Zibby Books author alert! Amy Wilson returns to the podcast to discuss HAPPY TO HELP: Adventures of a People Pleaser, a hilarious, insightful, transformative, and incredibly relatable collection of essays about how women are conditioned to be “happy to help”—and what happens when things don’t go that way. Amy reflects on her life as a people-pleaser, from her childhood as the eldest of six siblings to a career in acting to raising three children and managing health crises. She talks about how she, and so many women, have been conditioned to prioritize others' happiness and what it's been like to question that.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Amy. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss happy to help adventures of a people pleaser.

Congratulations. 

Amy: I can't believe, I can't believe it's finally here. This, this book that was a twinkle in both of our eyes for so long. 

Zibby: It's so exciting. The book is so good. I know I wrote you a whole long thing about it, but I literally felt so seen in your book in a way that I haven't in a while. in anything else I've read in a, in a slightly different way.

Your whole point of view is just a little bit different and so accurate. And like, it's amazing and great. And then I don't know, I am just so obsessed with it. It's so good. 

Amy: Thanks, Zibby. Thank you so much. Well, you know that this book was born on this planet. Podcast on another episode of this podcast. 

Zibby: Yes.

Let's explain to people listening how amazing it is. 

Amy: Crazy. So, so I wrote a book that came out in 2010 called When Did I Get Like This? That was about my years parenting my kids when they were small, say like birth to age seven. I think I ran into you at a party. I knew who you were. You said, have you ever written a book?

And I said, I, I did. And I told you the book and you said, I've read that book. You should be in my podcast. And I said, well, it came out 10 years ago. And you're like, I don't care. I'm doing my podcast. That's how you are. So I came on your podcast and it was on this podcast talking about when did I get like this that you asked me why I hadn't written a second book.

And I sort of said, well, yeah, I've written a second book and a third book and things have never come to fruition for different reasons. And on the call, you said, well, you should write a book for Zippy Books. And I thought, yeah, she's just, you know, she's just saying that. She's just saying that. And then after the call, you weren't just saying that and we were off to the races.

Zibby: It's so crazy. I mean, I wasn't just saying that, but it's one thing to suggest a project to someone and then another for you to actually say, you know what, I'm ready to do this. I'm going to do it. And here we go. Right? I mean, that's a huge, it's a huge leap. I mean, I recommend books to people who I think have good book ideas, but they don't always become books.

And I, you know, you have to 

Amy: do it. Yeah. I think as the record will show, I love a challenge. I love hard things. I'm drawn to hard things. 

Zibby: I say that too. People are like, Oh, well, it's just hard. And I'm like, But that doesn't mean you don't do it. Like, okay, that's, that's hard is just, you know, it's an invitation.

Amy: Right, right. So you and I are alike in that way. Yeah, 

Zibby: I know. I feel like parts of you, I share a brain with having read your book. Why don't you explain what the book is basically about and why? Once you, once we talked about the idea for the book, what drew you to it? What did you say? Okay, this is what I want to write a book about and I have to dedicate all this time, which you write about in the book, how hard it was even to find the time.

To find the time. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's 

Amy: interesting. You and I first talked about writing a book about the book. Slack, which is in the book a little bit about how women have to pick up the slack, give ourselves more slack, give other people slack, and all the different properties of that. So I sort of whiteboarded out a quadrant of all the different things, right?

Okay, here are the times I needed to give somebody else slack. Here are the times I needed to give myself slack. Here are the times I needed to pick up the slack, and no matter how hard I, uh, tried, that one column, like, there was nothing in it. At the timeone of the times that I really should have picked up the pace and tried harder, I couldn't think of anything, and I thought, Oh, that's the book, that blank space of, I've always given things my all, even when they weren't deserving of it.

I mean, jobs, relationships, things like that. Things that were lost causes, I was the last one still bailing water. And I thought, maybe that's what I want to talk about. Why am I that way? And why are women, I think, more likely to be that way? 

Zibby: And after this deep dive, why do you think you are that way? 

Amy: I think we're conditioned.

I mean, I don't think it's our fault at all. You know, from a very young age, I was sort of made in a lab to be a happy helper, I think. I'm the largest of, uh, I'm the largest. I'm the oldest. Hopefully not the largest, but I am the oldest of a very large family. Six siblings, which in this day and age is pretty unusual.

25 grandchildren. I'm at the head of the line. I was a Girl Scout, you know, I was class president in eighth grade and valedictorian in high school, and you know, and I did all these things and I was a doobie. And I think I just drew a lot of identity from being good at things, from being candid a lot of things, from being able to accomplish a lot of things.

But it was more than just, I want the gold star. I think I, that was certainly part of it, but I think that I really liked helping people, making people happy, bringing people along with me. And I think I do. I think that's true, but I also think that's very much part of the assignment. You love making other people happy, right?

Because you're a big sister, because you're a mom. And so I think that's where it comes from. And, you know, it's funny, when we were talking about the title of the book, the subtitle of the book, I sort of realized, you know, for the first time, like, am I happy to help? Was I happy to help? Like, I think I was.

I didn't really ever I feel like it was part of the assignment to be a helper and to be a happy helper. They went together so that I could do one and not the other. Never really occurred to me. 

Zibby: Interesting. So you tell a lot of stories about your own life, which I loved hearing. It felt like I was just like out at a, you know, coffee date with you and you were sharing all this stuff.

And I was like, this is great. Oh my gosh. Some of which you make connections in the book about how they affect the trajectory of your life. You know, for example, you have You had a middle school experience with a friend group that affected your female friendships, you know, forever. Talk a little bit about that, because I feel like, you know, making people happy and having friends support you along the way, they're all intertwined.

And how you felt like you had to hold back a little bit because of, like, a really depressing period of time in your childhood. Right. Right. Right. 

Amy: Right. And not so unusual, I think. And not so unusual, no. And, you know, just to cop to this, like, I was a mean girl, and then I was attacked by the mean girls, and one of the mean girls was the mean was the girl that I had bullied earlier on in my life.

This I didn't figure this out until I was in my 20s. Like, wait a minute, oh my god, I did it to her first. And this came out of that seventh grade. A couple of us And, and my friend group could move to the cool lunch table, but only if we lost the girl who, who wore weird pants under her uniform. I mean, her, her sins were to me, obvious, ridiculous, right?

I didn't like her pants and she was a little weird. So let's all not talk to her so we can lose the dead weight and move up in the world. But I was going to bring my other friends with me, just not her. And it was those other girls who, after at least a couple of days said like, this is This is terrible.

We're not going to do this. And then in high school, anyway, long story, but it all, it all came back on me. And I do think there is competition among girls and women that we feel like somebody else's success is, is net zero, that we're going to be seen as less than if somebody else wins the prize, has the boyfriend, whatever.

So I think it was a little bit of that. But it was also this idea that like while I was achieving that I needed to, I learned to sort of keep female friendship at bay. There was a latent distrust that I could count on other people, including girlfriends, I guess. I've always, I have to do this myself. I have to do everything myself.

And that included friends. It's not a good way to go through life, but it was a lesson that I had to, to learn over many years. 

Zibby: And then you go to the next stage in your life where you're in a relationship for a very long time and you just keep holding on and putting. Yes. You're, you're just putting your needs lower and lower on the totem pole is basically how I feel like the book, the book trajectory goes, right?

You see it forming and you see why and how, and you're just Spelling it out for us in your own life, but it can mirror so many of our lives. 

Amy: Yes, that's right. Right. I had a sort of dead end relationship that was, you know, pretty evident to everybody, including my boyfriend, but not me. Like I, I can stick this out.

I can Wait while you play out this other, you know, summer relationship because you'll come back to me and then it will all be worth it. I thought it was a challenge to be withstood instead of a clear sign I needed to go. Um, I, I can't explain it now, but that's how I felt at the time. 

Zibby: And then you move into your acting part of your career, right?

Yeah. These are all like attempts and navigation of finding your voice through different iterations of life, right? And so here you are trying to pursue a dream, which in itself is. Quieting your voice, right? It's another voice that you're taking on. Oh, 

Amy: that's a good point, right? And I think I kind of liked that.

I think I liked acting getting the part and it's challenge I love a challenge getting a role, but then that's right You're you're saying everybody's paid to be there. Everybody's paid to listen to you Hear these words you're going to get to speak your piece in full and yeah, I got to play some great parts But there's a story in the book about a part that I was wrong for From the get go, I really should never have been cast in this part, but then had to play out a lengthy process of going to work every day knowing everybody was deeply unhappy with what I was doing, but it was because I just was, I was the wrong person for the part.

I couldn't have fixed it. 

Zibby: And yet, you are so dedicated that you will stay in whatever to make it work. You're like, it's like, it's like, like one of those electric cars or something that unless you bang into something and get broken, you're just going to like go on for going 

Amy: ahead. And in the acting case, it was that, you know, when you're on a television show, you have to sign a contract ahead of time that you won't quit.

Mm hmm. Um, for seven years. This might be different now, but in the heyday of sitcoms in the 90s, that was it. You were signing away seven years of your life, and they can fire you at any time, but you can't leave. Now. Crazy. Had I said, like, you're not happy with me. You've basically written me out of the show.

I guess I'll be on my way. Nobody would have stopped me, but I never entitled myself to do that. 

Zibby: So I feel like in the book, you're really step into finding your voice, and finding Like elevating what you want alongside your superpower of getting things done comes when, right? There are like these two, like when you're adjusting volume, right?

Like on an Instagram reel or something. And one of them was too low. And so we had to keep raising it up. And it wasn't until advocating for your kids, which, and you went through a bunch of different health things with your kids. And I'm so sorry. It's so scary and stressful and everything that you finally were like, you know what?

Like, I am not taking this answer anymore. Like, this is, like, I can't listen to this because this is about something I care about so much. So tell me about, about that. 

Amy: That's such a good way to put it. And I think the, uh, my kids And I went through some specific, weird, ill defined, unexplained things that are in the book, and, you know, they're really specific, but I think that there's a universal experience there, like something's wrong with your kid, and you realize, oh no, I'm in charge.

And the doctors say, good luck, mom. They don't learn your name. They just call you mom, right? And they say, you'll have to figure this out. Good luck. And you think like, how can I be taking home this tiny baby, this kid with two broken wrists, whatever. You're, you're, you're somehow in charge, but it does teach you.

I was so able to advocate for my kids. I was so able to separate out this applies, this doesn't, I'm not here for this message. And you're right. Why are, I think that's common for women that we are able to be fierce advocates for our children, our loved ones, our parents, our spouses, but not for ourselves.

And so then yes, could I, could I turn that around and say, Hey, this isn't working for me anymore? I think I did. I'm not sure I could have done that without the experiences that you go through, right? It's just like in a movie. Harry Potter can't become Harry Potter until he goes through all the hero making adventures of getting to Hogwarts and then being at Hogwarts.

He had to do everything in the book. So, I mean, I thought about that in a very structured way, writing this book. Like, what is this character? Who is me? going to learn along the way. But I do, I do think it's true that all those things had happened for me to become the kind of person who finally said, you know what, this isn't working for me.

Zibby: Wow. You have a scene that I relate to so much. In fact, I was telling a group of women about it yesterday where you get in touch with a friend of yours. And even though your kids have left the school, you decide with your friend to go like wait in the back of the Christmas pageant or whatever it was, end of the year show, Christmas pageant, and just like sort of.

Stay there to be part of it and part of this whole community Because you miss it so much and yet the time is over It's like and that point the poignancy and the visual like the scene of you in the back of the dark theater and obviously any of us can put ourselves in that moment because we've all been there in the seats for the kids and then that your Time ends right your best And then what do you do?

And just like the sadness and moving on from that moment and how you felt about it and how it affects the friend group and your whole life. And anyway, talk about that. 

Amy: Yes, it was so sad. And, and this was my, my youngest kid had kind of finished grade school during the pandemic. So first there was no Christmas pageant and the Christmas pageant was a video instead of a show, you know, that kind of thing.

And the first real let's all gather as a community after three years apart was after my youngest had left the school. And, uh, I would never have entitled myself to go back. I have a friend who, you know, speaks up. She's like, come on, let's go stand in the back. And I did. I was so glad I went. But yeah, it was also very sad for me because it's, oh, I don't, I don't belong here anymore.

It's time for me to go. And going back to those female friendships, I think I have in my life over relied on the parents association and the soccer parents and the, it's built in friends, right? It's built in community. It's people you. stand around on the sidelines with or sell, uh, raffle tickets with.

It's easy. It's fun. It's fleeting. And I realized in that moment that I had sort of let the school be my community without investing in relationships that would exist once I was not supposed to be at the Christmas pageant anymore. And that's, it's hard. It's something I'm still thinking about. 

Zibby: I read an article recently, which I have to forward to you, it's by a woman named Tara Ellison in the L.

A. Times, and it's about this theme, you two should like do an event or I don't know. Oh, okay, 

Amy: yeah. 

Zibby: But she pointed out that part of like this empty nesting and this stage of life and why it can feel lonely is because at the same time that your kids are moving on, all the systemic, the structures that are in place also evaporate.

So it's not just that you're sad your kids go to college or move on or go to boarding school, whatever. It's that you also lose your entire. Like, all the groups you're part of, just like what you're saying, like everything else structurally in your life evaporates at the exact same time. And you're just left standing there with like.

Nothing. Or work or whatever else. But like, it all goes away. And so there's this tide of loneliness for midlife women, essentially, because everything that you relied on for so many years is gone, which is like, evident in the back of you standing in the back of this theater. And like, what do we do about that?

Amy: Right, right. Good question. Right. If we've done our job well, then we were in very invested in, we were very invested in our kids and this and the Christmas pageant, whatever we were, we put them first, but then you're left. I mean, so I'm on the other side of that. I don't want anybody listening to this. If you're like, Oh no, that's going to, it's going to be terrible.

That transition is difficult. Like I'm on the other side. Now I have one kid left at home, two in college, and And even that kid, she goes to a high school where she started going in high school. I don't have friends for life on that parent's association. It's a different relationship. And you do have to sort of rebuild.

You can do it. But yes, you're right. It's quite a transition because you thought you had all of this identity, but really it was in service of other people. Not yourself. 

Zibby: But I feel like this is when the people pleasing mode, this is like the car crashing into the wall essentially, what I was talking about, because what do you do when there's nobody left to please?

Right, right, right, 

Amy: exactly. Am I happy to help? What do I want to do with my time? That's right. I remember saying that to a woman in my life when her youngest went off to college and she was expressing this to me. I was in my 20s at the time. So I was like, get a subscription to O Magazine. You can do anything.

What do you, what do you want to do? You can do anything. And I remember her saying, I don't know what I, I don't want to do any of that. I don't want to do. She, she couldn't, she couldn't express to me what she would want to do. And I thought, how strange. And then I wrote a book about the same thing 20 years later.

Zibby: It's me. There is a big opportunity here though, right? Because I don't know, my mind is sort of spinning. Like, how do you make it an advantage that you like enter this next club? Essentially. Oh, yes. Right? We need to like rebrand this 

Amy: thing. Well, you know, Gretchen Rubin is, is doing that right now. She's working on an idea about sort of reframing empty nesting.

She was telling me about it the last time I saw her. Lauren Steinberg wrote a book called Crossing Paths and I, talk about it in the book. And it's just one of these ideas that every time I tell somebody, I can tell they're Zibbyng it for later. That it is, especially for women, the emptying nest that is the moment of crisis, not the empty one.

This feeling of like, Oh no, I don't belong here anymore. And what am I going to do? It is a crisis. It feels like a crisis. But then on the other side, when you have all this time, Oh no, what am, what am I going to do? You do feel that way, and then you start to fill it with things that are for yourself, and it's a huge opportunity.

True. Kind of like doing this podcast or something. Doing this podcast. Right. Right. Right. My friend Christina is like, you'll always have your weird projects. I'm like, that's me. I will. I will always have my weird projects. That's what I'll be doing. 

Zibby: You dive into marriage as well, and sort of the division of labor, and.

Mm hmm. All of that sort of in the fair play Wrodsky ish thing. Yes. Yes. How do we, how do we empower the people in our lives to not only do the tasks, but like take all of the tasks. Like right thing that the dog food is out and you have this great scene in your book where your husband calls you from the pet store.

To say, like, which is the dog food. But you didn't, you didn't notice that the dog food was out. He noticed. He didn't ask if he should go to the store or whatever. He just went. And he only relied on you then. And you were basically like, Honestly, that looks great. Like, which I loved. That was like a perfect scene.

Talk about that and how to get, how do you, how to create that and how to foster that and empowering the people to actually pick up the slack, if you will. 

Amy: You know, when you, when you say that you need more time for yourself, more bandwidth for yourself and the things you want to do instead of dog food and the Christmas pageant, I realized after having done it that.

Um, of course, my family's first reaction was, Okay, just give us a list. Just tell us what to do and we'll do it. I'm like, I don't want to make a list. I don't want to tell you what to do, because, as Eve Rodsky has pointed out, that's also work. That's the, you need the noticing, the remembering, the tracking, the completion.

Allison Damager says that, that each task you have to complete actually has four parts, all of those parts. Yep. And they're very, they are not used to doing that because they're not used to doing that. And so what you really have to do is have patience. So in that moment, It came after me saying I just need people to notice things around here and that was the day that my spouse noticed the dog food was out, went to the store, and then he had that moment of resistance.

He texted me like, I can't find it. I can't find the one she likes. You know, help me. And I did. And then I had my own moment of resistance because he sent me a picture like I'm just going to get her this one and my immediate reaction was like, no, not that one. That's the wrong kind. She doesn't like that kind.

You know what I mean? That I, I was also rolling back downhill too. You're going to go and you're going to ask me which one and you're going to text me a picture. I don't want to do this anymore. Right? So I said, that looks great. Uh, she'll love that. I said. And, and she did. The dog liked it and I liked it.

And that's, you know, that's the end of that story. But for both of us, there's many steps along the way that you have to catch yourself not returning to the way things were because the familiar is at least familiar. 

Zibby: Can I read a quote or two? Yeah. I dog eared like a hundred different pages of your funny diary too.

That was awesome. Well, this is. This is based on the instinct to jump in like we were just discussing. For women with too much to do, the things that impede our productivity are not caused simply by laziness or procrastination. For women with too much to do, the almost overdue permission list for the field trip must go atop the list of important things to do next, unless we follow the one minute rule and just dash that permission slip right up.

Off right then, following that one minute rule again and again for the rest of our lives. There will always be something I could do quickly, right now, and cross it off my list. And while knowing that makes me more productive, it also creates an unrest that is hard to call happiness. Talk about that because I am always like trying to just do something right then, otherwise I forget it.

So I'm like, let me just get it done. I'm just going to stop. Talk about that. And 

Amy: well, the productive mavens of the world would say that's the one minute rule and that you are supposed to do that. And I, I have the worst quote. I put it on my list. Like I send a quick note to Peter and then I don't do it because it's on my list.

Like my ever lengthening list, I think you should dash stuff off. But then that's the problem is that you, there's always one more thing that you could just get done right now. There's always one more email you could just quick send before you get to writing chapter eight. But if you don't shut those things off, I mean, I put myself in such a Fort Knox to work on this book so that those things couldn't interrupt me because they're comforting, they're familiar.

But right. You can keep yourself pretty busy. Going to buy your daughter's ballet slippers, right? And answering 40 emails. But I think that also then leads to the, Oh my gosh, what about me? What do I want? I have no idea. When you've never let that silence just exist without rushing to fill it with the permission slip.

Zibby: Literally, as you're saying that, I was like, oh my gosh, I forgot to get the shoes in after class, and I just like wrote it on my notepad. I was like, oh my gosh. 

Amy: Right, right. So I do keep that list. Like, and when I'm, you know, writing and I'm in the cave, I do keep a list of like, here it is, do it later, do it later.

And that list, that list is longer than your ability to complete it ever will be, right? There's just more things on your list. And I just think it's, True. So I'm not trying to say, and so here's how you handle that. I guess I'm saying, accept that and don't feel bad about yourself that that's the case. 

Zibby: One day I was like, I am never going to be able to cross breakfast off the list.

Like I'm never going to finish it. I finish it every day and then it comes back. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's just never going to get done. 

Amy: Somebody made the point about the division of household labor that I thought was interesting. The traditional division of household labor in a, in a marriage between a man and a woman that women tend to get handed breakfast, laundry, and the guys do like putting up the Halloween decorations, mowing the lawn, you know, cleaning out the gutters, which are unpleasant tasks, sure.

But they're, they're one and dones. They're, they're specific. They're not. Uh, that's sort of all the time there will always be more laundry, but that was an interesting point. That is interesting. 

Zibby: Actually, and I should say my husband does help me at breakfast. So we pretty much split that task. I have to say, okay, let me read just one, one more part.

And this is on the heels of a very traumatic experience. you had. This passage is after you have just gone through a very stressful health crisis with your daughter, and you say, it was just the same for me. I had to force myself to find small moments, then larger moments, then larger ones where I could exist without the worry.

First, I had to forgive myself for crying at the sound of the kids running and shouting on the playground out our apartment window when my own child was in too much pain to go outside. Then I had to forgive myself for going out into that same sunshine without her, for taking a walk with a friend. For having moments and then entire afternoons when I managed to forget if part of me believed my work of worrying could relieve my children's suffering, another part of me feared that anything I did to ease my own burdens might make them suffer more.

But as I looked back, no matter which child was taking their turn as my unhappiest, they did not suffer less. When I worried about them more, I would never find freedom from worry if I waited for the worry to disappear. I was not only as worthy as my unhappiest child. I love 

Amy: that. Thank you. That, yeah, that, everybody knows that saying, I'm sure, that a mother is only as happy as her unhappiest child, which I think is sort of an assignment.

I think people say that, but they're telling you that that has to be true. And you know, you, you have multiple children, as do I, there's, there is always an unhappiest child. There's always somebody who's not quite getting what they need or want from the world. And, of course, you're going to feel that, that so strongly, but, uh, I did.

I did have to learn that it was okay. To think about myself sometimes that that like like I say in this story that when I'm out to lunch with a friend That that was worth doing and not only so I could be a better caretaker to my sick kid when I got home Right, like i'm doing yoga, but it's only so i'm going to be the perfect parent afterwards It's okay to do yoga because you want to do yoga It's okay to go out to lunch because you are also a person who has needs it took me a long time to figure that out I like to think that people reading this book can jump the line.

We'll see we'll see about that 

Zibby: So if there's something that you want readers of the book to take away, what would it be? 

Amy: I think I would distill it down to there will be hard times in your life, and when things are hard in your life, they're hard because they're hard, not because there's something wrong with you.

But I think too often when women express that they're struggling and ask for help, what they usually get back is some form of fixing themselves in order to fix the problem. If you have too much to do, you need to get up earlier. You need to stop trying to do everything. Right? You need to get a sense of humor.

Those are the, those are the solutions, as opposed to how about your spouse gets up with the kids on Sunday morning so you can go write for two hours. That's the solution. Not become a better person first. And I really, I chased all those things. If I just, if I just do If I just fix myself, then this problem will go away.

Sometimes your problems are just problems, and you have to give yourself a lot of grace and then find the solution that doesn't involve a change in your mindset, because too often I think that's what women are given, and I think too often it's a waste of time. 

Zibby: You're totally right. And I just love that.

I mean, when you're like, no, actually I can't take stuff off my plate. This, this is just my plate. Like, it is what it is. It's not going away. Like the stuff has to get done. So I'm going to do it. 

Amy: Right. I mean, if you're like, if you're always like that, then maybe, you know, consider how you can make that not be the case.

But right. If you're, your mom is sick and your kid is sick at the same time, you're not a perfectionist. You're just a busy, busy person and you need to give yourself some grace. 

Zibby: And there's just a lot. It's a lot. 

Amy: Yeah. There's a lot. It's all a lot. That's what I'm saying. That's what this book is about.

It's all a lot. 

Zibby: Yeah. I distilled it down to, what? 

Amy: Three 

Zibby: words. It's 

Amy: all a lot, Zibby Owens. That's it. 

Zibby: Actually, I asked, I emailed Kathleen and I was like, I want to actually blurb this book and she was like, ah, no thanks. No. But I was like, I do. I feel so blessed. I feel so seen, particularly in the first, I mean, I love the whole book, but you're the beginning of the book when you lay all this out and, and sort of throw it to the world.

Like, look at how much there is going on. Look at how we've been talked to about it. And here's what the reality is like, it is a life changing point of view. And I am so glad you wrote it. And it's so good. And I've, Loved being able to see the evolution of your drafts and watch as this gets better and better and like it's so exciting It's it's so exciting.

I am so happy for you. You actually have helped you've helped me and so many readers And so I'm I hope that makes you happy. Oh, I'm so excited. 

Amy: I'm so I'm so excited for this book to be born at last. I'm really excited. 

Zibby: Yeah. You should be. It's really good. Anyway, congratulations, Amy. It's really nice.

Thank 

Amy: you. And thank you. Thank you for being the midwife for this book. I'm really excited about it. I'm so excited that it's a Zippy book. 

Zibby: No problem. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi. Formerly, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word.

Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.