Exercise in the Park

Shawn keeps telling me that we are a fat family.  True, all of our kids have put on some pudge.  I certainly am rounder than before—although I have the best excuse of all.  Shawn likes to grab his belly fat and say very dramatically:  “Look away!!  I am hideous!!!”

I haven’t been so diligent with keeping kids out of the cupboards and off the couch since this pregnancy started way back before last summer.  Shawn’s triathlon training is also making him pretty vigilant about eating small healthy meals and moving, sweating, playing outside. 

Another challenge is that the kids don’t get home from school until 4:00, and by the time they finish homework and chores, it’s after 5, it’s dark, and it’s almost dinner time.  I’ve tried playing outside first with them, but then the homework battle turns into a major World War and that’s not a fair trade to me.

All that being said, we are cutting out 90% of snacky junk food, like chips, crackers, cookies and fillers for lunch, like fruit snacks.  One of the chores for each child every day will be to play outside for 30 minutes.  (I think this is just so sad that I have to assign them to play outside.  My childhood was the opposite of this…sigh…) And, on Saturday’s, we’re having family Move It day.

This first Saturday we went to our neighborhood park.  We threw the football around and played a little baseball.  I walked the perimeter and Sugar and Luke ran between walking with me, and chasing the baseball Shawn was hitting to the boys.

Cole wasn’t having a good time—he is not a sports kid—so he came up with his own fun.  He started riding the wagon down some hills, and everyone was suddenly drawn to that.  Over and over again they raced down the hills, then trudged the wagon back up.  These aren’t big hills, and the wagon ride wasn’t long, but it kept them busy and playing for another hour.

Next it was time to run with Dad.  The kids made it a quarter of the way around the park and then started walking.  The boy right behind Shawn is some kid that just started playing with the boys.  He naturally was the best athlete among them, and stayed with Shawn running the entire time.  You can see the walkers back there—even Luke gave up. 

On the last lap, everyone decided to give it one more running attempt—even Sugar.  I think Luke got the best end of the deal, by far.

Shawn ran around the neighborhood a few times, and the kids got on their bikes and trailed him.  I’d say they definitely got their exercise quota in for the day.

Later that night, I woke up to the sound of someone throwing up in bed—Seth.  He threw up all night long and had a raging fever the next day.  When he felt like talking, the first thing he said was:  “I’m never going to be active again.  All that fresh air and exercise made me sick!” 

Great….our entire healthy plan backfired on the  first day!  We just told him it was all the junk food in his body leaving…it didn’t work but, hey, we’re going to keep trying.