Danielle Rivenbark

What happens when frantic maximizing meets a slow walking child? You compromise and walk slow with the child

Yesterday, I went walking at lunch with my two littlest kiddos (four and eleven months). I felt the pull to move faster because I only had an hour to eat, exercise, and spend time with my kids until the next meeting started. I was on the clock (like I always am). I was hoping to multi-task (like I always do) and knock out some exercise while pushing the baby and talking with my four year old. The thing is, my four year old was not walking at an acceptable pace or pushing the stroller with enough force to get it over the tree roots and sand. But before I had a chance to just take over and tell him to keep up with me, I stopped.

The messages we tell ourselves

I’ve been noticing recently that the things I tell myself will drastically affect my mood. This doesn’t seem like a huge epiphany, but when you’re consuming things that make you feel “less than” or are made for you to feel outrage, this all contributes greatly to the narrative I tell myself. Noticing what I’m consuming makes a huge difference in how I feel about myself as a mom.

The mask mandates might be coming to an end, but I don't think we're going back to school

We pulled our kids from public school in the fall of 2021 as a result of the masking requirements for kids and started our homeschool journey. There is a possibility that our local school district will be making the masks optional, but I don’t think I’ll send them back. In fact, I don’t think I’ll even let the next kiddo in line go to public school at all.

Little kids, little problems... big kids, big problems

When the pandemic first started, I had four kids under six at home with me. I had decided to pull them out of daycare temporarily, thinking that I could save money for a few months, especially since I was worried about a possible furlough. A few months of having them home turned into eight months…

We quietly started our homeschool journey

If you had told me seven years ago that I would be the one educating my kids from my dining room table, I would not have believed it. My husband and I both are the products of public school education. Parenting is hard enough and now it’s my responsibility to make sure they can grow up to be productive citizens?!?! I’m just coming out of the haze of having four kids in five years! No way I can do this! And yet here we are. Last week we quietly started our homeschool journey.

Back to School Ideas for Your Special Needs Kiddos!

Today is the first day of school and while my oldest, Gardner, is now a First Grader cue tears he is still just six years old and I wanted to make his transition as seamless as possible for him. As many of you know he has autism, but after many meetings, testing sessions, and conversations with the school he doesn’t qualify for an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). He does have a 504 in place, which is basically a step below an IEP, but we all know how crazy the first few days of school can be, so to make sure that he had what he needed we did a few things to make his life (and his teacher’s life) a little easier.

Hey, Look Y'all We Made It (through virtual school) Parody

Any other virtual school moms out there ready for summer? I know I am! After a half virtual, half in-person school year I'm ready for my lounge chair and a summer without virtual school, masks, and pandemic. I'm leaving it all behind and celebrating with this parody of "Hey, Look Ma I Made It". Enjoy!

101 Things to Do This Summer (with Kids)

I don’t know if it’s coming out of the pandemic, or doing virtual school at my dining room table for half the year, or just wanting to commemorate the summer with my first kiddo finishing kindergarten, but I felt like we needed a reward for all our hard work and being cooped up at home for the last year. As a result, the kids and I made a “Summer Fun List”.

I phoned in my "mom responsibilities" last week... then I called in reinforcements

Last week was “Career Day” at Gardner’s school. This meant that on Friday, Gardner needed to go to school dressed up as what he wanted to be when he grew up. I knew about this on Monday, so we had all week to get his costume together. Simple enough right?… Sure!… If you remember that it’s Career Day on Friday, but if you completely forget about the teacher’s note as soon as you read it until Friday morning when Gardner says he needs to dress up as a recycling man… then not so much.