First Aid: A homemaking Skill to Learn BEFORE becoming a homemaker!

This morning, after breakfast, my two older kids were still hungry.  So we decided to have some clementines, or baby oranges as they call them, or satsumas as I called them as a kid.  Whatever they are, we were eating them and my three year old started to cough and gag.  He coughed up the piece of orange and said he was okay. A minute of two later he coughed, and then it turned to a quiet almost gasping sound that I knew right away meant that he was fully choking! I firmly patted his back to try to loosen it up, but it was in there too tight and he was turning a disturbing dark red color, so I did the Heimlich maneuver.  In case you're wondering, with small children you only use one hand because two could hurt them.  It took about three thrusts before the orange piece came loose and he threw up a little bit.  He felt kind of yucky for a while after that so I gave him a hug and let him puddle up in a blanket and watch a movie.  I realized after the fact that I had scattered my own orange peels when rushing to him, and a few minutes ago I realized that I had been telling my daughter a story and never finished it.  I'm so thankful my little man is okay! 
I thought about it later on and wonder what would I have done if I didn't know that basics of first aid?  A lot of things about being a mother I have learned as I go and as needed, but this wasn't one of those times!  I had to know not only what to do but what modifications to make for a small child.  I'm so thankful that I had so much first aid training growing up and that I really got to practice the child and infant modifications on practice dummies in firefighter school.  I don't want to think about what would have happened is I hadn't known what to do or if I had panicked and not done anything despite my knowledge.  So, if you're wanting to add a homemaking skill or start somewhere, first aid, especially the Heimlich maneuver may be the best place to start!

I am "Super Cook"!

I found a website today called supercook.com  where you can enter the ingredients you have on hand and it will give you a large list of recipes that you have the ingredients to make!  I got this recipe for southwestern chicken from it today.  Normally I'm very skeptical about southwestern style things because they end up being too spicy for me and too spicy for the kids.  This one though had a nice blend of flavors!  I did notice that a lot of juice came off while cooking, so when it was all done I took the chicken out of the pan, added some flour tot eh extra liquid, and whipped that up for a few minutes to make a bit of a sauce.  Then I heated the chicken in the microwave for a few seconds so they wouldn't be cold, and poured the sauce over it. To go with it I cooked some brown rice in the slow cooker with a teaspoon or two of low sodium taco seasoning a few shakes of cumin, and a healthy sprinkle of dried minced onions.  When it was all cooked I added some corn and about half a can of black beans (I drained and rinsed them first).  The rice had a really mild flavor, which was good because it didn't overpower the chicken, and also didn't drown it in blandness.  I've noticed more and more that I don't measure very often.  I just add until it looks about right and smell it after a few minutes of cooking.  Some things flop but this went rather well.  My usually VERY picky three year old asked for seconds and told me several times that he likes chicken! 

This was also a good opportunity to use what we have on hand.  The rice was part of our food storage (obviously not from the cannery since they don't have brown rice) The corn and chicken were part of our frozen food, the beans had been canned but I used half of the can in another recipe a while back so I froze the rest to use another day so that worked out great, and I always have those spices on hand! Not to mention that it was pretty healthy.  I used a little less salt than the recipe calls for in the chicken, though it doesn't call for much.  With the holidays going on we've recently been eating food that had been way too unhealthy for us!  My husband even got sick this weekend from eating (someone else's) turkey deep fried in lard (though he was raised with old fashioned fatty food, he's gotten used to the reduced sodium, whole grain goodness that I usually make!)  So we were all glad to be eating high fiber, low sodium and low fat stuff again!  Who knew such healthy food would be so welcome!

Just thinking of all the lard that must have been involved in deep frying that turkey, I can feel my arteries clogging!

They guy who made the turkey insisted that it wasn't bad because it was a natural fat and not hydrogenated oil.  To me.....fat is still fat, you don't need that much!  I prefer to bake my turkey!

Exercising With Little Kids Around

There's no doubt that we all need exercise.  There's also no doubt that traditional workouts on a treadmill or at a gym are kind of impossible to really achieve with several little kids around.  I know that I personally am not AS fit as before I had children, but I don't think that has as much to do with giving birth as it does with no longer being in the military, and even if I were single I likely wouldn't be doing 86 sit ups in 2 minutes like I did after firefighter school.  But I'm straying from the topic at hand.

Here are some ways I found to get exercise in when little ones are running around:

When my third was a tiny baby, he had colic, and as with many colicky babies, movement helped him.  One thing was walking up and down the kitchen, holding him close, making a shush-ing sound and doing a sort of bouncy lunge walk.   Great leg workout and it calmed him down.  Another thing was holding my back up straight, holding him in my arms so his bum was against my tummy and his feet sticking up, my hands were under his bum and head and shoulders, so he was supported and could see me.  Then I would do deep squats.  The squatting stopped him from crying, but if I counted out loud it made him laugh for some reason.  Which was really cute and I ended up doing about 100 squats to entertain my baby!

Another thing is walking.  Strollers are my friend.  We've walked to the library, grocery store, park, and doctor's office.  Tip:  if you go on really long walks with kids ALWAYS bring water for them and you and bring snacks for them at least, even if it's just a banana for each or them, and eat right before you leave and right after you get home, this prevents a great deal of whining.

When you have a small baby who can support their own head, you can lay on the floor with the baby sitting on your chest (hold onto them!) bend your legs and do full sit ups.  Making faces at the baby makes them a lot more enjoyable during this, and what better motivation to exercise than making your baby laugh?

This may seem obvious, but taking kids to the park is of course a great way for them to get exercise, but if you run around with them, you will really get a workout.  Play tag with two or three kids, let them all be "it" and carry a 20 pound baby around while trying to escape the giggling big kids.  You'll definitely get your cardio in, let me tell you!  This will build your endurance too, as the kids will want to keep going and going!

One thing all kids I've ever met love is getting piggy back rides and having the rider runnign aorund the house"singing"  (does "da-dum-da-dum" count as singing?) William Tell Overture (Lone Ranger theme song), This is even more fun for them if you gallop instead of run, also gets your heart rate up there!

Dance!  Even if you feel like a dork.  As my sister says: "Embrace the dork within yourself, life's too short to be 'cool'!"  Put on music, dance with your kids, dance by yourself, pick up your kids and spin them around, shake your booty without regarding it's size, have fun!

Take a break from writing a blog post to play ball with your one year old.

Do standing crunches and walk in place while you're making dinner or washing dishes.  I had to walk in place while doing the dishes or anything else when I was pregnant with my third because I had varicose veins and I had to keep the circulation going, plus it was July in Texas and our air conditioner didn't work very well so the compression stockings weren't recommended by my doctor.

After little kids go to bed, do a short exercise video.  If you're like me, buy the end of the day you're too wiped out to do a long video, plus there's that coveted sleep thing, so I try to just do 10-20 minutes, like one of the 10 minute solution dvd's, and just pick one or two workouts from that.  When I was working to lose the baby weight I did this every night except Sunday, but now I only do it a few times a week to just be healthy and somewhat strong.  Sometimes I'll do it during the kids nap time instead. 

Anyway, I hope these tips help you to get some exercise with your little blessing running all over the place!