Posts in Nurturing Moms
Exercise and Preschoolers: An Interview with Christy
Awhile back I wrote about losing 60 pounds and how I'm keeping it off.  I've actually lost 65 now, and would like to drop at least another 10.  We'll see.  I feel great- strong and healthy and energetic, but I've put in a lot of hours and said no to a lot of junk food.  It takes work and time to really get into shape, and I know many of us struggle to add one more thing on top of preschoolers, older kids, homemaking, and homeschooling. I'd still like to encourage you, though.  Taking the time to do this for myself has been one of the best decisions I've made as a homeschooling mom. I have had the help of two wonderful coaches from Beachbody (Beachbody coaching is a free service, by the way) who've helped me choose the right workouts for me and who've been excellent cheerleaders.  Today I'd like to introduce you to Christy Henry, Beachbody coach and homeschooling mom:

Hi, I'm Christy.  I'm a Christian, Navy wife, Beachbody Coach, and homeschooling mom to three kids under the age of eight (four kids in October!).  I'd add that I'm a blogging mom and scrapbooker, too, but the cycle of deployments and moving and then pregnancy started sucking up my time over a year ago, and I'm just starting to get my mojo back (just in time to lose it again when the baby comes!).  I still blog occasionally at After a cup of coffee...or two. Have you always been fit or is this something you've eased into as a mom? Growing up I was never very active, as I preferred to sit and read and be air conditioned instead of sweaty.  I wasn't overweight, just soft.  But that caught up to me once I graduated from college and the natural activity of youth suddenly ended.  I slowly and steadily gained weight, but didn't really realize it.  I'd think things like, "I should really stop drying my pants.  They keep shrinking."  It wasn't until after I had my first baby and three months later still weighed over 200 pounds that I faced the fact that I was plus-sized, and taking the baby out for a short walk in the stroller wasn't getting me very far! Are you working out now that you're expecting? Doctor's orders are no working out for me right now.  But in the beginning I was doing Turbo Jam.  It's one of my favorite home workouts.  The music always gets me into it, and I love that every move can be modified for people with injuries, newbies and even pregnancy. What does a typical workout look like for you? Being a busy mom means that I really like to keep my workouts less than hour, and I like to do them in the house where I don't have to worry about childcare or naptimes.  I've wasted too much money on gym memberships that didn't get used enough.  I usually do weight training three times a week and cardio two to three times a week.  Beachbody has all of my favorite workout videos, so you can usually find me doing one of their 90-day programs, or mixing and matching their programs to suit my goals and time limits. What kind of motivation do you find works best for you? The best kind of motivation is to find your soul mate workout!  If I don't enjoy it, I'm just not going to stick with it.  I can make too many excuses.  Finding support, whether from a workout partner or online is also a huge motivator for me.  Once I became a Beachbody Coach, I found that helping others with their fitness journeys also helped me on mine! How do you think homeschooling moms of preschoolers can practically make fitness a part of their lives? I think we really have to schedule it in, because there's always something that comes up to suck up your time!  I've always loved using naptime for a workout.  There are less interruptions and less chance of accidentally kicking a child in the head while kickboxing (oops!), and a baby will usually take at least one 45 minute nap each day.  If that's just not possible, then finding a partner to work out with can help.  The ONLY way I get up at 5:30am to work out is when I know that my friend is going to be knocking on my door to work out with me! What are the workouts you'd recommend to a mom who's just starting to make fitness a priority? Walking is always easy when you're new and you can dig a little deeper by using wrist and ankle weights.  For workouts to do in your home, I LOVE Turbo Jam and Turbo Fire from Beachbody.  Both have great music that make the time go by faster and push you to work harder, which means more calories burned in less time.  Both include a 15 or 20 minute workout that helps you to burn max calories in almost no time, which is great for those days when you know you just can't fit a full workout in. What are your favorite grab-and-go snacks? My go-to grab and go snack is the P90X Protein Bars from Beachbody.  It's actually good for you and not just a glorified candy bar, although it hits the spot when I have a chocolate craving!  If I have a minute to make something, then I like to top a brown rice cake with natural almond butter, sliced banana and a few drops of honey.  It's a balanced snack but still filling and just the few drops of honey are enough to satisfy my sweet tooth without adding too many calories. My Beachbody page is at beachbodycoach.com/afteracup, and I love to support moms (and others) on their fitness journeys!  I have plenty of space to coach anyone and it's absolutely free to get me as a coach.  You can sign up at my Beachbody page, or email me with questions at afteracup@beachbodycoach.com ♥ Thanks, Christy!  I appreciate you :)  By the way, everyone, if you watch the little promo video on the Turbo Fire page, note the very first brunette in the dark blue top.  She's a mom of seven!
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Nurturing Moms, ResourcesKendra Comments
June Break and Our Goals
Thank you for letting me take a much-needed break. I've been told by other parents of teens that life amps up exponentially during those years, but I have had to see it to really believe it. Two working sons with jobs in two separate towns, relationship management, school work to finish, band practice, Bible study, our home fellowship group, and yes- I still have six other children. Add golf lessons, VBS, and did I mention I have a two-year-old and a three-year-old? What the month of June did was give me perspective. Out of that perspective came a lengthy late night conversation with my husband about the goals of Preschoolers and Peace. Zeroing in on what is really important (for the blog and in my home), we've decided to implement a few changes based on our goals: 1. I'm sticking to preschoolers. Increasingly I am receiving questions about parenting philosophy, whether we allow our teens to date, and what my opinion is on someone else's parenting philosophy and whether or not they allow their teens to date. While I realize it can be helpful to hear others' perspectives on parenting issues, it becomes sticky when I don't know you or your children personally. You don't know mine personally either, and even if I paint a perfect picture with glossy photos, you might hate us if you met us ;) So unless it's a nitty gritty issue like potty training or a request for recipes that might help you have a more peaceful dinnertime, I'll probably refrain from answering. The Holy Spirit is a far better teacher than I could ever hope to be. 2. I want to give you tools. The original intent of Preschoolers and Peace was to help equip moms who are attempting to educate children at home while at the same time having to manage preschoolers, toddlers, and babies. In that spirit, over the years I have tried to throw a smorgasbord of ideas and options your way so that you might hit on one or two that solves a problem or brings an increased measure of peace to your home. I'll continue to do so, but I've got to be honest: for at least a year now I have said to my closest friends, "What more do I possibly have to say on the subject?" I feel like I've exhausted the best ideas, although I do still have preschoolers and I may have to reach into the very bottom of the barrel to pull out some new tools to use around here. We'll slowly begin to categorize all the old posts so that you can simply click on a subject on the sidebar and pull up everything on, say, preschool curriculum or sleeping through the night. 3. Either there's less time in the day, or I have more to do. Because of this reality, I realize that I cannot keep up the pace of three posts per week. I'll post regularly, but I'm not sure what that looks like yet. You are welcome to "friend" me on Facebook, and be sure to join the Preschoolers and Peace fan page, too. Lively discussions occur there on a regular basis.

♥

I love what God's done with this little blog.  I love being available and I love writing.  Preschoolers and Peace has been a gift to my family.

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Musings and Miscellany, Nurturing MomsKendra Comments
Grace-Based Parenting

My favorite book on the subject of Christian parenting, revisited. I read through Grace-Based Parenting several years ago but I am seeing it and hearing it and taking it all in a different light after the trials of these past two years. Balance. Grace motivates us to a higher holiness, but legalism demands we maintain a relationship with God through obedience to a standard. Truth here: "The graceless home requires kids to be good and gets angry and punishes them when they are bad. The grace-based home assumes kids will struggle with sin and helps them learn how to tap into God's power to help them get stronger. Grace understands that the only real solution for our children's sin is the work of Christ on their behalf." I'm not sure why, but those of you reading my posts in a reader can't see the Amazon button for books that I post. Sorry about that.
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Nurturing Moms, ResourcesKendra Comments
Just Keep Swimming... Just Keep Swimming...

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Are you on the home stretch?  I am feeling the weight of the last four or five weeks of school draagggiinnnggg me down.  Plans for next year are bobbing around in my brain, summer's activities are looming on the horizon, projects needing to be wrapped up are nagging at me, and the school room needs a massive clean out/overhaul. I've found a few attitudes to be helpful in maintaining homeschool momentum.  First, if I don't pace myself, I burn out by November. I'm learning to spread things out, take breaks when I need them, and not feel guilty about what I'm leaving behind.  The thing is, there will always be work to do. There will always be meals to make, laundry to run, messes to clean up, school to get through, and projects to be tackled.  Always. Secondly, and I've said this before, if I don't plan the days, weeks, months, and years, I'm sunk from the get-go. Here's the thing though- plans can and need to be changed and adjusted according to reality and circumstances.  If I don't start out with a goal and pre-arranged steps to getting to that goal, I am too befuddled and overwhelmed by the little daily emergencies to accomplish anything at all.  There just has to be some sort of routine and plan in place, even if our days never ever look like what I put down on paper. That's it.  Not brilliant by any means, but it works for me.  If you are feeling like you just can't get through the rest of this year, maybe it's time to set it down and take a week off.  And by off I mean OFF.  Don't even look at school stuff.  And so then what, you're doing school a week later into the summer than you originally planned?  So what!  You'll have renewed energy, rest, and a scope of viewpoint that isn't all about homeschooling.  And you can just keep swimming...
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Educating at Home, Life with Preschoolers, Nurturing MomsKendra Comments
Posts I've Been Pondering
I read some blogs in their entirety, skim others, and thoroughly relish some for their photographs. From my recent wanderings, some favorite posts: ♥ How to Help Your Grieving Friend (HT: my mom) ♥ In light of our recent breakfast discussion, Triple Cinnamon Scones. Yum. ♥ How to Calm Down When Someone Paints on the Dining Room Table. Yeah, I thought you'd like that one. ♥ She knits these. Oh, love, love, love them! ♥ Loving this series by Susan Wise Bauer on The Gap Year. Definitely encouraging our older guys to think through this. ♥ Also love Susan's thoughts on homeschool conventions, and to that end I am actually tackling giving a couple of academically-focused workshops this summer. Those MP3's will go up here if they work out well.
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Educating at Home, Nurturing Moms, ResourcesKendra Comments
Capacity
I was talking with a mom at church this past Sunday. She and her husband have six young boys, all born one right after the other. The youngest is two, and Deborah mentioned that she is just now feeling like she can engage extended thoughts. Know what she means? When we are parenting young ones, enduring pregnancies, nursing babies, and up at all hours of the night, we tend to slip into survival mode, thinking shallowly through the very next thing, often the very next urgent thing- a dirty diaper, a spilled bowl of pancake batter, a high fever, an appliance repairman's visit. We easily get out of the habit of thinking deep and lengthy thoughts, and if we dare to venture there, those thoughts are more often than not interrupted. Deborah told me she realized early on that her capacity was limited. "I stopped doing anything outside of home and family, because I didn't want those things to interrupt my responsibilities at home. I look at all you do and don't know how you do it!" I'm sure I smiled a weak smile, and I wish I'd assured her that all she is doing is more than enough. Her capacity is different than mine. Not better, not worse, just different. Circumstances cause us all to be able to handle things differently, too. I always reply to working women who tell me they don't know how I homeschool 8 children that I don't know how they do what they do. To me, working and trying to manage a home would put me over capacity. My circumstances allow me to focus on (mainly) homeschooling and managing my home. All the other stuff I take on- writing, reviewing, speaking a couple of times a year- my circumstances allow me to take those on. Likely, your circumstances are different. Just because all these things are on my plate doesn't mean that I am a more stellar mom than you are. It just means my capacity is different. Not better, not worse, just different.
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Musings and Miscellany, Nurturing MomsKendra Comments