Milk and Madness

Hello everyone. This is Nhi and Dee and we're the hosts for the Milk and Madness podcast. Let's get to know each other and also start giving you a glimpse of the kinds of things that we're going to be talking about here in this podcast. Please click on subscribe if you can relate.

Let's do a little get to know us. Nhi, would you like to tell us who you are?

Hi everyone, I'm Nhi. And I am a mom of two amazing boys who are the loves of my life, but I'm going to focus on who I am outside of being a mom because we're going to spend so much time going through and exploring, what it is to be a mom, our experiences being a mom as well as the highs and lows.

So I'm just going to remove that from the equation for now. I'm married to a wonderful man named Matthew. And funny story, true story, we met online. And it was before Tinder and all those apps. We met on what was the website RSVP and it was desktop and we're really good balance because I'm really hypo competitive. And Got 500 things on at the same time and he's complete opposite to that. In terms of just the yin yang kind of balance out situation , it's a really good mix for us.

I am someone who is really creative. I enjoy being creative. I love doing things with my hands. I love gardening. I love cooking. I love doing arty crafty stuff. I love putting furniture together. Anything that involves. Just, taking something and changing it or taking an idea from my mind and then transforming it and actually making it into reality.

I love that stuff. And an example is I love op shopping, which is going vintage shopping. And finding treasures, hidden treasures that no one else can see. And then taking it home and transforming it into something that is incredible. For example, buying dresses that are really big size dresses for me.

And then going home and doing some sewing, cutting it up into pieces and then making something that is truly unique. I love that stuff. In regards to work and career, I have over a decade of experience in the corporate world. I've worked for, we're in Australia and I've worked for one of the biggest banks, biggest health insurance biggest telco.

I've literally worked at all of those. And I have made the shift. I work for a tech startup, which I absolutely love. It's my favorite job I've ever had. And I'm hoping to never have to return to corporate. Anymore fingers crossed that's, that happens. And I'm someone, in terms of personality, I'm someone who's quite competitive.

I And competitive myself. It's not really about being competitive with other people. It's more about myself in terms of my expectations, which is a bad, at a good thing, depending on what the situation is. And I am someone who always has multiple projects on at the same time. It's just how I'm programmed.

I constantly have friends, family who are concerned that I will burn out all the time, but it literally just how I am programmed. I just like to have multiple things on and I do find it hard to relax which is something I'm really aware of since becoming a mum more because, there are just additional things on top of those projects that I would already have and you don't get that much time to yourself or me time.

I'm really conscious of it. And we can talk about that further. I mentioned I really enjoy cooking. I used to own a cafe with my with one of my best friends. We had it for just over four years and somehow everything fell into place and we sold it just before COVID. I think it was, I don't know, maybe eight months, nine months before COVID.

Which is incredible because I really feel for the businesses during COVID. It would have been so hard and I think we would have really struggled. And in terms of my background, my background is Vietnamese. And my grandpa during the war came over.

And he was here for quite some time, saved some money, worked really hard and managed to sponsor our entire family over.

And I come from a really big family. My mum is one of nine. That will, yeah, it's quite a lot. And that will come up I think quite a lot throughout our journey of this podcast because. Coming from a big family has impacted so much in terms of my experience or expectations of being a mum as well. I'm doing this podcast because I think it'd be, one, really fun. I'm all for learning new things. I'm all for honing on new skills, refining those skills. So I think this podcast can be really great for that. And also There has been so many situations, so many times when I've just paused and gone, why didn't I know about this?

I'm pulling my hair out or I'm crying about something. And I just wish someone had told me some things. And I think this podcast is going to be really great for that. And if it can help anyone in some way, then success, then I think this podcast , has ticked that box for us.

Yeah, that's me. How about you Dee?

Oh my gosh. This is such a hard question to answer.

And you're right. Let's let's maybe introduce ourselves outside of being mums. But just quickly yes, I am a mum. Hence why I'm doing this podcast. I have two children. So Aiden, who's five and a half and Amelia, who will be three in about two weeks time, going on 13. Probably. So they're my two children who, yes,

you just, you can't put words on it, right? You just, it's, you can't explain how much becoming a parent changes you and all of that. But let's talk outside of being a parent, who I am. I'm someone who is actually more analytical than creative. I would love to be creative because I've seen some people do some amazing things, and I'm always so jealous.

I'm like, I wish I could do that, but it's just not in me. So I'm a lot more analytical. I enjoy puzzles and problem solving. And that's just who I am, which is fine. I'll still stick to my stick figures. I do enjoy DIYing and creating things. However, how I do it is I need inspiration from other people.

So I will, I do enjoy doing those things, it's like a paint by numbers style. Like I need the bones there. I need the frameworks there to do it. I can't just create things off the top of my head. But I love going to like art galleries and just seeing those things. I really appreciate it because I can't do those things.

I am quite active, I really enjoy going on adventures. I absolutely love trying new things. I'm the sort of person that will put my hand up for anything. I'll try anything once. And if it's not for me, it's not for me, but at least I can say that I've tried it.

So yes, I do love going on adventures. I love hiking and being outdoors. In the past, maybe Actually, it was before AIDAN, so it was longer than six years now. I was just trying to do the timeline. So maybe 10 years. I really started on a more physical health journey. Started going to the gym and also started doing aerials, which I absolutely love.

So that includes hoop, pole and silks. So I'm currently doing silks only, but I absolutely love it. It is brutal on your body, but it is so rewarding to know that you're getting stronger and when you can do the moves and you're like, yeah, I could join Cirque du Soleil.

Absolutely. Sign me up. It's never happening. I'm not super competitive, but again, I wish I was, so all these sort of characteristics about me I always wish that I Was more competitive because I can see how it helps other people.

So I'm always analyzing myself and analyzing the things about other people that I admire, and I will try and strive to do those things. What else? Probably the biggest thing about me is that I am very empathetic. I'm the sort of person that takes on other people's emotions and I'm really trying to put myself first.

Not that there's anything wrong with being there for other people and being empathetic, but I just found that it really affected me a lot. And I'm really trying to advocate for myself while advocating for others. Whereas in the past, it was just advocating for others and just like putting myself to the side.

So it's been a, it's been a journey and there's still lots to go, but we're getting there. And I love travel love going to new cultures. I love tasting the food and listening to the language and just learning about their way of life and hearing their stories and usually ended up generally making lifelong friends from those experiences because they are such memorable and impactful experiences.

And probably the last couple of things that I'll say is I will be a lifelong student. I love learning.

I do. I love learning. I love finding out things about other people that I didn't know. And in turn, generally, that means that I will find out things about myself. But I just love learning a new skill. I just love not knowing how to do something and then studying it and being shown how to do it.

And then you do it and you're like, wow, I didn't know I could do this. And a month ago, two months ago, I couldn't do that. So I really love that progress and feeling like I'm accomplishing something and then it's those skills and those learnings that I can pass on to the kids. And so I feel like I will continue to grow by having the passion and the love for continuous learning.

So just a quick background on me. So as Nhi said, we live in Australia currently. But my background is from Europe. I my parents and myself, we were born in Romania and we moved down to Australia when there was, Civil war happening.

And we have lived here ever since. So it's just a slight little glimpse into my background there. The reason why I'm doing this podcast, honestly, I really wholeheartedly think that sharing and being open and honest will help someone, anyone. I don't care if it's just one person. Because I know how much that helps me.

And if I'm being even more honest, it really will help me as well. Like I see this is my therapy. Like I found the mothers group to be like my therapy where I could go and I could connect with people. And even if we weren't having the same experiences, cause some parents had, experiences that were sooner than us and whatnot.

But. It didn't matter. Like we're in it and we're in it together. And that's why I want this podcast or what I want to achieve in this podcast. We're in it. We're in it together. It doesn't matter what your experience is somewhere, somehow, someone will relate to us and to each other. And I really want to bring that to people.

And I really want to be able to share that and hopefully help someone and have a few laughs along the way, of course, because it will, it has already been so much fun. So it will be fun.

All right, let's get into some meaty stuff. . If you can, in a single word, how would you sum up your experience of parenthood so far?

It's hard to pick just one word. I think there are two words that come to mind. It's growth and challenge. And I think you get an understanding of what they are straight away, but challenge because there's so many things you don't know. There are moments you question yourself.

There are times when you get so much feedback that it does the opposite of what you need and challenge there are things that you might've felt or believed. About being a mom or how you'd be as a parent and those things are questioned and pushed and you're made to make decisions that you probably wouldn't have considered in the past challenge.

Absolutely.

I think grow because of the personal growth that you go through as an individual, but also as a couple and also as a family, like it's really incredible the journey that you go through and it feels slow once you go through it. But now after, five and a half, almost six years, that growth has been steady throughout the whole process.

And it's been continuous. It hasn't been just little clusters of growth here and there, but it's been, the journey has just been on ongoing journey of growth where you become bigger than yourself because obviously you're responsible for, other life, but also in terms of how I think about things, how I approach things it's really changed being a mom.

How about you?

Yes. I definitely agree with those two words. They are Perfect. I might piggyback off the growth word and say transformative, which I think is very similar to growth. Yes. I have to do something different, right? I can't put the same word. You could, but it's okay. Because you're right.

The person that you were before becoming a mum, before becoming a parent, It transforms into something else and through everything that you learn through all that growth that you go through, you do, you are constantly transforming into a new person and it's the biggest sort of. change in someone's life.

There's really no other event that can occur that can make you, and I say make you because yes, you do, you are forced to have to change. But it's something obviously that you've chosen and it happens, but it is the biggest thing that causes you to transform and Every day is a small transformation and it's a small growth that you undertake and you're right, you get to one year, two years, three years, et cetera, down the track and when you look back, that's when you can see how different of a person you were at the start of the journey.

To where you are now, but it is every single day. So small, little growth moments, learning moments, those transformative moments that really compound and grow with you and your family, your children as you go through all the different milestones.

Yeah. And I'll do the next question now. What pushes you to the brink of madness and how do you cope?

Everything. Everything

pushes me to the brink of madness. No. Yes and no. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. On those days where you're really tired and you've got a lot of stressful things going on and there's no dinner in the fridge and you haven't done washing or there's just everything is compounded and nothing is going right for you, then yes, anything and everything can push me to the brink of madness.

But in general, the thing that I find currently that really frustrates me is the whining. I'm just like, why is this necessary? You can speak, just talk to me. Like, why do you need to whine? Now, obviously I'm kidding. It doesn't really push me to the brink of madness, so to speak, but it it is really frustrating me at the moment.

And I don't know I don't know why they feel like they need to go through this, but I just write it out, but it's it really is the everything going wrong that can really overwhelm. There's a couple of different things that I do to cope. When. Obviously, I try not to let everything compound.

That's rule number one. Try and, have your shit together as much as possible. Try and take me time. So doing the things that I love doing especially when that I was enjoying to do before I became a mom, but even doing things that the kids and I enjoy doing together I find really helps to, keep us all aligned and in balance In those moments where I can't go to the gym or go for a walk or go read a book or have a cup of tea , I try and either walk away, so if it's, obviously if the kids are safe and nothing's going on and they're just whining and I just can't walking away and just doing one little thing, so if it is a case where like the dishes aren't done and the laundry's not done and just nothing's ready and nothing's done, just going and just Closing the laundry door and just sorting clothes, popping them in the dish, in the dishwasher, although mum brain in the washing machine, and ticking one thing off so I feel like I've accomplished something.

And obviously it gives me a little bit of me time and a breather where like I close the door and the kids are doing whatever they're doing and I'm getting something done, but also getting that me time as well. But when the kids are, let's say they're fighting or they're crying and they're having a tantrum or something and I'm getting really overwhelmed, I have started to try and get them involved in like breathing exercises and we try and do it together now.

So it's not me walking away and trying to reset myself. I'm trying to incorporate that with the three of us. So me and the kids, if or one, depending on which kid is having the tantrum at that time. Try to really incorporate that so that we can help each other get through it, but also create like that bonding experience.

And we just do it together. The kids would do it with themselves or with each other, or they'll do it with me now. And we just, it's just an activity that we can do together. And it brings us all down as opposed to the kids are still having a tantrum, but I'm feeling better now.

And then I go back into this situation to deal with it. It's we do it. We do it together. What about you? What pushes you to the brink and how do you, what strategies that you get yourself out of it?

There are many more things that push me to the brink of madness, hence the name of this podcast, by the way, but I think for me, it's really a buildup.

It's all about the buildup. It's not just one thing ever that will trigger me to just lose the plot and shout or anything like that. It's a buildup and usually I can feel it, I can sense it. What I've noticed recently is that my house is in a state of disrepair. So it's not about the toys , cause there's always going to be toys everywhere.

It's not about if there's a buildup of laundry, it's, if I feel that the house is dirty, I've realized that for me, that is something mentally like for my mental health, that when I start feeling that their house is dirty, it really means that if there's a few more things that I'm going to, I'm going to lose it.

So I try to get in, I try to get on that as soon as possible. And it's something my husband has. I just realised as well. If there is food crumbs all over the house, like we always have popcorn everywhere. You have noodles one night and there's noodles everywhere. That's the stuff that, when I feel that the house is dirty, that can really trigger me to just to, I don't know, I get a bit anxious or stressed.

Yeah, more easily. So there's that stuff, and then it's just, you haven't slept for ages work might be a bit stressful, maybe the kids are kicking and screwing about not wanting to go to childcare, whatever it is, right? So it could just be a build up of stuff, and maybe I haven't had any time.

For me at all for weeks and then that stuff spills up and then something tiny happens, something microscopic happens and then that is the thing that triggers me. The biggest thing for me in terms of coping is just having that me time scheduled in. Every week I go to the gym multiple times. Maybe it's having lunch with you.

Maybe it's Whenever it is, right? I need to have some stuff scheduled in knowing that it's there. It's like when you work and you have a holiday, it's good to have holidays booked in, so I need to have the me time stuff scheduled. The me time stuff needs to happen, but also one of the biggest learnings that I've had to help me cope with when I am getting triggered or when I feel that.

I'm going to get triggered more easily. And this is something that I'm still learning. It's a journey, as we said, but it's really taking myself out of the situation and realizing that if the kids are misbehaving, it's not, it's got nothing to do with me in terms of they're not doing it to annoy me.

They're not doing it to make me. It's because they're hungry or tired or they're bored or whatever it is, or they want to chat or they need intimacy, whatever it is. And so taking myself out of that situation and trying to see what it is, and trying to deal with that, trying to mitigate that situation.

That's really, I know it sounds so simple, but it's taken me probably years to really take that on and to practice that in reality. So the sooner I do that In the situation, the better and I found that has just made me a better mum in general. I would say, I suppose that would be advice that I would give as well, in terms of just helping you cope with it when you feel that you might get triggered more easily or when you're just, everything is just building up in your head is feeling like this.

Try to take yourself out of the situation.

That's, yeah, no, that's really good advice because you're right, the kids, they don't, they have no malice behind anything they do, they're just probably angry and we've all been there, we've all been angry and thrown a tantrum. No that's really good advice.

How has becoming a mum changed you? I know it's a big question, but how do you think you're different?

Look, becoming a mom really changes everything, absolutely, about your life. And I think if you're listening to this and you're pregnant and you're not sure if it will change your life.

It will change you as a person. It will change your relationship with your partner potentially change your friendships as well. It's, I think there are not many areas of your life that it won't change or won't touch in terms of being a mum because it's such a monumental shift, it's such a monumental change to your identity as a being on this planet.

And for me, It's changing. I'm so much more patient now. And I would still say I'm quite impatient in general as a person because I want to get things done. I'm competitive and all that stuff. I'm surprisingly, and I surprise myself that I'm quite patient with my kids. I have moments where I'm like good you, that was really.

Like you really patient when I think, I don't know, I look back and I'm like, wow, seven years ago, I don't know if I would have been that patient, but it's been a gradual learning for me like everything else, right? It's not overnight that you wake up. You're like, I'm going to be more patient today.

I have kids. Nope. There's been lots of situations where I weren't, wasn't patient. And then I've just learned. That, it really helps the situation if you are a bit more patient. So I've learned that I would say that's one of the biggest things. ? I'm so much more emotional. As an individual, and it's insane. I know , pre mum y would be like, why are you crying out talking about that? That's just so silly. It's not silly because it evokes so many emotions and my mind goes straight back to that, that time when I was in the car, the first drop off, childcare at day.

And I'm just sitting there crying because it's such a big thing. It's. I watch movies, I could cry easily. I'll, during this podcast, doing this podcast I'll get teary all the time, I think. Because I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because life is not just about my life anymore and when I think about certain things, I think about what the impact could be for my kids.

If I, something to happen to me or my husband or anything like that, I just, it just conjures up all these. Emotions and tears start streaming down my face. So I would say that's another massive change for me since becoming a mum. How about you?

Oh, you're so right. Like all those things on point.

They, I cry at everything. Like I see a picture of something and I'm like, Oh, look at that. It's so cute. Yeah. I'm like, what's wrong with you? Cause I was pre having kids. I never used to cry. Okay, cool. Yeah, that's nice, but I don't understand it, but now I will cry at the drop of a hat, which is really embarrassing, but also, it's nice.

I actually like being in touch with my emotional side a little bit more because as I said, I feel like that's an area that I probably haven't. gone into so much. That's probably all these pent up tears that I've never cried before. And now it's Oh, now you're just going to cry at everything.

I'm sure that's not how the universe is seeing it. But I have to say that becoming a mom it has been the biggest change in my life. Like I said earlier it's something that you can't compare it to any other event. It's an ongoing thing. It changes you mentally, physically, emotionally, like in every aspect, in every way you can possibly think of.

I think you said it there. There's no area of your life that it doesn't touch. For me, it's probably helped me look more inwards and really look at how I want to become a mom and how I want to be as a person. Because you're right, like you do, you have these children now who you're responsible for. But the thing that kind of hit me was that what happens if I'm not here?

So I really need to work on my health, make sure that I'm healthy and That I'm here physically for them, but also work on my mental health to make sure that I am okay to be able to raise them and that I'm role modeling the behaviors that are good behaviors and that they can, take those on board and grow and become a better person or a better version of me.

And so that has been a really big eye opener. I've done a lot of work on myself. I've done some therapy and some hypnosis and other bits and pieces to really understand who I am and what makes me tick so that I can make sure that in those moments when I am triggered by something that I may not have realized is something that triggers me in the past.

Wow. That was a lot. Thank you for listening and for your company.

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