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Krista: This is Secret Mom Hacks, episode number four. My name is Krista and I am thrilled to be your host! In today's podcast. I am thrilled to share with you my very first interview we're publishing on here, and this interview is very near and dear to me because I had the privilege and pleasure of interviewing my mom for this premier interview episode, if you will, the very first interview on Secret Mom Hacks. My mother, of course she is, oh my gosh. See, you can tell, I’m speechless about her. She has been the model mom for me, and she's always there for me, always there for our family. Leads with love. Always fun, generous.

Just always has a smile on her face, and I am thrilled to have her on this very first interview on my podcast. So we're about to get that interview queued up here. I can't wait for you to hear it, but before we get into that, I just want to say thank you for tuning in, mama. As of this recording, I am chasing a three and a half year old around the house that no amount of Googling mom groups or what to expect when you're expecting books were able to prepare me for.

Y'all. There's a lot of stuff people don't talk about when it comes to being a parent. Pre-pregnancy, during pregnancy, postpartum. As someone who was previously terrified of childbirth, parenthood and all of the things that follow on that journey, I am here to help you pull back the curtain on all of it, and every now and then it might get a little messy.

Okay? We may share a little TMI, but that's what this is about, right? Because sometimes there's no such thing as TMI. Sometimes you just gotta know. You gotta know the dirt, the details. So my goal is that you will leave every episode feeling refreshed, inspired, and most of all, hopeful. Knowing that you are not on this mom journey alone.

Now there's a lot of subject matter to cover when it comes to mom life, and we are leaving no stone unturned. So let's get to it. Please allow me to introduce my mom. Susie, I hope you enjoy our chat!

Mom, are you there?

Susie: I'm here.

Krista: Yay. Okay, great. Hopefully the technology gods are going to be in our favor with with this recording, we will see.

So friends and and listeners out there, if you hear any random background noise, like a mower or an alarm clock go off. It is what it is. We've been trying to get this podcast episode recorded and there's really never a good time to do it. You just have to do it and deal with the circumstances.

I am very happy to have my mother on here with us today. This is very special to me, and mom is going to share some of her wisdom and insight that she has learned over the past however many decades of raising me and now being a grandmother.

So she's going to share with us some of her tips and tricks that she has learned this whole time and from her journey in motherhood and parenthood. So, mom, are are you ready to jump into this? Are we gonna do this?

Susie: I hope it works. Yes. Okay.

Krista: So my mother now lives just a handful of miles down the road from me.

I'm very fortunate. We moved to Tennessee, started a family. Just a couple of years prior to that. My parents followed me here. I am an only child, so I don't have to share my parents with anyone else, and my mom is also an only child, and so we are all super close. It's really nice to have my parents so close to us here in middle Tennessee.

Just a couple of miles down the road so that when we do wanna spend time together, we can. It's really, really nice. But we're all originally from the Midwest. We're originally from Southern Illinois. We've all made Tennessee our home now. And it's really nice to have them here close so we can spend time with them if we wanna have a night out and need some childcare.

It's convenient that mom and dad, grandma, grandpa, they can jump in and help with some childcare duties now and then and of course they get to spoil the little one and then send her back home to her own bed. Anyway, mom do you wanna share a little bit about your background? What you did before you…You're retired now, of course, but do you wanna share a little bit about yourself? Where you've come from, and then we'll jump into the questions?

Susie: Okay. Well, I'm from a small town called Carrier Mills, Illinois and was raised there and I had all my grandparents and completed high school. And then I went right after I graduated high school, I got married and moved to Harrisburg, Illinois and when we moved to Harrisburg I decided I would continue my college at the local college there called Southeastern Illinois College.

And I ended up with just a degree in like a clerk typist kind of thing. Cause that's really all I ever wanted to do was just be a secretary kind of position. And so I did that and then I got several little kind of, I would call 'em piddly - piddly jobs around town. Um, and then, I actually got a, a little better job, which was at Montgomery Ward.

And then,I was contacted by…my mom had contacted some people through the state of Illinois and I got a job at the local Bowen Center. And I worked there until it closed, and then I took a layoff for a little while and then I was called back and started with the Department of Public Aid at the time.

And then to the Department of Human Services in later years, which was the same thing as the Department of Public Aid. And I retired then from the Department of Human Services with almost 33 years of service. And that was the end of it, end of my working. I guess I need to back up about having a child, don't I? In between there…

Krista: Yeah, that's a little bit of a professional background and, yeah, let's talk about how, well we know how I came along, but when I came along, cause we're all adults here, so we know how that works. Just to give a little background, and I hope it's okay if I share this because of course, my goal with this podcast is for parents to know what it's like in the trenches and the hurdles and obstacles that can come up through this journey in parenthood.

And so I hope it's okay if I share cuz I know this, this background of my story, but I know that you and dad like you all were having trouble conceiving. You had been trying for several years, right? And you had to find out through your lady doctor that you have or had, I don't know how all that works a tilted uterus and…

Susie: Mmhmm, I couldn't get pregnant. So, she gave me some hormones and, it was just the right thing. And before you knew it, I was pregnant and I had been…for some reason that couldn't happen while I was on layoff between a couple of jobs. It was after I had been like only a month at at work, and I got pregnant. And, it was just a, a wonderful journey. I mean, I felt good all the time. I was maybe a little bit sick at times, but, the doctor would always gimme something to help with when you have these little butterflies and whatever it is when you're, when you're carrying a baby.

Krista: So this is where my questions could come into play or just the topic of sharing the birth story, however little or much you wanna share. So you found out with the help of your lady doctor…so you got pregnant about a month or so into starting the new job and then…

I'm happy to know I didn't give you too much grief in terms of sickness or morning sickness or feeling under the weather or anything like that? I've heard this, but our listeners haven't heard it before, so whatever you would want to share, in terms of me coming into the world.

Susie: Okay. Well, I had, of course I was working and cuz I was planning on working up to the time she was born, or you were born. But I hadn't been able to wash any clothes or do anything. Well, when I went to bed, the evening of December 4th, I laid down and 2:30 or 3:00 that next morning, my water broke.

And I tell you, I was scared to death. Of course, I didn't know what was, ugonna happen here. So I called the hospital and told them what had happened, and the nurse said, just take a shower and she said, what color was it? And I said, well, I have no idea what color it was because I had flowered sheets on the bed.

She said, just take your time and come. So I got Mack up and told him it was time to go and he drove me to the hospital and we settled in there and she…well, they would only let me have ice chips and by the time all this happened, it was about seven or eight o'clock, I guess, of the morning.

And I was starved and like I said, all I could have was the ice chips. She did a sonogram on me and told me that the cord was wrapped around your neck and that she was gonna have to do a cesarean and she said, do you want a bikini cut? Or an up and down?

And I said I'll take the bikini, although I'll never probably wear a bikini again. Anyway, so I had you at 1:37 in the afternoon. They had to give me, of course, Pitocin to get the labor started. She stapled me up and the next thing I knew they brought you in to me and I just couldn't believe I'd had this beautiful little baby girl.

You were gorgeous. And, anyway, that's about all I remember. I didn't have to stay very long in the hospital and then I went home the next day.

Krista: Okay. Well thank you for sharing that, mom. Yeah, so we both ended up with the C-section. You had the C-section. I had the C-section. I’m just happy we both had happy, healthy babies on the other side of it at the end of the day.

Krista: What is something no one told you about becoming a mom?

Susie: Well, that my whole world would be completely changed. That there'd just be milestones and all kinds of things that…I guess I never had thought about. When I was growing up, all I wanted was a little house with a picket fence and to have some little ones. And that's all I ever thought about. I don't remember anybody really…mom never really gave me a whole lot of information about what it would be like or anything. And being an only child, I didn't really have many to ask. So, no sisters. Yeah.

Krista: We're both kind of in that boat, aren't we? You don't have any siblings? I don't have any siblings. We've just had to figure it all out. Bootstrap it.

Susie: That's right.

Krista: So I know that baby gear and kid gear has changed a lot in the three plus decades since you had me and since I have now had a baby, so, and there's lots of crazy baby gadgets today, but I'm sure there were when you had me too. So, looking back with me being an infant, you being a new mom and then on into even toddlerhood and just being a little kid, can you think of something that was a piece of baby or kid year that really was a lifesaver for you in terms of just helping you with me?

Susie: Well, I've been trying to think about this and I've come up with a few things. There was a medicine giver that had a little spoon on the end of it.

It was plastic. And, and it had the measurements on it so that I could just stick that in your mouth and just tip it up rather than using a regular spoon. I thought that that was handy. And, back in that time period, they had what was called head pillows that you would put in the punkin seat where the baby would not roll their head around. Your dad, I quizzed him about what he thought was handy when you were little, and he said the video camera cuz he said we could set that up and turn that on with some music and you would dance and do all kinds of things and we could get it recorded.

Krista: Right? Yeah, back before video cameras and still cameras were in the palm of our hand on our phones, right? When everything had a separate video camera for video. You had a separate still camera for still photography, and then we all had phones on the wall.

Now all of those things are combined into one device these days.

Susie: Right. That's, just a few of the things that I remember.

Krista: How do you keep it all together? How did you keep it all together as a working mom with a working partner? Dad and you both had full-time jobs, so as two working parents and then a new baby that grew up to be very independent and wanted to be involved in all the things, how did you keep everything running smoothly?

Susie: Well, I had to learn a different kind of schedule than what we were having. But I want to say if it weren't for my mom and Mack's mom, being close, just across the field and then my mom living still in Carrier Mills, but she actually quit her job so that she could come and we could keep you at home. You didn't have to go to daycare. And then if mom couldn't do it, Mary would do it. And then sometimes, my sister-in-law wouldn't do it. And then we've had some friends at times that would, you know, that would stay with you, but we always had somebody that was available to take care of you.

And then when you were old enough to go to daycare, then we sent you to Kiddie City.

Krista: I remember that. I remember that very well. And I remember during nap time always wanting to be the talker. I was the chatty Kathy talking with everyone sitting at the edge of my cot. I did not want to take a nap.

And they would get onto me very politely, you know, for keeping everyone awake and not wanting to go to sleep myself. I look back on that today and now I understand why my child does not want to take a nap. I get it. It also makes me think that in this world we live in, adults should get naps.

I would give anything now to have a nap time in my day. I remember being that little kid that did not want to take a nap at school. So now those days when I am questioning things or things are going a little sideways during nap time, I understand. Cuz I was once that child. My child gets it naturally for not wanting to go down for her nap.

About when did I start daycare? I remember being at Kiddie City. I have good memories from being there.

Susie: I think you were four.

Krista: And so I was there up until I started kindergarten.

Susie: Yes.

Krista: So looking back on it all, thinking back to when you were working hard, raising me, and then now maybe even, you know, as you're settling into grand-parenthood now that I have a kiddo…What is a tip or trick or piece of advice that you would share with another mama out there?

Susie: Rest all you can. Maybe get a massage every now and then. You gotta take care of yourself too.

Krista: That is absolutely right. Self-care extremely, extremely important because it's hard to take care of everyone else if you're not taking taking good care of yourself.

I feel like as I've gotten older, I've noticed that with you, you know that you'll take time to go get a massage now and then and get your pedicures and all that. But I don't remember as a little, little kid.

So thinking back, and maybe you did it and obviously I was just too little to know what was happening, but back when you were a full-time working mom and raising me, what was something that you would do? Were you doing that and I just didn't know it, or were you doing other things too?

Susie: ell, I think we were doing other things.

We were going out with friends like Larry and Vicky and they had a few older kids. We could go to their house and they would help take care of you while the adults visited and a lot of times we went out in the Jeep, out in the country. We always took you and then of course they took their kids and we would just have a good day out.

We had a lot of things to do with your aunt and uncle because they had three kids and they had a swimming pool and we would go over to their house and enjoy the swimming pool. I just know that as I've gotten older, yes, that's the things that I need to do.

Krista: Self-care. Mamas self-care is so, so important so that we can be present for the folks that we love and wanna take care of in our lives. Any other parting words of wisdom that you would wanna share with our listeners? Anything else I left out that you wish I would've asked?

Susie: No, I think you really asked some good questions and I can't think of anything else.

Krista: Okay. Okay. Well, that's all right. Okay. I can always add something in at a later time.

Well, alright, mom. Very, very special guest. Extra special guest today I'm having. As I'm doing these episodes, I am having special guest interviews with other moms on this podcast, but you are the extra, extra, extra special guest because you brought me into the world. So if you weren't here, I wouldn't be here.

This podcast wouldn't be here. So thank you, thank you, thank you for jumping on and doing this episode with me today. And thank you just for the wonderful woman and mother that you are. I am a very lucky girl to have you as my mom, and I love you very, very much.

Susie: I love you too very much, and I'm just honored to have been the person that brought you into this world.

Krista: Alright, well that was so much fun talking with my mama. I hope you enjoyed what she shared. I know.I really enjoyed carving out a little bit of time to speak with her, to share her wisdom and her mom experience with you here on Secret Mom Hacks. So thank you, mama. I appreciate you and I love you.

It was an honor to have you as my first interview on Secret Mom Hacks.

All right, y’all so let's face it. It's hard to take care of those you love if you're not taking care of yourself. So, as we wrap today's episode, this is just a gentle reminder to stay hydrated, make time for a, I don't know, 5, 10, 15 minute walk around your office, your house, whatever.

Or, hey, look, if you can squeeze. A half hour jog of a quick walk around the neighborhood that's gonna get your heart rate up and make you sweat, AMAZING! And don't forget to wash your face and slather on a great nighttime moisturizer before bed. And also don't forget that sunscreen in the morning. Your skin is going to thank you.

Thank you for spending time with us today. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe if you haven't already. Make sure you give us a five star rating, and don't forget to leave a review sharing your favorite takeaway from the podcast so far. Alright. I'll see you again soon on the next episode.

Until then, remember you've got this mama.

[END OF EPISODE]

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