Your Healthy Kids

I fully admit to being a winter hermit. While it was common for me to shy away from the cold during my working days, being at home with kids has only intensified my dislike for the three S’s: snow, slush and sleet. In fact, if I hear the words “minus” and “degrees” in the same sentence, chances are I’m shacking up for the day. . .

She didn’t want to go today.
I picked up my oldest after school and she had tears in her eyes. For about five minutes she denied anything was wrong and then, as soon as we were alone…..the floodgates opened. She was missing the dance AGAIN because of gymnastics. . . .

You make the announcement on a sunny Saturday morning, “let’s go for a family hike!” The support pours in immediately, ‘do we have to’, ‘it’s cold out there’, ‘how long will we be gone?’ Kids! How to get them outside!

It wasn’t just the kids getting active that struck me; it was the kids along with the teachers and moms....the smiles, the chuckles, the fun! This has led me to create a Mom&Kid class - a class that moms can do with their kids. This is definitely a class you won’t find in any gym. Moms that are active have kids that are active, won’t you agree?

When each of my 3 girls were 8 months old, my husband and I completed a ½ marathon WITH our newest addition in the jogger. They each have their own finish line photos and medals proudly displayed in our hallway. Medal bearing babies!! Now that they are 5,7 and 9 and way too heavy to push in jogging strollers, it is time for them to learn to run!

When my daughter was born, I was flooded with emotion. I looked into her eyes and felt a deep sense of responsibility. In the days following her birth I was overwhelmed by thoughts of all the things in this world that could hurt her and I wanted to protect her from them. The frightening fact is that we are living in a time where our children have a shorter life expectancy than us . The culprit: sedentary lifestyle choices leading to poor health outcomes, such as obesity. Did you know that in Canada 21% of toddlers are obese?

A year ago I made a personal choice to cut preservatives out of my diet. After a few weeks I realized that making a dinner from scratch was going to have a few challenges. Everyday I'd find myself singing and dancing around the kitchen with my clingy 1 year old on my hip and a 3 year old twin firmly attached to each ankle. While I enjoyed the giggles, and dragging them around the kitchen was a great work out, it simply wasn't conducive to getting dinner on the table. So I started a new regime in our house.