Dating my kids

I have three very active kids at home, ages 11, 9 and 5; two boys and a girl. Finding the time to be with them, really be with them, was very difficult a few years ago. We all live in such a hurry, always juggling our lives between work, duties and responsibilities, that it becomes really easy to forget the essence of living a fulfilling life. In my case, a fulfilling life is strongly tied to my family; my kids and my husband. Once I recognized this, for me, it was a no brainer that I needed to quit my job if I wanted to be able to be present in my kids' lives. Don't get me wrong, I'm not telling you go ahead, run and quit your job, it was really something I needed to do for me and for them.

Since I quit my engineering job, I'm more involved in my kids' lives and extracurricular activities. I discover how amazing their personalities are, and how stubborn they can be when they argue. I know what they like and dislike, I can even buy them shoes and clothing without needing their presence, since I know exactly their sizes and their fashion tastes (and believe me this is a major accomplishment). But even though I'm spending more time with them, and am more involved in their activities, most of  our time together are basically complying with their duties and responsibilities, and some times the week pass us by and we haven't been able to have a family time, or a couple's time or even a special time with each of the kids individually. I realized that even though I'm a full time mom, I wasn't enjoying or giving them their own personal time with me, and neither was daddy.

I needed to do something, we as parents needed to do something, they grow up so fast and we were feeling that we were missing something. We sat together and define a plan. Our first step was to make a list of each of our kids extracurricular activities and the things they enjoy to do the most.

We are a really organized couple (if this is not your strength, then this should be your first step) so every month we put on our visible calendar everything the kids got scheduled for that month. We just look into their weekly schedules and check on their school and activities calendars, so we can plan ahead adjust our agendas and squeeze a "date" with each individually. My husband has his own "dates" with each of the kids, and I have my own "dates" with them too. When you have more than 2 kids at home and a busy work schedule, it is really difficult to have all the dates within the same week, so the best option, which worked for us, was to have one date weekly every other month (we alternate months, one month is daddy's weekly dates and the other is mommy's). And of course, we have family dates every month and couple dates every other month too ;).


In order to give you some ideas of the kind of activities we do with the kids on our "dates", here is a list of them in case you want to put them into action. Thing #1 (Edrick, the story teller) loves science, the beach, dinosaurs,  video games, drawing and reading. Our dates with him may consist but are not limited to: drawing workshops (may be paid, or just go to the park, the beach or anywhere else where he can put his drawing abilities into action), visiting museums, visiting arcade parlors, bookstores or iteractive libraries where we can read adventure books together. Thing #2 (Xaymara, the diva) is all about fashion, hair do's, makeovers, dancing and singing. Our dates with the princess may consist of: day spa's, fashion sprees, karaoke or dance nights, salon visiting, tanning at the beach, manicure and/or pedicure (yes, she will be such a diva and high maintenance). Thing #3 (Giancarlo, the troublemaker) is all about super heroes, role playing, yard games (everything that allows him to run freely), video games, cartoons, the beach and ice cream. So, our dates with the little man mostly consist of going to the park or the beach, visiting arcade and/or ice cream parlors, role playing games or any activity that involves the super hero of the day. Another thing we do, to keep these "dates" creative, different and surprising is that we every once in a while, check their schedules and pick the less busy day of the week at school. Then we surprise one of them by picking him/her early from school and get our own "secret escape" with mommy and daddy. For obvious reasons this can not be done frequently, but if you have not tried it, give it a shot, it will give you and your kids a thrilling, adventurous and satisfying feeling.

We are still a working progress on this and we know this may seem overwhelming right now, but once you put it into practice, it becomes really easy to do. The joy on your kids' faces, the satisfaction of you as a parent, making the time to spend fun time with each of your kids is priceless. So, my recommendation for you is: GET ORGANIZED, sit down (with your husband or special other) and write your kids hobbies and favorite things, look for a spot in their calendars, adjust yours to adapt to it and be prepared to enjoy the best feeling of satisfaction, joy and accomplishment a parent can ever have.

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So, I need to prepare my meals with anticipation?

Every time I started a healthy lifestyle journey, I struggled to keep myself eating healthy. Let's face it, having more than one small kid at home with lots of schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and demanding needs, you'll always try to look for the fastest, easiest way to do things so everything gets done. We tend to believe we are super moms who need to do everything, right away, because if not, we are crappy mommies who do not deserve been call as so. Most of us even struggle with the demanding duties of a job or the responsibilities of keeping an immaculate house (you know in case anyone dares to visit), others need to balance both. Sometimes is like we transform our self into octopuses, with 8 arms all around every unimaginable duty.

So, how am I supposed to plan a healthy meal and keep it up? The usual action is just stop by a fast food franchise or even order delivery food. Then it seems so easy for us to do this we easily fall into this trap and create a habit of it. What I find more effective to keep me on track of healthy eating habits is to plan ahead my meals and even separate them into the required portions. Of course it will take time, thinking and preparation, but you will schedule it and do it just one day, not every single day. You will need containers of all sizes to do this which you can find on supermarkets or department stores for a very reasonable price; and of course a variety of vegetables, healthy snacks, fruits, lean meats, whole grains and healthy fats so you can prepared a varied menu for the whole week.

My husband and I, pick every Sunday evening/night (something we need to start doing again) to look for healthy recipes (most came from our exercise programs nutritional guides or the Eat Clean Diet Facebook fan page). Then our culinary workshop begins. We mostly pick easy recipes which do not take a lot of time to prepare and have great cooking tools that helps us accelerate the preparation process. For example, we have a slow cook/steamer were we can prepare the brown rice and steam veggies at the same time; a flat grill and a pasta pan.

We both have different servings and portion sizes, so each one measure our own servings and put them into the containers, making sure we serve a balanced meal. For snacks, we do exactly the same. Most of the snacks we buy come in full packages, so we make sure to separate those on individual servings, and either put them in small bags or containers. Also, we make sure that our snacks contain a fruit or veggie base. With this exercise we make sure to have at least 2 meals daily for 5 days, the working/school days, which are the most difficult to keep with.

Try to put this into practice, equip yourself with great cooking tools, make your healthy shopping list, look for a partner or partners and enjoy the ride to healthy habits to avoid unwanted temptations.

Shakeology Parfaits

So, I stumbled into this amazing recipe and wanted to share with you. I'm trying it for dessert tomorrow, so I will keep you posted on how it went. Hope you enjoy this delicious and healthy meal.


Preparation Time: About 5 minutes


Calories: About 165 per serving


You'll need:
2 cups Fat Free Milk (you can use Almond milk too)
1 package of Jello Cheesecake sugar free and fat free pudding
1/4 cup of chopped cocoa covered almonds
8 tsp of 60% cocoa powder
1 scoop of Chocolate Shakeology
2 strawberries


How it's made:
1. Have prepare 4 glasses bottoms, each with 1/4 of the 1/4 cup of chopped cocoa covered almonds and 2 tsp of the 60% cocoa powder.
2. Mix the pudding and milk in a blender.
3. Pour half of the blended pudding and milk into the 4 glasses previously prepared.
4. Add 1 scoop of chocolate Shakeology to the remaining pudding/milk and mix again in the bender.
5. Pour this mixture over the pudding inside each glass.
6. Top every glass with half strawberry and the remaining chopped almonds



ENJOY!!