PG: Parental Guidance (Needed) Podcast

I loved catching up with award-winning journalist, Deborah Norville. I read one of her books years ago, and she inspired me to be in the business. Her children are grown now, but she had some great advice balancing your career and your work life.

Meredith and Roxanne catch up on what the first month back-to-school has been like? Does it feel like you are treading water? Does it feel like you'll never catch up on what you have to do to prepare your kids for school each day and yourself for what you have to do? You are NOT alone. Have some laughs about parenting with Meredith and Roxanne.

Think back to when you were a kid...how did you feel about going back to school? I was always terrified. And I liked learning, and I loved my friends, but back-to-school gave me anxiety. Now, that anxiousness has carried over into adulthood, but I try to hide it from my kids, so I don't pass it on to them. Fester stopped by (my buddy, Fester, from the MJ Morning Show) and we chatted all about how we adjust to back-to-school as parents and co-workers.

Meredith and Roxanne talk about how busy they feel during this time of year and how annoying it can be to other people when you are wearing your "busy badge." It feels like busyness is your excuse. "Sorry. Can't get together. Too busy." It's like you hide behind your busy badge. The conversation quickly went from talking about being busy to binge drinking. And Meredith and Roxanne made some embarrassing confessions.

We hear quite often about adults and their bad airport behavior by adults. This time we have a story to share about a kid gone wild on the luggage conveyor belt.

Roxanne catches up with Froggy from the MJ Morning Show. (Mer will be back on the next edition.) Froggy and his wife Kim are raising boys. Rox and Mer only have little girls. What's it like with just little boys to take care of? Are the inmates running the asylum? Oh, no. Froggy and Kim run a tight ship.  

Meredith has a big decision to make about whether or not she should go to a wedding abroad. It is in ITALY. So how can she pass that up?

Roxanne's daughter has a weird tick where she wants her mom to keep repeating the story of Roxanne's night out with Meredith. She asks her to tell it to her at bedtime. "And then what happened, Mom? And then what did you order for dinner? And then what to drink?" Kids get hyper focused on strange things.

This is a very personal topic we got into this week, but it hits on some of the things that are most important to us on PG Parental Guidance Needed: friendships and conversations with kids.

 A couple of weeks ago, I lost a best friend to cancer. She was such an incredible person and friend, and I am so blessed to have a once-in-a-lifetime person in my life like her. Jana was a huge part of my children's lives. It was hard to tell them what happened, but we tried to prepare them. They knew she was very sick.

I'm trying to let Jana's memory live on by teaching my kids that we can honor her by being like her.

Here I've edited together some of my conversations with my daughter about Jana. I don't always know if I'm saying the right things to help her process her grief and feel better, but conversation is always good, right?

Not to spoil the podcast, but in case you don't have time to listen to the entire thing, I'll sum up the 3 rules:

1. See your friend as the highest version of themselves and support them in        following their dreams.

2. Love and cherish what they love.

3. Know how best to handle them (when they need to be handled with care or have the sense shaken into them or the crazy shaken out of them). And I love this photo of us because my face looks like I was having some sort of meltdown, and Jana is talking me down from a cliff.

The first anecdote I share is about supporting your friend's dreams. Some of it was lost on my six-year-old daughter so I rushed through it a little bit. But I'll give you a few more details. I worked at a small cable news sports station. We mostly covered high school sports, but we were growing and trying to branch out with some professional sports segments. Ever year the Turn 2 Foundation held a big golf tournament in Tampa, and I wanted to cover it for our station. I emailed Sharlee Jeter and requested access so we could put together a feature on the good things she, Derek and her family were doing to help kids. She set up for us to have press passes for the weekend event. On Friday, my boss told me, "Sorry, but we don't have any photographers available for the weekend." I called Jana and defeatedly told her the interviews wouldn't be happening, and I'd have to reach out to Sharlee and tell her there was a change of plans. She thought about it, then called me back, and said, "Roxanne, I have an idea." Her idea was to have my stepdad (who is a photographer) go with me and pose as my videographer. And back in 2006, there was a big difference between a photographer and a videographer. It was the days in our business when we had to have a videographer to operate and carry the big, clunky camera. My stepdad was willing to do it. Amazing! I checked out the equipment and gave him a quick tutorial based on my limited knowledge. When we got to the event at Rattle Fish Grill in Tampa, I was excited to see that we had an amazing set up inside the restaurant (all the other local stations were outside). And we were inside next to ESPN and the YES Network.

As I mentioned, I'd given my stepdad a very brief lesson on camera operation, but I'd failed to show him how to set up the tripod. So he's fumbling with it, and we are looking like total imposters and catching side eye from the real reporters and photographers from the big-time networks. I grabbed the tripod and ran to a corner to try to figure it out myself. When I think back to this moment, as embarrassing as it was at the time, I'm filled with tears of laughter. And I'm also thankful Jimmy (my stepdad) was so willing to be my hero. And thanks to Jana, I'm reminded there's always an idea out there to think of to solve a problem and make something big happen. That was a significant assignment. We put together a good interview segment with Derek and his family. The footage was airable, even though the guy shooting the video had never touched a professional TV camera until that night. And that night my (now) husband saw me in person for the first time. I'm sure he couldn't help but be attracted to the mess of a reporter fumbling and bumbling in the corner with her equipment. (How could anyone resist that?)

Every time Jana and I talked, if she was brainstorming with me or helping me solve a problem, I knew it was going to be good. She'd say, "Roxanne, an idea just popped into my head..." And it was like, hold on tight. Here we go!

We've been devastated to lose Jana, but she made our lives magical while she was here, and I'm very much in recognition of the fact that the friendship I experienced is once-in-a-lifetime, but I want to try to be that kind of friend to my loved ones by following the 3 rules.

Meredith prepares for her girls' trip to Miami. Pack the bikinis and leave the mom guilt behind.

Are you asking yourself, "What am I gonna do all summer to keep my kids entertained?" Don't stress. Less is more. Sometimes it feels like we need to have them occupied every second of the day, but just let them be spontaneous and don't put undue pressure on yourself. Keep summer simple!