Ep 129: Parenting When You're Over It - With Zazi
By Charlotte Cummings | Feel Better Podcast
Why Your Child Isn't Being Naughty (And What They're Actually Trying to Tell You)
A conversation with Zazi, Speech and Language Therapist and Child Development Creator
Most of us grew up thinking humans have five senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. Done and dusted.
But according to Zazi, a speech and language therapist, child development creator, and mum of three, we actually have eight. And the three that nobody talks about? They're the ones quietly running the show when it comes to mental health, behaviour, and how we regulate ourselves as both parents and kids.
I sat down with Zazi on the Feel Better podcast and we covered a lot of ground. Fighting, running, frozen cherries, ADHD, squish mallows, and why sometimes the most useful thing you can do as a parent is absolutely nothing.
Here's what stayed with me.
The three senses you've never heard of (but need to know about)
Beyond the five we all learned in school, Zazi explained three more that have a direct impact on nervous system regulation.
Proprioception is your sense of your body in space. It's why children seek deep hugs, heavy blankets, and rough and tumble play. It's why a really good wrestling session with your kids can calm everyone down. It's the body feeling itself.
The vestibular system is your sense of movement and balance. It's why we instinctively rock babies. Why kids love to swing and spin. They're not just burning energy, they're soothing something real.
And then there's interoception, which Zazi described as arguably the most important. It's your internal awareness. Are you hungry? Too hot? Tired? Needing the toilet? If your interoception is poor, you can't actually meet your own needs because you're not getting the signal clearly enough. Zazi's example of needing the toilet and not realising until she was absolutely bursting had me nodding along harder than I'd like to admit.
The reason this matters for parents is this: so many of us have been trying to coach ourselves through our mental health struggles using thoughts and emotions alone, and wondering why it isn't working. The body is in the conversation. The senses are in the conversation. And when we ignore that, we miss half the picture.
Every behaviour is communication
This is the reframe that changes everything.
When your toddler hits. When your five year old bites. When your kid loses it completely in the cereal aisle or at school pickup. Zazi's framework is simple: every behaviour is your child saying, I need help and I don't know what to do with this.
Not manipulation. Not naughtiness. Not a failure of your parenting.
Help.
She also pushed back gently on terms like "the terrible twos," not because they're wrong to use, but because the framing underneath them matters. What's actually happening is that your child has more ideas than ever before, more wants, more feelings, and not enough language to express any of it. So the feelings come out through their bodies. And that makes complete sense.
Why your kid melts down after school (and what to do about it)
The school pickup meltdown is one of the most common things parents tell me they struggle with. The child who held it together all day and then absolutely loses it the moment they're safely back with you.
Zazi's take on this is so useful. Your child has been masking all day. Holding the scratchy uniform. Managing the noise. Regulating in a way that takes real effort. And then they get home, where they're safe, and the whole thing collapses.
What they need isn't a screen or a talking to. They need their uniform off. They need a crunchy snack. They need proprioceptive input, which might look like wrestling with you or crashing into the couch cushions. They need you to just be nearby, calm and quiet, while their nervous system comes back down.
Zazi and I both confessed to showing up at school pickup with icy snacks on hot days and getting a few sideways looks from other parents. We're both fine with that. Cold, crunchy food is a nervous system strategy. Frozen cherries are not an indulgence, they're regulation.
On ADHD, motherhood, and not waiting for permission to lower your standards
Zazi was diagnosed with ADHD after becoming a parent. She talked about the relief of diagnosis alongside the grief of looking back and understanding why so many things were harder than they needed to be.
I get a lot of messages from women who are wondering if ADHD, or perimenopause, or both, might explain why things have felt so much more difficult in recent years. Zazi's advice was direct: if you're spending time reading about it and thinking this sounds exactly like me, that's probably not a coincidence. You don't have to wait for a formal diagnosis to start offering yourself more grace, more flexibility, more accommodations.
So many women are withholding basic kindness from themselves until someone official gives them permission to need a bit more support. The permission is already yours.
Filling your own cup, and why selfishness is part of the job
Zazi trains MMA and Muay Thai. She runs parkruns and recently signed up for a trail run in Tekapo that comes with a list of safety gear you need in case things go sideways on the hill. She's found movement in the last few years and talks about it the way a lot of us talk about it. Like someone who discovered something that genuinely changed things.
But she was clear: getting out the door required deciding that filling her own cup was part of her job as a parent. Not a luxury. Not something she earned. A non-negotiable.
Her kids say Mummy, you're always leaving. And it pulls at her heart. And she goes anyway.
Because she also knows that she comes back better. More present. More patient. With something left in the tank.
If you're trying to find time to move, to train, to do anything that is just yours, Zazi's advice is this: take turns. Be selfish. Don't expect to do it all at the same time as your partner. Tag out.
What to do when you're completely at the end of yourself
This is the bit I think a lot of parents need to hear.
When your child needs you and you have nothing left, you don't have to fix it. You don't have to find the perfect response or the right words or the correct parenting technique.
Sometimes you just need to sit near them and breathe.
Zazi talked about how unusual it is for a child to see their parent simply be still and quiet. No fixing, no problem-solving, no raised voice. Just presence. And often, she said, the child gets curious enough about the stillness that they begin to settle into it.
Do less. Say less. Breathe.
And if it's all gone completely sideways, the telly is allowed to be a parent for ten minutes while you get yourself back together. That's not failure. That's survival, and survival counts.
One last thing
Zazi said something near the end of our conversation that I keep coming back to.
When you're not coping, when your cup is constantly empty, when you're in it every single day and there's nothing left: that's not a you problem. That's a systems problem.
Blame your systems before you blame yourself.
And then quietly start looking at what you can adjust, who you can call on, what you can hand off, where you need someone to tag in.
You're not failing. The setup is just not working yet.
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Thanks for joining me. Yay. The most exciting part of these questions are the warm-up questions.
Yep. And I would love to hear, because you're a bit of a foodie, top dish in Christchurch at the moment. I am obsessed with ramen.
Yes. Are you a ramen eater? Well I am but there's not good ramen where I live. Tell me where the good ramen is.
Right. So my brother knows a lot about Asian cuisine and he and as a lot of Asian friends and they put him on to Cameron's Japanese restaurant. Now it's on, it's in Hornby, it's in that building that looks like a burger or looks like it used to be a burger.
It's like a burger shaped building. Whenever I tell people this they're like what on earth? It's a big burger shaped building. It's now used by a Japanese family and they make the best, the best ramen and I crave it.
Cameron's. Cameron's, Cameron's. But if I'm not eating that I'll be making a beeline to Dimitri's.
Have you had Dimitri's in the city? Yes. Even from, it was like one of the first things I had when I first moved to Christchurch and then it's been through all its iterations through the earthquakes, we're eating it out of vans, eating it in Rickerdon and then I absolutely love it. And they just have a cult following that will literally follow them.
Yeah. Favorite thing to do at the moment with your kids? My kids are obsessed with climbing trees at the minute and that's really easy and that's really cheap actually and we're all, you know, we're all about saving money at the moment. Yeah.
So we go somewhere local and my kids just want to be climbing trees and they're acting out. We're reading a lot of, we're reading a lot of chapter books at the minute and in one of the chapter books there's a squirrel who has a slingshot and he's slingshotting acorns. They just want to pick up acorns and pretend they're launching them at us.
So good. And that's cheap and cheerful and wonderful and it just feels really earthy. We're really outdoorsy all of a sudden.
Very wholesome. And up until recently it's been like, I don't want to go out, I don't want to go to the quarry and now it's like that's the only place they want to be. I feel like your Instagram is really nostalgic for me because I spent 10 years parenting in the same community that you live in.
Yeah. And I see you out running the same streets that I used to run, feeling exhausted with little kids. Yeah.
And that kind of preschool, early primary stage and it just, it feels like so much nostalgia for me. I feel a little bit like that when I see people in Dunedin because both my kids were born in Dunedin and like a lot of my early days were there, frequenting the same parks and you have your little routines that help you get by in parenting. So I get it.
Yeah, with the park around the corner, my kids called the Paw Patrol Park because once we pretended like we were rescuing the Paw Patrolers and it's, we haven't played that since, but it's the Paw Patrol Park and that's what they know it as and all the NAMM stuff. That's super sweet. And tell me if you had two hours to yourself, if you had two hours to yourself, what would you do? You know what? My happy place at the minute is fighting.
I train MMA, I train Muay Thai and like jujitsu, just fighting. I basically pay to get beaten up and I really enjoy it and I never thought I'd be saying that, but it's amazing for my nervous system and I leave feeling so happy. So I'd probably spend an hour and a half being punched.
And then to recover? And then I'd probably go out for breakfast with John and eat some delicious food. That's what I'd be up to if I had two hours, two solid hours to myself. Nice.
Yeah, I mean it's a bit of a luxury idea, hey? So I'd love to launch into then talking about sensory input, because I think one of the things that occupational therapists and speech and language therapists, and that's your background, speech and language therapists, OTs, they really get this idea of sensory input and how important that is for our nervous systems. And us therapists have kind of done a little bit of a disservice to people over the years with what I think has been like a real over focus on cognitions, on emotions and forgetting about our bodies and our senses. So things like fighting, high sensory input.
Talk to me about what you know around the importance of senses. Well, I think most people think that we only have five senses and we actually have eight. And those three that no one has even heard of are the ones that are driving our mental health.
And then people are like, well, what don't I know about? So those three senses in your nervous system are proprioception. So that's the feeling of your body in space. So like I can feel this beautiful chair against my bum, I can feel it against my muscles.
I can feel myself moving my arms. All of that, that feeling of where your body is, is proprioception. And that's why children seek things like a deep hug or a heavy blanket or where children get a lot out of like pushing and pulling and doing heavy work to regulate that area of their nervous system.
The other area is our vestibular system. So that's our understanding of like movement in our bodies. Are we balanced? And meeting that sensory need is innate, that we rock babies.
And I find myself rocking in this chair. I'm trying not to, but the way that we soothe ourselves and we soothe babies is through rocking and movement. And that's why kids love swinging.
And some kids love spinning around in circles, you know, they're trying to soothe themselves and soothe their vestibular system with that sort of movement. And then the third and arguably most important sense is interoception. So that's inside of our body.
So our understanding of ourselves, are we too hot? Are we hungry? Are we tired? Is our stomach hurting? And if we don't have a good awareness, a good interoception of how we're feeling, we can't actually meet our own needs. Like I'm a shocker for needing the toilet and just not even checking in with it until I'm absolutely bursting. Yeah.
And I see that happening in my kids. And my kids aren't so good at recognising when they're hungry. And then they're having a meltdown.
And I know a lot of parents are in the same boat. They're thinking, what is wrong with my kids? They're losing it. And what I feel my role is at the minute is trying to educate parents that they're not being naughty.
They have a need that's not being met. And often it is interoceptive. They're unable to check in with themselves.
They're probably hungry. They're probably thirsty. They're probably too hot and haven't even thought to take their jumper off.
How can we meet those needs to regulate their nervous system for them to feel better? Nice. That was such a massive learning curve for me as a mum was around my own mental wellbeing and the fact that I couldn't like cognitively coach myself through these things that I was struggling with. Yeah.
This wasn't an emotional problem. I actually needed to use my senses to feel better. And my starting point was playing at the playground with my kids.
Nice. Like not observing them at the playground, but going and putting myself on that spinny thing or doing the monkey bars and actually kind of like getting that input, feeling my body in space and going, wow, this actually feels really nice. We need that input.
Yeah. And I mean, it's a bit not safe for work, but there's a reason why adults have sex. You know, you're getting a lot of sensory input from the movement and the and the and your muscle movement.
And there's someone against your body like we we seek that and we need it. So I can see why running around at the park would help. And it is annoying to learn and to really deep as an adult that when you feel anxious and sad, chocolate feels good, but isn't fixing your problems as much as actually getting out and exercising like the the what the doctors have said is true.
Like when we get out and move ourselves, like it does so much for our brains. Yeah. Even though I would just like to sit and watch movies and eat chocolate.
So I love this. So far in the podcast, we've got have more sex and play at the playground. Absolutely.
I think that's where you should start. Yeah. Top mental health tips for moms.
I love that. What do you wish people had told you at the beginning of your parenting journey? I I wish the people at home a little bit more to ask for help. Yeah, I don't think anyone is very good at asking for help.
And we do often exist in a bit of a vacuum. We are in our own little small family units at the moment. It's not like back in the day where you had a village your family close.
And then we expect a lot from ourselves as parents. And we we stack up the jobs and we would never hire one person to do all of those things and get the groceries and cook the dinner and think of what you're going to eat and parent the child and do all the laundry. You wouldn't hire one person to do all that.
Yet we expect that. Yeah, we expect ourselves to do all that and then watch people online doing amazing things with their kids and just think, I'm not doing enough. I'm not enough.
We are enough. We just need to ask for more help and get more help with some of those things or lower the bar significantly. I love that.
And I think that that's one of the reasons why people really enjoy following you is that you can accept. Actually, this is this thing is not important to me today, or I'm allowing myself to be real about the fact that this is where I need to spend my attention right now, not on cleaning my house. And sometimes it's cleaning the house.
Sometimes it's organising kids bedrooms. But sometimes it's not. Yeah.
No, I think as much as possible, I really am trying to share the shit. Sure. I think people need to see it.
And whenever I do, that's when I get moms reaching out and saying, thank you, because I you know, what happens on Instagram and Pinterest, they've got these wonderful. Beautiful houses that everyone aspires to. Yeah, I'd love to have a house that looks like that, but it isn't reality, and I don't have the time to do that.
Yeah. And a lot of moms feel the same and they just want to see the chaos. And I do sometimes get feedback that people say, oh, I thought you had everything sorted.
And I realised that in the fact that I don't film my kids having a bad time because it's unethical. I don't show that sort of thing. So I'm actively parenting in those moments.
Yeah. People are shocked when I share about this went all went to shit and the outing was terrible. And they think, oh, I thought you had everything fine.
So I'm doing my best to verbally share those things, but without overstepping the marker, telling stories about my kids that I shouldn't, you know. And it's kind of interesting, isn't it, when you've had a professional background that does give you some bit of an advantage of the skills that you've got going into parenting. And yet we're faced with all the same stuff as everybody else.
Oh, 100%. I went into having a second child being like, I've got all of the behaviour strategies in the world to deal with having a second child and everything will be fine. And it's an absolute, it's chaos.
Yeah, it's chaos. My daughter, we're scared of her sometimes. She just has so much power.
She's so amazing. She's she knows her own mind. But she stormed into my room at one o'clock in the morning with her pillow under Teddy and kicked John out of bed.
She was like, no, I'm going to have this space. You don't want to argue one in the morning. You don't want to create any noise.
Just like, sure. Like you move in. See you, John.
I love it so much. I was at Briscoe's the other day. And you know how they've got squish mallows at the checkout? Of course they do.
Of course they do. These poor grandparents and the school holidays had been sent out with the grandkids. And here they were at Briscoe's.
They'd reached the front of the queue. The kids found the squish mallows and started to have a meltdown about the squish mallows. Lo and behold.
And there's a big line of people behind them. And God bless this granddad who at the little girl who was having a meltdown and making her case for why she needed the squish mallows said, future leader right there. Excuse us everyone, but future leader.
I love that. And I felt like that was such a success because it was another generation embracing that as well, that we can actually go, you know, no, these kids are working out their way in the world and this is OK. And actually, this was a bit of a setup and we can respect what this child's saying, too.
I think I think often we're trying to being in public with kids who are losing it is really embarrassing. We're often trying to shut down these emotions and get them to blum and stop because it's embarrassing. Yeah, so it's refreshing to hear that someone was just like, I can actually let this go.
I can let this child have their moment and feel whatever feelings they're having. Because we drag kids to shops all the time and the kids watch us buy whatever we bloody well fancy. Do we want to treat ourselves to that candle? Do we want to get that little bit of chocolate bar? We touch and consume whatever we want.
And then we get parents get upset when their kids touch things. You don't touch anything. I just witnessed you touching everything and buying whatever you want.
So it's understandable that our kids are like, well, why can't I just grab this squishmallow at checkout like you do, Mum? So, yeah, but it is such a big shift as parents get out of thinking that what our child is doing is bad behavior. I think that's one of the things you advocate for so well as saying to parents, this is your child communicating with you. This is actually your child doing something that's perfectly reasonable when you understand that they don't have a whole lot of control about a shopping experience or what the day looks like.
Like this is this makes sense for them to be like this. This isn't bad behavior that you need to control. I think I really struggle with the terms like.
Terrible twos. Yeah. I understand why parents use them, because it's a way of signaling to another parent.
I'm having a really tricky time and I'm in this phase. I don't know how to cope with that. There's a reason for it.
But it is sort of like it does the connotations and it's rooted in thinking that kids are bad from the beginning, like they're in this terrible stage. And what's really happening is your child's communicating with you more. You're just not really sure how to you know, you're not picking up what they're putting down.
Yeah. Your child is having more ideas and that and that they don't have the language behind them to say exactly how they feel. So they start lashing out with their bodies.
And all of that is communication. Every behavior is communication. So if your child is hitting you and they're biting you, they're communicating with you.
And that's pretty much saying I want help. And I think that's what I'm always trying to tell myself internally. The child is just saying, I want help.
I don't know what to do with all of this. So I'm doing daft things with my body. Yeah.
And tell us about your journey to starting an Instagram account, having your own podcast, trying to share with other parents. What was the heart behind why you were doing that? I was just at home, not using my brain and finding that really difficult. I have ADHD.
I want to be doing a million things at once. And I was following other creators who I was seeking advice from, especially around sleep when you're in the early stages and you're like, I just want to get sleep sorted. And I saw the creators doing Q&As and answering questions.
And I thought, you know what? I could do this in the speech and language therapy space. I can do this in the child development space. So I just got started.
And it was a way of keeping my brain busy and remembering, you know, all of my training and what I really enjoy, which is helping people and coaching parents. And it just grew from there. Yeah.
Cool. I think a lot of people don't quite understand what speech and language therapists do. Can you give us a little bit of a pitch of how your profession helps people? Gotcha.
Well, it's a bit there's different avenues of it. It's a bit like plumbing and electricity. Sometimes I worked in the education sector, so I worked with children and for the Ministry of Education in the beginning.
So I worked there, gosh, years. And basically, we meet families, assess children, see, you know, what we think is going on for them. And then a lot of my role was coaching adults and what they could do to help their children's development, help their children's communication.
So I was a speech and language therapist for many years, but then I became a service manager. So I sort of oversaw a multidisciplinary team of different therapists and organized all of the support that went out to different schools. So a couple of roles while I was working there before I had kids and left.
Amazing. And that background professionally means you've got some skills and your toolbox that you can share with other parents. Yes.
What are the things that you find parents love most about what you share with them? I think I do my best to just keep everything really simple and I try and keep everything routines best. So in what you're already doing, we already are time poor. So we don't have the capacity to sit down and and add anything extra.
So any of the strategies that I'm trying to give are within what you're already doing. So I bumped into a mom in the supermarket the other day and she was really struggling with the speech therapy she'd been told to do for a kid. And I said, he's working on a sound when you're brushing your teeth.
Can you just say spit before he spits? Kids love to spit. Can you just do that? And then she got back to when she was like, that's that's all I needed. That's all I had the capacity for.
I was feeling guilty every day for not managing to do the sit down stuff. We've been saying spit every time we spit into the sink of water, you know. So I want to keep things really simple for families and achievable and within what they're already doing so that we don't need to add to the guilt.
We've got as parents, it's already crippling. Yeah. So good.
And you just mentioned there about having ADHD and your own experience of that. Tell me about how that collided with becoming a parent. I think I was diagnosed after I became a parent, but things definitely heightened as I got older.
And in becoming a parent, I found that I was, you know, wanting to do all the things that was in my brain and didn't have as much capacity. I was losing control of my mental health a little bit more. I was struggling more.
And I was very aware of ADHD, but typically in boys and in little kids at school. And I was in that space, but I hadn't really thought of it in adults. And slowly but surely, most members of my family were being diagnosed.
And when I looked at it for myself, I was like, my goodness, me, this this all takes everything that I experienced in school and experienced in life. And I was diagnosed. And that was it's a real it's it was wonderful to be diagnosed.
It's also really sad to look back on what you how you managed at school and how a lot of times I was really struggling and didn't get the support. It's a big thing. And I don't talk about it heaps now because it's almost trending.
Yes, it's almost trending. And I just think I'll just I mention it in the odd bits and on the podcast, but I'm not about to make all of my my content about that because there's still so much stigma around talking about neurodiversity. And I'm just it's just not my role at present.
I'm just managing it for myself. Yeah. Nice.
I get a lot of messages from women saying I've had perimenopause and now I'm wondering, well, the wheels have come off. And I what I wondered about when I became a parent around potentially having ADHD, I've had perimenopause. And I'm going, well, I need to do something about this.
You got any advice for women who are thinking, oh, maybe this is something I want to explore for myself. I think just trust yourself. No one in their everyday life spends loads of time researching whether they're neurodivergent, unless they probably really are.
Like you're smart enough. If you're reading the things and you're thinking this is actually made then back yourself. And then if you feel like it, take the steps to go and look at it formally.
They can also feel fine to just read it and be like, actually, that is me. What are some strategies that are recommended and what have I already learned in my life and what could I be adding? Because you don't have to have a diagnosis for these things to really help. And it's the same in the child space.
You know, there's plenty of children who don't have a formal diagnosis of anything of neurodivergence. But the strategies in the classroom can really help them, regardless of that. So just back your own knowledge of yourself.
Yeah. And and and trust that what you're reading is supportive for you. Yeah.
But I find so sad as women going, gosh, I just really need that diagnosis so I can let go of my judgment of myself, the shame that I'm carrying, the standards that I'm holding, that I constantly feel I'm not able to meet, the ways I feel like I'm failing. I just wish we could give ourselves that acceptance without needing to pay the money and get someone to tell us that we've got the thing, which might be something some people need to do and can be really validating. But I just see so many women holding out and not giving themselves emotionally acceptance, the lowered standards, the accommodations, the flex that they need, because they actually really need to be able to give that to themselves.
Yeah, it is hard to because we're always comparing ourselves. Right. And it's only gotten worse with social media.
We're always looking at what someone else is doing. And it's a highlight reel. Again, I even I'm struggling to it to not look like a highlight reel.
So many parts of my life are an absolute mess. But that's not what I'm filming. That's not what I'm doing, the content about it.
So we're seeing highlight reels of people's lives and then we're comparing and we're wondering why we haven't got that all going on for ourselves. It's really difficult. So, yeah, it would.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was just people everywhere that could help to diagnose and help you to understand yourself a little bit better? I think as we come, as we become parents and we age and all my friends are talking about perimenopause at the minute, I mean, it's a scary point of our lives and that's like every other conversation. We are just trying to understand ourselves and understand our brains and maybe just have a little bit more time to ourselves, you know? Yeah. Nice.
You have been down a similar journey to me with running. And I think you found running at the same point that I found running in my parenting journey when I was still kind of knee deep in the sleeplessness and the kind of day to day struggle and grind of parenting. And then along came endorphins and the kind of joy of this process and the goals that are associated with running, the community that you can gain from running.
I have loved watching your journey with that. Oh, thank you. Tell us what you've loved about running.
I think it is the time to yourself. The memes are all true, you know? There's a lot of women out there pounding the pavement and doing 16K runs. It's a couple of hours, three hours to yourself out and about, you know? Amazing.
And so that has been really beneficial. I learned about Parkrun through a podcast, one of my favorite podcasts, and I'd never heard of it before. And I started attending Parkruns and I just loved the community feeling of that.
And it has been different. I mean, I've never, ever, ever enjoyed sport or moving my body at all my entire life. So it was a big shift wanting to get fitter and wanting to move my body and, you know, taking on board that it was making my mental health feel better.
So I it was new for me to ever set goals in an area. So it became really exciting. You're like chasing the next dopamine hit.
You're like, oh, so I can run 5K now without stopping. Well, can I do six? Well, maybe I should just impulsively sign up for a race because that sounds like something crazy we can do. And I found such I found new friends, new friends.
Some of them are 10 years younger than me. I've got these new young friends that I'm running with, but it's cool. You know, we hang out and those are my running friends.
And we run and we socialize and we need that. And, you know, I need that away from mum life, away from making lunches and reading books, et cetera, in life. And I found that in running.
I remember standing with you in the school playground when you just signed up for your first half marathon. Impulsive decisions. So good.
But like, I love being with other women when I'm like, oh, you're in for a treat here. This is going to be so amazing for you. And look at you going out being an ambassador.
Yeah. The Christchurch Marathon. How cool.
Yeah, I've absolutely loved it. I think my next race is I'm going to do run Takapos. It's going to be a trail run.
I'm going to be running in the hills. And it comes with like a list of like, you need a safety equipment. You've got to have like a rain jacket and things in case you die.
Essentially, I think. So I'm really signing myself up for the next level. And people keep reaching out to me about triathlons and stuff.
I'm keeping them at bay. Not getting me any water yet, but maybe one day. What I love about that for you is that the running event comes with a little bit of a holiday.
Like you can go away, you can do your run, then you can have a lovely time for that weekend away in Takapos. Where are you going? Run Cash, and people are calling it. And I've heard of people heading to Melbourne.
I was like, I've been making the wrong decisions. Maybe I need to run in Melbourne. Yeah, apparently there's a good marathon in New York too.
Yeah, I found myself out one day running in pitch black at 3am around similar location to you on New Year's Day because I had to fit in a three hour run. I was breastfeeding a baby. My goodness.
So I was like, I've just I've got to get out and do this. My only opportunity to fit in a three hour run is to start at three o'clock in the morning. And people were still coming home from the New Year's Eve celebration.
The people watching, coming, what the heck is that woman doing? But I'm like, I'm here for my mental health. Honestly, this is like the biggest game changer for me. I looked forward to it, not because of the run, but because of getting out and having that space to myself.
Yeah, it's wonderful. Especially if you found a nice spot. You're just like, I'm in my own space.
I'm listening to a podcast. I'm listening to some really good music and I've only been listening to The Wiggles or whatever recently, you know. This is all for me.
It is a wonderful time to be out. And you were right about the endorphins at the end of it. You can feel the worst on a run and hit every minute of it.
But at the end, you're like, oh, wow, now I feel amazing. And now I'm better ready to show up as a parent and be kind and enjoy my kids because I've had time to myself. My cup is filled and I'm not feeling god awful.
Yeah, yeah. What's your ideal distance at the moment? What have you found your kind of sweet spot is? I really just like doing a 5k. I love going to parkrun.
Sorry, I meant a really social thing. I love, I invite people along who don't even run. I'm happy to walk it with them.
I'm happy to run it with them. And we go out for cake and coffee afterwards. And the social part of it is really important to me.
Lesser the running. So it's whatever anyone else is up for doing. But I love, you know, I could only run for 20 seconds at the beginning.
To now just be able to run 5k without stopping feels wonderful. And then you just sort of begin gaslighting yourself. You just like, oh, it's only two 5k.
There's only two parkruns and you've done 10k. It's only three and a bit parkrun. You do your maths in 5k instead, even though you're exhausted.
Yeah. And someone said to me when I first ran 5k, I was like, guys, look at this. I did it.
And someone said, well, now you can run a half marathon. Honestly, like that's the jump that happens. It's so good for us.
It's true though, because then you just push yourself to the next level and you do the next level. Yeah. But behind that as well is that as mums particularly, or generally as parents, we actually have to have some beliefs about our ability to take time for ourselves and making that space to be away from our families when we're juggling lots of other things in life anyway.
What are the things that you have told yourself that have enabled you to actually get out the door, to go to MMA, to go for a run? We've got to be selfish, right? Because we're so selfless with kids. It's such a time of sacrifice. We give everything.
We pour everything into our kids. But we can't actually be the best versions of ourselves and be good parents if we've got nothing in the tank. There's nothing left in the cup.
So we need to fill it up. And I really tell myself that it is my job to fill my cup. No one else is going to come and save me and make me feel better.
Like I have to do that for myself so that I can be a good parent. So I've got to be selfish. I've got to say to my kids, no, I'm going to the gym.
As they're like, Mummy, don't leave. I want you to stay. Mummy, you're always leaving, is what they say at the minute.
Because I'm the one, I'm the parent who goes, John's more like the core parent. I'm the one who goes out all the time because I'm the one who works more and heads to the gym more. Mummy, you're leaving.
And it pulls at my heartstrings. But I need to model for my children that I am filling my cup and I'm moving my body and I need to be selfish. And when mums reach out to me about like how to get, I had a mum recently said, how am I going to get started with this? You know, like we both work full time and then we come home and then it's dinner and it's bath and it's bed.
And when will I ever get the capacity? I said, you're going to have to be selfish. You're going to have to take turns. You know, when I was getting started in my fitness journey, John backed me 100%.
He was cooking dinners every night and he was feeding the kids and getting them ready for the bath or whatever. And I went to the gym every day at 4.30. So I was missing dinner time and I was selfish and I wasn't the mum in the kitchen cooking. I said I needed that for myself because I wasn't doing well in other ways.
So I said to this mum, you don't actually both have to be there to do all those things. Take turns. Be selfish.
Men can run at night. Sadly, women, really, we can't. Yeah.
He can do his thing a little bit later. Yeah. Take the time out and do something for yourself.
Yeah. And get out there. And so often, I think we have these ideas of family life that are about all kind of like being together as this little unit all the time.
And I don't know about you, but our reality has been so much more tag teaming than in this little bubble together all the time. Yeah. Same with us.
We can't always be together. At the times that we are is wonderful. But again, you've got to think, am I actually filling my cup? And it is.
It's like movie spec, isn't it? And my cup is being filled by always being with my children and my husband. And aren't I having the most wonderful time? Check in with yourself. Are you really? Or do you need to go shopping for a bit? Do you need to check in with a friend? And so many of my mom friends currently are going through, I guess the same mental health crisis that I did a few years ago.
Yeah. And just feeling exhausted and like they're not coping as much. And when they've checked in, like one of my friends has had three kids, her eldest is six.
And she reflected, I actually haven't had a day off in six years. I've been full time parent day in, day out. And we went for a park run together and we went for a coffee and she was like, look at me in a cafe.
And I was like, you need to check in and reflect. This is wonderful for you right now, but you need to check in and reflect that how amazing you feel right now. You need to replicate it.
It shouldn't be that you've gone six years without sitting in a cafe without a child next to you. You know, you need to learn to be more selfish and tag out and have your time to yourself. Yeah.
So it's otherwise we just, we just, my brain's melt. We're not full versions of ourselves and we're not giving ourselves grace and supporting our mental health back to full. I think one of the things that, as I reflect back on my own parenting journey, that I just didn't really recognize soon enough was obviously as a mental health professional, I knew all about anxiety.
I knew all about depression, you know, all of these kind of common mental health issues that I'd worked with people around. And I wasn't prepared for things like overwhelm and rage and sensory struggles. And these other things that were kind of like less talked about.
But that was where my mental health struggles were showing up as a parent. I'm not sure we're doing a good enough job of naming that stuff. But for me, that's where my mental health really started to kind of show up as being something I needed to focus on because my signs weren't, I was staying in bed because I was depressed or I was feeling anxious all the time.
My signs were, I was feeling ragey. I was shouting at my kids. Yeah, I experienced a lot of postpartum rage.
I guess you don't know that about yourself until you're faced with children and what's happening for them. And I felt a lot of ragey feelings when I felt things were out of control, like my kids weren't doing what I was expecting in the moment. I thought it was nap time.
You look tired, I've laid you down. You're not falling asleep. I'm craving time to myself, actually.
I'm craving silence and I'm touched out. So now I'm feeling irate because you're not falling asleep. And it wasn't ever coming out for me.
I was doing really well to manage it and not be shouty. But then I wasn't, nothing was coming out. So then I was just feeling it internally.
And I was saying to John, like, I'm not wanting to snap at you and I'm, but internally I'm burning. And yeah, you really have to stop and be like, what on earth is going on for me here? And a lot of it was overwhelming, sensory overwhelming. You know, to have kids, they're hanging off you.
They're around you all the time. There's a lot of noise. And I've learned for myself that I'm really, really affected by noise.
I like things to be quiet. And we just, we briefly talked at the start there about having like an ear pod in to get through things. That is, that's the strategy.
It's a valid strategy. If you're feeling overwhelmed by things, noise cancelling, ear pods. My goodness, just for a second to yourself.
So like understanding more about your senses and what causes your overwhelm. So you can meet those needs. It can help you get through your parenting day for sure.
The noise of a fan above a cooker. You know that fan, the extraction fan? It's like daggers. It's like razor blades to my face.
I can't stand it. And sometimes I'll be feeling the most intense rage and I'm like, hang on a minute, that fan's on. And that's all I need to turn that off.
And it's like, actually you don't have to turn it on when you're cooking. You can just have the scents baked into the curtains. I don't care as long as I'm not feeling angry, you know.
Yeah, mine is visual clatter. My overwhelm comes through visual clatter, which, you know, it's just not a problem as a parent of young kids. It's never a problem at all.
You would not survive a second in my house. It's all visual clatter. But I do feel the same.
Sometimes it is overwhelming. Yeah, but like grab the washing basket, put all the crap off the bench in the basket and shove it in a cupboard and my mental health improves tenfold. Absolutely.
Sometimes just to the bare minimum to get by. Absolutely, yeah. And then the problem over time became the cupboard that all the stuff got shoved into.
The crap cupboard. Absolutely, yeah. Tell me your other top tips for mums who are feeling overwhelmed.
What would you suggest they start with? I think, yeah, you've got to fill your cup. You've got to find time to yourself. And if it's all going to crap and there's just you, you only need to find yourself 30 seconds, 60 seconds even.
And it's okay to say to your kids, I think mums often think I've got to hide this side to myself. Yeah. But really, what we're trying to do is grow kids who have that interoception that can feel that something doesn't feel right and then know what to do.
And sometimes we've got to overtly do that. So I'll say things to my kids like I'm feeling really hot and my cheeks are getting flushed. I need to take my jacket off.
So to coach, this is the feeling. This is what we do about it. And I do the same when I'm stressed.
I'm saying, I feel really overwhelmed, guys. There's so much noise right now. I need some quiet.
There's a bickering. Yeah. I'm just going to step outside for a second.
So I'm kind of saying how I'm feeling. I'm pointing out how I know I'm feeling like that. And I'm doing something for myself.
Yeah. So don't feel like you've got to hide it and then just explore it, which ends up happening. Take some time to yourself.
Yeah. I'm a big fan of that too and coaching our kids through that. I had a little boy, my little boy who turned up to kindy one day and in front of all of the other parents at drop-off time, went and said to the teacher, I'm just needing to let you know that I'm starting to feel mildly frustrated.
At the beginning? Mums were like, spot the counsellor's kid. Nice. But I think that, you know, yes, go hide in the pantry if you need some space to yourself.
I don't have a walk-in pantry anymore. It's driving me insane. Can't hide there anymore.
But tell your kids what you're doing. I'm feeling this. And so I'm doing this for myself.
Yeah. And your kids need to learn that you're not always just going to drop everything and be suddenly with them. I will make myself a cup of tea and I'll sit down.
They're like, mummy, can you come to the zoo? Mummy, can you? I say, yeah, I would love to. So I always make whatever I'm saying sound like a yes, even if it's a blinding no. That sounds like a great idea.
Right now I'm having a second to myself. I'm just watching you from a distance or I'm hiding in my bedroom. I'm just going to finish this cup of tea.
Yeah. Just going to have this time to myself and then I'll be ready to play. So we can't always just be on and around.
We can't. This is already a full-time role. We are allowed some breaks.
Yeah. Legally in any sort of job, you'd have some sort of break. We have to take those breaks to ourselves.
Yeah. And I love the phrase mummy's a person too. I use that all the time with my kids.
You know, I'm doing this because mummy's a person too. Yeah. I'm having this time because mummy's a person too.
I'm doing something that I want to do for me because mummy's a person too. Yeah. Such a winner for my kids.
They don't really think of us as that. No, they're like, yeah. We are the bringer of all things.
We're the makers of all foods. We're the fixers of all illnesses. You know, we're just, we're a worker to them.
It is nice for them to see us take time to ourselves and get out and move. And for them to have pride in us for that. Like I'm loving my kids seeing me run and get medals and go out.
Yes. And I come back and do whatever fight moves on them and they're like, wow, mum's so beautiful. You know, they need to see us as other than just mum.
Absolutely. One of the other things you bring a lot of inspiration for people around is reducing screen time or being able to cut screen time. And I think that this is something really interesting that lots of parents are thinking about.
But the piece of the puzzle that you present to people really well is around the importance of play and how we scaffold and encourage our children towards play. Because you can't just take away the screens and go occupy yourselves guys. What's your advice for parents around minimizing screen time, increasing play for their kids? Having less screen time is a real, it's a privilege, right? Because we can't, it'd be stupid to say just don't have any screens because we need it.
If we might need it because we're working full time, because there's only us, because when you're a divergent and we actually need a break and we need the kids to just be parented. You know, the screen is an extra parent. So it's not realistic for us to be just like, don't use a screen anymore.
But if we're looking to reduce it, yeah, you're right. It does, we have to teach our kids what they can do instead. You know, and screens are designed to keep you watching them.
You know, we're all a bit addicted to our phones. Let's admit it. They're so shiny and so exciting.
And they feed us this dopamine. Yeah. And then when we take this stuff away from kids, they're actually having more like withdrawal symptoms, right? They're having a tantrum and losing it, not just because the screen's off.
It's because you've taken away that little drug that they've been enjoying for a bit. And we need to replace that with something. I am trying to educate parents as much as possible to sort of embrace the mess in their house because children need to play and experiment and be creative.
And that involves moving stuff around. And play doesn't look like, where do I just put this, I play with this and do this thing that I gently put it away. Play is like manic.
It's all over the shop. Yeah. And we need to sort of allow for that.
And those cushions are coming off that couch, aren't they? Absolutely. And they're going to be bouncing everywhere. Yeah.
I think we just need to give our kids some leeway to play so they can learn how much fun they can have out of play. So they're not seeking screens. They're not seeking the dopamine of those flashy lights.
So I try and show that in our house, it's a bit of a free for all. It's if you want to get some towels and sheets out the cupboard, I guess they are freshly laundered, but you're making a camp with them. Cool.
You know, the payoff is my kids are busy and they're occupied and they're collaborating on stuff. Yeah. We have to work as a team to put some sheets away at the end of the day and put my sofa back together so I can actually sit on it.
Yeah. But the payoff is so worth it because they're not begging for screens all the time. We still watch telly.
Don't get me wrong. Telly still goes on. But I'm teaching kids the benefit of everything that can come out of play.
Yeah. Nice. I think the adjustment is really tricky when kids are quite dysregulated around, no, I need this.
Like they are like little drug addicts and saying, give me that screen. And I talk with lots of parents who go, actually, this has gone way further than I wanted it to go in terms of how much access they have to screens. And I'm needing to pull this back.
But whoa, I'm almost struggling with my child's addiction to screens or with their own kind of well-being around this. Have you got any advice around managing that transition? I think just it's worth looking at the times that you've given a child a screen to try to like fix the situation straight away. It's worth checking in.
When are we putting screens on? And typically we put screens on when we are overwhelmed or our kids look a bit overwhelmed. And it's like a way to calm them down. And what we're doing is we're calming children down with screens.
So when our children don't feel great, they're seeking screens. This happened to me as a child. I don't know if you can relate, but I watch my wonderful parents as they're grandparenting my kids.
If my kids are crying, my mom has emergency chocolate in her bag. And she's like, we've got this emergency chocolate. You're hurt.
Here's your emergency chocolate. And she doesn't realize that she's doing with food what modern parents tend to do with screens now. You know, we want to stop the crying.
We want to give them something that will stop the crying and chocolate works. And then we wonder why we go on to have food addictions and be loving sweet things. Screens work in the moment.
And, you know, I think kids are coming home from school. They're exhausted. Just put the telly on for them so they're learning in these times of not feeling great.
A screen really helps me. Roll tight at the end of the night. I could just put the screen on.
So first checking in with that and being like, what can I do instead? And what can I replace that with? Even if it's just one time a day. So after school, instead of I'm just going to put a screen on, let's meet the kids needs in another way. Let's see what is dysregulating them.
Well, they're probably starving at the end of a school day. They probably need some food. Could we have one card game together? Or could I read them one story but slowly can I start reducing that screen time and filling that and meeting their needs with something else.
And often what our children need are, you know, some food, some connection time. I'm checking in to calm down. My kids want to take off scratchy uniform that's been bothering them all day and they've been masking it all day.
And then they get home and they're like, everything feels awful. We need a change of clothes. We need some calm time.
We need some crunchy snacks for that input, that proprioceptive input. They might need some swinging on the monkey bars or pushing against our body or they love to wrestle. So meeting those needs in other ways.
And then they're more ready and more likely to enter into play after that without needing a screen. So I would say check in and slowly start to reduce in little ways. Yeah.
I have seen other parents kind of eye roll at me when I've turned up to school on a really hot day with juicies, something like cold and icy and crunchy for my kids. And they're like, oh, look at, you know, mum bringing the treats kind of thing. Like, how lux? And I'm like, no, I'm... No, this is survival, actually.
Absolutely. I'm like, I don't want to melt down because my kids are tired and hot and overwhelmed. Like, this is my strategy for emotion regulation.
Yeah, I've said to so many parents, have you got ice lollies? Sorry, I'm so British. You've got to have ice lollies in your freezer at all times. And it's not like, oh, just do a wonderful treat and how lucky it is.
It's a calming strategy. We use ice lollies. We use frozen fruit in our house.
My kids love frozen blueberries or chopped up frozen cherries, like whatever. Or you got me into frozen cherries. Yeah, it's the thing.
It's cost me hundreds of dollars. I'm so sorry. Honestly, I just said frozen cherries out loud and I was like, you're just lying because you put those in your own smoothies.
You're not giving those to the kids. I've given the kids bits of frozen mango and stuff. Anything frozen is so, you know, it can feel really good for kids.
Anything, anything crunchy. So the first thing I do when I pick my kids up is we're going in with some sort of snack. Icy snacks are wonderful.
Yeah, and I've often sometimes I've even got the snacks like in my hands at school pick up if I know it's been a really big day or they're definitely in the car if we're going off to do something. So just like being able to embrace that sense of this is what works for my family and I don't really care what other people think when they're looking on. So you've got to think this is a it's all survival, right? It's all survival.
And we're so worried all the time about what other people are observing and what other people are thinking. It really doesn't matter. We don't know what's going on in people's houses.
We really don't. We just got to do what fits right for our own family. Absolutely.
And your last little consult with my questions. You've been amazing. Thank you.
You've got a style. You're like, I love my big round. I know that they work super well for podcasts.
But yes, the chairs now live here. I think they have in your your kete of furniture. Well, like this was actually my kids were really sad when this left my house because it was an emotion regulation chair.
Oh, yes. Every child who turned up to my house for a play that would get in there and spin around and around. We have the big mellow.
I was gifted like a big looks like that. But it's yeah, it's a beanbag. And it just it's just like the crushing zone.
Yeah. Kids just run and jump in and crash their bodies into it constantly. Every kid who comes around is crashing into this beanbag.
Yeah. Goodness for this piece of it. Like a hundred percent.
We've got two of them and they are the best best piece of furniture in our house by far. Yeah. Super good.
Filthy mine. Absolutely. Oh, just don't care.
Just, you know, they are washable. But you've got younger kids. Yeah.
Tell us what you think parents should do if they just feel completely at the end of themselves and they're in a moment where their child needs them, but they need them too. What do you do in those completely overwhelmed moments? Um, I would definitely sometimes just got to turn the telly on. So it's just got to you've just got to get that other parent involved and the other parent is sometimes the telly.
Right. You've got to think how am I going to get 60 seconds for myself? Yeah. I said about taking a step outside.
Um, uh, you can pop the telly on. You can make yourself a cup of tea and just say, I just need a second to myself. Tell your little one that this is what you're going to be doing.
They haven't done anything wrong. I love you. I'm just feeling so overwhelmed.
You know, sometimes sometimes you feel really overwhelmed and you're really tired. That's how I'm feeling at the moment. So this is what I'm going to do.
Yeah. To sort of fix that. Um, I just want moms in that place to know it's not their fault.
Like them being feeling that way, especially if it's coming up a lot, isn't a them problem. It's like a systemic problem. It's a systems problem.
If your cup is constantly empty, the systems are in place to sort of free you up so that you can fill your cup a little bit more. So, um. Oh, that is such a great shout.
In the moment, do what you can. Stop blaming yourself. Yeah.
Lower the bar. Yeah. For goodness sake, like just do what you will do whatever you can in the moment to make sure that you aren't going to lose it.
But then think this is happening a lot for me. Actually, I'm going to have to call in the grandparents. I'm going to have to say to my partner, you're going to cook tea this week, actually, so that you've got the systems in place so you can take some more time to yourself.
We are no good if we're completely burnt out. Yeah. How about blame your systems instead of yourself? That's great.
Yeah. Super cool. Can you give us a couple of go to phrases that parents can use when they're needing to encourage themselves? To encourage themselves.
You're OK. Well, the one that I say the most is you've got this. You've got to be able to tell yourself that you've got it, even when you don't.
There's plenty of times when everything's going completely rubbish for me and I'm joking with myself that I've got this, even when I quite clearly haven't. Because you've got to, you don't laugh, you'll cry. So no one really has got it.
You know, no one's really got it all going on. Everything is a bit of a shit show. And we're all just coping with what life throws at us.
So, yeah, joking with yourself that you've got this is a start. I'm always, always. I'm whenever I'm not feeling so great, I can see that my kids aren't feeling so great.
The reminder that is always coming up for me as they're asking for help or I'm asking for help instead of just being like, I'm tired, I'm anxious, I'm stressed or my kid is having a tantrum. I'm asking for help. My child is asking for help.
And that's a good reminder that I need to change my systems or I need to respond to my child kindly instead of losing it. Because whatever's happening, they're asking for help. Nice, nice.
My variation of you've got this is I home birthed my kids. Oh, miracle. And it basically was just kind of how it rolled.
And I thought, I'll go to hospital if I need to. But pretty much like my plan is this. And if I've got it, then I'll kind of stay here.
And I reached that point of going, I do not have this. This is like, I'm literally being torn into here. And there was a moment where I said to my husband, I can't do this.
And he said, but you're doing it. Yeah, you are currently in it. And you're doing it.
It's like my amazing truth coach to myself in so many parenting situations, because it's like, but you are doing it. Like, actually, if you step back and observe, you are managing this. It's not to be perfect.
You are in it. And all the evidence is pointing to you've coped every day since the beginning, and you're still managing it. Yeah.
And you don't need to feel like you've got this or that you're doing it, but you have got this and you are doing it. You're probably just not meeting the ridiculous expectations you set for yourself or the society has set for you. Absolutely.
You're doing enough. You are enough. I often say that, that we're enough.
What else do I say? We can do hard things. Yeah. I'm always saying when I'm out there running or doing something big with my body that we can't do hard things.
We've got to give ourselves more credit. We're so capable, aren't we? Yeah. Two home births is amazing.
Yeah. Three and one 10 pound baby. Yeah.
You are a queen. Do you know the classic thing here is that everybody forgets about my little child? And someone came to our house the other day and they went, oh, I just realised there's another one. The monster isn't mine.
Story of his life. Little child. He's the best.
We just tell him he's the best all the time. If a parent is overwhelmed and things are not working, what do they need to stop doing? Often we think about the things we need to add and do differently. What do we need to let go of? First, just do less.
Just think, I need to do less. Because often in situations where our kids are losing it, we're thinking, I have to fix this. We are mothers.
We are the fixes. I need to stop them from crying. I need to stop this meltdown.
I need them to, my job is to make them better. And actually our job isn't to make them better. Like our children do need to have these emotions, need to feel these feelings.
They sometimes do just lose it. Sometimes we just need to shut up for want of better words. They just need our presence and they need us to be calm so they can borrow our calm.
So sometimes it can just feel like it's all gone wrong. And the most you can do is just be there and doing your own deep breathing to keep yourself calm and for your kids to listen. And to hear it on a podcast now, you might just be like, no, my kid would just keep screaming.
But sometimes it's so unusual for your child to watch a mom not actually doing anything. She's just sitting quietly near me and she's deep breathing. How weird.
I'm gonna stop crying a little bit so I can listen to that. Oh, I find myself doing the same, you know. Kids end up just naturally modeling and then suddenly everyone's a bit calmer.
So do less, say less. And breathe. Just breathe.
There's so many times where I'm just like, everything's shit. I'm just gonna breathe here actually. And it works every time.
It generally does. Great advice. And so often we find ourselves thinking about all the things we need to do differently, the things we need to add.
So that kind of strip it back. Breathe, be present for your child. Such great advice.
It's good at the end of it when everyone's fine to reflect and be like, right, what happened? Well, my child was knackered and I dragged them into Rickerton Mall and I really wanted to shop, but actually we hadn't fed them and the lights were overwhelming and it was noisy. And you can reflect on all the reasons that led up to your child having a nightmare and having a meltdown a little bit later. But in the moment, just quieter.
Yeah, great advice. And how do people connect with you if they'd like to find you? I'm at ZaziePlays on Instagram. I'm chronically online.
You can reach out to me there. You can, I do my best to respond to every DM there. I'm at the You've Got This podcast, wherever you collect your podcasts.
We're also my Facebook. I'm a little bit everywhere, but you can generally search my name and all the advice that I put out there is at Zazie.co.nz and you can just search the support that you're looking for. So you can search fighting and something will pop up that will help you or regulation and something will pop up.
So Zazie will get you a long way if you can Google that. Yeah, and there's a shop too, hey? Yeah, so I design children's products so Zazie.co.nz you can see all the brand trials, everything that comes out on my brand. When I decide I can do that a little bit better, I'm going to design something that pops up at Zazie.co.nz. So great, thank you for joining me.
No worries, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. Yay, well done.
