Secret Mum Club with Sophiena - The Mispronunciation Mishap

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

The umbilical cord chat continues and the listeners had THOUGHTS 😭 Emma reads through your hilarious stories about keeping pregnancy tests, baby memory boxes and decades-old umbilical cords. Plus, one listener shares her emotional school place disappointment, another mum explains why there’s never a “perfect” time to have a baby, and our very own Sadie baby has a naughty mispronunciation! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, this is The Secret Mum Club. I'm Emma and there's no soap today. She's a little under the weather, unfortunately. But we're going to keep it going for our Thursday episode. And we're squeezing in all the extra bits and bobs from the week. Squeeze your bits. There she is. Thanks for a bit of crowd participation there.

All of your comments, thoughts, questions and fun stories to keep you going through the weekend. Shall we jump on in? It's time for another. Caras! I'm really trying to work the crowd here. Thank you, Maz. Thank you, Sophia. Thank you, Rosie. Okay, a whole bunch of you got in touch and left comments on our reel about keeping old pregnancy tests and your baby's umbilical cords.

Jackie says she's got two of her grandbabies cords who are nine and seven now. I wonder if they're still going strong because Sof was saying she had Colby's for 10 years and it basically disintegrated. So Jackie, I need to know what state they're in at nine and seven years old. Louise says, I still have my 18-year-old daughter's cord and clip. It hasn't disintegrated. She thinks it's disgusting. Yeah, fair enough. Julie said, I popped my now 33-year-old son's umbilical cord in a memory book with all his other milestones and a little lock of hair from his first haircut. But after downsizing the house, I ended up fobbing the whole book off to him and his wife. The looks on their faces when they saw the umbilical cord were of pure horror. I love the idea. When you first make it, you're like, oh, my baby's bit of skin and their first lock of hair. And they grow up, she's like, she's trying to get rid of it. Just fob it. Fobbit off on them. I don't want that anymore. Abby says I threw mine away. It freaked me out. And Andy said, I had the little strip pregnancy test and I laminated them. My eldest is 31 this year and I can still see the line. Oh, that's a nice thing to do with it, rather than just leaving it in your bathroom cabinet

rotting away and smelling like we, like me and sof did. I've got, so I've got Joseph's umbilical cord in a memory box. But when we moved house, I just didn't really put it away into a safe place. So now it just sits in his bedroom. And when they're just like rummaging through stuff and they're bored, they often just open that box up. And it's got his little wristband that he had on in the hospital with his name on. I think he didn't have a name at that point. So it just says Baby Jones and his date of birth and his little umbilical cord with the clip. And they're always like, what is this? Disgusting. Like it looks like beef jerky. Can you imagine that? Have you put it in a bag? No. It's just loosey goosey. Yeah, like a dried up bit of pepper

army. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I might do, look, I might do. I might do what Angie did, laminate it and put it on the wall. Laminate the umbilical cord. The umbilical cord, yeah. No? Does he know what it is? No. And that's why I ended up having to explain it to him because he was like, what's his

bit of skin? And I was like, well, that was attached to you at one point and attached to me. And he's just like, what the? And that's why you've got a belly button. I don't know where Sadie is. I feel that's real second child vice. I kept everything of Joseph's and just like, I don't know. Don't I with Sadie.

All right, we've got another one here from Jen in Gloucestershire. And she says, hey Emma, as a mum who yesterday got given her third choice school from the council and spent an embarrassing amount of time sobbing about it, my husband joke that I was acting like we were sending him to prison, I just wanted to send some love to all the moms who didn't get their first choice and have been left with an option they're not happy about. It's heartbreaking knowing we're handing our babies over for most of their waking hours and ending up with the school that was meant to be the backup. I really feel for all the mums in the same boat as me. May the waiting list forever be in your favor, a heartbroken mummy. Oh, that's a tough one.

I don't think you're overreacting, and I don't think it was an embarrassing amount of time. I think that's fair enough. That's where they're going to spend the majority of their time. And as someone who was lucky enough to get our first choice, I can't imagine what it feels like getting the choice that you didn't ask for, because it is a big deal. They're going to be there for a long time. And I know Sof's going through a similarly stressful situation with Dotty at the moment, but sending you all the love and hoping that you get your place that you're waiting for.

And yes, may the waiting list forever be in your favour. Just want to add, you can also appeal the decision. Yes, okay. So it is worth looking that up. There's lots of information on the government website. Important point from Mazda. Yeah, appeal the decision. Do it.

Do everything that you feel that you need to do. But yeah, it's hard. You're not, it's not embarrassing and you're not being silly. I can imagine how stressful that is for you. So I'm hoping that you get your place sorted out. And to anyone else that's in the same boat, I hope this is somewhat reassuring for you. We've got one last message here. It says, hi, girls. I listened to the episode about when it's the best time to have a baby. What I've found is that there's no right or wrong time to have a baby, but the baby comes when it's needed. Since becoming a mummy, I've never felt so content. And I now know I was made to be a mummy. I did worry at first, but my little boy is slotted right into my busy chaotic life. And he slotted right in with my crazy, family. It's as if he's always been here. Lots of love, Chloe in East Yorkshire. When we first said we were having a message about the right time to have a baby, we all immediately launched into what time of year is it right to have a baby. I thought this was going to be like a calendar thing, like planning when to have your baby, because there was a story out on the Daily Mail this week

about the most popular months to be born. So we've all just been discussing how we think the theory of having your children between September and December so they're cleverer at school is bollocks, right? Because I'm a July baby and my sister's a September baby and my other sisters are February baby. So we're like at all points through the school year. And I'm like, guys, I am the cleverest. So I don't think there's much to that theory. But yeah, it turns out your message is about something completely different. So sorry, Chloe, I digress. But yeah, I think you're completely right. You just, when you're doing it, you're doing it and you just get on with it and it just, whatever is right for you will, will be right for you in your family.

And there's, you know, hopefully it just all works out in the end. Don't ever think it too much. Sof would say, just go for it. Do it whenever you like. Thank you so much for your messages. If you've got any comments, thoughts or funny stories, why not get in touch? The email is hello at secret mumpod.com and we're Secret Mumpod on TikTok and Instagram. It's time for one of your secrets.

Did I do that like so? Yeah. Yeah. Keeping the spirit alive. We've got a lovely secret from Ellie in Hampshire today. She says, hello lovely ladies. I was listening to one of your older episodes about the funny way kids pronounce words and it reminded me of my son Reese, who's now eight.

When he was little, he used to pronounce coconut in a very unfortunate way. One day he went into nursery and I got a call from his key workers saying Reese had been using inappropriate language around the other children. I was completely baffled because he'd never said anything rude at home. When I picked him up, we had a full meeting about his language. I asked what he was doing when he said this bad word and she explained he'd been playing in the roleplay kitchen. We went over to look at the toys

and Reese picked up a coconut and proudly said, Coco-cunt. Me and the key worker just looked at each other and burst out laughing. As soon as she mentioned the kitchen, I should have known. I've attached a video of Reese too. Much love. Right, let's hear it then. What is it? Is it a coconut? Coco-cund.

Oh, he says it so sweetly as well. Coco-cund. I don't know how old Reese is, but we are going through an absolutely classic stage with Sadie at the moment and mispronunciations. I sent one to you, Mas a few weeks ago of her saying, have you got it there? Can we hear it? Sadie, what's his name? Marshall. Marshall? Yeah.

Yeah. That's what I was trying to say. Marshall from Paw Patrol comes up pretty regularly in our house. And also we get the same result for Castle, which also, also. comes up quite a lot. So when we're playing castles, I go, what's that? She goes, asshole. And who's that character? Asol. Cock, clock is another classic that I think we've had on the podcast before. Here's Stefan reading a book to Sadie and trying to get her to say clock. What's that? What's that one?

Clock. Where's the other else? What about that? I need to meet my sister on. I want to wait a bit. Stefan knows exactly what he's doing. I think he re-read that page so I could film it and he gives the camera like such a funny look at the end. He's like, did you get that?

I'm interested in what Jojo was doing. Was he playing Frozen? Yeah, what does he say? Where's the other Elsa? Yeah, he's, Frozen is very big in our house, as you know. And we now have two Elsa dolls because we had Elsa and Anna and then we went to the charity shop and Sadie saw another Elsa. And if we didn't leave with Elsa that day, all hell was going. going to break loose and it was pretty cheap so I was like fine okay and then Joseph was fuming that

Sadie came home with an extra toy and he didn't have a present so now he's very obsessed with the fact that we've got two Elses where's the other Elsa? I don't know what he was doing in terms of swearing when he was Sadie's age I don't really remember him mispronouncing anything because he was like very good with his speech he was like he was quite ahead so I don't think I don't think I have any such videos of Joseph but yeah it's never not funny and we never want to correct them, do we? We just want them to say it like that forever. Thank you, Ellie from Hampshire and thank you, Rhys. That was very, very sweet. So you can drop us a message with all the things that you've kept in your baby memory boxes,

or if your baby's a secret swearer, then they're also welcome. You can email us, hello at secret mumpod.com or we're Secret Mumpod on TikTok and Instagram, and we'll be back first thing on Tuesday. We'll have more of your messages on our next Thursday episode, and we'll see you next time on the Secret Mom Club