Yoga and baseball

Those of you who know me know that I love baseball -- and my team is the Chicago Cubs. Don't groan. I know.

Yoga can be very helpful in rooting for a team like the Cubs. Think about it -- practicing contentment, practicing non-attachment, even practicing ahimsa -- all help me be an even better fan. All these practices can make a wait of over 100 years for a championship bearable -- even enjoyable. Just as this year's season gets underway, I am breathing and trying not to get too excited. I will enjoy every pitch I get to watch -- especially the ones thrown at Wrigley. Even if my baseball season ends in September, our team of yogis will have been brilliant just in their attempt.

Back to class

A lot of my yoga is home practice. I teach regularly, as well, but that is not practicing, even when I get to do some asanas with the group. Home practice can be a struggle -- squeezing it in during an ever-shrinking nap time, closing my eyes to the messes here and there that beg for my attention, and turning a deaf ear on the phone. Home practice is, in many ways, the real essence of yoga -- focusing, listening to your inner teacher, looking within.

But for me, it is sometimes hard to balance that soft-focused inner gaze with pushing myself. So today, I went back to class with one of my teachers. I'm not sure it was harder, per se, than one of my home practices, but I paid different, more attention to things. Hearing someone else's cues, working them through my body, was a treat. Never mind that I didn't hear a kid for 90+ minutes -- that in and of itself is a huge shift -- but today listening to an outer teacher gave me fresh perspective.

Where was my mind? Instead of thinking about the sequence, which I would do if I were practicing by myself, I was at the four corners of my feet, my thigh bones moving back and my shin bones moving forward ever so slightly -- heart center moving forward -- hips relaxing into alignment -- to so many places was my attention moved. It makes me look even more forward to my next home practice and finding those same places on my own.

Time flies...

when you're flying. From motherhood to yoga and back and around again. It is a wild ride sometimes, but a beautiful one. The views are awesome: my sleeping munchkins, my toes in uttanasana, my husband rocking out, or the view from upside down in sirsasana.

In the last year, my husband changed jobs, my older girl turned 3 and the younger, 2, and I completed my 200-hour yoga teacher training. I'm teaching classes at, Shakti, and carrying the yoga love into Newark Public Schools with Newark Yoga Movement, and practicing whenever I can.

Mothering is its own special kind of yoga: a mix of love, breath, balance, strength, surrender, boundaries and openness. I'm sure I'll come back to this idea a lot as my practice as a mom and a yogini continues.

The only good thing

about my family living far away is the excitement when they visit. Their plane just landed, and they're on the way! I wish I could keep the house clean for more than 37 seconds, but oh well --

Week in Review

Well, it might have been more fun to be in London this week -- though not at Michael's meetings -- but my four-night solo gig with the girls went just fine. Of course, I am very lucky to have had a couple hours of babysitting each day to allow me to run a few errands and get to yoga, but even the nighttimes weren't too bad. Of course I can do this. It's just that it's not nearly as much fun without my husband -- we sort of chose to get into this together, you know? Tonight marks his return, and I'm already tracking his flight on the Virgin Atlantic website. I hope he is resting and rocking out to some tunes on his new iPod shuffle. Just a couple more hours, and then we'll celebrate with a pizza, a couple of welcome-home gifts, and hopefully a good night's sleep all around.

The Sleeper

Lucy likes her sleep! Lately she has been sleeping in -- or sometimes taking jumbo naps -- and she looks like the happiest little clam doing it. It's funny, though, because she doesn't particularly like going to sleep. One difficult element of two kids, 13 months apart is sleeping -- especially since ours share a room. We bathe the girls together, but then they have their own separate go-to-sleep routines, Josephine in her toddler bed and Lucy in our arms. So Lucy hasn't learned to fall asleep on her own yet. And there's not a great way to do this, as far as I can tell. I'm not a believer in crying it out, and it wouldn't work anyway, since Josephine would be trying to go to sleep in the same room. What to do, what to do?

I'm thinking of this as my husband is getting ready for a 5-day trip abroad, and I'll be solo for bedtime routine. I would prefer for one of us to sleep in her own bed, but how will I make that happen with two babies, two bedtime routines, and only one me?

Double duty

It's cute, yes. But really I just find it easier. That is, dressing the girls in matching -- or similar -- outfits. In terms of shopping, I just have to pick out one outfit and get it in two sizes. Then, when they're running around naked like little banshees, I don't have to think twice about what they should wear. Oh, and it makes it easier to keep the drawers organized, too! So it's not really that I'm so clever and matchy-matchy. I'm just lazy.

I am still tired.

I've been tired since I was nine months pregnant with my now two-year-old. I was still teaching at Arts High in Newark, struggling to keep comfortable in a school with no air conditioning and an elevator that required a key (that I didn't have). I walked laps in the hallway on my preps to stay active. That seems like it was a very long time ago. Since then, I've become a mom for the first time, found out I was pregnant again when I had a three-and-a-half month old, become a mom for the second time, and juggled a toddler and an infant for over a year. Okay, so I guess I should be tired.

For me, this has been the downside of having children later in life. No regrets, for sure, but I wish I had my twenty-nine year old energy right about now. I just can't catch up. As soon as we have a night or two of everyone sleeping through the night, we have three of no one sleeping through the night -- of everyone sleeping somewhere other than where they originally went to bed. Of sleeping in the armchair. (Which, by the way, I find almost as comfortable as our Tempurpedic.) I am pretty good at waking up quickly and jumping into action, but you can only do that so many times before you start just spacing out during the day...

Yes, yes. This too, shall pass, and then I'll long for when the girls were little and wanted to cuddle and sleep with me.

Yoga meets you where you are

is my mantra. And really, I keep saying it over and over to myself. I'm trying to believe it. In just a couple of weeks, I'm starting the yoga teacher training program at Shakti Yoga. I'm really excited about deepening my practice and learning how to share it with others. I see lots of potential applications for it: teaching bigger people (you know -- folks (like me) who are intimidated or turned off or not accommodated by the perfect-body yogis), teaching people with chronic pain, teaching inner city kids who need a stress relief tool to help them succeed in school and the life beyond, working with moms-to-be. A lot of people feel like they aren't welcome in yoga or don't know how to approach it, and I'd like to change that.

But here I am, having trouble believing my own mantra. My body hurts from my rheumatoid arthritis, and I can't quite see how I will be able to practice or teach since I can't bend my knees or move my ankles or flex my wrists. I wonder what the others will think of me and my big, stiff, inflexible body. I don't want to be a curiosity or that poor woman who can't move. Yak. It isn't a competitive thing; I just wonder what it would be like to be another kind. It's the point -- I know. Yoga will meet me where I am when I move with the breath, when I breathe in and let my om join the sound of the universe. Maybe I should shut up and roll out my mat.

Surfacing...

It is hard to be away for a long time. So I'm coming back.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King

Thinking of you today reminds me of why I became a teacher, and thinking of tomorrow's historic inauguration of Barack Obama reminds me that (some) progress (even a little) is being made every day.

It's amazing to me that your day is still one of those sort-of holidays. Congress originally enacted the day as a day of service, but many companies don't recognize this day at all. Oh, and then there's Arizona -- the state that didn't want to recognize Dr. King. This day should be returned to its original dual purpose: to honor a man who gave of himself to change this country and to encourage all of us to do something too. Our President-elect has called for this spirit of volunteerism to be renewed today, and many can't participate because they work for companies that think their business is too important to take a break for a day.

Since my job at the moment is to care for my two babies, I can't be out painting a school or picking up trash at a park. I will spend some of today, however, working on the volunteer project I've had for many years now -- reading the writing of inmates at a state prison and (hopefully) encouraging them to enact progress and change in their own lives. What will you be doing?

We've opened our society to people of color and ensured that their civil rights are secure. This doesn't mean, though, that racism is a thing of the past. I'm sure Dr. King would acknowledge how much more work there is to do. Think of all the snide remarks you hear -- I'm still shocked at how common it is, actually. People who fancy themselves educated who still don't think of people who look different as their equals. I'm lucky I grew up with different values (better, I'd argue) that didn't allow that sort of prejudicial talk -- or, more importantly, think.

So what to do? Be the change you want to see. Go on now!

Dear Phone Gods,

Where is the f#*&*@g old cell phone that Josephine wants? I can't find it, and I've looked in what seem to be to be all the obvious locations in this dump of a house. She's in her crib, but won't settle down until she has this old phone. It's funny -- she liked it for a long time when she was younger, but then she wasn't interested in it at all for a long time. UNTIL someone let her take it to bed with her a few nights ago. And now she won't nap without it? Oh, if only you understood how we have struggled for regular sleep habits with this dear baby. Toys are not good sleep buddies. You must know that. That's why we invested in the Lamby as transitional object -- as a sleep symbol the baby could understand, if you will. Well, now she's been crying for over an hour for the broken down old cell phone she loves again as a toy. She must be awaiting a very important call. Someone will have to take a message.

As if I didn't have enough going on with two under two

We're having our kitchen renovated. Can you say dust, noise, money pit -- NIGHTMARE!?!? Two crying, pooping, hardly-sleeping babies just wasn't enough for me.

Yesterday was day 1, and it actually went better than I expected. We've set up a makeshift kitchen in the dining room, and we're counting on frozen foods, takeout, and the kindness of strangers for the next three weeks. Last night, we actually had homemade vegan chili that I'd made over the weekend. I have a few more meals like that stashed in the fridge, but after that I'll be phoning it in.

We have a carpenter who seems very understanding of the small children situation, and he not only does his best to clean up, but he even takes a few minutes to chat with the babies so they aren't freaked out by him. Nice, huh? There really isn't a good way to get these things done, but it doesn't help to have creepy people around. And now? Amidst demo, both babies are asleep, the little one in her bassinet and the big one on the floor of her room with her giant plush puppy. Was it the noise? I hardly ever get this lucky without reno!

Bite me

About a hundred times a day. That's what it seems like anyway. I know that toddler biting is a very common problem, but I'm not finding it easy to deal with. The firm "NO BITE" that all the books and websites say to give only stops her in the moment, and she's back with a mouthful of vengeance pretty soon thereafter.

I know she does it when she is tired or frustrated or over-excited, and I try to keep those times to a minimum. The fact that she's been teething for the vast majority of her brief life to date doesn't help either. I've found that consistent napping helps tremendously, but it's not really solving the problem.

Honestly, it's not that I worry about having bite marks all over me; I do, however, worry about her biting her little sister. It's only happened once so far -- right smack on the little one's head no less -- but it could so easily become habit. More importantly, I guess, I worry about her biting some other kid in one of her activities. We go to a library group and a music group, but in both of those situations, I'm there to watch her and participate with her. At my gym however, she's in a big play room with lots of other kids while I'm trying to lose an ounce or two of the fifty pounds of baby weight I'm dragging around with me. The woman who cares for the kids is very kind and on-the-ball, but how could she manage every little thing?

So does the biting go away with the teething? It is just a natural phase of life, an outlet for the pains and frustrations of being a baby?

All it takes is an egg and...

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday. This year, I am particularly thankful for the blessed Friday after, a day my husband gets to spend at home with me and les girls. (Well, he's actually spending it at home installing flooring in our basement, but you know what I mean --) I celebrated the extra whole-family day by making a big hunt breakfast, as my mom and dad like to call it, complete with eggs, soy bacon and homemade pumpkin muffins that I somehow managed to bake while making dinner two nights ago. (Hello? Domestic goddess committee? I'm over here...) As I finished scrambling the eggs and Michael was scooping up Josephine to put her in her highchair, he paused so she could see what I was doing, and said "WOW, look at Mama's nice eggs!" Not a beat (pun intended) went by before we both cracked up (ditto) thinking about how this is the first November in two years that I haven't been pregnant. I told him to get away from me and my eggs -- it's not that I don't like the rapid-fire babies we already have, but I'd like to take a year off!

Bad Mama

So we've already determined that I'm a bad mama because I let my almost eighteen-month old watch TV -- just Sesame Street -- but TV nonetheless.

But I've been thinking a lot about the research that says that children shouldn't watch any TV before they're two. What I have noticed is that my daughter's language capabilities have skyrocketed since she started watching it. I don't know if it is the style of talking that is prevalent on the show or her comfort with the characters or just the sheer excitement of the presentation of letters, numbers and words. I haven't noticed that having it on has had any negative impact on my now four-month-old either. If anything, she gurgles and giggles more when she hears her big sister talking. For example, Elmo's World did a segment on bananas, and at the end of it, he sang "The Banana Song" to the tune of "Jingle Bells," and days later, Josephine is still singing it. And every time she does, her little sister cracks up. The day she saw it, Josephine RAN to the kitchen and wanted a banana -- shrieked with perfect diction in perfect rhythm of the song. She learned to count to four in another episode, and now she lines up things and counts them. In fact, I think she may be nursing a major crush on The Count.

So what's so bad about this small TV habit? Are the researchers issuing an overly cautious caution so that dumb parents don't strand their kids in front of COPS or 24 or some other less educational, overly sexual or violent programming? I suppose I should read the research before I go and spout off about it, but done responsibly and in moderation (ummmmmm like everything in life) it seems more than fine to me. Media is a huge part of our culture, and don't we need to show our children how to integrate it into life without becoming a couch potato?

I am an educator, but I can't say that day-to-day life in our home would have taught her the counting -- and certainly not the sheer joy of landing on "FOUR!" the way Sesame Street has. I can't say that I would ever have thought to sing "Jingle Bells" using only the word banana. I'm grateful for the intelligent, timeless programming that is offered by PBS -- it's a great crutch for a Baby Buncher like me -- and it's really fun for my babies.

A haircut

has never been one of my favorite things. As a gal with long, curly (read: frizzy) hair, I always dreaded the snips that made my hair curl up, frizz up even more. Until I found Ouidad. I've been having my hair cut by the lovely Vincent at Ouidad for I think 10 years or so -- he, like all the stylists there understands the whys, wherefores and how-tos of curly hair. I had my haircut for the first time since before Josephine was born (yes, that's right, about eighteen months) on Saturday. Vincent was surprised to see me -- not with one baby, but with two, since the last time he saw me I was eight months pregnant with the big one. Vincent and Ouidad and lots of folks in the salon oooohed and aaaaaahed at the babies. It was a nice homecoming, and we laughed at how Josephine's hair seems to be curling up, too. I think I actually enjoyed this haircut. The haircut was a loss of a lot of dead weight.

I haven't been taking care of myself. I mean, obviously, I've been busy, but I mean I really haven't been taking care of myself. I've struggled in the last four months to do the basics: eat well, exercise, get dressed, brush my teeth. None of my pre-first-or-second pregnancy clothes fit, because if you remember, I was only not pregnant for two and a half months between babies. I'm not one of those women for whom the weight just fell off when I started nursing. And if you are, I really don't want to hear about it. I started the week last week by joining a gym -- my friend and birth doula belongs there, and if it is cool enough for her, it is cool enough for me. I've actually been going, and of course I'm still fat, but I feel better.

During both of my pregnancies, my hair grew like crazy. It was coarser, thicker, and it grew long over those eighteen months. But when it all started to fall out for the second time after the second baby, it didn't look or feel good. My hair had atrophied like my sorry limbs, and atop my mushy body I had scraggly -- but very long -- hair. It almost didn't curl it was so tired. Vincent was kind; he didn't lop it all off in one fell snip. He knew that would have made me faint. He gingerly cut off inches -- maybe ten, maybe eleven, I don't know -- until I felt light, light light. It was a wonderful feeling -- better than going to the gym. Better than putting on a real bra after wearing a nursing bra for how long? Yeesh.

It's a trek for me to get into the city for my haircuts now that I have two under two, but I'm not going to put it off from now on. That feeling of buoyancy, that lightness -- it might be the best diet yet.

Are you a buncher?

I am -- as you probably know if you've visited my blog before. My babies are a mere 13-months apart. Since I've been a borderline shut-in since the arrival of the little one, I've stayed sane by reading about other moms with babies close in age. Baby Bunching is a fabulous site written by real moms who have kids all bunched up. There are tips for bunches and links to other mama bloggers like me. If you haven't checked it out, you should. Even if you're one of those moms with 2, 3 , 4 or more years between your kids, you might find some cool tidbit!

And to my fellow bunchers -- cheers! But make it a mocktail if you're still nursing!

Baby Proofing III: Packing Tape

OK, seriously. We haven't done a good job of baby-proofing our home. I often find an outlet cover somewhere other than an outlet, thanks to some 17-month-old smarts. She'll often stand by an outlet -- touching it -- and say "NO!" clearly imitating me. Nice. I'm dreading what I know she will teach her little sister.

But today, I've found an area of baby proofing in which I have apparently excelled: packing tape. I used to keep it -- you know, the kind with its own dispenser/cutting mechanism -- in our hall console, so that I could quickly tape closed the hundreds of returns-by-mail I make from my little online shopping habit. (Oh come on, don't tell me you don't do it -- I don't believe you.) So anyway, when I went to tape up some too-small stuff to send back, it wasn't there, and I remembered that I had moved it because Josephine found it one day. But WHERE? Can I find it anywhere in my mess-of-a home? No. And I've looked in all the obvious and not-so-obvious places. My desk. Michael's desk. The buffet. The pantry. I still can't find it. But Josephine hasn't found it either, so I guess my strategy worked -- baby proofing is as easy as a little forgetting.

Then and Now

Watching the beautiful events of Tuesday night in Grant Park, I thought of my dad covering the 1968 riots that happened in the same place. I asked my dad to write about this juxtaposition; here is what he wrote:

Personal histories are forever and indelibly marked by momentous events.

I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination or when I witnessed man’s first walk on the moon. I hate to admit it, but I even remember where I was when I heard of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. The event was seared in my mind when I got home and found my mother crying.

I thought of this as hundreds of thousands jammed Grant Park recently to witness the debut of America’s first African-American president-elect. They were mostly young people filled with hope and enthusiasm. They cheered as tears welled in their eyes. It was a time, a place and an event not to be forgotten.

I remember being in a different part of that same Grant Park some 40 years ago. There were plenty of young people in the park that night, too. But they were jeering, not cheering. I was there because it was my job to be there as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News. The Democratic National Convention was being held in Chicago that year and Vietnam anti-war protesters had gathered in the city to make their voices heard.

They were shouting and chanting. National Guard troops were lined up along Grant Park--often called “Chicago’s front yard”--in an effort to contain thousands of protesters. I saw police, wearing light blue helmets, arrive in busses. They started swinging their truncheons as soon as they hit the street and encountered anyone in their paths. A teargas canister came rolling down Michigan Avenue in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel.

The crowd of young people massed in the park across from the fancy hotels, and their voices grew louder. “The whole world is watching. The whole world is watching,” they chanted as television cameras recorded the events for all to see.

Citizens were shocked at the actions of the police. Senator Abraham Ribicoff came to the podium in the convention hall and accused Chicago of using “Gestapo tactics” in trying to silence the protestors. Mayor Richard J. Daley, a delegate to the convention, shook his fist at the senator and shouted profanities at him. A government commission later described the event as a “police riot.”

I will never forget that week of the Democratic National Convention. It was so different from the jubilant scene of the other night.

I have returned to the vicinity of Grant Park dozens of times since 1968, but I wasn’t there to witness this week’s election celebration. Like millions of other people across the world, I was at home watching every minute of it on television.

Although I wasn’t there in person this time, I was able to see the hugs and high-fives, the smiles and the waving of the “yes we can” signs, the absolute joy of it all. It was a totally well organized and planned event that came off without a hitch.

And maybe the best thing about the triumphant celebration was this reality. The whole world was watching. -- Joe Cappo