That’s the Healthy Mamas, a walking/running team that will participate in the Richmond Marathon’s 8K race November 10. The team is open to pregnant and postpartum women, as well as pregnancy health professionals, childbirth educators and labor assistants.
An informational meeting will be held on September 6 at 7:15 p.m. at Yoga Source in Carytown. Training begins the week of September 9.
“Pregnancy, birth and early parenting are some of the most physically and emotionally challenging events women encounter in life,” Leslie Lytle, a yoga instructor and owner of OmMama, said in a press release. “…raising women’s fitness levels will enhance their experience of these life-changing events.”
More information and registration materials are at ommama.com/healthymamas.asp, or call Lytle at (804)-359-0839. Pregnant women and those up to six weeks postpartum will need to have their health care provider’s approval to participate.

Passport to Parks

What shape is Ashbury Park? How many sets of rapids have the rocks at Pony Pasture created? What covers the walls of the Landmark Theater’s lobby?
Answer these questions, and you’re on your way to becoming an Official V.I.P. of the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities.
Families can pick up the brochure, “Passport to Fun” at community centers around the city. Answering the 24 questions will take you all around the city, and when you’re done, you can submit your passport for a reward.

Roll Your RRRs Like a Two-Year-Old

eidi Stock gets compliments on the lion roar in “Los Animales,” the Spanish-language children’s DVD she produced. “People say, ‘That kid does a really great roar!’ I say, “Yeah, I wrote that into the movie BECAUSE he can roar so well.”
That’s part of being a parent entrepreneur, says Stock, a former Richmond resident now living in Glen Echo, Maryland. “Parents are resourceful,” she says. “They’re natural inventors.”
Stock “invented” Whistlefritz, a DVD series for children, because when she wanted her kids, now 2 and 4, to start learning Spanish, she wasn’t happy with any of the materials on the market.
“Things were hard to find, and the quality was really poor,” she says. Most of them translated back and forth between English and Spanish, contrary to established knowledge about how successful language acquisition happens.
So she set out to make her own resources. The result is two themed, immersion-style (all Spanish) DVDs for ages 2 to 6, “Los Animales” and “Vamos a Jugar.”
Stock emphasizes that no one is going to learn to speak Spanish from a DVD. But daily exposure to the sounds of a native speaker will allow young children to become fluent speakers without an accent when they get a little older. (Stock’s youngest already rolls Rs with ease.) Whistlefritz products are “a supplement or an entry point to a language class,” Stock says.
All the filming was done in Richmond, as was the video and audio editing. Many of the people involved in the Whistlefritz project have ties to or live in the city, including opera singer Pablo Talamante. “He does chicken noises on the DVD,” confesses Stock. “But he’s a great singer, too! I’m writing an opera piece for him now about vegetables.”
“Los Animales,” the first release, was awarded a 2007 Seal of Approval from The National Parenting Center at the end of August.

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