Let’s Get Ready with Cedar Valley Publishing

I made some positive life changes to my diet and exercise program a few months before I turned 40.  I was working out like a banshee, eating right and the weight was coming off.  I was finally on track until the unthinkable happened.  I had a knee and elbow injury that forced me to take some time off and recuperate. 
I actually had a doctor’s order not to exercise and I was never so miserable in all my life.  The lady who hated to exercise–I still hate to exercise, but I so love how I feel after I exercise–was told to take it easy.  I didn’t listen and ended up having a more serious injury that kept me away from the workout routine that I had been doing for 2 years.

My body was ready to begin at the 6 months mark, but it took another 3 months before my mind was ready to actually begin the journey again.  Sadly, in 9 months I had gained back all the weight it had taken me 2 years to lose.  I was back to square one. 

Fortunately, it only took me 6 weeks to get back on track and settle into a daily routine which included exercise and healthy eating habits.  I am down 10 pounds and I’m ready to share what has been working for me this second time around:

• I schedule 35 minutes on my exercise bike every day before the kids wake up.  From 6:30-7:30 every morning, I bike ride while catching up on work reading.  I am in the publishing business and have piles of books to review, so for me this is killing two birds with one stone.  Yes, I don’t burn as many calories reading a book, but it is making a dent in my reading pile, so it is a trade off that works for me.  Also, I often find myself riding longer than the full hour allotted because I just can’t put down a great book!  It provides me with the added bonus of being eager to exercise and read the next day!

• Twice a week, my husband and I take a group exercise class with weight training/ball/kickboxing.  It is also a scheduled date with my husband on the calendar.  We do it together as a team and enjoy it greatly.  With school starting, I will be moving to mornings two days a week, to allow me to be home at night with the girls, staying on homework detail.  But we still will be working out on the same days doing the same class, just at a different time. 

• I watch what I eat.  I am at the point where I don’t need to journal, as I know what works for me.  Breakfast:  Fruit or 100% orange juice with oatmeal, whole grain cereal, or a slice of whole grain bread toasted dry, with a thin layer of peanut butter spread on top; Lunch:  Fruit with either soup, salad, baked potato easy on the margarine and light sour cream or a bagel with melted cheese and a slice of ham; dinner is always a protein, veggie and fruit.  I am in charge of the kitchen, so it is easy to keep the entire family on track with making healthy choices.

• I don’t eat after 6PM. 

• I have healthy treats, veggies and fruits on hand when I need a snack.

• I am lucky that I get to read books on weight loss, motivation and self-help for my job.  Filling yourself full of positive thoughts goes a long way to keeping you away from the refrigerator.  Call a friend, read a book, take a bubble bath, clean a closet, do something else (anything positive and/or productive) to redirect your energy when you are feeling the urge to eat out of boredom.  

• Listen to your body.  If you are in need of more fuel, fill it up.  Protein is a great choice to give you some long lasting energy:  a slice of cheese, a spoonful of peanut butter, cottage cheese or a glass of 1% low fat chocolate milk will take you much farther than a bag of chips.

• I use the scale every morning to help me stay on track and help me plan my day.  If it is up, I need to try harder that day.  Perhaps I add more exercise and make better food choices.  If it’s down or the same, I rejoice!  You can’t expect to loss weight every day, 2-3 pounds a week is realistic and staying the same means you are closer to a loss!  So rejoice that you are going in the right direction!

• I like myself.  I live in the present and look to the future.  So it happened, I am trying again, working harder this time to not re-injure myself and taking every day as one step toward my goal.

• Keep Moving!  I am doing this for my family and myself because it makes me healthy, happy and terrific.  It has become another passion that I don’t want to live without.

Copyright 2007, Stacey Kannenberg, Cedar Valley Publishing, Author of Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!

What’s working for you on your quest for healthier eating and daily exercise?  Is it a journal?  A firm plan?  A promise to yourself or your family?  Let’s do some healthy dishing!

Parent Teacher Conferences are essential opportunities to find out how your child is doing in school.  It’s a time to ask questions and your opportunity to get to know your child’s teacher one-on-one.  Remember, as the parent, you are your child’s first and foremost teacher.  So if you have a question, ask it.  Find out how you can help and don’t be afraid of asking simply:  How can I help? 

Build a network of other parents within your child’s class and volunteer.  The easiest way to be involved is to just show up and make it fun.  Kudos to the Pigeon River Green Gang in Sheboygan, WI.  This group of parents, teachers and kids have been meeting for 6 years, every month and doing improvements to their school.  They have created walking paths, prairie settings, and pizza gardens by planting the basil, oregano, tomatoes, peppers and later having a pizza party or a salsa party for their school to eat the fruits of their labor.  WOW, and that was some yummy salsa they made!!! 

I was recently at Harvard, IL’s 4 year old Kindergarten to talk to parents, via an interpreter about how they can help their children be successful in school.  I told them that just by showing up and asking questions, they are showing their kids that they care.  I also talked about the importance of going through the backpack and folder every night, reading with their kids for 15 minutes and playing a repetitive game for 15 minutes, like jumping jacks and counting out loud as they go.  Stop, drop and listen to your child daily and ask open ended questions to help your child learn to communicate and be involved in school activities and functions and build a network of parents to make it a fun social experience as well.  It’s all about making it fun for the entire family!  If it’s not fun, you need to make some changes to make it fun.  Find new people that are fun and start networking!
 
Copyright 2007, Stacey Kannenberg, Cedar Valley Publishing, Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!

Got some neat ideas to make it fun?  We’d all love to hear them!  Don’t stop with us. Share them with teachers, other parents and your local PTA/PTO too!  We’re all in this together!

Have you heard of Everyday Math?  It is used as the elementary math curriculum in many schools across the nation and the concept is simple:  do math everyday.  That I like.  Show children how much fun math can be and show it used in everyday practical matters.  Everyday Math introduces math at the core and presents it in a fun and positive environment.  Math is everywhere in everyday practical matters:  cooking, traveling, banking, simply everywhere.  

My children are at the beginning of Everyday Math so our family has yet to get into the meat of the program to see first hand the benefits in action.  I do hear from frustrated parents who are not happy with one thing about Everyday Math:  they do a different math concept everyday.  One day it could be fractions, the next it could be patterns, the next day measuring, and the next day decimals.   The idea is that at some point the light goes on and children understand the concept and if you are spending an entire unit working on fractions and then move on to measuring, the child might never have had that “aha moment” about fractions.  That might have been my problem with math in school.  The light never turned on for me with math.  I honestly still get nervous about fractions and storybook math problems and I am the first to direct my children to Dad for help on those units.  Math was his favorite subject in school and he uses it everyday in his job.  It is his passion.

So, I am going into Everyday Math with an open mind because math has never been one of my favorite subjects in school.  I am not going to let on to my kids that math was not my favorite subject, instead I am going to attempt to oversee the math homework links, to see if I could possibly start over with math at the core.  It may not be too late for me to have my own math epiphany.  I do believe in the importance of practice and at some point enough practice over and over might lead to that light bulb burning brightly between myself, my children and math. 

Copyright 2007, Stacey Kannenberg, Cedar Valley Publishing, Author of Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!

Do you have a secret subject that’s still “Greek” to you?  Are you working towards making it more you-friendly?  Tell us how it’s working out! 

Having family fun should be a top priority. Quality family time builds significant memories that last a lifetime. They also create a safe, comfortable and secure family setting so when it’s time to tackle a family problem, you can solve and evolve together as one-entity: a family. As they say, a family that plays together sticks together. And, family is most needed during the bad times.

Listed below are my family’s Top 10 Favorite Family Fun Rituals. Hopefully, they will give you some creative ideas to adapt to your own family’s interests, skills and desires.

You’ll quickly learn that a house of girls (Mommy, and our 5 and 7 year old daughters) and 1 boy (Daddy) can have a ton of fun in the great outdoors, and watching sports.

1. We enjoy going on ATV (all terrain vehicles) trips.  Our girls have helmets and ride in a special wrap-around-seat behind Daddy for safety.  We choose trails with little activity and plenty of places to stop with clean bathrooms and food.  This year we went with another family who has a 7 year old girl, and it is so much fun to hear them giggling on the trails in the woods, and pointing out wildlife along the way. 
2. We love water parks.  We are blessed to live in Wisconsin close to the Wisconsin Dells, which has more water parks than any other place in the world (or so the advertisement says).  Water fun, amusement rides, and arcades make for a great escape.
3. We go to the Green Bay Packer football family night every year.  It’s our family tradition.  It is a team scrimmage. The purpose of this night is for families to have fun, with kids’ songs, people watching and a huge firework finale. 
4. We go to a Milwaukee Brewer Baseball game every year.  The girls enjoy singing and dancing between the innings, and they love to watch the antics of Bernie Brewer, the team mascot.  Great fun!
5. We take the girls out on the golf course with us every year.  We each rent a cart and take a child who is assigned the task of handing us our golf tee and a lucky golf ball. They do not leave our carts unless they are washing golf balls.  They enjoy watching out for the snack cart and keeping score.  We frequent the driving range with them and that’s their time to practice with child size clubs. If you haven’t tried this before, it’s so much fun!
6. We can’t wait for go-carting season. We rent the double size carts so each parent has a child, and then we switch kids and go again and again.  It’s a race with some healthy competition.  We all end up laughing so hard during the entire race, because we really get into the spirit of the match.  It’s a blast!
7. We love to go boating and fishing so we can spend many hours on different lakes with great scenery. 
8. We frequent many County Fairs during the summer. It’s a family tradition to attend the truck and tracker pulls.  It doesn’t hurt that Daddy is also a substitute driver and drives about 3- 4 times a year.  We enjoy pulling for Daddy and then riding on the carnival rides and playing a few games. 
9. We love to go biking.  We are lucky because we live close to a bike trail and this is the year that our oldest daughter left her training wheels behind.
10. We enjoy visiting with friends, neighbors and relatives.  We have developed rituals and look forward to the big Christmas Party with almost 100 relatives, the smaller one with 10 members, and then the Christmas Eve festivities with just our family.  We also love our neighborhood parties with fireworks and cool fall nights around the campfire.

Enjoy some good ‘ol family fun!

Copyright 2007, Stacey Kannenberg, Cedar Valley Publishing, Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!

I’d love to add new Family Fun Rituals to our list, so please share your events with us!

I am not sure why I was actually dreading the event.   Yes, I have gained weight since I graduated from High School 25 years ago…whatever! I wasn’t the only one!  I was excited that it was to be an outside picnic with our families invited.  I was always a late bloomer, so it did not seem to surprise many that my kids were 5 and 7 along with a handful of others who had children later in life, but I was overwhelmed by the number of high school classmates who had kids right out of high school and were already grandparents! 

My entire family had fun, even my husband.  My kids found a group of older and younger kids and were entertained the entire time.   My husband heard stories that he had never heard and met many new and old faces.  I am so glad I introduced my husband to my first boyfriend and was amazed at how alike they really were: both into hunting, fishing and watching football.  They even made a date to go fishing on Lake Michigan together.  I was happy he married an old school friend of mine so that we could get together while our husbands go fishing.  And we all laughed when we found out that their daughter lived near us and was dating my husband’s cousin!   Fate?

I tried to talk to everyone and was shocked at how many different career paths:  three owners of manufacturing companies, a state patrol sergeant, several plumbers, a nursing home director, several restaurant owners, patent owners and publishers, a few in real estate, banking, entertainment and employees for the airlines.  Since I am always networking this day was no different.  So a promise was made to keep in touch with a handful solely for business purposes.

Many people gained weight.  Two had lost too much weight and looked very sick, pale and washed out.  A few had lost their hair, many wore white and gray proudly.  I did not recognize a few people and would never have done so until they were pointed out to me.  But the majority of people looked very much like the day we all graduated.

Here is what I would recommend to those of you that have the big day looming in the distance.

Remind yourself to put on a big smile and set out to enjoy the event.  It’s just one moment in time.  And sadly it went way too fast!

So if you are trying to lose weight before your big day, make sure you are truly doing it to please yourself, because if you are not, you probably will not stick to it.

If you are using this day as a day to motivate you to get in shape, great!  Make sure you set a realistic and safe goal of a few pounds a week and make exercise and eating right part of your daily plan. 

And even if you do not lose the weight, here’s the most important thing:  be a happy and positive person and let your spirit shine, because even with a few extra pounds people seem to gravitate to those people that are happy and fun!   Enjoy!

Copyright 2007 - Stacey Kannenberg, Author of Let’s Get Ready For Kindergarten! and Let’s Get Ready For First Grade!

Are you getting ready for a reunion?  What steps are you taking to prepare?  Are you anxious or apprehensive? Or a little of both?  Please share your thoughts with us.