The Sensory Child Gets Organized Review

Disclosure: TMC was not paid for this post. Products received are for review purposes only. Opinions are TMC's only. One of the first things we learned as parents when The Fifth Element was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) was the importance of planning ahead and staying organized. We were lucky enough to receive services through our county's infant and toddler program which included speech and occupational therapy a few times a month. These sessions did not just help our daughter, they helped us as parents and as a family understand that the sensory child has a harder time than other kids navigating the world. It feels chaotic to them and they either seek or avoid stimulation to deal with their daily lives. … [Read more...]

DIY Three

Dear Fifth Element, I woke up the morning of your third birthday and saw that it was raining.  Despite wanting to make it a fun day at the pool with you and your sisters it seemed fitting that the weather was the same as the day you were born. You my girl are a gift to this family.  You take life on with the attitude and the constant refrain of, "I DO IT!"  followed by a growl.  This has been a year of massive change, of progress and intense patience and learning on all our behalf.  Like any change it took us a while to figure out your secrets.  To find the key that unlocks your true personality that we now have the privilege to know and enjoy every day.  … [Read more...]

Good Enough to Be Enough

In the past I have struggled hard to find a balance between work and life.  I continuously felt that if I wasn't working my wheels were spinning out of control.  My control over my work load and how much work I was doing defined me.  At least I thought that  it did and I even thought that I wanted it too.  Yes, I took joy in the time I was home for only 3 days in one month while six months pregnant with my third child.  Maybe it was that I used to hate my work and it was often just a j-o-b.  The last few years weren't like that and it was all new and exciting and I just wanted more.  Like a sponge I wanted to soak up as much as I could.  Then 2012 happened and it was like a giant hand just knocked me on my ass. Or as I like to think of it, God just bitched slapped me and handed me my … [Read more...]

I Am Learning

  I haven’t been around here much lately.  I’ve been too busy living life.  Good or bad and it has felt like there is less good and more of the painful and bad but I am making sure that the t’s and I’s are being crossed with my family and those I hold dear.  I’m continuing to learn what is important as we are never too old or young to learn this lesson.  I am seeing what the real blessings are in my life.  And I am trying to live life in the present and not always jumping forward to figure out what I should be doing next.  … [Read more...]

Diagnosis: Over Stimulated Parent

It was the email titled, "Pizza, Pizza!" that just shoved me right over the edge.  The day already felt long.  The weekend had felt that way too.  In fact, every day lately has been a bit of a slog with me feeling ever closer to that "edge" that parents all talk about. As I sat in preschool car line waiting for The Comedian to come out of school I checked my email and found the 'pizza' one from her teacher.  An impromptu field trip, "what fun!"  My brain seized.  All at once I felt angry, defeated and yes, I will admit to a little bit whiney. It's just. I just. I can't. I felt frozen as I searched my swirling, over-crowded brain for what that day might contain on the schedule.  Did we have Occupational therapy or speech that day?  Was it the one day all week that I had a … [Read more...]

When Something Isn’t Right

It's hard to know where to begin or if there was something I could have done differently.  I keep going back over the last few months, the last year, the last two years really and beyond that and wonder if there was something I did that brought us to where we are today. We knew this summer that things were different with The Fifth Element.  We chalked it up to the "terrible twos", the new summer schedule, all sorts of things until somewhere in the middle I began to think it was something else.  The tantrums, the hesitancy to play with kids she saw daily, the whispering of "no, no, no" until it became screams and frantic pleas to be held so close it felt like she wanted to meld into me completely. The sheer anxiety and desire to be held almost always was more than I could bear.  I … [Read more...]

Beware the Third Baby

The other day I was showering after my workout and The Fifth Element was in the bathroom with me.  She loves to be in the vanity part of the room while I'm in the shower.  It's where she can do the most damage to the carpet, closet and let loose the faucets on the tub (YEAH! Let's soak the clean laundry Mommy just chucked in there and didn't have time to hang!) and I can't catch her as quickly.  She goes back and forth between the shower and the sinks, babbling her two year-old slang and hurling elastics, brushes, self-tanners and make-up brushes around the room with wild abandon.  In the shower said 'hello' to her as she walked into my part of the bathroom.  I thought it was cute when she climbed on the scale too.  The scale she then moved under the light switch which boosted her up to … [Read more...]

The Fifth Element Turns Two

H keeps saying it and I can't quite believe it either but after what has been a roller coaster of emotional highs and lows we have gone through the first two years in The Fifth's Elements life. The Fifth Element. The one who made our family complete. … [Read more...]