If you have been thinking about making healthy changes for your family, October is a great month to start. It’s national Family Health Month!

Who knew? Well, Kurt Whitmire for one. He’s the guy who owns the Play It Again Sports franchise in Missoula, and today he sent out a press release containing some helpful hints for families starting a new exercise plan:

“· Opt for Cardio Sports – Activities like basketball, soccer and touch football burn a lot of calories and do not require lots of equipment. These team sports are also a great way of getting all members of the family involved.

· Vary Your Routine – Your family, especially younger-aged children, will be less likely to get bored or injured if you incorporate different types of exercise into your routine. Try playing catch or kicking around a soccer ball one day and perhaps playing a team sport the next.

· Buy Used Gear – Trading in sports equipment that you’re not currently using is a great way to save money and stock up on items for your home gym. If your children are no longer playing a particular sport or have grown out of certain equipment, opt to trade in the goods instead of throwing them away.

· Make it a Habit – In order to reap the full benefits of exercising, it is crucial to be consistent in your approach. Stick to the same time everyday and have all members of the family keep track of the plan on a calendar. Be prepared for inclement weather by having exercise videos and some basic exercise equipment, such as free weights, at hand in your home.

· Forget ‘No Pain, No Gain’ – While a little soreness is normal after you first start exercising, pain isn’t. Keep in mind that everyone reacts differently to exercise. Always warm up and cool down with gentle stretching.”

Keeping in mind that Whitmire runs a retail store selling used sports equipment, it’s pretty helpful advice. It is, as his press release notes, often difficult to find the time and energy it takes to exercise when your family members seem to be going in a dozen different directions at once. Activities that get the entire family moving not only promote physical health, they also promote togetherness.

- MM

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This has been making the rounds now for a couple of months, but just in cased you missed this adorable video of a baby dancing to Beyonce, here’s the link.

Because what would a blog for moms be without the occassional video of a dancing baby?

-MM

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Missoula just gets more family friendly every time you turn around. Missoula Mom was recently chatting with fellow mom and Missoulian Beth Jaffe about this phenomenon as well as the impending launch of the new PLAY Network.

But before we get to that, I want to share Jaffe’s condensed history of Missoula’s evolution into the family friendly town it is today, just as she wrote it:

“This is an interesting thing to look at for folks who may not have realized that so much of what we have today is an accumulation of hard work over a 14-year period. People stay in Missoula and move to Missoula because of how great a place it is to raise children. It really has been amazing what’s happened since I moved to town in 1995. I’ve enjoyed the fruits as well as the labor of getting some of these excellent resources running or running better. I’ve brainstormed for a little while and came up with these notes.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Today is national Family Day, a day specifically aimed at encouraging more families to sit down to dinner together by raising awareness of the many benefits of regular family meals.

What are some of these benefits? For starters, the more often teens have dinner with her parents, the less likely they are to abuse drugs, alchohol or tobacco. For more information about that, go read the full report from National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.

And if you don’t find the report compelling enough, read this letter from Missoula Forum for Children and Youth member Jessica Stoneman. The 17-year-old high-school senior from Frenchtown offers a personal account of the positive effect family dinners have had on her family.

- MM

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Linda Thompson/Missoulian

Today’s story in the Missoulian about the Missoula Youth Fencing Association provides an inside look into the sport and its young aficionados. Note in the comments section that the association is currently enrolling students age 5-13 in beginner classes.

- MM

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That’s from one of my all-time favourite bumper stickers.

You may have noticed a whole lot of midwives – and some of the people they’ve helped out – downtown yesterday afternoon, a whole parade of moms and their kids, pushing strollers and carrying babies and signs.

They were marching to draw attention to the fact that home-birth midwives are not recognized by the federal government, and to deliver a petition to Sen. Max Baucus in the hope that he will help change that.

As part of a national effort called the MAMA Campaign (Mothers and Midwives in Action), the participants hoped to persuade Baucus to include health care coverage for families who want their pregnancies and births overseen by certified midwives. They point out that allowing families to choose between a hospital and home birth is a cost-saving opportunity, because the average cost of a home birth is roughly half what it is for a hospital birth.

- MM

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Find out if your family qualifies for the Healthy Montana Kids program, which provides health insurance for the children of low- and moderate-income families. The Missoulian State Bureau has the full story.

Healthy Montana Kids is an enormously popular program in the state that until recently had to turn away some parents who wanted to sign their kids on because they didn’t meet income requirements. The new guidelines, however, allow families who earn up to 250 percent of the federal povery level to sign up. That, according to the news story, is $55,125 a year for a family of four.

You can fill out an application online at www.hmk.mt.gov, or call 1-877-543-7669, or ask at your child’s school or daycare, or at a health care providers’ office.

- MM

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My sweet little girl will be 5 years old next week, and the question is not what to give her for her birthday, but how much. Her dad and I want to get her a bike, because she outgrew the one she’s been riding months ago. We want to get her Bendaroos, which she has been pining after for a long time now. We want to get her the kids’ kitchen set that is not only way too expensive, but would also take up the last available floor space in her little room.

But we’ve got to draw a line somewhere. Obviously, we’re not about to get her everything she wants – or everything we want her to have. One present. That’s it. OK, one present from me and one from her dad. And that’s it.

I’m really pushing for the bike. We have a line on a used one that some friends are willing to give up. Some paint and streamers, and it’ll be good as new. And there are still at least a few weeks left to enjoy it before the snow arrives.

But then, a friend sent me this link that provides step-by-step instructions for how to turn an old entertainment center into an absolutely fabulous kitchen set for children. I remember seeing one of these beat-up entertainment centers on the corner with a “free” sign taped to it just last weekend, and now I’m beating myself up for not dragging it home.

I’m also looking around our house for other “junk” that might just be fabulous presents waiting to be discovered. If anyone has any cool ideas for how to recycle stuff into gifts for kids, I’d love to hear them.

- MM

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I just got this note from Scott Douglas, who directs the Entertainment Management Program for the University of Montana’s School of Business Administration, and wanted to share it with Missoula Mom readers. If you’re looking for family entertainment options in November, look no further:

“Christmas favorite Mannheim Steamroller will bring its holiday tour to Missoula for a Nov. 12 concert performance at the University of Montana. ‘The Christmas Music of Mannheim Steamroller by Chip Davis’ will feature the band’s unmistakable sound in an extravagant multimedia show. The band will play songs from their newest CD as well as many favorites from previous Christmas albums. Simply put, this show is one of the finest forms of family entertainment for the holiday season.”

The print on the poster says you can get tickets “at all GrizTix outlets, charge by phone (406) 243-4051, toll free (888) MONTANA, or online at www.GrizTix.com.”

- Missoula Mom

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This Wall Street Journal article reports that some clothing retailers are finally catching on to what some have known for years: if you want to sell your product, you have to talk to the one holding the purse strings. That would be mom, unless you’re one of those guys who carries a man-purse.

That the phenomenon applies even to products aimed at teens would seen obvious. But you have consider that a lot of these products are designed to appeal to teens’ desire to rebel – against their parents.

Thus, this lesson in marketing also comes with a sweet lesson in irony.

- Missoula Mom

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