Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

While I won’t say my habits are “bad” I can tell you they’re not as good as I would like.

I’ve been sporadic at best with exercise since, well, leaving school. I enjoy playing sports, I’m LOVING coaching my girls soccer team (even if it is for only half an hour a week), but for some reason, making it a habit hasn’t been as successful as I’d like. Actually, not a lot of my habits stick, at least not for long.

Lately I’ve been doing something that HAS been working.

You know how some things stick with you? I will never forget my step-mother telling me how she would practice pool on the pool table while waiting for the washing machine to finish.

What with 5 people in the house, there’s always washing to be done., and since that’s part of my morning routine I thought I would try riding my bike while that first load of washing is on in the morning.

So now at 6am instead of hitting the snooze button and going back to sleep, I’ve been staggering to the laundry and putting the first load of washing on for the 30 minute wash, and then jumping on my bike until the load is finished.

I didn’t do this all in one hit. For a week (or two) I committed to getting up and just chucking that load of washing in the machine. That was it. Surely that wasn’t too hard and even if only that became something of a habit, things would be better off .

The first few times I tried it I had a few false starts. Kids waking up earlier than normal and needing food/clothes/etc, batteries dying on the bike etc etc etc.

But it seems to be working. I’ve already lost a couple of kilo’s, but more importantly, feeling a lot better for it.

A wonderful side effect is that at least one load of washing is getting done each day. And now I’m finding it even easier to deal with that washing when I get off my bike (the bike being in the room next to the laundry) and put another one in - means 2 loads are getting washed without me having to think about it much.

And with exams just over 2 weeks away, listening to lectures as I ride is certainly reinforcing the study I’m pretending to do doing.

What tricks do you have for changing habits? How do you go about it?

I did a menu plan this week, but didn’t get around to posting it on Monday. As it turns out, I may as well have not bothered.

After years of agonising on my part about her behaviour, eating habits (or lack thereof) and general health, an allergy test yesterday showed Kiki (and likely Miss Moo) is allergic to: weat/gluten, all dairy (including sheep and goat dairy) and soy.

If you can imagine, that pretty much exludes so much of her already limited diet of yoghurt, milk, cereals, breads, cheeses, pastas and rice.

The doctor has been fantastic, and loaded me up with reading material, lists of books to track down (including recipe books) and a promise of a referral to a dietician if we see an improvement with replacing or cutting out these foods.

On the plus side, I have so far found gluten, dairy and soy free: bread mix, milk, pasta, biscuits, butter replacement, flour, cereal and noodles.

Kiki is excited about the prospect of these new foods (which she helped me shop for) and the fact her stomach is likely to stop hurting in a week or so. To be perfectly honest, so am I.

It has been a long road to get to this point, starting I guess when she was 6 weeks old and I was crying on the phone to the health nurse because she wouldn’t feed or sleep or stop screaming. She has only started reliably (ie more often than not) sleeping through the night in the last 18 months. If she eats too much lactose or rich foods she vomits.

She is still complaining of a sore tummy today, but she is already much happier and loves a lot of her new food (most of which she has eaten before anyway.

So now I’m on the lookout for new recipe’s to try for the whole family (I figure if 2/5 of us have it, it’s likely the rest of us will feel better if we all eat this way) and ways of modifying my favourites (the doctor has already given me a variation for my apricot chicken I’m keen to try) in keeping with our new diet.

If you have any you would like to share, or websites you know of, feel free to leave links to them in the comments (or use the contact form).

M&M in particular has always had a thing for soccer. I have pictures of her and Kiki when they were 24 months and 10 months respectively, playing soccer in the front yard of our house.

Our trip to the UK in 2008 also helped. I don’t quite know if they know who any of the teams are, but the soccer thing has always been huge in our house. Not that DH and I watch it at all. He’s more of a Rugby fan and I’m a Rugby League girl from birth.

Sill, not being one to rain on her parade, when I saw an ad at school for Under 6 players needed for a team I rang up and told them I had two very excited little girls who were desperate to play.

Well, they’re loving it, M&M especially. Kiki has her moments, she isn’t as keen on the games, which is kind of understandable as in some cases she’s 2 years younger than the teams we’re playing, and so far have only played against one team with any girls.

Still, the six-a-side, half field, no entering the circle, no ref, coaches on the field version of under 6 soccer has merit, and I can see so much improvement in co-ordination and confidence (M&M’s even had a turn at being goalie) that it’s hard to see a downside.

Except for training.

Training at 4:30 may have seemed like a good idea at the start of the season, however now the days are getting shorter, and the kangaroos are hovering at the edge of the field for the dusk feed from about 4:45 onwards. Doesn’t leave a lot of time for practice. And our team needs a lot of practice.

Nearly all the team (6 of the 8 players) can make it to train at 4pm, but neither the coach, or his backup (both fathers of players) can make it until 4:30.

What to do? (you can see where this is going, right?)

So as of this Thursday, I will be taking training for the 6 players from 4-4:30 when a real coach arrives.

Watching the game on Saturday (which we only lost 2-0 - go team!) I made a list of skills that we should probably work on (no, I’ve never played soccer before….).

Dribbling, passing, stopping, tackling, kicking. Umm, so basically everything…

I think I might start on some dribbling,  stopping and kicking this week and see how we go.

Now if anyone knows any sites that explain to me how to actually play soccer, that would be great!

or My Procrastination Tool Of Choice This Week.

I’ve talked many times about trying to get fit. I was doing really well at swimming last year when life intervened and I never did go back. With all the drama this year and moving this has definitely being low on the list of priorities.

Well now I’m down to 3 pairs of pants that fit me, something needs to be done. Now.

Some of you might remember September 2007 when I completed my first $25o savings challenge and bought myself an exercise bike? Since then I have been pregnant, breastfeeding, moving or having it stolen and held hostage by my mother-in-law.

But no more.

On Monday I pulled it out of the garage, cleared a spot for it in the rumpus room, and got on.

Yes, the rumpus room is messy. That’s why it has a door. And I still have 30 boxes that need unpacking.  But that there is my bike. I got one that I could relax in so I could read while I ride.

And I have. Monday night I rode 10km, in a smidge over 11 minutes. Tuesday I did 2 x 10km rides one in 11 minutes and one in 9 minutes.

Wednesday I did a 10km ride in the morning, and a 12km ride at night. I’m aiming to get to a 15km ride by the end of the week.

All while reading uni notes and textbooks. I am the Queen of Multi-Tasking. I tried to play the Wii on it, but even I’m not that co-ordinated. So reading it is.

So how’s that, exercise and study in one step.

I’m working on trying to get to a pool for swimming, but the times really don’t suit without major family disruptions. I’m going to have to find another pool I think.

It’s that time of year again, where swimming lessons and training consume the whole family. In addition to the three days a week I’m already training, there’s two more days I can attend, and Miss Moo is starting her babies water familiarisation. M&M & Kiki are back into their lessons in two weeks so at this stage I’m looking at 6 trips to the pool a week. And then yesterday came the bombshell from my coach.

He wants me to start training with the masters.

Now, apart from the fact I think I’m too young to be in masters (at the tender age of 28), I personally just think he needs people to make up numbers. Either way I’m thinking about it. That will be 7 trips to the pool a week. That’s a lot of driving, a lot of swimming, and a lot of washing.

But maybe the benefits for my health outweigh all that?

The other reason I’m dragging my feet getting back to swimming is what happened on Monday.

See, we’ve rearranged our modem/router location, and now I’m mobile again. But Hubby has decided we should turn the modem off at night. So what happened on Monday?  Well…

When I went to bed Sunday night Monday morning I switched everything off and thus, when I crawled out of bed got up later on Monday morning, I couldn’t be bothered turning everything on. So I had my breakfast, did several loads of washing, ironed, cleaned the kitchen, did a science experiment with the kids, all before lunch time. After lunch we lazed around on the computer, visited a furniture shop, went to the park for a play, Macca’s for an ice-cream, then to the bank before making it home at 5pm. All in all, the day was calm, quiet and, most importantly, fun.

Swimming three times a week takes up a lot of time. Even if all I do is go, swim and come home, I’m gone for at least two and a half hours. If I stay for a coffee it’s 3 hours minimum. Adding in study next week (eeek!) will make things more chaotic. I do love swimming, but doing it with 3 kids is tiring. But at the same time I really need to keep doing it for my back. Added to the fact Miss Moo is getting beyond the age she can happily remain in her pram for an hour with little to no input from me and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up. Or what to do about it.

My Dr is at me to lose weight (for a number of reasons - I don’t really consider myself overweight, but I could lose 5 - 7kg and be healthier for it) and it’s just so hard with three kids at home. I have contemplated Wii Fit, but someone is looking out for my bank balance at the moment cause when I went into Target today to put it on layby there were none left.

Any suggestions? Or just suck it up until they’re at school and I can swim/exercise in peace?

I was going to title this “Where’s my swimsuit?” But it sounded a bit pretentious.

I haven’t been swimming for 3 weeks now. For over a week I was away, and then I came down with another damn cold/flu. This one has hung around like a bad smell. I have never been sick so often before in my life. I am over it!

Before I went away, I had only been twice since going back after the last cold. I am totally struggling to get over all these colds and back into the pool. And I miss it. Going back is going to be hard. Uni goes back in a week, and my six week “holiday” will be over. I have enjoyed the time off. But back to the swimming. I had planned to go yesterday, but on Sunday night I was just. not. feeling it. And I couldn’t find my swimmers. And I sat up til after 1am playing on the internet. Heh.

Several things have to happen here to get me back to the pool.

1. I need to find my swimmers. Hmmm, could be tricky. I’m sure I’ve seen them recently somewhere.
2. I need to pack a bag for me (and the kids) so I don’t need to think about it or run around like a headless chook in the morning
3. I need to get some money and put it aside for a new 10 pass card. I should have done it before I went away.
4. I need someone to make me acocuntable.

And number four is where you come in. Now I’ve posted this (well, when I hit the publish button in a few minutes) I will have you to prompt me to go tomorrow and “dip my toe” back in the water. Even harder will be doing it all again on Friday.

So who will volunteer to be my friendly kick in the bee-hind? If I don’t get up and go soon, I’ll probably never go back.

There will be more next week on how the walking is or is not going, as the case may be.

While I’ve previously said my motivation for exercise such as swimming or walking is simply to get fit, I do have another motive.

When I was 12 I was diagnosed with scoliosis. At that stage the only time I had heard of scoliosis was in the book Deenie, by Judy Blume, so you can imagine my fear about what was going to happen. But the only thing that happened was I saw a physio every six months, then an osteopath and finally a chiropractor for relief. But the truth was that none of these provided any real relief.

For some reason when I’m pregnant the specific pain I’m used to goes away (and is replaced by other pain which is equally annoying), but returns with avengeance once the child is born. As it has this time. For the last five months I’ve been suffering muscle pain as a result of my scoliosis, and it was becoming worse and more frequent. So last week I toddled off to the doctor to see if there was anything to be done.

It appears there isn’t .

The solution, long term no less, for my muscle pain is paracetamol. Three to four times a day. For, well, probably for the rest of my life. We did discuss other things I can do to help with the pain, and probably cut that back to twice a day, maybe once a day when Miss Moo gets old enough that I am not at her constant beck and call. Oh, and she gets a bit taller too (even though she’s nearly half my height ). But for now, there’s not a lot more I can do beyond taking paracetamol, continuing my exercise plan (which we discussed at length) and perhaps investing in some core strength training (either with a trainer, physio or on my own).

Of course all I wanted was for him to fix it, and the pain to go away. But it seems I’m going to be stuck with it, and trying to remember to take tablets multiple times a day for quite a while yet. Did I mention I’m useless at remembering to take tablets? Maybe I should get my kids to remind me….

What, I can’t just be sick for two weeks and not exercise AT ALL and go straight back to swimming as I was? Well that’s just. not. fair.

Ok, so I get that you know, I have been sick and all. But still. It was tough swimming yesterday. Tough I tells ya. My coach kept telling me to take it easy and not push too hard. And where times were involved I was working to much lower times than I was before the exam/sickness induced hiatus. But, I got there. I made it through the full session, swimming a total of 2.3km (or 46 laps). But I tell ya, I’m feeling it burn today.

It is hard getting back into exercise after being sick, and it is necessary to take it slow and ease back into it, which is even harder. I want to be able to do what I was doing three weeks ago. But it feels like I’m starting from scratch. And with that comes a real risk of stopping altogether.

But, I have a few techniques I can use to keep myself motivated and get to swimming.

1. I still have 3 passes left on my 10 pass card. This is important because I have to use them or they’re wasted. There’s a time limit on them too, so I can’t muck about. When I get down to 2 I’ll buy another one to keep me motivated.

2. I have made a standing appointment for coffee with a new friend who lives near the pool. This way once a week I have to go swimming so I can keep the coffee date.

3. Tomorrow I’m going to call the mother of some friends of the girls (her girls are 16 months apart, her eldest 4 months older than M&M and her youngest 2 months older than Kiki) and arrange for a school holiday play date after one lesson a week.

Hopefully by then I will have regained the momentum I’ve lost, and be back training to where I was.

Then maybe I can start working on this whole walking thing.

NB I wrote this on Monday night, intending to publish it Tuesday. It got lost somewhere in the ether, and published itself on the 4th June instead of the 24th of June. Ok, so I probably put in the wrong date. But it still applies. Yes, it’s been 10 days now.

I’m sick. Again. Still. Whatever. It’s driving me insane.

Not sick as in, dying in bed, can’t get out of bed or even function sick (although if I was male….), but sick enough that it’s annoying. I won’t go off on a rant (again) about the lack of medication available for breastfeeding women (this time!).

See I understand that Miss Moo is taking my immune system from me, or at least drastically lowering it’s effectiveness. I know this because despite the fact I’ve been sick for over a week, she’s barely had a sniffle, and is as happy as ever. M&M & Kiki as well as Hubby have had brief flirtations with a cold, but nothing like the ongoing snot explosions that are still coming from my direction eight days on. And the headaches. And the general feeling of “blurgh”.

But I want it back!

This is a classic case of not appreciating something you have until its gone. I never truly appreciated my immune system until 3 pregnancies and subsequent breastfeeding in 5 years left mine in tatters. I’ve always had an excellent immune system. I recall missing one day of primary school due to illness, and if memory serves that was one afternoon with a headache in the office (Mum worked at the school) that was probably the result of the heat at lunch time. All the time I missed in high school was related to *ahem* “women’s issues” or glandular fever, which both form whole other rants. I’ll spare you those today.

So what I’m saying is I now truly appreciate my immune system. I recognise its value in allowing me to function without catching every bug my children bring home from daycare, and eventually school. I appreciate that it allows me to get through the winter without the need to buy shares in the tissue manufacturer. And now, more than ever, I appreciate the drugs that work with my immune system to fight off bugs while allowing me to get through the day and keep my children fed and alive.

So can I have it back now? Please?