Brynn Harvey
I am a stay-at-home wife and mother to three amazing kids, including one who is in constant battles with ADHD and tactile defensiveness. I think we're the perfectly imperfect family! I am an introvert, and I recently discovered that I am a highly sensitive person. I love to be at home, and my favorite hobbies are reading, cooking, watching movies, puzzles, and playing games with my family. You can also find me online: Facebook - Pinterest
My Favorite Time of the Year, I Love Fall!
Happy Fall, Y’all!! I love the fall season! I always tell people that Halloween is my favorite holiday. It isn’t necessarily the holiday itself, but it is the season it is in. There are three things I love about the fall season. I call these my three S’s.
Sweaters, Scents, and Scenery!!!
SWEATERS!
There is just something about wearing sweaters that makes you feel all nice and cozy. I get so excited when the weather turns cold, and I can bust out all my sweaters. This is the number one thing I love about the fall season. I can’t wait to wear my sweaters.
SCENTS!
The next thing that screams the fall season to me is the smell. There are many yummy smells at this time of year, from apples to pumpkins. My favorite smell is spiced apple cider. I feel like when I smell these scents, it just makes everything seem so homey! I love to come home from the grocery store when it is cold out and walk into the house, which smells so good. It always puts a smile on my face. It especially makes me happy when my children tell me the house smells so good. That means they appreciate it just like I do!
SCENERY!
Where I live, we are very close to the mountains. Every fall, the mountains change from green to orange and red. It is the most gorgeous thing to watch happen. When the leaves start to change, going up the canyon to see the change is amazing. Sometimes, we drive through the canyon; other years, we will go hiking. This is something that we do as a family. You have to love whatever it is that you can get the whole family together and do, especially if you have a teenager!
My list of favorite things about fall could go on and on. These are just a few things I love once the fall season is here. What are your favorite things to do to bring in the fall season? I would love to hear what you do in your families.
The Most Dreaded Week Of Elementary School
When you have children of elementary age, there is always that one dreaded week of the entire year. Can you guess what it is? I am sure you can probably think what it is. Have you guessed it yet? No, not yet.
For me, it is that moment when you open your child’s folder and find a piece of RED paper. That red paper can only mean one thing: RED RIBBON WEEK.
Here you go for those of you who are lucky enough not to know what this week is. Red Ribbon Week is the week the school talks about being drug-free and saying no to drugs. That is great. It is such a great message, and I agree with that wholeheartedly. It is what comes with the week that I dread.
Every day for one week, the kids wear something silly to school. Most of the time, it isn’t too bad, like silly hat day or silly sock day. Those are easy. They throw on something before they run out the door. I can even get down with the day they wear their pajamas to school. There is one thing that is ALWAYS on the list that I cringe at. It is the Crazy Hair Day.
Oh, how I hate this day. I know I have a choice not to have my kids participate in it, but unfortunately, the kids love Crazy Hair Day. I am sure some of you out there love this day. I, however, do not because I am horrible at it. I have a hard time doing hair on a regular day, so you can imagine how hard it is for me on a crazy hair day.
Here is how it always works out for me. I, of course, can never come up with an idea on my own. I looked up some ideas on Pinterest. If you have not looked up crazy hair day ideas, you need to see this. It is incredible what some people can do. There are so many that are so talented. I don’t, however, fall under this category. I have to scroll through so many ideas to get to one that I can maybe somewhat do. This takes me a while to find one. Once I have found one I think I can handle, I repeatedly look at the picture or video to ensure I know how to fix it.
On Crazy Hair Day, we have to get up early. I have to have time to redo anything that doesn’t work out. Things usually start OK, but I am praying the whole time that it will work out. I can tell you right now that my track record on it working out is that it has never worked out. It is always a nailed-it picture. It never looks exactly like the picture. Sometimes, you can see what I was trying to do. The children are such good sports. They always say they love it, but I know it doesn’t look as good as expected.
Once I had finished their hair, I rushed them out the door. I have to sit for a while and take a breather!! The whole process for me is exhausting. I am so glad once that day is over. It is like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It sounds so silly that it is such a stressful day, but it is the same every year.
I know this day will only last a few more years, but I can honestly say that I cannot wait until I don’t have to do it anymore. How about you? Do you love this day, or do you dread it like me?
What We Tried to Stop Our Son’s Chewing Habit
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning if you decide to make a purchase via these links, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. See my disclaimers for more information.When my son was in elementary school, he started having a problem chewing little pieces of paper. I am honestly not sure if it was because of his tactile defensiveness or if it was from his ADHD, but it was constant and becoming a problem.
He would chew little pieces of paper and then put them on the floor. Then get a new one and do the same thing. By the time school was over for the day, he had tiny pieces of paper all over the floor underneath his desk.
The first grade that I remember his habit being a problem was in the second grade. His second-grade teacher is the one who brought this habit to my attention. We tried different things that school year to help him stop doing it. Here’s what we tried to stop our son’s chewing habit.
His teacher allowed him to chew gum in class, but that didn’t work because he would spit the gum out and not in the garbage can. We also tried sending him to school with Tic Tacs that he could suck on. This didn’t work because he would eat them and didn’t suck on them.
Since neither worked and his teacher didn’t want him chewing on paper, he started chewing on pencils. Once again, at the end of the day, he would have little pieces of wood pencils on the floor underneath his desk.
By the end of second grade, we could not solve the problem, and when he got to third grade, it was still a problem.
His third-grade teacher did not like him chewing on paper. This is the year that we were introduced to sensory chewing necklaces. These can be found easily on Amazon.com using a search term like, Sensory Chew Necklaces.
A sensory chewing necklace has a round rubber medallion that they wear, and when they get the urge to chew, they can chew on the medallion.
Our son tried this for a week, but then he got embarrassed and stopped wearing it to school. I’m guessing the kids said something to him. You can buy sensory chewing necklaces with a block that looks like a Lego. I thought that would be perfect because he loves Legos, but he was still embarrassed to wear it.
When that didn’t work, we discovered chewable pencil toppers. We found a pencil topper that looked like a Lego. That worked pretty well for him for quite some time. Until he either lost them or they got stolen from him.
Starting in fourth grade, his teachers didn’t care. They said it isn’t a big deal if the vacuum can pick up the little pieces of paper.
He did get made fun of when he was in fifth grade, and that is when he started to hide it a little bit more. He still was chewing paper, but rather than dropping them on the floor, he would put them into his pockets. Lucky me, when I did his laundry, I would find all of these little tiny, tiny wads of paper in his pockets.
Now that he is sixteen, he still chews on things, but not like he used to. We have accepted that he likes to chew on different things, and we wouldn’t change him for anything.
Hopefully, this helps anyone with a child who likes to chew on things. Even though the sensory chew toys didn’t work for us, it is very possible they could work for you. There are so many more options out there for sensory than there used to be. It takes patience with some trial and error to find the right strategy for your child!!
Teaching Your Child to Keep Their Room Clean
My 12-year-old daughter loves to sit in her room and talk to me at bedtime. She will talk to me about anything and everything that is going through her mind. I was talking to her last night, and she was so excited to tell me she had a blog post idea for me, something she wanted me to write about. She wanted me to talk about how hard she is working to keep her room clean and some of the things we’ve discussed together that she uses to help keep her room clean.
My daughter is working hard to keep her room clean. It is not easy! Not too long ago, my daughter’s room got so messy and cluttered that we had to take an entire weekend to clean it. As we started working on her room, we talked about how much stuff she had, and I had to explain to her that she probably needed to get rid of at least fifty percent of her stuff because she had so much clutter. Surprisingly, she did very well with this suggestion and got rid of quite a bit of her accumulated clutter.
Once we had dusted and vacuumed her room, we returned all her stuff to where it belonged, sat down, and discussed keeping her room clean.
Here is the advice I gave her. Here is my simple advice for teaching your child to keep their room clean.
It is much easier to keep a room clean if you take five to ten minutes before bed and put away all the stuff you got out that day.
Sometimes, she is too tired to take five to ten minutes to put things away each night. Overall, though, she has kept her room somewhat clean. Thankfully, it has not gotten as cluttered and messy as before. I am still able to see her floor after a couple of months.
It is always a work in progress. Hopefully, she will take more time to keep her room clean as she ages. Watching her grow up a little bit every day has been fun. She has started to understand and realize that a clean room makes her feel calmer.
Try this with your children and see if your household becomes calmer!!
Why Do We Focus On Perfection?
I see a pattern, a pattern in everything I see online. I see it on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, other blog posts, and just about everything else. That pattern? Everything looks so incredibly perfect, and perfection is always the ideal. It drives me insane! Why do we always focus on perfection?
When I scroll through Pinterest because that is what I am on the most, it always appears that everything is perfect. The topic doesn’t matter, and I always wonder how people accomplish such perfection.
For example, I recently looked up ways to organize my pantry because I felt it was a complete disaster. Of course, knowing me, I first go to Pinterest to get ideas. The articles I read and pictures I saw comprised these perfectly organized shelves that used all these fancy containers and baskets.
Based on what I saw, I needed a bunch of containers, baskets, and a label maker to label everything. My next step was to go to Amazon and see what was available and what I could order. Once I put everything in my cart, the total came to over two hundred dollars. For most of you, that probably isn’t too big of a deal, but I am very cautious about how I spend my money, and I thought that was a ridiculous amount of money to spend just to try and make my pantry more organized.
If I truly wanted to do this, I would have to budget it into my monthly budget and buy a little at a time over a period of months. Was it worth taking months to organize my pantry? That just seemed like so much work.
The more and more I looked at the pictures and read the articles, the more I realized that many of the pantries I saw were not practical. There were no bags of chips, cans of soup, or just cans. There were no boxes of cereal or crackers, nothing that you would likely use regularly in their own containers. Yeah, the pantries looked nice, but they didn’t function well.
The pictures and articles were designed to showcase perfection, not to be practical. If I want practical ways to organize my pantry, I wonder how I get that if everything online shows perfection.
I do not doubt that there are fantastic pantries that are excellent for those who have them; however, that doesn’t work for me or my family, and I’m guessing I’m not alone.
Anyway, that takes me back to the beginning of this post. Why do we always focus on perfection? Why do we gravitate to perfection when that isn’t reality? Why can’t we show how messy our lives can be? Why can’t we be authentic? If we took a step back and talked about how our lives are, I believe we would find we have more connections with each other. It is time for us to come together and be more authentic.
Oh, and just a side note. I talked a lot about pantries, and while I don’t want to put all my pantry food in containers, I am looking for more practical and cheaper ideas on how to organize a pantry. If you have any such ideas, I would love to hear them!
