Ep. 374: When Volunteering Gets Out of Control
Big Fat Positive: Pregnancy and Parenting (BFP)
Laura Birek, Shanna Micko
4.7 • 531 Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the special segment "Gripe Water," Laura and Shanna share the hilariously petty parenting problems that have been bothering them lately, diving into the topics of volunteering, school-attendance policies, parties and more. Also, Shanna reports on the highs and lows of helping out at her kids' summer camp, and Laura discusses the surprising activity that captivated her kids on their recent vacation to Portland. Finally, the moms share their BFPs and BFNs for the week. Shanna's kids are 6.5 and 9.5 years old, and Laura’s kids are 6.5 years old and 4.5 years old.
Topics discussed in this episode:
-Volunteering at your kids' events and activities
-Hiring teachers/counselors as babysitters
-Taking a summer vacation with kids to Portland, Oregon
-Going to the most amazing pinball arcade
-Going hiking with your kids
-Setting boundaries when it comes to volunteering
-Stringent school-attendance policies
-Feeding your kids at parties
-Frustrating experiences at kids' sports and extra-curricular activities
-Back-to-school shopping with your kids
-Taking your kids to an immersive art experience
Products, links, resources mentioned in this episode:
-Next Level Pinball Museum and Arcade
-Hopscotch Immersive Art Experience
Past BFP episodes mentioned in this episode:
-Ep. 373 (For the episode where Laura determines that going to Portland every summer is her family's tradition)
This episode's full show notes can be found here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shauna and Laura. |
| 0:05.0 | This week we have our weekly check-ins. |
| 0:07.0 | We have our special segment, Grip Water, where Shana and I give ourselves permission to complain about how our schools are just asking too much of us, okay? |
| 0:15.0 | And we close with our BFPs and B events for the week. |
| 0:18.0 | Let's get started. |
| 0:20.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to episode 37 week. Let's get started. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode |
| 0:22.1 | 3754. Hi, Shana. Hello. Hello. Hello. Okay, I'm talking to you on a brand new mic set up. I got a |
| 0:31.3 | fancy new mic and a whole setup where I can support video, so hopefully we can do video at some point. |
| 0:56.5 | Nice. But I just wanted to warn people that we're still going to be figuring it out. And if it sounds different or echoey or something, you can let us know. Let us know how you think it sounds. We're going to try to make it sound perfect and you won't even be able to tell. But for now, that's my disclaimer. But that's not why people are here, Shana. They don't want to hear me talk about mic setups. I don't think. Oh, it's not, it's not big fat disclaimer show. |
| 1:02.1 | We just get disclaimers about things. What if we just turned into one of those like bro audio |
| 1:06.8 | hardware discussion shows? Like, hey man, have you tried this new sure SM7B oh man like the |
| 1:13.5 | the high tones are sick on this thing oh man I would be at a loss I would be like um |
| 1:20.5 | huh that would be Steve's wheelhouse he'd be good at that the, no, no, no. That's not what we're here for. |
| 1:30.3 | We're here because it's our 374th episode and we need your 374th check-in. All right. Well, you're |
| 1:36.7 | going to get it, girl. This week was the last week of my girl's summer camp and it ended on Friday with a big cast party. |
| 1:47.6 | As you recall, I'm sure the girls are in musical theater camp. This is their second show of the |
| 1:52.5 | summer. And at the end of every three week session, they had a huge party on the last day of camp |
| 1:58.3 | before they do their performances. This thing is the highlight of the |
| 2:01.8 | summer. This camp director is amazing. She rents huge water slides. The Kona ice truck comes, |
| 2:09.6 | like, you know, like shaved ice. They have pizza and snacks and there's a swimming pool on the |
| 2:15.1 | campus where they are. I mean, it is amazing. This year, |
| 2:19.4 | Cece begged me to be a volunteer at this event. I have not done it before, usually because I'm |
... |
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