Secret Mum Club with Sophiena - The Cruise Clog

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Soph and Emma reminisce about childhood critter pets after a listener shares her pet snail story. One mum sends in a cruise ship toilet disaster, and the ladies wonder what life might’ve been like if they’d grown up in Australia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, this is The Secret Mum Club, I'm Safina and I'm Emma. And welcome to your Thursdays episode. Where we get to squeeze in all the extra bits and bobs from the week. Squeeze your bits. All of your comments, thoughts, questions and fun stories. To keep you going through the weekend. Shall we jump on in? Let's.

Let's. At least have a little catch up, don't we? It's been a while. It has been a while. And I've not really been on my socials because we had a bit of a bit of a pooey start to the school holidays. We, um, we were in a car accident and it's so sad. I haven't really returned back to my socials yet only because it's definitely given me more of an impromptu, is that the word, slow down? Yeah. Like I slow down anyway in the school holidays,

but it's definitely forced me even more so to slow down. Yeah. Mainly because I couldn't fucking move. But. Yeah. How are you? We are doing, you can't put a price on life, can you? So we are fan, Dabby, Dozy, all five of us were in the car. We just gone out for a Sunday dinner with my mom

because it was her birthday on the Tuesday. And we went out for dinner. Beautiful day, such a beautiful day. Like we've had such good weather, such lovely weather. Haven't we? Well, for the first week. Yeah, for the first week. Well, they said it was going to be raining. It's pretty warm out there

today. But it was like, it was real nice, wasn't it? Like 20 degrees. So yeah, it was a beautiful day. Took a slow plot drive home and yeah, had a head on collision with another driver. It wasn't our fault. Unfortunately, it was the man's fault. It is hard. I've never ever, I've never been in a car accident before. So I don't, I didn't really know what to do at the scene. Like I had, I had the fire brigade, I had the police and it was just a, it was a whole, it was a whole, it was a whole ordeal, but we are all safe. And that's the most important thing. But we will, we can cover it in the main, can't we? We can have a chitty chat on that.

We'll go fully into it, but just, you know, letting people know where you've been. Yeah, where I've been, where I'm at, but we are all safe, which is the priority. Yeah. Yes. Shall we get into it? Yeah, shall we? It's time for another

Correspondence Corner! So Emma, let's, I was gonna say let's have some fun. We fucking need it. So let's bloody have the first fun one. Let's have it. This one is from Anonymous. Oh, hello. Hey, Sophie and Emma, I've just been listening to the episode about bonus mums and the feelings that come with that. I'm a 25 year old bonus mum to my beautiful eight year old bonus son. He's honestly such a kind and loving little boy but I can't shake the feeling of wanting a baby of my own. I feel awful for having such a strong urge

to have a biological baby but ever since I was 10, I've dreamed of having a big family. My fiancee, we're both female and I have been talking about IVF and we'd both love to have a child together. Although I'm very excited for our journey to begin, I'm also terrified our child will feel how I did growing up. For some background, I'm part of a semi-adopted family.

My biological mom is still in my life, but my biological dad gave up his parental rights and my youngest sister's dad adopted me. I'm one of four girls, three of us were adopted and our adoptive dad always treated us differently to his biological child we definitely noticed it i never want my bonus son to feel pushed aside or treated differently do you know what i always feel like scenarios like this definitely it's like a fight or flight i

always feel like when you've gone through things in your life you're so much more aware and in tune with yourself that you you do everything in your power not to allow that to happen again. And I think you need to trust in yourself that you know, you know exactly what you want for that for your child. And I think you strive so hard and I don't think you have to work any harder. I think your subconscious brain should just come naturally. It will come naturally. Yeah, because she's so aware of it already. The fact that you're even noticing it means that you're going to know what you need to do to not repeat the thing that happened to you.

And what a wonderful relationship as well. They've got a bonus baby. And do you know what? Again, and I always talk about this, I'm so incredibly fascinated by, you know, the same-sex relationships, having babies, like it blows my mind the options, like you can go through carrying yourself obviously, saracasy, but there's IVF, isn't there? What was the other one? IUI? IUI, with Lofia's giving us the information. Yes.

Yes. Which I just love. And there's so many people on social media as well, whether it's big creators, small creators, there's so much shared about whether it's two daddies or two mummies. There's so much shared on social media for all of this. So I think you've got no concerns with that. And again, I don't think you're selfish for wanting another baby because I feel like when you meet somebody and you have a baby and you introduce that child for the mum whose baby it is, you are, it's a lot for you to allow somebody else

into their life. And I think your love for that person, not only do you fall in love with that person, but then you fall in love with them as the mum. Like I definitely love Chris way more than I ever loved him when I first met him because he is a phenomenal dad. And I think your love for that person is so much stronger. Yes.

So I think it's natural. Yes. When you're in a relationship and you really love someone you're like. And then when you see them parent, even when you have a baby together, like your whole love for each other will change again. Yeah.

Well, I say change, yeah, grow. Yeah, no, I think it's really lovely. And we said that to our other person that wrote in with this same scenario, just because you want your own baby, that doesn't make you selfish or make you neglectful to the bonus children you already have.

If anything, it solidifies that you're in the right relationship because you're a bonus mom and you're having these feelings. It just clearly solidifies that you are in the right place. Yeah. Yeah. You are exactly where you should be. Exactly. And all your feelings are so valid. Yeah. I love that so much. Please let us know how your little journey goes. I would love to know. I hope it goes really well for you. And I don't think you need to worry at all about your previous previous family situation.

Just because things happen to you, that doesn't mean that's how you're going to pair. But again, I do think that's a really natural way to to think of it. Would you say? Yeah, of course. You're going to have that fear because that's like shaped your whole entire life. I know it's not the same, but like when my I've spoken about it on the podcast before, but my grandma had my mom really late in life. She was 50 plus my grandma when she had my mom. And my mom didn't have a very great family.

So when my mom had us, that was her thing was to make sure that we had the best life, but we didn't have cousins or anything growing up. But now I have children of my own. To me, it's really important that they see their cousins because I never had that growing up. So it's something that I work harder to have in the children's life. Yeah, definitely.

And I do. But I love that. Yeah, that's a really beautiful story. Thank you, anonymous. Thank you so much. All right, another one here says, hi, Sophie and Emma. I was listening to the episode about the mum who moved her preteen and felt guilty.

And I thought I'd share my experience. This was the one where the lady has moved to a different town. Yes. And a 12 year old struggling to cope with it. It says my parents moved me and my sister from the UK to Australia when I was 12. Wow. Wow. It was the hardest experience ever. I rebelled for a few years because I was so homesick, but my parents kept saying it would get better. Eventually, I settled into school, made lifelong friends, and now I can't even imagine moving back.

I'm 25 now and I've had the best life. That's the pod from Megan in Adelaide, Australia. Oh my gosh. Wow. What a story. I wish my parents had moved me to Australia. Now I'm too fucking scared to go. Yeah. And I can't fly there. And you know what? I was watching something with the Sydney Opera House on the telly the other day. I thought, isn't it weird? I'm never going to go there. You never think you will? Crystal say, well, we can, no, no, no, we're not. We literally never will. Unless you're going to take the children on your own. Yeah. This gal is not getting her butt. I mean, I can do a flight, but I just don't want

to do a flight that long. That's a big flight. It's a long way, isn't it? It's like a day of travelling. People have also scared me with spiders. And then there's some people say they've never even seen a spider in their life living there. My sister has just been there for like a month. She didn't see us any spiders.

Snakes. No, she was fine. Any snakes on the plane? Snakes on the plane. Snakes on the plane. My grandparents, which I find fascinating, so my dad's parents, they nearly moved to Australia in like the 60s, because it was a big thing back then to get British people to move over there. They were like, you would have grown up, like incentives to

get people over there and you'd get like, I think you've got money to like move there. Nowadays it's an incentive to take an electric car. Well, brilliant. I would have rather the Australia. Well, nowadays they're like, we're oversubscribed. Don't come in. You can't stay. Don't fucking leave. Please Stay where you are and don't fucking move. Now it's really hard to get a visa, but I think then you could just hop on over there and then just live there. And so my dad could have just grown up like fully Australian. Life was way more relaxed back then, wasn't it? It's wild.

That is wild, isn't it? But instead they decided to move from South Wales to Essex and here we are. Cheers. Wouldn't have said that as as as magical, but you know, you've had a great life. It's been fine. It's been fine. I could be Megan in Adelaide Australia right now. I mean, you could. This is what you could have had, but unfortunately you don't. Here's what you could have won. All right. Thank you, Megan. That mummy is going to be really happy, isn't she? Because she is really, really stressed.

We've had a couple of bits of feedback on that as well. So I really hope that's helped our original message. Yes. All right. One last message here. It says, Hey ladies, just listening to Soph talking about the stick insects and the pigeon story. I used to have pet snails. I went around the garden and collected four. They were called Speedy, Gonzalez, Paula and Radcliffe. Very funny. I had a fish once called Jamie Oliver and Linda Barker. Why? Because they were just on Telly in the 90s. I was really obsessed with watching 60 minutes. Yeah, changing rooms and I really like it.

The naked chef. Funny, it was never naked. I know, what a disappointment. What a misleading title for a TV show. I used to find it funny to go to school and be like, watch a naked chef. And they'd be like, oh, was he naked? No.

No. No. It's just Jamie Oliver. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Speedy Gonzales, Paula and Radcliffe, I kept them under my bed until my mom found out.

So then they were moved to the front doorstep. I used to make little mazes for them and everything from Lizzie. Wow. Oh, Lizzie. We were definitely separated at birth. How old were you, Lizzie? 25. It's actually last week. That's nostalgic for me because that was, I used to collect all the worms. My dad used to empty the swimming pool out because we had like a, you remember the metal swimming pools? Yeah, like a huge paddling

pool basically. Yes. We used to have one of those and my dad used to let it go in the garden like every two weeks or something like that and it used to flood the garden and all the worms come out and I used to collect all the worms. Oh god, you were one of those kids. Yeah, I was one of those kids. The other two wouldn't touch him. My sister or my sister or Richie, Roxanne or Richie. I don't know why I said my sister. They never touched the worms. I used to collect them up. Loved it. God, time of my life that was. So weird. I am weird.

I actually really fucking hated the stick insects and they really, really scared me. Why did you have them? Because all the cool kids had them, all the cool kids and they were like, and they used to do this weird like. What were they doing? Have you ever seen a stick insect move?

No, but they're dancing. That's how they walk and then they walk like this. As they're walking. Like quite shaky. Yeah, really, really shaky. Maybe they were traumatized by being captured by you. Maybe, maybe. Now they're still in the house.

So if anybody sees them. In your old house. Holler at your gal. Holler at your gal. I'll take them for you. We did used to do weird things like in hindsight, which is quite cruel, like try and trap a butterfly in a net and stuff like that.

Did you do that? No, that is really cruel. Or like get them in a jar. Someone told me that butterflies don't live that long, do they not? I don't think so. I don't think any creatures like that live that long. You can grow your own butterflies.

Would you do that with Joseph? From a caterpillar? Buy them at Smith's Toy Superstore. You could also buy sea monkeys. What, a fake one do you mean? No, no, you grow them. Go real butterflies and then you release them. No.

They cocoon and everything. You can get like a little netted basket. Does it start from a caterpillar? Yeah, I think you get a little tub and you can also get sea monkeys. That comes from powder. Again, buy that Argoos or Smith's Toy Superstore. You should get some of them for Jojo. They're tiny little, little wormy things. I don't want to grow them in my house. They're translucent. The tank's only about the size of this. No, fuck that. Oh, I thought it was quite fun.

We liked growing sea monkeys, didn't we babies? Yeah. Yeah. They had a blue tank and a pink tank. My neighbors did, had their own tadpoles once. Wow. In their garden. If you leave your paddling pool too long, you get tadpoles in there.

And then frogs. Yeah. Wow. It's amazing, isn't it? So amazing. Gosh. And I don't know how they get in there though. How do they get in there?

Tadpoles? Yeah. Where do they come from? How does a tadpole start? Because there's loads of little get in there though. How do they get in there? Tap holes? Yeah. Where do they come from? How does a tap hole start? Because there's loads of little sperm in there, isn't there? Like they look like sperm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't know how they get in the paddling pool. We need a biologist or someone to get in touch with us.

Do you think a biologist listens to us? I don't know. They've got way more interesting things to do. They're pretty diverse, our listenership. I don't know. Oh, we love that. That was very nostalgic do. They're pretty diverse, our listenership. I don't know. Oh, we love that. That was very nostalgic today.

Yeah, a trip down memory lane. Yes. So thank you for your messages. If you have any comments, thoughts or funny stories, why not get in touch? You can email us hello at secretmumpod.com or with Secret Mum Pod on TikTok and Instagram. Next is time for one of your secrets.

Every week that face you pull, you think, fuck, what is my secret this week? It's never gonna be mine. Welcome back. We love a secret on The Secret Mom Club. And you are all so good at sharing. So Emma, what have you got for us today? All right, this comes from Mandy.

Oh, Mandy. You came in UK without taking, but you sent me away. Oh, Mandy. Who sang the original? Who did the cover? Westlife. Original? Bon Jovi. I think it was Barry Manilow. Oh, OK. Sofya? Close. Sofya hasn't got a clue. She's too young. She's too young. She's in the Westlife era.

All right, this says, Hi both. When my fully potty trained daughter was about three, we were on a cruise and nature called. Oh, this is the second cruise poo we've had. Second cruise poo. She did the biggest poo a grown man would have been proud of. Holy moly. She blocked the loose so badly, we had to call for the man to come and fix it. The best part, the look he gave my husband, clearly thinking he was the culprit, not our little girl. Now for the problem, she's nine and still has humongous poos. Wow. She refuses to go anywhere except at home, well fair enough really. To be fair, if you're birthing an arm poo.

Yeah. So do your arm. Do it in the safety of your own home. Yeah, do it in your own loo. Because of that, oh she ends up holding it in and having accidents. That's really... I'm just scared of how big they are. Yeah, or she doesn't like going to other toilets.

So that is quite scary, isn't it? I sometimes get backed up. Because of the fear. Yeah, because I can't go poo nowhere else. No, I know. I can only poo and sometimes I get to the front door and I'm like, pff, gotta go. I've been holding this in all day. I don't know how people say that they don't like poo in public toilets. Like how is that possible? I'm out of my house more than I'm like, God go. I've been holding this in all day. I don't know how people say that they don't like poo

in public toilets. Like how is that possible? I'm out of my house more than I'm in it. So you poo in a public toilet? Absolutely, I'll go anywhere. Not worried? No. I get worried that it smells.

Well, I don't care about that. I'll be leaving after. But what if someone goes in after you and goes, fuck me, your shit stinks. I'll be like, okay, peace out, enjoy that, I'm never gonna see you again, so don't care. Don't know, I'm confident with most things, but someone else smelling my shit,

I don't think I'm safe in that knowledge. No, you do have little tips and tricks, like you could go into like a secluded cubicle or just run away afterwards. All cubicles are saluted, aren't they? But in some places, like in my workplace, for example, it's very anonymous to go to the toilet, because they're self-contained thing.

Is it just one toilet? The toilets here are great for a poo. Yes. Because they're free. In some, you can be a bit more secretive, and there's no gaps under the door. How are you going to know if your toilet is safe? But how are you going to go in there and go,

oh, I think this place is a good place to take a shit. And then you get there and you're like, I told myself I was going to poo safely here and now we're turtle heading and I can't go because someone's going to smell the raft of my curry. I just don't care. I mean, I went in the woods once when I was running, so I'll literally go anywhere. Good on you girl. All right, let's finish this off from Mandy. She says she's not constipated and has a healthy diet. I don't even think a poo knife would help any advice. Oh my gosh. I guess you've just got to remove the fear.

Have you tried taking a poo in a public toilet and she's been with you? Maybe if she sees you do it, she might copy the behavior. That sounded really dodgy. Sorry, we've got the children here today and all the talk of poo has made Colby need a poo. So Chris and Colby have exited the building for a poo. He's got no shame where he takes a poo. No, that's what I mean. When you're literal. But Chris is a massive pooer. Will he go anywhere? Chris poos anywhere. Yeah.

And he poos lots. Yeah. He poos like 10 times a day. You've got to. But I think wonder if the children seeing him poo. That sounds like I'm being really weird. I don't mean it as weird as maybe it sounds, but yeah, maybe her seeing you have a poo. Cause that's what they recommend when you're potty training. It's like, watch your parents go to the toilet and they know what to do. Yeah, I think that could help. Just taking her in a public toilet

and letting her know that it's a safe place. Yes. But it's hard otherwise, cause they get little like funny things in their head, don't they? Like, I know like Joseph now, like he's, I've said before, he's like fully potty trained, but sometimes he'll just like get a block

on like doing a poo in the toilet, for example, and he'll either like he'll go in his pants still sometimes, even though he knows that he's supposed to go in the toilet, they just get like- Distracted. Yeah, they're funny little ways, don't they? But then I don't wanna sit here and say that not, you know, Colby has accidents,

Colby has accidents when he, and he's, you know, nearly nine. And I do think it's very, like I can have accidents. I poop sometimes. And I'm 36. Yeah. Yeah. It's a hard one because she's- I guess you could do a reward. Like if she's gone. Yeah, maybe like a star chart system. She's nine. So would that be good for her?

Well, I meant like if she goes to a public toilet and, or if she's out or something and mum says, or should we try going, I can maybe get you a nice milkshake or, you know, to encourage her. But it's hard, isn't it? Because it's not like, because of her age, obviously she's very aware, like with regards to like school and stuff like that. And it is, because I've, you know, we've got it with Colby. Colby has a really, really, Colby's never had a solid poo in his life. Yeah. Colby's never had a solid poo. He has loose. It just, it's so intolerant to, well, intolerant to dairy, but there's other things that we just, it's been a year and a half yet. We haven't got any diagnostics as for what he's intolerant

to, but there's some things that just give him an upset tummy, but he's quite an anxious nervous boy. So again, that affects your bowels and stuff like that. So it is, it is a hard one. I remember having that. Did you have that at school? Like I never want it at primary school. I never wanted to go to the toilet at school. You know, I'm fine at putting in public mail, I'm an adult, but yeah, I remember that. And that used to make me really anxious before going to school. Cause I'd be like, what if I need a poo when I'm there though? And it's like eight hours that you can't go. We have to help Colby because he's obviously it's so loose.

He gets himself into such a mess, but he's going away soon, isn't he Colby? On his school trip. So what's he gonna do then? We don't know. We've got an appointment with the doctor. But it is hard. It's a hard predicament to be in.

But again, it's just constantly talking about it. I feel like always talking about it and keeping it a really open, safe conversation to keep having, very normal, just normalize it. Like, do you want pizza? Do you need a poo? You know, like how normal you would ask questions. That's how always I find it with Colby.

Because before he'd be like, oh my God, I need a poo. And he used to get really, really stressed about needing the toilet. Now I'm like, do you need a poo? And he's like, yeah, I'm going for a poo. Here he is. Speaking of the devil. But do you know what I mean? I think making it a topic that is okay to talk about because I think a lot of people can be a little bit embarrassed to talk about it. So I think making it an open safe place. It may not be instant overnight, but it might come in time.

Hopefully it's one of those things she just grows out of. Yeah. Bless her little heart. Bless her and her big poos. Oh crumbs. What a sweetheart. Thank you Mandy. But if anybody does have any advice, again, please do share it with us because we love, we love sharing it. And we know this is a thing because a few people have got in touch talking about their big poos. I have massive poos.

I think it's because I hold mine in too long. Do you think? Colby has a massive poos. Do you think so? Yeah. Yeah. Sharing is caring. Have you got any experience with a huge poo? Then let us know.

Colby would like to answer all your poo questions. Colby would be on the next episode, so stay tuned for that. You can email us hello at secretmumpod.com or with secret mumpod on TikTok and Instagram. And we'll be back first thing on Tuesday but also we have a huge humongous announcement in our next Tuesday episode so make sure you're listening. And we'll have more of your messages on our next Thursday episode and we'll see you next time on the Secret Mom Club!