yoga and motherhood

A Brief Return to a Past Life, or How (Really) Did I Get Here?

March 6, 2009

A couple of weeks ago, Mike handed me a book that had come free to his workplace. “I doubt it’ll be very good,” he said, “but it’s a memoir about going to Columbia Law School.  I thought you might be interested.” Maybe it’s the buddha-like peace that has descended on me as I prepare to [...]

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The Sweet Times, and Remembering to Savor Them

March 3, 2009

“Enjoy this sweet time as a family of three,” the midwife said to me at the end of our appointment on Friday. Of course, I panicked. Was she suggesting that life for Jake was about to be rendered far from sweet?  Soured?  Curdled?  Bitter enough to take away his constant smiles and laughter and remarkable [...]

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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 [...]

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My Taxes Are Done, So I Guess I’m Ready to Have a Baby Now

February 22, 2009

I finished my taxes yesterday as Jake napped on the couch and the last hour of Waitress unwound on TiVo. I say this not to brag but to point out that I am now ready to give birth. I have repeated it many times over the past several weeks:  “No, I’m not ready.  I haven’t [...]

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I’d Rather Have My Mushrooms Fresh with Maggots than Processed with High Fructose Corn Syrup

February 16, 2009

I guess I’ve been thinking more lately about how to feed my children healthily (without instilling in them my own seriously warped food issues) because everyone has.  You know, that peanutbutter thing. Then, on Friday, I read an op ed piece in the New York Times entitled The Maggots in Your Mushrooms. Suddenly, it all [...]

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Am I Completely LOST or Would Any Mother Choose the Husband She Thought Was Dead over the Three-Year-Old Child She Knows Is Not?

February 12, 2009

Is it just me?  Am I the only one who’s still in a state of disbelief over what the writers had Sun do? Maybe it’s the pregnancy. Normally, I don’t get too wrapped up in the motivations of television characters (unless they appeared on The Wire — oh, Randy, I still mourn for you).  I [...]

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The Road to Potty Training Is Paved with Good Intentions

February 11, 2009

Potty training is a big subject in our house these days. Not because Mike or I have decided it’s time — Jake’s just 25 months old, after all.  But because Jake has shown an interest in it.  At least, he’s shown an interest in: getting our hopes up, testing my theory that all I have [...]

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Darn You, Michael Pollan! What Am I Supposed to Feed My Child Now?

February 9, 2009

I just finished reading my first Michael Pollan book, In Defense of Food.  Which is somewhat strange, because I have been a big Michael Pollan fan for some time now. Mostly, I have depended on Mike to give me the information I need to tell people I’m a big Michael Pollan fan.  He does the [...]

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Knowing When to Say No (and Not Just to Target on a Saturday)

February 7, 2009

I can’t remember the last time I went to Target on a Saturday. As of today, I know why. It was supposed to be my break, part of the divide-and-conquer strategy Mike and I launched on this Saturday morning of oh-so-cranky toddler. And, indeed, somehow, I needed a break, despite having spent all of an [...]

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A Snow Day Posting

February 4, 2009

I would just like to point out that it is impossible to post a coherent essay with Sesame Street on in the room. There’s the mini-mariachi band playing with Big Bird to distract me.  (Nothing like a bunch of eight-year-olds dressed up like mariachis to make you wonder what embarrassing choices your own child will [...]

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Who Won This Round of the Battle of the Bath?

February 2, 2009

There comes a point when you must put your foot down. Mine came after an astonishingly patient 3 1/2 weeks during which the closest Jake came to taking a bath was wading in some warm tub water while I used a funnel to rinse his privits, as I like to call them.  That’s 3 1/2 [...]

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We Should All Be the Pregnant Lady in Yoga Class Sometimes

January 27, 2009

Sometimes, you decide you must do something that is against your better judgment. Ideally, these circumstances should not include going to yoga class.  Not because it’s never a bad idea to go to yoga class — although that is the first thought that comes to my mind, even when, as now, I’m writing about why [...]

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Can I Make My Child (or Anyone Else for that Matter) Happy?

January 21, 2009

Jake has just discovered the concept of righteous indignation. As in, “How dare you comb my hair for me!”  Only expressed in howls of unhappiness perfectly calibrated to get on my last nerve. Or, “Don’t you dare fill up that bathtub!  Don’t even mention the word ‘tub’ to me!  And certainly don’t ask me why [...]

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How Much Influence Do I Have on My Toddler’s Tantrums — and the Tantrums of Others?

January 16, 2009

It was only after the fact — as I recounted the incident to Jake’s preschool teachers this morning — that I saw the humor in it. There I was, seven-plus months pregnant and clad in a thick black winter coat bulging at the zipper, crouched in the back seat of my CRV as I straddled [...]

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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 days when [...]

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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 [...]

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My Toddler Teaches Me When to Say “I’m Sorry”

January 5, 2009

Jake has picked up a rather impressive and useful new habit.  He now frequently says, “I’m sorry.” The thing is, I’m not entirely certain whether he’s saying it when he’s the one who has something to be sorry for.  More often, I fear, he’s merely pointing out my own lack of social graces. When, for [...]

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“Mommy, Go Work.”

January 2, 2009

“Mommy, go work.” Jake said these words gently, with a firm hand on my knee as if to steady me for the blow of his very first (but, oh, I know, definitely not his last) leave-me-alone-already. We were in his new classroom, on his first day at the “big kids” preschool across the street from [...]

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Why I Was Crying in the Target Parking Lot, and Why I Probably Will Again

December 18, 2008

I thought I was doing really well on Tuesday.  Last of the holiday packages mailed?  Check.  Requisite single container for the lunches Jake will take with him when he moves up to the big kids’ preschool after the holidays finally located and purchased?  Check.  Checks deposited?  Check, checks. I was aware that in order to [...]

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Can a Sense of Self Come with Pink Polka Dot Boots?

December 9, 2008

Jake has been wearing his beloved pink polka dot boots pretty much non-stop for over a week now. We have engaged in successful negotiations about removing them for bed time and bath time (for which he even removed his swim diaper the other night, suggesting he is finally over the traumatic poop-in-the-tub incident).  But otherwise, [...]

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