Amanda Stanton

Amanda Stanton Special Needs Parenting (Autism, CP & Moebius Syndrome), Kid Travel Tips & Mom Self Care

06/04/2026

The rest of Zoe’s shopping haul 🛍️

This girl loves to shop, and she really loves the things she loves like books, clocks and vacuums. We bought the clock because it was pretty (and apparently very similar to Peppa Pig’s clock-she and I have different reasons 😂), not expecting it to work.

So we were very pleasantly surprised to realize while we were hanging it on the wall at home, that it does in fact work! It goes off every hour on the hour, and Zoe and I love it! Other members of our family don’t appreciate it the same way that we do, but we enjoy it. 🥰

I’ll post more about the clock soon.

06/03/2026

Zoe’s shopping haul 🛍️

She had so much fun going in the store with just her dad and picking things she liked. This isn’t super new for new, but it being a clothing/accessories store is. She loves going into stores that have books, vacuum cleaners, lights, signs, a wide open hard floor she can dust mop. This was different, and she’s rarely willing to even discuss clothes, let alone make choices about them or choose clothes to buy.

Anyway, they had fun, and her dad enjoyed getting to see her morph into a regular teenager for an hour. ❤️

*I’ll post the rest of her purchases from the day in a separate video because this one was getting long.

06/02/2026

Both of our daughters love to shop, typically for mostly different things though. Abby loves clothes shoes, and books; Zoe loves to shop for cleaning supplies, particularly vacuums, electronics and books. Our goal on these vacation shopping trips is to hit stores that interest them both.

We started with the vacuum store for Zoe (they usually close earlier), then a couple of thrift stores (Abby’s choice, but Zoe also enjoys them), then the Tanger Outlet, where there are stores they both enjoy, then we finished up with Ross, then a bookstore and then Trader Joe’s to grab a couple of things Abby wanted. Zoe’s feet were tired by then so she and her dad stayed in the car for the last store.

We had a nice day, and everyone was happy with it (except maybe Grady because he had to shop the whole day-not his favorite, but I did get him a pretzel.🥨).

I’ll post Zoe’s shopping haul next. 🛍️

05/31/2026

This is the first time I’ve done this, and it might be a new normal, or it might not. Honestly I initiated this because she was acting really grouchy, and I thought that she might be hungry. But she was insistent that she needed to clean the pool, and taking a break to eat wasn’t going to happen. I do think having a small snack helped.

05/30/2026

She bought a carpet sweeper. It wasn’t her first choice, but she recognized that the vacuums were all out of her budget, and she really, really wanted to bring something home.

The carpet sweeper was in the budget, and I even paid half of it for her because I wanted one too. I had a rechargeable one when the girls were really little that I used in place of the vacuum while they napped so as not to disturb them, but a dog chewed the cord and we never replaced it. By that time, we were vacuum-rich because Zoe has loved them and collected them for a long time now. And this one doesn’t even have to charge. 🥳

05/29/2026

“I guess it had to be emptied anyway.” 😂

In my next video I will show what she came home with, along with a little review by Zoe, telling what she likes about it. 🥰

05/29/2026

Finding a way to motivate Zoe is almost more important than actually teaching her because if she’s not into it, then she’s not going to engage, and she’s not going to learn. Outschool has been a consistent motivation for Zoe, and we are thankful for it.

If you want to try Outschool, you can get up to $35 off your family’s first month for a limited time when you use the link in my bio and use my code STANTON35. Outschool has been a great way to outsource a few things for me, and Zoe has really enjoyed getting to experience some different teachers.

These guys missed us while we were gone. They’ve stayed pretty close-by since we’ve been home, and they are competing fo...
05/28/2026

These guys missed us while we were gone. They’ve stayed pretty close-by since we’ve been home, and they are competing for our attention. ❤️

05/26/2026

Zoe is 16 years old, and she’s only been walking independently since just before she turned 7. She has worked really hard to be able to go for a walk like this, but she’s always loved beach walks.

When she was really little, we started out carrying her. Eventually that got harder (even though she was always really small), and we switched to a jogging stroller, then a board with a rope attached. Then the wagon. We tried the My Freeloader (like a backpack carrier), but she was really a bit big for it by the time we tried it, and she didn’t find it comfortable. The last couple of years she’s walked on the beach some, but we haven’t gotten to do as much because it’s hard for her, and we’d end up needing to carry her back from the walk.

But not today. She walked into she was ready to turn around, and then she walked back to where we left our stuff in front of our building. ❤️

05/22/2026

Zoe is developmentally behind her peers, but emotionally, she’s right there with them. On top of that, she’s often frustrated with feeling like her body is not cooperating with what she wants to do, particularly keeping balance when she’s standing. She’s noticed that not everyone has the same issues with their legs and feet that she has, and she is ANNOYED that she has to deal with it.
We try to keep all of that in mind when deciding how we’re going to respond to her outbursts like this. I’m sure we don’t always make the right choice, but we try to be fair to her and to allow her to have her feelings. I don’t ever want her to feel like she isn’t allowed to feel her feelings or like they don’t matter. But at the same time it’s our job to teach her how to treat people, and that her frustration is often not our fault and shouldn’t be directed at us.

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