Fitness Technology

As technology advances we have seen many changes in different industries. Fitness has also seen a change and many improvements with the advancement of technology. We can check our heart rate, map out our runs, keep track of our fitness endeavors, find workouts with the click of a mouse and even our video game systems have found a way to help us with our fitness endeavors. These games referred to as AVG (active video games) are helping kids who normally may not be considered active become more active rather than just playing sedentary games. They help children who may not be as coordinated as their peers find the confidence to try in a safe environment, at home. I hadn't thought about that before. That children may indeed be afraid to play on the playground with their peers because they have not had the experience practicing being active. While I do not advocate these systems as a sole means of exercise and play for children I can see the benefits that they may have. 

First off, the fact is...Kids these day are going to have some amount of screen time. Why not use that screen time for something beneficial, like being active? Secondly, since children and teens are familiar and comfortable with technology why not use that familiarity to get them used to something that may not be as familiar or comfortable? If you want to get a person to develop healthy habits there needs to be some intrinsic motivation. If the child likes the active video games, he or she is much more likely to adapt a positive connection to exercise and will be more willing to venture out to other methods in the future.  Last but not least, they are interesting. Children love all the bells and whistles that technology brings. It's a great way to get the children engaged and interested in being more active.  

Remember that one of the most important thing in getting a child to create an active lifestyle is that they have a positive experience when it comes to physical activity. Fitness technology is just one way of trying to achieve that outcome.

Goal setting for 2016

With only two more days left of 2015 I can't help but look forward to the upcoming year with enthusiasm and more gusto. I have always been one to set goals and so this time of year is such a fun time for me. Being able to see everyone starting to make their resolutions and getting all fired up! The last couple of years though I feel like I have gotten more lax in my goal setting. This year...I want it to be different. I want to be very thoughtful of what goals I am setting and in getting specific with my goals. Which reminds me of a great system I learned about for setting goals. It's called being a S.M.A.R.T. goal setter.....

Specific: So let's say I have a goal of being a "better homeschooling mom" or "exercising more". At the end of the year how will I know that I achieved my goal? That's why it's necessary to be specific. Also if I set a goal that I'm not passionate about then I will be less likely to be committed to that goal. Hence it being so important that I find my why when setting my goal. We will use my "exercise more" goal as an example. In order to be specific in my goal I could say I want to exercise 4x a week for 30 minutes. That's a great start. I could even be more specific my noting the days of the week I want to exercise and if I want even the time of day (but don't get too hung up on details that you set yourself up for failure). 

Meaningful: As far as the why this goal is important to me? Well I want to be healthy and be able to be an active individual and an involved mom but this year it goes even more detailed than that. I love aerial silks and pole fitness and I want to be able to progress in my love of silks and pole fitness so exercising more is meaningful to me because it means I am progressing in a passion of mine. 

Action Oriented:  If my goal is to exercise 4x a week for 30 minutes and I want to be improving in aerial silks and pole fitness while doing so then I need to take some steps to ensure that the type of exercise I will be doing will help me improve in those areas. So I can set a day to do pole fitness and get specific on what types of moves I want to learn or how I want to improve, I can set a day to work on my flexibility so that I can bend and do some of the pole or silks moves, I can set a day to work on strength training and targeting certain muscles I know I need to work on for certain pole or silks moves I am learning, and lastly I can set a day to do aerial silks, working on the specifics of how I want to improve there. 

Realistic: How do you know your goal is realistic? For starters look at your track record and your time allotted each day to see if you have the time and resources to accomplish your goal. If it turns out that you decide maybe your goal is asking too much of you right off the bat, back up a bit. Maybe you start by exercising 2x a week for 15 minutes a day for a month. Then once you have accomplished that you can lengthen the time or exercise more frequently. The trick here is to have little successes  along the way. While goals are intended to push you and help you improve, they are not meant to test you. Give yourself some breathing room and celebrate the small successes!

Timely(Time-Bound): Some goals have a definitive end such as "Become certified as a group fitness instructor" others are more of a lifetime development.  At the end of 2016 if I exercised 4x a week for 30 minutes a day then my goal would be met but that's a long time waiting. That's why I recommend with lifetime goals  that you do it in baby steps. With this particular goal you could start slow by only working out 1x a week or you could start by focusing on "drinking more water" for the first month and then  adding a workout day.  The point is to just keep moving!

I hope this helps you have a more organized way of setting and achieving goals. Happy New Year!

Here's to a wonderful and meaningful 2016!

Dear New Mom

I recently had a baby, my fifth baby, and I have been enjoying every minute of it! I remembered though it wasn't always like that and it's that memory that inspired me to write this post.

Our newest addition. Baby #5!

Dear New Mom,

First off I want to say that you are going to do great. The more you worry about how you are doing, especially if you are comparing yourself to others, the less you will be able to hear your own voice and listen to your own intuition about your child. You will also miss out on some of the joy that your little bundle will bring. My aunt gave me some great advice before I got married, that I think is applicable here. She said "Don't judge the quality of your relationship by anyone else or anyone else's relationship. You guys will have your own balance which you will find the longer you're together. Enjoy the differences in each other. It will make your relationship very unique." You will parent and nurture differently than anyone else you know, even different from your own mother and your style of parenting will be exactly what your child needs to grow and learn. Trust your own intuition and trust the times you need to stand your ground as well as the times you need to make changes and allow shifts to happen.

The next thing I want to say is...let him/her be little. There are so many exciting things to look forward to. The first cry, the first time you hold him/her in your arms, the first coo, the first smile etc. There are also things we look forward to for our own conveniences such as "I can't wait until he can hold his head up, hold his own bottle, sit up on his own, crawl, feed himself, walk" etc. Oh but the moments between are so precious. If you skipped to all of the milestones with nothing in between it would be like having christmas one day, then waiting another and having christmas again. There is no build up, no waiting, no longing, no excitement, no planning. It would be a tragedy if our children grew up in the blink of an eye.

Enjoy those sleepy moments, cuddle with the baby, sleep with the baby, savor the moments that you have the privilege of stopping everything you are doing and feed that baby. Before you know it that baby will be more independent than you would like and you will look back on those sweet baby pictures and think "why did I wish those moments away?"

My sweet bay is already smiling and laughing and

 it sees like he was born just yesterday



I can attest to this in a very deep and painful way. My first born was born with spina bifida. A congenital birth defect where the spinal cord is exposed in the womb and needs to be closed at birth. This affects his nerves and therefore affects his sensations and movements. Because of where his lesion is (the opening of the spine) the doctors weren't quite sure exactly what his lifestyle would be. While they can never tell you exactly how spina bifida will affect a child's lifestyle it was my understanding that where his lesion is, it has even a wider range of symptoms than other places a lesion could be. I was told he could be fine with no symptoms or he could be wheelchair bound, although they were pretty sure it would affect his walking, bowel and bladder at least.

I watched for every milestone like a hawk. I gave him plenty of tummy time so he could learn to roll over. We did therapy at 8 months to help him learn to sit up better. We did therapy at 15 months to get him to stand without holding onto something. When he was two I would take him out on dollar night to a local pool that had shallow water and let him practice walking in the water. At this point he couldn't walk without a walker and the water buoyed him up so he could walk.

Him at around 2 years old, using his walker.

One day a friend of mine met me at the pool with her little boy that was my son's age. We traded boys for a moment and I scooped her son up in my arms and took him straight to the deep end where I spun him in circles while dipping his feet in and out of the water. We both laughed and giggled. For a moment I had the thought "This is fun. I wish my son wasn't disabled."

Then it hit me. I had brought my son to this pool maybe 4x that season and not once had I taken him to the deep end and spun him around in a circle while lifting him up and down and dipping his feet in the water. I immediately went and grabbed my son and spun him around in the deep end. I learned an important lesson that day about not being so busy looking ahead that you miss the joy in the present. I learned that my son needed me to enjoy him right now, just the way he is. I learned that I needed that moment just as much as my son, if not more. I realized that by enjoying my son the burdens of his disability felt lighter.

So I encourage you, to do your best, to love every moment and to do all that you can to make hard things fun. I encourage you to definitely work in the shallow end. That's our job as a mom but don't neglect the fun adventures in the deep end.

My two year old I went swimming with is now 8
and as handsome as ever. Time flies!

Keep them writing.

I remember as a young child my mother would say "Okay kids, it's time to get our your journals!" I was homeschooled for most of my elementary years and as part of our schooling she felt it was important that we journal. I remember moaning and groaning that she was making us write again! After all what interesting things could I say day after day? Well I kept those journals and while not every entry is interesting I am amazed at how many of them are! It turns out that the most interesting things I have written were the things that at the time I found the most boring.

Some days my journal started out like this...."Mom is making me journal. I don't know what to write about....Oh, hold on, I'll be right back...Okay I am back. Jamie pushed the nipple inside her bottle again and I had to go and push it back out cause she was crying. She does this all the time. She will push the nipple in and then cry that she can't drink her milk. So you have to go and push the nipple back out and then she will push it back in again and cry." Another day "My sister gets upset when any of us fight. If she thinks we are fighting she will sit on one of us and pin us down and then run her hands down one of our faces and say in a calming tone 'complicate, complicate'. She thinks it means to calm down"

The every day, in and out mundane things are the funnest to look back on. The funny quirks about a family member. The milestones of a younger sibling. The quarrels that always went on in the house. The funny stories my dad would tell in what we called his "preacher voice". The sayings my mom would say or the songs she would wake us up with. All of those things seemed like things I would never forget. For example, when I was 13 one of my friends slept over at my house and we stayed up until like midnight or 2 a.m. My mom being her cheerful self woke up the whole house yelling "It's 9 o'clock and all is well!!" My friend sat up with her hair in a mess and her eyes tired and puffy and said in a tired confused voice "Why is your Mom singing about whales?" Just one of many funny moments caputured in a joural that otherwise may have been lost to memory. 

I am so grateful to a mother who taught me the power of the written word and encouraged me to journal even if I fought her on it. I now have journals I can read to my kids. It has also encouraged me to start a journal for each of my kids. That has been a very fun and rewarding endeavor. Although my children are young I encourage them to journal as well. Sometimes I help them by writing things down for them, other times I have them draw a picture. They each have their own journal to write in themselves and sometimes I let them add to their journals that I write in for them. If it's not obvious; in time, I learned to lvoe to write. I eventually started writing poetry and even journaled for fun! 

So moms...Keep them writing! Give your children a safe place to express themselves. Give them the freedom to write about what they want and listen when they want to read what they wrote. It might be  the only insight you get inside their little heads. Who knows, maybe one day they won't be able to get enough of writing and they will have you to thank for it! 

Thanks Mom! 

It's all about me, yet it's not about me.

It seems as if things in life come in waves. Whenever trials come they never seem to come one at a time. They come rushing in like waves. Recently my husband and I have had some struggles come our way and it seems they just keep coming. Not all things are struggles, some are blessings; such as having a baby, but still needs some adjusting and kinking. I guess that's a better way to explain most of our current struggles. We as a couple are changing and shifting and figuring out the kinks. Not long after this shifting started occurring he also lost his job. So he has been home more. Which has given us added time to evaluate our life, our current circumstances and work on our relationship as well as his business that he is starting. All of this extra time and TLC that has been needed to put into our relatonship as a couple, and in myself as a person, has left me feeling guilty on the time missed with the kids.

In some ways we are more attentive and more patient with our children since our individual needs are finally being met; but in other ways the kids have seemed to fend for themselves, as Carl and I have been discussing, repairing or building things. I have asked myself if I am being selfish or if this is a "put your own oxygen mask on first" kind of situation. I sincerely feel that the shifts that Carl and I have been going through both mentally and relationally have been for the best benefit and welfare for not only Carl and I but for our children as well. I was reminded of that today when Carl and I were working on building his website for his business and Morgan came up to us asking if she could do crafts. I so did not want to have a mess but I knew that the kids could really use the feeling of satisfaction that you get from creating something.

So together Carl and I decided that it would be okay for them to open up one of their Christmas gifts, which is a box full of random craft items.

Seeing how happy they were to be creating and to have that freedom without me hovering over them made me realize maybe I shouldn't feel so guilty that some things are sliding right now.  As you know I homeschool and with all that is going on it has taken somewhat of a back seat. I was reminded today that it's okay to need some "me" time and that homeschoolingis not about me, my skills, or my lack of skills. It's totally about the children. Learning is built into life, I don't know why I can experience that myself  yet fail to see that for my kids.

I'm grateful for being reminded that learning is a natural process and that in this moment of healing where I feel like "It's all about me" (or I need to focus on me) I am also ironically learning that when it comes to homeschooling "it's not about me at all". It's not about me looking good, being an amazing mom, or me trumping anyone else. It's also not about my shortcomings, lack of organization or my shortsightedness. The kids are fine. They are looked out for and I am guided in where I need to change and adjust. It's all good. :)

Boys and their scrapes

Yesterday I was helping Carl James with some of his medical needs. As I was helping him I happened to look down at his leg and I saw this fresh oozing wound. My stomach turned. It's on his leg that he doesn't feel very well (his left) and doesn't have much circulation in. Because of the lack of sensation and circulation, his body has a very difficult time healing wounds on that leg and especially foot. We have had a problem with sores on his left foot not healing and causing us to eventually have to amputate his left pinky toe (after 4 years of bandaging and babying it) so seeing a fresh sore on his leg isn't a "no big deal" type of thing. The wheels in my head started to turn "Is it from his braces? Maybe it's from his shoes that he wears without braces. What are we going to do? How can I protect it? Will bandages make it better or will it make it rub worse? Why is it wet and oozing? How bad is this gonna get? Should I call wound care? I hate that this happens to him so easily. Why does he have to have this trial? He can't go without shoes.

That will cause the underside of his toe to rip open again and we will be that much closer to amputating another toe. But he can't wear shoes rubbing that thing! Ahh!"

In the pictures it doesn't quite show the redness or the wet oozing but you get an idea

All of this went through my head in a matter of seconds. My heart started racing. The guilt was setting in of not checking his skin more regularly like the doctors had told me to do. Then my thoughts were interrupted with him saying "It's probably from me sliding down the stairs on my knees without shoes." My mind was brought back to all of the times I had heard the "thud, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, thud" down the stairs the past few days. All of my thoughts and my mood immediately changed. I thought "Oh so this sore is from my son who is disabled being an active and healthy boy?!" Suddenly I felt excitement, joy and I admit a little bit of pride. We still had the matter to deal with of how to tackle this new sore but I was so happy to hear that it wasn't from bracing or shoe issues. It wasn't from something that festered over weeks without me noticing. It was from my son being a boy!

While I am concerned about the overall outcome of this new sore, I am grateful that my son can move around and explore and still enjoy some boy like activities! One thing he has taught me though is that pain is a good thing! Had he had normal sensation he would have stopped sliding down the stairs before it got to this point. Since then I have banaged the toe and used both medihoney and complete tissue and bone on it and the redness has gone down, and shrunk in diameter. My friend who is a nurse gave me the genius idea of drawing around the edges of the red to see if it goes outside the lines in the morning. Luckily it shrunk!

This is a picture after I put the medihoney on it.

I guess time will tell how the wound turns out but so far I am pretty pleased with the progress. 

On being open

There are times in life when we will be challenged, times when our hearts will be broken and we fear that we are past the point of mending. There may come a time when a loved one is struck ill, you experience health issues yourself, you are hit with a loss, or someone you love is choosing a life below their potential and risking their own happiness, or perhaps you are doing this. There may also be times when you feel that your goodness has been taken advantage of, you have been deeply hurt and you want to close up for fear of being hurt again. Each of these times are moments of grief but also moments for potential growth. It is during these times that we find and define our values. That we find the strength from within and the resolve to move forward. It is during these times that we must remain the most open and fight the urge to close up and shrink. Let me illustrate my thoughts through a story I came across. There is an ancient Indian tale that goes like this....

Ancient Indian Tale-
An old Hindu master was fed up with the continual complaints and grumbles of his apprentice. So one day he asked the young man to fetch him a cup of water and a bowl of salt. When the young man returned, the master said “Now put a handful of salt in the water.:” The apprentice did so. The master then swirled the water around in the cup until all the salt had dissolved. “Now taste it” he said to the apprentice. The apprentice took a sip and screwed up his face in disgust.
"How does it taste?" the master asked.
"Horrible," said the apprentice.
The master chuckled “Yes, very unpleasant” he said. Now follow me. They walked down to the edge of a nearby lake and the master said “Now dip a handful of salt into the lake.” The apprentice did so. The master said “Now taste the water from the lake.” The apprentice drank from the lake and this time he smiled. “Not so hard to swallow, eh?” said the master. “This salt is like the inevitable pain of life, in both cases the amount of salt is the same but the smaller the container, the greater the bitterness. So when life gives us pain instead of closing in around it like this cup, we would do better to enlarge and open, like the lake.”

There will be times in life that you find yourself hurt and vulnerable. Natural human tendency will be to close up out of fear and self preservation. There are times that this is both healthy and necessary but there are also times that we need to find within ourselves the space to forgive and the space to be open to a person who is trying to change. I hope in those moments where your faith in humanity is tested that you will find it within yourself to open up and trust just a bit longer. To learn the important lessons of humility, patience, perseverance, acceptance, compassion, but also balance. To learn to stand up for yourself respectfully, to learn that your needs matter, that you matter, and that's its okay to expect others to treat you not only respectfully but compassionately. Especially as you do so to them. 

There may be times that someone you love is unwilling to change and staying with them will only bring more hurt. If you are prayerful you will know when this time is and instead of having the strength to stay you will have the strength to leave and within that strength you will find righteous indignation. While righteous indignation will have a sense of anger and injustice it is so much more than that. That anger and injustice will be less directed at the person and more directed at their choices instead. On http://www.gotquestions.org/ it says "We can know for sure that our anger or indignation is righteous when it is directed toward what angers God Himself. Righteous anger and indignation are justly expressed when we are confronted with sin. Good examples would be anger toward child abuse, pornography, racism, homosexual activity, abortion, and the like." But there are even more subtle sins than the ones mentioned above. Such as sins of ommission, that can hurt deeply as well. 

Not all pain will be infilicted by others choices but those ones are the ones that tend to make us close up. I picture people in these moments as a rose bud closed up trying to shield itself from the climate. At times this shielding is necessary for self preservation but when the sun comes out (and for us as humans sometimes before) it is time to open up, bloom and give beauty and color to the world around you. You do have something beautiful and amazing inside and those around you will miss out on that beauty and splendor if you continue to stay closed up. Especially if you have children. Dare to believe again, be like the lake that opens up despite the bitterness and you will find in time you have much to offer.