I've always struggled with my weight. I've never been a small person and this didn't really bother me enough to make a change until four years ago when I walked into a Weight Watchers meeting. Until that point, I tried every single diet, diet pill, liquid supplement, blah, blah, blah there was. Nothing worked. And even if it did, the pounds didn't stay off long enough to make any difference.

It took being engaged and having a set wedding date to change all of that for me. Once I had a date set, I knew that nothing else would be put in place until the pounds came off. I didn't want to be fat in my wedding dress. And we all know how "slimming" (insert sarcasm here) of a color white is.

So in June 2006, I walked into a building that changed my life. (Insert sappy music here.) No, but really - Weight Watchers taught me so much. I used to think that counting points and reading nutritional info was too time consuming and not something I would be interested in, but it taught me to control my portions and make better choices. I lost 72 pounds on the weight watcher program in 10 months. Amazing progress if I may say so myself.

I didn't have enough time to enjoy that new body I was rocking because the following month - I got pregnant. All that hard work....but I don't want to say it was for nothing. I achieved my goal and wore my dream wedding dress in 4 sizes smaller than I would have a year before.

I have the WW program memorized and know it like the back of my hand. I gained 45 (yes, 45) pounds being pregnant with AJ. Everyone said if I breastfed it would come right off. So I breastfed. Did the weight come off? NOPE! I exercised. Did the weight come off? NOPE! I lost about 30 of those pounds over the course of 18 months. Then I got pregnant with Aiden. Repeat the whole weight gain thing. This time I only gained 22 pounds. I told myself (and Adam) that I was going to strictly follow the WW plan again as soon as he was born. So I did.... for two weeks and then I slowly started falling back into bad habits. I did this on again, off again stuff for two months before I decided that I was walking right back into the Weight Watcher office that helped me lose weight the first time.

I set a goal of losing 45 pounds. I had my first weigh in this past Friday and I lost....... 8.2 pounds in ONE WEEK! This obviously shows you how badly I must have been eating! I'm also not sure if it has to do with my starting student teaching which obviously restricts my eating all day long. Regardless, I LOST WEIGHT! And I'm going to continue going to the meetings... I actually pre-paid for 12 weeks so I keep going.

The most important thing I've learned about myself through my weight loss journey the first time and has been re-affirmed to me now is that accountability is what makes me successful. It's not enough for me to follow the program at home and weigh myself. It's knowing that I'm going to walk into a place and let somebody see my weight and track my progress. It's what worked for me last time and what will work for me again this time.

Bring on the new body! (I'll make sure to post my progress here too so I'm held accountable in more ways than one!) :-)

Until next time,
Mama Brown(ie)

The countdown is on!

I wanted to post my official countdown until the end of my student teaching somewhere, so I'm posting it here on my blog.

49 school days! This means I will have to wake up and get all dressed up to go play teacher 49 more times.

Don't get me wrong... I have a great cooperating teacher and a great class full of great students, but I miss my boys. That's been the hardest part of student teaching so far. Being away from my boys for so many hours a day takes its toll on me. I'm hoping it gets easier with time. I hope that right when it becomes easier, it's time for it to be over and I can just spend my days with my boys again.

I don't know what I'll do with all my spare time once it's done.... I won't have homework to do. I won't have classes to go to. Hmm... maybe it's time to take up a new hobby! Any suggestions?

Time.... or lack thereof.

As many of you may or may not know, I started my 12 weeks of student teaching Monday. This means that I am away from my boys for over 8 hours each day. This has been the hardest part of it all so far. I've been away from them for hours at a time - but it was always with the satisfaction of knowing that the following day would be spent with them. I won't know what this feels like again until August. :-(

So this brings me to my current blog posting.

There are so many things I need to make/prepare/organize/arrange/set out/put together/think about before I can leave the house. I'm sure that whoever is watching the boys is able to fill a sippy cup with juice, make breakfast, warm up a bottle, pick out clothing, etc. etc., but my OCD ways force me to spend countless minutes in the morning arranging and putting things together for the boys for the day.

As a mom, I find myself trying to squeeze and make time shorter. I try to convince myself that a 30 minute activity or procedure could be squeezed into a 10 minute time block and then when it doesn't work that way, I run around like a chicken with my head cut off. Like anyone else, I learn from my mistakes. So this morning, I set my alarm 20 minutes earlier than usual so that I could accommodate my morning routine. And wouldn't you know it? Those 20 minutes came and went... and I was still short of time. Even if I set my alarm clock for an hour earlier, I will still find ways of using up every single minute.

As I was rushing around tonight trying to prepare as much as I could ahead of time, I realized that time doesn't stop for anyone. We're given 24 hours every single day. We choose what we do with them. I have so much in my life to be thankful for that I'm going to make sure I take the time to stop and smell the diapers. Err, I mean... roses. I enter my own little world when I have bottles to wash, mail to sort through, bills to pay, coffee to brew, and a lunch to pack. I'm so focused on these tasks that I lose sight of what really matters in my life..... my boys.

Tonight as I was walking to the kitchen to wash some bottles, AJ stopped me and asked me to dance with him. I started to tell him to "give mommy a few minutes" when I finally realized that the bottles could wait to be washed. My little son-shine actually WANTED to do something with his mommy, and I wasn't going to pass that opportunity up. So we danced. And I loved every single second of it.

And when the song was finished.... I washed those bottles. ::Sigh::

Until next time,
Mama Brown(ie)

Watch out Preschool! Here comes a Genius!

AJ might not be able to identify all the colors in a crayon box.

AJ might not be able to recite the alphabet, or count in sequence. (And I'm gonna be a teacher, I know!)

But this boy sure does know his cars.

We used to drive down the street and AJ would identify cars based on who drives them. Any Hyundai on the road would be "Kiki's Car" (she drives a Hyundai Accent). Any Nissan would be "Baba's Car" (my mom drives a Nissan Altima). Any Chevy would be mama's car (I drive a Chevy Tahoe). Any Dodge Truck would be "Joey's Truck" (Joey is AJ's bff. He doesn't drive yet, but his mom and dad have a Dodge Ram!) Repeat this exact scenario every single time we got in the car and drove anywhere.

Although my son isn't a certified genius, he is advancing his intelligence in vehicle identification. We spent about 15 minutes circling the parking lot yesterday waiting for Adam to come out of Smith's grocery store. We couldn't just park and wait because Aiden wasn't having that. So driving in circles it was. Every car we stopped in front of demanded an explanation for AJ.

AJ: "Look Mommy! Baba Car!"
Me: "Yes, AJ! Good Job! That's a Nissan."
AJ: "Ya mommy. Baba car is Nissan."

Repeat this for every Dodge, Ford, Chevy, Hyundai and Volkswagon in the parking lot. Once we drove through and I helped him identify the cars, we did another drive around and I asked him to identify the cars by their names. And by golly - he got them ALL right! The cuteness of all of this lies in his pronunciation of the names. I promise I will try to record it next time this happens.

I'm contemplating writing a letter to preschool admissions officers to ask them to consider including vehicle identification to their entrance exams. Because if all they ask for are colors, numbers and alphabet reciting - we are screwed!

Until next time,

Mama Brown(ie)

I'm baaaaaaaack! (Almost)

I am finally getting back to frequent blogging (sort of!). I have so much to catch up on, so bear with me!

In the meantime, this blog is also getting a much needed makeover by the wonderful Steph (who is in the process of creating a design blog!) I am so excited for our makeover!

Be ready to read cause I'm coming back!

xoxo,
Ang