Ep #102: Fall Intentions and Why It’s Not Too Late with Margaret Mason Tate

Welcome to Parenthood Prep, the only show that helps sleep-deprived parents and overwhelmed parents-to-be to successfully navigate those all-important early years with their baby, toddler, and child. If you are ready to provide the best care for your newborn, manage those toddler tantrums, and grow with your child, you’re in the right place. Now here’s your host, baby, and parenting expert, Devon Clement.

Devon: Here we go. Here we go. Here we go again. Girls, what’s my weakness?

Margaret: Men.

Devon: It’s true. For you, at least.

Margaret: I was going to say Santa, so I’m glad that I went with men. 

Devon: Alex said to me one time, “I know there was a time when you cared what men thought, but I just can’t envision that.” And that was just maybe the best compliment I’ve ever gotten. 

Margaret: That’s wonderful. I love this for you. I feel like this is a whole new echelon. 

Devon: I used to care so much. 

Margaret: Yeah, me too. 

Devon: All right. Margaret, hello, and welcome back to the Parenthood Prep podcast. So great to have you.

Margaret: Always a joy to join you.

Devon: My fave sometimes co-host. What are we talking about today?

Margaret: Listen, I’ve repaired my relationship to autumn and I’m here to make it everybody’s problem because I want to talk about New Year’s resolutions from January. Most have been abandoned, and by that I mean people have abandoned themselves.

Devon: Yes.

Margaret: I’m curious if you had any intentions, if you set any intentions for 2026 and how they’re going. No judgy’s, I’m just asking.

Devon: Yeah, I just want to start with a quick little story that a couple of years ago, I watched a video, some crafter, like a how-to video of a craft. I remember specifically it was like April. I remember because I was in LA with a client. This is how I remember things. Anyway. I was in LA with this client. It was April, and this woman on this craft video was like, “Has anyone else just been a total failure at their New Year’s resolutions?” And I was like, “Girl, it’s April. They’re not January resolutions. They’re for the full year.”

So even if you haven’t done anything yet, you still have the year. We love to beat ourselves up, and we know it’s society and culture and the patriarchy that’s taught us that, but I really wish we would stop. I wish people, women particularly, people socialized as women, would stop looking for reasons to beat themselves up and decide that they’re a piece of shit, and that reason being that a rule that you made for yourself in January has not been fulfilled yet.

Margaret: Wait, that’s literally what I crafted the whole episode around, is that.

Devon: Well, exactly.

Margaret: I want us to stop too. And so here’s the deal.

Devon: Okay. Wait, which is all to say to answer your original question, my January intentions, I had two. One was to start going to Pilates regularly because they opened a Pilates studio right across the street from my apartment. The other was to start making infused butters. And I have made zero infused butters. 

Margaret: Okay, we got zero on the infused butters. 

Devon: But we have a lot of year left. The year is not over. I’m not beating myself up for not making infused butters. 

Margaret: No, you’re not. And we’re going to make a plan to get you some infused butters in this episode. Can I use your example for my framework?

Devon: Please.

Margaret: Okay.

Devon: My other one was to start going to Pilates regularly. I started in March. Did I start in January? No, I started in March. I went regularly for a while, then it was summer. We were at the house, we were traveling. I just got back from a three-week-long trip. And guess what? I got back and I went back to Pilates. And it hurt like a mofo. Oh my God. I was like, sore, rolling over in bed. But did I say, “Oh, well, that’s it. I’m done with Pilates?” No, I got back on it. And what did you say when I told you that? 

Margaret: I don’t know. 

Devon: I said I went back to Pilates after like six weeks away. And you said, “And nobody called the police?” 

Margaret: That does sound like me. With your permission, I’d like to use the butters. And we’re going to talk about Pilates and I’m delighted that you’ve been. You have been really cool about Pilates and it’s been very awesome to see how like you garden, you do a lot of plant-related stuff, and that requires quite a bit of muscle, especially since your plants are enormous, right? They’re very established plants so they have huge amounts of soil and they have big pots and they have stuff. So genuinely does require quite a bit of muscle. It’s been very cool to see that get easier, and very, you’re just adapting so well to it. 

For the record, today, when this drops, October 26th. That means that there’s 66 days left in the year. And I just want to tell you all something that my dad told me, after he died, this was in a trance. I interpreted this, but I’m just saying. My dad said, “It ain’t over till it’s over, and it ain’t ever over.” Like this year is a year, but what is a year? Do you know what I’m saying? Let’s really think about it. What does it even mean? So if you want to make some butters, babe, we’ve got 66 days left in this year if you want to get it done. 

Devon: Also, why does the year even start in January? It’s the middle of a season. It’s the dead of winter. There’s no reason.

Margaret: We’re starting the year in Capricorn season? That’s how you want to start off? You and I tend to start our year Aries season. We tend to.

Devon: Yeah, I very, really feel like I have two starts. There’s like the Aries season, the spring, the astrological New Year. That’s where I really do my intentions. Also, not for nothing, that’s when I actually did start Pilates. And the fall, that back-to-school vibe stays with you for the rest of your life. Summer winds down, it’s cooler, you don’t want to be in the pool all day every day. I mean, you do want to be in the pool all day every day, but it’s not feasible. So now we’re back inside and it’s time to get to work.

Margaret: Well, you’re killing me with these segues because this is the perfect way to introduce something that I don’t even really know that I’ve talked about with you. So here’s the thing. I want to express to our listeners that genuinely, 66 days doesn’t sound like a lot, and the decisions and choices and actions that you make in these 66 days can literally change the trajectory of what you’re doing.

And I’m evidenced by the fact that on October 31st, on Halloween of 2025, in the morning time, I was not thinking about applying to graduate school. And in the evening time, it had crossed my mind and gotten on my radar, and I had started to get, “What if I did that? What if I applied to this program?” I remember it happening. I remember it. So I know that it was on Halloween.

By the end of the year, I had my application almost finished and was days away from submitting an application that would later be accepted with a fully funded package and the ability to do this incredible terminal degree in my field. In the morning time, that was not on my radar. In the evening time, it was. One day. So 66 days is nothing. I say, “Feh.” I say, “Feh.” 

Devon: I just want to say, I just want to throw in a quick disclaimer/caveat that what we are talking about is not, “you are broken and you have 66 days to fix it.”

Margaret: Yeah, it’s that we believe that consistent promise-keeping to yourself in whatever timeline that makes sense does a lot of things for you as a human person, as a citizen of this globe. It is really beneficial.

Devon: And I think that we don’t need to make infused butters are not going to make me feel differently about myself as a person. I love and care about myself as a person. I just want to eat infused butters. And I want to serve them to my fiancé and my family and friends and have them say, “Oh, these infused butters are delicious.”

Same thing with Pilates. I don’t think I’m a better or worse person because I’ve been going to Pilates consistently. I think that I’m getting older and I was starting to feel weak and not able to carry bags of cat litter up the stairs, and I wanted to be able to do that. So it’s not about “I need to make these changes to be the person that I should be in order to be loved.” Just wanted to clarify that, which is I think why we’re using the infused butters as the example. 

Margaret: Precisely. And because it’s not in service of anyone else specifically. Not that Pilates is, but very specifically because butters, I mean. 

Devon: And the only reason I’m upset that I have not made infused butters is because I would like to be eating infused butters. 

Margaret: That’s correct. I too would like to do that. Well, yeah, because there’s here’s the thing. Of course, whether or not you’ve made them is not whether or not you’re a good person. And there’s a reason that you wanted to do it, and whatever that reason is, whatever that is satisfying for you, we want that satisfaction for you because we believe that it engenders continued relationship with self. I mean, I do. I might be speaking for you, but I feel like I can in this instance. 

Devon: No, this instance is great. By the way, if anybody has ideas for what to infuse the butters with, throw them at me. I have some, but I’m always looking for more.

Margaret: We want funky ideas. The amount of dinner parties that happen in the friend group is remarkable. Especially considering that the New York Magazine recently did a piece on how the dinner party has declined in our generation, and you personally said, “Not on my watch, good sir.”

Devon: Not, no, thank you.

Margaret: Yeah, you and your fiancé. He does a lot of hosting as well with his own friend people. So I do want to refer people. I did a whole intention setting episode, which I is my favorite contributions to the podcast is the intention setting episode. It’s episode 80, and we’ll link it in the show notes. But if you want a framework for setting intentions, maybe you did it. Maybe you’re listening to this and you’re like, “These ladies are funny and charming, but I didn’t actually do this, so it doesn’t apply to me.” It’s not too late. 66 days left in the year. Still a micro infusion of a habit or a goal or a activity or whatever. So, if you have feelings about your butters,

Devon: I could literally make my first infused butters for a New Year’s Eve party and say I achieved my goal of making infused butters. 

Margaret: And we love that. First of all, we love a loophole queen. I’ll never not stand a loophole. Second of all, you know, what is time? It’s nothing. As Tommy Tate said, posthumously, posthumously. What? Posthumously. Never leave me. That was perfect. As he said, “It ain’t over till it’s over, and it ain’t ever over.” The year’s never really over and it also never began. So it’s fine. 

But the first thing that we want to do, if you have feelings about your butters, if you said that you were going to train for a marathon and you really wanted to do that and then you didn’t, there’s a sense of shame there, especially if you shared the goal and then didn’t. But there’s a sense of shame there that you didn’t keep your word to yourself. And that doesn’t feel good.

And so we need to remove the meaning of the fact that you didn’t train for the marathon. There’s probably a dozen different reasons why you didn’t, and you probably have a lot of stories about those things. So we have to just strip everything down, physically with your hand, try to imagine removing these layers and just stripping it down to that didn’t happen. The marathon didn’t get trained for. Okay?

Do you hear how I did passive voice there, Dev? You literally, it’s that deep that I didn’t I wasn’t even thinking about it, and the passive just came in. So I’ve removed, I stripped it all of this meaning. It didn’t get done for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything. Then you need to give your permission to want it again. And you had something really insightful here about giving yourself permission to want and why we do that.

When you were talking about how we like to give ourselves reasons to be mean ourselves.

Devon: Oh sure. We love to beat ourselves up. It has been so ingrained and so socialized into us, and by us I mean mainly people socialized as women, but really everyone, just the human experience has been that you are bad, you are wrong. It’s that puritanical, white Christian society.

And I want everyone to get rid of that voice in their head, but also, I think we’ve turned it into a little bit of a fetish and a little bit of an excuse. “Oh, well, I didn’t stick with Pilates. I don’t have to go anymore. I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to wake up and choose Pilates. I get to just call myself a failure and self-flagellate instead. And isn’t that easier and more fun?” 

Margaret: Yeah. I mean, if you’re really honest with yourself, you have to recognize that shame as a mechanism, as an emotional state and as a mechanism, works in the same way as kind of addiction. And so when we experience these shame things, I call them shame socks, especially like if they’re little and around the house and you just leave these things undone so that every time you look at them, you can go, “Oh, I should have done this thing,” or, “Oh, I’m a shitbag because I didn’t, whatever, pick up the sock.”

We’re pressing the same button that we would be pressing if we were gratifying a similar addiction. I mean, the mechanism just works the same. We got to be honest with ourselves about that. So giving yourself permission to want the thing that you wanted in the first place, you wanted the butters.

Devon: I want the butters still.

Margaret: You wanted to treat, yeah, you wanted the butters. And it’s okay to want the butters even if you haven’t made them. Again, you said puritanical. I mean, how puritanical is the mindset that if you really wanted it, you would have already made the steps, so you must not. So you’re not allowed to want it. Yes, you are. 

Devon: And you don’t and you don’t deserve it. You haven’t earned it. 

Margaret: Because you didn’t work for it. So we’ve stripped off, we’ve physically with our hands stripped off this meaning of not training for the marathon, not infusing the butters. And we’ve given ourselves permission to want to train. Not to, you can’t, you can’t replace that amount of training. You have to start training. You can’t just run a marathon. That’s insane. Don’t do that. That’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother and we’re not going to stand for it.

Then you need to give your permission to want, then you have to count to three and take a step. You have to stop thinking about it anymore because it’s a waste of time and it’s kind of self-gratifying. One, two, three, let’s DoorDash some rosemary. One, two, three, let’s get in the car and go to Fleet Feet so that we can get fitted for shoes. Or take a walk, even. I mean, that’s a step, literally a step.

Devon: And that, just to clarify, that’s for the training for a marathon example, not the infused butters example. You do not need new sneakers for that. 

Margaret: These are my butter sneakers, she said, as she pointed to her yellow Nikes. 

Devon: I’m thinking actually Crocs are probably good butter-infusing…. 

Margaret: If butter drips into Crocs, it’s going to get into your toe cracks, and I can feel that right now as I’m saying it, and I am about to lose it.

Devon: No. No, ma’am. 

Margaret: So if you didn’t make intentions, I want to recommend that you make a promise to yourself that you can keep in the next 66 days or that you will benefit from in some way. Infuse some butter, figure out what your butter is and infuse it. We love an extended metaphor here at Parenthood Prep.

Now, my last thing that I would like to recommend about this next little stretch as your de facto coach, is we have holidays in the next 66 days. So if you want to be doing something over that time, I would like to recommend that you go into it having pre-planned your effort. You know what I mean? If I were training or wanted to get back into running, I used to do half marathons, in case you didn’t know. If I wanted to get back into training, I would still plan to take the week of Thanksgiving if I’m going to be spending a whole week away from my routine, away from my house, with family doing other stuff. I’m just going to say, “I’m planning on doing 15% effort.” And let that be okay. 

Devon: I think that’s something that we didn’t talk about really is that your intention doesn’t have to be to do more, it can also be to do less. You can decide right now that you are going to coast through the holiday season making as little effort as possible. You can decide that you’ve been running and you’ve been training for a marathon and you just don’t want to. Those are also intentions and things that you’re allowed to want. And that can be very freeing to say, “You know what? I just don’t want this anymore and I’m not going to do it,” instead of saying, “Oh no, I’m such a dumb lazy loser. I stopped training for a marathon and I suck.”

Margaret: Yeah, it’s all about the story that you tell. I quit the Junior League and that was like, my mom was in the Junior League and was a big part of her life and it’s a big part of, like Southern Junior League. The Junior League. And I had told myself a lot of stories about what that meant, about my contribution to the community and my willingness to serve because that is really interconnected with that particular organization. And so I had to really remove that meaning from that action. And after I did, boy, it was freeing. I did not super enjoy it. It was not my favorite thing. I wanted to like it so bad. My mom, was so good at it. 

Devon: But yeah, I think that you’ve probably made greater contributions to the community since you quit the Junior League than while you were in it. So yeah, your intention- there’s a reason why my quote-unquote “New Year’s resolution,” I feel like that term is so charged, was to make infused butters. It’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s low stakes. Can I have a resolution or a goal or an intention or whatever that does not make me feel some kind of way about myself? That my sense of self and my sense of self-worth and my self-care and all of those things can coexist alongside a goal that I may or may not accomplish? And, you know, we have our annual holiday party coming up at the beginning of December. How delightful would infused butters be at that party? We could get some nice bread. 

Margaret: There are 80 different things. Listen to me. Imagine making a Chex Mix with an infused butter. Also, they freeze. They’re great gifts. Infused butter in parchment, they freeze beautifully, and they make wonderful, wonderful gifts. 

Devon: Ooh, I love that. 

Margaret: Yes, absolutely.

Devon: You know what I’m not going to do is decide right now that I’m making infused butters as gifts to give people because that feels like I’m going to just beat myself up over not doing it. I think I’m going to make some infused butters for the holiday party and then see where that takes me.

I just have a quick, funny story about training for a marathon. Those of you who do not live in New York City, the New York City Marathon is a huge event every year, and it is known among marathoners as one of the best marathons to run because I am getting emotional just talking about it. We turn the fuck out for this thing. We stand on the street, we cheer and scream and people have their names on their shirts so we yell their names and everybody makes signs and we hold up the signs.

Even if you don’t know anyone who’s running and you generally always know someone even casually who’s running. You can also track celebrities. If you know that a celebrity is running, you can look them up and put them in your tracker. Not in a creepy way, in a where are they in the marathon way so then you’re like, “Oh my God, Ellie Kemper just ran past me in the marathon. That was so cool.” Yeah, I saw Ellie Kemper. I saw her cross the finish line.

Margaret: I didn’t know she was a marathoner.

Devon: This was a couple of couple of years ago. Something that was so frustrating to me last year was how many people I saw on Instagram like afterwards. I was like, “I didn’t know you were running. I would have I would have followed you.” Our friend Sarah is running this year. You love Sarah. 

Margaret: I am so excited for this. 

Devon: We are so excited to turn up for her. Anyway, long story short, we are so pumped about this marathon. I will also tell you, I have been in several other I think Boston is similar. I’m not saying there’s no other marathon in the world that’s fun, but we have been in other cities when races were going on. We were in Amsterdam during their marathon and we were trying to cross the street, but you have to wait to cross the street. So we’re standing there with the marathoners running by. Everyone was dead silent. I’m the crazy person going, “Woo-hoo, Hans, woo-hoo, Annelise.” And everyone’s looking at me like I’m a nut job. 

Margaret: Oh my god.

Devon: Because they’re just like, “We’re waiting to cross the street and these people are running for some reason and we don’t really care.” I don’t know how you could do that. Also, when we were in Salzburg, there was some kind of race going on. I don’t think it was a marathon. It was long story short, you get really hyped watching the marathon. And then a lot of times people get ideas that they’re going to train and they’re going to sign up for the marathon.

And our dear friend Gavin, who we know and love, decided he was going to sign up for the marathon after getting drunk and cheering for the marathon runners. And he did. And he started training, and then unfortunately, he had an injury that ended his marathon dreams that he actually, this was like three years ago, that he actually just recently had surgery for because it was an ongoing issue. Did he hurt himself training for the marathon? 

Margaret: No. No, he did not.

Devon: No, he did not. He hurt himself doing karaoke.

Margaret: That’s correct. Mhm. 

Devon: Somehow this man was jumping around singing karaoke and fucked up his ankle so badly that he has not been able to run for like three years. 

Margaret: It is like the time that my friend broke his ankle playing Wii bowling. 

Devon: That is impressive. I mean, your mom broke her leg passing the peace at church, so. But all to say, maybe be careful when you’re choosing your intentions. Maybe running a marathon is not for you. 

Margaret: Yeah. You know, I this year, my intention was so gentle, and I’m really happy that I did that because I’ve had a, you know, quite a year. So I’m feeling good about it. But my only intention was that I would like for my steps to reflect that I have walked more this year than last year. That’s it.

Devon: That’s amazing. What a goal. 

Margaret: That’s it. Just daily steps. That’s it. 

Devon: I love that.

Margaret: And you know what? It’s been really nice to have an objective measure of this is how much you’re walking. 

Devon: I love that about the walking. I think that is tremendous. And you know what? I’m just going to call it out and I’m going to say that’s a little boring and that is fine, and that is actually desirable.

Margaret: Yes. Yes.

Devon: It’s not sexy. Training for a marathon is sexy. How many people actually do that versus how many people? We were talking about the dinner party. We had this dinner party this past weekend. Alex and his friends make cocktails, they make food, they decided to do an immersive experience. There were all these bits. It was fantastic, but they realized that they had to cut a fair amount of it to make it manageable. And I’m going to say, perfectly honestly, that it was still a little too much. They were trying to do every idea that came into their head and it was overwhelming. Also, they were serving us like six or seven very strong cocktails and they were like, “Maybe we need to scale it back a little bit. Maybe we need to do four.” 

Margaret: They said, “Sandra Lee is not attending this party and we need to pull it back.” 

Devon: So I think we want to set up these huge intentions and then we want to beat ourselves up when we don’t do them because we have this fantasy of the person we’ll become when we run a marathon or when we do this or that. But really, we just need to be a person who goes back to Pilates when they take a break, the person who makes a couple of infused butters and the person who gets more steps this year than they got last year. Pick an unsexy intention.

And I am going to put you on the chopping block a little bit, ma’am, because you told a very cute story about how in the morning of Halloween, you hadn’t applied to grad school, or you hadn’t even thought of grad school. By the evening, you thought of it and then you applied and now you’re in grad school and it’s fully funded and it’s great. But is that actually how it went?

Margaret: With regard to the freaking out of it?

Devon: Was there a long stretch in the middle where there was a lot of freaking out?

Margaret: Oh yeah. I’ve have freaked out weekly.

Devon: I like this sort of revisionist history that it was like, “I decided to apply to grad school and then I did, and I got in, and then I started, and isn’t that great?” It’s going to suck. There’s mornings where I do not want to go to Pilates. Sometimes I don’t. I don’t go every day. I go like twice a week. Sometimes I skip it. But sometimes I’m like, “Get your ass out of bed, walk the literal 90 seconds across the street. Go to Pilates for 50 goddamn minutes of your life and hate it every second, and then you’re done.”

Margaret: Yeah. Your shower is closer to Pilates than many showers are to in their own gyms. I’m not even kidding. 

Devon: Exactly. Oh my God, I went to Lifetime Fitness in Chicago with my friend when we were visiting out there. By the way, guess what’s back? Step aerobics. 

Margaret: Oh, honey. Do you know what that means? Do you know what’s on the heels of that? 

Devon: What? 

Margaret: Step aerobics outfits, baby, coming back. Athleisure, my left boot. Okay. This was statement pieces. This was absolute stunners, bangers. Oh, bring out the sweatband. I can’t wait.

Devon: Oh yes, the leg warmers.

Margaret: Lycras and all.

Devon: And we held our own. Alex and I, we did that step aerobics class, step cross, high knee, kicks. It’s fun. It’s great. 

Margaret: It’s really good for your bone density and for coordination and your vestibular system and all of that stuff. Step aerobics is really good for you.

Devon: The whole reason I got into that though and the whole reason I said that is because this gym was enormous. I think I walked further from the from the front desk to the step aerobics room than I walk from my bed to the Pilates studio. 

Margaret: I was not exaggerating when I said that. 

Devon: Which, by the way, used to be a dry cleaner.

Margaret: Well, and you didn’t have a lot of use for dry cleaning.

Devon: A tiny, tiny Pilates studio. Well, they were bad. We actually stopped going to them even though they were right across the street because they were bad. So it’s no wonder they’re not a dry cleaner anymore. Anyway, the point is sometimes it’s going to suck. It’s not going to be sunshine and roses. I’m going to probably get butter everywhere. There’s going to be a cleanup from the infused butters. You have me motivated to order some small mason jars to put my butters in, so. 

Margaret: This thrills me. I’m so excited. Make sure you get parchment paper as well.

I want to close by saying this and I think that you’re going to really appreciate this. If you think that your life, to your point, Devon, that your life is going to magically unlock something, if you achieve all of your New Year’s resolutions for the year, I want to share something with you. I’ve done it. I have done that. I had a year. I’ll never forget it.

It was 2013. I did every single thing on my list. I still have the card because you know I make my cards. It’s a whole thing. I still have my card. I did every single one of those things, and they were huge things all in one year. Buy a house, get pregnant. I mean huge things for me. Got married. One year, same year. And nothing changed. I was and am very proud of that accomplishment. I carry that pride with me and I also carry the ability to know that I can. But I did not change as a human and I did not become better or worse. There was no ceremony. 

Devon: I was going to say, you didn’t ascend to a higher plane? 

Margaret: Nobody sent me an award. But there were no commendations. Just like nobody called the police on you.

Devon: You didn’t get a letter in the mail from the official authority on rightness and trueness saying that you have achieved? 

Margaret: No, I genuinely want that more than everything in the entire world, that kind of affirmation from a legislative body of rightness and wrongness that would feel so good to my CPTSD. The only thing is it’s not coming, and it didn’t happen. And I would tell you if it did because that’s all I want in life. I didn’t level up in this kind of way that I think people might believe, subconsciously, of course, that they might if they achieve every single one of their resolutions.

With that said, I don’t want to discount that it does feel good to keep a promise to yourself, which is exactly why we wanted to do this episode. I want you to keep a small promise to yourself because I believe that it engenders more self-love and self-compassion. And I want that for you. I really think that is beneficial to everybody, and I especially think that it’s beneficial for our babies, if there’s, you know, 12 weeks or 12 years, as mine is,

Devon:  To see that. 

Margaret: To see it.I got hundreds on my first like major projects of my grad school career and my kid got to see like, “Really proud of that.” And I get to experience that pride with them.

Devon: I love that.

Margaret: So then they then they’re inspired to go do their own good stuff. 

Devon: When I was a teacher, I was a special ed kindergarten teacher and early childhood, and I try to be encouraging to the kids. And sometimes I would make a little mistake, write the wrong thing or say the wrong thing, and I’d be like, “Oh,” or whatever. “Oh, Missy made a mistake. It’s fine. It’s okay to make mistakes. People make mistakes all the time,” except what that actually did was teach them that I make mistakes all the time. So then at one point, I did something and one of them said, “It’s okay, Missy. You make mistakes all the time.”

Margaret: You make mistakes all the time.

Devon: You make mistakes all the time. You think that having a kid, having a baby and then growing into a child is going to make you feel true love and self-esteem and unconditional approval from another human being? That is incorrect. You have another thing coming if you think a small child is going to make you feel good about yourself.

I would not let my mother walk me to kindergarten one day because I did not like what she had on her feet. To be fair, it was my father’s brown socks and blue slippers. The kindergarten was just up the street. So I don’t think I was wrong there. I would also like to say for the record that we are not morning people. She worked nights, and my sister was a baby, so I do not blame her. But also, I was like, “No, bitch. This is not a thing we’re going to do.”

Margaret: We’re not going to be seen together in this manner. Get yourself together, Susan. 

Devon: Look alive, Susan. 

Margaret: Look alive, Susan. Well, I want to leave everybody with this. Remember what my dad said. “It ain’t over till it’s over, and it ain’t ever over.” It’s not too late to start. Let’s go. 

Devon: It ain’t ever over. And I will give you an infused butter update the next time we talk. 

Margaret: I can’t wait. 

Devon: What should I start with? 

Margaret: Butterwise? I mean, cinnamon brown sugar is always a good infusion. If you do bagels a lot, but. 

Devon: I feel like garlic is the obvious choice, but I kind of want to. 

Margaret: Cut your teeth on some garlic. 

Devon: Yeah. Maybe that’s what I do. Maybe it’s just step one. Garlic butter. 

Margaret: Maybe you cut your teeth on the, especially if you’re not going to care as much if it doesn’t turn out or whatever. It’s not difficult, but still you never know.

Devon: Anyway, if you have infused butters ideas or you want to tell us about your intentions, follow us on Instagram at Happy Family After. Send us a DM, send us an email, send us a comment, go on our website, happyfamilyafter.com. Give us a voicemail about your intentions, ask us questions, lay it on us. We want to hear it. We want to hear those Australian accents too.

Margaret: We love you. We miss you. We long to talk to you. 

Devon: To be sure you never miss an episode, be sure to follow the show in your favorite podcast app. We’d also love to connect with you on social media. You can find us on Instagram @happyfamilyafter or at our website HappyFamilyAfter.com. On our website you can also leave us a voicemail with any questions or thoughts you might have, and you can roast your baby. Talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Parenthood Prep. If you want to learn more about the services Devon offers, as well as access her free monthly newborn care webinars, head on over to www.HappyFamilyAfter.com.