by Liz | All Things Kids, Health & Home, Life Snapshot
In the midst of all the social media and environmental pressures kids are up against, I want mine to understand that it’s more important to be an individual than to fit a mold. Weight is just a number, not a defining characteristic. Confidence is infinitely more attractive than thigh gap (I mean, really!). Self worth is a far more apt measure of your future success than what brands you wear. Drive and determination are pillars of success, not lack of failure. That just means you might not be trying hard enough!
I was a tom-boy, when I was little I was daddy’s little helper, I chopped wood to get in shape for softball season, I climbed trees and built forts with my brothers. I wore a uniform until 8th grade and didn’t care much about fashion or trends. To this day I hate shopping for myself, “tall” and “long” sizes didn’t exist so I constantly waged a battle between baggy clothes or too-short pants and sleeves. If my nose wasn’t stuck in a book I was probably playing sports, tinkering with the computer or inventing a new adventure with my brothers. My parents managed to raise me in such a way that I never felt compelled to follow the crowd. I was OK with being a little different and even relished the fact. I had my ups and many, many downs just like any kid.
I’m petrified at the idea of raising two girls in this media centric world where the values that are held as the norm couldn’t be farther from the truth. I want to wrap them up and let them evolve free of unrealistic expectations (even my own?). But I realize that I can’t protect them from everything. Often times, their lives will be the richer for the things they experience outside the safe little bubble we try to build for them. One day, I might even learn to accept that fact.
Our mission, as I see it, is to give them the tools to achieve their dreams and to empower them to live happy, healthy and enriched lives whatever paths they choose. To do that we must bring to life those hopes we have for them and model those behaviors we feel are most essential. Live the characteristics you want to see in the world and you can’t help but raise self confident kids!
Inspired by family and friends, I finally feel like I’m actively working to embody those goals and I’m going to try my hardest to enable my kids to do the same. So here’s to pursuing your dreams, being an individual, finding your healthy and above all… being fulfilled and happy.
by Liz | All Things Kids
We took a few weeks hiatus from Blue Apron thinking we’d grill a lot more during the summer. We set a pause for x number of weeks and that number snuck up on us!
Let’s just say we are SO glad that it did. Mercifully, the girls went down easily and we spent the next hour catching up on each other’s day while cooking a seriously delicious and HEALTHY meal. How do you beat that?!
by Liz | All Things Kids
It’s so crazy how quickly we forget the very detailed and precise schedule we followed with our first child. We followed “the book” with utter devotion. I’m not sure why, probably a desire to believe someone had the answers. There’s no denying the advice we used worked incredibly well with our own modifications along the way.
I definitely refreshed my memory with baby number two but I don’t think I’ve cracked it open since she was there months old!
That said, I had to pull it out tonight. Maggie has been leaving some milk behind in her daytime bottles. I could not remember for the life of me if we drop the late morning or early afternoon bottle first! We are definitely not as careful about all the “rules” this time around but it’s invaluable to have a reference you like!
by Liz | All Things Kids, Health & Home
When I became a mother, my entire world shifted. No longer was I (or even my husband) the center of my universe. Now this little bundle was everything and many of my good habits fell by the wayside.
Now that I’ve got a toddler on my hands, I see more and more every day how her entire universe revolves around our family and friends. While I do everything I can to protect her, she is frequently out of my hands while I’m at work. While I’m not always thrilled with everything she learns outside the home, much of what endures are positive traits. With her imaginative play and increasingly complex conversations, she constantly mimics the experiences she sees around her and it’s amazing to see what she absorbs.
We’ve tried to be careful about introducing television, food and activities into her life. It’s safe to say we’re pretty strict by many people’s standards but when my daughter asks for a treat and her eyes light up when I suggest fruit, I’m thrilled! Sweets are consumed on a limited basis, television is infrequent at best and books are consumed with a vengeance. That’s not to say we don’t have our struggles, believe me we do! Vegetables are still a challenge though we’ve found a new love for corn on the cob. Terrible twos (and transitioning into threes) are a daily reality. There is always some behavior we’re working to eradicate or modify. It’s a constant struggle as many of you well know!
Now that my oldest is eating with us more often, our diet has become every bit as important as hers. It’s easy to ignore your own health when you feed children at a different time and just throw something together for yourself at the end of a long day. When I hit a wall after our second daughter arrived, I reached a point that demanded a change. Despite my own personal reasons for wanting to feel better, eat better and have more energy…those were actually the least of my motivating factors.
My biggest motivation?
These two.
There are so many buzz words flying around that could describe the way I aspire to feed my family. “Clean eating”, “paleo”, “whole food” are just a few. OK, so maybe some are a bit more intense than others, but the essence is simplifying what we eat, cutting out the processed foods and sugars and eating more naturally. I want my children to understand where food comes from and while my husband and I would love to grow much of it ourselves, that’s just not practical for us. Instead, we inform ourselves and make the best choices with the options we have available. Buying local gives us a sense of investing in our community and sharing our over abundance (eggs, soon…I promise!) in turn helps others.
We endeavor to stay fit and active so that we can enjoy playing with our children and encourage those same behaviors in them. I wholeheartedly believe in learning through experience and adore the boundless curiosity that results when we take the time to engage Lena with something new. Fitness should be a natural part of life and not a chore to be accomplished. We need balance in all things and too often our lives become sedentary despite our best intentions. After work or school we rush home to make dinner, run errands, and collapse from exhaustion. On the days I work (at a desk job) it’s alarming how many fewer steps I take! We might read the news, a book or a magazine to engage our brain without a thought to engaging our body.
I aspire to create an environment where healthy food, healthy bodies and daily life flow seamlessly together. This won’t happen overnight but each day or week, we actively work to make a better choice and then make those choices into habits. It’s a huge work in progress, but every little step gets us that much closer to our goal.
