• active family travel - family - parenting - special needs - Travel

    Five Tips for Train Travel with Special Needs Children

    August 12, 2014 - By 

    I love to travel by train – usually. I can work all the way and my wasted time is minimized. Plus, typically train travel is very economical. This summer my kids and I travelled to Montreal and Ottawa by train. That’s a substantial amount of time spent riding, and also a lot of transferring to different connecting trains. We travel every year by train together at least once. As some of my readers know special needs kids require a bit more planning when travelling anywhere, in any mode of transport. I have one anxious child, and another with a brain…

  • active family travel - family - Parenting - parenting - Travel

    Summer Math and Travel With Tweens

    July 3, 2014 - By 

    This summer I am trying my hardest to trick my brain into forgetting summer math. June plus July plus August equals my three favourite months. Summer is fleeting, especially in Canada. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it-kind-of-season. Time flies, but summer time well that’s like a Concord whipping by at breakneck speed. how many more weeks do we get to enjoy this beautiful weather? How much more time off school? How many more summers with my kids at home? Only 6 more years and one will be in college or university. That’s tween Mom math. Summer math. In my experience, the only way…

  • FASD - Health - Parenting - special needs

    What Pride Looks Like: On Report Cards, Respect and #specialneeds

    June 27, 2014 - By 

    Think they don’t care much about what is written on report cards? Think that little people are oblivious to how the teacher sees them and feels about them? Words matter, and never more so than when someone is assessing a child with special needs after a year of school. This is our first experience with a really accepting and lovely teacher who clearly understood and liked my youngest daughter. I am driving both my kids to Build-A-Bear to celebrate their last day of school when the little one cracks open her report card and starts reading it word for word.…

  • Giveaways

    How Do You Keep them Reading All Summer? #Summerslide #giveaway

    June 14, 2014 - By 

    If school is almost out for summer then it’s time to start thinking about summer slide too. Oh don’t worry I am not suggesting that you spend every waking moment of the summer concerned about school. But, take a few moments now and plan ways you can help them avoid summer slide. Then the sailing is easy for the rest of the summer. What are you up to this summer? School is almost out here. Now what’s next? We have some camps scheduled and some great travel opportunities and I am pretty happy for the warm weather to finally get…

  • the two week wait IVF
    family - Health - infertility - Parenting

    Five Ways to Pass the Two Week Wait IVF #infertility

    May 5, 2014 - By 

    The two week wait. Cue ominous music. In infertility terms the two week wait is a suspenseful, frustrating, stressful time. It’s the two week wait IVF or IUI. After what is often months, and sometimes years of treatment the two week wait is one of the final hurdles and it can be a frustrating time. Here are some ideas to pass that time without going stir crazy. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock Anyone who has struggled to conceive and undergone fertility or infertility treatment such as IVF or IUI knows the torture of the two week wait. The two week wait…

  • beauty products

    When is it Okay to Start Wearing Makeup?

    March 25, 2014 - By 

    Mom, when can I wear makeup? My oldest daughter started asking about wearing makeup when she was ten. In my head I call her my breadcrumb daughter. She always leaves me little clues as to what she has been up to, almost as if she wants to be caught when she does something out of character or defiant. And around that time, my tubes of mascara went missing. Without much detective work, I could quietly find them in her desk drawer, or in her backpack. I mostly chalked that one up to curiosity. But the questions started then – at…

  • Health - special needs

    Ten Ways to Help a Child with FASD

    March 11, 2014 - By 

    For the first five years of my daughter Ainsley’s life we spent countless resources trying to figure out ways to help manage her disability. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is incredibly tricky to diagnose, and then to manage on an average day. FASD is fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, an invisible brain injury brought on my prenatal alcohol exposure.   In Ontario we are likely 15 years behind the autism movement and advocacy effort. I have been told this by many experts in the education and health care fields. So, in the province where I live we have very limited resources right now.…

  • Health

    Hey Mom, What’s a Bong? Answering Kid’s Drug Questions

    March 4, 2014 - By 

    Kids really do say the darndest things. Usually when I am driving. It’s a minor miracle I don’t crash the minivan with their constant random Nattering questions and hijinks. I’ve heard Mom, did birth mom have any other kids? And can I meet her now? Like tonight? Also random statements like: We aren’t biologically related, right? Then there’s always: Do you miss Grandma? Does Daddy miss his Mom? Do you know why the sky is blue? Did you ever smoke? Did Daddy smoke? Here’s me driving along thinking, ‘Hey what’s for dinner? What did I thaw? Did I forget to…

  • family

    Disney Live: Make Your Own Mickey Mouse Ears

    February 16, 2014 - By 

    I am so happy to be able to share another amazing Disney Live family show with you all. Stay tuned next week for a giveaway here on Thrifty Momma’s Tips. But for now I wanted to share a discount code in case you want to go buy some tickets to see this fun family show. Disney Live Mickey’s Rockin’ Road Show takes place in March at Budweiser Gardens in London, Ontario. March 16th to be exact. Use Discount code MUM4 to save. Come back next week to win. Join Mickey and all his pals as they take a road trip…

  • childhood anxiety
    Health - special needs

    Vaccine Drama: 5 Ways to Help with Needle Anxiety

    February 11, 2014 - By 

    Needle anxiety, or needle phobia, is very real for many kids and adults. One of my girls has anxiety, which is extremely pronounced around needles. When she was a baby she never balked at getting her vaccines. She was happy go lucky and hardly noticed at all. Then in the blink of an eye at around school age she started to be a worrier.   She worried about everything. I worried that she was worrying too much. Anyways you get the idea. We plugged in some supports and she manages most days very well. She has strategies. But the one area…