Week 14 - A Whole New Normal

Matty clears 24"

This week has been our first full week back from the holiday break combined with a full week of CrossFit (CF) schedule. In the past two months, CF has assumed a very big place in the life of our family--if you notice in the sidebar, the Accidental CrossFitter is alive and well, and I'm posting there quite often. I find myself trying to figure out exactly where and how it all fits together. How important is this? How much do I let it bump into our lesson schedule, and what are my expectations of the kids in the process?

For years it seemed that I could not find the "door" of my life that led to a way to be healthy and fit. I thought we ate well, but I continued to gain weight. I was allowing myself to be very sedentary and my overall sense of wellness and health was following suit. I felt fatigued, achy, cranky, and joyless a lot of the time. I'm sure that it was a mixture of both the chemical / hormonal result of being sedentary, and the very real misery of a lousy body image.

Then I found myself in a CrossFit class. When I say "found myself" there, I am literally still shaking my head saying, "I have no idea how I got here!" It is this that convinces me that it really is an answer to my prayer that God would help me find the discipline to exercise and take care of my health! LOL--He does nothing part way!! Funny thing is I have not lost a pound since starting CF, but I have lost three inches from my waist. I have not missed a WOD (workout of the day) if I was physically able to make it. I have been more cheerful, energetic, and active with my kids. I have been finding that I don't want to eat things that I know are going to make me feel lousy (read grains, sugar and even some dairy), because the next WOD will be more difficult if I do. The whole family is getting in on the action. My kids love going to the CF kids class and my husband is challenging himself in new ways in his own workouts. My son has broken his carb / chip addiction and is much more careful about his choices of snacks.

All of this has taken enormous amounts of time--figuring out a new school routine so that I can get to CF for my class, needing time to recover from my workouts due to no small amount of soreness, needing more time to cook and plan meals so that we are eating correctly...It is a huge shift. Couple that with still needing to get school done and it makes for a very busy schedule, I can't squeeze in all the book-time that I want to every day. CrossFit, Math and the three Rs are priority, as is read-aloud time. The other things have to fit around that, so there may be less time for lap-books and project-type things.

So this week we somehow managed to get our goals met in the 3 Rs and in science. History suffered a bit, but we were also doubling up on science. We'll tackle it all next week. In science we covered the lesson on blood and enjoyed the lab day with friends. My only regret is not getting pictures of the kids getting their fingers pricked and making the model blood out of candy. Everyone was delighted to find out their blood types and figure out who they could partner with in the giving and receiving of blood transfusions.

Overall, they felt that it was a good week of school. We will continue to make adjustments, I am sure, but for now what we are doing seems to be working.