Hi, my name is Lilly and I am the author of Busy Mom’s Cheat Sheet: Raising Happy Healthy Kids. I started this blog to help busy moms and caregivers raise happy healthy kids by sharing tips, recipes and lesson’s I’ve learned the hard way to make your child rearing journey a bit easier. Because let’s face it, as beautiful and meaningful as it is, raising kids is freakin’ hard!
I have two school-age boys and work full time in a very demanding job at an Advertising agency in NYC. After long days at work, coming home to make sure kids are fed, bathed, homework done and go to sleep at a reasonable hour is no easy feat. Throw in a couple extracurricular activities during the week to make that window of time even smaller, when do you find the time to actual have quality time with your kids? Or any ‘me’ time for that matter to unwind and recharge before facing yet another demanding work day? Stay at home moms, I know you have your hands full too! I took some time off after my kids were born before going back to full-time work and between household chores, getting involved in your school and running around to take kids to all their activities, I didn’t feel like I had much time either.
I was going through the motions trying to do it all but not feeling like I was really succeeding at any of it. When my kids were small, I had to deal with sleep deprivation as my #1 obstacle to normalcy, but not having the ever growing school demands made it a bit easier. But at the time it didn’t feel easy since I was comparing it to pre-kid life where after work I’d meet friends for happy hour or dinner, or just go home and veg out on my couch watching TV, reading or catching up on phone calls.
Fast forward to having school-age children, I am amazed at what is expected of our kids from such a young age to succeed. I don’t remember facing these pressures so early on when I was growing up. Kids today are taking more standardized tests than we can count, expected to excel at competitive sports, participate in extracurricular activities, all while excelling academically in their coursework.
Our goal as parents/caregivers is to make sure our kids are provided with the optimal conditions in which to succeed. This starts with ensuring our kids are eating healthy since a healthy life begins with a healthy body–no easy feat as our food supply is getting worse! I went to nutrition school a IIN and received my certification as a health coach to help me with these challenges.
Having received my college degree in psychology from University of California at Berkeley, I know how much perception affects reality and found it imperative to not only try to teach my kids to eat healthy, but I also had to teach them how to have a healthy mindset including ways to relieve stress as they would inevitably be confronted with academic and social challenges, disappointments etc. A strong body leads to a strong mind. An open, calm mind helps us discover our life’s purpose.
In this blog, I will share tips and recipes that have helped me on my journey. My goal is to create a community of like-minded busy moms who support each other through this child rearing journey. Just knowing you are not alone and having resources and the support of others to help you raise happy healthy kids can make all the difference. Since as we all know, raising kids is friekin’ hard! 🙂
Thank you for reading and welcome to the Busy Mom’s Cheat Sheet community!
In my book “Busy Mom’s Cheat Sheet, I share 6 easy to understand lessons from healthy eating, exercise, and sleep to gratitude, positive thinking and meditation. And as a bonus, I also include 45 healthy recipes that are quick, easy, delicious and big hits in my family. It is available for presale HERE.