Changes

Happy Mothers day to all mothers, but very special thanks to my amazing mother Connie McCarthy! She has always been there through the good and the bad and has never given up on me no matter the circumstance. There are no words for me to express my gratitude for all you have done! Chickie

With today being Mothers Day it really got me thinking about how our lifestyle changes have affected our children. I can remember hearing people I know and respect say “be careful where you place your feet, your children will follow”.  I never really bought into this old saying… until now.

History

Let me give you a little background on why I never bought into this saying. My parents split before I was even born they were young, and in retrospect probably did what was best for everyone at the time. When I was around 8 my mom married a guy that was an alcoholic, he did quit drinking after they were married for several years and those were good years. He decided that he could start drinking recreationally again as we all know this is never a good idea with a recovering addict of any kind.

The drinking started off slow and progressively got worse to where he was drunk every night in my adolescent years. During this time he was extremely verbally and emotionally abusive. He would get drunk and whisper in my ear trying to start fights with me. He would blame things he had done on me. All while hiding it from my mom. I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to stress her anymore than she already was because he was just as verbally abusive with her.

I knew growing up I didn’t want to be like him. I knew that this wasn’t right nor was it normal for a father/father figure to act like this. Since I did not grow up to be like that I always thought you created your own path that you didn’t have to step where your parents did. Little did I know I was following my mom’s footsteps.

Now that we have started this lifestyle change I started paying attention to the choices my kids were making, and was I ever shocked and saddened at what I had taught my children.

I noticed my kids eating habits, their activity level and technology use and they were the same as Tiffani and I’s.  They ate junk, they got very little physical activity and watched way too much TV and played way to many video games!

We knew we couldn’t force them to change overnight like we did, so we started slowly taking away the bad options and replacing them with better choices. I was amazed with how quickly this changed them along with them seeing our changes.  It started with replacing snacks with fruit, and then on to replacing their milk with almond milk and now we are up to limiting TV and video games in 2 short months.

The Kids

Brayden is my 4 year old son; he is very picky and very stubborn. Before this change all the kid would eat was cereal, hot dogs, scrambled eggs and McDonalds. Now he is a fruit eating machine! One day this week for breakfast he had a banana, lunch was a banana and an apple, dinner was scrambled eggs and toast. Now I know these are not the healthiest meals in the world but they are a step in the right direction, and the best part is he asked for these foods they were not forced on him nor were they offered in a choice. He also asks everyday if we can go on a walk or if we can go workout. These things made me extremely happy but, still wasn’t enough to convince me.

Kilynn is my 8 year old daughter, she is also very picky and very stubborn (I think they get it from their mom) She has also been really good about making better choices, and very inquisitive about why me are making the choices we are and what is healthy (since most of what we learn is healthy in school is not exactly true!!!). She is also the one to teach me that our kids will follow our footsteps.

5K and Mini Marathon Influence

I have been talking about wanting to run in the Indianapolis mini marathon next year, and how I need to run some 5K’s this year to get ready. Tiffani and I decided we would sign up to run in a 5K together on July 4^th and little to our knowledge Kilynn had been soaking all of this 5K/mini marathon talk in. So yesterday at lunch much to our shock she asks if she can run in the mini with me. My first response was no, but I stopped myself before it came out and I said maybe you should try to run a 5K first. So we told her that if she wanted to she could go on Tiffani’s couch to 5K day 2 run with her and if she wanted to continue with it after that, we would run a 5K with her when she could run 3 miles. Knowing Kilynn I decide to take Brayden and Walk their running path thinking she wouldn’t make it 10 min. into the 3o min. workout, WOW! was I ever wrong. She made it well over half way and is excited to try the day 3 run tomorrow!

This small moment in my life showed me that what I am doing is not only good for my life, but it is also good for my kids and their kids and so on. I have never been more motivated to continue with these changes than I am when I see my kids making healthier choices.

I leave you with this what path are you leading your children down? What legacy will you leave?