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What to Do if Your Child Needs Glasses
Though today’s modern digital age has its perks, it’s also posing unprecedented risks to our eyesight. On average, Canadians spend 3.2 hours a day looking at screens. During this time, they blink less, reducing moisture and causing dry eye syndrome. Though this is easily fixed by using artificial tears, taking screen breaks, and blinking more, the impacts of device use are more apparent among kids than adults. Looking at gadgets up close forces the eye to accommodate close-up vision, elongating the eyeballs and causing myopia (nearsightedness). Eyesight Changes Kids usually adjust to eyesight changes and may not tell you about them, so you might not know immediately. However, you can look for…
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Take the 30 Day Steps Challenge Now!
Time to step up your fitness routine with the 30 Day Steps Challenge! Fitness and health are top of mind right now for everyone. Globally, January is the time that people shrug off the old year’s habits and resolve to make things better health wise. Well, typically that’s the case anyways. This time of year I am often skiing, but also I commit to reinjecting my daily routine with a stronger level of commitment. This is also the time of year that I might consider doing something new, like adopting a new challenge to see if I can make an impact on health and fitness. That’s why I am taking…
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My 6 Favourite Podcasts for the Morning Commute
So, it’s been awhile since I shared a little about what I am up to these days. Six months ago I took a position as social lead at a marketing agency in Cambridge, just outside Toronto. I lead a team of talented social media professionals and I enjoy that. It’s a hybrid job which is the way of the post-pandemic world. Two days a week I drive to Cambridge, about an hour and ten minutes from my house in London, so I have time in the van and have discovered podcasts. These are 6 of my favourite podcasts to listen to in the van on the way to work. They…
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Turning 18 – My Latest for CBC Parents
Both of my kids now are technically an age where the world considers them adults. This year, my youngest was just turning 18, when my nephew asked me if both of the kids were adults yet and that gave me pause. I mean first of all what is an adult? At what magical age or stage are we all adults? Happy Birthday! Second of all, I think most of you know that my kids are not neurotypical. They are neurodiverse kids aging during a pandemic and frankly that just hits different. So I wrote a little something about what is turning 18 anymore and what does it mean. This is…
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My Oxygen Mask and Life During a Pandemic
Huddle up real close. I have something to say regarding life this past year. But wait just a moment, my oxygen mask is askew. Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First You know on airplanes before takeoff when the flight attendants give you that safety demonstration? Oh, I know you are supposed to be listening, but honestly a lot of us have zero interest in the safety demo when we just want to get to where we are going. Right? Lately, I have been reflecting on that simple statement – please put your own oxygen mask on before securing others. Hunting for My Oxygen Mask Ever since the second lockdown…
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Take the 30-Day Mindfulness Challenge Now!
Time for a mindfulness challenge! No better time than the present. At least, that’s my current philosophy. So, some of you probably know that mindfulness here is an ongoing battle. Or, should I say has been an ongoing issue. Ironically, or curiously, I think that I have actually achieved more mindfulness during the pandemic than ever before. My Previous Experience One year I made mindfulness my word of the year and it was the worst word of the year experience that I had ever had. That’s right. I have successfully chosen a word of the year for many years but could not make that one work. My mind wandered too…
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Creative and Fun Sick Day Scavenger Hunt
Well, here we sit in the middle of cold and flu season during a pandemic. Why not download this Sick Day Scavenger Hunt and keep it for those days when you need a little something low key to do at home. Colds Happen. Be Prepared That’s pretty much my Motto. This time of year you can try to avoid all of the germs and you definitely should. But, also be prepared. Kids get sick. Period. They are germ magnets. While I hope nobody I know gets anything more than a cold this year, I am sure there are a few of you home right now nursing sick little ones who…
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30 Day Health and Wellness Challenge and Printable
Well here we go again! Lockdown threatens to disrupt any progress on my fitness routine. But hopefully not for long. That’s why I am sharing this 30-day health and wellness challenge. Make a Commitment to Health & Wellness I have done my best to maintain a health and wellness schedule for years now. It’s part of my life and I need that as a parent and as someone who has chronic pain and Crohn’s disease. Working out to maintain health and wellness is not an option for me. So, from the start of the pandemic to today, I have been seizing all of the opportunities to get fit. Getting and…
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The Simple Art of Walking
Or How I Don’t Want Your Pity Walk Became Let Me Get a Sweater and My Shoes) With gyms closed for much of the past year, I have discovered the value of the simple art of walking. We walk in all the weather, sometimes alone but often together. That’s been a highlight of this year actually. Walking. Discovering the art of walking has been an unexpected positive in a year too full of negatives. The Art of Walking It started as a way to get the kids moving and a means for me to get my steps in for the day. Way back in March, when the pandemic was new…
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My Daughter Has FASD – My CBC Parents Post
My youngest daughter has FASD. I have occasionally written a bit about that here, but I am adding a bit more content about this invisible disability and publishing in major national outlets to grow awareness. My CBC Parents Content Over the last two years I have been writing a lot of consistent content on CBC Parents. I am happy to be able to reach a wider audience and frankly freelance, of course, is where I began years ago when I started writing. A few of my posts have centred on our journey parenting kids with special needs, or mental health issues and disabilities. For whatever reason, that content resonates with…
