Wintertime Cabin Fever

So I sit down to write an entry and suddenly I'm overloaded with things that are on my mind.  'Which is blog-worthy?' I ask myself.  Well, they all are, but I'm still working out how to do this daily writing thing so bear with me as I first try to tackle the hurdle of just making time every day to enter something!
Today I'm staring out the window at what will soon be another 3" of snow on the ground, as it pours from the sky and I'm BEGGING for winter to just chill the hell out!  I have never been a fan of winter.  Like, ever. Born and raised here in MA and I really feel no sentimental or nostalgic love for the season of death and ice. I love all of the other seasons, though, so I stay put and complain for 12 weeks of the year, every year, to anyone who will listen.
On top of not being a general fan of the wintertime, I stay home, full time with my 2 boys.  Our days are long.  Joel works in Cambridge and the commute from Central MA to work every day is about 1.5-2 hours one way.  Easily, we have 12-13 hours a day to coexist in this house together with only one set of adult hands to help.  Any day of any season can leave a SAHM (stay at home mom) feeling cooped up and burned out but winter, especially, just exacerbates it all.
We're at a tough age too for wintertime.  I have a 3 year old that would gladly go outside all on his own and play for hours on end in the snow.  Obviously he can't be trusted (nor can the world for that matter) to be outside alone for hours on end without supervision.  Conversely, I have an 18 month old who whimpers and holds his breath if he's standing too close to the refrigerator when you open the door so outside in sub-freezing temps with flying snow landing in his face is never anything less than torturous for him.  I do it sometimes because Declan needs the time outside and enjoys it.  Sometimes Liam is just gonna have to suck it up and do things he hates to make his brother happy and vice-versa.
It's hard to keep the mood high when you spend your day in the same four walled home for a few days on end because the weather prevents you from leaving.  Some things I have learned in the last 4 years of staying home to survive these times:

Sometimes snack time can be absolutely hilarious!

1)  Food is good.  While I'd love to say that I exercise perfect self control in my eating and don't use it as emotional crutch, I cannot.  When we are cooped up, we eat.  I've learned to keep some healthIER options in the house to reduce over-indulgence in sweets and "unnecessaries" but you know what?  Snacking passes time.  About 30 minutes of it to be exact.  And when my options are to "pass time with a mostly controlled, mostly healthy, mostly clean activity" or "try, and try and over-try to keep them busy and stimulated and in one room and entertained while slowly losing my sanity and exploding at least once before dinner" I opt to keep the snacks in all of our hands to pass time in little chunks which helps break up the hours which helps pass a tough day.  Think about it:  It takes at least 5 minutes to get them away from what they're doing, up into their chairs (hands washed first if you're feeling ambitious) and decide what to snack on.  Then another 5 to pour drinks and set snacks out.  Fifteen minutes to snack and then they get down from their chairs happy as clams and go back to whatever activity they were on (or a new one!) while you take 5 minutes to clean up.  YOU feel better and a little distracted so YOU can return to their activity with just even a little more energy and spunk than you had before snack time.  That's 1/2 an hour of time.  And it has saved me to take it more than a handful of times.  Yes, when I choose snack time as the appropriate time to pound down half a loaf of banana bread I am flooded with guilt about my eating habits and why I can't get into the Paleo thing.  But, "lesser of 2 evils" is sometimes the name of the game.  The next time I'm on a treadmill I'll punish myself plenty.  For now, I need not punish myself anymore for not being able to take another minute of block-stacking or playdough cutting.

Sometimes, you walk into Room-Time
to find something like this <3

2)  "Room Time" is very good!  My sister in law got me into the "Baby Wise" book series when she was pregnant with her first son.  I paid close attention to her tactics and strategies she was learning from it and I felt attracted to that style.  I started reading them when I was pregnant with Declan and while some things didn't quite fly here in my home a lot of it did.  One thing they talk about is "Room Time," where, at an appropriate age and under varying levels of supervision depending on your living situation and kids' ages, your kids spend time alone playing in their rooms.  Declan started at about 14 months old.  His room was gated, his toys were all appropriate for alone-time play and I had a video monitor hooked up so I could see him wherever I was in the house.  When he was that young he would only spend about 15 minutes of time on his own but that span of time grew as he was capable of more imaginative play and in need of some alone time.  Now, the two boys often want to play together in one room and it is now, as it was when Declan was a baby in the winter, a saving grace for this season.  I've learned there's nothing wrong with sending them off on their own occasionally.  Usually, when I'm nearing my "done" point with them, they are likewise, nearing it with me.  It's good for us to separate, safely, for a few minutes to just breathe and think.  20-25 mins is usually all I can get from them right now but it's valuable.  I've found it's best not to jump to "room time" when I've reached my boiling point.  I try to think ahead when I know the day has been tough so-far and ask myself 'when will I need room time today?'  Sometimes, it's so I can prep dinner. Others it's so I can watch the news and pound down the other half of that banana bread.  I try to not feel guilty on the occasions where I don't use room time wisely and it doesn't help that day.  I learn from it and try to do better the next time.  What helps THAT in and of itself is using room-time on a good day.  I've learned in 3 1/2 years of using it that if I'm always using it as a rescue
source it'll probably fail me 50% of the time.  If I use it consistently I'll have a better perspective on its helpfulness and the days it fails me don't seem so bad.  I also find, if the kids feel like they're getting room time because I'm about to lose it, they feel it's more of a punishment:  a long, extended time-out with toys.  And that's not what it is nor what I want it to be.  I want it to be just as valuable to them in learning to problem solve, play with their imaginations and self-stimulate as it is for me to learn to relax, regroup and re-frame.  

3)  Exercise is an understated and under-discussed method of self help.  I feel like we hear it everywhere "exercise keeps your mood high," "exercise helps your energy stay up."  But for some reason those statements aren't enough for me.  I once was part of a nutrition seminar at work while the students at Job Corps were on break.  We were in staff training every day and I got more out of that one hour with a nutrition and exercise specialist from Health Alliance than I had in any Dr. visit or Today Show segment in my life!  I want to DISCUSS exercise and the reasons it helps.  Also, the reasons I (and so many others) fail at making it and keeping it a priority despite the clear difference it makes!  To hear it, lecture style, doesn't do it for me.  I need to TALK!  I feel like I need a support group!  Maybe one will be born from this Blog?! At any rate, I know the benefits are real because I have heard and felt them.  I struggle with keeping the priority and schedule for my physical fitness consistent .  This winter I made the commitment to run at least 3 days a week and I've kept that most weeks (barring business trips for Joel and the holiday season was hard to get to the gym).  I also hear the term "baby steps" often and I think "Ok, baby steps.  So one baby step a day until I have this problem nipped in a week!"  When really, it means "one small step a month or even a year until you have this problem nipped in your lifetime."  I rush myself, often, and have unrealistic expectations of my time.  I know this winter I have felt much better than last winter where I had no gym membership and relied solely on at-home exercise videos to keep my physical activity level up.  This year I got a small, portable elliptical runner for Christmas and it does wonders to just drain a little bit of energy and burn a couple-hundred calories.  Sometimes when the boys are playing in their rooms I can watch the news and run (or "stroll" really, it's a SMALL elliptical) for those 20 minutes and burn up to 300 calories!  I can't run 5 miles a day in the winter with the boys and the schedule we're pulling.  Some can!  And it's awesome!  But I can't.  What I also, can't do, is leave exercise out of the equation because I become miserable, angry and depressed.  I need to drain the energy, the toxicity and the monotony.  I can accomplish that when I physically exert my body but I just can't always exercise exertion by having an hour to myself at the gym.  Sometimes it's 10 minutes on the small elliptical or 20 runs up and down the stairs.  Sometimes it's shoveling snow!  That counts!  I know that it helps me to exercise even when I hate it and fight it and don't want to.  I also know that it has helped to re-frame my expectations of exercise to fit my life as it lives right now.
Every mom I know, working moms and SAHMoms alike would have a different "Top 3 Survival Tips."  These are unique to me and my household.  If any of them are transferable I'm glad I shared!  If you have any unique techniques that work for passing a hard day, week, month or season comment below!  I'd love to hear from you!  Happy winter everyone!
K