Scratch That: Parenting & ReParenting Off Script

Hi, friends! Happy Monday💛As Caitlin prepares to to welcome their new little human into the world, we are sending you a little signing off episode with a found poem that emerged from all of the conversations we've gathered since we kicked this thing off last year.Thank you for being along for the ride!A Scratch That Poem*Note: Every line from this poem is linked to the Scratch That episode from which it originally sprouted. Hello, little butterbean, Sweet silly goose. little anxious heart. Dear listener, the freaks, other weirdos my sister LauraCome sit with me. we can't believe you're here your presence feels like a miraculous little sparkle lighting up the dark sky.What I hear us talking about isbecoming was a pretty disorienting, lonely experience.Like we were gonna be lawyers and doctors and like be wearing suits or something. I have literally gashed the control panel of the passenger side door out with my wheelchair as I transferred in and out of this car for the last 15 years. And if anybody sits in the passenger seat, it does look like I'm trying to kidnap themoh, this is, this is very different than I thought what almost 40 was gonna look like. I doubt myself all the timeI shrunk from the eye of the storm I don't know what the hell I'm doing.oh, dear Lord. I am so quick to feel like, oh, you are ruining this. And if you could just get it right We were at the pool. I didn't bring a towel. I didn't bring a towel to the pool. Can we use your towels? Oh, my God. Like, what. What is that? the moment when you show up and you feel like the child in a room full of adults.this little duck that looks really peaceful on top of the water, but underneath, I'm just paddling, like, furiously. and I couldn't let anyone know itThis is the dirty secret. And nobody can know that, actually, I'm like, I shouldn't be doing this, and I need to keep pretending like I can.the failure of not matching when we immediately think like, oh, I should knowwhat the fuck is that?It was like grief. It was shame.it is feeling like a lot of doing and grasping and, like, white knuckling. I can never stop working relentlessly and fearfully to get it right, get it right, get it right.nose to the grindstoneI don't think I'm capable of feeling easy breezy It feels all tangled and kind of ugly.Tell me if I'm wrong. Did others feel this way? As I'm understanding it right now in the very middle of itYep.I'm raising my hand here, Was everyone just pretending to be okay, or was I broken?oh, no. No. No. No.I just don't buy it. There was also thisThere was a way that you were trying to help yourself survive even in that fumblingI'm holding myself together with harshness and rigidity and why I oughta.oh, the speed and rush and flurry and chaos and check, check, check. Because so many times it felt like my body was not mine. oh, like I'm actually in much more pain than I'm letting myself admit. and and how do we, like, not keep our bodies rigid What if your most important job was to notice, to witness breath, tears, goosebumps, heartbeats? Look! just, like, stop to look at a trail of ants in a sidewalk crack. Listen to the gasp from the back seat at the sight of a sunrise. Mama, take a picture. oh, there's my breath. Oh, there I am in there. You feel it, right?Yes, dear Lord I have goosebumps up to my cheeksMhmm. I mean, you know it in your body probably.One breath at a time. watch me Breathe in and out.a lot of us out here don't match the pictures we've been givenI don't see through your eyes, you don't see through my eyes. We're all seeing things differently. We are learning we are recalibratingin flux reorienting, and it is dizzying. The hints come in little bread crumbs, and I think you can trust it.horses don't have an ability to lie to humansgrab the reins and trust that gut feelingThat is the thing we have control over, trying to show up, trying to show up again. We don't have control over the outcome.It is all going to happen. One day at a time, baby.it will be glorious and unbearableAnd yes, it was funny because we made it so.Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. we can use goals as playgrounds. The timelines that are presented to us are so narrow. And that is not what life is like. It's just not. Julia Child didn't start cooking until she was 45 or whatever.Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh. Now I'm going yes. like, paying attention to what is alive in you. You can just shift the question.What are the things you're moving towards versus just what you're going against?how can you rearrange what's in the box? what is it that you're resisting in yourself? what are we to do but imagine better futures?this off script, kind of like, scrappy, build it yourself way, I'm like, oh, yeah, Like, we can just start asking different questionsThat's freaking sick, bro.That's freaking metal.I think a new answer is emerging in me and I don't know what it is yet. but I do know that my body responded I'm paying attention to how my body feels right now.my heart has not stopped poundingso many tears coming up I feel like this tingling of excitementmy face is already hurting from all the smilingAnd, also right now, I'm just like a hot jellyfish mess. You know? It's, like, so uncomfortable and hard to let things be messyAnd I think it has been messier than I expected, butBut that messy middle was so important. grappling with the real limitations of my body. Wouldn't it be lovely, if you could grow wings and fly? Of course there's grief. There's loss. but two things can be true at the same time. The pain and the beauty, they're usually, like, intertwined and pushed right up next to each other.Notice the strength and the toll. There is so much pain and fear and loss bleeding across this planet. Notice the question, how are we still breathing? Notice the blooms of survival.It is what happens in between you and the person across from you and in that space, the divine comes in. However you think of the divineLike, this is beautiful and complicated. This is the juicy part. This is the rough part.you are a speck of spectacular dust here for one quick gasp of holy shit, I'm here.oh, yeah. It's probably supposed to be strange because it's inherently a weird thingto change and evolve and growyou will always be you, you will never stop changing. It is so strange to put a part of yourself into the world This little pocket of conversation that we're havingthis time capsule.this one peak into one moment of time. Holy shit we just circled so many different things.And did we land at exactly the place that we started? Maybe.So thank you for being here.and thank you. Thank you for this.thank you for giving me this spacethank you for staying in the explorationThank you for digging in and winding through this path with us. I have so many more questionsMentioned In This Episode:Our collaborative Scratch That Spotify playlist "Songs That Have Held Us"As Always:Check out Caitlin and Rebekah's Book Shop! Here you can find every book mentioned in our episodes, as well as a few additional faves.Use this link to get a 25% discount on a PokPok subcription! And if you haven't listened yet, check out our interview with PokPok creators, Esther and Melissa.We would love to hear from you! Are there moments from the last year of episodes that you would add to a Scratch That poem?🍎 Apple🟢 SpotifyFind Rebekah on Substack & Caitlin on Instagram ✨

Tatum Tricarico embodies a set of identities we don't always see together – she is a proud Disabled person, a Queer woman of faith, and a recent graduate from divinity school on her way to becoming a pastor. Tatum knows, first-hand, a lot of the wounds disabled and queer people have felt inside religious communities, and she's here to offer all of us – the ones on the outside and inside – new scripts for understanding the divine.Check out Tatum's forthcoming book, Blessed Is the Body, a reflection on disability justice, the holiness of inclusion and acceptance, disabled leadership, the finitude of our bodies, and allowing space for lament and acceptance. Whether you grew up hearing your body is sinful or haven't read a page of the Bible, this episode offers us a tender reframe on how we could think about our bodies and what needs (or doesn't need) fixing.Tune In to Hear Us Talk About:⛪️ Tatum's early experiences with disability, queerness, and religion.🧳 What it feels like to Tatum to embody a (disabled, queer, religious) role full of tension and contradiction.🐧 Finding God in the "in between" spaces, like penguins.🍃 Why Tatum had to let go of who she thought God was.🏳️‍🌈 What Tatum thinks religious communities are missing out on when they exclude people.👩‍🦯‍➡️ The yuck history of churches fighting to be excluded from the Americans with Disabilities Act.💌 Tatum's decision to stay in the church, even as she continues to think creatively about God.Mentioned In Today's Episode:Find Tatum on Instagram @blind_person_in_areaPre-Order her book from Herald Press or AmazonTatum's addition to the Scratch That Spotify playlist of songs that have held us – "Sight" by Sleeping At LastNancy Eiesland's book The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of DisabilityAmy Kenny 's book My Body is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the ChurchAs Always:Check out Caitlin and Rebekah's Book Shop! Here you can find every book mentioned in our episodes, as well as a few additional faves.Use this link to get a 25% discount on a PokPok subcription! And if you haven't listened yet, check out our interview with PokPok creators, Esther and Melissa.We would love to hear from you! Do you relate to any of the experience Rebekah and Tatum shared in this episode? Have you revised any scripts around what is holy or divine?🍎 Apple🟢 SpotifyFind Rebekah on Substack & Caitlin on Instagram ✨

If you've listened to this podcast for three minutes, you know that we are big-time, long-time fans of author/illustrator Tyler Feder (Bodies Are Cool, Are You Mad At Me?, and Dancing At the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic Memoir). Tyler has a unique ability of finding the simplest, sturdiest revision to break open the one-dimensional world in which we often live. Today, we talk with her about how she came to rewrite scripts around bodies and grief. (And! We get a sneak peek at a future script she might like to dismantle and rewrite.) We are still basking in the glow of this conversation✨Tune In to Hear Us Talk About:🫀 How Tyler ended up writing the picture book that all of us needed.💀 The weird similarities in the ways people respond to disability and death.🎭 How Tyler became the kind of person who can hold onto grief and laughter at the same time.😬 The weird things people said around Tyler after her mom died and a peek at alternate scripts.⏳ A cultural script Tyler would like to revise.🎀 The 3 questions Rebekah's kid really wanted to ask Tyler, and her answers.🕺 A dash of Myers Briggs/Enneagram chitter-chatter.Mentioned In Today's Episode:Tyler's books Bodies Are Cool, Are You Mad At Me?, and Dancing At the Pity Party: A Dead Mom Graphic MemoirTyler's addition to the Scratch That Spotify playlist of songs that have held us – "Kind of Girl" by MUNAAs Always:Check out Caitlin and Rebekah's Book Shop! Here you can find every book mentioned in our episodes, as well as a few additional faves.Use this link to get a 25% discount on a PokPok subcription! And if you haven't listened yet, check out our interview with PokPok creators, Esther and Melissa.We would love to hear from you! 🍎 Apple🟢 SpotifyFind Rebekah on Substack & Caitlin on Instagram ✨

Barry Lee's art is beautiful without being precious, whimsical but sturdy, absurd and deeply relatable, disrupts traditional beauty standards and is absolutely stunning. As a disabled and non-binary artist, they offer us a bright and playful world with a warmest, gentlest gut-punch. There was SO MUCH we wanted to talk with them about. Like when did Barry learn to separate from their body? How are they finding their way back? And what does art have to do with any of it? The conversation that unspooled spanned from early medical trauma to the curious things our grad school professors said that shaped our life arcs to an exploration of what we're moving toward today. They gave us so much to think about💛Tune In to Hear Us Talk About:🩺 How Barry learned early that their disabled body didn't belong to them.📓 The artifact from the past Barry's mom gave them that prompted a turn toward embodiment.😷 The near-death experience that taught Barry to trust their body.🗓️ Why Barry likes the word practice to describe learning to be in their body.💌 The entirely unique and expansive way that Barry defines accessibility.✨ Invitations from disability and gender to dismantle.🌱 Exploring what we are FOR (as opposed to simply against).📦 Thinking outside of the box versus rearranging what's inside the box.⚡️ Getting comfortable with being unpalatable.🧳 Removing the shame that so often rests on top of suffering.Mentioned In Today's Episode:Gentle Reminders Journal: A Deep, Loving Guide to Help You Show Up for Yourself & OthersBarry's Instagram, Substack Portal Hopping, and website!As Always:Check out Caitlin and Rebekah's Book Shop! Here you can find every book mentioned in our episodes, as well as a few additional faves.Use this link to get a 25% discount on a PokPok subcription! And if you haven't listened yet, check out our interview with PokPok creators, Esther and Melissa.We would love to hear from you! Do you share this history of disembodiment? How did/are you finding your way back?🍎 Apple🟢 SpotifyFind Rebekah on Substack & Caitlin on Instagram ✨

Explore the challenges of retaining identity during life changes like parenthood and new jobs. Discover how to adapt old rituals to fit new realities, and identify what to keep or let go. The hosts discuss the shift in creativity post-parenthood, tackling pressures of productivity while finding joy in small moments. They encourage listeners to track feelings of resentment and sadness, using them as guides to rebuild a fulfilling life. Plus, learn practical tips to carve out time for what truly lights you up!

In a thought-provoking discussion, the hosts explore the concept of self-gaze, encouraging listeners to reflect on how they perceive themselves versus how they are perceived by others. They share personal stories about the challenges and breakthroughs of self-portraiture as a tool for self-care and awareness. The conversation also highlights alternative mediums for self-documentation, emphasizing the importance of being present during creation. Ultimately, they frame self-witnessing as a powerful act of validation and healing.

It's true! Can you believe it? We've been sending these conversations out into the world and through your speakers for a year now! Today we take a beat to reflect on the experience, pulling out steady threads and big-takeaways. We play a few clips that we're still thinking about and lift the lid on the noise, pressures, and messy insecurities we've bumped into while making this project. There are many big and genuine thank yous, as well as a little peek at some Scratch That changes ahead. Thank you for being here with us!!💛Mentioned In This Episode:"Getting Off the Conveyer Belt of Production with Maria Bowler"Maria Bowler's book Making Time: A New Vision for Crafting a Life Beyond ProductivityRebekah's Substack This Too"Flipping the Script on Disability with Lucy & James Catchpole""The Hilarious & Heartbreaking with Hannah & Shane Burcaw""What Paradigms Are We Building? Part 2 with Abbie VanMeter"As Always:Check out Caitlin and Rebekah's Book Shop! Here you can find every book mentioned in our episodes, as well as a few additional faves.Use this link to get a 25% discount on a PokPok subcription! And if you haven't listened yet, check out our interview with PokPok creators, Esther and Melissa.We would love to hear from you! 🍎 Apple
🟢 SpotifyFind Rebekah on Substack & Caitlin on Instagram ✨

Kate Bingaman Burt is so many things – illustrator, educator, parent, head of the Graphic Design program at Portland State University, and founder of the coolest risograph printing press and studio, Outlet PDX. She's also been drawing every day since 2006. Today we ask her how she melds these worlds together. How did becoming a parent affect her identity as an artist? How does her art practice shape her parenting? And how does she balance alllll the roles and tasks? Whether you're a parent, an artist, or none of the above, this conversation has some wisdom for you. Caitlin is listening on a loop.Tune in to hear us talk about:🧶 The legacy of creativity Kate grew up in.💐 The moment in a small-town Missouri flower shop when Kate realized she could earn money making things with her hands.📊 When our kids don't seem interested in the things we value so highly.🚦 How Kate uses rules, limitations, and restrictions to generate creative momentum.🫟 Diving into the process without the pressure for an amazing product.❌ What to do with that helpless feeling that we're damaging our kids with our own stuff.〰️ Making space for looking back and connecting the dots.👻 Tuning in to the voice that compels us to make things without worrying if it's important enough.🔍 Kate's advice for avoiding burnout.Mentioned In Today's Episode:Kate's TEDTalk "Rules of Engagement"The Ten Rules from Corita Kent. The Rules mentioned into today's episode include #8 – "Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes, and #9 – "Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think."Kate's addition to the Scratch That Spotify playlist of songs that have held us – Paul Simon's "Rene and Georgette Magritte with Their Dog After the War."For more of Kate in your life, head to her website!Babies Caitlin and Kate at a workshop Kate hosted in Portland.As Always:Check out Caitlin and Rebekah's Book Shop! Here you can find every book mentioned in our episodes, as well as a few additional faves.Use this link to get a 25% discount on a PokPok subcription! And if you haven't listened yet, check out our interview with PokPok creators, Esther and Melissa.We would love to hear from you! What stood out to you about our conversation with Kate? Anything you're tucking away or still chewing on?🍎 Apple🟢 SpotifyFind Rebekah on Substack & Caitlin on Instagram ✨

Do you ever feel like you're doing it wrong? Like everyone else has it figured out, and you're the only one flailing? Today we open the can of worms that wriggle around when we compare ourselves to the ones around us. Why are we so good at noticing our own lack, but not our abundance? What do we miss out on when we strive to match instead of living our unique values out loud? What do we do when we are grieving the very thing our friend has? Today we dive into the complexity and offer a few breadcrumbs for navigating this gnarly terrain.Tune In to Hear Us Talk About:🙃 The moments of comparison that make Rebekah like a child among the grownups.🫟 When the thing you're good at doesn't always look shiny or tidy.🌤️ Learning to notice where we have abundance in addition to noticing the strain.🌓 Rebekah grieving not having another kid while Caitlin prepares to welcome theirs.♿️ How disability can make it taboo to express jealousy/grief for what you don't have.❓ The guiding question to sort the comparison feelings – What is this actually about?🤝 What makes it tricky and useful to share when we feel the pang of comparison.🎨 Letting the both/and of our lives, co-exist side-by-side as a creative script building project.📬 Less matching for the sake of it and more living our values out loud as a flag to find our people.Mentioned In This Episode:The episode we had with Emma Parker about infertility and miscarriage.The episode when each of us wonders if we will have a second kid.Our conversation with Amelia Hruby about social media.As Always:Check out Caitlin and Rebekah's Book Shop! Here you can find every book mentioned in our episodes, as well as a few additional faves.Use this link to get a 25% discount on a PokPok subcription! And if you haven't listened yet, check out our interview with PokPok creators, Esther and Melissa.We would love to hear from you! Does your brain get stuck in comparison mode? How do you navigate feeling inferior to or envious of the people in your orbit? What are your tools? What are your angsts?🍎 Apple
🟢 SpotifyFind Rebekah on Substack & Caitlin on Instagram ✨

As Caitlin prepares Charlie to welcome a sibling into the family, we delve into a swirly conversation about these complicated relationships. How much, if any, control do parents have over siblings relationships? What can parents do (or not do) to foster positive, long lasting relationship between their kids? How did our sibling relationships shape us? And how does that history inform the way we think about siblings relationships now?Tune In to Hear Us Talk About:🧭 What drives Caitlin's intentionality in guiding Charlie through the transition of becoming a sibling.🌈 How Caitlin's experience being the "rainbow baby" shaped siblings dynamics in their family.📖 Learning to be conscious of the stories we put onto our kids.🤝 One skill we think is mandatory to maintain sibling relationships over the long haul.🍄 Disrupting our assigned roles within a family ecosystem.🌱 Practicing seeing each other anew, over and over again.Mentioned In Today's Episode:Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born written by Miranda Paul and illustrated by Jason ChinWhen Aidan Became a Brother written by Kyle Lukoff and illustrated by Kaylani JuanitaWhat Makes a Baby written by Cory Silverberg and illustrated by Fiona SmythAs Always:Check out Caitlin and Rebekah's Book Shop! Here you can find every book mentioned in our episodes, as well as a few additional faves.Use this link to get a 25% discount on a PokPok subcription! And if you haven't listened yet, check out our interview with PokPok creators, Esther and Melissa.We would love to hear from you! How have your sibling relationships evolved over your life? What role did you play in your family of origin? How are you thinking about the relationships between your kids? And do you have anyone in your life you'd like to try to see anew?🍎 Apple
🟢 SpotifyFind Rebekah on Substack & Caitlin on Instagram ✨