Before I had Logan I never really needed to exercise. I could eat whatever I wanted and never gain weight. I would give a lot to go back to those days, but unfortunately I no longer have that luxury. It’s hard to find time to exercise these days. With going to school and trying to take care of Logan on my own my hands are pretty full and my time is pretty limited. I usually feel better after a good work out, with all those endorphins floating around it’s hard not to, but it’s hard to fit it into my busy day, so it often falls to the wayside along with those few extra pounds.
Since I don’t have the time or money to go to the gym I’ve started taking walks around the neighborhood with Logan. It’s a great way for us to bond while getting up and moving around. However, with the attention span of a goldfish, I’ve had to find some creative ways to keep him entertained on these little outings together. If you have a toddler you know what I’m talking about. These are some of the tricks I’ve found. Try a few and see what works for you.
Right now Logan loves flowers. He got to help Grandma plant them this year and knows all of the names by heart. As we pass each house we see how many different kinds of flowers we can find and decide which ones are our favorites of the day. It is a great learning opportunity for him and it reminds both of us to stop and smell the flowers!
Sometimes we have our own little neighborhood scavenger hunt. We look for something big, something tiny, something soft, something red, something blue. We can even turn it into an “I Spy” game. We love guessing what the other one is looking at.
When Logan was first learning to count we would go on little counting walks. We would count how many trees we saw in our neighborhood, how many ants we could find, how many steps we took, how many petals the flowers had, anything that could be counted was by the end of our trip.
Our most recent adventure through the neighborhood included a camera. This way we could look at all of the cool things we saw even after we got home. He loves being able to show everyone what we saw on our walk and he loves being the one to take the pictures even more!
We are having a blast together and we are both getting that little bit of exercise we need to get through the day. I could definitely get used to this!