The following podcast is a dear media production.

This episode was produced by Wishbone Production.

Hi, I'm Otto.

Welcome to Ellen Sarah's podcast.

Okay, hello.

It's like my hair is orange.

I don't know.

Happy New Year to you. Um, you're in holiday

pajamas. What's happening? I know. Okay. So I just got so triggered because Tommy tried to

take the Christmas tree down. And I had like, so you like put on holiday pajamas in protest. I like

freaked out. I was like, what are you doing? You know, you know, the Christmas light people are coming to take down the Christmas. I'm not ready to let. You're not ready. I'm not ready to let go. So I thought like how much how much longer can I wear these pajamas for? And I'm not a Christmas pajama person. I don't even like flannel pajamas. Yeah, I was a little taken aback seeing this visual. I know. It just, it called my name.

I showered. I walked to the closet and it just called my name. So not everything that calls us is

meant for us. That's true. That's true. But I'm still clinging, you know, I'm clinging to the last. I mean, I get it. Today, I went back to work. And in the office at the writer's room, I was like, why are we here? This is crazy. I mean, first of all, I got Noah up and was rushing her out the door for school. And then one of the moms texted me and said, Aaron, there is no school today. They have another week off. And I was like, well, if she gets a week off, why am I going to work? How do you not know your kid had a week? How do you not know that? You know, it's a great question. I think I just didn't like compute that she had three weeks off instead of two. I figured if I'm going back to work, she's going back to school.

So it's all shifting. Like don't you feel like I feel like when we were in school, we had much longer time. Like I feel like we didn't start school until September. Now our kids are starting school in August, like early August.

You feel like we had longer breaks as kids? I feel like we, I mean, look, we, yeah, I do. I feel like we had longer breaks. But here's what I did this year. Every year, I feel bullied by my kids. You know, I feel bullied by them. I feel like I have to keep up with the Joneses. I feel like I have to go on a cool trip because, oh, little Johnny's going skiing and, you know, little Ella is going to Hawaii. And I always feel like, I always feel like, okay, I should go somewhere because that's just like what you're supposed to do, blah, blah, blah. And every time I go on a trip, I come back, yes, of course we have good times.

You know, of course, like, it's, of course you have good times.

But I always come home going, that was just so expensive.

I need a vacation from the vacation I just had.

It's never actually relaxing.

It's just never actually relaxing. So you know what I did this year for the first time ever. I do know what you did because I was with you. Sorry, I'm like clockwork. We started a pod and here she is asking for screen time. She's back on the screen time if you haven't noticed. And you know what? She's 15 and I don't give a shit. Some of my friends, her, the friend's parents were like, she's 15. Like she's having to kind of like beg for screen time. I go, yes. Because she's not a. That's what's happening. In 2026, I think that we need to implement the screen time on all the kids under 18. Call me crazy. Well, you know, I think

that your system would maybe work better if you gave like locked in hours as opposed to her just

having to ask for more all the time because then it like she nagged at you all the time for it.

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