#82, How Do You Get Beach Ready When You Have a Special Needs Child?

Sunshine and beaches and swimsuits and shorts are in my future. My little family and I are going to leave the farm this summer for a few days and spend some quality time together. That is so exciting, but I'm not ready. 

If you have been listening for a while, you know that I’ve been struggling to prioritize my exercise this spring. Things have been busy and that after-school time is full of a lot of chores and needs of my daughters. I could still find time…but I especially need to now. 

About this time of year a lot of women start to talk about getting their bodies “Beach-Ready”. They might start to do some really restrictive eating and take on intensive workouts just so they could feel great when they struggle into the synthetic squeeze of a swimsuit and walk out into the bright sunshine. 

But, besides wanting to look good, I also want the energy and endurance that comes from being in shape. When you are looking at hours and days of walking and helping a girl with multiple disabilities in the hot sun, some physical strength plays a huge role in maintaining patience as well. To be honest, I’m not going to worry about changing my diet at all. I already love the way I eat and it fits well with my lifestyle and weight maintenance. What I am going to do is concentrate on exercising. 

Why? Well-if you are wanting to get beach ready, hear me out. 

Exercise creates muscles, which help you carry your body around.
Exercise increases energy and stamina.
Exercise helps tone and slim your body from a position of strength. 

Besides, I’m at a really healthy place with my eating right now and it isn’t worth trying to shuck off a couple pounds and risk going back to some unhealthy eating patterns. 

So, today I’m going to share with you why I’m struggling with exercising. If you have ideas or advice for me, please comment on the episode. Your advice might totally help other women in my position as well. 

So, here are my two major issues.

#1 My work out equipment is in the bunkhouse so to use it I need to leave my children. They are 8 and 10 years old. It isn’t that 15 minutes to half-an-hour of no supervision would injure them, it is literally that my 8-year-old has cerebral palsy and epilepsy. If she falls or has a seizure, it is nice to know that someone can respond quickly and help her. What I need to do is move at least one piece of equipment into the home or coordinate with my 10 year-old (Adela) and husband to keep an eye on Micaela. I could also leave the house before Micaela wakes up or after she goes to bed to do that work out. However, right now, I can tell you that coordinating all that has felt like too much and I’ve been throwing in the towel pretty quickly.

#2 Working full time makes me feel like there isn’t time for working out. Even as I say that out loud I hear the fallacy in it. It’s been a lot here lately with tax season, lambing season, state testing, and the weird funky feelings that come when you get this close to the end of the school year. For those of my listeners that don’t know, I’m an elementary teacher with a husband going through veterinary medical school and I live on a farm with sheep and cattle. Right now when I come home, my older daughter and I are responsible for feeding fifteen orphaned lambs. But, even with the girls’ homework and house chores, I know that I could make time to work out. It’s just prioritizing it and motivating myself to do it. Perhaps the idea of working out before the girls get up is the winning idea after all.

So, there you go. Both time and work out location feel like walls. And this is where I have to push through that idea of being victimized by circumstances and decide to make a choice. I am going to get ready to make memories at the beach at the family where I have the energy and strength to keep up and enjoy the experience. And, for this coming up week, I’m making the choice to get up and work out BEFORE the girls get up. I might even sleep in my workout clothes. We’ll see. 

Parenting special needs kids comes with some interesting challenges. If you are one of those sweet ladies out there that God honored your life with the care of someone with disabilities or medical complications, I pray that my honesty here helps your journey, too. And, with that honesty I’m doing another episode next week on why emotional eating issues are so prevalent among parents with special needs children. Go ahead and share this episode with a parent you know that could use some encouragement today. I’ll catch you next week. Bye for now. 

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