More Books for Home Speech Therapy

At the beginning of the year, I started a quest to help my daughter overcome her selective mutism.

What I found was probably there all the time, but I just didn't see it. Lately, I have been directing my attention at the whole child, not just the selective mutism behavior.

I must say, I'm having a great time bringing my daughter "out of her shell." Some days are tedious, some discouraging, but we're both learning and growing.

Here's several books that we've used as conversation starters:

Cat's Got Your Tongue is a story about a little girl, Anna, who is entering kindergarten. She is unhappy and avoids sharing her true feelings about it. Her teacher notices that she is not transitioning well and suggests counseling to her parents.

Anna goes to counseling and over a period of time, learns to use her words through play therapy, namely puppets.

Anna and her counselor put on a puppet show for her parents and teacher in her school classroom for familiarity, then they decide it would be fun to put the show on for the kids.

After overcoming her fears and anxieties, Anna is able to make friends.

My thoughts were mixed with this book. I wasn't sure my daughter would like it because the pages were black and white. However, she quickly identified herself in Anna.

The breakthrough moment came last week when we were washing dishes together. My daughter was asking questions about the book. She told me she wanted to be able to speak in public! She said she wanted to be able to make friends! She told me that maybe we should find a counselor that would help her learn to talk!

I about fell on the floor! I think I scared her when I hugged and kissed her all at the same time!

Since then, we have been more able to talk about everything! She is trying new things left and right now!

I guess I honestly believed that my child enjoyed the attention she received by not speaking. I thought it was a control issue. How wrong was I!?!

To Be Continued. . .

Double-Dip Feelings is just what the title says. It talks about how it's possible to feel several emotions at the same time.

We had a lot of fun with this book and it started many conversations. She enjoyed the colorful illustrations.

BTW, we are still filling the jar with candies everytime she tries something new. I also write her "tries" in her own little notebook, so we can review all her accomplishments.

Does anyone else have any suggestions? (books, resources, games, anything to try) Please share!

For other tips, visit 5 minutes for Special Needs

And We Are THAT Family.

Boosting Your Child's Self Esteem

*Sorry for using this post again, it just meant so much to my daughter. It's a cheap and easy thing to do to show your child that you care, and you could make a book on any subject!

When I started working with Shayla on her selective mutism issue (an official label for being painfully shy to the extreme!), I started uncovering that she has an underlying poor self-esteem issue about herself.

I believe that it was because of her skin condition and food allergies.

I'm not a therapist. For that matter, I don't even have a college degree. I'm just a mother who loves her children and I try to be very "in-tune" with them.

I tried talking with her about these things, but she didn't want to discuss them. So, I wrote her a book about herself. Awhile back we were using Ed Emberley's Fingerprint Book for art, so I created people using this method.

She enjoys it tremendously. And the best part is, it has opened up her feelings. She has begun to talk to me and I have been able to offer her comfort in the form of hugs and kisses and reassuring words.

We still have a long ways to go, but this is what is working for me! Try this tip, with whatever your situation is, your kids will love it!

Book making is about as frugal as you can get, outside of visiting the library, but that's not as much fun! For other frugal tips, visit Crystal's.

Quitting Time

Establish a quit time and stick to it!


In this busy season of our lives, I have a common-sense "what works for me." I guess I lack common-sense, because my husband had to point it out to me!



There is just soooo much to do. Cards to make out and send, gifts to purchase or make and wrap, trees to trim, houses to decorate. The list goes on and on. And on top of these extra demands for our time is the normal. You know, having a healthy meal on the table several times a day, homeschooling, normal grocery shopping. And the ever important, laundry. You don't even want to see what happens when you can't work that into your already busy day!



I have been running around like a chicken with it's head cut off lately. I was still cleaning house at 9:30 pm. It was affecting my attitude and my health. I was yelling about everything that everyone left behind.



My husband gently reminded me that he has a start time and end time to his day at work and that I needed to establish one as well. He thought that after dinner was reasonable. The kids could do the kitchen clean-up and I'd be off the hook. This obviously wouldn't work because we eat dinner at 5pm. Many nights Morgan is not even home because of school activities. So we agreed on 7pm.

Now when 7pm rolls around, that doesn't necessarily mean I'm no longer a mommy. In fact, that's when I quit being a teacher, housekeeper, personal chef, etc. I take the time to watch a show or color a page for fun. I've also been working on home-made Christmas gifts at this time. (More about that later!)



What has changed? Well, every room in the house may not be swept and mopped everyday. There may be some extra clutter that I don't get to. My computer time has had to be slashed dramatically. But the good news is it works for me! I feel happier and so does everyone in the house. You know the old saying "When Momma Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy!!!"

To find out what works for others this season, go to Shannon's at Rocks in My Dryer.

Saving on Conditioner

As I've posted earlier, I have a teenager. Well, anyone with teens knows that they are wasteful little creatures by nature. It's the age. No amount of CVSing could keep up with the demands for personal care products. (In fact, a millionare couldn't keep up with the financial demands of a teenager, but we won't go there today!)

In our humble home. I noticed that this guilty culprit that will remain anonymous was going through a bottle of hair conditioner every week. EVERY WEEK!!!

I tried being the patient mother I am and explained that you only need a dime sized amount of the stuff. No avail.

Next, I tried being generous, I said even a quarter sized amount would be alright. Still didn't change anything. She said it comes out of the bottle too quickly. Now that got me thinking. I looked at the bottle and indeed the hole on the bottles were extremely large - allowing more than the necessary amount to come flowing freely.

My solution was to put the conditioner into an empty dishsoap bottle. The type that only allows a drop to come out at time.

I'm happy to report that our consumption of conditioner has decreased since trying this, so it works for me.

For other ideas visit Rocks in my Dryer.

Utilizing Your Scanner

I don't have a photo of my latest project, sorry! My Works For Me idea is utilizing your scanner.

I just recently got one of these all one copier, printer, scanners and I am in love with the thing. Not only do I use it daily for posting school work online, but it would also be useful to scan most of her papers and purge the rest. Then save them on disks for assessment time!

Another project I'm doing is scanning pages in magazines that I had kept for one reason or another. I have years of Family Fun and Crafts magazines. Now, I will never purge all my magazines, because we frequently use old magazines and newspapers to cut things out of for our homeschool. But I sure can purge a bunch of them! My personal goal was to get one magazine a day done, but I think a week is more realistic for me!

Idea #2 I hope to get started on is, scanning all my daughter's special allergy food wrappers and labels and putting these with her special recipes in a cookbook.

Idea #3: Scanning photos and saving to disk. I would like to make a special disk of my oldest daughter throughout her childhood years to give to her for her wedding. What? It's only 18 days away? Maybe I'll aim for Christmas! LOL!

Note to self: I have 2 other daughters that I could begin doing this for. Maybe I'll get it done in time for their weddings!

Idea #4: Scanning receipts, bills and statements and pitching the hard copy.

The possibilities are endless. It's time to do it (and motivation), that's the problem! LOL!

What other ideas do you have for utilizing your printer, scanner, copier?

Watercolor Markers

In my daughter's younger years, she would often "forget" to put the lids back on the markers after coloring with them.

This was before my couponing and bargain shopping days. You know, back when it cost $3 or more for a pack of crayola markers. The same ones Walmart just had for 88 cents. Anyway, it just gave me a sick feeling to throw away more good $$$$.

So, I tried dipping the dried out markers in a little cup of water. The dried-out markers came to life again. Some of them last a r-e-a-l-l-y long time like this.

Saving $$$ without doing much work, now that works for me!