Alter Your Routine

Recently, my 17 month old daughter, Helen, learned how to safely ascend and descend the stairs in our tri-level home. Within a matter of days, her world suddenly expanded three fold!

While we still supervise her ferociously (this may never stop), she now has access to places and experiences that were once barricaded and blocked off from her. To her, this means new adventures, new learning experiences and, in essence, a lot more fun!

Watching her exercise her new found freedom made me think about all of the places and things that I have access to that I may not be experiencing because of my own mental barricading. With Chicago being settled in the nest of winter, it is sometimes hard to overcome the "blah" feelings that envelope me during these long, cold months of isolated, indoor activities. My schedule suddenly becomes routine and my routine eventually grows dull and boring.

I desperately needed some alternative activities to my suddenly dismal routine. So, I spent one morning a couple of weeks ago revamping my schedule. I looked into the storytime program that my local library offers and started visiting their Lapsit Storytime with my daughter on Tuesday mornings. I began taking a yoga class at LifeTime Fitness in Romeoville, IL, where I'm a member. I investigated discount days at some museums downtown and planned a date with some friends and their children. My daughter and I visited the Willowbrook Wildlife Center and the Cosley Zoo.

All of these options offer alternative activities for my family. All of them were always available to me; I just needed to take the initiative and look for them. All of them are of little or no extra cost to me.

I am writing this to urge everyone to look around themselves. Is there an activity that is available to you that you are not taking advantage of? Well, get out there and do it! If there's one thing that I learned from my daughter, it's that life is much more enjoyable when you're actually out there doing something!