Archibald and Smiley Experiments: Summer 2026

A quarterly update on the experiments we’ve been trying in the Archibald home, with guest Andi Smiley to share her own summer experiments with her kids (5, 7, and 9). We talk about experiments -and the lack thereof—eating in while on vacation, road tripping, chores, finding each kid’s currency, audiobooks, and pushing ourselves to try scary new things.  

Andi hosts her own podcast, The Friendly Podcast Guide, to help women create, launch, and grow their podcasts.  

Experiments:  

Family Activity: Eat in During Vacation 

Objective: Save money and time.  

Procedure: Rent a place with a kitchen and prepare simple meals instead of eating out for every meal. It’s cheaper and can actually take less time than getting ready to go out, finding a place, and waiting for your food. Then you have more time and budget to play.  

Family Activity: Vacation Menu 

Objective: Take the thinking out of vacation food 

Procedure: Plan a set menu of quick and simple meals for cooking on vacation, so you don’t have to reinvent it every time. Our menu includes Taco Salad, Brats and Baked Beans, Spaghetti, frozen pizza, chicken quesadillas, grilled cheese sandwiches, and tomato soup. The Smiley family vacation menu includes “fancy ramen” and grilled peanut butter and honey sandwiches. 

Personal Activity: Do Something Scary 

Objective: Get out of your comfort zone and push yourself. 

Procedure: Make a list of things you find intimidating, vulnerable, or scary, but that you’d like to try. Challenge yourself to try one scary thing each week or month—even if it’s something small. 

Family Discussion: Choose a Theme/Vibe for the Season 

Objective: Start each season intentionally.  

Procedure: Pick 2-3 words as a family that you want to define the vibe of the upcoming season. For example, in Summer 2026, the Smiley family chose adventure, relaxation, and friends. Then refer back to these words throughout the season to make sure you’re approaching the season the way you hoped.  

Reels: (more coming soon)

Transcript:

A few weeks ago, I went to Cambodia with my oldest son. We mostly got around in tuk-tuks—basically motorized rickshaws. They’re tiny, but like Mary Poppins’s carpet bag, you can just keep shoving things and people inside, and somehow it all magically fits. 

 As we drove through the city streets, there were tuk-tuks, a few cars here and there, and then filling every gap were mopeds, motorbikes, scooters—every version of two-wheeled transportation. Usually there were at least two people on each scooter, but sometimes three or four, including children and babies. 

 At one point, we pulled up alongside a two-moped family, each with a parent and two kids. It reminded me of that analogy where you take a jar and put the big rocks in first, then the medium-sized rocks, then the sand, and somehow it all fits. When I say they filled every empty space, I mean every empty space. 

 I kept wanting to reach out of the tuk-tuk and tap people on the shoulder because they were closer to me than my son, who was sitting next to me. One bicycle-lane-width could hold two motorcycles. They really fit into every tiny nook and cranny. It was actually quite efficient if you think about it. 

But that rock analogy is usually used to talk about prioritizing, and that is not my point here. My point is that I should have been scared for my life in all this chaos. Their system seemed like it should never work. Lane lines meant nothing. Everyone just muscled their way through the intersections. 

 But weirdly, I was not afraid for my life. I just sat back and embraced the fascinating chaos. And that, my friends, was the perfect analogy for my entire summer. I had to sit back and embrace the beautiful chaos of having all five of my children under our roof, at least some of the time—with lots of comings and goings and virtually no systems or semblance of order. 

Welcome to the Family Lab Podcast. Last week, I said this was the tenth season, but it is actually the ninth season. None of that really matters. We’re here, and we’re starting up again—seasons, schmeasons. It’s time for my quarterly update on the experiments we’ve been trying here in the Archibald home. 

But I realize our family is growing up, and our experiments are getting less and less relevant to the parents who need and listen to this podcast most: those of you in the middle of diapers, tantrums, homework battles, messy toy rooms, picky eating, and all the rest. 

So, I invited my friend Andi Smiley to share her summer experiments as well, so we can cover more ages and stages. If you’re listening and thinking you’d love to come on the podcast for the fall or winter experiments episodes, let me know. It’s way more fun this way, and I’d love to hear about your experiments. 

Today we’ll talk about schedules—and the lack thereof—eating in while on vacation, road tripping, chores, finding each kid’s currency, audiobooks, and pushing ourselves to try scary new things. For reference, my five kids are now ages eleven through twenty, and Andi Smiley has three kids ages five, seven, and nine. She’s also a friend of mine and hosts a podcast of her own, called The Friendly Podcast Guide, to help women create, launch, and grow their podcasts. We’ll link to her podcast in the show notes. 

We started our conversation by giving an overview of each of our summers. 

Andi: This summer felt chaotic, truly, because I have my own show, and I help women grow their shows specifically with Pinterest. And I have had more clients this summer than I've ever had before, which was great. Like, yay for me. But also, it was hard to fit that in with kids and, like, making sure the kids felt like they had a fun summer, but also, I wasn't feeling super stressed. So, like, trying to fit that in was a little bit crazy. We kind of got into a rhythm, and then like, two weeks later, school started, right? That's how it always goes. But I talked to the kids last week because school started for us recently, and they were like, Mom, summer was awesome. This is so much fun. I was like, okay, cool. Like, at least they had fun. And I feel like a Iot people had my, like, work-from-home things that I was like. These are the things that I want to do, and we were able to exactly do most of those. So, I feel like overall it was fun, but it was certainly chaotic. 

Whitney: So how did you do that? Like, work from home this usually refers to She also hosts her own podcast, one? Cause that's hard. 

Andi: So truly, I thought, at the beginning of the summer, I thought, I'll just do it during quiet time. We have a one-to-two-hour window after lunch where the kids are supposed to either be downstairs in their rooms or outside, like in our backyard: We have a backyard, so they can all have their own corners. usually refers to She also hosts her own podcast, her backyard. And I thought usually refers to being enough, but I forgot usually refers to being inside to ask me a question. Sometimes it was 

Can I get a snack? Sometimes it was working, Mom, why is grass green? I'm like, this is a quiet time. Please wait until after quiet time. So, I had to get a little more creative. so sometimes I would like, hey, how about you guys have some friends over? Because when they have friends over, usually they don't bug me as much. Yes! I don't know why math works, but it always works that way. So, I had Exactly... 

Whitney: Like when one plus one equals zero because they're entertained  

Andi: It's true. So, I tried to make more friends as the summer went on. And then the other thing is I don't love this answer, but I would just start waking up and just go. So, Scott, my partner, wakes up early Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to go to work. So, I just started waking up at six with him on those days. And so, I got an hour before the kids woke up for the most part. And that kind of ended up being the ticket. It was like, okay, I have this solid hour, and then I have, like very interrupted quiet time that I would like to finish up whatever I didn't get done earlier in the day.  

And then truly I do have Mondays. Scott doesn't work on Mondays. So, I had to work every Monday as well, which I feel like getting work-from-home, but survived working this summer. I don't think I could have done it any other way. 

Whitney: That’s good. I think a lot of people will relate to that struggle. So, I can tell your kids are a different age than mine because mine does not wake up at seven o'clock. So, I can have very extended morning work hours long as you know, the ones that go to work sometimes get work-from-home if left to their own devices, they're like noon. Like yeah. I mean ten o'clock to noon, depending on the kid, but yeah.  

Lot of 

Andi: Yeah, no. All my children are awake right around seven. Sometimes if I'm lucky, seven thirty. 

Whitney: Okay, so my children were very unstructured as well. And I historically have liked to have some structure, especially when they were your kids' age. but it's very interesting, like having a house full of adults and semi adults and people who wish they were teenagers and all the above and so I usually at least like to do a house reset. but I didn't even do that. Just to change the house over from school mode to summer mode, you know, especially the kitchen, things like that. We had so much going on that I did not have time to get into any routines or rhythms. It was like flying by the seat of our pants because we had events like every two weeks, so there's no way to get into schedule in that case. 

So just to give an overview, my oldest son came home from his mission to Cambodia. He was there for two years serving a mission for our church. Then we had a youth conference that I was partly in charge of for our church exactly was like a camp type thing. And so that was busy. And then we had a family reunion. Then we had another church camp with just the girls this time. So, at the young women's camp and I was much more in charge of you know I like It the whole week for that, and I was more involved in that.  

And then right after that we took a family trip to Olympic National Park and for a week and it was awesome. And then we came back for a week, and then my second son started his home-training for his mission. He's going to Brazil and right before this we were just packing up his room, play and I'm already going to get emotional. So, we were just packing up his room, and he leaves tomorrow. So, I might be an emotional wreck today because it is kind of a wild day for us. It's our last day having everybody, like actually living in the house all together. So quite an emotional roller coaster that I might be a mess about this podcast.  

Andi: That makes sense. Well, and truly I feel like that will also that probably plays into what your summer was like, right? You're like, we need to fit everything in with everyone still home. 

Whitney: Exactly. So, I was like, I'm not going to worry about logistics. I just didn't. We just tried to enjoy each other's company. My pantry is pretty bad. So, there will be a reset for the fall, but I was just like I'm not going to spend our time fixing this temporary thing that I'm just going to fix again in the fall. We'll just scrounge around and lose things in there and 

Andi: make it work until you have brain space and things calm down a little. 

Whitney: Exactly, exactly. So, but yeah, in the midst of that kids were working, different jobs, yeah, just and I was building a big app for this for family lab. So that was our summer.  

Andi: Yeah, it's so funny cause like it's like we were both chaotic just in very different ways. 

Whitney: Yes. And it's funny cause you go to that point where your kids want you to entertain them all day, and you're trying to think of creative things to do with them and then you're tired of that. And then in my stage I'm like to wait, don't everybody go up to your friends. Like, mom wants to plan a fun hike for everybody. And it's like, you know, it's a rare thing on my stage, and it's a constant thing in yours. And when I was on your stage, I couldn't even imagine. Like there were days when it was as quiet as a school day because they were you know, my eleven-year-old has the freedom of a bicycle and a pass at the pool and so he's gone for a lot of the day, the others are all working. Even my fourteen-year-old daughter had a little very part-time nannying job and so yeah, the phases of life. 

Andi: Yeah, it is and I feel like sometimes when I'm in a good headspace, I'd be like, you know what? We're just going to soak it in and then other days I'm like, Nope, not soaking it today. I'm just going to try and make it happen and just deal. 

Whitney: And that is so okay. Nothing's worse than like having a rough day and some tomorrow lady at the grocery store is like, “just love every second.” 

Well, that was a good overview, so let's just go kind of category by category and dig deeper into some of these experiments that each of us have tried this summer. Starting with parenting. 

Andi: So, we kind of had like a theme for the summer and parts of it worked well, parts of it did not work very well, which is why we're talking about today. So, I listened to an episode, I'm pretty sure it was about progress with Monica Packer, but she talked about choosing some words with your family that can kind of like define what kind of a summer you want to have. So, we went through it, and the words that we ended up with were adventure and restful. I don't know how adventures can be restful, but it worked. And then friends. 

Those were like our three words. Like we want to go on adventures, but we also want to relax, and we want to spend a lot of time with friends. And we kind of like planned our weeks and our outings and the things that we wanted to do around those words. And so that part worked really well. Cause it was like, hey, mom, can my friend stay for dinner? And in my mind, I'm like, well, first, I was like, do we have enough food? Yes. Okay, cool. And then it was like, one of our words is friends. So sure. Like, we can have a friend come over. Like, I feel that kind of helped us make some of our decisions. 

Obviously, sometimes when they asked if friends could stay over, I was like, I do I have I do not have the mental capacity, so no. But when I could, I was like, yes, let's try and do that. Or like, instead of just sitting around, let's go for a walk in the river's bottoms as more of an adventure. Or, but then it'd be like, we are all tired today, so we're going to have a movie day. Like, I feel like just kind of trying to use those words to help us kind of have an idea of what our summer slash each day would look like, right? 

So that's the part that went really well. The part that didn't go so well was I was like; you know what? Let's make a calendar. Let's make a schedule, like a flexible schedule to be like, okay, to make sure that we get all of these things in. It did not work. I had a schedule. I even like told the kids, it was like Wednesday mornings, we're going to go outside. We're going to go on some sort of adventure. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, we're going to go on some sort of adventure inside. Like a museum or something like that. And we're going to invite friends, right? All these things. It lasted maybe a week. And then the kids were like, no, mom; we don't want to do that today. We want to go do this, or we just want to hang out with our friends in the backyard or whatever. So, the schedule, I thought it was going to be so nice and like giving us a little bit of structure in the summer because I feel like that's something that I crave at least. But the kids were just not having it. 

Week one worked well. On week two, it was like I was pushing the kids to do it. And by week three, I was like; this is I'm sick of trying to push this. We're just going to be more like going by the seat of our pants. But also, I feel like that was week three or week four is probably when we went on our first family trip of the summer too. And I feel like throwing everything out the window anyway. So, the schedule did not work. And I like, putting a solid like, probably forty-five minutes like figuring it all out, which is kind of a bummer that that was a waste of forty-five minutes, but we figured it out. And I feel like trying to force them into a schedule was not going to be worth it. If they didn't want it, like, nah, I'm not going to force them to do something cause that's just going to make all of us miserable. 

Whitney: Well maybe it even added a little creativity cause maybe if they had it in their minds like, we don't want to follow that schedule, b they were coming up with other things to do. It's not like they were like, no, we just want to watch T V today, you know, like, and I'm sure there were some days like that because restful, you need some days that are kind of down days. But sometimes I think a schedule is more useful as just a backup plan too, you know. So, if you would have needed it, you could have used it. But you didn't need it. Like way better for them to entertain themselves and figure out what they wanted to do. Great. 

Andi: It's true. It's true. So, I feel like Yeah. So, the words ended up being good. I'm like, okay, we'll probably try that again next summer. But I'm not going to spend that much time on schedule next year. 

Whitney: Yeah. And that may be just an age thing too; they're just getting older and more creative and inventive. That's great. 

Andi: It's true. I guess I didn't see it that way. You're right, because I feel like I made it so that I would have less decision fatigue, and I still had less decision fatigue. It just happened in a way that I wasn't expecting. So, there you go. Yeah. There you go. 

Whitney: So successful experiment.  

Andi: It wasn't successful in the way that I thought it was going to be, but it was still successful. So, there you go. Well, and I think I think often we revert to what's worked before, forgetting that everyone is on a different stage. Even you as a parent are in a different stage from one season to the next. So that's why we call them experiments, right? Ooh, I love that one. Okay, so one that 

Andi: Yes. And this was definitely an experiment this summer. Thank you. 

Whitney: I guess a big one was having a son come home from a mission is something we have never done. And he's been living this very structured life for two years where every moment is accounted for. So, we like mobilizing. So okay, how do we help him not get bored? Like how we keep him feeling like he has a purpose and he you know, like he didn't really have friends' homes in town. He got home a little too late to get a job, like a full-time job, and so we were just trying to help him navigate that. So, we came up with jobs for him.  I think he's painting a fence right now. Like that's been his big project for the summer is that we could you know, it's time to update our fence. So that's what he's been doing. and then he did like two weeks doing summer sales. So, he's just been doing things here and there, but the bonus was that he also got to do all the family trips cause he had a flexible job schedule and that was kind of why he maybe could have found something,  

But this is our last summer all together. It really is, because next summer, we'll have one on a mission. So, we just decided to make that our emphasis and really do some fun family things, specifically that reunion and then going to Olympic National Park. We scheduled everything else around those priorities and that's kind of how we did it. You know, sometimes just new phases are experiments, and we just have to navigate them. So, I wanted to throw that in there just because everybody has somebody in a new stage and that and it's different for every kid.  

So that was a big one for us this summer is just figuring it out and like learning from him and hearing his stories and just enjoying him. 

Andi: And just like spending that time while everyone's home. That's pretty much priceless. 

Another experiment was that we went to the beach this summer as a family. And the last time we went to a beach, our five-year-old was almost two. So, it was a very different beach experience, but we wanted my gosh; it was heaven. It was nice. And truly, I feel like it made me excited to go to the beach again. When we came home from the first beach trip as a family, I was like we needed some space between now and the next time we went. But this time it was really nice. And I do not like to cook. My husband Scott is the cook of our family. And so, I really don't like to cook, especially on vacation. 

I'm like, why would I cook when we're like on vacation? So, but this time we were like, we really want to spend less time trying to get ready for the restaurant, go to the restaurant, eat, and then come back. We just want to like to eat and then go back to play. And so that was one experiment that we tried on our vacation was just simple meals. So, we had fancy ramen, we did like grilled peanut butter and honey sandwiches. So, like nothing crazy but I we learned that the kids were so much happier they got to stay on the beach longer because we didn't have to go in to like to wash up to go out to eat. So that was one experiment within our vacation that was like, actually this is a better fit. And we were able to save money, so we were able to spend it on other fun things. Like there were two bodyboards that were just in the condo that they just kept there. So that was really nice. They literally took those bodyboards and just liked to run into the ocean and figured out how to board the boogie. It was like, what's going on? But okay. So, then it was like, okay, this is a thing. Cause Scott really loves boogie boards. And so, he was like, well, if they're going to use those; I need my own. So that so because we were able to save money on food, he was like, I'm just going to go buy myself a boogie board. So, he had his own. So, they were all boogie boarding the whole time. So that was fun and like a fun thing that we weren't expecting. 

And everyone was able to entertain themselves a little bit more. So, like Scott and I could go and boogie board while on previous trips it was like someone always had to be with the baby. We've kind of graduated. Like we are able to like having fun with our kids instead of liking as a whole family. 

So, I feel like that was something that was really interesting. And probably the last experiment on this beach trip was driving. So, driving in the past has been such a chore. So, we live in Utah, and we drove to California and it's about 11-ish hours. And so, we stopped in St. George for the night. Cause I was like, I'm not about to do eleven hours with these kids. And, like, I just don't want to drive for eleven hours straight. So, we stopped. But in those eight hours, we had enough podcasts. We did we listened to six minutes. Whitney, you were the one that told us about six minutes. 

It's it is good. We're still not done. There are so many episodes. I don't know if we'll ever finish them, quite honestly. It's been getting a little wilder. We had a couple of other podcasts, and that drive went so much faster because we didn't have to stop every two hours to feed a baby or like if we did have to stop it was like everyone just hopped out and wimpy and then got back in. So, like it was nice to have a couple of shows on an iPad for people to watch and then just listen to podcasts like and just have that all planned out. And it actually worked. Like the kids were okay with it. There were still plenty of complaints and asking when we were going to get there.  

So that was like the experiment of road tripping with relatively small children worked out okay too, which I was not sure if it was going to, so that was nice. 

Whitney: That's great. That's great. No, so I'll just take a piggyback on that and talk about our vacation. 

So yeah, we did Olympic National Park, which is somewhat of a nostalgia trip because we did that when the oldest probably was seven or something like that. So, they were much younger and we thought, let's go back and revisit it. My brother lives in Seattle, so we met up with them. it was a lot of driving because the Olympic Peninsula is big and we rented this big 15 passenger van but we stayed kind of in the south so any excursions we'd go on, it was then we'd have to drive back and we realized that that vacation would have been ideal with a couple different nights at a couple different places, but by the time we decided to go there that just wasn't available. So, it ended up being a lot of driving and I was like, Great, well so every year we do this family retreat. I'm like we'll do it during this trip, and we'll do it in our car time. But That used to work great with little kids because they were all engaged. And it works in a smaller car. I wasn't accounting for the fact that in a fifteen-passenger van, to my kids that meant everybody gets their own row. So, it was not like this kumbaya togetherness we're all singing and playing games on the car rides.  

Also, as you have heard, teenagers are sleepy. So, there was you know, they were sleepy. So, I had all these like things I wanted to discuss as a family and pick a word for our year cause that's what we do at our we do it for the whole year, but at our retreat. I would keep trying to find the moment where they were all engaged and not tired and fed, and it was going to work. And like we snuck a few things in here and there, but for the most part it was kind of the opposite of your car trips. Instead of us all engaged in one activity, everybody was in their own row with their own device. It wasn't what I pictured. But then when we'd got out, we had a lot of fun, and we'd do, and it was not like it was miserable in the car. It was fine in the car. And my husband and I talked a lot, but anyway. But part of the experimentation is managing expectations. Like I had so much planned, 

But Olympic National Park itself was glorious. It rained us out on some things, but that was its own adventure. We saw rainforests, we did tide pools, we did some awesome hikes, and we did some cliff jumping. just all of the above and it was a pretty magical, very memorable vacation. It was amazing. 

Okay. Let's move on to home management experiments. 

 Andi: Okay, so let's be really, it's managing a home in the summer is a little crazy. But like bare minimum at our house is we have responsibility charts, which are pretty much chores, but we like to call them responsibilities because my kids don't know what chores are. And so, but they like having responsibility over something. And I know it's a huge word, and making them learn how to say it was its own battle, but we're here now, so we're sticking with it. So, in the past, what we've done is that we've had responsibility charts, and they must do all their responsibilities before they can do their screen time. That was just how we had it, and it worked pretty well. But this summer I was like, you know what? I am so sick of reminding them all day long to do their responsibilities and then they usually do like some of them in the morning and then they don't do the rest of them and then like right before like 3:30 they're like cranking them all out so that they can do their screen time before dinner, right? And so, this summer I was like, you know what? We're going to try something new. We're going to have you have to do your responsibilities before you can go outside or have friends over at our house. Like if friends are coming into our house, also you need your responsibility. 

And so that there was a learning curve. My children were so mad at me and Scott for the first probably two weeks of like, I can't believe you are making me do my responsibilities this early in the morning. Like they were so, so mad. Well, and their responsibilities, just so y'all have a picture, is Dishwasher. So, like one person, one of the kids unloads the dishwasher, the other kids put the dishes away, and then the five-year-old oversaw silverware. Like that's kind of how we split up dishwasher responsibilities. Or like you must do your hair. You must brush your teeth. You must get dressed. These aren't like insane responsibilities. Or like you have to make your bed. I think that was another one. So, it's not like we're asking them to vacuum every day or something like that. Like it's just pretty much taking care of your stuff and taking care of yourself and then doing the dishwasher. That's like the one that doesn't have as much to do with them specifically, but like our entire family. And so, after those two-ish weeks, we kind of got used to it for the most part. They still wouldn't love it totally. But it ended up being such a good thing for me because it was so hard before they like one kid would do their dishwasher, but the other two wouldn't. So, like I had all these dishes on my counter waiting for the other kid to do their dishwasher job. And so, I like so it was really nice because they got them done early in the morning. So, I didn't have to remind them all day. And we still did screen time usually in the afternoon after quiet time. So, like but they didn't, they weren't rushing to try and do their responsibilities and asking me to help them while I'm trying to like to start prepping for dinner and all those things.  

So, I feel like in the end, it was a good experiment. And I will probably do it again next summer because it was so nice to be like, okay, that's done. I don't have to think about trying to remember who's done what I did. Everyone's done their stuff because they're all outside now. And I feel like in some ways, that learning curve of two weeks of them being so mad at me every day, I was like, did we make a bad choice? Cause it was, they were so mad. But I feel like once they finally kind of were like, no, this is just what we're doing now. 

It ended up being a good thing. But there were definitely a couple of days of like, is this even worth it? Is this worth the level of whining that I'm dealing with right now? 

But it ended up being worth it as soon as we finally like settled into it, and they were like, mom's not changing this. So, I guess I guess we'll just be used to it. 

Whitney: Well first, it's awesome that your kids are more motivated by outside play than screen time. So that is something to celebrate. 

 And I mean originally that was the objective behind it, right? It like something to motivate them to get the chores done, a deadline, right.  

Andi: Yes, yes, totally. 

Whitney: But I feel like one of the trickiest things is figuring out your child's currency. Like whether it's to help motivate good behavior or help motivate responsibility or any of that stuff. And mine are all over the map. Like they all have different motivators and different currencies.  And to find that early in the summer and to help that work for you, that is a major win of an experiment. That's great. 

Andi: Yeah, that's true. Well, and I feel like we got lucky because I think cause my kids are still young enough, they're like, yes, please let me but go outside. I feel like that's not always going to be the case. So, I'm glad that we were able to like to use it while it was the currency for all three. 

Whitney: My friend Andrea Davis really cautions about using screen time because there's all those people creating and selling even selling these chore charts that are like all the things you must do before you get screens. but then that does set screens up on a pedestal like ooh that's the ultimate reward. And have I used that? Yes, because for some of my kids specifically that was their currency. But teenagers, it's like you got to get your stuff done before you can take the keys and use the car that is the family car, it's not your car, you know. 

For some of them it is screens, for some it's going out to play with friends. So, you know, it's just different, and I am not a big believer in fairness as far as perfect equality. I'm more of an advocate for customization. I'm going to figure out how to raise each of these kids; it's not going to look the same.  

Andi: I feel like sometimes it is so overwhelming. But when I'm able to do it, I feel like each kid just goes so much smoother. So, like I've literally started just writing it down. This is how I handle my nine-year-old. This is how he needs to be talked to. Or like and I feel like that's really helped me to be like or because my nine-year-old is obsessed with reading. He's, our bibliophile. So that is definitely one of his motivators. That's his currency. But I've learned I cannot leave him with a book at night or else he will not sleep. So, like that's one thing that like my seven-year-old, if she wants to read for a little bit before she goes to bed, she loves to sleep so much that she'll read like a couple pages and then she'll go to bed. But my nine-year-old, He will just read and read and read and read. So, we've had to start just taking away his book and his nightlight at like nine because he will just keep reading until his book is done. Yeah. There's not what I know. It's so sweet, right?  

Whitney: That's a great and really sweet example. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Andi: So, we have to prioritize having to shift a little bit when it's when your body needs sleep.  

Whitney: Yes, for sure. Love it. Okay. Well, those are great. So, every single episode of these I tell you my new way that I've tried to figure out how to get my kitchen clean. And it's always different. And part of that is my strategy is to change it up because novelty gets results. 

 So, we try different things and do some work better than others. This summer it's actually like I feel like we're arriving. They all for sure have the skills to do any bit of any part of the kitchen. And so, I have also been having kind of a hard summer with back pain and just figuring out all of that. So, I cannot physically make dinner or do dishes. So, I'm out of the equation. And so, we've just been like, okay, everybody back in the kitchen to work together. And that used to cause major fights, and still sometimes it does. But they kind of have been figuring it out. And it helps having some adult children who are like, I'll just power through these dishes if you guys bring them to me. You know, like they're actual adults, that act like adults sometimes and like a lot of the time. and that has been hugely helpful. So, you know, part of it's just stages, but also like necessity makes a difference. You know, like when I'm just not available, and our kitchen will just be a mess if they leave it up to me to clean it because I can't. They have been stepping up and that has been a great experiment.  

Usually, we've had some sort of distinct responsibilities. Either somebody's the dishes and rotates the dish night, or everybody has a role and then we switch after a week or a month or whatever. But this time it was just like no parameters, just everybody works till it's done and for the most part It worked well. So, which is more than I can say in most seasons when I do this episode. So, all those years of fighting and pulling teeth, they have developed the skills. They are figuring out how to work together. and they're I mean, they just do grow up, so it's kind of amazing. 

Andi (36:51): That sounds nice. 

Truly, that reminds me of one more experiment. Can I tell you one more experiment? That is literally almost the exact same as yours, but my children are just younger, so it's a little bit different. This is more like spring going into summer, but Scott and I were like, we are so sick of having to like make dinner, eat dinner with the kids, like make sure they're all eating dinner, which is its own thing, right? 

And then Like getting them in the shower or the bath and then getting them into bed and doing bedtime and then coming back upstairs and then cleaning the kitchen. Like it was just too much. Something needs to change. And so, we're like we just sat everyone down. We were like, hey, dad and I have decided that we are all old enough and ready to help out more in the kitchen. Cause before it was like their main thing was to make sure your plate gets into the sink. Like that was that was pretty much all they had to do. But this like earlier this summer slash spring, I don't exactly remember when it was. We were like, nope, it's time. So, we kind of have different levels. Like the four-year-old at the time was not going to be doing the whole dishwasher by herself. But we so she kind of had a buddy of me. It was either me or Scott would kind of be her buddy. She is, she's a helper, exactly. And so, like the main jobs, were putting the dishes in the dishwasher, wiping down the table, and moving the chairs. Cause no one likes to sweep. Don't ask me why. All of my children are super anti-sweeping. So, I was like, if you move the chairs, I will sweep. And those are kind of like the main jobs, right? And when we started doing that, we could bust it out in like 10 or 15 minutes for the most part. 

And it was glorious. We would finish bedtime and then walk upstairs and just be able to move on with our night, right? If it's date night, we just got to like we just got to start date night or if it was like a Wednesday night and I was going to go work and Scott had his own things, like we could just start on it. We didn't have to spend the next twenty to twenty-five minutes cause there's only two of us cleaning the whole kitchen. And looking back, I feel like we probably could have done it sooner. Like we probably could have started having all of the kids help a little bit sooner. 

Whitney: But you know that is like it's the investment stage, you know, like you just it has to be harder for a while because they have to learn the skills somehow. And they have to learn just that that is part of their responsibility, even if they're not helping at all. But it eventually likes it; we're just barely getting to the payoff stages. So, it's many, many, many years.  

Andi: I will say it's like a mini payoff though. The fact that we don't have to do it all by ourselves, like I'll take it. It will be nice eventually when I don't have to tell them five times. Now it's time to wipe the table down. Like, here's the rag. Get it wet. It would be nice if I didn't have to do that. But just getting help at this point is worth it for me. Even though, let's be real, it's not perfect.  

Whitney: It's worth it, yeah. Totally. And yeah, they can move things, and they could yeah, they're helpful. That what they haven't figured out is that my kids love sweeping because they've figured out how they can just do it as slowly as possible and just wander around with the broom and be like, No, I'm busy. That's the one everybody wants. Yeah. Yeah. 

Andi: “See my broom I'm sweeping.” Yeah, they have not learned that tactic yet. So, yeah. 

Whitney: Well, I would love to end up with it. Is there one personal experiment that you have done? Like either whether it's a new hobby or new just way of doing things? 

Andi: My goodness, I always have so many experiments. Let me think. one of my okay, I one of my experiments that I've been trying is listening to more audiobooks. I really love to read, but I'm in a stage of life where I don't have very much time to just sit and read a book. I do always have a physical book that I am reading, but I want to read more. I want to like, I have such a long TBR to be read list, and I want to like to be consuming more books. And so, I've been listening to more audiobooks. And it honestly is just like making things less boring too. So, like when I'm like doing laundry or driving the kids arond. Exactly. 

And so that has been an experiment that I've been trysomebody doesing and really loving. Right now, I'm listening to Emma Lion, the unselected journal of Emma Lion. And that narrator is to die for hilarious reasons. So, if you haven't listened to them if you haven't read those, go listen. 

Whitney: So, I read them, but I heard that I should have listened to them, so I kind of missed the boat on that. But maybe I'll just have to reread it.  

Andi: And I use Libby, the like library app. And yeah, I feel like I'm not about to buy audiobooks. Like that doesn't make sense to me, especially in the stage of life that I'm in. But I just use Libby and I listen to so many audiobooks, and it just feels like I'm able to enjoy more books, which is a big thing for me. My nine-year-old gets a bibliophile from me. 

I love to read and I love to consume books and I just haven't been able to just in this stage of life that we're in and so having audiobooks has made has kind of filled that like hole in my heart of reading. 

Whitney: That's great. They probably one of my most different experiments this year or for this summer for me on the personal side is that I decided in I guess this is May, I don't know, it's it was as summer was starting, I guess. I decided to enter a podcast competition. And so, I did for the for twenty thousand hertz, they have a listener competition. And so, I just got to do a podcast on a totally different topic of on sound, and I did it on barbershop chords. And it was just a five-minute episode, so that was a big challenge too. But it just felt a little scary and I just feel like I feel a need to do that every once in a while. Just do something that I mean, it's in my comfort zone podcast wise, but it was totally different than my podcasts. And so, it was really fun to do it. I did not win this competition, but it doesn't matter. The experience was great and the vulnerability of sending something away to a competition. And I'll release it as its own bonus episode. 

Well, thank you. Thank you for your great ideas. You did a great job this summer. I'm impressed.  

Andi: I mean, thank you. Thank you. We're figuring stuff out, so here we are. 

 Whitney (44:23) 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Family Lab podcast. My entry for the Twenty Thousand Hertz Podcast competition is available as a brief bonus episode if you're curious. 

And I want to thank my podcast manager, Kimberly Hansen, for making this podcast possible and my mom, Susan Singley, for playing the theme music. She used to play this song all the time when we were growing up, and to me it's the soundtrack of motherhood.