On the husband's computer for now.
Just got back from taking baby Bodhi to see another craniosacral therapist, Judy Obsorne, who comes highly recommended from many.
WOW was it powerful!
I recommend craniosacral therapy (and Judy, as well as Sally Leissner) for any new baby and mama!
Little Bodhi experienced GREAT BIG releases. We all cried. We're still getting past that oh-so-challenging hospital birth we had.
I'm looking into the vaccination thing. I'm reading Stephanie Cave's book and it's enlightening. Judy recommended another book I will also read. So far I'm not convinced he needs to be vaccinated. But we'll see.
Viva mama's milk!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Mothering As Meditation Practice
I borrowed this from Ravyn's site; Jenn sent it to me right after I gave birth and it has stayed with me, given me strength all these weeks...I have always been a fan of Anne Cushman's, from her writing in Yoga Journal and so on.
Mothering as Meditation Practice by Anne Cushman (excerpted from Fall 2001 issue of Tricycle Magazine)
For the first few weeks of my son Skye’s life, he would only sleep if he could hear my heartbeat. From midnight to dawn he lay on my chest, his head tucked into the hollow of my throat, awakening every two hours to nurse. In the day, he’d nap in my arms as I rocked, a slideshow of emotions—joy, exasperation, amusement, angst, astonishment—flickering across his dreaming face, as if he were rehearsing every expression he would need for the rest of his life. If I dared set him in his bassinet, he’d wake up with a roar of outrage, red-faced and flailing. He cried whenever I changed his diaper. And every evening from 7 to 9 he cried for no apparent reason at all.
When Skye was two weeks old, I ate black bean tacos for dinner and he screamed until sunrise, his body stiff and his fists clenched. While I sobbed along with him, my husband called the emergency room, where the nurse on duty told us, kindly, that it sounded like gas. The next morning, a nutritionist friend assured me that everything would be fine so long as I stopped eating dairy, wheat, yeast, soy, corn, legumes, garlic, onions, tomatoes, sugar, peppers, broccoli, and citrus fruit (and considered dropping fish, mushrooms, and eggs). As Skye finally fell asleep in the crook of my right arm, I collapsed on the sofa in my bathrobe, eating cold brown rice with my left hand and spilling it in his hair.
It was about that time that I decided that what I had embarked on was an intensive meditation retreat. It had all the elements, I told myself: the long hours of silent sitting: the walking back and forth, going nowhere: the grueling schedule and sleep deprivation: the hypnotic, enigmatic chants (‘…and if that looking glass gets broke/Mama’s gonna buy you a billy goat…’); the slowly dawning realization that there is nothing to look forward to but more of the same. And at the center of it, of course, was the crazy wisdom teacher in diapers, who assigned more demanding practice than I had encountered in all of my travels in India—like ‘Tonight you will circumambulate the living room for two hours with the master in your arms, doing a deep-knee bend at every other step, and chanting, ‘Dooty-dooty-doot-doot-doo, Dooty-dooty-doot-doot-doo.’ Or ‘At midnight you will carry the sleeping master with you to the bathroom and answer this koan: How do you lower your pajama bottoms without using your hands?’
Like all great spiritual practices, these were exquisitely designed to rattle the cage of my ego. They smashed through my concepts about how things should be (rocking in the garden swing by the lavender bush, watching the hummingbirds, while my newborn slept in a bassinet by my feet) and pried open my heart to the way things actually were (standing by the diaper table, flexing one tiny knee after another into Skye’s colicky tummy, and cheering when a mustard-yellow fountain erupted from his behind). And with every breath of my ‘baby sesshin’, I was offered the opportunity to cradle my child in my arms like the baby Buddha and be present for a mystery unfolding…
As a new mother, I’ve found myself wondering: How are other women negotiating the dance between practice and parenting? How does their practice affect their mothering? How does being a mother affect their practice? Are mothers changing the forms of Buddhism in America?
And—the most compelling question of all for me—can mothering really be a path of practice every bit as valid as the monastic path? Can suctioning the snot from a sick baby’s nose have the simplicity and purity of a nun’s prostrations? Can wiping out a diaper pail lead to ‘the awakening of Buddha and his ancestors’?
On one level, this question seems absurd. Nothing could be further from the regimented march of a formal retreat than the disheveled dance of motherhood. The books on my bedside table used to be about pursuing Awakening in the Himalayas. Now they’re about preventing awakening in the middle of the night. There’s a diaper changing table where my altar used to be; my zafus and zabutons have been requisitioned to cushion Skye’s play area. Forget about chewing a single raising for five minutes and admonitions to ‘when you eat, just eat’—I’m on the phone with Skye on my hip, ordering baby-proof plates for the electrical outlets as I eat cold potstickers with my fingers straight from the cardboard box and rub fresh spit-it up into the floor with one socked foot. It’s hard to find the moment even to tell my self that this is a spiritual path—I’m too busy looking for Skye’s other mitten…
Could there be any better way to get my nose rubbed in the truth of impermanence that to love a child in a jagged, careless world? Napping with sky in my king-size bed—his head on my breast, my nose pressed against the dark silk of his hair—I watch the heartbeat fluttering in the soft spot on his skull. Forget about freeways and plutonium, and stealth bombers—I’ve been sternly warned that even a teddy bear could suffocate him in his crib. At night, when he’s been silent a couple of hours, I creep into his room and stand in the dark, not moving for fear of creaking a floorboard, until I hear him sigh.
And even if everything goes absolutely perfectly, I know that this particular Skye—the one who warbles and passionately sucks on the bill of his rubber duck as he splashes with me in the tub—is going to dissolve like bubble bath. Yesterday he was a kicking bulge in my belly as I swam laps in the July sun; tomorrow he’ll be a middle aged man, weeping and scattering my ashes in a mountain lake. Watching Skye rub strained carrots into his eyelashes, my husband says, ‘It’s so beautiful that it hurts.’
I feel plugged into the world now, in a way that I never have been before. As I feed my child out of my own body, I see how I am fed by the body of the earth. I’m crocheted to a chain of mothers before me, and a chain of unborn children who will inherit a world I can’t even imagine. I want Skye’s grandchildren to be able to swim in the Pacific, and hike the granite ridges of the Sierra, and gasp at blue herons standing on one leg in Bolinas Lagoon.
Is this ‘attachment’? Or connectedness?
I don’t mean to be grandiose. I know these insights aren’t the pristine diamond of Samadhi. They’re a sloppier, stickier kind of realization, covered in drool and Cheerio crumbs. But maybe this is the gift of mothering as practice—a kind of inclusiveness that embraces chaos and grit and imperfection. It’s not based on control or keeping things tidy.
It makes room in its heart for a plastic dump truck in the middle of the living room floor, and rap music leaking under a bedroom door at midnight. It doesn’t slip away in the middle of the night to search for enlightenment. It stays home with Rahula the Fetter, and finds it there.
As mothers, what can we make of the story of the Buddha leaving his family in the middle of the night?
I asked Fu Schroeder. ‘Oh but he wasn’t the Buddha when he left his child. He was a young prince, in terrible pain,’ she answered.
‘If you’re awake, you don’t leave your child. Where would you go?’
Mothering as Meditation Practice by Anne Cushman (excerpted from Fall 2001 issue of Tricycle Magazine)
For the first few weeks of my son Skye’s life, he would only sleep if he could hear my heartbeat. From midnight to dawn he lay on my chest, his head tucked into the hollow of my throat, awakening every two hours to nurse. In the day, he’d nap in my arms as I rocked, a slideshow of emotions—joy, exasperation, amusement, angst, astonishment—flickering across his dreaming face, as if he were rehearsing every expression he would need for the rest of his life. If I dared set him in his bassinet, he’d wake up with a roar of outrage, red-faced and flailing. He cried whenever I changed his diaper. And every evening from 7 to 9 he cried for no apparent reason at all.
When Skye was two weeks old, I ate black bean tacos for dinner and he screamed until sunrise, his body stiff and his fists clenched. While I sobbed along with him, my husband called the emergency room, where the nurse on duty told us, kindly, that it sounded like gas. The next morning, a nutritionist friend assured me that everything would be fine so long as I stopped eating dairy, wheat, yeast, soy, corn, legumes, garlic, onions, tomatoes, sugar, peppers, broccoli, and citrus fruit (and considered dropping fish, mushrooms, and eggs). As Skye finally fell asleep in the crook of my right arm, I collapsed on the sofa in my bathrobe, eating cold brown rice with my left hand and spilling it in his hair.
It was about that time that I decided that what I had embarked on was an intensive meditation retreat. It had all the elements, I told myself: the long hours of silent sitting: the walking back and forth, going nowhere: the grueling schedule and sleep deprivation: the hypnotic, enigmatic chants (‘…and if that looking glass gets broke/Mama’s gonna buy you a billy goat…’); the slowly dawning realization that there is nothing to look forward to but more of the same. And at the center of it, of course, was the crazy wisdom teacher in diapers, who assigned more demanding practice than I had encountered in all of my travels in India—like ‘Tonight you will circumambulate the living room for two hours with the master in your arms, doing a deep-knee bend at every other step, and chanting, ‘Dooty-dooty-doot-doot-doo, Dooty-dooty-doot-doot-doo.’ Or ‘At midnight you will carry the sleeping master with you to the bathroom and answer this koan: How do you lower your pajama bottoms without using your hands?’
Like all great spiritual practices, these were exquisitely designed to rattle the cage of my ego. They smashed through my concepts about how things should be (rocking in the garden swing by the lavender bush, watching the hummingbirds, while my newborn slept in a bassinet by my feet) and pried open my heart to the way things actually were (standing by the diaper table, flexing one tiny knee after another into Skye’s colicky tummy, and cheering when a mustard-yellow fountain erupted from his behind). And with every breath of my ‘baby sesshin’, I was offered the opportunity to cradle my child in my arms like the baby Buddha and be present for a mystery unfolding…
As a new mother, I’ve found myself wondering: How are other women negotiating the dance between practice and parenting? How does their practice affect their mothering? How does being a mother affect their practice? Are mothers changing the forms of Buddhism in America?
And—the most compelling question of all for me—can mothering really be a path of practice every bit as valid as the monastic path? Can suctioning the snot from a sick baby’s nose have the simplicity and purity of a nun’s prostrations? Can wiping out a diaper pail lead to ‘the awakening of Buddha and his ancestors’?
On one level, this question seems absurd. Nothing could be further from the regimented march of a formal retreat than the disheveled dance of motherhood. The books on my bedside table used to be about pursuing Awakening in the Himalayas. Now they’re about preventing awakening in the middle of the night. There’s a diaper changing table where my altar used to be; my zafus and zabutons have been requisitioned to cushion Skye’s play area. Forget about chewing a single raising for five minutes and admonitions to ‘when you eat, just eat’—I’m on the phone with Skye on my hip, ordering baby-proof plates for the electrical outlets as I eat cold potstickers with my fingers straight from the cardboard box and rub fresh spit-it up into the floor with one socked foot. It’s hard to find the moment even to tell my self that this is a spiritual path—I’m too busy looking for Skye’s other mitten…
Could there be any better way to get my nose rubbed in the truth of impermanence that to love a child in a jagged, careless world? Napping with sky in my king-size bed—his head on my breast, my nose pressed against the dark silk of his hair—I watch the heartbeat fluttering in the soft spot on his skull. Forget about freeways and plutonium, and stealth bombers—I’ve been sternly warned that even a teddy bear could suffocate him in his crib. At night, when he’s been silent a couple of hours, I creep into his room and stand in the dark, not moving for fear of creaking a floorboard, until I hear him sigh.
And even if everything goes absolutely perfectly, I know that this particular Skye—the one who warbles and passionately sucks on the bill of his rubber duck as he splashes with me in the tub—is going to dissolve like bubble bath. Yesterday he was a kicking bulge in my belly as I swam laps in the July sun; tomorrow he’ll be a middle aged man, weeping and scattering my ashes in a mountain lake. Watching Skye rub strained carrots into his eyelashes, my husband says, ‘It’s so beautiful that it hurts.’
I feel plugged into the world now, in a way that I never have been before. As I feed my child out of my own body, I see how I am fed by the body of the earth. I’m crocheted to a chain of mothers before me, and a chain of unborn children who will inherit a world I can’t even imagine. I want Skye’s grandchildren to be able to swim in the Pacific, and hike the granite ridges of the Sierra, and gasp at blue herons standing on one leg in Bolinas Lagoon.
Is this ‘attachment’? Or connectedness?
I don’t mean to be grandiose. I know these insights aren’t the pristine diamond of Samadhi. They’re a sloppier, stickier kind of realization, covered in drool and Cheerio crumbs. But maybe this is the gift of mothering as practice—a kind of inclusiveness that embraces chaos and grit and imperfection. It’s not based on control or keeping things tidy.
It makes room in its heart for a plastic dump truck in the middle of the living room floor, and rap music leaking under a bedroom door at midnight. It doesn’t slip away in the middle of the night to search for enlightenment. It stays home with Rahula the Fetter, and finds it there.
As mothers, what can we make of the story of the Buddha leaving his family in the middle of the night?
I asked Fu Schroeder. ‘Oh but he wasn’t the Buddha when he left his child. He was a young prince, in terrible pain,’ she answered.
‘If you’re awake, you don’t leave your child. Where would you go?’
Monday, January 28, 2008
RIP Laptop
UGH
My laptop died. It cannot be revived.
I don't know when or how I will continue to update my blog! I am so sad. I'm on the hubby's computer right now, but it's a desktop and my time is very limited.
The plan is to get a new lappie. SOON!
STAY TUNED.
My laptop died. It cannot be revived.
I don't know when or how I will continue to update my blog! I am so sad. I'm on the hubby's computer right now, but it's a desktop and my time is very limited.
The plan is to get a new lappie. SOON!
STAY TUNED.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Yoga and Discernment
Wow, where do I start?
What a full weekend we had!
My yoga/spiritual teacher, Mary Keator, was here this weekend for a first in a series of workshops that she is calling "Yoga and Discernment: An Immersion." There were about a dozen of us, and Mary was in fine form. I'm not able to do as much as I once did, in terms of asana, but her focus was on going DEEPER into each and every asana, so we didn't do a large quantity of poses, but we really worked on quality of poses.
Her work and message these past few years has been SO powerful for me. The essence of it is this: Love and Care for your True Self.
FIND your True Self.
Enrich your yoga practice and let it enrich and inform your life.
If you don't love and care for yourself first, you are not practicing yoga.
Yoga is not about searching outside yourself.
Yoga is about BEING, not DOING.
There is no teacher on the outside like the teacher on the inside.
There is no such thing as a yoga practice without study of scripture. Yoga cannot be practiced without study of the yogic scriptures; yoga is a tradition.
You cannot open your heart by forcing it. The heart will open when it's ready to open, and never before. The asana practice can either slow this process down by hardening the body and tricking us into thinking our hearts are open, or it can facilitate this process by creating a safe and loving place in which the heart WANTS to open.
By learning to support the core, we create a safe body environment for the heart to open. We support the core by learning to isolate and strengthen and use the muscles that firm the shins and the forearms to the midline.
We learn to find true balance in the foundation of every single pose.
We learn to BE inside the pose, to practice from our gut/our heart, and not our head.
We learn to practice without judgment for ourselves or others.
We did permutations and variations on a set of poses, using blocks and other props to get us to work our shins and forearms, working through a modified series of sun salutations, then standing poses, then standing balancing poses, then hanumanasana, then restoratives, then meditation.
I can't wait to share some of this work with my students on Fridays!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course this all ties in with everything I'm exploring about BEING A MOTHER.
Especially how to care for the self FIRST. Baby and ___________ come next.
I have to do something at least once a day to replenish my reserves so I can be myself AND be Bodhi's mom.
What a full weekend we had!
My yoga/spiritual teacher, Mary Keator, was here this weekend for a first in a series of workshops that she is calling "Yoga and Discernment: An Immersion." There were about a dozen of us, and Mary was in fine form. I'm not able to do as much as I once did, in terms of asana, but her focus was on going DEEPER into each and every asana, so we didn't do a large quantity of poses, but we really worked on quality of poses.
Her work and message these past few years has been SO powerful for me. The essence of it is this: Love and Care for your True Self.
FIND your True Self.
Enrich your yoga practice and let it enrich and inform your life.
If you don't love and care for yourself first, you are not practicing yoga.
Yoga is not about searching outside yourself.
Yoga is about BEING, not DOING.
There is no teacher on the outside like the teacher on the inside.
There is no such thing as a yoga practice without study of scripture. Yoga cannot be practiced without study of the yogic scriptures; yoga is a tradition.
You cannot open your heart by forcing it. The heart will open when it's ready to open, and never before. The asana practice can either slow this process down by hardening the body and tricking us into thinking our hearts are open, or it can facilitate this process by creating a safe and loving place in which the heart WANTS to open.
By learning to support the core, we create a safe body environment for the heart to open. We support the core by learning to isolate and strengthen and use the muscles that firm the shins and the forearms to the midline.
We learn to find true balance in the foundation of every single pose.
We learn to BE inside the pose, to practice from our gut/our heart, and not our head.
We learn to practice without judgment for ourselves or others.
We did permutations and variations on a set of poses, using blocks and other props to get us to work our shins and forearms, working through a modified series of sun salutations, then standing poses, then standing balancing poses, then hanumanasana, then restoratives, then meditation.
I can't wait to share some of this work with my students on Fridays!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course this all ties in with everything I'm exploring about BEING A MOTHER.
Especially how to care for the self FIRST. Baby and ___________ come next.
I have to do something at least once a day to replenish my reserves so I can be myself AND be Bodhi's mom.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Today's Gift
Well, as for today's gift, I like the suggestion I got from my CB new moms group today: to walk baby around the house and bid goodnight to everyone and everything. Cool!
I'm getting into establishing some sort of ritual for bedtime with the whole family. It's hard for me, a night owl, to do this. But it's so much better for everyone if we actually get to sleep before midnight. The babe has been sleeping for 4-6 hours at a time, and it's gotten magically easier to nurse him in the bed than it has ever been.
So I have a few more hours of sleep at night. Then I have the morning to drink coffee and do an actual yoga practice, with Bodhi in the swing watching me or continuing to sleep.
It's kind of like Heaven.
I went to my first postnatal yoga class today and it was sweet. It wasn't much of a yoga practice, but it was nice to see all the other mommies and babies, and I think a lot of Summer, the teacher. Her gift to me was holding Andrew Bodhi while I actually zoned out for a minute in savasana!
She also had us do nadi shodhana without using our hands. I've practiced that before -- alternate nostril breathing -- without hands. It's good to remember I can do that.
I like to treat nursing the baby as though it were a meditation. And it is.
We had a super sleepy day yesterday and today.
I am really enjoying being able to nap with the baby during the day. Like long, luxurious naps. Where I almost am starting to maybe sort of feel human again.
Plus he's soooo cute when he wakes up.
We had a long day of socializing and interacting and being in the car and shit today. He's passed out right now, as I type this. I'm ready to eat dinner and go to bed.
My idea of a productive day has dramatically changed.
Now, just getting a bath, or breastfeeding in public, is enough of an accomplishment for me. If we'd had a poop diaper I'd have felt invincible. Who gives a damn about how many poems I write or dishes I wash?
Oh, and Thanks, God, for making it so cold outside. Much easier to bundle up and snuggle all day.
I'm getting into establishing some sort of ritual for bedtime with the whole family. It's hard for me, a night owl, to do this. But it's so much better for everyone if we actually get to sleep before midnight. The babe has been sleeping for 4-6 hours at a time, and it's gotten magically easier to nurse him in the bed than it has ever been.
So I have a few more hours of sleep at night. Then I have the morning to drink coffee and do an actual yoga practice, with Bodhi in the swing watching me or continuing to sleep.
It's kind of like Heaven.
I went to my first postnatal yoga class today and it was sweet. It wasn't much of a yoga practice, but it was nice to see all the other mommies and babies, and I think a lot of Summer, the teacher. Her gift to me was holding Andrew Bodhi while I actually zoned out for a minute in savasana!
She also had us do nadi shodhana without using our hands. I've practiced that before -- alternate nostril breathing -- without hands. It's good to remember I can do that.
I like to treat nursing the baby as though it were a meditation. And it is.
We had a super sleepy day yesterday and today.
I am really enjoying being able to nap with the baby during the day. Like long, luxurious naps. Where I almost am starting to maybe sort of feel human again.
Plus he's soooo cute when he wakes up.
We had a long day of socializing and interacting and being in the car and shit today. He's passed out right now, as I type this. I'm ready to eat dinner and go to bed.
My idea of a productive day has dramatically changed.
Now, just getting a bath, or breastfeeding in public, is enough of an accomplishment for me. If we'd had a poop diaper I'd have felt invincible. Who gives a damn about how many poems I write or dishes I wash?
Oh, and Thanks, God, for making it so cold outside. Much easier to bundle up and snuggle all day.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Giving and Receiving
Part of my new mamasandbabies group assignment is to write down one thing a day that I was able to receive...I just looked at my homework, from Friday, and here it is Monday.
So let me start with Friday.
Friday: received multiple blessings, especially from new moms group. Mostly that I'm not alone. I may or may not be the oldest new mom in the room. My baby was a charmer that day in the group! He was his ebullient, talkative self. I love all parts of him, but that part is especially cute and lovable. This is a great lesson in unconditional love. Can I love him when he's screaming just as much or as easily as I love him when he's smiling?
Can I do this for myself? Can I love me when I am laughing, as well as when I'm screaming?
Saturday: I don't remember which day it was that I yelled at husband Andrew, that I told him not to try to "mindfuck" me. We were bickering over something, and noone was winning. At some point he complained about blahblahblah... Imagine! So the next day, whichever day it was, he was extra, ultra deliciously sweet and solicitous. He held the baby for hours while I slept and did my thing. He admitted he was wrong. He told me he appreciated me. And it thawed the cold hard place in my heart.
Sunday: I can't remember what happened Sunday. Andrew Bodhi probably smiled at me.
It feels GREAT to receive. I think I still have vestiges or twinges of guilt at receiving, or thinking that I need to be giving something in return. But if nothing else, being so desperately lost and destroyed after giving birth taught me that I *can* receive. I had so many loving souls doing whatever they could for me that I had no choice but to accept their gifts.
And what is unconditional love if not being able to receive, without worry of what I am supposed to give?
Being able to give, as I am, to my family and to my self.
Without expectation of reward, so says the Bhagavad Gita. Enjoy the fruits of our labor without attachment to those fruits.
I have noticed that many of my beloved yoga mom friends have given their yoga rooms to the baby. Interesting. The baby becomes the practice. The arena for practice goes outside, beyond the room, into the world.
Monday: kind of a down day in general, dark weather and best intentions laid waste. But it was our Conscious Birthing Reunion, and even though we were a little late, we went. And even though I was tired and not really in the mood to be anything but self-conscious, we went. I'm so glad we did. Our classmates, my new mama home group, are so nice. It was fun to hang out with other parents. So that was a gift.
My spiritual teacher is coming to town this weekend! She'll be here once a month starting in January through April. Her topic is "Yoga and Discernment." I'm really looking forward to having her help me strengthen my asana practice. I've been building it back slowly, but there is so much fear in it.
I took Baby Bodhi to TARGET today for the first time. Like a typical boy, he complained whenever we were in the women's clothing section, but was pretty good overall. For being so little and everything. I had him facing me in the Bjorn, which he did NOT like. As soon as I put him face OUT, he mellowed and began cooing and enjoying his shopping trip. We even went all the way to the bank afterward, and he fell asleep in his carseat.
Which is where he is, still, right now.
So today I gave myself a harder yoga practice -- while baby slept in the swing, hallelujah! -- and some new threads.
And it felt great to give myself these things.
I was gonna go to my very first postnatal yoga class -- I need to do that -- but I slept in instead. Another gift. I'm always tempted to just get myself amped up on coffee and forgo sleep, but I know better than to do that right now.
So sleep we did, and it was lovely.
And now I feel those tell tale shooting pains in my breasts that tell me the milk is coming in. Soon baby will wake up and we'll have that magic moment, that connection where he knows and I know that it is TIME.
And the feeding will begin. The breasts fill, the breasts empty.
The stomach fills, the stomach empties.
New moms, so important: replenish yourself in some way every day.
So let me start with Friday.
Friday: received multiple blessings, especially from new moms group. Mostly that I'm not alone. I may or may not be the oldest new mom in the room. My baby was a charmer that day in the group! He was his ebullient, talkative self. I love all parts of him, but that part is especially cute and lovable. This is a great lesson in unconditional love. Can I love him when he's screaming just as much or as easily as I love him when he's smiling?
Can I do this for myself? Can I love me when I am laughing, as well as when I'm screaming?
Saturday: I don't remember which day it was that I yelled at husband Andrew, that I told him not to try to "mindfuck" me. We were bickering over something, and noone was winning. At some point he complained about blahblahblah... Imagine! So the next day, whichever day it was, he was extra, ultra deliciously sweet and solicitous. He held the baby for hours while I slept and did my thing. He admitted he was wrong. He told me he appreciated me. And it thawed the cold hard place in my heart.
Sunday: I can't remember what happened Sunday. Andrew Bodhi probably smiled at me.
It feels GREAT to receive. I think I still have vestiges or twinges of guilt at receiving, or thinking that I need to be giving something in return. But if nothing else, being so desperately lost and destroyed after giving birth taught me that I *can* receive. I had so many loving souls doing whatever they could for me that I had no choice but to accept their gifts.
And what is unconditional love if not being able to receive, without worry of what I am supposed to give?
Being able to give, as I am, to my family and to my self.
Without expectation of reward, so says the Bhagavad Gita. Enjoy the fruits of our labor without attachment to those fruits.
I have noticed that many of my beloved yoga mom friends have given their yoga rooms to the baby. Interesting. The baby becomes the practice. The arena for practice goes outside, beyond the room, into the world.
Monday: kind of a down day in general, dark weather and best intentions laid waste. But it was our Conscious Birthing Reunion, and even though we were a little late, we went. And even though I was tired and not really in the mood to be anything but self-conscious, we went. I'm so glad we did. Our classmates, my new mama home group, are so nice. It was fun to hang out with other parents. So that was a gift.
My spiritual teacher is coming to town this weekend! She'll be here once a month starting in January through April. Her topic is "Yoga and Discernment." I'm really looking forward to having her help me strengthen my asana practice. I've been building it back slowly, but there is so much fear in it.
I took Baby Bodhi to TARGET today for the first time. Like a typical boy, he complained whenever we were in the women's clothing section, but was pretty good overall. For being so little and everything. I had him facing me in the Bjorn, which he did NOT like. As soon as I put him face OUT, he mellowed and began cooing and enjoying his shopping trip. We even went all the way to the bank afterward, and he fell asleep in his carseat.
Which is where he is, still, right now.
So today I gave myself a harder yoga practice -- while baby slept in the swing, hallelujah! -- and some new threads.
And it felt great to give myself these things.
I was gonna go to my very first postnatal yoga class -- I need to do that -- but I slept in instead. Another gift. I'm always tempted to just get myself amped up on coffee and forgo sleep, but I know better than to do that right now.
So sleep we did, and it was lovely.
And now I feel those tell tale shooting pains in my breasts that tell me the milk is coming in. Soon baby will wake up and we'll have that magic moment, that connection where he knows and I know that it is TIME.
And the feeding will begin. The breasts fill, the breasts empty.
The stomach fills, the stomach empties.
New moms, so important: replenish yourself in some way every day.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Whole Tooth
Weeeeeell, he's not teething.
He doesn't have an ear infection, or any other discernable illness.
So we think his fussiness is probably due to growing and changing.
He doesn't have an ear infection, or any other discernable illness.
So we think his fussiness is probably due to growing and changing.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Conscious Birthing reunion
look at all the cuties!
hugh, lulu, lucas, cohen, andrew bodhi, chloe, maya
hugh, lulu, lucas, cohen, andrew bodhi, chloe, maya
New Parent Mania
Every little sniffle, every cry, every sad face can tear your heart out.
Andrew Bodhi has been ultrafussy today, crying at the breast, seemingly inconsolable. Then sleeping. No fever, no runny nose, just very upset at our first long feeding today.
Hmmm.
I have a doc appointment for him tomorrow morning, but you know what I think it is?
TEETHING.
Yes, he is only 2.5 months old, but he has a sharp boniness in his upper gums, and a little sharp knob, tiny as a pinhead, sticking out a little bit. Daddy Andrew felt it and seemed to agree that yes, it could be a tooth.
Poor little guy!
Stay tuned. We'll see what the doc says tomorrow.
Andrew Bodhi has been ultrafussy today, crying at the breast, seemingly inconsolable. Then sleeping. No fever, no runny nose, just very upset at our first long feeding today.
Hmmm.
I have a doc appointment for him tomorrow morning, but you know what I think it is?
TEETHING.
Yes, he is only 2.5 months old, but he has a sharp boniness in his upper gums, and a little sharp knob, tiny as a pinhead, sticking out a little bit. Daddy Andrew felt it and seemed to agree that yes, it could be a tooth.
Poor little guy!
Stay tuned. We'll see what the doc says tomorrow.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
A Little New Mama FYI
Again, typing while breastfeeding.
Carrie Contey recommended "Touchpoints" by Brazelton to me when I asked about developmental milestones.
She only slightly hesitated, because truthfully it's less crazymaking and better for the baby if new parents follow the baby's lead with milestones, rather than try to force them on him/her, or expect milestones when baby's not ready yet. Etc.
I think most new parents probably worry about this shit. And totally buy into it when we don't need to.
And so it begins, the induction into the world of consumerist capitalist fear-based self image.
I pretty successfully ditched all the "What to Expect" books and their ilk. I even ditched Dr. Sears, for a time.
I like the Brazelton.
He talks about a baby's nervous system, and he talks about it from the baby's perspective.
I was reflecting today how quite possibly the "La Leche" approach, which seemingly holds that breastfeeding is a panacea for all ills, might be slightly arrogant on the part of us bf'ing mothers.
Maybe we just wish we were all things to our baby. Maybe we should offer pacifiers, daddy's chest, a chance for baby to "cry it out" when they're too fussy to feed.
In fact, I'm really talking about myself here. I'm trying to take the approach (and it's ALL a great big experiment) of first taking a deep breath, taking care of myself, then letting the little one hang out at the breast. If he's hungry, he'll eat. If he's overstimulated, he'll cry. And I'll let him. I experimented with this today. A lot of us hate to hear our babies cry.
So I really listened to his cry today. At first, it really made me sore that he sobbed when daddy put him on the bfing pillow. For weeks now, feeding has been the ultimate soother for him. (See how my ego has gotten involved? Ay yi yi.) Lately I've had to start putting a blanket over his head just so he'll eat. Otherwise he loves to visit with me, look around, chat it up, try to get ME to smile at HIM, etc.
It's darn cute, but I am his mama and I know he needs to eat!
Hence the blanket, which actually helps.
So again, today, when he cried and cried at the breast, I listened, and it seemed to be getting less as he cried, rather than more. It sounded more like grumpiness from being awakened from a nap than pain. And it wasn't a wet diaper. So I let him feel his feelings and express them. Then, sure enough, after about 5 minutes, he calmed himself down, and turned to the breast. I took a deep deep breath, which communicated to him that I was calm and he could relax too if he wanted. So then he ate a while, and fell asleep. Yay!
It really and truly is a DANCE, as they say.
And I realized, today, that I will only be feeding him breastmilk exclusively for another three months. Then it's solid food in addition to bmilk. So this time we have now is even more precious! Grueling or challenging as it may be.
I also assume he's in a growth spurt, which means he's taking in more information and stimulus, and needs more time to "Cry it out" or feel his feelings and then sleeeeep to integrate it all.
WHEW!
I need a parenting yoga teacher to watch me with him and give me instructions. And then I can try them out at home, on our own.
It's the same thing, really.
I can offer my students one thing in class; it's their home practice that really informs them.
Carrie Contey recommended "Touchpoints" by Brazelton to me when I asked about developmental milestones.
She only slightly hesitated, because truthfully it's less crazymaking and better for the baby if new parents follow the baby's lead with milestones, rather than try to force them on him/her, or expect milestones when baby's not ready yet. Etc.
I think most new parents probably worry about this shit. And totally buy into it when we don't need to.
And so it begins, the induction into the world of consumerist capitalist fear-based self image.
I pretty successfully ditched all the "What to Expect" books and their ilk. I even ditched Dr. Sears, for a time.
I like the Brazelton.
He talks about a baby's nervous system, and he talks about it from the baby's perspective.
I was reflecting today how quite possibly the "La Leche" approach, which seemingly holds that breastfeeding is a panacea for all ills, might be slightly arrogant on the part of us bf'ing mothers.
Maybe we just wish we were all things to our baby. Maybe we should offer pacifiers, daddy's chest, a chance for baby to "cry it out" when they're too fussy to feed.
In fact, I'm really talking about myself here. I'm trying to take the approach (and it's ALL a great big experiment) of first taking a deep breath, taking care of myself, then letting the little one hang out at the breast. If he's hungry, he'll eat. If he's overstimulated, he'll cry. And I'll let him. I experimented with this today. A lot of us hate to hear our babies cry.
So I really listened to his cry today. At first, it really made me sore that he sobbed when daddy put him on the bfing pillow. For weeks now, feeding has been the ultimate soother for him. (See how my ego has gotten involved? Ay yi yi.) Lately I've had to start putting a blanket over his head just so he'll eat. Otherwise he loves to visit with me, look around, chat it up, try to get ME to smile at HIM, etc.
It's darn cute, but I am his mama and I know he needs to eat!
Hence the blanket, which actually helps.
So again, today, when he cried and cried at the breast, I listened, and it seemed to be getting less as he cried, rather than more. It sounded more like grumpiness from being awakened from a nap than pain. And it wasn't a wet diaper. So I let him feel his feelings and express them. Then, sure enough, after about 5 minutes, he calmed himself down, and turned to the breast. I took a deep deep breath, which communicated to him that I was calm and he could relax too if he wanted. So then he ate a while, and fell asleep. Yay!
It really and truly is a DANCE, as they say.
And I realized, today, that I will only be feeding him breastmilk exclusively for another three months. Then it's solid food in addition to bmilk. So this time we have now is even more precious! Grueling or challenging as it may be.
I also assume he's in a growth spurt, which means he's taking in more information and stimulus, and needs more time to "Cry it out" or feel his feelings and then sleeeeep to integrate it all.
WHEW!
I need a parenting yoga teacher to watch me with him and give me instructions. And then I can try them out at home, on our own.
It's the same thing, really.
I can offer my students one thing in class; it's their home practice that really informs them.
Friday, January 11, 2008
still breastfeeding while typing
...but now little one is asleep at the right breast. soon he may wake up hungry (who doesn't?) and need to be transferred left.
I was thinking about my post yesterday and how my feelings and thoughts on this topic run so deep, way deeper than I convey here.
I almost feel liberated enough to start writing my truths in this blogspace again.
Almost.
I mentioned in previous posts that I have secret writings that I call "The Dark Side of Mothering." These are posts I write and leave unposted. I will, I now vow, publish them. In good time.
Jack Kerouac said we writers need to keep "secret notebooks" and I wholeheartedly agree.
My writing is often considered "Transgressive," and it's hard to find "transgressive" literature on motherhood.
It's almost like there's a conspiracy to whitewash the whole topic.
This is not easy to talk about. But of course, talk about it we must.
Today I started going to my new new moms group, led by Carrie Contey and her friend Bernadette Noll. It was an auspicious beginning.
For those of you who are pregnant, or newly birthed as a mother yourself, I can't recommend or emphasize strongly enough that you find a group of new moms to meet with right away. Going to commune with other new mothers has saved my life. It has freed me from questioning every move or decision I make with my baby, it has given me courage and strength to trust in myself. And you get great tips on "how to do it," as well as support and shared laughter and misery.
Plus it's great for the baby to meet other babies (and for you to see other babies...so cute!) and participate in a social circle.
Today's theme was "Abundance." Like how to live in the knowledge that life is rich, and full, and that there is ENOUGH.
It rarely feels like there's enough when you're a new mom. Certainly not enough sleep. Or time. Or peace. Or fill in the blank. But you quickly learn (or you don't) that whatever you're given is perfect, that if it's not enough you will get enough.
My mantra alternates these days between "Live in Trust" and "It's Only a Phase," as Bernadette so sweetly put it today. She also said that being a parent was all about everything being empty or full, emptying or filling, all the time.
I love that.
The diapers fill, the diapers empty. The fridge fills, the fridge empties. I lose sleep, I get a nap.
I exhale, I inhale.
And Carrie's metaphor for how it is becoming a new mom was so right on: watching iron filings on a page over a magnet get tossed around, their perfect geometric form breaking apart then coming back together in new form.
This is the nature of being a new mom, having great moments/days/weeks alternating with falling apart completely, having no form as it were, transitioning before coming back together.
In our yoga practice, the poses are really not the hard place to stay connected to our core; the poses are actually where we reconnect with our core, where we express what's inside us. It's the transition, from pose to pose, that is such a hard place to stay connected. We almost always lose ourselves in transition. Most injuries in yoga occur either going into or coming out of a pose. It's very hard to stay focused, calm, relaxed while we move through.
Abundance.
There is Enough.
Life is Full.
I was thinking about my post yesterday and how my feelings and thoughts on this topic run so deep, way deeper than I convey here.
I almost feel liberated enough to start writing my truths in this blogspace again.
Almost.
I mentioned in previous posts that I have secret writings that I call "The Dark Side of Mothering." These are posts I write and leave unposted. I will, I now vow, publish them. In good time.
Jack Kerouac said we writers need to keep "secret notebooks" and I wholeheartedly agree.
My writing is often considered "Transgressive," and it's hard to find "transgressive" literature on motherhood.
It's almost like there's a conspiracy to whitewash the whole topic.
This is not easy to talk about. But of course, talk about it we must.
Today I started going to my new new moms group, led by Carrie Contey and her friend Bernadette Noll. It was an auspicious beginning.
For those of you who are pregnant, or newly birthed as a mother yourself, I can't recommend or emphasize strongly enough that you find a group of new moms to meet with right away. Going to commune with other new mothers has saved my life. It has freed me from questioning every move or decision I make with my baby, it has given me courage and strength to trust in myself. And you get great tips on "how to do it," as well as support and shared laughter and misery.
Plus it's great for the baby to meet other babies (and for you to see other babies...so cute!) and participate in a social circle.
Today's theme was "Abundance." Like how to live in the knowledge that life is rich, and full, and that there is ENOUGH.
It rarely feels like there's enough when you're a new mom. Certainly not enough sleep. Or time. Or peace. Or fill in the blank. But you quickly learn (or you don't) that whatever you're given is perfect, that if it's not enough you will get enough.
My mantra alternates these days between "Live in Trust" and "It's Only a Phase," as Bernadette so sweetly put it today. She also said that being a parent was all about everything being empty or full, emptying or filling, all the time.
I love that.
The diapers fill, the diapers empty. The fridge fills, the fridge empties. I lose sleep, I get a nap.
I exhale, I inhale.
And Carrie's metaphor for how it is becoming a new mom was so right on: watching iron filings on a page over a magnet get tossed around, their perfect geometric form breaking apart then coming back together in new form.
This is the nature of being a new mom, having great moments/days/weeks alternating with falling apart completely, having no form as it were, transitioning before coming back together.
In our yoga practice, the poses are really not the hard place to stay connected to our core; the poses are actually where we reconnect with our core, where we express what's inside us. It's the transition, from pose to pose, that is such a hard place to stay connected. We almost always lose ourselves in transition. Most injuries in yoga occur either going into or coming out of a pose. It's very hard to stay focused, calm, relaxed while we move through.
Abundance.
There is Enough.
Life is Full.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
typing while breastfeeding
so much to tell...
baby laughing out loud, visiting w mama while feeding, discovering hands and feet, seeing self in mirror...
something sticks in my craw right now, so much so that i have to write about it w one hand.
hillary.
i am really excited (switch to 2 hands now) that she could become the FIRST woman president in our shameful history. i totally support her and actually want her to win the nomination. i also believe she could win the white house.
now don't get me wrong, she is far from perfect. apparently she's pro death penalty, for one. and yes, i do think obama is also worthy of winning the presidency. but i have a blind devotion to her right now. so it bothers me that we are analyzing her tears, that people are saying they don't want a president who would cry or get emotional in public like that. that she was faking it.
i actually think that, symbolically, either candidate would make not just history but radical sense. i would be sooo proud to be an american if we had a black and/or female president.
but what's really pissing me off is the misogynist way she is being portrayed and analyzed by the media. i don't see obama being held to the same standard or level of scrutiny.
i often wonder which runs deeper in our psyche here, misogyny or racism. it's hard to say. it manifests in the strangest ways...
becoming a mother has changed me in so many ways. of course. but something that has surprised me is how strongly it has reinforced my feminism. i now bow down at the feet of ALL mothers. even the uptight soccer moms whose politics disagree with my own. when i see a mother with a child, at any age, i am in awe of her.
it takes a lot to have a baby, much less grow a child.
and even though this will sound like the biggest DUH of all time, when i listen to or read sacred text or scripture (yogic or otherwise) now i find it IMPOSSIBLE to believe that we are to see "God"as "Father." i always felt that the Divine or God or Nature itself was feminine, and I do know this academically speaking...but now that i've had a baby and have been watching him grow these past many weeks i find it more laughable than ever that history has written God as a man.
now i understand why the buddhists say it's important to love everyone the way a mother loves her child. now i understand how it is that, in the mahabharata, krishna tells dhritarashtra that he has already lost the war when he has begun to care more for his own children than his brother's children...and what sort of a challenge that is. for it is true that we would lay down our lives for our own children. but what about the children of our brothers and sisters, or our neighbors? or our enemies?
so as much as i love obama, and think he would bring about some deep healing in our country as well as in the world, i can't help but want hillary, a mother, to win the race.
i want a fierce, fearless, tearful, angry, strong, sensitive, nurturing MOTHER to fix our problems and mark our place in the world.
i want a protective, tolerant, disciplined, smart, beautiful, wise, connected, tireless, human, fun MOTHER for president.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Sunday, January 6, 2008
I Love This Pic of Me and My Bodhi
Not only is he my favorite person in the world, he's my sweetest, best buddy!
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Obligatory Ultrasound Photo: Shoulderstand at 16 weeks!