Over 40s Exercise Regime

It has been rumoured that mums over 40 don't exercise enough, it also has been publicly encouraged that mums over 40 should have a good exercise regime to keep healthy and to assist in losing those excess kilos/pounds that many of us have found silently creeping on after each child comes into the world.

My husband's idea of exercise is jogging up and down on the spot, doing jumping jacks and sit-ups, jogging around the block or playing soccer (football) and or volleyball. That's great for him but not so for me....

I have my own version. With 7 kids in the house, my daily exercise regime starts with a sprint down the hallway to the bathroom before anyone else bags it; then a ramming of the bathroom door when someone's taking too long in the shower amid 'warcries' of 'it's my turn' 'she's taking too long' 'Mum, I'm going to be late for school if she doesn't hurry up'. (I'm sure looking forward to when we can get a house with more than one bathroom and extra toilet at the back). I manage to reach the laundry dodging an obstacle course of toys, shoes, furniture and heaven knows what, to pile in a load of dirty washing into the washing machine. While the first load is in, I then proceed to make breakfast with several intervals of dashing to the bedrooms of various sleepyheads who need a prodding to get out of bed. Finding a lost sock or shoe often requires reaching under beds or desks. How many pairs of shoes I have lined up along the hallway wall that have lost their partners, I've lost count!

After breakfast, finds me often on my hands and knees mopping up the spills and messes of the little ones. I pile out the now wet clean laundry into a laundry basket and carry the heavy basket to the dryer at the other end of the laundry (have you noticed that laundry baskets were not designed to fit through doors without some clever manuevering) and proceed to load the dryer.

The older kids are now rushing out the door for their ride to school (our eldest daughter now driving). With the last one out the door waving their goodbyes, I close the door with a sigh of relief and turn around to start picking up stray items off the floor. Armed with basket in hand (or more like on my hip) I gather all the bits and pieces that have found themselves in strange places returning each item to its rightful room as I go along the hallway. I vacuum the carpeted floors, moving furniture as I go. With that done, I proceed to the kitchen and stack the dishes, crossing the floor several times in this exercise. Dishes done, I get down on my hands and knees once more to pick up a piece of fruit with one bite in it - several of these I find scattered throughout the house, this is no mystery, it's my 5 year old. Need I say more?

The bathroom is next on my agenda.....horrors (envision "The Scream"by Edvard Munch - thats what my face looked like)....the bathroom is seeping with a foul-stench. My 5 year old has used too much toilet paper, blocking the toilet to overflowing. Just minutes ago it was fully functional and in proper order, now this!! A half an hour later, I removed the peg from my nose with satisfaction that it is now as it should be. How many muscles were used to perform that task is a list long. Now those who dare say we don't get any exercise.....hmm.

The above scenario is one of many that I can share that happen during the course of a day. More often than not these incidents that happen with my preschooler and toddler form most of my exercise regime - every few minutes in fact, and the time between - attempting to keep house and do my work on the computer. Often after I make the bed and tidy a room, I go to my next task when moments later, I find the blankets have been pulled off the bed to make a cubby house in the lounge room. Or the clothes I had folded neatly in the drawers, scattered helter-skelter all over the floor as my 5 year old insists on dressing and redressing herself several times over. My preschooler then attempts to make herself a cup of cold Milo. She comes into the lounge room where I am now finally seated at my computer. On looking up, one glance tells me I am needed in the kitchen. I run to kitchen to behold Milo all over the floor, down the cupboards and spilling into the drawers and under the microwave! I grit my teeth and brand myself with a cleaning cloth and all-purpose kitchen spray. Where on earth did they get the phrase "No use crying over spilt milk"?!

Before you jump to any conclusions, may I remind you that these 'incidents' are happening minutes apart. I barely get down the hallway and into the lounge room when I rush back to clean up yet another mess. Mind you, the kiddies do have times they are watching tv or taking a nap, or having a outing with mum, but apart from sleeping they are never still.

Lunch and then yet another clean up of the kitchen.

The kiddies are now watching a bit of TV, as my preschooler does cartwheels across the lounge room floor. They dance and sing to the songs of their favourite Hi 5 and Wiggles shows. The little one climbs onto my lap and cuddles up close. Fast asleep, I take him to bed and lay him down.
My 5 year old on the other hand, is busy making another cubby house, cutting paper and 'writing letters'. Stuff scattered all over the floor. I smile a feeble smile and praise her for her wonderful creativity, while inwardly chiding at yet another clean up.

At this very moment, the older kids arrive home from school to behold the aftermath of a 'little tornado' rippling through the house undoing, in her wake, all the hard work I had done that day and me slumped in the cosy chair. I haven't had a lazy day, I tell them. The look of disbelief on their faces!

When our 2 year old awakes, he runs to me to be picked up. Did I mention 'lifting weights' was also part of my daily exercise regime? Yes, a 16 kilo/35lbs toddler. For your information: 1 medium sack of rice is 15kilos; my son is one and a half times as heavy as my husband's car care tool box; and he is the same weight as 4 large bags of potatoes you find in the grocery store. Now try to imagine carrying any of the above mentioned items, wiggling and squirming, kicking and fussing!!

A favourite pastime of my toddler is to ride 'the horse' on my legs. Forget the gym and all their fancy apparatus. I have a 2 year old as my gym coach.

We had a cat once when I was a teenager, when you picked him up, he would stretch and we would proceed to 'gather' him up into our arms. He would then sit in your arms cosy-like, purring contently. Try that with a toddler who is uncooperative about going to bed - yes he stretches....but the rest of him doesn't 'gather'! Short of dragging him....(ever been in a race at a picnic, where you have a sack, one sits on it while you pull?).... yes, that's it.

Now you have it....my daily exercise regime (and a variable one at that!). Just wish it would work on those excess kilos.....an exercise regime? - Nah! I think I'll stick with a healthy eating plan thank you.

By the way, our 5 year old starts school early next year.

Copyright 2005. Rebecca Laklem.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

Every so often it will come up in current affairs or the news about the battle that mothers have with the confectionery aisle and their kids. From day one, kids are known to like bright and colourful things, from the mobile hanging from the ceiling, the clown rattle, the multi-coloured lego blocks, to wrapping paper on birthday gifts.

Have you noticed from as young as 3, children can 'smell' out chocolate and lollies from a mile away?! If it so happens that she has small change, our 18 year old daughter, more often that not, will sneak a bar of chocolate in with the grocery items I had listed for her to buy. She has 'secret' hiding places for her precious chocolate - a 'must-have' for any teenage girl so they say. Our 5 year old will hunt down the chocolate or lollies hidden in unthinkable and seemingly unreachable places, yet find them she will.

You go to great pains to avoid the confectionery aisle when doing your usual grocery shopping, only to turn the corner and find chocolate eggs 'blinking' out at you in front of the baked beans and canned veges; or you would be strolling down the aisle furthest from the chocolates and party goods, only to glance back and see the dreaded hypo-energetic, sugar-loaded culprit grasped firmly in your preschooler's hands, a big beam on her face forming into a wide 'pleeese' accompanied with a huge 'who can resist this smile' smile.

By this stage, you are tired from an hour or so of pushing a heavy shopping trolley up and down the aisles, sometimes back-tracking because you just can't seem to remember which aisle the garbage bags are in, or whether it is at this end of the aisle or the other end. (Supermarket signs on each end only read half of the aisle, if you haven't already noticed).

Your toddler is growing tired of sitting in a hard metal seat getting swamped under an overflow of grocery items that can't quite fit into the trolley basket and is attempting to climb out into your arms for a cuddle. Your preschooler has been standing on the wheel-brim at the front of the trolley, going from getting down then up again, then down again, meanwhile you are concentrating hard on not 'running her over'; or she is sprinting across the aisle grabbing things off the shelves and placing them in your trolley and within moments you are putting it back as you continue on - trying to get the shopping over and done with, a constant drone coming from your lips "Don't touch that, put it back, we don't need it, leave it alone - NO! "

Your focus tunes back onto your child's beaming, pleading, conniving face, you have a decision to make, if you cave in to the pleading, melt to that irresistable smile and say that she can have the chocolate eggs, ensuring you a fairly non-eventful exit through the checkout, while you have a vision of guilt before you at your child's next dentist visit "Don't give her chocolate and lollies" he says with a look that makes you feel as if you are the only mother in the whole world who would do such a thing!

- or say NO and have a whinge-ing, non-cooperative, sullen child (God forbid if she throws a tantrum!) whom you need to keep in check with one eye and hand, whilst unloading the groceries onto the conveyor belt with the other hand and with the other remaining eye on the checkout operator making sure he doesn't double-scan an item, furthermore you are most likely cradling a tired, cranky, lead-heavy toddler on your hip at the same time.

If you do so much as get to the checkout counter without the unleasing of little people's emotions, beware your preschooler is smart - there's the chocolate and lollies display at the checkout right within her reach beckoning her to just try her hand at sneaking it out without Mum noticing. (The times I have had to return the 'stolen goods' or worse still fork out the cost of a half-eaten chocolate with the remainder smeared over face, hands and clothing)....and all this with just the first trolley-load of groceries. I have to brave it out at least one more time round and through the checkout again before I'm finished with my usual grocery shop for the family.

Mind you, I can get more in one trolley with the older kids (making it only 2 trolleys at most) but if I do, all of them have to come along. I then have SEVEN voices vying for my attention all at the same time 'helping' me shop with 'we need this and that' and a certainty of a 'panic attack' when I see the price tally running considerably higher than I budgeted due to items added to the trolley I hadn't counted on.

If my eldest daughter goes solo with the grocery shopping - close encounters of the chocolate kind!

The battle of the 'Confectionery War' is lost for yet another time.

Confectionery marketers and supermarket managers - have a heart! Let chocolates be what they are meant to be - an 'occasion'al treat and give us Mums a break - make them less enticing - no more 'Bright and Beautiful'. PLEEEESE!!!! (accompanied by a 'who can resist this smile' smile).

Copyright 2005 Rebecca Laklem.