Staying Fit While Traveling With Kids

Mom-to-Mom: Exercising on the Road

Today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an article about family road trips, with some tips for making it a good experience. Reporters Elisa Crouch and Ken Leiser suggest that, while most people know they should make sure their car is in good shape before taking off, they don't take the same care of the driver. They suggest getting two nights' good sleep before departing. I suggest getting the body in shape to feel better and comfortable. You'll need a strong core to keep your back pain-free during long periods of sitting, flexibility for frequent reaching to the back seats to hand out snacks and pick up dropped toys, muscle strength for carrying children and luggage and endurance for long walks at your destinations.

Here are my ideas for maintaining your fitness while on the road.

1. Strengthen your core with Pilates exercises while you are also: minding a child napping in a stroller;watching your kids play on a rest-stop break; or sending tweets and emails on your handheld device.


2. In the car, use rubber tubing (as in Dynabands or Spri tubes) wrapped around your feet and hands to do bicep curls and shoulder presses.

3. While waiting somewhere holding a squirming child, strengthen your muscles and entertain the kids by doing squats, lunges, bicep curls and shoulder presses. Here's how:


4. Get in some cardio/strength intervals while walking with your family: Jog ahead of them, then do lunges and wall pushups while they catch up (assuming that a grownup is walking with the kids).

5. At rest stops, do park bench yoga. Copy and paste this web address into your browser:
http://www.vermontfitness.org/pdf/ParkBenchPanels.pdf

Do you have more tips like these? Post them as a comment on my blog!

Picnic by the Lake

After a peaceful night in Syracuse we shuffled off toward Buffalo. Easy ride on 90 west, and Zac took a good nap while Adam read and watched the scenery, and I emailed, twittered, facebooked and tried to blog on my blackberry. This social networking thing is very time-consuming, but it kept me busy while Paul drove. I managed to also read the AAA map and keep us going the right way. We finally pulled the Tom Tom GPS out of the glove box and used to it find Lake Erie State Park in New York, close to the Pennsylvania state line.

The park was glorious. Clean bathrooms, walking paths and picnic tables with views of the lake. A big jungle gym, a beach. It was just what we needed right then and there. It cost $6 to enter, money well spent. There was barely anyone there, as expected on a Monday I guess. The boys ran across the manicured grass to the jungle gym. We played a while and ate and played some more. Paul and the boys took a walk along the lake shore while I checked email and put the food stuff away.

We had to convince the boys to get back in the car, but once in everything was fine. We made it to Cleveland without a hitch. We stopped just before the city to have dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Zac and Adam ate their ribs like boys with St. Louis roots!

They were over tired and wound up when we settled into the hotel, but now they are quiet in their beds and all is right. Paul is watching the Cleveland vs. Milwaukee game on the large screen in the lobby.

Off and running!

We're finally on the road. We were a little behind schedule this morning -- as expected -- but everything is going marvelously well. Planning, planning and more planning has been the key. I would have liked to be more laid back about the whole thing, but then I don't think things would be going so well.

Paul and I packed the car last night. There was some trial and error, trying different types of packing containers in the back of the Element: Tucker totes, bags, suit cases, plastic bins. We ditched the big tote boxes, as they took up way too much room, and ended up with a combination of plastic bins, canvas bags and rolling carry-on style bags that fit perfectly under the new plywood shelf Paul built. This morning we only had to put in the toiletries, cooler, car toys and essentials that we didn't think of until the last minute. We rolled out at 9:30 instead of 8:00, not too bad compared to our usual tardiness.

As I hoped, we found a picnic spot near Lake Pleasant in the Adirondacks, about 3 hours into the ride. It was perfect timing: Zac had just woken up from a nap and everyone needed a stretch. It was a good spot, except for the black flies. They do like young flesh. Poor Zac has little bloody bites on his neck and forehead. The boys ran around with a ball -- thanks for that great tip about bringing a ball for the rest stops -- and they rolled in the grass.They started to get cranky after about a half hour --- I'm not sure why, perhaps it was too hot or the black flies were too annoying -- but it was time to go anyway.

We got to Syracuse at about 3:00, got lost trying to find downtown but made it to the Museum of Science and Technology at 3:30. That gave us an hour and half to play at the museum, which was just perfect. We found parking right across the street, for free because it was Sunday, and we practically bounded over the road and up the stairs of the historic building. The boys were delighted to be out of the car and we had a ball -- literally.

The "MOST" has a Science Playhouse area for little kids, which is basically a five-level maze made of colorful mats and filled with foam balls, with padded stairs , tunnels and slides with netting all around. The kids threw balls, climbed, ran, slid, jumped and burned up their frustrations. Adam loved the slides and shooting foam balls from the pneumatic trajectory device. Now I know what the heck that is! Zac was a little freaked out when I held him on my lap to slide down the curving tube slide. He definitely did not want to do that again. But we found a section of the Playhouse just for toddlers, with rubber balls to throw and giant Legg0-esque blocks, and this gave him a chance to acclimate. He also like climbing on a ladder made of colorful mats and throwing balls up in the air.
The kids took off their shoes as instructed, and I got busted for going inside without socks -- I could have purchased some socks for a buck fifty, but I borrowed Paul's instead, as he waited outside holding our bags and snapping photos.

Adam lliked the human body exhibit, especially the walk-through replica of a human heart that sounded like a heart beating. We didn't have time to see the other exhibits -- the walk through cave, toothpick city, Central New York natural history -- but Zac was all worn out and I think it was just the right amount of time and activity. It was completely worth the $14 it cost the four of us for admission.

The Econolodge was less than a mile away and exactly what I wanted -- two beds, space for a pack-n-play, a refrigerator and microwave and our parking spot right outside the door. I'm so glad we stayed downtown because we could easily walk the half-mile to Armory Square to find a good restaurant. We ate at Pastabilities -- and I didn't have pasta. I had a delightful ahi tuna encrusted with sesame seeds with a black bean salsa and cucumber salad. And a bass ale. Perfect. Paul had crab and boursin stuffed ravioli and a local microbrew. Adam savored his spaghetti and Zac threw his all over the floor. We enjoyed the sites on the walk to and fro -- especially the historic buildings and signage about the Erie Canal. We actually walked on the Erie Canal, now filled in with cement, and sang "15 Miles on the Erie Canal" over and over. Now the boys are in their beds and Paul is snoring.

Tomorrow, after a continental breakfast we'll fill our travel mugs with coffee and head toward Cleveland.

Keeping them Content on the Road

Here are some of the travel-with-kids tips I have received from other moms:

- Stick to your regular schedule for meals and snacks. If you feed the kids constantly while on the road, they'll get off-schedule and cranky. Stop the car and have proper meals and snacks.
- Stay away from sugary snacks like dried fruit. Sugar will wind them up and they can't burn it off in the car, and then they will crash and get cranky.
- Bring a ball for active play at rest stops. (This reminds me to also bring baseball gloves and bat, a frisbee and my jogging shoes, too, just in case I can sneak in a quick run.)
- Tie the baby's toys on strings so that when he drops them he can retrieve them without me having to crawl in the back seat and get them.
- Make a car bingo game with bingo cards and letters. Players have to look for items that start with the letters. For example, if you pull out a B, the first person who says "I see a bird" gets that letter on his card. (Of course, this will only work for my older child, but the baby might think it's fun to hear us playing. Maybe he'll learn how to spell!)
- Bring books on tape of stories they know, likeGoodnight Moon, Are You My Mother, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. This will occupy them and give the parents a break from entertaining them.
(I'd better go to the library, quick!)

Please send me more tips and ideas.