Dear Boys,
Happy summer 2015 to you.
I’m so glad summer is here. I wish for you lots of fun and a (somewhat) schedule-free summer. I’m looking forward to our vacations and trips and swimming in town at the pool by the park.
I’m also looking forward to the new kinds of movement summer brings.
Summer is a great opportunity for me to encourage you a bit about some of what I mean when I say something is “good for your bones,” like when I talk about vegetables and water and getting outdoors.
Moving is good for your bones. And your brain and your heart. You get the idea.
Too many people stop moving and can’t see how to walk the quarter mile ahead of them, let alone across a field or a parking lot.
Please don’t stop moving. Not for too long, anyway. You can sit while you rest and sit while you read and for goodness’ sake sit in classrooms and when instructed and calm yourself during family meals.
But when you go outside, run and jump and walk long distances. Rumble around. Traverse through the woods and run around with sticks as swords and squirt water guns in the summer. Climb. Hike.keep moving, summer 2015, captain mom, rhonda franz
Dance through the sprinkler and pick some mulberries from the tree and the ground. Swim, swim, swim.
Keep it up as you grow older. Don’t be afraid to park far away from store (you know, like Mommy often does now when we’re on errands) and enjoy a long walk to the front door. Don’t get in the habit of sitting for too long, staring at a game or an app on your mobile device. Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
Walk. A lot.
Exercise regularly. And beyond that—and especially if you have a sedentary job—build physical activity into your day. Get up, get moving, drink water, stretch, do yoga, lift weights, run, walk, climb. Don’t let inactivity get the best of you. Refuse to let it have you. Our bodies were created to move.
Keep playing tag.
I know we have times I’m asking you to sit and be quieter and stop jumping around—and in certain situations, you have to do those things. But don’t want become someone who gets so used to sitting that you (and your body) forget how to move. It happens. It happens to people as they get older. So rest plenty and read out on the deck and in your beds and don’t completely wear yourself out all the time. But stay strong in those bones and keep ’em going…
So you will be the kid (and adult) who, when faced with a long day and a long trek says, “Only a mile? Yeah, we can take that.”
All my love,
Mom
