Comedy Through the Chaos: Parenting Edition Savoring the Lack of Schedule

Good morning and happy Saturday to you, Cadre Sphere. If you are watching on a Saturday, that is, you may be watching on another day somewhere in the future. So whatever day it is, I hope that is a lovely day for you. If it is not, shame on it. Not shame on you. I am Ms. Shannon. Welcome to the Saturday edition of Comedy through the Chaos, the parenting episode. I am in the process of parenting as we speak. Hello, Elise. Hello. Hello. Good to see you in the chat, Ms. Shannon. And so we're doing the comedy.

I'm sorry, the Saturday parenting edition of Comedy through the Chaos. I am amongst enough a bunch of things you can see on my LinkedIn profile. Hello, speak Wonder. You're gonna like this story today, I think. Speak Wonder. I'm a comedian, I'm a corporate speaker, I'm a voice actor, I'm event mc. I'm a benefit auctioneer. A bunch of word related things. I am also the proud parent. I'm an adorable 17 year old who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. And we are having a Saturday morning.

I am currently in my kitchen. Hel. Andy, hello. Hello. So as we are moving into the month of August, I have to actually flip my calendar. Look, it's still behind that says July on it. So one of the things I get to do today is move that around. Good morning to you as well, Andy. So we are moving into some conversations about more of the savory side of life here in the Cadre sphere. Yes, yes, yes. Peeling away layers today. That is what we will be doing today. So this is also as we move into August, the first full month that we have without any summer school or additional school activities because I do extended school year stuff with my kiddo.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And we, you know, it's funny because I think that we as parents have a tendency to go, let's fill their schedule, let's give them opportunities, let's make sure they have stuff to do. Especially if you were like me, a recovering a type A personality. I no longer even call it type A because I feel like that gives it way too much credit. It is high functioning anxiety that I have learned to manage much better than I did when I was younger. So that means I love a plan, I love a schedule, I love an agenda, I love trying to make sure we did that.

And so when my kiddo was younger I had him in a bunch of things and so, and some of those things were of great value like having him in speech and OT and these other things that we still do. And then somewhere I'm like, well, I'm gonna put you in swim lessons. I'm gonna see if you want to go and play ad after basketball. I'm going to put you in all these things. And I have friends that their kids have schedule after schedule after schedule. And there are a lot of things about having that routine and having that scheduled time that serve us greatly.

There are very good things about him knowing that there is going to be a process throughout his day and that helps him navigate a lot of things. And so a lot of time, as we are moving or often as we are moving into the summer months when we don't have that routine, not only does his anxiety go up, but mine goes up. So his goes up slowly because he's still a teenager. It may be his teenager with a development delay, but he's, he wants me to leave him alone sometimes in his room with his phone. You know, that is not, that is nothing new to anybody who is parenting a teenager.

There is a lot of leave me alone, I'm doing my thing. I do get him to do other stuff though, on occasion, but that's usually me at a little slow poking. So I remember thinking back into previous years that the summer caused a lot of anxiety for me because I didn't have all the schedule, the running around, the waking up to the alarms, the go, the go, the go that we end up doing as parents. And then I had to get accustomed to going, it's okay to not have all those things scheduled. To let yourself rest in the moment of being able to be a little bit more free flowing with the wing, the way that you navigate your activities for the day, to let yourself actually savor the moment that you are making yourself a cup of tea or whatever, your favorite morning beverages without having to go.

We have a timeline to achieve without having to cut up all of the snacks that are going to go into a lunchbox and all of the things that you're trying to make sure you don't forget before you rush out of the door because there's a deadline. So that is what I am doing this summer as I'm saving the fact that, savoring the fact that we get to navigate things a lot more freely and allowing myself to. Instead of going, oh, well, now I don't have these deadlines. I have to fill this time and get all this stuff done.

It's no this morning, that means that I can decide, am I gonna make pancakes or am I gonna make French toast? Because there's no rush we don't have to hurry out. Am I gonna do the, you know, do I have to lump jump into the morning routine of he's out the door, I gotta get the laundry started, I have to have check all my emails within a certain time, or am I gonna come hang out my friends here in the Cadre? Spill. Here's the answer to that question. Spoiler alert. I chose you. So that is what we're gonna do.

There will be laundry to do later. There will also be time for me to go out and. And make it a weed whacker day. So I'm gonna go out and do some yard work and those things. But instead of saying I have to do them within a particular time frame, I'm gonna do them in what makes sense as I work around the things that I have going on with our kiddo and allow our, both of us to just kind of steep ourselves in, in this time, in this flexibility. Because inevitably, right inevitably, we will get back to schedules.

Schedules will be here. Trying to get there on time will happen again. Deciding how to prioritize all of the things that he could be involved with and signing him up for all of the things that he may want to do that will return. So now that we have a few moments where that is not happening, my little self, breathe and enjoy that time, and I encourage you to do that as well. Downtime is not necessarily a bad thing with our kiddos. I know that there's so many options, and we feel like we're not putting them in the path of enough information, enough activity sometimes.

And I. I understand why we want to provide them all of these things, but sometimes you're just doing too much. You're just doing too much. You're stressing your kid out. You're stressing yourself out. You're doing too much. Give it a little space. Let them prioritize. Maybe you'll see that there's something like. I used to have my kid in swim lessons. As I mentioned, he didn't really want to go anymore. And there was one day we were in the car where Arno were there, and he's like, no, go tired. And I'm like, oh, you're tired?

Okay. You know, because I happen to see how my personality responds in these spaces. As I said, as a recovering type A, he's not. He's not that kid. And he's also a much more introverted person than his mom. And I needed to give a space to be able to figure that out. Like me putting him in all these settings that made sense for me because I'm the one that wants to wash around. He's not that kid. And if I hadn't given us, given us enough space in some of that non structured time to really see that, I'd still be pushing him in the stuff that really wouldn't be his thing and making myself tired and spending money in the long run that wasn't necessary.

So savor some downtime in your life. See what it is. I'm going to show you guys our table of beverages because he had asked for some tea. So I'm gonna put his tea together. He is a big fan of variety of teas. That is, that is a table that in theory we would sit at to eat. But that's not how our life works. No, that's not how it works. So I do think that it's funny that I am a tea drinker and I have somehow managed to impose tea drinking. Although we do not drink the same tea on my we1. It's very fancy to be into that one.

So what is it that you have going on right now that you're like, oh, I know that the schedule is coming back and instead of being anxious and yearning for that thing, what is it that you can take stock of right now and go, I'm going to appreciate the fact that I have flexibility right now. I'm going to allow myself to rest in this space where there's not a deadline or a structure or an agenda. What is it that you're working on right now that might be in that same category? Because it's different for all of us.

It really is. It's different to, to go, well, what is it that I get to like? Regardless of whether we are actively running off, I have a table in theory also. I understand that. Yeah, it is a, it's a lovely thing that holds stuff. That's what it is. And so you know my great plans of what we were going to do and the meals that I would cook and then we would sit down at it and dine together. That turned into, I guess I just need to have a very flat surface that holds his hydration. And that's what we have over there.

Family reunion tomorrow. I'm the one who drives it this year. Scaling back. Yes. Making it simpler. Absolutely. Making it simpler. I have a friend that's in a similar boat where there was a thing that was a large multi tiered event that they were helping to organize and they're doing the same thing this year going, was I just adding all these Extra components in, and they weren't the priority. I have things like that in my life. Like even, like silly things. I have been going through the process of just shedding some, Some.

Some stuff. Just going through and mentioning that, you know, at my leisure. I'm just, you know, a minor purge is what I'm doing. Just making some space for where we are in our life right now. Trying to make things more efficient, Trying to make sure I have more time to actually refuel myself. You know, when I, When I took that, that deep look at myself, I was like, you know, you're not giving yourself enough time for that. You know, not giving yourself enough time. So the. All of those. Sometimes you put on these bells and whistles and something else, and that wasn't what the main thing was, you know, like, for me, it was, you know, what can we do to get out of the house more efficiently?

Can I do to get more out of the house? More efficiency. So that meant getting rid of some of like this old makeup and some clothes and some other things that can hopefully make space for me where I'm going. You're trying to do too much. Why are you trying to be a, you know, like, do this 45 minute makeup routine that, you know, you don't have time for and nobody needs, you know, just like, let's just go. And trying to release yourself from some of those things when you have time to go, well, if I didn't have to do it on a schedule, if I didn't put all of these burdens on myself to make it to something on time, what would you do organically?

And it's nice to be able to have those things. So. Yeah, I know. Andy, thank you for calling me out for that. You are right. My plan is always to sit down and like, be able to talk to you officially with my ring lights and all those things and then other stuff. So I made his beverage. I put his morning meds in it. I'm smooth though, Andy. Already. Look how smooth I am. I know. Look how smooth they are. Like, we'll get those morning meds ready, get this hydration off to the teenager. Not right now.

I know. Mom's friends are calling her out. Here, here, hold that. Another thing. Good morning. No, good morning. See, no good morning. I have much chipper. More chipper than my kiddo is this morning. No, good morning, mom. Take your happy thoughts. We will talk about that after I've been awake longer. I've been awake. My teenager is the one that he's doing his vampire Vampire Summer. Like he got moving around around 20 minutes ago. And so I've just let the house wake you up. Enjoy your morning in whatever way you need to.

We will. We will interact when you feel the mood. He made a short order cook style request for a beverage just as I was getting ready to come on here. And that's like, okay, I'll talk to my friends. And so I, I encourage you to do the same for me. It's nice to be able to kind of float because that is not the way my career or things go with us. A lot of times it's usually something like a little timer ticking in the back of my head all the time of we need to be here by this time. Speech therapy starts at that.

Oh, this is when OT is going to happen. This is when I have to be at my event. I have to do these things I need to do. There's all these have to's. So now that I have less have to's gonna rest in it as much as I can. And I'm gonna do exactly what you said, Andy. I'm doing my version of slowing down and doing my version of slowing down, allowing myself to go. These were manufactured deadlines. These deadlines are not things that have to happen by a certain time. You should kind of think, anyway, I would love that, Andy.

I would absolutely love that. It'll be very fancy of us. We'll go have some. I'm. I probably should add some more chamomile in and not the stuff that I have that has the caffeine. So I appreciate all of you as we are continuing to build the. The Cadre sphere. It's always wonderful for us to be able to have your feedback. I love the accountability that we have. It's good once we get to know one another that Andy could tell me, you need to chill out. You know this, that Speak Wonder can remind me about the things that I promised myself I was going to do.

And that's wonderful for the way that we are continuing to build this community is go well, what is it that you need in the moment? What kind of support do you need? What can we do to scaffold the situation that you're in right now? And we can continue to do that. Oh, is it? Oh, maybe let me look at my. Like I, I can. I. I might be able to swing through there. You're right. Pattern her part Ark for just, you know, speak. Wonder is a wonderful, wonderful community festival that we have here. It is a.

And it. It is a little sensory overload for my kiddo, but he has some time with his. With my sister when I'm doing some other stuff. So maybe I will add that into my ability to. To float because I don't have any have to's this weekend. I just have some. I'm probably going to. Is what. They're not even shoulds. They're I probably going to. So that sounds fabulous. So continue to let us know in the chat and throughout. You know, you can always contact all the contributors and let us know what is it we can do to serve you and what we can do to provide a resource here so that when you pop in here, if you're having one of those moments in your life that you're like, I'd like a little support or see if anybody else has gone through that to hopefully have this in here.

Also, if there's anything you would like for us to add into our content, please let us know. Thank you so much. I'll email you. So it'll be always, always good to build our community. So if there is anything that we can do here in the Cadre sphere to support you see. Yeah, you know, work on that. Speak Wonder, that Learjet, it's been in the shop for a little while. You should check in with them. You should check in with them. Yeah, just see what's going on. You know, they said, like, didn't they?

You told me it was gonna be an oil change, I think you said, and now they just had it for like, I don't know, six, seven years. So you need to get your. Your Learjet back. Speak Wonder, work on that. So I'm gonna go make some food for the adorable teenager that I have. That said, no morning. But food, food will. Food will calm his savage teenagerness. So I appreciate all of you. I'll be back here on Thursday for the general edition of Comedy through the Chaos. And I'm glad to be able to, oh, just spend part of my Saturday morning with all of you.

So, as always, appreciate you guys. Thank you for being part of the Cadre sphere and we'll talk to you all soon. Goodbye.