Now I belong to a different kind of gym…the kind with brightly colored soft steps and ramps and scarves and shakers.  That’s right, the only regularly scheduled class I attend is my daughter’s and the running I do is after her!

That doesn’t mean I don’t work out, but when I do, it looks a WHOLE lot different these days…

Most of the time I used to spend working out, is now spent rocking out to toddler tunes, attending story times and play dates, making messes and cleaning up.  I no longer have the luxury of multiple workouts in one day, so I have to be more strategic.

Now Parker and I workout together, we go to mommy & me exercise classes or take advantage of the rolling hills where we live and the invention of jogging strollers!  If the weather’s bad (seemed like every day this winter) we use the stairs in our home for cardio and I use her (plus some free weights) for strength training.  Lifting 20 pounds of baby weight is a nice challenge…add the wriggly instability of that weight and I’ve got a fantastic workout.  I hold her for squats, I chest press her little body and give her kisses with each rep, and bicep curls with a baby are a real challenge!  Why do I do all this?  Because it’s important to me to set an example of active living and it’s always been important to me to move.  I get cranky when I don’t get to exercise!  YES, I’ve had to adjust what exercise looks like for me these days, but I have a toddler.  I’ve had to adjust what a lot of things look like for me these days.  That’s part of motherhood.  The important thing to me is that I don’t abandon exercise entirely because that’s abandoning a part of who I am and what kind of example does that set for my daughter?

-Jolynn Baca Jaekel has been a fitness professional for more than a decade. Her first child, Parker,  just turned a year old this January. Jolynn, her husband Rob, and Parker recently relocated from NYC to Washington D.C.

Living in NYC is  great because there are literally a thousands ways to enrich your lil’ darling’s life (as our great sitter2Mom, Samantha, talked about in her post this past Wednesday). However, the downside to this is that busy parents don’t have the time to  actually find, research, and compare the hundreds of class providers, classes,  and scheduling options NYC has to offer for children. There are so many options,  it can sometime be a little overwhelming to find the perfect fit for your  budget, interests, and schedule. Cue Kidz Central Station, company founded by a NYC mom of two young kids, that makes searching, finding, and enrolling children  in classes and activities painless. The website is simple to use and saves you  hours of research by combining all the information about different classes and  activities onto one site. Instead of combing through hundreds of different websites looking for the perfect fit for your lil’ darling, just go to Kidz  Central Station and find all the info you need including prices, schedule, and  location in one easy-to-use website! A parent can search by location, class  type, price, age and schedule!

Lauren, founder of Kidz Central Station, and her daughter

The great thing about Kidz Central Station  is that they offer enrollment for thousands of Manhattan and BK-based classes  for all ages, including infants and toddlers, and are adding new class providers  and classes every day, so there is something for everyone! Using Kidz Central  Station also saves you money because every class you purchase on the   website earns you points which can be used to save money on future classes. This  is a fantastic resource for busy families looking to enroll their kids in a  class or activity!

Like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter for  updates!

In addition to being enrolled in a music class that starts in January, my daughter and I went to our first class at our local library this past Friday.  We loved it!  The teacher was wonderful, and it was great to get back out into the world of the living and into a room full of other parents, child care providers, and little ones.  These classes are extremely popular (they are free for one thing), so you must sign up in well in advance—registration opens on the 15 or 16th of every month.  I found myself rushing out of bed first thing this morning to make sure we were all signed up for January—as I clicked through the registration process and glanced out the window to see that the sun had not even risen yet, I realized that I had turned into one of those crazy parents who thinks their son/daughter needs to be enrolled in every class, group, infant band audition so as not to miss out on anything (before she even knows that there is food beyond breast milk).  The bottom line is that I, of course, want the best for my child (as do most parents who sign up for these classes). And I’m trying to think of myself as not crazy for setting my alarm to sign up, as I’m convinced it’s been the most effective way to find the best classes for me and my daughter.

-Samantha is a former LLD sitter, event planner, and elementary school teacher. She and her husband live in New York and are first-time parents