From the category archives:

motion

The Best Balm (even works on yet more stitches)

August 19, 2010

The anxiety began, I’m pretty sure, a couple of Fridays ago, the day I took Lily to the doctor to check on the brand spanking new set of stitches put into her forehead by the lovely resident in the emergency room.
The doctor was a nice man, we had a nice chat, and he declared Lily [...]

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But We Got to See the Goats

May 23, 2010

We were on our way to the Dairy Goat Parade and Festival in Spindale, NC (where else would we spend a Saturday afternoon?) when it happened.
We were rolling around mountain passes, zinging like a pinball whacked between paddles, cruising through towns with names like Batcave and Chimney Rock.
“It’s too far,” Jake whined.  Until this moment [...]

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Little Shifts, Big Changes

May 20, 2010

Although Lily has been walking for over a week now, she does not yet view it as a mode of transportation.  Walking, for her, is a game that starts with a parent placing her at one end of the living room and yelling with great excitement, “Walk to Jake! Walk to Jake!”  It is unclear [...]

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Lily Walks

May 14, 2010

It’s one of those favorite phrases of parents of young children.  “Any day now!”
“Any day now!” we chirp as cheerfully as someone as sleep-deprived as the parent of an infant can chirp when someone asks if she is sleeping through the night yet with unknowing cruelty.
“Any day now!” we promise as we watch her rock [...]

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Full Circle

April 19, 2010

I’ve been writing YogaMamaMe since Jake was younger than Lily is now.
This makes me think a lot of things:  How quickly time passes when you have kids.  How scary it is to watch time pass so quickly, especially when you have kids.  And how I seem to be repeating myself.
Take last night, for instance.  I [...]

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Retreat of the December Mom

December 31, 2009

I’m still ashamed, even though I now recognize it was a December Mom thing.
There’s simply no excuse for being — I can still recall the out-of-body experience of watching myself do this — the mom screaming across a crowded coffee shop at her child.  “Jake!  Jake!  JAKE!  DO YOU WANT A BAGEL?”  As if no [...]

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The Co-Sleeper Is Gone … And Time Marches On

November 30, 2009

Next to my side of the bed there is a large, clean(ish) patch of floorboards.  On the other side of that large, clean(ish) patch of floorboards there is room to open the drawers on the left side of my dresser.  In between there is space for my discarded shoes and socks to breathe without having [...]

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A Truly Scary Halloween, or How I Crossed Over

November 10, 2009

On Friday, Lily will be the same age Jake was when we moved to Asheville two years ago.
Just typing those words is sending me into a shower of I-don’t-know-whether-to-explode-with-joy-or-cry-uncontrollably emotions.  For months after Lily’s birth I had to consult Jake’s old baby pictures to remember  what he was like at her age.  Now, however, I [...]

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New Places, New Faces, New Records for Lack of Sleep

October 23, 2009

Nursing my daughter in the back seat of the Honda as we left town for the weekend — me kneeling over her with a hand braced against the window as if to wave (or perhaps hold out a big STOP!) at passersby — probably should have been a good clue that I would be facing [...]

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Everything Grows Faster in the Summer

September 1, 2009

I have acquired yet another in the growing number of items on my list of Things I Know Better Than to Do But Do Anyhow.
I have just finished sorting through Jake and Lily’s outgrown clothes, putting them away in anticipation of the spring kids’ rummage sale at the Jewish Community Center to which I will [...]

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Photographs and Memories. And Babies.

May 5, 2009

Friday night, after a lovely family evening eating pizza at an outdoor table overlooking a local parking lot, I relaxed on the couch and looked through old pictures of Jake when he was Lily’s age.
That was my first mistake.

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Is There Such a Thing as a Full Circle and What Does It Look Like?

May 1, 2009

I hung up the phone yesterday thinking I had come full circle.
We hadn’t spoken in nearly twenty years, and I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve heard the laugh that brought me right back in a joyful slide to the summer I turned seventeen.  That laugh, I now remember, made me feel like I’d [...]

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Alice in Motherland, or Just How Hard It Is

April 14, 2009

Yesterday afternoon, I was like the Cheshire Cat, grinning and purring contentedly about how smoothly the first four weeks of Lily’s life have slid by.
Yesterday evening, I was Alice herself, “shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep, and reaching half down the hall.”  Unlike Alice, [...]

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My Refuge

April 6, 2009

On Friday afternoon, I was lucky enough to be invited to the dedication of a lovely meditation space in downtown Asheville, the WriteMind Institute.  And even more lucky to have a mother-in-law in town and an infant feeding schedule that allowed me to attend.
It felt pretty darned great to take a shower, put on real [...]

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Of Big Boy Beds and Co-Sleepers

March 9, 2009

I’d like to think our ability to get the co-sleeper assembled (albeit standing on its side in a corner of our bedroom until needed) somewhat balances out my cavalier attitude toward having Mike drive two and a half hours to Charlotte to visit IKEA on Thursday night — three days before my due date.
To be [...]

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When the Glamour Is Gone: How a Pregnant Mother of a Toddler Watches the Oscars

February 24, 2009

Like Kate Winslet, I, too, used to practice my Oscar acceptance speech in front of the mirror when I was eight years old.
But I don’t any longer.  Instead, last night I propped my swollen ankles up on a few pillows, threw an old baby blue blanket over my wriggling belly, and polished off the organic [...]

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Trusting the Nostalgia (Even When You Should Be Embarrassed by the Songs You Are Listening to on the Radio)

January 14, 2009

I am awash in nostalgia these days.
Certainly it has something to do with the impending transformation of my status into “mother of two.” One child, Mike and I agree, is an accessory. Two children is an adult family. Who can approach such a spectre without a slightly longing glance back at the [...]

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Why It’s a Blessing to Find Out the Path Is Bumpier than You Expected

January 6, 2009

Jake started crying before I so much as moved toward the door to leave him at school this morning.
Real tears. Not the almost-obligatory yells of faux abandonment he would throw my way when I dropped him off at his old pre-preschool.  No, these were the kind of tears that a parent feels right where her [...]

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Could Yoga Really Have Led Me to the Americans with Disabilities Act?

September 18, 2008

Yoga, I have always thought, saved me from the law.
I became a lawyer, in the narrative I have set up of my life, because I was blind to my heart.  It was the path my mind led me down, the safe, manageable world of knowledge and surface communication and clear organizing principles.
Sure, I told myself [...]

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Travels with Toddler

September 16, 2008

In my last post I stressed the importance of bringing along an Elmo DVD if you intend to take a toddler on a four-hour driving trip without another adult in the car who is willing to spend the entire journey twisted around dispensing handfuls of popcorn.
I would now like to point out that the Elmo [...]

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