There are days when the kids seem more than motivated to get outside and play with every toy they own (my front yard looking like a garage sale gone awry), and other days, I can’t convince them to move so I can vacuum under their feet.

Ever have those times when your kids don’t seem to move from the couch or from in front of the computer screen?  You suggest fun activities, you offer to pick up a friend, you list the benefits of getting outside and stretching their legs and still, nothing. There they sit.

When it’s a cold, dreary snow-less winter, what is a parent to do?

On a day-to-day basis, you can limit screen time the kids can enjoy, but sometimes managing that and filling in their time with other creative idea’s is full time job in itself.  I find if they are kept busy with other activities, there is rarely time for extended couch surfing. In the mornings before school everyone has responsibilities in our house – emptying the dishwasher, packing backpacks, practicing piano, getting out vitamins, making their own breakfast, brushing teeth, and finding library books (this one can take awhile!). This leaves little time for TV or computers before school and keeps everyone moving towards to door.

Regular weekly activities give the kids an outlet to learn a new skill and get much needed time to move after nap time or sitting at a desk all day.  If your kids are too young for full day school, plan morning outings to the library or a play date and in the afternoon plan something active like a walk. You don’t want your kids too busy, but a paper route or dance classes a couple days a week for older kids keeps them active and away from the video game temptation with their free time after school.

When we do have those lazy unstructured weekends void of any plans, birthday parties or trips to the mall, I take it upon myself to play the Activities Co-ordinator and plan a family outing – something I know everyone will enjoy (once the finish groaning and moaning about getting up off the couch)!  We go for a walk to the park, for a hike in the nearby forest, for a family swim at the local pool, play mini golf or to Open Gym at our Community Centre.  Older kids will enjoy a little indoor rock climbing, skating, bowling or sign up for a Zumba class.  The key is, Mom & Dad join in! The kids not only love the family time, but the whole family benefits from staying active together.

The feel good laughs at Mom trying to climb a rock wall or Dad sinking a glow in the dark hole in one will be remembered, and the hugs, holding hands and family time will help persuade your sedentary bunch outside the next time you need to nudge everyone off the couch.

BIO: Deb Lowther is a mother of 3 young daughters who, when not running after the kids, is running in the trails! She blogs about Raising Healthy Kids and ensures her own have fun while eating healthy & staying active.

You can visit her websites to learn more

www.iron-kids.com & www.adultgummies.com

It was back in 2008 that I found myself, at the age of 47—a published writer, former spokesperson for TV and radio, once well-known in my field—mopping up splattered spaghetti sauce from the kitchen floor and catching watermelon pop-ups,  while two small children took their best shot at killing each other from across the kitchen table.

As far as the business world was concerned, I’d hopped a flying egg-beater to Outer Mongolia and was forgotten with crushing ease and rapidity.

What had happened to my life?

As intensely as I loved my children—as blessed as I was by their very presence—becoming a SAHM sometimes felt like an unexpected demotion. A “lunch-bag let down.”

Of course, I would then start beating myself over the head with a guilt stick for not embracing a Madonna-like serenity in my new ‘round the clock role of nurse, short-order cook, janitor and taxi service for two little people with a sense of innocent entitlement in knowing their parents owed them a good life.

Often, I was gasping for the sanity-sustaining air of business camaraderie and a sense of achievement more profound than was afforded by a successful potty training session.

Ironically, it was my son Alex, then five (and Lizzie two), who threw me a life ring providing the inspiration for launching Flower Power Mom—an opportunity to marry my two life passions into a common cause, at once greater than the sum of its parts.

(Never underestimate the profound wisdom of a child.)

Since then, I have met with many former career women who fear they ‘threw it away in their forties’ to become mothers, and can never make it back as the prodigal daughters of business.

Now 45, Heather Aguilera—who was an IT Project Manager “earning six figures” at a major Canadian bank before she left to become a SAHM—was eventually reduced to thinking she “would have to work in a donut shop.”

After taking a “handsome” settlement package, Aguilera settled in at home for more than five years to raise her children, having the last at 39.

When she tried to get back on the job market after 7 years, she said “a headhunter said that there was nothing he could do for me.”

For Aguilera, that was just culmination of events, each more damaging to her career persona and self esteem, in her journey as a SAHM.

“The transition had a great impact on my personal relationships” she says. “I used to make more money than most of my friends and my husband.”

She began to worry that her husband might find her “dull” or that if they went away alone together, they’d have “nothing to talk about but the kids.”

Heather Aguilera remembers going to a Christmas party to meet new neighbors and having little conversation after telling them she was a SAHM.

“They’d say ‘Wow, that’s great!’ and the conversation ended shortly after.”

That’s when she realized: “I needed to redirect my energies towards something I could be proud of” and took courses to set up her own business as a Doula and Childbirth Educator in Ontario, Canada.

“I have gone through a great transformation in priorities”, says Aguilera, “and how I measure success and quality of life.”

Suzanne Muusers—a 49-year-old Business Coach with international experience based in Scottsdale, Arizona—says that the stigma of Aguilera’s plight is common to women re-entering the job market after being a SAHM.

According to Muusers—who claims 40% of her clients are women over 40, both business owners and women returning to work after raising children—the crucial ingredient to success is planning ahead.

“Taking computer courses, contacting their network, updating their LinkedIn profile, and finding a local Toastmasters club to practice public speaking”, are all things midlife SAHMs can do to boost skills, confidence and job marketability.

However, with 70% of her clientele opting to become entrepreneurs, Suzanne Muusers adds: “I’m a firm believer in women taking full control of their lives by starting their own small business.”

“Women with a passion for what they do are unstoppable.”

Along with her website, Prosperity Coaching—which features reading and resources on small business start-ups, including “how to create a 30-second commercial”—Muusers coaches many older women with successful, home-based businesses.

“I love to see more women invest in themselves” she says, “and determine the course of their own lives.”

Cathy Curtis—who pilots her own investment advisory firm specializing in the finances of women out of the San Francisco Bay Area—made the personal choice to “go it alone” and become her “own boss”.

Curtis, now also a mentor for the Hatch Network which “provides needed education for women entrepreneurs building businesses” (also in the Bay Area), says that 75% of her clients are over 40 who “want to become financially independent”.

She agrees that starting a home-based business is likely the only way a midlife SAHM can realistically achieve that independence.

Old skills can be rejuvenated, and new ones acquired “through reading, attending seminars, or joining a program like the Hatch Network” where female entrepreneurs who “have succeeded against all odds” mentor new hopefuls.

“Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart” she cautions, “it takes guts, determination, the ability to change course with things don’t turn out the way you thought, and the ‘stick-to-itiveness’ to succeed.”

Both Curtis and Muusers emphasize the importance of business networking—by joining existing networks like Toastmasters or Hatch, or starting up one on your own—as well as the value of having a strong Business Coach.

Cathy Curtis says: “I’m a big fan…having a business coach is one of the fastest ways to get yourself out of the thinking phase and into the action phase.”

As midlife moms who once gave up the brass ring (some larger than others)—and so became the prodigal daughters of business—we may be walking a long journey ‘home’, but we are not walking alone.

Notes for this blog:

Angel La Liberte is the founder of the website Flower Power Mom.com—The Truth About Motherhood After 40 (www.flowerpowermom.com), a regular blog featuring commentary, real mom stories and expert advice about motherhood after 40. She regularly campaigns for more supportive attitudes towards women having children in midlife and more awareness on the realities (social and physical) of being a later life mother.

Angel also hosts “A Child After 40”, an online community to empower all women on the journey of motherhood after 40. She gave birth to her children at 41 and 44 after conceiving naturally.

by Sarah Deveau

When my husband and I bought our first home, we knew it would be an expensive endeavour. Our first mortgage, bigger and better furniture, and renovations to get things just the way we wanted them. We expected and budgeted for these costs, however, the physical act of moving came with a lot of unexpected expenses. Doing it with kids in the mix? Twice as difficult.

Do-It-Yourself

We priced out moving services, and figured we’d save hundreds by doing it ourselves, with the help of a few friends of course. In the end, after shelling out for snacks, beer, and pizza for the friends, the cost was nearly the same. In addition, we wouldn’t have had to steal our friends’ Saturday, and we wouldn’t owe them moving time. Finally, we had to loan out the kids to grandma for the day – hiring a babysitter would have been another added expense.

You Break It, You Buy It

Though we packed carefully, a few things were broken in the move, including enough glasses to make buying a new set a must. Along the way a box went AWOL, requiring a few new small appliances to be charged to the credit card. Though it’s great to get older children to help pack, they do have a tendency to just throw everything in the box regardless of breakability. Oversee their packing if you can.

Take-Out Tight Spot

We had five days in which to move a lot of little things by ourselves, and decided to live in the new house during that time. It was a costly decision, as we hadn’t moved or unpacked the necessities of life, or even gone grocery shopping. We ended up eating out nearly every meal, at a cost of $30 – $50 a day depending how many people stopped by unannounced to check out our new home and stay for dinner.  After a week of take-out we were counting pennies and dying for a home cooked meal.

Keep the Necessities at Hand

Those five days in limbo meant many of the kids’ toys were packed and inaccessible, or still at the old house. Same for their gear. This meant having to run out and buy sunscreen, sun hats, and other miscenellaneous items we already owned when the opportunity arose to get them out for an afternoon at the beach while Dad was reassembling furniture. If you’re planning on moving, set aside “moving money” for the first week in your new home. You’ll find your expenses may be higher than you anticipate – but informed planning should eliminate the sticker shock.

Sarah Deveau is a mom of three, and the author of Money Smart Mom: Financially Fit Parenting.

Visit her website at www.moneysmartmom.ca or pick up
her book from Chapters Indigo.

Eating more vitamin packed fresh fruits and vegetables when its dull outside will make you feel healthier on the inside and finding a good B Vitamin will help your body use the carbohydrates and proteins you eat to produce energy and give you that boost you need.   The key factor though, is making sure you are getting a daily dose of Vitamin D, and not just when sunshine is scarce in the winter, but all year long.  Vitamin D works with your calcium stores to keep your bones strong and is also responsible for keeping your immune system healthy!

Sunshine not only lifts our spirits , it’s ultraviolet rays fuel our bodies with Vitamin D.  The importance of maintaining healthy levels of Vitamin D all year round is becoming more and more clear.   Try as we might to soak up those rays when the sun does shine in the winter, new research says we still aren’t getting enough sunlight exposure to keep our families at their healthiest, even as Winter turns into Spring!

Vitamin D: The Sunshine Vitamin

Vitamin D is called the sunshine vitamin because our bodies naturally synthesize it when our skin is exposed to sunlight. Recent studies have shown even with the Vitamin D in our diets and exposure to direct sunlight, the majority of the population is Vitamin D deficient. We know vitamin D works with the calcium stores in your body to maintain healthy bones and teeth, but we now know it also plays an important role in maintaining good immune function and preventing disease.  A healthy immune system helps to fight off the viruses and bacteria that commonly affect families.  Maintaining Vitamin D levels also has long-term impact. In fact, it helps prevent numerous ailments such as osteoporosis, depression, cardiovascular disease and new research shows Vitamin D may be effective for helping to reduce the risk of certain cancers (by almost 60 percent).

Think about how much Vitamin D you are getting naturally, from direct exposure to sunlight.  What do you make sure your family does before heading out into the sun for long periods of time? Put on sunscreen.  Anything over an SPF 8 is believed to block the absorption of the suns ultraviolet rays you need to synthesize vitamin D!

We cover up our children, put on hats, seek the shade as we have been told for years that the suns rays can be damaging to our skin!  Little did we know that we were also depriving ourselves of an important vitamin! Think you are catching some rays while driving or sitting in your sunny living room? Think again, the suns Vitamin D producing rays cannot penetrate glass, clothing or sunscreen.

So as winter fads into spring, have fun and get outside, an yes, cover up, protect your skin from the UV rays and make sure you and your children are still getting the minimum daily dose of 600IU’s of Vitamin D as recommended by Health Canada.  Try to eat food rich in Vitamin D like fatty fish and fortified dairy products, and keep that bottle of sunshine shaped Vitamin D Gummies on hand all year long!

Vitamin D is your family’s year round sunshine in a bottle vitamin!

BIO: Deb Lowther is a mother of 3 young daughters who, when not running after the kids, is running in the trails! She blogs about Raising Healthy Kids and ensures her own have fun while eating healthy & staying active.

You can visit her websites to learn more

www.iron-kids.com &

www.adultgummies.com

I’ll never forget the day I signed on the dotted line at the age of 44, consenting to an, and feeling like Christopher Walken in the 1978 film Deer Hunter, putting a gun to my head while in a smoke-filled den during a big stakes game of Russian (Miscarriage) Roulette.

I couldn’t help feeling sordid when the hospital counselor handed me the pen to put my name to what Frank later called their “Cover Our Ass” contract.  Committing to the procedure was just like pulling the trigger, uncertain if the baby-bullet was in the next chamber, even as I agreed to waive liability to the hospital in the event it hit home.

As we sat in the small windowless hospital room, she shoved a clipboard at me which listed the oldest mother to have had an amniocentesis so far that year. My baby preservation instincts were on high-alert—lit up like a Christmas tree in Central Park on a cold December day—in an atmosphere that smacked of a shady sale transaction on the baby black market.

Was today going to be the day I signed my baby’s life away? When I looked down at the clipboard, I saw that the oldest mother had been 46. Even though she was a stranger,  in that moment, she felt closer to me than a sister. We’d both sat in that same spot and shared the same fear and uncertainty. I wanted to hug her, like two parents waiting to hear the doctor’s word on the life of a child. Did hers make it?

I got up from my chair, went to the waiting room, and began to pray. While I huddled in my chair, the other midlife mother who was before me in testing order got up from her chair with tears welling in her eyes and protested she could not go through with it.

I realized then (and I am equally assured now) that the medical establishment does not comprehend the degree of angst—all too often verging on bald, raging fear—that older mothers feel about their high-risk pregnancies. In fact, they do much stir the unwelcome sediment of our darkest nightmares so that, despite our “advanced age”,  pregnancy can feel like traversing a decision-making minefield while still as wet-behind-the-ears as any other novice.

In the moment of our greatest joy, we are all but robbed of the pleasure of it. And there’s something inherently wrong with that—against the nature of motherhood.

Jennifer Hoeprich, a certified Doula and Childbirth Educator based in Phoenix, AZ, agrees that midlife moms are generally more anxious.  About them she oberserved: “Many had shadowy fears about the birth—not sure how to name them, but just fears about something going wrong due to their age”

According the Hoeprich, the medical establishment can exacerbate those fears by subjecting older moms to more rigorous testing and warnings about risk factors.

“I observed that these moms had to do non-stress tests twice a week, starting at 32 weeks, and I think it instilled some fear in them“  she says.

Hoeprich  also noticed that over-40 moms tended to have control issues during natural childbirth and had more trouble letting go. (It begs the question whether long careers with lots of responsibility might have something to do with ‘vaginal-retention’, although Hoeprich suggests that being an IVF mom might play a role.)

And now refined for our purposes: Your baby will grow, form and enter this world as he or she is meant to, whether or not you jump, bark or fear the worst. 

Guest Blogger; Angel La Liberte

Angel La Liberte is the founder of the website Flower Power Mom.com—The Truth About Motherhood After 40 (www.flowerpowermom.com), a regular blog featuring commentary, real mom stories and expert advice about motherhood after 40. She regularly campaigns for more supportive attitudes towards women having children in midlife and more awareness on the realities (social and physical) of being a later life mother.

Angel also hosts “A Child After 40”, an online community to empower all women on the journey of motherhood after 40. She gave birth to her children at 41 and 44 after conceiving naturally.