Living naturally, most of the time.
Sometimes it’s important to celebrate the fact that we didn’t do something. I don’t mean harmful or negative stuff, though, yes, it’s good to give yourself a pat on the back when you choose the high road. What I mean is the things I chose not to do because I chose calm instead. Long ago,…
For nearly a year, I assumed I’d be out of town tonight. I would either be at the National Women’s Studies Association national conference, hosted this year by my alma mater, the University of Cincinnati. It would have been a reunion of sorts, and I’d have had the chance to talk to people about the…
“You’ve come a long way,” said the Total Body Modification practitioner as I listed my areas of improvement along with my concerns. When I started seeing her in the spring, I was struggling, as noted in “Morning with a High-Maintenance Mama.” I’d come out of a bad winter cold and a digestive crisis but was…
Here it is the second day of NaBloPoMo, 9:00 and just getting the kids to bed. They are 6.5 and 2, and just last week were we finally successful at putting them to bed together and just leaving for them to fall asleep on their own. The toddler does it fine at daycare three days…
I went to three yoga classes today. That’s six hours of yoga, which is more time than I have spent sleeping at least a few of the last dozen nights, in preparation for leaving for this trip and since we’ve been on it. Once again, I’m writing from a hotel parking lot with a snoring…
From lots of yoga to none and back again! This week I’m taking part in the Anusara Grand Circle and Wanderlust Vermont. I’ll be reporting on the events for my Washington Times Communities column but at least wanted to post some personal reflections here before my head gets any more exploded! These are groovy people….
It’s been only eight days since I completed my 10-Day Yoga Challenge, but I broke the daily yoga and writing habit in a big way. My last class was on Monday, and on Tuesday night I was up until nearly 1 a.m. preparing food for a surprise road trip to my sister’s on her 50th…
It didn’t take me long to get off my game. I finished class #8 of my 10-day Yoga Challenge at 8:00 p.m. on Friday night and spent Saturday virtually yoga-free, except for one sun salutation in the morning. When I finally returned today at 4:00 p.m., it felt at the start like that 44-hour break…
The theme of yesterday’s post was “reveal,” but I waited until this one to close that loop. I am not going to yoga on Day Eight. Instead I went back to a second class on the evening of Day Seven. This does feel like cheating, I admit. But looking at the day, with a wedding…
My poor daughter. She gets schlepped everywhere. Plucked out of bed some mornings for preschool drop-off, with nary a nursing or a diaper change. Then either some appointment I have or preschool pick-up interferes with a nap in the afternoon. I haven’t even tried a mommy and me yoga class or anything for fear of…
I woke last night around 3 a.m. with that sad feeling of having finished something and, though it was successful, feeling like I could have played it better. Said more thank yous, not left Slow Food DC off the resource list, not been so snappy about having to rearrange the room or not having any…
Four-year-olds do not sleep when it’s sunny. That’s an exaggeration, but I cannot say that I am in love with this early switch to later sunsets. The hour shift has been tough enough when we’ve had three more weeks of gradual, natural lightening to get used to the idea. But now that it’s mid-March… Ouch….
A friend sent this piece by Ann Patchett as inspiration for taking oneself seriously as a writer. I love it and did find inspiration in it, but I also found it rather divorced from the world of being an at-home mother. Additionally, I am someone who seriously needs to spend a good bit of time…
I am being pulled in opposing directions. Now, my wanting to do several things at once is not a new thing, I freely admit. However, I was starting to feel good about the idea of going to bed early in order to get up early and do yoga or work out and write before my…
This photo is artistically rendered to obscure both my son’s face and my husband’s thinning hair. (btw, the masthead on this blog is a similarly altered-in-Picasa chunk of a photo of my son’s mouth and nose. Can you tell from the hyperpink in this bedroom rendering?) The heartwarming scene depicted here is of a father…
Well, there’s a first time for everything. My son fell asleep in front of the television on Friday. We normally do not have the television on during waking hours except on weekends during sporting events. So it’s not like there was ever really the opportunity for this before grandpa wanted to check on his stocks….
After my son’s first illness in a while, I’m so glad I’m still nursing and that we can still create a family bed. Last night my son said he had a “stomachbake,” and he clearly had some gas, but he fell asleep fairly easily around 7:30. Then, when he woke at 9:00 p.m. crying, I…
Isn’t he sweet? Napping in his new bed, or rather, his old double futon that takes up half of his new room? If only this shot represented reality more than cover model head shots. We are not napping. The kid is so wound up, you would think someone else in his family teaching him that…
Naps are hard to find around here these days. My son has just turned two and a half, and he’s not napping about 60% of the time. This might not be such a big deal if I hadn’t failed to teach him how to fall asleep on his own or to stay in one place…
The way I talk about my sleep with other moms reminds me of being in 7th grade, or in college. A friend saw a message I sent late last night to a group, around 2 a.m. As we gathered for a craft day at next year’s preschool – about eight hours later – I admitted…
