One dog destroys a bedroom carpet, another preschool decides carpet is exactly what a building full of potty-training toddlers needs, and somehow that’s only the beginning.

This week, Kendall and Emily get into the extremely specific ways moms learn to move silently (like, actually silent) through their own homes, the toddler meltdown that made Kendall realize her second kid is playing a very different game, and what happens when you watch your husband make a parenting decision and already know exactly how it’s going to end.

Plus: a camp experience that left Kendall furious, the emotional end of the full-time nanny era, kindergarten drop-off struggles, and Emily volunteering to be room mom because apparently she needed one more thing to do.

Basically: carpet, poop, tantrums, school feelings, frogs, and the quiet confidence of a mom thinking, yep. saw that coming.

1. You eventually know every floorboard in your house.

2. The second kid can make you question everything you thought you knew about toddlers.

3. Sometimes the hardest parenting moments are the ones where you’re trying not to show how angry you are.

4. “Let them learn the lesson” gets complicated when you know you’ll be dealing with the fallout.

5. School transitions can be good and hard at exactly the same time.

Listener Submissions

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back-to-school season has arrived, which means name labels on underwear, three spare outfits, approximately six thousand school holidays and trying to find kids’ activities that don’t require the entire family to live in the car.

Emily shares how Olivia’s first week of kindergarten went—including the exhaustion, the new routines and the classroom guinea pig currently getting top billing—and Kendall prepares to send Charlie to school while negotiating a gymnastics tryout for a two-year-old whose ability to listen is…very mood-dependent.

Plus, the girls debate butter storage, remember their children eating straight from restaurant butter packets and hear a listener submission about the tiny moment when your child suddenly asks, “how was your day?”

• Kindergarten can be more exhausting than preschool even when the day is technically shorter.
• Putting multiple children in activities is its own logistical sport. The dream is two classes at the same location, preferably back-to-back, with no one spending an hour watching their sibling have fun.
• The smallest signs that our kids are growing can hit harder than the official milestones.
• Every parent has a category of problem they have decided to leave for Future Them.
• Back-to-school preparation is mostly labeling objects you did not realize required individual identification.

• Golden Gate Gymnastics
• Name Bubbles

Listener Submissions

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Apparently there comes a point in motherhood when your kid can sit next to you and happily do their own thing while you do yours…and honestly, we weren’t sure we’d ever get here.

This week we’re talking about the tiny signs that maybe, just maybe, parenting is getting a little easier (or just harder in different ways) — plus letting our kids absolutely ruin our perfectly painted pottery, discovering the joy of having a four-year-old shopping buddy, and the very specific hell that is bringing small children into an airport lounge full of silent business travelers.

Also: why do some cars slowly become covered in kid stickers? Could we win The Amazing Race? and yes, sometimes keeping your kids quiet means popsicles at 10:30 in the morning.

we stand by it.

• Sometimes you don’t realize you’re out of a hard phase until you’re already on the other side of it.
• Your kid’s version of “fun” does not necessarily look like fun while it’s happening.
• Motherhood is a recurring exercise in letting someone mess up the thing you could do better yourself.
• Traveling with young kids makes you hyperaware of everyone around you.
• Sometimes survival wins.

Grand Central Petaluma — coffee/breakfast spot on the Petaluma River

The Hot Spot Studios — Petaluma — paint-your-own pottery and other crafts

Solar Buddies — refillable roll-on sunscreen applicator

Listener Submissions

DM them to us on Instagram: @wait.same.pod

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Email your voice notes to waitsamepodcast@gmail.com