33

Yesterday was my 33rd birthday. We celebrated by going out to dinner with some of our bestest friends at the Khyber Pass Pub, a recent retooling of what was formerly a great indie rock club, reimagined as a creole restaurant. We had a great evening, and I am so lucky to be surrounded with such wonderful friends.

As another year clicked by, I am struck by how we have all grown up. Two dear friends who I thought were confirmed bachelors are both newly engaged, and I have suspicions that another friend may have a baby on the way. We used to all be so all over the place, and now it seems like we are all riding a crest, firm footed and stable, as the wave of life propels us forward.

Dog days of summer

Everyone I check in with on the web these days is on vacation, trying to beat the heat and wrapped up into the middle of the summer. I am no exception. I’ve got a lot going on, and it feels really good and sometimes hard to balance. My schedule as a freelancer is amazingly getting full, though it’s really a lot of scrambling, there are some pretty cool projects in the work. I’ve finally earned my own desk in my house, which is in half of what was our nursery.

We converted Elias’ bed into a toddler bed the other day. It’s in our room. I think we are enroute to having one big bedroom for probably a long time. But it’s nice. One day Elias will be so big and want less to do with us, and I feel like the closeness we have now and the trust we’ve built through cosleeping will help make us be kinder to each other as he grows.

For anyone that is out there and wants to give it a spin, Richard Buckner’s new album is on NPR right now. I think it’s very good. Brian hates Richard Buckner — I really think he’s one of Brian’s least favorite artists ever. But I like him, not all the time, but I do ultimately like him very much. This album reminds me of the Jim O’Rourke / Gastr Del Sol stuff that I grew up on in Chicago and seems like something I would have listened to when I used to paint in the studio.

Weaning

So… Elias and I haven’t nursed in almost 72 hours. My breasts are starting to go down, having peaked in milky swelling yesterday. My baby no longer nurses. I am saddened and relieved at the same time. I never really knew how long I intended to nurse — I had hoped when he was born that we would make it to a year. My milk peaked and fell, and I pumped like a crazy woman to make it happen, but we did it. I don’t think I would be willing to go through the same effort for another little one — Either I won’t work so much during the first year, or I would be more okay with a bit of formula. But that’s a sidenote — My baby no longer nurses.

He is so big!

We unsuccessfully tried to go cold turkey a month ago, when I went to Chicago. I was away for 2 nights, and my breasts were painfully full by the time I landed and made it home. Elias asked to nurse, and I caved within minutes of my return. I slightly begrudgingly continued to nurse, as I thought Elias would never stand to be without it. It never was the right time after that trip — I missed him too much not to want to be reattached. And we continued on for the next 5 weeks, until last Sunday… he bit me so hard that he lost breastfeeding priviledges. I was trying to nurse him down to bed, which has been losing its effectiveness over the course of the last couple of months. We wrestled around in the bed, me futile trying to get him to sleep. I was so mad at him, in a way that I have never been before, but I am sure that I will be again one day. I cried on the bed, as Brian swept Elias away, telling him how he had hurt Mommy and that it wasn’t nice.

And that was the way it ended. I didn’t feel willing to risk feeling that way again any time soon.

Knock on wood, it is going surprisingly well. Every once in a while, he blinks his blue eyes at me and says “Nur nur?” I feel sad as I tell him no. Quickly, though, he asks for something else — juice, cookies, snacks. He’s getting a lot of all of those items these days. Brian has been in charge of putting him to sleep, at least until I no longer have milk.

I waver a bit between happy and sad about this decision. I am mostly very happy, though. He snuggles me in a way that he never has before, burrowing his head into my neck and holding me tight. It is sweet, and I feel as if he understands just how much our love attaches us, at so many more places than just the breast.

Detox

Brian and I are working on a detox. The last few weeks of the school year were really intense for us. We had about four baskets of laundry in the basement, and seemingly no time to effectively get anything put away. We drank a lot of wine and ate a lot of pizza. We let anxiety and stress cloud our days, as Brian felt like there was an endless marathon in front of him, one with a finish line that only kept on moving out farther and farther into the distance. I relaxed into taking care of Elias fully, which was excellent, but also resulted in a lack of self-care. Now we are working on rectifying all of that.

It began today. We are embarking on a new set of summer consciousnesses. We are going to focus on mindfully consuming food and drink. We started our first afternoon tea time today at 4 pm, right around when Brian usually thinks it’s 0Beer:30. I am going to cook our meals everyday without excuse. I am going to make it to more yoga classes, and we are going to feel great in our skin and our bodies.

I have been thinking so much this spring about the concept of brahmacharya. Some of the interpretations that I have read about this really focus on sexual abstinence, but I often think of it as that our bodies are a vehicle for the divine. I was shown this through childbirth — what could be more proof of this than that? I realized this again over the last couple of days, as I prepped myself for a cleanse and detox. My body is vessel, and, just as if it was a glass of water, I don’t want to drink from a dirty cup. It is my responsibility to my family, and my child, and to the powers that put me here to make sure that I am allowing the same level of attention to me and my bodies as I do to Elias’, Brian’s or the world around me.

On a recent walk Elias finally noticed the Isaiah Zagar mosaics that surround us in in South Philly. I watched him run his little fingers over the mirrors, grout and tile, sometimes catching a glimpse of himself or me in the mirrors. The world is a bright and beautiful place.

Netherland

We have been existing in a netherworld for the last couple of weeks. It is summer in many ways, if you ask the weather outside and the lofting smell of BBQ in the air. But it is not summer if you ask Brian, my weary and tired husband, who is busy busy busy wrapping up the school year teaching 3rd graders. My poor husband is tired, but in about 8 days he will be the happiest teacher in Philadelphia.

I’ve been trying to do whatever I can to support him by focusing on my house. My babysitter just graduated college, and has taken her first job — leaving me fully in charge of Elias. I have been learning to slow down and really meet my son where he is at. In the mornings, we play until nap time. Two months ago, the moments that Elias’ eyes fluttered closed, I would rush for my laptop, to start banging out code against the clock. Most days lately, I curl up on the couch next to him, and we nap the morning away together, his little blonde head nestled into my armpit. It has felt good to slow down, and to just let the days be what they are. There will be many of days to work in the future. There will be less of them to nap with my son.

My time off with my son is in someways winding down. I guess, it’s moreover changing. We are transitioning to a new chapter in raising the little man. He will be starting a little school in the fall, and I really couldn’t be happier. The first time I walked into this place, my eyes filled with a choked up sob, as Elias ran off and made himself at home. I knew it was where he needs to be. A few days later, as I spaced out while he climbed our baker’s rack to smack his little palm against our IPod, I knew again how right it is to let him experience a whole new set of stimuli– he will learn so much.

And I will learn, too, about what our lives look like from here. For many reasons, the netherland I am in right now isn’t sustainable. In the fall, I will find myself in a new place, as will Elias, as he steps out into the world and into a structure learning environment. I am not sure how my days will be filled yet, but I know they will be. And in the evenings, I know we will all have some wonderful tales to share with each other about the vastness and richness of the world in front of us.

Summer has begun

Summer has cracked open in Philadelphia, and is sizzling away on the concrete sidewalks like a frying egg. It’s much hotter than I think we feel ready for, and I find myself dreaming of moving to Vermont, to somewhere where trees line the streets, and we have a shady deck to look at our garden from.

But that is not the case in Philly. I am lucky to have what I have — a small community garden plot, a sunny patio and a friend with an inflatapool. Here are our boys exploring the water for the first time:

Brian is done with work in a few weeks, and I’m really excited about the prospect of the three of us having a summer at home together. Maybe then we can get the laundry folded and put away, maybe then the dogs will get walked twice a day. Or maybe not. I am dumbfounded at times when I see how difficult it is to get anything done, even with me basically at home most of the time. Elias still asks plaintively to watch Elmo everyday, and I let him sit in his high chair and watch a half hour of Elmo each day, while I knock out some dishes. It’s the only way that I get anything done.

He is getting so big so fast. I still call him my baby, but I know that he really isn’t anymore. He’s a total dude, who can ask me for things and express his opinions. He is long, lean and lanky, a little boy.

We picked out a little school for him to start part-time in the Fall. It is adorable — everything is art and music based. Kids’ work vibrantly lines the walls, and Elias made himself at home during the tool, dancing with all the other little kids during music class. I will get back to seriously working more regularly (I hope) and Elias will learn some structure. We will cry a lot the first week, but then we’ll settle into our routine — I’ll get 15 or so hours a week to work on sites and practice yoga, and Elias will learn to be in the world. He will love it, and I will love to watch him learn.

Quitting my job was my attempt, in some ways, to catch lightning in a bottle. I have moments, at the park, in the bath tub, wherever, where I look upon him nostalgically already, as if I can see the memories being made as they are happening. I’ll be lucky if I will be able to remember half of these things, but I am sure that I will remember how good this all feels — to be so available to experience them all.

Jen McGown, and Yoga on the Parkway

A couple of weeks ago I started upon what I was hoping would be a longer interview with Jen McGown, the owner of One Yoga Philly. My goal was to ask her five questions via email, and share her insight with you. In the meantime, Elias totally changed his sleep schedule, and Jen was in a car accident, which led us to only complete two of the questions. I wanted to give Jen space, as well as I have been thrown into my own chaos over the last couple of weeks. I almost felt slightly ashamed that we didn’t get farther on the interview, but then I read this wonderful article on Buddhist parenting from Elephant Journal today, and I was reminded of two things: What I follow through on is what makes me, and everything is perfect in it’s imperfection.

So here is my wonderful two question interview with Jen McGown, complete in its incompleteness:

S: What came first — the yogi or the mom?

J: I’ve been giving this a TON of thought and I must admit that my answer has been changing. However, when I opened my second chakra the other day on the mat, I realized that I will go with my intuition on this one. In my experience, the yogi came long before anything else. Whether I knew it or not was another issue. Being a mother allowed me to help discover the yogi within me. Being a mother also allowed me to expand and grow my practice in previously unimaginable ways. I have learned more about my self by being a mother and practicing yoga than ever before.

S: Of course the answer is changing. I would guess that the answer has probably changed again since you sent me this one! So onto question 2. You’re doing big things as a Yogapreneur — including the Yoga on the Parkway event on May 21st. When you started One Yoga, did you know you have the vision in mind for the scale of the events you were going to launch, or has this grown more organically from yoga classes in your living room?

J: I love that this question arrives in my inbox right now. This has been a great week for me to reflect on my intention given all the MLK quotes regarding darkness and light. When I tell people that Yoga on the Parkway came to me in a dream last summer – I sometimes get that subtle chuckle and the look of “yeah right.” Yet I can say that I had a dream, and it was to bring all people in Philadelphia together in the name of yoga…one yoga. Yoga on the Parkway was an extension of my idea of bringing yoga to others in my nurturing and cozy home studio. The dream actually began with Yoga on the Parkway, and in order to bring Yoga on the Parkway to light, One Yoga was a follow-up. The event was intentionally scheduled the weekend of my birthday as the idea came to me and this is my way of paying-it-forward and serving others.

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Jen and I connected as part of a Philly Mompreneurs group that recently started. We were instantly drawn to each other, and have developed a lovely relationship mostly via email, but one that shows me the importance of supporting fellow moms and fellow women actualize their dreams and goals. Jen was a corporate executive who called it quits to start teaching yoga in her living room. Classes are currently on hold as Jen recovers, but I can say from the Tot and Mom class that Elias and I took there that the space is warm and welcoming, and will transform again as Jen comes back to her practice as both a student and a teacher.

Jen’s big vision, Yoga on the Parkway, is happening this weekend — Saturday, May 21st — on the Ben Franklin Parkway. Join in the fun of health and wellness in Philadelphia!

Visit Yoga on the Parkway’s main page

Pillars of yoga: First rung, Yamas

I am beginning an eight week prenatal yoga series this week at Hawthorne Yoga, and I thought that it seems auspicious that there are eight rungs of yoga. I am going to explore a rung of yoga each week. As a way to refresh myself, and as a way to look at how each of these rungs relates to life — to being a mommy — to being a human — and to being a Philadelphian.

The first rung of yoga is the Yamas, or the first set of consciousnesses that a yogi tackles along the path. This is when the gaze begins to turn inward, and the yogi examines him or herself.

The yamas are:

Ahimsa (अहिंसा): non-harming

Satya (सत्य): absence of falsehood

Asteya (अस्तेय): non-stealing

Brahmacharya (ब्रह्मचर्य): appropriate use of vital essence

Aparigraha (अपरिग्रह): absence of avarice

In many ways, this is similar to Buddhism, where the action that the practitioner undertakes is to cut the cord of to what is commonly translated as “suffering.” I see it more, and in relation to the yamas, as human dissatisfaction. So many of these yamas have to do with our relationship to the world around us, our place in society, and how these two shape our view of ourselves. It is not just about physicality, but also about the more abstract interpretations of these concepts.

Brahmacharya has been translated to me as meaning “Vehicle to God,” which is at both us as well as the Earth that we live on — The journey that we walk through in this life is our path to the divine. The more that we shed of what can bog down our existence, the easier that road becomes. We accomplish this, in the very first step, by mindfully looking at the way that we exist in this world. If it is all divine, then our sense of self-love and love to the people and society around us directly effects the path.

I once owned a car that I almost made explode out of road rage. I don’t think that this is too much of an overstatement. It was the one car that I owned, a Ford Taurus, and I got so frustrated by sitting in traffic that I tried to jump a median. I ruptured some sort of gas line, and pulled to a leaky stop with gasoline streaming everywhere. A man came running towards me. “Whatever you do — Do not turn that car back on!”

Where was I going? What was the force inside of me that didn’t have the patience to wait? Why did I endanger myself? I don’t relate to the girl that did this, though I did know myself well enough at that point to trade the car for a bike and just rode everywhere. It was a better decision for me, and I gained much insight on meditative bike rides along Boulder’s bike trail.

Looking at the four other yamas, they call attention to non-violence; truth over lying; not stealing and dispelling greed. Each of these concepts apply to oneself and to others, to what we consume to how we speak to other people, and how we treat ourselves in our thoughts. And perhaps the latter is the most important place to begin, because once you get your thoughts moving on the right course, your actions radiate out from there.

In pregnancy, our bodies become a vehicle of creation, and examining our relationship to the world around us is inevitable. What we fuel our bodies with directly feeds another human being, and lays the foundation for what they consume — both physically and mentally.

In class this week I will lead my first chant ever — We will chant the sutras II, 30 – 31, those which talk about the yamas.

II, 30 ahimsa satya asteya brahmacarya aparigraha yamah
II, 31 jati desa kala samaya annavachinnah sarva-bhaumah mata-vatam

Self- control
consists of five principles:
non-violence,
truthfulness,
freedom from stealing,
behaviour that respects
the Divine as omnipresent,
and freedom from greed.

These are called the
great universal vows
when they are extended unconditionally
to nurture everyone,
regardless of status,
place, time or circumstance.

Om.

Resources:
http://www.yogaforums.com/forums/f20/yoga-sutras-ii-30-31-yama-self-control-for-social-harmony-3086.html

Success

I am a woman with a lot of drive. I have so much that it spills out of my ears and onto the floor around me in all directions. I can’t help but usually have a ton of projects up in the air at any given point in time. When I worked in an office, I was known to be able to keep many balls in the air at once, a master multi-tasker and a circus quality juggler. But what does that mean now that I am focusing more on my family?

I have been home for almost two months now. Our days are packed. I sometimes feel like they are so full that I don’t even know how I ever made time for working, period. And somehow we are managing financially. I still work, but it’s different now — I code websites and do internet consulting while Elias is curled up on my lap asleep, and sometimes the two afternoons that he goes to his babysitters’ seems like too much. How did I ever send him over there 40 hours a week? I feel like I must have just been gritting my teeth and bearing through something without thinking about what I was really doing. I was so tired that I couldn’t even stop to feel what was going on around me.

So what does success mean now? It isn’t a 40 hour a week job, and it isn’t being on a “career” track in an office, or receiving promotions, or scurrying around in search of something bigger and better. It isn’t even defined by quantifiable “work” any more. Success is raising a happy, healthy, confident son. Success is stimulating my brain, and also learning how to slow down. Success is measurable by my happiness and my comfort within my own skin and my own life.

Success is seeing this kid smile.

So what is the process of letting go preconceived notions? What does that look like? How do I let go of what success has meant for so long, and let that not influence my future definitions?

Well, for the time being, a middle of the day Dance Party with Elias seems to work pretty well.

Birth

I feel like birth and my birth story has been on the tip of my tongue for this blog for a long time, but I never really knew what to say about it. That is, until I started reading “Beautiful, Bountiful, Blissful” by Gurmukh over this past week. I love this book. Gurmukh is proclaimed as “Hollywood’s favorite pregnancy guru” on the cover, a statement that under normal circumstances would make me not pick up a book. But I didn’t see the small details when I ordered it on Amazon, and therefore my prejudices couldn’t dissuade me. Lesson learned.

I loved Elias’ birth. It was exactly the birth that I was supposed to have. My biggest objective was to avoid a C Section if possible, and we did exactly that. When my water broke, there was meconium present. A lot of it. The midwife at the hospital reccommended pitocin, and I let my intentions of a unmedicated birth drift away from me. After laboring for a while unmedicated with pitocin, I took an epidural. I quietly caught up on “Ugly Betty” while my husband napped. After three hours of pushing, Elias was borne into the world. They threw him onto my chest, and I will always remember he struck me as a slippery fish, bug eyed and confused, and seemingly wrapped in newspaper. As quickly as he landed, he was scooped up and the remaining meconium was suctioned from his lungs. After an initial round of chaos, we were left to ourselves to figure out what it meant to be a family — Brian, Elias and myself.

That, of course, is the abridged version. I came home from the hospital with a beautiful, healthy and happy little boy. We loved our birth story, and spoke about it proudly. Elias had the birth he was meant to have, and we felt like we had made informed choices that worked best for our family. Nothing the midwives told us was anything beyond what we covered in birth education, and nothing spiralled out of our control.

With such a great love for how Elias came into this world, I was surprised later find that I later felt feelings of inadequacy compared to other moms who had given birth unmedicated. (Sidenote: When I first wrote that sentence, I had put the word “successfully” before “given birth unmedicated.” I am removing that because it connotes that other births are less successful) It felt, at times, as if these other moms were in a club that I wasn’t part of, and that our birth story was somehow of lesser value. It even audibly surprised a few moms — “You took an epidural?!?”

Gurmukh offers comforting words about this:

Always remember that children are born exactly the way they need to be born. We are born into this lifetime to grow, and it is only through experience that we grow. Once labor starts, the process is bigger than any one person’s plan. Sometimes a soul coming through needs a certain experience for its journey or maybe the mother needs it for hers, or the father needs it for his. We call it a complication, but it is a thread among the many thousands of threads that create the rich tapestry of a life. (67)

There are many people who I am sure would consider Gurmukh to be decidedly pro-unmedicated birth by her writing. More importantly to me, however, I also appreciate what Gurmukh’s emphasis on the value of adaptability, flexibility and going with the flow. At one point, she connects with the imagery of water, flowing forward without judgment of the obstacles. To water, a barrier in the way is not a complication or a hindrance, but an object that the river makes adjustments for and moves past. This, I believe, is an important perspective to keep in mind throughout the labor process. Labor is going to be what it is, and while we can do our best to direct it where we want it to go, it will also go the direction it needs to go. It is important to not hate the nature of the river for it’s being a river.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I had one friend tell me early in my pregnancy about how her birth ended up in C Section — and she loved it. To her, it was the help that she needed to birth her beautiful son. She viewed birth as being just one day, not necessarily more important than any that came before it or after it in the life of her son. What was more important was being an attentive, loving mom for the rest of the days that followed.

As we contemplate another child, I am also contemplating how to view future birth. I find it unfortunate that unmedicated births get to claim the title “natural birth” in our vocabularies, because however a family intends to birth a baby, or however the baby is birthed is truly what is natural if its basis are decisions that come from the heart and for the well-being of everyone involved. I will likely have a doula, and I will likely go for an unmedicated birth if possible (if nothing else to have access to the whirlpool tubs in the birthing suites!). But I will also hold a place for a gush of the river, and without judgment, allow myself to plunge into the water and ride it blissfully exactly where it is supposed to carry me and my family.