Page 31 - Blog
January 15, 2014
Hi Moms! Autumn here from Tailored Fitness back this week to help us tackle our next trouble spot, the Butt, with a baby-wearing workout you’ll love. If you missed our first post about how to tone the tummy, you can check it out here.
There are 3 changes that occur during pregnancy that affect our backsides:
Weight gain
It is completely normal to gain weight in places other than your belly during pregnancy. It’s part of the way your body makes sure you have enough nourishment for the growing baby. You may have noticed that as your front was getting larger (aka: breasts and belly) that your backside was getting larger too (aka: your butt). I like to think of it as the good Lord’s way of making sure we don’t fall over!
Loss of muscle tone
Towards the end of pregnancy, the weight of your growing belly makes it much harder to exercise and to build up the intensity necessary to maintain muscle tone. We end up losing much of our muscle tone, especially in our glutes!
Postural Shift
January 01, 2014
Happy New Year Moms! Now that the family is gone, Christmas cookies are eaten, and presents are all opened, you are probably settling back into your normal life as a mom. If you are like most people, you are probably thinking about the new year and how you’d like to make it even better than last year. One of the areas you might like to improve in the New Year is your health. Let’s face it: as a mom, caring for yourself usually takes last place. You make sure your kids’ needs are met, take care of your spouse, and after that, if there’s time, you take care of you. Sadly this often leaves us moms disappointed…with how our clothes fit, with how often we get to exercise, and with our lack of energy.
Let’s make this year different! To be the best moms we can be, we must take care of ourselves. The good news is that by carving out just 20 minutes a day you can make some big changes this year! Over the next 3 weeks, we are going to tackle the top 3 trouble spots for moms:
December 13, 2013
Whether it's Spring Break, Summer or the holidays, travel with baby can be hectic, with crowded airports and frazzled nerves. But a flying with a baby during the busy times like the holidays doesn’t have to be stressful, according to MiniTime.com, the family travel website that provides parents with travel recommendations based on the ages of their kids. Here are MiniTime’s top tips for stress-free holiday air travel with a baby:
Consider an alternate airport.
Not only can it be significantly cheaper to fly in and out of a regional airport within a short drive of a major hub, but smaller airports tend to offer a more pleasant experience anyway, with fewer crowds, shorter lines and cheaper parking.
Grab the first flight out.
You can greatly reduce your chances of getting delayed if you book a morning take-off. As the day goes on, there’s often a domino effect as one delayed flight bumps back into the next, which is why afternoon and evening flights are more likely to get log-jammed.
December 10, 2013
Traveling with children can be a fairly daunting task, a friend once told me it could be compared to swimming in a pool of sand. You just don't get very far, very quickly. Just like so many other things in life change when you become a mom, so does the way you travel. Gone were the days of one carry on, you now have to pack spare outfits, bottles, toys and so much more. My son Atticus and I make a pretty nice travel duo. We have flown around the country together, and in under 2 years racked up 87,000 miles together. Not too shabby for a tot that up until recently did not know how to zip his sweater. I'd love to say we have traveled to foreign lands, but MommyCon keeps us pretty busy domestically, and we have kept our travel to seventeen contiguous US states. When we travel I try to keep things concise and efficient. I learned long ago that some comforts of home should just be left behind, and in hopes of inspiring my fellow mothers to take flight and travel,
November 22, 2013
We're walking through a tunnel of coastal tea trees. The end of the tunnel is black, until sunlight pokes through, leaving the silhouette of a big wallaby, furiously jumping straight towards me. A second passes as both the wallaby and I realise what the two-headed creature we're facing is. When I do, I grab my camera out of my Ergo pocket, but it's already too late: the wallaby and her joey have jumped off our hiking path, into the bush.
We are spending a month in Australia, where my husband is working. The children and I are enjoying all of Melbourne's wildlife, zoos and child-friendly museums, the superb coffee, cakes and ethnic vegetarian food, and meeting up with friends from various places and phases in our lives. I feel right at home in this country full of marsupials, since I often feel like one. I don't think I've taken my Ergo off since the day my son was born five years ago. The baby carrier carries my most precious cargo, and I don't just mean my children. I can't think of a
November 20, 2013
If you’re anything like me, the holidays are a time when your boundaries lessen or—complete honesty—totally disappear. (My favorite day-after-Thanksgiving breakfast? Pumpkin pie, thank you very much.) Luckily, Mama & Baby Love’s Stephanie Brandt Cornais, mama to 4-year-old Penelope, was up for sharing a few tips on how to have a healthier, saner season.
What are some of your Thanksgiving traditions?
Last Thanksgiving was my first grain free Thanksgiving. I was worried that my family might feel deprived, but it ended up going really well. So I’m excited to do that again this year. I’m trying to think back to the first time I did a roast turkey…. It was six or seven years ago, and I remember being terrified. It seemed so out of my league. But once I realized how easy roasting a chicken is, I just pretended the turkey was a bigger, fatter chicken. And I’m happy to say I can do a pretty damn good turkey these days. Also, my aim with Thanksgiving is good enough; I’m not going for Martha
November 19, 2013
It was a warm and sunny day in October when my husband and I met our daughter for the first time.
I was certain I would burst with excitement as we drove the hour commute from our home to the home of her foster parents’. I was giddy as I spoke with Brian about what it would be like to see her sweet face and cuddle with her for the first time. Brian was also looking forward to meeting her but he was very nervous. He is the thinker in our family and I am the feeler. We had only found out about Naomi a few days prior. Her caseworker had called to inform us we had been chosen to be her legal risk placement. The only other information we received was that she was a 5 month old African American girl. I immediately told him that yes we would be thrilled to be her family and we wanted to meet her right away.
I then had a few phone conversations with her foster parents. They were the most delightful, warm and loving people. They were in their seventies and had taken care
November 18, 2013
I met my sweetheart, Nate, in 2001. I fell head over heels in love with him. We dated for a while before he finally got down on one knee and begged asked me to marry him in 2003. I obliged and four short months later we were doing the below. Making a run for it!
We spent the next few years figuring out how to live with each other and thinking the first few years of marriage was the hard part.
We bought a cute little house, worked hard at our jobs, and I felt like it was time to start a family. It took a little longer to convince him of this fact. But he's a guy, and let's face it, the trying is fun.
I tried to relax for the first few months, but when those months turned into a year, I kinda started to panic. PANIC. PANIC.
I won't bore you with all the rest of the details, but those months turned into years. Years where I felt very incredibly Alone. Heartbroken. Devastated.
When my emotions could no longer handle the infertility world, we slammed the door on that and I never
November 12, 2013
My family story starts with a single mother of a sweet boy. When my son Zane was 14 months old I found myself suddenly parenting solo. During that 3 year journey I never gave up hope that I would have a loving husband that would desire to grow a family with me. I knew in my heart that I was created to be a mama of many so I trusted that more little ones would be coming my way. On April 1, 2007 I married an amazing man named Brian. In addition to my beloved I also scored 2 wonderful bonus boys, my step-sons Mason and Carson.
The Lowmillers were now a blended family of 5. Before Brian and I were married we spoke of the desire to grow our family. He thought one or two more children would be ideal, I thought three or four more sounded great. We were both very open to adoption so we agreed that is where we would start. I had a very strong desire to adopt from foster care so we signed up to take the necessary classes to get our adoption home study. Taking those classes
November 06, 2013
Attachment Parenting has been in the news recently, but in reality it is the most basic and oldest “style” of parenting in the world. In current culture, “Attachment Parenting” has been promoted in the adoption community by adoption specialists for years. Adoption specialists have promoted baby and child wearing to help foster attachment/bonding for the new parent and the new child. There is a trust element that is developed when a child is making physical contact with the parent, being able to hear the heartbeat of the person, and being able to have that security as they also observe and interact during the day. Our son, Samuel, came into our home when we adopted him from Ethiopia at almost four-years-old. He was large for his age, but once we started using our Ergobaby Carrier, his weight was distributed easily. He loved being in there. Our adoption specialist also was happy we were giving a child of his age so much time in a carrier. Adopted children, even past the age of