Category Archives: Yoga

Bad Wife!

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I spent much of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday doing a yoga workshop with Kino MacGregor, an amazing woman, and if yoga happens to be your thing, and she is doing a workshop near you, GO. GO TO IT. Even if it happens to coincide with a holiday for your baby daddy. It was a fabulous weekend, and I think I lost about ten pounds of water weight from SWEAT.


Isn’t she gorgeous? Please ignore the beads of sweat all over my face.

Of course, it was Father’s Day weekend, and so I felt vaguely guilty about spending so much time away from the house – Happy Father’s Day! Now, take care of the kids all weekend. – so I tried to assuage my guilt by making this cake:


Isn’t it pretty? Those are chocolate covered strawberries, and the cake itself was chocolate, so it was pretty delicious, believe me. I also tried to overcome my guilt by insisting that he golf after he dropped the kids off at school on Friday, which was the first time ever he had done the drop-off; I had to deep breathe and remind myself that he is not actually an idiot, and no calamity would occur, and the kids would make it to their classrooms. I think I have some control issues in this area. I also insisted he golf Saturday night, which ended up being a hilarious comedy of errors.

You know when your kids pass out of a certain stage, say the stage of having meltdowns and tantrums, and so you are not actually used to a meltdown or tantrum, and then one occurs? Well, it so happened that Saturday was the boys’ final soccer tournament, which meant they played two one hour games in the suddenly gorgeous sunshine. I stopped by to see their second game on my lunch break and also happened to come across the soccer mom/coach from hell, which is a very long story and one for another day. It was a busy day and apparently a very tiring one for Jake, because shortly after dinner he started to lose it. Here is what the boys’ conversation was like for approximately one hour:

“MARK’S NOT LETTING ME HAVE A TURN!!!”

“Jake, I said you could have a turn. You’re having a turn right now.”

“BUT IT’S NOT A VERY LONG TURN! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Jake, you can KEEP having the turn.”

“BUT YOU SAID WE WERE LOOKING FOR LIONS AND I WANTED TO LOOK FOR MONKEYS!”

“Okay, we can look for monkeys.”

“I WANT TO LOOK FOR PENGUINS!”

And so on. Lather, rinse, repeat. Finally I decided to end whatever looking-for-exotic-animals-in-the-yard game they were playing and give them a bedtime snack and story. Everything was going wrong for Jake; he couldn’t spear blueberries with his fork without them squishing, he couldn’t decide on a story, he wanted to take toys into the bath but didn’t know what toys to take, he decided to take some superheroes and the entire box of superheroes slipped out of his hands, contents scattered on the floor. Then, while he was bathing, I made the grave mistake of letting Mark practice his reading with a Cars book. I heard a bloodcurdling scream from the bathtub and rushed in to see. “I’M MISSING STORIES!”

Sigh. When he finally got into bed – about 45 minutes earlier than normal – he passed out in seconds. I felt like I was out of touch with the tantruming world, I forgot what an overtired preschooler could be like. Do you know what I mean? Fortunately we are not having any more babies. I was using parenting muscles that I forgot I had; those muscles were sluggish and weak, but thankfully, as I discovered on Saturday, they are still there.

Stitches and Disney and Snow in Late May

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This is a photo of my backyard this morning:


What’s that on the ground? SNOW! And what are all those buckets in the background? They are covering up my poor, non-frost-tolerant flowers that I planted on Tuesday. And why would I plant non-frost-tolerant flowers prior to June in Calgary? Because I am stupid, evidently. I probably cursed the city by planting impatiens on May 25. Sorry everyone. I guess the snow is my fault.

Nonetheless, I’m very hap-hap-happy today so I’m going to share some random, somewhat amusing things.

1. Today during my yoga practice I accomplished something that I have been working on for…I don’t even know how long. A year? More than that? A very long time. I accomplished it and then I felt somewhat startled, not unlike the ONE TIME I actually caught a ball in my two years of playing slo-pitch in university. But, I did it! I did it! I really did it!

2. Disney should have a warning on their movies for sensitive children. Like, rated G but with extremely sad and tragic scenes. Appropriately for the weather I watched The Ice Age with the kids and Mark was completely devastated several times. What is with Disney movies and all the death? Especially all the deaths of mothers and other family members?

3. My husband had the day off work and we took the kids out for lunch. The extremely low frequency with which we take the children to restaurants is never more obvious when they cheer at getting TWO STRAWS in their iced teas and that lemon on the side of their glass? “It makes me feel like I’m in Hawaii!” said Mark. We are a simple people.

4. On Tuesday a neighbour – not the Deerhunter, another neighbour – stopped by to see if I had any nurse’s training (I don’t). If so, he thought I could remove his stitches. His stitches! I was completely weirded out by the request, albeit slightly curious as to where the stitches were and why didn’t he go to a doctor? I immediately emailed another neighbour who is also my friend, and we giggled in a horrified way about it. I am convinced my evil giggling was bad karma for me because the incident occurred while I was planting the aforementioned impatiens. Coincidence? I’m sorry everyone. The snow was totally my fault. So sorry.

No. I don’t like Pina Coladas.

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Music. It speaks to us. It’s like when you fall in love for the first time and you listen to “What a Wonderful World” and you identify with every single lyric – I DO see trees of green AND red roses! – and then maybe you break up with that love and you hear “Against All Odds” and the lyrics are like purposeful daggers to your broken heart. How can he just walk away, when I stand here taking every breath for him? Sob.

Or maybe you go Mexico and you hear “Margaritaville” and it captures the foggy, unfocused essence of your vacation, or you’re having a night out with your girlfriends and you hear “We are Family” and it’s like the soundtrack of your life is playing?

Sometimes, however, a song comes along that you cannot identify with in the least. I’ve mentioned before that I am the exact opposite of the desired person in Rupert Holmes’ song “Escape”. “Escape”, for those who don’t know, is actually the Pina Colada song. Who knew? I certainly didn’t; I always thought that its proper name was the Pina Colada song.

The 1970’s must have been a strange time to be on the dating scene, no? I mean, there was all that casual/ anonymous/ unprotected sex, and the penchant for mustaches and chest hair, and those truckers who had bumper stickers that said “Grass, Gas, or Ass: Nobody Rides for Free”, and the obsessions with zodiac signs (which I kind of get, I mean, I’m superstitious that way). The fact that long-haul truckers practically had a cult following says something about that era. Strange times to be dating, I imagine.

And so the Pina Colada song made it onto the charts. Did it top the charts? I have no idea. I do know that it is one of the most sing-able songs ever written, and also it has a very weird theme: a guy is bored with his “lady” and answers a personal ad, and it turns out his “lady” was bored of him, because she placed said personal ad. Clearly, communication was not a big thing back then.

Reasons why I would be un-dateable in the ‘70s, according to desirable qualities as stated in the Pina Colada song, and separate from my dislike for chest hair, mustaches, bumper stickers, and obviously, the whole casual/ anonymous/ unprotected sex thing (thanks to My Mom the Style Icon for the topic idea. If I was sure that my mom wouldn’t find out and murder me, I would totally send you a picture of her in a 12 inch mini dress.)

Do you like Pina Coladas? No. I dislike anything with coconut flavour. Actually, I dislike anything coconut related. Shredded coconut, to me, has the consistency of dried out dental floss and if there is one way to ruin a good cookie or dessert, it’s by adding shredded coconut to it.

Getting caught in the rain? No. I have very fine hair that goes completely limp in humidity. So you can imagine what I look like after being caught in the rain. Also, I don’t like walking around in wet clothes. Two kids = deflated bosoms = very depressing wet t-shirt contest.

If you’re not into yoga? I practice 5-6 times a week. I get up at five in the morning to practice yoga, so I guess you could say that I’m “into it”.

If you have half a brain? I have a whole brain. Unfortunately a large portion of it is taken up by useless information, like the lyrics to this song.

I’m not much into health food. This one makes me laugh. Yes, I like health food. This is not the ‘70s anymore wherein people who enjoy health food are walking around with unshaven underarms, hemp ponchos, and Birkenstocks, munching on mung beans and wheat germ. Normal people can like health food.

I am into champagne. I’m a red wine girl, myself.

If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape. Okay, stop it right there. I’m not even addressing dunes of the cape. I’m addressing making love at midnight. It’s a miracle if I’m up past nine thirty, let alone getting jiggy with it at midnight. Seriously, my husband is sexy, very much so, but if he woke me up at midnight he would be facing my groggy and somewhat comatose rage. He would not, as they say, be tapping that.

First Snowfall

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This morning I woke up to sweet peas that looked like this:


Snow!

Mark was the happiest person in the city. He couldn’t believe his luck. That kid loves the winter. It wasn’t long before he was outside shoveling off the deck,


and then eating the snow (check out my poor hostas).


Jake was soon persuaded to come out and eat a bit of snow too.


I’m pretty sure the dog did not pee on it.



It’s so trite to say that young children can teach you so much, but it’s really true. I will admit that my first reaction to snow is not pure, unadulterated joy, but after watching Mark frolic outside I smiled and simply put on a really warm sweater, without complaining. There is this great line in the book “How Yoga Works” after the main character is imprisoned. She says “I will make the inside of the jail the outside of the jail”, meaning that, although incarcerated, she was going to still live her life well, and her inner being had nothing to do with external constraints. I would love to be like that. So I’m greeting the snow not with gloom but with thoughts of happiness and opportunity – at least I’m trying to. After all, there’s something magical about the first snowfall, isn’t there? Even if it is only October 4.

Post-Birthday Depression

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I knew today would be a bad day. I wonder if that is a self-fulfilling prophecy? I mean, if you think a day is going to be bad, does that mean that karmically you are making your day bad? I’ve been reading this interesting book called “How Yoga Works” and it talks about sowing seeds, positive and negative, and I can’t help but think that if I believe a day is going to be bad, then it will be bad.

It’s all my fault anyway. I was talking to a friend on Monday and I said that I couldn’t believe how well Jake was doing with all this birthday attention. He had been looking forward to his own birthday for about seven months, and I thought with all the buildup there would be a major letdown. That hasn’t happened, I said happily to my friend, I keep waiting for the ball to drop. And let me tell you, people, the freaking ball has dropped. It dropped hard. It dropped so hard it left a big, smoking hole in the ground and all that is left is me, wondering when I will learn not to bring curses upon myself.

Last night there was the post-birthday meltdown and ensuing sadness “I don’t want it to not be my birthday!” that kept Jake up an hour past his normal bedtime, which is highly unusual for him, being the type of kid who falls asleep seconds after going to bed. Needless to say, he was pretty tired today, and started to cry when I left him at school. It’s so heartbreaking to watch a four-year-old stoically wiping away silent tears, walking in his lineup with his giant backpack on. I felt totally deflated, despite knowing that after I left, he would be just fine. And he was, but the rest of the day was one big roller coaster of emotions. It’s hard to blame the kid: he’s exhausted after all, plus he has post-birthday depression. After four days of various celebrations, one is bound to succumb to the doldrums.

But the celebrations were great, especially the one that included eight small kids and a clown. If you live in the Calgary area, I would really recommend Button the Clown – she was very entertaining for that age group, and not at all creepy. Just make sure you call her Button, not Buttons. When I called to confirm, I got her husband (and I’m not making this up) Buddy the Clown on the phone. He tersely said, “Her name is Button. She is not plural.” Oh, snap! When I related this conversation to a friend, she said, “Button the Clown is married to Buddy the Clown? I wonder if they have clown babies.” And I will confess that the image that immediately popped into my head was so incredibly disturbing that I had to question my own mental stability. Again.

Anyway, I’m going for an early bedtime tonight and I’m going to sow the seeds of positive thoughts for a better day tomorrow. Repeat after me, it’s going to be a good day….

I Heart Yoga

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Almost two years ago, when Mark was three and Jake was almost two, I wasn’t in the best of shape. I was thin, but not happy thin. I was tired all the time, my legs with their myriad swollen varicose veins were constantly aching, and at one point I missed my period for two months (and I wasn’t pregnant). If I ever went out without the children it would be after their bedtime, and then only for short periods of time. I was a bit of a wreck. I cried a lot.

My ever-supportive husband was after me to do something for myself, something, anything, but he was working very long hours at the time so I was limited as to what I could do. I could not stand the idea of exercising at a gym with the kids in the filthy, germ-infested child care room, but I did think I had to start doing some sort of physical activity. I decided to attend an Ashtanga yoga class at a studio near my home, once a week. Now, almost two years later, I practice yoga every weekday morning at 5:30.

The usual reaction to that fact is “5:30? Are you crazy?” but I find the early mornings are beautiful, it isn’t difficult to get up anymore, and if I miss a practice I really regret it later in the day. That time to myself is like a little gift every morning.

Last week when my husband was out of town, we all had little colds, and I missed three practices. The kids were clingy, I was impatient, and I kind of felt like the type of person who complains all the time. Like, anytime I spoke with anyone, I felt like I was just constantly complaining – the weather, the colds, the absent husband. But then this weekend was a yoga workshop that I had been planning to attend for a couple of months. I was slightly worried about leaving the kids for SO LONG (Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday for the majority of the day). I worried about their meals, their activities, and of course, it was all for nothing – they had a great time with their dad.

The thing is, after having a bad week, and then practically an entire weekend to myself, practicing yoga, I feel like an entirely different person. And what I really wanted to say in this post is that in order to be a good mom, sometimes you need to be away from the kids – not necessarily to do yoga, but to do something that you love. All of those new-baby books remind you not to forget to take care of yourself, and it’s so true. Even if it’s only an hour a week, you really need to take some time for just yourself. It will make you a better mother and a happier person.