kids – Betsy Schow

The Running of the Kindergartners

This morning I did another race… sort of. My daughter’s school had a fundraising 5K run. The younger kids, like my daughter, Lily, ran one mile.

One mile is a long way on short kindergartner legs. Though everyone charged out of the gates like bulls, within half a block, we noticed one of Lily’s little buddies falling behind. Last month, he had fallen off his bike or something. He said his back still hurt and he didn’t want to run. In fact, he just wanted to go home.
Lily volunteered us to walk with him, so the three of us kept trucking down the street, hand in hand. Inevitably, we moved to the back of the pack.

Since the fun run was at 10:00 am, not everyone’s mom could make it. I became the lonely straggler magnet, collecting the slow and left behind. At some point, I had gained charge of 6 kids, all holding hands across the width of the street.

At the half mile point, we were passed by the sixth graders on their second mile lap. One of my race buddies said he was sad because that meant he wasn’t going to win. Lily, my little Jr finisher, matter-of-factly explained that as long as we made it to the end, we would all win.

I darned near cried. It was one of the proudest moments I’ve had as a mother. This past year, I have worked so hard to instill the philosophy of finishing into my kids. I want them to have that firm foundation of self esteem that finishing brings. Not the wall of failures that I hid behind until I finally learned how to finish. Today is proof that my efforts are paying off. Lily corralled and encouraged our rag tag band of 5 and 6 year olds. At least until the finish line was in view, then the kids promptly took off at full speed to cross the flags.

There’s something magical about a finish line. I know that even after running miles and miles, that sight gives me new strength to run faster and push a little farther.

So teach your kids to look for those finish lines in everything they do. Encourage that can do attitude with the philosophy of finishing, “Not everyone can win the race, but everyone can finish”. Then they’ll never feel like losers as long as they never give up.

Setting an Example

Do you ever feel like you’re being watched?

If you are a mom, then you know exactly what I mean. Children have an amazing capacity to soak up behaviors like little sponges. So what are you giving them to learn?

It is an established fact that overweight and obese parents are more likely to have overweight and obese children. Why do you think that is? Genetics. Maybe a little. But more importantly, we share eating habits as a family. If mom has dessert after every meal, the kids will grow up and expect that dessert is an essential part of dinner rather just a treat.

What about exercise? My family growing up did a lot of wonderful things together. Not one of them was active. Lots of learning, reading, playing an instrument, etc. No sports, no hiking or biking. So as an adult, I didn’t have any of these things in my repertoire.

free image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

You don’t have to shove your kid on a treadmill for 30 minutes a day (That was done to me. Don’t do it!) Lead by example and family fun. Show your kids now how to lead a healthy HAPPY active lifestyle. If I complain constantly about working out and being on a diet, I guarantee my little girls will grow up having issues too.

The Long Run: Indoctrinating the Kids

One of the biggest reasons I was fat was a lifetime of inactivity. As a kid I never played a sport. Didn’t ride my bike. The only thing I exercised was my fingers by playing video games.

I’m making sure I don’t fall into the same trap with my kiddos. So I’m indoctrinating them into the cult of physical fitness now. I’m not pushing anything about body shapes or weight, just that we need to be healthy and strong.

I could just put them on a machine at the gym, but I want it to be fun and a family way of life. So this weekend my 5 and 3 year old ran their first race with me. It was a mile long and at the end we got covered in colored chalk like in Color Me Rad. They had a blast and got their very first finishers medal.

Hopefully I am not only teaching them to enjoy an active lifestyle, but also the value of completing things vs competition. We came in dead last, but it didn’t matter. Because we finished.

Chubby Wubby

I’m a wee bit concerned. My 5 year old is running around calling her sister chubby wubby. In a very cute and nice way of course. But still, I worry. Where is this coming from? TV? Or worse, my own preoccupation with fat?

I’m hoping it’s not the latter. I have tried hard not to bemoan my own “chubby wubby” rolls in the company of small kids. But this plays to my bigger fear, of having weight obsessed kids. It made my life miserable from about 12 yr old on. I don’t want that for my children. I want fit, healthy, happy kidlets- no matter the size or shape

I was about to sit down and have the chat about fat with the 5 yr old when I heard it. The gummy bear song on her iPod. The lyrics of which are “chubby wubby funny looking gummy bear”. Aha! The culprit was found

In an effort to avoid giving the kids my issues, I very nearly introduced it to her unnecessarily. Apparently one can be a bit too over vigilant. In the future I will just try to be easy breezy about it as I can.

P is for Potty Party

It’s time to be proactive. I’m go to do the same thing I did for my first kiddo. She was ready, but we just couldn’t make a clean break from the pull ups. So we did a potty party. Potty training in one day.

I’ve about had it with my 2 and a half year old. She uses the potty about half the time. The other half, she changes her own diaper – and then hides the evidence.

In the case of the dreaded poopy diapers, all I can say is eewwww. For whatever reason potty training my second child has been much more difficult than training my first. But I’m busier now. Perhaps if I just spent more time. Well you know what they say about ifs and buts. But my problem is specifically about the butt.

The idea is to make it fun, almost like a birthday party. We invited a few friends over, there was a special cake, little presents, and lots of fun potty games. The whole day was spent playing with the potty and saying goodbye to the diaper. She was a big girl that could wear underwears.

This made a connection in my first daughter’s brain. Of course we had a few accidents afterwards, but just like a birthday party to celebrate getting older, she had celebrated growing up and getting rid of the diapers.

So I think in the next month I am really going to push the little one to lose the diapers. Let the party planning begin.

What worked for you and little poopers?

O is for Octopus

This is what I wish I was. For obvious reasons, the 8 hands.

It would be so nice to get laundry folded, while typing my WIP, playing with my kids, and burning dinner.

Just a side note on my favoritism of the octopus. When I was a kid, my mom would send me to school with a brown bag lunch. But they weren’t ordinary brown bags, my mother would decorate them with fanciful creatures. My favorite was a bag she made in 3rd grade. It had an octopus drawn on it, arms stretched wide. It said, “I love you THIS much”. Kids would try to trade their cookies for my bags, but I would never part with them. My mom was an artist, and each bag was proof that she loved me THIS much.

N is for No

This would currently be my 2 1/2 year old daughter’s favorite word. And if that wasn’t enough, my husband, tired of the no, taught her other fabulous ways to say it. Nien, Niecht, nu-uh, no way jose, nope. All Ns.

Now while the little one has this down pat, I seem to have trouble saying it. When someone asks me to do something I immediately say sure. It isn’t until I get home and have a panic attack when I input it into my schedule, that I realize I may be a tish overstretched.

Why is it that sometimes we are incapable of saying no? Is it because we want to help and genuinely feel the desire to serve? Or (at least for me) the more likely culprit of not wanting to disappoint someone.

Oddly enough, when someone else offers to do something for me, I don’t hesitate to say no thanks. I suppose I don’t want to be someone’s burden.

Just rambling out loud on the keyboard.

M is for Mistakes in Motherhood

Not a day goes by without a moment where I think, yup I have scarred my kids for life.

Words sound a whole lot different coming out of my mouth than my five year old’s. Sometimes I can’t tell how harsh something sounds until it’s parroted back at me.

The other night my oldest daughter was playing with her little sister. Apparently a two and half year old does not grasp the finer nuances of whack-a-mole and my preshcooler took issue with that.
“If you can’t play right, you don’t get to play,” she shouted and threw the game across the room.
I took issue with her behavior. My reply was angry and scolding, “If you can’t play nicely, you won’t have any friends and no one will want to play with you.” Then, since it was close to bedtime, I sent her off to her room to chill out and go to sleep early.

Alas she did not go quietly in the night. For the next half hour I could hear her screaming from her bed. “I don’t want to go to sleep. I hate you. I’m going to go find a new family.” A little while later I heard the phrase that broke my heart. “I don’t want to be alone. I need friends.”

Somewhere along the line I had screwed up. I had made a colossal mistake in motherhood and made my daughter feel unloved. It had not been my intent to hurt, just a frustrated attempt at correction. So What was I gonna do about it now?

I felt it would be an even worse mistake to let my child go off to sleep thinking that no one loved her. So I sat down with her, gave her loves and took the 2 minutes to explain why her behavior was unacceptable. Basically what I should have done in the first place. Afterwards I got my kiss goodnight and she was out like a light.

Not so much for me. I sobbed to my husband that I was the worst mother in the whole world. That we should start saving now because my kids would end up having huge therapy bills. He reminded me that kids were pretty darn resilient and my daughter would get over it. And the next time I got angry, I should just love ’em to death.

Sure enough, the next day my daughter gave me oodles of love and hugs. Telling me she loved me, that I was the best mommy ever. What I learned was that everybody makes mistakes. In particular, I will continue to make mistakes. It’s what we do afterwards that defines us as a parent.

I for one am going to apologize to my mother for the time I packed up my stuffed animals and ran away to my best friends house. I don’t remember what she did that made me so angry, but I remember the tears in her eyes when she couldn’t find me. Sure when I was discovered I got grounded, but I also got nearly hugged to death.

L is for Lullaby

My favorite part of the day when my girls were little, was bedtime. Not only because the little beasts were going to sleep, but because of our lullaby ritual.

I would swaddle my baby and sit in the rocking chair and sing a song or two until there little eyes were nice and droopy. Sometimes I would sing Twinkle Twinkle, or Rock a Bye Baby. But I had a favorite lullaby for each girl that is a little… different. I figured, hey they don’t know what the heck I’m saying. As long as it’s low and soothing I could sing the phonebook.

So for my oldest, my favorite tune was Death Cab for Cutie’s I”ll follow you into the dark.

For my little one is was the Smith’s Sing me to sleep.

To this day I get misty eyed when I hear those songs on the radio. They remind me of a time that was precious, crazy, and worth every minute.

What did you sing to your little ones?