Kids by nature are more active than most adults-me included. Living in Minnesota means lots of below zero days. I never thought I would refer to the teens as "mild." There's alot of talk in the obesity epidemic lingo about how to "get" kids to be physically active. Various recommendations include having them "jog in place during the commercials of their favorite shows" (good luck with that one, I know I'd love to jog in place during Top Chef...) and there are kid-sized treadmills and exercise bikes. Nothing like getting kids to associate drudgery with exercise right from the start.I see my job as a mom is to do my best to provide the opportunity for active play. So today, after I picked M up from daycare, we were heading in when she started jumping in some puddles. (It was in the 30's today-balmy!) I had my hands full of bags, and my first instinct was to rush her inside. I stopped myself, recognized this opportunity to provide play and ran in to get my wind-pants and boots on. What resulted was almost 45 minutes of playing in the snow, jumping in puddles, making snow-Mom and snow-Baby (see photo...)
Sometimes we just need to slow down, make the extra effort to include play when possible. Is it pulling the couch cushions onto the floor and bouncing or jumping from one to the other? Is it putting your old B-52s CD in and getting down with Rock Lobster? (M loves the part where you have to crouch down and then spring up.) Turning on the TV is easy, and some nights we do a little more of that than I would like, but be aware and conscious of providing fun opportunities for your kids to move their bodies, and leave the kiddie treadmill collecting dust at the store.
What are some of your indoor play activities?
This comment may be a little late, as it is early March and I am hopeful we will have warmer weather soon! However, I'll take this oppoortunity to list some of our favorite indoor activities. At home we like to pile cushions up and jump, jump on the bed, dance to the radio (with or without scarves), chase each other throughout the house, climb up and down the stairs, blow and pop bubbles, throw and kick soft balls, and wrestle.
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