The WAHM (Work at Home Mom) and Exercise

I may have mentioned that I have three children. One is special-needs eight-year-old that came as part of the package with my husband (he’s a widower). My other girls are 18mos and 6mos old. I’ll wait while you stop gasping and shaking your head and saying to your computer screen, “What was she thinking?�

Okay, are we all back together now? Good…

I have various reasons for not putting them in childcare. You’d think the most notable would be the noble reason of wanting to raise my own children instead of giving them to a stranger. As much as I’d love to claim that and be a martyr for the cause of mothers everywhere, I have a much more practical reason for doing it.

I’d rather have the money.

Your area may be different, but here if I want full time care for my three daughters at the cheapest place in town (I’m talking only about price tag, not about quality or reliability) the price tag is a cool $375/wk. I’ll save you the math and let you know right now that’s $1500/mo and $19,500/yr. There are a lot of things I can do with that, and I don’t want to pay someone else the cost of a mid-priced car every year to take care of them.

The problem I had for the longest time was how to exercise while being at home. Walking was working for a bit, but having to stop every two minutes to check on one child or the other or change a diaper was getting overwhelming. I tried lifting hand weights at home but it didn’t give me any extra energy and I was looking for an aerobic workout as well.

Last Christmas, my husband bought me a Playstation2, a copy of Dance Dance Revolution, and a dance pad. I was completely skeptical at first because I remember the dance pad back from the original Nintendo days and wasn’t impressed much by it back then. I decided to give it a try, since I didn’t want to be seen as ungrateful for a gift….and found I LOVED it.

It has a workout mode, so you can see how many calories you’ve burned, and it converts your dance steps into the equivalent of “miles jogged� or “jump rope skipped� – So I know how much I’ve done on any given day. Then there’s a graph that shows how you’re improving (or not) so you can see your progress over time.

I’ve also been able to reduce my coffee consumption from eight-thousand cups a day to just one. The exercise really does perk me up and helps me get through the day. If I’m feeling tired in the afternoon I jump on for a few songs and am invigorated instead of sluggish. It’s really been a lifesaver.

Another unexpected benefit is that Sadie can’t get enough of it. If I’m not in the living room she’s all over the dance pad and trying to do what she sees me doing in the morning. So I’m not only exercising myself, I’m putting a positive message through to my child that says, “Exercise is fun and normal!� Who doesn’t want that for their children?