Let's move!

Like most people, exercise isn't something I enjoy a whole lot. Sure, I love the way it makes me feel & when I'm consistent, I love the way it makes my fat ass shrink. But starting a routine is much easier than sticking with one. And my love of food makes it impossible to maintain a good weight without a little extra movement to compensate for the calories.

I've always considered this my lone struggle until my daughter's most recent well-child check. My kiddo is healthy, but as the doctor gently put it, she "needs to grow into her weight". Basically, she needs to gain height, but stay put weight-wise for awhile. As a mom, I don't notice that sort of thing & if I did, I certainly don't want to make it a big issue for her. I'm so terrified of giving her a complex, I just do what I'm supposed to, which is limit her time spent on sedentary activities and give her healthy food. But that's just not enough sometimes & I realize that.

While spending quality time with my family on pinterest, I happened upon a "heart healthy" activity board that I thought would be the perfect way to encourage a little extra physical excursion on the part of my child. (It will help push the hubs & me as well b/c everything's more fun when the whole fam joins in.) So I did my own ghetto-fied version of the heart healthy game board using a piece of poster board & a sharpie. I got Trin involved & let her write some of the activities in the squares & illustrate some, too. Instead of the fancy schmancy heart-shaped bean bag, we are using a little penguin beanie baby. Because that's just how us po' folk do things.

To me, the main purpose is to encourage my kiddo to exercise without making her feel bad about her body. Girls have enough inherent body image issues that they don't need over-bearing moms making them self-conscious. Besides, that seems a little hypocritical since I'm overweight myself. Instead, I didn't even present it to her as if it were a big deal. I just told her that I saw the idea for a game board we could make together. I didn't mention that it was purely exercise-oriented. I made it a non-issue and what do ya know?! She loves it! We have things like jumping jacks, lunges, dancing, jumping on the trampoline, stretching, and jogging on the board. We toss the bean bag, then draw a numbered card that indicates how many/how long we're going to do that specific activity.

My personal favorite square on the board is dancing. We do 1 song each time we land on it. We have the choice of dancing along to a youtube video or using Just Dance 3 on our wii. At first we used the wii, but then we started using the video Beyonce made for Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign. The dance moves are fairly basic, but we're ridiculously uncoordinated! :)

I'll be honest, I'm not real great at the domestics. I don't keep a super clean house, I'm not as patient with my child as I should be, I don't know how to decorate very well, I hate to cook, and I fall short as a wife & mother more often than I succeed. However, I can say that I try really hard to do right by my family. I try to be a good role model and impart whatever nuggets of wisdom I possess upon my mini-me so that she grows into an independent, confident, and happy woman. I encourage her to embrace her intelligence rather than hide it b/c society seems to think boys prefer dumb girls. I remind her all the time that it's good to be different b/c if we were all the same, life would be very boring. I give her unconditional love. She is the one shot I have at assisting God in a miracle and I take that very seriously, even if it's in my own unconventional way.