Category Archives: Stress Relief

What are your favorite parenting books?

My friends and I get together twice a month to just be. Be ourselves and not always mom or caregiver or advocate. Just us. Recently we were all talking about books and resources we’ve found helpful as parents. Some of us have kids with tough behaviors. My own kids have bipolar and struggle with behaviors…

Continue Reading »

Where’s The ME-time?

Am I the only one who can’t seem to find any time to take care of me in my life? OMG, for all the child-rearing and special needs advocating and work I’m doing, there doesn’t seem to be a moment left for me! I’m not talking about luxuries like taking a bubble bath, a night out…

Continue Reading »

Kitty, Kitty

Life’s been crazy lately. Today especially. Add to that my lack of sleep from last night due to a certain visitor who dropped by almost every hour on the hour. Needless to say, I don’t really feel like writing and if I did, it would either be pretty much a pity party or a gripe…

Continue Reading »

It’s not just about your kids.

It’s hard enough to remember to eat and shower, let alone remember to call that friend or have enough mental space to grieve our own losses on top of all the ways we care for our kids. But if we don’t, our families suffer. And our kids never learn how to deal with stress well….

Continue Reading »

Learning to ride…one step at a time…

A Cowboy Needs a Horse Johnny lives in a big city, but has everything a cowboy could want (Everything, everything) He has a place to pan for gold (Panning, panning) And he has time to shoot a buffalo everyday (Shooting, shooting) And every night, he dreams he’s a cowboy riding the rangeFinally found the words…

Continue Reading »

Food is so frustrating! {with Made to Crave book giveaway}

As special needs parents, we give up a lot. Our time. Our energy. Some of our relationships. Our vision of what might have been our lives as a family. With all the things we give up, it would be really darned nice if we didn’t fall under the same rules of slowing middle-aged metabolism, so…

Continue Reading »

Waiting. And why it’s not so bad.

Raise your hand if you love to wait! Yeah, me neither. We spend lots of time waiting as parents with special needs kids. Waiting for things like doctor’s visits, referrals, our children’s therapies to take, results of the last lab work-up… For the past week we’ve been waiting with one of our daughters – waiting…

Continue Reading »

The Voice that Says, “You’re Doing it Wrong!”

“Those who never make mistakes lose a great many chances to learn something” – Unknown What a great truth for a parent! No matter how many times I make mistakes, however, I still get frustrated with myself or the ensuing circumstance. Raising special needs kids provides lots of opportunities to make mistakes – in therapies,…

Continue Reading »

A Sensory Trip

Here in Northeast Ohio, it was a beautiful Friday. Today, I took my son and my mother on a little road trip. I’ll call it a sensory trip because it was so nice to be out with out having to think about the roads. Those miserable roads have been ice covered, snow covered, and the…

Continue Reading »

Dealing With Stress

How do you deal with stress? It’s obvious that most parents of kids with special needs deal with more stress than the average parent. But how you deal with it can make all the difference in the world. Internalizing it? BAD. Finding a healthy way to release it? GOOD. How do I deal with stress?…

Continue Reading »