Hey, welcome back to another great year in my crazy house. Starting the new year off on the left foot as opposed to the right, as that didn’t go quite so well last year!
This year is all about organisation! Not only for my house, but my crazy, busy, overactive brain, and oh ya’ starting my very own, tiny, little, home based business from absolutely nothing! I will be posting the whole process on YouTube, from square one to well… we will see where it ends up for you all to watch.
As you all know I’m a mom with ADHD, raising kids with additional needs which means going out to work is nearly, umm no it’s down right impossible for me, not only because of all the Doctor appointments, telepsychiatry, therapy’s, IEPs, parent teacher conferences, kid’s recreational activities which are extremely important for their social development and well-being plus all the school days they generally miss for mental health days, anxiety days etc. (which averages them actually going to public school 2-4 days a week). Due to their additional needs they can’t be left alone for too long at all and the lack of services, means even respite is pretty much non-existent, despite what you may have heard about how much money our Ford government plans on giving parents (which has been put on hold until 2021 by the way). I know it probably sounds like a lot, but it’s close to nothing compared to what these services actually cost, which doesn’t include the transportation to get them there, for us it’s hours away, not to mention the extremely long wait list (ya they said there wouldn’t be one but… politicians can be misleading). With that being said. I’ve been a stay at home mom. I have tried to go out and work, but it’s never worked out between babysitters and being too exhausted to care for the kids.
I’ve tried to do the whole home daycare thing and was quite successful for 11 long years. However my kids have grown and their patience for younger ones have diminished. The thought of selling Avon and such door to door has crossed my mind but it’s not my thing and not what people I can relate to need. I’ve seen too many people fail at those attempts.
Soooooooooo….. As I have shared with you all in bits and pieces all throughout last year. I’ve been researching and experimenting on how to turn the scary, violent, meltdowns into positive meltdowns since they are going to happen no matter what we do, how much we plan, schedule and prepare they just happen.
Which explains the reason behind my tiny little home based business that I have named “Calm your Monster” since the name basically describes my kids during an R-rated meltdown, even my own mommy breakdowns at times. Assuming, since you’re reading this, you know exactly what I’m talking about, you know when you want to do things, but it’s scheduled outside of routine, so you’re already second guessing yourself whether or not to go ahead with your plans or not, since your already on your third meltdown of the day and it’s not even 1PM yet! One little pull and your bucket spills over and explodes!!! Yeah I get it! You’re not alone!
ADHD brain back to my research and the point of my tiny little home based business. It all began with my research experiments. Yes! I was that “mom” that used my own kids as my own personal guinea pigs, which they did not mind at all, since all the focus, love and attention was put on them, It all began with me at my breaking point of giving up. It was meltdowns after meltdowns. I was alone, I was scared, I felt so helpless. That the only thing I could do was read, research and experiment. ABA wasn’t helping as it takes so long for the next session and growing hormones meant things were changing. I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands and change our lives. We just couldn’t live like this any longer. So after weeks of reading so many articles in-between the meltdowns and rubbing backs to make them fall asleep, the days they actually all went to school on the same day finally showed a bit of light as I found an article that was about how scents can trigger happy, calm and disturbing thoughts in our brains. So guess what we did the following week?
Yup we packed up and loaded the van and headed to the big city to spent the day at build a bear workshop. That’s right this all began with build a bear in the Bayshore mall in Napean! Since my kids already love their warmers from scentsy it all made scense to me. I discovered how much scents can actually calm them down, not because it was Lavender or Chamomile or some other magic herb which doesn’t actually have a strong of a scent or anything, but how scents they each really enjoy can actually trigger their brain to calm itself and trigger those happy thoughts that we want them to have. So at build a bear they each chose their stuffy. Sarah chose the Cotton Candy scent pack for her kitty and Cam picked strawberry for his T-rex!
They were delighted and squished their new friends all the way home. Which gave me the idea how to take things even further. “PLAYDOUGH” Since I’ve already been using our old family recipe to make them amazing squishy playdough. I took the recipe to a whole new level by adding their preferred scents to the playdough. Yes my kids have outgrown the playdough stage now since they are now 11, 15 and 20. By putting it into little jars, just enough for them to squish, squeeze and kneed their anger out worked! Bonus was the added scent would remain on their hands a little longer. And was 💯 safe. Then I discovered they liked the motion of snow globes so I took those into account and again made them each their own, with things they loved, so they can shake their emotions away while using breathing techniques they have learned in therapy, as they watch the objects settle to the bottom of the bottles. No these are not scented, but it would be great if I could discover how to do so 😉 #newexpierment. My eldest adopted daughter loves heating pads to calm her meltdowns and anxiety attacks so, that’s right, I went to work on how to make her some with the scents she loves. She loves Dave’s Tea so I got to work making bean bags that are mixed with her favourite Dave’s Tea and to my surprise it worked! So that is exactly what I’m doing, handcrafting my own designs and selling them to share my little discoveries.
I’m starting with literally zero. 0 inventory, 0 experience, 0 cash, 0 customer’s, 0 business background (besides my home daycare, 0 office/work space, 0 self confidence!!! So I hope you will also follow my channel that should be up and runing by the end of January!
It will start off with me actually cleaning out my front room, building a wall to keep our cats and pug out of my office / work space and fill it with items I already have on hand. Remember I’m starting with 0 so I can’t go buy fancy office furniture and beautiful decor!!! I’m just a mom like you trying to survive this crazy life and hope to inspire you to reach your goals.
For the house I’m going to possibly add a clip here and there on my channel but I’ll be posting that stuff all on here. I’m kinda following the take on a bowl full of lemons approach challenge but at my own pace. This week I’ll be tackling my laundry room! Yes there will be before and after pictures included as well as details on how I’m organising the space. I’m also, like I said, cleaning out my front room for the business vlog starting with 0, so it’s going to definitely get crazy with all that going on!
So please stay tuned it’s going to be a good read and when my channel is up and running, a must see. I’ll add the link to this blog so you won’t miss a thing. Enjoy your rest this week since all our kiddos are back in school #fingerscrossed on Monday morning!
Bye guys!!
