The Not So Awesome April and An Apology

This post may contain affiliate links. Proceeds from affiliate links go towards the cost of hosting the blog and helps to support our homeschool books, supplies, and classes. Thank you in advance for your support! If you would like to read more about our affiliations please see our Disclosures page.

Keeping it real people. I’m keeping it real.

For April, I earn a big #FAIL; but it’s okay.

It’s not about how many days you’re winning, it’s about winning the right ones.

Momma always said to pick your battles carefully. Lately I feel thrown into battles I did not start nor did I ask to join. I keep holding all these lost battles against myself despite being set up for failure from the start.

Almost every plan, thought, or idea I had for April fell apart. My attitude reached lows I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Even now, as I type, I want to crawl back in bed. I felt defeated before I woke up.

Psalm 55:22  Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.

I’ve been trying to lay everything at the Lord’s feet and trusting that it will be okay. It has been, of course. Every day it all comes out okay, sometimes better than okay. I cry in bed over all the time I wasted that day worrying and waiting.

For The Awesome April Challenge…  I did cook a little more often thanks to a couple new Pampered Chef pieces. I did NOT exercise intentionally at all the entire month, not even when I was writing my “Exercising with Kids” series (which is also completely unfinished and will be unfinished for a long long time….  #bloggerfail). I did not memorize four verses. I barely remember the first one. What I do remember is where my favorite verse is in the Bible. Psalm 27:1. I’ll just be happy I know where to find the words when I need them.

For the Homeschool Hopscotch, those ten posts are still undone. I know I promised I’d write them, and maybe one day I can. But the anxiety of knowing they were looming over me brought me to tears. I had to just be okay with not finishing. Life happened. This real life is more important than any blog post.

I was given an opportunity to review Little Pilgrim’s Progress (psst…  LOVED it!) for The Homeschool Post. I was only two weeks late getting that posted. Ya’ll know I contribute to the Bright Ideas Press blog too? Yea, that was late also. I was also blessed with the chance to review Master Book’s new Big Book of Earth and Sky.  We have done some fun work using the book, but I’m late on getting my review up for you guys.

It’s coming, I promise…. because this is the coolest thing since their Big Book of History. I’m not swamped with work, I’m swamped with feelings of guilt and anxiety.

My kids are behind.

There is little peace in our house.

I never get a chance to catch my breath.

I’m mom, how dare I whine about needing time, I should accept what blessings I have and work without complaint.

The fatigue from my Sjogren’s is flaring.

Why are you using your Sjogren’s as an excuse.

The voices in my head are deafening sometimes.

On a happier note (because that’s how I like to leave things!), I am down to 210.6 pounds – a total of 20 lbs gone. I also bought myself a pretty cutesy vintage hair cute last weekend and then promptly let my husband dye it Lucious Raspberry. Yea, I’m not at my #PINKFTW goal yet, but sometimes a girl just needs a pick me up.

So dear readers and friends, I’m sorry I left you hanging. I’m sorry to break my promise to finish that series before blogging about anything else. Sometimes the only way to get up again is to put down the load you are trying to carry, and just move on.

 

 

Love and Blessings, The Tadey
This post may contain affiliate links. Proceeds from affiliate links go towards the cost of hosting the blog and helps to support our homeschool books, supplies, and classes. Thank you in advance for your support! If you would like to read more about our affiliations please see our Disclosures page.

Day 3: 5 Ways to Exercise with Your Toddler

This post may contain affiliate links. Proceeds from affiliate links go towards the cost of hosting the blog and helps to support our homeschool books, supplies, and classes. Thank you in advance for your support! If you would like to read more about our affiliations please see our Disclosures page.

Exercising-With-Kids-Homeschool-Hopscotch-2013

My daughter asked me if her brother, almost 3 years old, was a toddler. I told her yes, and then promptly Googled her question just for reassurance.

General definitions put toddlerhood somewhere between one and three years old. My definition is somewhere between “uh oh they can walk” and “you went potty in the big potty!!”.

By either definition, you a newly mobile busy body and parenting that all day should qualify as a high aerobic workout. According to my backside, the very one that has chased four of these toddler-people over the past decade, this is not enough of a workout and one must supplement with additional activity.

So, here are my Top Five Ways to Exercise with Your Toddler

  1. Get Jiggy With It!  Good toddler tunes will wear your body out long before you lose your sanity. Dan Zanes, Veggie Tales Ultimate Silly Songs, and Laurie Berkner are some of our favorites. In a pinch, the Wiggles can make you sweat too. Until they sing about fruit salad and cold spaghetti and suddenly it’s snack time again.
  2. Flag Tag:  Stick a bandana in each pocket, for each player, and chase each other trying to capture the other player’s bandanas.
  3. Nature Walks: I know walking is a given, but sometimes we overlook the obvious. Make binoculars out of toilet paper tubes and go on an adventure! Even city folk can go hunting at a mall. See how many women you can find with purple purses or blue hair. Anything to get moving.
  4. Fitness Ball: bounce them in your lap, or hold them while they try to bounce.
  5. Let them be your spotter: They can sit on your feet while you do sit ups, they can make funny faces while you do push ups, let them be the “water boy” on the side while you do your “Buns of Steel” workout. In the end, they just want to be nearby.

To help get you moving, here is our Exercising Playlist for Spotify:

 

Stay tuned, tomorrow I’m going to review some basic rules for letting kids exercise. It’s all fun and games until some pokes an eye out pulls a muscle? Subscribing is easy and you’ll won’t miss one chaotic moment of the fun.

 

This post is written as part of the Hopscotch with iHomeschool Network. Please click the collage below to hop over and check out the other great 10 day series:

Hopscotch-With-iHN-Spring-Collage

Love and Blessings, The Tadey
This post may contain affiliate links. Proceeds from affiliate links go towards the cost of hosting the blog and helps to support our homeschool books, supplies, and classes. Thank you in advance for your support! If you would like to read more about our affiliations please see our Disclosures page.

Day Two: 5 Ways to Exercise with an Infant

This post may contain affiliate links. Proceeds from affiliate links go towards the cost of hosting the blog and helps to support our homeschool books, supplies, and classes. Thank you in advance for your support! If you would like to read more about our affiliations please see our Disclosures page.

Exercising-With-Kids-Homeschool-Hopscotch-2013

Did you enjoy our 5 No Purchase Necessary Ideas from yesterday? I hope so!

There are many different seasons of motherhood. Each season presents it’s own fitness challenges. During my “baby years”, I was sleep deprived, foggy-headed, and spending most of my day sitting on my tush – nursing. It took some creativity to find ways to keep moving with baby seemingly permanently attached at my hip.

A few tips before we get to my list:

  • Take it slow. Even if you exercised while you were pregnant, slow it down.
  • Don’t do anything before your midwife or doctor say it’s okay.
  • The first goal should be regaining lost muscle tone, not necessarily losing weight.
  • Be smart: babies with super wibbly wobbly heads probably shouldn’t be participating unless they are baby-wrapped.

Here are my Top Five Ways to Exercise with an Infant

  1. Stretching: From a seated position, with legs extended out in front of you, lay the baby in your lap. If it results in too downward of an incline then put your baby’s feet the same direction as your feet. Play peek a boo while working to reach your toes.  Take any stretching move, put your baby’s face at a position where your face will be during the deepest part of your stretch. Play peek a boo, or give their forehead a kiss on each stretch.
  2. Wrapping/Carrying: There are a variety of baby wraps, slings and carriers. My experience lies mostly with Moby style wraps. I loved the way they held my child close to me. It made doing basic exercises like hip twists, leg lifts (holding a chair), and light weight bicep curls easy.
  3. Go For A Stroll: Walking has proven time and time again to be one of the easiest and best exercises. Baby wrap or push a stroller, whichever works for you best, and get walking!
  4. Water Play: Check with your pediatrician before taking your baby to a swimming pool (chemically treated), but water aerobics or water play in general can be a fun, relaxing way to burn a few calories, tone your core and exercise with your baby.
  5. BALLS!  Remember that fitness ball from the labor room? They are pretty inexpensive and can do wonders at building up muscle tone. Grab a ball and hold your baby while doing basic moves.

For added fun, here are a few articles I found online with other great ideas:

 

 

 

Tomorrow I’ll bend your ear about exercising with your toddler! I have a couple of them hanging off of me most days, that counts as weight training right? Subscribing is easy and you’ll won’t miss one chaotic moment of the fun.

 

This post is written as part of the Hopscotch with iHomeschool Network. Please click the collage below to hop over and check out the other great 10 day series:

Hopscotch-With-iHN-Spring-Collage

Love and Blessings, The Tadey
This post may contain affiliate links. Proceeds from affiliate links go towards the cost of hosting the blog and helps to support our homeschool books, supplies, and classes. Thank you in advance for your support! If you would like to read more about our affiliations please see our Disclosures page.