I, Amy Bee, joined a gym. Wait, wait, let me say that again (mainly because I'm not totally wrapping my head around this fact either). I joined a gym.
Those of you that know me, well, you know I'm not exactly a gym person. I dislike workout schedules. I dislike sweat. I dislike working out next to sweaty people. I don't really care for locker rooms. They smell. And I don't do well with things that smell bad. But most of all, I dislike exercise. Let me retract that last part a little bit and amend. I dislike scheduled workouts, most exercise machinery, sweating, working out in general, did I mention sweating?, grunters in classes and overly chipper instructors. And working out. And sweating. Have I made myself clear? I am not exactly the "let's go for a run! It'll be fun" type. If I walk on a treadmill, it's usually slowly, and no, contrary to popular belief, I am NOT trying to "race" the person next to me. I don't do spin - too many speed variations and I like to pedal at one pace. Plus there's more sweating there. Yoga and I don't really get along well, I'm the one trying not to giggle as I attempt tree pose. Shall I go on? I believe my point has been made.
So how did I of all people end up at a GYM of all places? Oh, and not just any gym mind you. If Amy Bee is going to go for something, I go all out. I'm talking a 33,000 (let me just spell that out for you because I think it has much better impact: thirty-three-THOUSAND) square foot gym. I was on the phone with my BFF the other day as I pulled up to the building for the first time and got hysterical laughing at the sheer immense-ness of the building. I definetly laughed, and I'm pretty sure I said something to her like "it looks like our high school." She was as shocked as I was that I was about to walk into this place.
But I digress. I need to backtrack a little for the rest of my story to make sense. I wasn't always an inactive, slightly pudgy woman. (Although everything I said before about the sweating, grunting, et. al. - that part has NEVER changed.) I was a lifelong dancer from the age of 2 even taking classes in college. You name it, ballet, tap, modern, lyrical...sometimes 3-4 classes a week. My family to this day takes pride in reminding me of my favorite thing to yell at them, "Dance is my LIFE!!!!!" It's safe to say I was in pretty good shape. THIS was my exercise though. Dance. And I never felt like it was exercise because I was DANCING! Dance to me wasn't something I did to be healthy, it was something I did because it was part of my soul. The rush of feeling the music and expressing myself through dance was just who I was and what I did. I never really considered the health benefits.
When it came time for gym class in school, I made every excuse in the book not to participate. I'm not particularly good at any sport and was the kid that always got picked last. And to be honest, I didn't really care, because I didn't have any desire to do it to start with. Oh and forget about when they would make us do weight training in high school. Ugggggh. Me? Lift weights? While people sweated and grunted around me? Forget it. So I danced (and um, dabbled in cheerleading...) and ate whatever I wanted and was stick-thin.
Of course in college this changed slightly - I mean come on - who *doesn't* gain the "freshman 15" - but I was still a pretty active person. A little rounder, but active. I mean for real, in order to get to my car, I had to literally park over a mile from my dorm. It's safe to say I needed my car a lot, and walked many, many miles a day.
Fast forward to about 11 years ago. I'm a busy, active, young professional, working on a college campus and still walking all over the place. Enter what I refer to as "the accident." I was driving myself, ironically to my doctor's office for an appointment, and was stopped waiting to turn into the office park when someone hit me from behind. Going quite fast. I'll skip all the details, but the end result was permanent disc damage at the top of my back/base of my neck. My very active life as I knew it came to a standstill, and what followed was many years of physical therapy, pain management and weight gain. Add having two kids into the mix and the weight gain increased, while the activity remained at a standstill. In the middle of the last 11 years, I was diagnosed as a Type II diabetic, which in my case is genetic (pretty much my entire family has it, from parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles...you name it), but the weight gain and minimal activity wasn't helping. I went through a brief span of time (about 6 months before I got pregnant with Sprocket) that my body was feeling good, not exactly pain-free, but good enough to resume some exercise (I bought a recumbent bike and my awesome sis-in-law and bro-in-law gave us their "old" treadmill) and was able to lose some of the poundage and start to get my body back in shape. But to add insult to injury (forgive the pun), about 2+ years ago, someone hit me from behind AGAIN while I was waiting at a traffic light. I know, right?!? Disc injury re-inflamed, back to physical therapy and pain management. Bring on the weight gain. It's safe to say that the last 11 years have been a vicious cycle with my body, gaining, losing, active, inactive, different pain levels all while taking on the challenge of raising a young family, working full-time, and battling a disease I'm never going to get rid of. I've for sure had my ups and downs, but through it all I guess I've always felt like skinny, healthy, dancer Amy has still been inside, screaming to come back out. But I've also reconciled the fact that skinny Amy doesn't need to exist to BEE HAPPY, but HEALTHY Amy does need to exist to BEE HAPPY.
Back in August, my daughter's dance studio posted a sign that they were going to start offering Zumba classes. After a lot of cajoling from other dance moms (yep, I am a dance mom now, don't judge me.) AND the owner, everyone finally convinced me to try it out, after all, zumba was really more like dancing, right? Let me tell you, after my first class (which surprisingly I loved), I thought about Zumba and started to sweat. And I realized that while I wasn't a dancer anymore, here was my connection to something I loved. Maybe because it was taking place in an actual dance studio helped push me along. So for the last 8ish months, I've been attempting to go to this class 1-2 times a week. I can't say I really lost any weight doing it, but dancer Amy is starting to revive herself, even with all the jiggling rolls.
In my quest to find a healthier me, I also started a Shape Up RI team 4 weeks ago, not because I wanted to sweat with other people, but because if I knew I had to be accountable to other people that I would stick to making sure activity happened. (Are you listening Action Heroes? You know who you are!) I guess the timing all fell into place, because as part of Shape Up, I was offered a place in a behavioral weight loss study through Brown Medical School and Miriam Hospital. I figured I didn't have anything to lose, except maybe the pounds, and needed the kickstart.
I am very proud that in 4 weeks I've lost almost 8 pounds (sticking with 1-2 pounds a week) and I can feel a physical difference. Which brings me full circle to how I started this post. I joined a gym. Partly because we got a crazy discount through my husband's office, and partly because I need the support. I need the over-chipper instructors yelling at me to "wooooo!" with them. I need to have more than just a Zumba class to go to if I'm going to force myself to exercise. I need all these people saying to me, "you can do it!" because guess what, I'm starting to bee-lieve it, and maybe, just maybe, dancer Amy will be ready to strut her stuff once again. Even if it's only in the living room :)
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
Through the Eyes of a Child
Today was a mommy/Figgy day and I have to say, he's such a trooper for being 2 1/2. This morning's task: buy a new microwave. Because that sounds like the most fun you can have with a toddler, right? I'm starting to sense a theme here, with me having to drag him to the work events the other day.
Anyway, we drove to the big box home improvement store (of course after me "researching" microwaves online) and much to his delight, they had a shopping cart shaped like a race car. I knew from that moment it would be a great trip. He "drove" us through the store yelling "look at those tractors mommmmmmmyyyyy!!!!!!! Tractors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (aka lawnmowers) And when we got to the appliance section, the kid damn near lost his mind. I've never seen a kid get so excited about washing machines, ovens and microwaves. He was even making the store staff crack up. Needless to say, we picked out a replacement in about 15 minutes and were on our way.
Next up, food shopping. No car shaped carts there but you'd think we went to the moon or something by his reaction to pretty much every item on the shelf. And because we were pretty much bringing the average age down from ohhhh 80 years old (I wish I was exaggerating...), EVERY SINGLE PERSON had to stop and talk to him. Which he was like oh yeah, I'm all that. He entertained the masses by singing his ABC's and making up songs about milk. At one point I said to him, I guess they all want to talk to you cause you're cute. He responded with a resounding, "I surrrrrrreee am mommy. I am sooooooooooooo cute!" How can I get aggrivated shopping with THAT?!
It was fun seeing him get so excited about the little things. As adults we often overlook everyday "stuff" that we take for granted. Like the "Big Blue Bug," Nibbles Woodaway on Rt. 95 in Providence,(Figgy waved as fast as he could yelling hiiiiiiiiii Nibbles!!!! Take care of the carssssss Nibbles!!!!!!!!!!). Or the 5,000,000 vehicles we passed on the road (he made sure to point out specifically concrete trucks, dump trucks, garbage trucks, buses, diggers, firetrucks, police cars...shall I go on?). Or the birds flying (did you see 'em mommy? Geese mommy! Hungry geese! Looking for worms!). I could keep going, but you get my point. It's nice to take a step back every once in a while and look around. You never know what you might miss if you don't.
Anyway, we drove to the big box home improvement store (of course after me "researching" microwaves online) and much to his delight, they had a shopping cart shaped like a race car. I knew from that moment it would be a great trip. He "drove" us through the store yelling "look at those tractors mommmmmmmyyyyy!!!!!!! Tractors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" (aka lawnmowers) And when we got to the appliance section, the kid damn near lost his mind. I've never seen a kid get so excited about washing machines, ovens and microwaves. He was even making the store staff crack up. Needless to say, we picked out a replacement in about 15 minutes and were on our way.
Next up, food shopping. No car shaped carts there but you'd think we went to the moon or something by his reaction to pretty much every item on the shelf. And because we were pretty much bringing the average age down from ohhhh 80 years old (I wish I was exaggerating...), EVERY SINGLE PERSON had to stop and talk to him. Which he was like oh yeah, I'm all that. He entertained the masses by singing his ABC's and making up songs about milk. At one point I said to him, I guess they all want to talk to you cause you're cute. He responded with a resounding, "I surrrrrrreee am mommy. I am sooooooooooooo cute!" How can I get aggrivated shopping with THAT?!
It was fun seeing him get so excited about the little things. As adults we often overlook everyday "stuff" that we take for granted. Like the "Big Blue Bug," Nibbles Woodaway on Rt. 95 in Providence,(Figgy waved as fast as he could yelling hiiiiiiiiii Nibbles!!!! Take care of the carssssss Nibbles!!!!!!!!!!). Or the 5,000,000 vehicles we passed on the road (he made sure to point out specifically concrete trucks, dump trucks, garbage trucks, buses, diggers, firetrucks, police cars...shall I go on?). Or the birds flying (did you see 'em mommy? Geese mommy! Hungry geese! Looking for worms!). I could keep going, but you get my point. It's nice to take a step back every once in a while and look around. You never know what you might miss if you don't.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
We'll Miss You, Moose and Zee!
Oh Nick Jr. Really? Why must you mess with a good thing? Were Moose and Zee and Puzzle Time so offensive to your new program lineup that it was necessary to do away with them completely, without warning? To the thousands of parents out there that also feel my pain, my condolences to you and your children.
I know maybe it's silly, why should we as adults care that Nick Jr. got rid of beloved character mini-clips that ran between shows? And by shows I mean pretty much anything you can find playing in my house between the hours of 8:30a and 7:30p - the Backyardigans, Fresh Beat Band, Umizoomi, Bubble Guppies.....I could go on, but you get my point. It's almost all my kids watch. I mean it was bad enough when you changed "Marina" on us and we had to explain that one to the confused children. But why would you get rid of pure educational content that worked?? So that you had more space to advertise your products in your supposedly commerical-free zone? I don't care about math packs or cd's or even your online boost system. I care that when my kids watch the small amount of tv that we let them, that they are actually learning something while being entertained.
Not surprising, one look at your website doesn't mention a word about a "new look." Funny enough though, in the web browser bar, the little icon is a picture of Moose. Kinda amusing. Your facebook page says nothing about it either, and I'm a little surprised that with the hundreds of posts by annoyed parents (on behalf of their kids of course) that you guys haven't even attempted to make any kind of statement. In my book, that's poor business practice. It's one thing to make changes; it's quite another to hid behind them.
I'm not going to be all crazy and start signing petitions and all that (if you're interested, check out some of the links other parents have posted on their facebook page), but I instead dedicate this blog post to what Moose and Zee and Puzzle Time represent: learning the right way to pet a dog, how to recycle, saving energy, identifying letters, learning rhyming sounds, sharing with friends, learning how to say I'm sorry. Did you hear that last part Nick Jr.? Learning how to say I'm sorry. Didn't you learn anything from Netflix? Here's me bee-ing positive that with change comes better listening ears. And I'm not talking about the listening ears of the kids. They hear you loud and clear.
I know maybe it's silly, why should we as adults care that Nick Jr. got rid of beloved character mini-clips that ran between shows? And by shows I mean pretty much anything you can find playing in my house between the hours of 8:30a and 7:30p - the Backyardigans, Fresh Beat Band, Umizoomi, Bubble Guppies.....I could go on, but you get my point. It's almost all my kids watch. I mean it was bad enough when you changed "Marina" on us and we had to explain that one to the confused children. But why would you get rid of pure educational content that worked?? So that you had more space to advertise your products in your supposedly commerical-free zone? I don't care about math packs or cd's or even your online boost system. I care that when my kids watch the small amount of tv that we let them, that they are actually learning something while being entertained.
Not surprising, one look at your website doesn't mention a word about a "new look." Funny enough though, in the web browser bar, the little icon is a picture of Moose. Kinda amusing. Your facebook page says nothing about it either, and I'm a little surprised that with the hundreds of posts by annoyed parents (on behalf of their kids of course) that you guys haven't even attempted to make any kind of statement. In my book, that's poor business practice. It's one thing to make changes; it's quite another to hid behind them.
I'm not going to be all crazy and start signing petitions and all that (if you're interested, check out some of the links other parents have posted on their facebook page), but I instead dedicate this blog post to what Moose and Zee and Puzzle Time represent: learning the right way to pet a dog, how to recycle, saving energy, identifying letters, learning rhyming sounds, sharing with friends, learning how to say I'm sorry. Did you hear that last part Nick Jr.? Learning how to say I'm sorry. Didn't you learn anything from Netflix? Here's me bee-ing positive that with change comes better listening ears. And I'm not talking about the listening ears of the kids. They hear you loud and clear.
Friday, March 2, 2012
Beauty in Art
Today was an "at home" day for me and the kids. Needed to find something that they'd be udderly fascinated with and that I'd enjoy too. Enter one of my latest Pinterest finds: crayon art. Because everyone decides on the spur of the moment to make crayon art, right? I'm determined to be one of those people that actually *does* something with the things I pin. So far I've cooked a lot of stuff. If you ask my husband, I've made a lot of stuff too. What's another project to add to the list?
Welcome to crayon art with Amy and the kids. And I actually pre-meditated this one and went and bought canvas and crayons and new glue sticks for the glue gun the other day.
Here's the "before" pic. Sprocket (aka R - that's what we called her when I was prego with her...) helped me sort all the crayons by color and organize them all. Achieved mostly easily because Figgy (aka E - that was HIS name) was napping. Then I hot glue gunned them all onto the canvas and waited for him to wake up, because the next part was um, noisy and involved a hair dryer.
Cue the hair dryer. Ok wait, let me back up - I realized that I should probably put something on the floor before the melting fun began - so note - you should prob. do the same if you ever dare to do this. A roll of white easel paper did the trick. Only everything I've seen on crayon art and hair dryers doesn't mention anything about ummm, splattering. Yes, splattering. Luckily any splatter from heating up the crayons and melting them with said hair dryer landed on the leather sofa and wiped right off. Guess my secret is out, sweet husband of mine ;) The whole thing took about 20 minutes (about 10 per canvas, maybe a little more) and the kids oohed, ahhed and cheered. I think it came out pretty cool.
See, with a little motivation and letting go of fear of the mess, we made some bee-utiful art :) Now let's see how long it takes for us to actually hang it up....
Welcome to crayon art with Amy and the kids. And I actually pre-meditated this one and went and bought canvas and crayons and new glue sticks for the glue gun the other day.
Here's the "before" pic. Sprocket (aka R - that's what we called her when I was prego with her...) helped me sort all the crayons by color and organize them all. Achieved mostly easily because Figgy (aka E - that was HIS name) was napping. Then I hot glue gunned them all onto the canvas and waited for him to wake up, because the next part was um, noisy and involved a hair dryer.
Cue the hair dryer. Ok wait, let me back up - I realized that I should probably put something on the floor before the melting fun began - so note - you should prob. do the same if you ever dare to do this. A roll of white easel paper did the trick. Only everything I've seen on crayon art and hair dryers doesn't mention anything about ummm, splattering. Yes, splattering. Luckily any splatter from heating up the crayons and melting them with said hair dryer landed on the leather sofa and wiped right off. Guess my secret is out, sweet husband of mine ;) The whole thing took about 20 minutes (about 10 per canvas, maybe a little more) and the kids oohed, ahhed and cheered. I think it came out pretty cool.
See, with a little motivation and letting go of fear of the mess, we made some bee-utiful art :) Now let's see how long it takes for us to actually hang it up....
Thursday, March 1, 2012
An Adventure Day
I'm going to start this by saying I'm beat. Like totally exhausted from a beyond crazy day. I had an adventure day. Rather my baby boy E had an adventure day. Although I should correct myself and not say "baby boy" because as Mr. 2 1/2 year old informed me today, he's "not a baby anymore mommy. I'm a big boy." And he's right. My big boy spent the day with mommy driving all over tarrrrr-nation (as his big sister calls it) for some special events that I was helping coordinate for one of my clients. I totally dragged the poor kid from store to store starting at 9:15 this morning until 5pm tonight. The kid had a 9-5 work day. And he LOVED it.
I have to admit, I was a little stressed out knowing that I had an insane day in front of me and knowing that he was going to be with me. Just starting with the concept of constantly have to take him in and out of the carseat everytime we made yet ANOTHER stop was enough to make me shake. Forget about any of the 500 bags and boxes I had in my car that I'd have to shlep as well. And yeah, was that part a total pain in the arse? I won't lie, of course it was. But I wouldn't have changed it and to be honest, having him with me made the day so much better. Better than I could have imagined.
Sometimes I think we exert so much energy worrying about the "what-if's" than focusing on the here and now. I'm totally guilty of it, I'm not afraid to admit it. I put so much energy into how difficult the day was going to be instead of embracing it and saying BRING IT ON.
E turned out to be my little helper, putting materials on tables, holding and handing things to me that I needed, and greeting people with his infectious smile and beyond cute way. In watching him and seeing the sparkle in his eyes, I realized how important he felt, and how special. When your 2 1/2 year old is this proud of what they're doing, it's impossible to not step back and let the stress go. So I dragged him from place to place, and instead of grumbling about having to do it, we made jokes, we giggled, we high-fived (if you count him yelling - you're too slow!), but most of all, we smiled.
At one point today, he ran up to me and said "hey mommy? you're awesome!" I was like what did you say? And he said it again. And then he hugged me. And in that moment, my heart swelled and the chaos of the day totally didn't matter. I had my baby/not a baby anymore/baby with me and all he cared about was that I was his awesome mommy and that we were on an adventure day. G-d I love that kid.
Maybe there's something to this whole bee positive thing.
I have to admit, I was a little stressed out knowing that I had an insane day in front of me and knowing that he was going to be with me. Just starting with the concept of constantly have to take him in and out of the carseat everytime we made yet ANOTHER stop was enough to make me shake. Forget about any of the 500 bags and boxes I had in my car that I'd have to shlep as well. And yeah, was that part a total pain in the arse? I won't lie, of course it was. But I wouldn't have changed it and to be honest, having him with me made the day so much better. Better than I could have imagined.
Sometimes I think we exert so much energy worrying about the "what-if's" than focusing on the here and now. I'm totally guilty of it, I'm not afraid to admit it. I put so much energy into how difficult the day was going to be instead of embracing it and saying BRING IT ON.
E turned out to be my little helper, putting materials on tables, holding and handing things to me that I needed, and greeting people with his infectious smile and beyond cute way. In watching him and seeing the sparkle in his eyes, I realized how important he felt, and how special. When your 2 1/2 year old is this proud of what they're doing, it's impossible to not step back and let the stress go. So I dragged him from place to place, and instead of grumbling about having to do it, we made jokes, we giggled, we high-fived (if you count him yelling - you're too slow!), but most of all, we smiled.
At one point today, he ran up to me and said "hey mommy? you're awesome!" I was like what did you say? And he said it again. And then he hugged me. And in that moment, my heart swelled and the chaos of the day totally didn't matter. I had my baby/not a baby anymore/baby with me and all he cared about was that I was his awesome mommy and that we were on an adventure day. G-d I love that kid.
Maybe there's something to this whole bee positive thing.
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