On It’s a Lot this week, I talked to author and fellow toddler mom Mai Nguyen. Mai is the author of Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead, a novel rooted in her own experience with infant loss. We talked about the utter shock of losing a baby when they’re a few days old, why it’s worth measuring the placenta, which platitudes we hated the most when grieving, and how Mai moved through her grief by starting to write again.

Mai got pregnant 7 months after losing her firstborn; in the second half of the episode, we discuss some of the joys and struggles of parenting a toddler. Highs: getting new episodes of Trash Truck on Netflix, visiting splash pads, and eating ice cream often. Lows: trying to get them to eat any food that’s not woefully plain. We also talked about how she speaks to her youngest, Leah, about her big sister Gemma, and how they honor Gemma as a family.