Maggie Smith, MY THOUGHTS HAVE WINGS
[0:04]Welcome to Moms Don't Have Time to Be Books with Zivi.
[0:07]I'm the host, Zivi Owens.
[0:09]I am an author, my latest is blank, pub date march first and novel.
[0:13]I'm also a podcaster, obviously, a publisher, a bookstore owner, and so much more.
[0:18]If you love books, you're in the right place.
[0:21]In fact, we call it the Ziviverse, or really, the LA Times called it the Ziviverse,
[0:25]and we're going with it.
[0:27]Go to Zivi Owens.com to learn more and follow me on Instagram at Zivi Owens.
[0:32]Maggie Smith is the author of My Thoughts Have Wings.
[0:37]She's back on the podcast after coming on to discuss the New York Times' best-selling titles
[0:43]you could make this place beautiful, golden rod, keep moving, good bones, and more.
[0:48]My Thoughts Have Wings is her debut picture book.
[0:51]She lives with her children in Columbus, Ohio.
[0:54]Oh my gosh, I'm going to Columbus, Ohio.
[0:56]On the Ziviverse tour, I'm going to have to reach out to her.
[0:58]You can find her online at magismithpoet.com.
[1:03]Welcome, Maggie.
[1:04]Thank you for coming back on mom's turn out how to read books to discuss.
[1:07]My Thoughts Have Wings, your beautiful new children's book, which I adore and is amazing.
[1:14]Oh, I'm so glad to hear it.
[1:15]Thanks for having me back.
[1:16]It's good to see you.
[1:17]It's good to see you too.
[1:19]You are preaching to the choir here with this book of the nighttime worries, the daytime worries,
[1:23]the worries all the time.
[1:25]I read this to my son, and he was like,
[1:27]oh, you did that too.
[1:28]You had me thinking about drinking a strawberry freeze in Jamaica.
[1:32]And I went, I could have lost leave, and I'm like, yes, this is what you have to do.
[1:35]Oh, I love that.
[1:37]Yeah, I was like, okay, good.
[1:38]I'm on the right track here with like, or we're making the same mistakes.
[1:44]But I don't think we're making the same work.
[1:46]Or our kids are just all messed up.
[1:47]I don't know.
[1:49]Let me back up.
[1:50]Tell everybody about your children's book.
[1:52]So yeah, my thoughts have wings was, I mean, really inspired by two, two different
[1:57]conversations I had with each of my kids years apart.
[2:01]And so the first one I actually wrote about and keep moving.
[2:04]And the last chapter called Nestors, I had a conversation with my daughter when she was
[2:09]younger, she's in high school now.
[2:11]But when she was much younger, I had a discussion with her one night because she couldn't go to
[2:15]sleep because her mind was going.
[2:18]Yes, I'm raising my hand here too.
[2:20]I think we all do this.
[2:21]It's, we're busy during the day and we're preoccupied and we have a lot of stimuli.
[2:28]And then we lay down in bed and suddenly all the thoughts that we've been sort of
[2:34]pushing off to the margins flood into that quiet space when we're trying to fall asleep.
[2:40]And so I told her, you know, thoughts are like birds and some of them fly away quickly
[2:46]and some of them build little nests in us and they stick around.
[2:50]And it's hard, it's hard to know how to get them to move on.
[2:54]But on the bright side, it just means that your head is such a beautiful place to live
[2:58]that they don't want to leave you.
[3:00]And I understand that as your parents, you know, I wouldn't want to leave you either.
[3:04]And so that helped.
[3:05]And then years later, you know, during lockdown in the middle of our divorce and just everything
[3:11]happening in our home and in the world, my youngest, my son, was having a really hard time
[3:19]going to sleep and those tuck-ins were hard.
[3:22]I mean, every parent knows that feeling, that sinking feeling where you leave their room.
[3:28]And you're like, I don't think that I did that right.
[3:31]Or I think I offered the comfort they needed.
[3:33]Or I feel like I need to do over because that didn't, that wasn't the like sweet connecting
[3:40]quiet moment that I or during this busy day when we have so little one on one,
[3:47]like really connecting time.
[3:49]And Rhett would say things like, you know, I'm trying to think good thoughts,
[3:56]but the bad thoughts keep pushing them out of the way.
[3:59]And I thought of course they do because they do that in my brain too.
[4:03]I mean, that's what happens.
[4:05]And so we came up with a bedtime ritual of filling up with good thoughts.
[4:11]Like how do we build more nests for the good thoughts and sort of help crowd out
[4:18]the negative thoughts?
[4:19]So that that was the sort of ideas like a redirect.
[4:23]And so we had these great, these great evening conversations around happy memories,
[4:28]like you were just saying or like things to look forward to.
[4:32]That didn't make the bad thoughts disappear and they didn't change the circumstances
[4:39]of our lives, but they helped him kind of focus his mind in a brighter place and it helped.
[4:47]So I thought, you know, that helped in my home.
[4:49]Maybe it could help in other people's homes at bedtime or during stressful times too.
[4:54]And that's where the idea of the book was born.
[4:57]So nice.
[4:59]I feel like the problem is that the happy thoughts are kind of flimsy, you know,
[5:03]like slippery sheets or something, you know, they're just like, you know, gather and pool,
[5:11]whereas the bad thoughts are like, you know, trucks, like ramming through with giant wheels,
[5:18]like all through your brain and like getting everything else dirty and terrible.
[5:21]And Zibi, I have to say, you do realize you're like working in metaphor right now and you
[5:26]sound like a poet.
[5:27]So that's the point that out.
[5:29]And even early in the morning with a cold, you're thinking like a poet.
[5:33]No, it's totally true.
[5:34]I mean, it's, it's absolutely true that the negative voices in our heads tend to bully out and
[5:42]talk louder and yell and wave their arms if they're not getting enough attention.
[5:47]And oftentimes those like small, that positive inner voice get shouted down, you know,
[5:54]it's, it is tricky.
[5:55]Like I absolutely get that.
[5:57]And so I think the idea is like having that connecting time be a time, not to say,
[6:05]I mean, no one ever stopped worried because they were told, don't worry.
[6:09]No one ever stopped crying, people don't cry.
[6:12]No one ever calmed down from being told calm down.
[6:15]So I think the important thing is like listening to our kids and hearing their worries and
[6:20]concerns and, and sort of being like, yeah, that's tough.
[6:23]Instead of like, that's not real or, you know, think that, you know, like really hearing them,
[6:28]but also being like, yes, and these other things are true too.
[6:34]So like, why don't we just pivot our attention slightly?
[6:39]Like the 50 things that are going right instead of the two things that are going wrong,
[6:45]but shouting really loudly.
[6:48]Yeah, I need this advice as well.
[6:51]I mean, I think this is, it's funny, writers and reviews and like, you know, you know,
[6:56]you can have a thousand good reviews and the one bad one sticks in your brain.
[7:00]Like, I mean, that would be a nice ratio.
[7:02]But anyway, you know, it's, it's how the brain works.
[7:05]You like magnify this horrible magnifying glass of the negative.
[7:09]And yeah, it doesn't go away.
[7:11]It doesn't.
[7:12]I mean, that's, it's something that we, that we do to someone asked me recently,
[7:15]like what's the age range for this book?
[7:17]And I said, I think, you know, officially from the publisher, it's four to eight.
[7:21]But in my mind, it's like three to 99.
[7:26]Like, yeah, you see on like, you know, certain card games.
[7:29]Like, they go to 99.
[7:31]Like, I think if you're alive and living in the world,
[7:36]you are worried about things and you probably could use or redirect not to sort of replace
[7:43]the negative thoughts, but to focus your attention differently,
[7:47]especially before you're trying to go to sleep.
[7:49]Yeah.
[7:50]It's like not the time to be reliving every conversation you wish you would
[7:54]done differently, every snarky text or email or then you should have gotten done that day
[8:00]that you didn't get done.
[8:02]Thing you said to your kid out of like frustration that you wish you could take back.
[8:06]I mean, all of these things just sort of play like a little film strip on the
[8:10]insides of your eyelids when you lie down to go to sleep at night.
[8:14]So yeah, I think this might be useful for the person reading the book with the child too.
[8:19]Also, childhood anxiety starts at like seven, eight, nine.
[8:23]So I would push the, push the target age up a bit anyway.
[8:28]Yeah.
[8:29]No, I think that, I think that's true.
[8:31]And I think it's, it's only becoming more complex, particularly with
[8:36]the last few years and the pandemic.
[8:38]I mean, I know when I was having these conversations with, with Rhett,
[8:42]you know, we were wiping our mail.
[8:45]We were not able to go to school, see our friends,
[8:49]hug our grandparents, you know, go to soccer.
[8:52]Like do any of the things that made us feel
[8:56]calm and connected and safe and like ourselves?
[8:59]Yeah.
[9:00]It was just such a, I mean, it's still difficult.
[9:03]It's still happening.
[9:04]Obviously, it's still happening.
[9:05]But that, that sort of separation and lack of connection,
[9:09]I think was so painful for children in particular.
[9:14]And like has shaped them in ways that people probably be understanding
[9:20]and sort of coming to terms with for years to come.
[9:24]And so I think, you know, anything we can do to ease their minds a little bit
[9:29]and help them remember all of the positive things in them and in their lives.
[9:35]Like, I need it.
[9:37]They need it.
[9:39]My daughter just this morning was talking about saying something like,
[9:42]oh, remember how we use those screens?
[9:45]Like the shields over our faces in school.
[9:48]She's like, do they even make those shields anymore?
[9:50]And I was like, I cannot believe that you lived through that.
[9:53]Like that that was your, whatever grade it was.
[9:55]You know, it's crazy.
[9:56]And at the time we're like, okay, yes, now they're going to all wear shields.
[9:59]And it's like,
[10:00]Yeah. Yeah. In our family, it was first grade and fifth grade. And so, I mean, I was actually cleaning out the little drawer where we keep our, you know, each kid has a drawer, where we keep scarves, mittens, hats.
[10:13]And it's also where I was keeping their individually sized masks, you know, first the fabric ones and then the 95.
[10:22]And so I found this tiny like smaller than the palm of my hand like star wars fabric mask that I bought on Etsy that ret wore in first grade whenever we left the house.
[10:34]And I kept it. I put it in a box because I just thought someday, you know, they lived through and we I mean we're living through history all the time, but in particular like a seven year old.
[10:47]Not it might be interesting for him to hold that tiny thing in his adult hand someday.
[10:52]And someday I will be interviewing him about the poem he wrote about that very piece of fabric.
[10:58]I mean, I, if I heard my children knows, but he does love poetry and he's actually really, he calls this hour book.
[11:06]That's so sweet.
[11:07]I love that. So I have like 250 copies and like a bunch of boxes in the living room behind me that I have to sign and send for a book club and he was like, do they want me?
[11:17]So I know it's like, I think just me and the illustrator signing these rent, but I actually like if everybody got like a little heart in their book from.
[11:28]Maybe I should let him do it when I had my children's book come out and the kids wanted to sign. I was like go for it. Like why not?
[11:34]You know, like what are they going to do? They're just so cute. Did it ruin your book? No, I mean, yeah, I don't know.
[11:41]I think I'll let him. He's going to come to do a couple.
[11:43]I want him to stop like him.
[11:45]And he'll probably sit with me at the table and want to and want to sign some books, but it's it's true like when when people open this.
[11:54]The spreads. I mean, they're actually his positive memories.
[11:59]Oh, like fishing in the green. Yeah, the ice cream cone at the beach. That's something we used to do the fishing in the creek behind me, me and Papa's house. Those are my parents and that's the creek behind the house where I grew up and and we still have Sunday dinner every night.
[12:15]We call my mom, me and Papa, too. And maybe pop pop, maybe and Papa.
[12:20]My son was like, let me see that. It doesn't really say that. Does it? Oh, like it does.
[12:24]It wasn't off. We're me and Papa. But yeah, the banana bread, the dog says, they're all his happy memories.
[12:32]So when he calls it our book, I'm like, it is because it's from your list of things that you filled up with before bed. And like my hope that it will be an invitation
[12:42]for other kids and adults to think, oh, that's that's one child and, you know, happy memories. What are mine? Like, oh, yeah, like ice cream at the beach, too.
[12:54]I like, I like churros at the beach or I like roller skating or remember that one time we did X, Y and Z.
[13:02]It would be really great to, I mean, maybe you already have this planned or whatever, but to have not a workbook, but like a, what's like a prompt because you could easily take a sick kid and say like, draw me two pictures of things that scare you and two of your happiest memories and then you just like take your words and sort of put them through and then they have their own way.
[13:25]I love that idea. It's almost like you're a book person, Zibi.
[13:32]I just, this all comes from a selfish place. I'm like, I think I could do that with my kid today. That would be really great because then he would feel like it was his book and then we can reference the drawings again later and say like, oh, remember when that worry was stuck in your head, remember when you were like scared of whatever he's scared of today.
[13:51]You know, right. And you could like, you know, draw on individual pieces of paper and then leave them into the story so that when you get to that point in the book, you're actually also your own little.
[14:04]That's true.
[14:05]You know, like as a little mark. Yeah. Yeah.
[14:08]I like that too.
[14:09]They could be bookmarks. I want the whole page though, but anyway,
[14:14]that I was egg device that I'm like, how crazy is it that the illustrators last name is hatch when it's all that nests and birds and eggs and all the whole thing to be that never occurred to me.
[14:26]It's not wild that never occurred to me. And I mean, such magic when I turn this manuscript in.
[14:34]I mean, I had no idea who I knew it would not be me drawing the pictures because it would just be stick people.
[14:40]And so I had no idea and they sent me a few portfolios, links to portfolios of illustrators. They thought the style would work really well with what I had created.
[14:50]And I clicked on, I mean, all of them were gorgeous, but I clicked on Leanne's and went to her portfolio and saw the little faces of the children that she had drawn and they honestly were so sweet and reminded me of my own child, like the little smattering of freckles on some of them in the sweet little eyes,
[15:12]and the little smiles. And she did dark so well, like so many of her minds handled light and darkness so well. And I knew that would be important because this is a bedtime story and some of it is set in a dark bedroom.
[15:26]And so this is creepy, you know, that little little eyes. And so I'm, you know, but you don't know if the person wants to illustrate your book. It's like it's like it's my only attempt at like a dating app, which I've never done.
[15:42]And so they reached out to her and said, so and so would really like you to illustrate their book. And she could have said no, I don't connect with the story. She could have said, oh, I like it, but I don't have any room in my schedule for the next three years because these things take a long time to me.
[16:00]And I feel so blessed that she agreed to do it. And then just worked magic like I got her drawings and just couldn't believe what she had made from the words. It's just it's like, I don't know. It's the first sort of collaborative experience I've had in this way, making a book where someone else's work was.
[16:27]And frankly, I feel like more important than my work in this book. And it's just, I think she's a marvel. And I haven't met her. I mean, that's another thing. All of this happens at a distance.
[16:38]Yeah. Yeah, crazy. She's so good. She loves that. It's almost like crayon style. Like in some of the backgrounds, how it just looks like so like relatable to kids versus like so polished where it doesn't feel like accessible in some way.
[16:55]There's a lot of texture in the drawings. It doesn't. It's not cartoony at all. Like it's it's not so crisp. There's just a lot of texture and layering in the in the drawings.
[17:07]And that made the one challenges that made us trying to figure out how to make sure that the, that the, the words were really legible with with that text behind it.
[17:17]I'm sort of one of the, the sort of challenges of going through the process. But I honestly couldn't be happier. Like I just look at it and I'm like, how is that I couldn't have done that my poor stick people.
[17:29]I can't try either. I really wish I could. It's gorgeous. I was sure, though, when I heard that you had written a children's book that it would that it was going to be your handwriting.
[17:38]Because I feel like now you're like branding your handwriting so much not branding it, but you know what like you have analysis of your poems and I feel like now everybody can know your handwriting and I was like, where was it?
[17:49]Did you consider my handwriting is it's not particularly legible. I mean, I use a little bit of it on the cover of my memoir just for like some of the smaller text. Yeah.
[18:00]It's pretty idiosyncratic. You know, like, is that an R or a V? Is that an L or an I? You know, it's not, it's not particularly legible, but I love that they hand-lettered books. So it has that kind of, it has that kind of feel rather than typed words, but it's much more legible than my own poet scroll.
[18:22]So what are the current worries when the lights go off and the mind starts going? What's something you're particularly worried about these days?
[18:30]The world. I'm worried about the world. I'm just like gesturing white widely at like all of this. I mean, we're in an election year. There is so much unrest.
[18:42]I'm a parent. So seeing other children in pain hits me in a place in my body that I have a hard time, writing myself of. And frankly, I don't think I should. I think, you know, witnessing is important.
[18:58]So those, I mean, in addition to all of those, like, how am I going to make this deadline and how are the kids doing and, you know, all the other kind of like in my own home things, but it's, I think it's going to be a really stressful year.
[19:14]I think we have a lot collectively on our plates in 2024 in this country and beyond. I'm not sleeping well. How are you sleeping? Oh, no.
[19:26]Not great. I got three hours of sleep. No, I am not sleeping well. I can fall asleep, but I'm always up in the like I get up and then I can't fall back asleep.
[19:34]Usually I'm just so overtired that I pass out. But yeah, my, my thoughts spin in the, you know, at like four in the morning. I'm like, I might as well just get up to like forget it.
[19:43]I'm a, I'm a three AM or so when people are getting emails from me at three AM, they're like, you're an early bird. I'm like, Oh, no, I'm in bed. I'm an insomnia. Like, not an early bird per se. I may be up doing work in the middle of the night because I can't sleep.
[19:59]Right.
[20:00]I realized recently, well, I didn't realize someone told me that you can set your emails
[20:04]so that they send it a later time on Apple Mail, which is the mail client that I use all
[20:08]the time.
[20:09]So I started doing that.
[20:10]I was like, oh, this is so great.
[20:11]Now my team won't wake up and have like 20 years after being in the middle of the night.
[20:15]But then once it didn't work and I was like, well, I can't trust it.
[20:18]I'm never going to do it again.
[20:19]So I forget it.
[20:20]No, I just have to be transparent that my working hours are sometimes different from other
[20:25]people's working hours.
[20:26]Like I might not respond to emails between three and five because the kids are not
[20:30]cool.
[20:31]And I'm fixing dinner.
[20:32]And it's that's not, I know it's still the work day for most people, but it's not a great
[20:35]time for me.
[20:36]But like two to four a.m.
[20:38]I'm sharp.
[20:39]No one's asking me to heat up a snack or cut an apple or help them with a math worksheet.
[20:45]So I'm getting a lot done in the middle of the night.
[20:48]You got to just grab to grab the time when you get.
[20:51]Oh my goodness.
[20:52]It's the truth.
[20:53]It's the truth.
[20:54]What is coming up for you?
[20:56]Are you doing what's next?
[20:57]What's the next release after this?
[20:58]Not to stress you out more, but no, no, no.
[21:01]The next release after this is the paperback of you could make this place beautiful the
[21:06]first week of June.
[21:07]So I'll be back on the road when the memoir paper back comes out and then next is the
[21:12]cover different or the same?
[21:14]No.
[21:15]We can't change that.
[21:16]I know.
[21:17]I love the cover.
[21:18]I know.
[21:19]I was just making sure a lot of times people change it.
[21:20]No, I can't.
[21:21]You know, moving some blurbs around and adding like doing some different things, but
[21:24]no, I just can't I can't I would like that to be the cover of every book.
[21:29]Let's just change the title going forward and every book I ever published.
[21:32]It's just that.
[21:33]I love it so much.
[21:37]And then next year I have a collection of essays.
[21:41]Oh, yeah.
[21:42]So that's that's what I'm working on now and working on poems.
[21:47]So I think probably the next next is another book of of poems.
[21:52]Amazing.
[21:54]I can't wait to read it's so it's so like I know that I'm going to love it ever you are
[22:00]going to write and you haven't even like written all of it yet.
[22:02]And I'm just like, oh, I can't wait to have the experience of my reading your words later.
[22:06]It's just like such a crazy thing.
[22:08]You know, it's so kind.
[22:10]No, but it's true.
[22:11]And I'm just like her up and finished.
[22:13]Oh, I know.
[22:14]I'm hearing that.
[22:15]I need to do.
[22:17]I need to do that.
[22:19]You know, I sat down and realized like my last, I mean, I'm a poet.
[22:23]I'm first and foremost, you know, this book technically isn't poetry.
[22:27]It's not a rhyming kids book and poetry style.
[22:30]And I thought about it.
[22:31]I'm like, my last four books and then including my next one, they're all different genres
[22:37]itself help poetry memoir, picture book essay collection.
[22:43]And I need to loop back to poetry because that's really my home base.
[22:47]And I need to like make the rounds of the bases and then come back around to home.
[22:51]But it's sort of strange to me because I think if you would ask me 20 years ago, I would
[22:55]have said, I will always write poetry and I hope that I'll be able to publish multiple
[22:59]books of poetry.
[23:00]And if I can do that, I'll be so happy.
[23:03]And I never would have thought that I would be writing and multiple genres or publishing
[23:10]and multiple genres, but you know, each idea, and I'm sure you felt this too, because
[23:16]you do the same thing, like each idea demands its own container.
[23:21]And it shows up and sort of whispers to you what form, what shape it wants to take.
[23:28]And so my memoir could not have been a collection of poems.
[23:32]It just wouldn't have worked.
[23:34]And this couldn't have been that either.
[23:38]And the essay collection is not anything close to being a memoir and it also can't be
[23:43]a picture book.
[23:44]And so sort of letting inspiration happen and meeting all of those ideas where they
[23:50]are and taking them on a case by case basis and instead of being like, well, I'm a poet.
[23:55]So whatever this is, it's going to be poems, but just instead of foisting your own agenda
[24:00]on it, just listening, like, who's the audience for this?
[24:04]What's the story?
[24:06]Who needs it?
[24:07]What's it going to look like?
[24:08]What's the texture of it going to be?
[24:10]And for me, the last few things have all asked to be different things.
[24:17]So I'm just trying to listen more than I talk with the books.
[24:21]I love that.
[24:22]That's great.
[24:23]No, I had this one idea.
[24:24]I'm like, well, maybe I'll just be a graphic novel.
[24:26]And I'm like, what on earth?
[24:28]Like, what?
[24:29]What do I know about that?
[24:30]I don't know.
[24:31]I'll just have to teach myself how to do it, like, other, I don't know.
[24:34]But this idea, like, the kids we're going to want to read it, they want to only
[24:37]read graphic novels right now.
[24:38]So you're probably in a running graphic novel, too.
[24:41]Oh my gosh.
[24:42]Well, I definitely won't be doing the graphic part of the novel.
[24:44]If I do, let me tell you, unless someone really wants, you know, stick people.
[24:49]Though I guess diarrhea will winky could as a little, as a little stick person-y.
[24:53]So perhaps there's a place for that.
[24:55]Yes.
[24:56]Yes, indeed.
[24:58]Well, that was also great advice already for aspiring authors, too, is like paying attention
[25:04]and listening for the ideas.
[25:06]And, you know, it's just so great.
[25:09]I feel like now I'm going to finish this and go, like, have my son build a netster
[25:15]set thing and, like, show him at a taken apart, right, like, that we can actually deconstruct
[25:21]it, construct Andy, construct that it's, like, all our power.
[25:24]You know?
[25:25]Oh, I love this.
[25:26]I love, I mean, I love this idea of, of, like, different, sort of, interactive ideas
[25:32]that caregivers and kids can do together sort of around the themes of the book.
[25:37]Like, I think we'll be doing something like this when we, when we launch at my public
[25:41]library, because I want it to be family friendly.
[25:43]So what kind of drawing or writing or, or sort of, like, craft ideas can we, can we do
[25:49]around that?
[25:50]And I think it's so true.
[25:51]Like, my hope is it's a conversation starter.
[25:54]Totally.
[25:55]You know, like, okay, this is this kid's stuff.
[25:59]What is your stuff?
[26:00]Like, what are you worried about?
[26:02]Maybe it's not the big kids taking the ball, it recess.
[26:05]Maybe it's not stuff under the bed.
[26:07]Like, what are you worried about?
[26:09]Okay.
[26:10]And then what are your positives to help balance it out?
[26:13]I mean, I, I would love to hear, like, what other kids, you know, and even that they
[26:20]know that everyone has stuff, like that everyone has their list.
[26:25]And it's just like, that's where the brain goes.
[26:27]And I always say my kids like, when they can't fall asleep, you know, everything seems
[26:32]worse than the dark.
[26:33]Just always remember, like, everything was, everything gets magn, everything is worse than
[26:36]the dark.
[26:37]Just like, let's deal with it in the morning.
[26:38]And if it still seems terrible, deal with it then.
[26:41]I mean, that's, that's another thing I hope, you know, I mean, my, my, sort of ultimate
[26:47]goal for this book, which is like a tiny goal, is just that it makes bedtime a little
[26:51]bit easier for somebody who's holding this book, sharing it with a kid just easier
[26:57]big times because I know that seems small, but like, you know, as a mom, it is not small.
[27:03]It's, you know, easier bedtimes because a bad bedtime colors your entire day.
[27:07]It's just, it's hard, it's heartbreaking to feel like they're suffering and having a hard
[27:13]time and we're not able to sort of get in and, and like help them do the work for themselves.
[27:20]So I mean, one of the things I really hope for too is that this helps to normalize
[27:25]the idea of worrying and anxiety.
[27:28]Like, there are probably kids out there who think like, nobody else's brains working
[27:32]like my brain's working right now where everybody else is just going to sleep and nobody
[27:36]else is, is worrying about what's going to happen with that test tomorrow or with soccer
[27:41]practice or their grandma being sick or whatever the thing is.
[27:46]And we all do it.
[27:48]Yeah.
[27:49]It's just such a human.
[27:51]It's true.
[27:52]Now we're all in it together.
[27:54]Meggie, thank you.
[27:56]Thank you so much for my thoughts, have wings.
[27:58]I'm so excited to do even more with it with my kids and just see where this book takes
[28:04]off.
[28:05]Thank you so much.
[28:06]It was so good to see you and chat with you.
[28:08]You too.
[28:09]Congratulations on your book.
[28:11]Thank you.
[28:12]Okay.
[28:13]Hey, good care.
[28:14]Okay, you do.
[28:15]Bye.
[28:16]Bye.
[28:17]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[28:21]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibbowens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[28:25]Books.
[28:26]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[28:30]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:33]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[28:37]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now
[28:40]to your music.