Yoga Kids

     Gavin has been doing yoga for longer than I have.  He got this yoga book several years ago and even as a toddler loved trying out the poses in it.  It ended up getting forgotten on the bookshelf for a while, but has recently been rediscovered.  It's a lot more fun now that I know a little bit about yoga myself and can give him a little more guidance.  Jasper is loving it too.  So much better than TV time!

Little Cobras

Jasper loves the bridge pose

Gavin does a mean table

Teachers are amazing

     I spent this morning at the Elementary School.  I volunteer as the Cultural Arts Chair through the PTA, which means I coordinate Special Assemblies for the school.  Today we brought in a Comedy Duo who present a fun and informative show about how to prevent and deal with bullying.  We had them come last year too, the kids love them and they share great messages about a difficult topic in a very accessible way.
     As I sat in the back of the room I found myself watching the audience more than the performance.  Actually, I found myself watching the people on the edges of the audience who were watching the audience themselves.   I found myself overwhelmed with love and gratitude for the amazing teachers, administrators and specialist who educate and care for my children every day.  We've been at this school for four years now and plan to be here for many years to come and I feel so fortunate to have an especially great group of people who genuinely love their work and the children they work with.
     In the wake of the Newtown shootings, a lot of discussion about guns and school safety has taken over the internet.  While these issues have of course spent some time on my mind's stage as well, I have found that for me the biggest effect of this tragedy has been that I have developed this tremendous tenderness for all the fabulous people who work in our schools.  I know that every one of them would throw themselves in harm's way to protect my children and, more importantly, I know that they work hard every day to keep them safe and help them grow and learn and be their best selves.
      I also found myself watching the Kindergarten teachers more closely than usual as I thought about Gavin starting school next year and I have to say that Kindergarten teachers are a special kind of amazing.  As exhausted as I feel after a day with just one almost-Kindergartner I just cannot imagine the kind of patience required to nurture a whole classroom full of them every day, and to do it with such grace!
    Love you, teachers!

Back-to-School Shopping

     Bought a new bag and school supplies today.  I am really truly going back to school this week!!!!!

Take 3

     Last night was Serenity's Intermediate Strings Concert.  This concert combines the Beginning and Intermediate Strings classes at the elementary school which means we have now attended it three times--once Gideon's first year on the cello, then Serenity's first year on the bass and now her second year on the bass.  It will now be five years until we are eligible to attend again (when Gavin is old enough to play).  I wonder if it will still be the same concert?  My money is on Yes.
     They do have a great Music teacher though.  Not many elementary school orchestra concerts are so fun to sit through thrice!

Rainy Days and Mondays

     It's been raining all week.  Dreary, cold weather that awakens my hibernation instincts.
     I always feel pulled in two directions in this weather.  There is the pleasant inclination to curl up with a warm blanket and cup of hot cocoa and read sappy books or watch scary movies all day, maybe bake something sweet filling the house with the smells of cinnamon rolls and chocolate chip cookies.  Eventually, though, I end up sinking into a melancholy funk.  Maybe it's because real life doesn't allow me that soft rainy day picture.  My cuddle partner still has to go to work, the kids still have to be driven to and from school (a soggy, unpleasant process) and the preschoolers get moody and destructive and require way more entertaining.  Plus I'm supposed to be watching my diet.
     That Winter Bear inside of me still wants to be lying on the couch eating cookies and watching a "Downton Abbey" marathon though.
     If I can shake off that Winter Bear voice however, there is something kind of nice about the little disruption of routine, the moving life indoors that draws us together a little more.  If I am trying to indulge in lazing about the boys are like mosquitoes on a hot Summer day, constantly swarming all over me no matter how much I bat them away.  The trick is learning to just give in and accept that rainy days, for now, are about reading stories, playing mind numbing board games (I remember Cootie Bugs being so much more fun when I was 5) and catching worms.
     Of course, this is much easier to realize now that Gavin is at preschool and Jasper is napping.  I may just have to go google some cinnamon roll recipes....

Progress

     This past June I joined a gym.  The first fitness class I attended there was a Kickboxing Class.  It was a horrible experience.  The only reason I survived to the end of the class was because I came with a friend and didn't want to slink off in humiliation.  I'm not sure how much I fooled my friend, but I definitely wasn't fooling the instructor.  She was one of those instructors who stays up front the whole time, but she stepped down from her podium to offer me adapted versions of some of the moves.  That's how badly I was failing.  She did it in kindness, but it was still mortifying.  Especially because I really needed it.  When the class was over, I wobbled down the stairs and into the shower as quickly as I could before bursting into silent tears.
     Then I promptly retreated to Water Aerobics with the grandmas and expectant mothers for the next couple of months, occasionally venturing upstairs for a half hour on the treadmill.  Eventually I built up some stamina and discovered several dance and yoga classes that I really enjoy and I now feel very much at home in the gym.   I have, however, very deliberately avoided kickboxing.
    Tonight I slipped off for a workout while Rob was putting the boys to bed.  I don't usually hit the gym in the evening, but today was especially hectic and there just wasn't any room for an earlier workout.  I intended to spend an hour on an elliptical machine, but given the fact that it is January, the place was packed.  Every elliptical machine was already occupied by someone who'd also had a too-busy-to-get-here-earlier Monday, but managed to get there just a little earlier than me.
     But there was a Kickboxing class just getting started so I decided to give it a try.  Probably it wouldn't kill me, right?  The class was led by a different instructor this time, a get out there and wander the floor type of instructor who spent half the class, shouting out encouragement, correcting poses, yelling "C'mon!  Harder!!!" in people's faces...you know the type.  She gave me a high five.  Because I was doing a good job.  I felt like a Kindergartner receiving a gold star.  Sometimes, even though you know it's silly, little things just totally light you up inside.
     I did the whole class.  No modifications.  I even managed the "three jumping jacks, a push-up, three more jumping jacks" thing.  I managed that with very little grace and probably looked like a complete idiot, but I did it.  I left the class feeling that good tired, pumped up, coulda gone a little longer feeling.
     I'm so proud of myself.  I haven't lost as much weight as I'd like and I don't really think I look that much different, but I feel so much better and every now and then I have one of these before and after moments when I realize how much I have grown and it just feels really really good.
     I still totally prefer dancing though.  It's just so much more happy.  But now I know that I could do kickboxing, you know, if I wanted to.

on Feelings

It's a well known fact to anyone with any experience with small children, that all two year olds are pretty severely bi-polar.  This is something that has driven me crazy about this phase with each of the three children I've seen through it.  But for some reason, with number four, I am finding it surprisingly charming.  Maybe it's just because he's the baby so everything he does is cuter.  (I'm pretty sure this is going to have a deep psychological impact on him in the long run, not sure if it will be for good or for bad)  I just love the way he feels everything.  There is no guile or holding back or premeditation (OK, sometimes there is a little guile, he does know how to work the tears) but he just...feels what he feels and feels it completely.  When he is afraid (usually because Gavin chasing him with some robotic/animatronic toy--poor kid inherited my fear of robots) it's like his whole being turns inside out, he screams and shakes and attempts to crawl up my leg and onto my head like a cartoon elephant fleeing from a mouse.  When he is happy or excited (over the tiniest things like being told that yes, he can have jelly on his toast) he squeals in delight, clasps his hands together and does this little happy tippy toe dance.  

I even love the way he switches so rapidly from one emotion to another.  Last night he came with me to drop off Gideon at his Band concert.  He wanted to bring his toy trains with him and I told him "no."  So he did Sad.  His whole body droops.  His little mouth turns into a perfect upside down U, with a trembling bottom lip and then bursts open with a loud "Waaaaaaa!" and then (because it was clear I wasn't going to budge) he drops his head and droops his shoulders and slump walks out to the car like a dejected Charlie Brown.  We drive the two minutes to the school, listening to upbeat pop music and Gideon and I are talking and laughing and by the time I've dropped him off and am driving home, Jasper says from the back seat "Hey, Mom!  I feel Happy!  I'm not Sad anymore!"  He says it in a voice of wonder and delight, like a miracle has occurred.  He makes this declaration on a regular basis and every time it is amazing to him.  "My Sad feelings went away and I feel Good again!!"  And it amazes me too because even though I've been living with Feelings for 33 years, I often forget during the sad and mad ones that the good ones do come back.  And unlike Jasper, I am often slow to let them go.  For some reason I cling to my bad feelings far longer than they are useful and when they have finally passed I usually don't recognize that it's happened.  Maybe it's not so much that two-year-olds are bipolar as that they know how to let their feelings just happen.