all approach this delicately, because I think that most, if not all, parents are trying their best. Most parents are trying their best.

7:47Emma Also not all parents, not everyone has seen everything that you've seen, right? So if you're like, I'm super aware of the anxious generation I read that book, and I'm aware of all the lawsuits that are happening with matter right now. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, good, excellent. You might come in contact with a parent who's never heard of that, yeah? So just, you know, you don't need to just be aware of that, yeah, you know. And just know, like that doesn't you know. Just, let's just all, like, approach one another with, like, some curiosity and some love and some like, maybe you have some information I don't have. I'm going to be open to that. And maybe I have some information you don't have, and I don't need to be a know it, all about it, but I should approach the conversation like, maybe you let's just keep sharing info, because we all want the same thing. We all want our kids to grow up happy and healthy. Yeah, we all want the exact same thing, and that's simple, so let's just keep it there and then know that we're going to do it slightly different, but like, let's just keep sharing and trying to,

7:59like, make that happen for everyone. Yeah, that's all there is really. Elsie So no, I love that, yeah. Just always remember that on one kid's iPad might be like the worst YouTube channel you've ever seen in your life, but on another kid's iPad is Anne of Green Gables. Okay, that's my mic drop. Done. Okay, um, so we're gonna pass it over to a joke or a fact with Nova. Hey, Nova, what do you have for us this week? Nova A meditation. Elsie A meditation. Okay? What type it's gonna be about?

8:09Nova And this isn't real. It's gonna be about if Sushi was babies and they were alive. Elsie Okay, I'm excited for this one. I'm closing my eyes. Nova Imagine just made a sushi roll. Okay, you cut it. And then after you were ready, they suddenly pop open their eyes. They said hello with their cute little smiles. Then you spent the day playing with them and giving them some food, cookies and milk. And then at the end of the day, you tucked them into bed, and they said, Good night. You looked at them. And then when you went to your room, you had a good story to tell your friends tomorrow, open your eyes, take your deep breaths and say to yourself, This will be a good day. Or if it's night, then say you'll have good dreams and you will imagine good thoughts in your mind.

8:21Elsie Thank you, Nova, that was beautiful. You're welcome. We'll be back next week. Nova Bye. Emma Thank you so much for listening. As always, you can email us with hot takes, with ideas for episodes, or with great book recommendations, like mouse town, we are at podcasts at a beautiful mess.com Love you. Elsie See you next week.