19 weeks

yup.  Weighed myself yesterday, total weight gain so far is 9 pounds.  Feeling good about that, although since we had cheesecake for dessert last night after our belated christmas dinner I feel as though I gained another five last night as i slept ;)

Christmas was nice, although Matt had to go in to cook a banquet for the Boston Celtics.  Punks.  But we had a big opening stockings/presents celebration in the morning with Irish Breakfast.  Charity and jamie and Solara came for breakfast, which was really fun.  Everybody took off at 1pm, Matt to the hotel and Charity & jamie home so Charity could work on a paper for med school.  Ava and I went to the 3pm carol service at Grace Cathedral, which was AWESOME.  It was such a small service, maybe 50 or 70 people, that they had us sit up in the choir behind the high altar and led the service up there.  Ava and I sat in a little carved wooden banquette seat where one of the bishop types usually sits.  It was so cool to be up there.  And the service was lovely... it was carol hymn singing and in between the minister read poetry, both sacred and secular that worked with the message of christmas... including two by ee cummings.  We could just call out which hymn we wanted to sing.  It was great, and I am so glad we went and I didn't just stay lazy on the couch...

Then we had a christmas dinner party last night, since Matt was off.  Charity and Jamie came.  We had shrimp and white bean bruschetta for an appetizer, salad of bitter greens with pommello and avocado in a meyer lemon vinagrette.  Entree was red snapper, cauliflower puree, and blood orange/fennel salad.  Dessert was cheesecake from Miette because I was not feeling up to baking, but I did make a meyer lemon and raspberry sauce for it.  I had big plans to make gingerbread and serve it with whipped cream and blood orange sorbet, but then I remembered the fancy cake store and pregnancy laziness took over.

I think that it's actually nice to split it up, and not have christmas dinner on christmas day.  A big, celebratory breakfast is grand fun, and comfy.  Everyone in their jammies or comfy clothes, with mugs of coffee.  Then just a long mellow day and a light early supper and maybe a movie.  Then a fancy dinner another night... we've decided that we'll do it this way from now on we liked it so well.

Matt's sister Ellen is coming out on new years day.  They decided not to mail any of their presents so christmas was actually surprisingly low key... with just presents from my family and from Sean who mailed his.  But I am sure we can expect an onslaught when Ellen arrives bearing all of their gifts...

woohoo!

T I R E D

so so tired today.  I really had to push myself through working out, and after had to have lunch NOW and then hot bath and then nap.  And now I am so sleepy and it is only 8pm...

anyways, did an hour 10 minutes of treadmill/elyptical combo.  It was super hard.  oy.  long week...

Dharma

led my practice today.  Opted to stay home and practice yoga, do laundry and have a day off rather than go to KK's last class until January 16.  That is always a bit of russian roulette kind of choice for me, since if I flake on practicing then I will self immolate about it.  But it turned out well today, did a lovely practice with Dharma's DVD... striking scorpion and open compass and hanumanasana after hanumanasana and all.  Even got to do full pranayama practice and so hum dhyana.  Pranayama for preggos that is...  was nice.

Had an appointment with Sue, first time we were all alone, since Matt was at work and Rebecca was out of town.  Got to hear baby reruns heartbeat for a moment before it dodged the doppler, sue confirmed that it does like to hang on the right side though as I was feeling... that's where we found the heartbeat until it got shy.  Sometimes at night when I lay on my back it seems like my whole uterus it over on the right half of my belly.  Baby rerun loves my right side.  That makes me wonder... is it stage left to baby?

Things are good.  17 1/2 weeks, I have gained 7 pounds.  So far I've worked out everyday this week and feel great.

Thats about all.

cold

it's very cold here this week.  apparently we got the storm that froze New Hampshire solid and left one million people with no power.  Out here is has translated to the low 40's and RAIN.  making for damp, seeping, bone chilling cold.   Although they are stoked in Tahoe, they have 3 feet of snow and still falling.

Speaking of Tahoe, Rose's man finally proposed to her a month or so ago and they are planning a wedding for august.  So happy for her, and can't wait to attend.  Am curious whether they will be walking down the aisle, or riding motorcross...  hella, bro.

Today I am pretty tired.  I was up at 6 to get to a 7am housecall.  But I went for a 30 minute walk outside after, because it got sunny briefly and was brisk and bright and fresh and lovely to walk in.  Invigorating.  Then I had 2 clients and did a 45 minute fast treadmill walk.  I did not have intervals or elyptical in me today.  I stretched after for about 30 minutes.  Then I still had time for lunch and a nap before getting bunny.

Tomorrow is KK's last class for awhile.  She'll be back in January.  And then I have a midwife appointment with Sue Baelen at 1pm.  I love her.  She is like a goddess teddy bear.  Big love she's working, that lady.  She makes me feel safe and good and warm and fuzzy when she's here.  I am so glad she is going to help me have my baby.  What a gift.

happy monday

today was a nice day.  almost like a day off, really, since I only taught from 7:30 to 9am... then I got to workout, then go to the dentist which believe it or not was fun because I haven't gone in so long and now I don't have to live in fear that all my teeth are going to fall out of my head.  Then I had a nice lunch, went and bought maternity jeans which cost too much but look hot which matters WAY WAY more right about now, then had time to do a Dharma Yoga level 2 practice before I picked up Ava at school.  Overall it just felt relaxing and like I had a lot of time for myself, i guess becuase i finished work so early and got my workout in so early too. I think that is the way... because as the day goes on i get more and more tired and lazy and i tend to be less motivated.  But it is essential because I feel 100 times better and due to my whole dismorphia issue I also look like an entirely different person, to my own crazy self anyhow.

So yeah, to keep track, I did a 60 minute cardio workout on threadmill... walk/incline/walk/run intervals for 60 minutes then a five minute cooldown walk.  Then I stretched and did Pincha Mayurasana to see that I still can and YES, WE CAN.  Then DMY level II later in the day, all the way through except dhanurasana and shalabasana obviously.  Feel good.

17 weeks

yup.  So baby rerun is now calcifying it's little cartilage skeleton, developing sweat glands and weighing in at 5 oz.... or roughly the size of a turnip, sayeth babycenter.  I like imagining that i have a turnip growing inside my body.  how funny.

committing to working out EVERY day, so as to prevent craziness and dysmorphia from ruling my life.  Today I did 70 minutes of cardio (elyptical & treadmill) then 45 minutes of pilates.  Planning to stretch this evening during tv time after dinner.  I am going to try to post on here every day about what I did so I can keep track of my consistency.

Yesterday Ava and I went to see ODC Dance do their annual holiday show, the velveteen rabbit.  It was actually really fun to get fancy and go to a peformance.  Then we went out to lunch and walked around and looked at downtown displays.  It was a special day with my girl.  Sometimes I am so practical and businesslike about parenting, it's good to make it more fun and sparkly.

nappies

Is such a cuter thing to say than Diapers, isn't it?  Those Charming, charming Brits...  I just ordered these from here:

http://stores.ebay.com/Coolababy2008

I got 12 of the multicolored regular ones with 24 inserts, and 16 of the fleece ones in yellow and white stripes with 16 inserts.  I am excited.  Should be pretty easy to wash and much cheaper than the diaper service, which is like $75 a week.  Even when I factor in that I have to put quarters in to wash and dry, so each load is $2.50 until we buy a place with a washer dryer of our own.

Other than a new infant car seat which can attach to our stroller this is the only baby stuff i intend to buy.  Annie put new motor and pump parts into my breast pump, so it is like new.  I guess i might need some glass bottles  and my own ergo baby carrier.  But that's it man.

yeesh. slacker. again.

Suddenly it has been busy around here... for the first time in months.  My business had been super slow.  Super slow is actually a HUGE UNDERSTATEMENT.  My business dropped by half, what with the one two punch of the economy taking a swan dive and now the holidays and their requisite cancellation of appointments in favor or errand running and party planning.  A number of my clients have literally dropped off the face of the earth, hedge fund managers and investment bankers who either lost everything and are scrambling to sell their vacation home in order to have some liquidity or are camped out on wall street fighting for their livliehoods.  The rich have fallen hard hard hard, especially those who actually work in finance, and it is sad because a lot of these people are smart, honest, hardworking women who kicked ass and took names to get to where they are in a mans business.  they are not greedy fat cat ceo's at Lehman's.  they are not dishonest and it is not their fault that the economy went belly up, but main street loves to hate on them right now.  It must such to both lose everything and be vilified for it.  So they are MIA and i miss them and worry for them.

Then there is the annual trend of " oh gee, I am just so busy right now with events and shopping and traveling and why don't i just call you in January?"... as a general rule people will take any excuse not to exercise.  Luckily this also follows a trend that come January and February everone is fat and repentant and begging for a bikini worthy bod.  Sometimes my job is really pathetic.

But somehow this week things have picked up and I find myself super busy, almost overbooked.  And old client came back, and I got the referral to end all referrals from a colleague who had moved to LA and had a housecall client for me.  Said housecall wants pilates 3x a week plus an hour of massage 2x per week plus eventually her husband for pilates 2 to 3x per week.  And she lives about two blocks from the studio.  i saw her yesterday and she cut me a check for a grand... at this rate she'll burn through it in less than three weeks.  Thank the good lord.  Now I can send the IRS that quarterly tax payment AND pay Ava's tuition AND make calendars for the aunties and uncles for christmas.

Kathleen is back from tour and i have had class, which is great because dancing now feels really good.  A bit earlier it felt odd and off balance, I wasn't showing but i think things were very different electrically and hormonally and I was off kilter.  Couldn't find my legs underneath me.  Interestingly enough, now that my belly is really starting to grow dancing feels AWESOME.  It is as though i am much more in tune with the experience of it, physically and energetically.  I am more present inside my dance.  Usually I think I am so focused on performing well and executing that I forget to enjoy it completely.  This way is nice.  I hope I can take it away with me after the pregnancy is over.  In this way I can grow this year as an artist... even if it isn't my biggest year for technical achievements.  It is a good time to work on subtle energies, details, nuance.  mmmmmmmmmmm.  yummy stuff.

And when I am training i am happy.  Dancing feels good and gives me a focal point for my obsessive tendencies so that they don't just boil down into self loathing and body dismorphia.  I am so much more peaceful and grounded, and the constant self critic is quieted because I have a regular affirmation of my worth~ I am an exceptionally talented dancer.  I know that and it is real and I can taste it and breathe it and roll with it.  It completes me and defines me and makes me true.  So i feel better than I had alone a couple weeks back.

PIE

it came out super duper beeeeyoootiful!  can't wait to eat it.  even i am going to have some pie today... gestational diabetes be hanged!

happy turkey day

waiting for pie dough

ahhh

sitting up waiting for pie crust to "rest" before i can bake the pie, so i thought i would drop in.  the pie is all ready, just chillin in the fridge for what they say should be an hour, but methinks will be better as a half hour since it is now 10:17 and we are only 17 minutes into our pie naptime.  considering it needs an additional 45 to 55 minutes to bake.

today i had another meeting with lovely Sue Baelen, my midwife extraordinaire.  it's so cool that she comes over to my house, and we talk and visit and do all the prenatal stuff for an hour and a half.  she checked my blood pressure as usual, and it was stellar (108/58) and felt my belly.  the fundus is now about midway between my pubic bone and navel.  then we listened to the heartbeat with a doppler, which was nice and reassuring even though i hadn't been worried.  it was fun for Ava too.

Sue brought me a book for Ava about a little boy whose mom has a homebirth, told from his perspective with beautiful watercolor illustrations.  Ava has already had me read it 4 times this evening.  She told me the other day that she wants to be there for the birth, which i feel like would be nice.  I think I will know better when we get closer to that time.  Perhaps i can find a way for her to be somewhere else while i labor, and arrive for the birth.  Perhaps she'll be in school, anyhow.  Luckily it is right across the street and someone could fetch her for the birth.

we went out for vietnamese food tonight, as Matt had cooked all the food for tomorrow today and we wanted to eat something really, really different than we'll eat tomorrow.  it was great.  Beef Pho.  mmm.  spring rolls, the cold kind with mint and lettuce and noodles inside.  mmm.  Ava was super psyched about the Pho.  She was eating mine all up.

ok.  pie naptime OVER.  mama bear is tired.

good MaryStarr

today I went to Ballet class.  good girl.  it isn't really so bad, it's not like I totally suck the way I imagine that I do in my head when i talk myself out of going.  it's not my best subject, so to speak, but if I went more it would be easy to get my chops up.  so i am recommitting to attending ballet class at least once a week, and more while Kathleen is gone and I don't have her class 3 days a week.

perhaps if i can't keep anything else, I can keep my feet ;)

won't be able to see them, of course, but I'll know they are rockin a serious articulated pointe...

round TWO

well, today i am officially 14 weeks pregnant which means hello second trimester.  woohoo!  nice to now be able to have all the nervous nellies stop sweating me about having talked about my pregnancy since day one.  although of course, one of my clients DID have to point out yesterday that one of her friends just miscarried at 16 weeks and nearly died... terrible drama of hemmoraging in bed at night, fainting and bing rushed in for a transfusion and a d&c.

as always, THANKS FOR SHARING.

feeling great though, here.  all's well.

hum sa... so hum... so hum... hum sa

I Am You

You Are Me

I Am You

You Are Me

I Am You

You Are Me

I Am You 

You Are Me

Last night my friend Sarah, from my old babycenter group who I have been conversing with almost daily since december 2003, posted some sad news.  She was also expecting a baby, due in May like me.  Sarah and I are the only ones of the group not to have had another baby since our september 2004 babies were all born.  Several of the gals have had 2 more.  Anyways, at her 16 week ultrasound they couldn't find a heartbeat.  She is going in for a D&C today I think. I am very sorry for her.  She was doing fertility treatments for three years to concieve after her daughter who is Ava's age.  So sad, and it seems like it isn't meant to be for her, you know?

So now my mind is pondering the nature of it all.  Because I have no such fear or concern with my pregnancy.  I believe very much and have all along that this baby will grow fine and be born fine and be just fine.  I ahve had not a shred of doubt of this since day one and still do not.  I am a lucky woman to conceive so easily and carry and birth babies so well.  I am thankful to this soul who chose me for making me a sacred vessel, and I am thankful to god and all that is for the grace i am given in this precious arena of my life.

I guess we all have our challenges along the way, and I have certainly had many in my life so far.  It would be nice to think i had burned up all my bad karmas early on in my life, but i am sure this is not true.  I am just glad that i have this place in my life to experience a blessing.  My blessings are many now, and I am thankful for them.  I pray that when hardships come to me I can remember my blessings here.

slacker, i know

yup.  so I haven't written here in so long that i think my own blog forgot me.  forgive me?  I am going to try to be better about it.

So now I am thirteen weeks and a bit along in my pregnancy, next week i will be officially in my second trimester.  I am feeling much, much, much better.  I wasn't sick really, but I was super irritable and generally filled with ennui.  I decided to bail on my concurrent care with Kaiser around 10 weeks.  It was redundant and annoying so I have only been seeing my homebirth midwife, the marvelous Sue Baelen, and I am SO HAPPY.  This means that I have to pay for my own glucose monitoring strips, which are expensive, but it also means that I will not be subjected to any more tests, vaginal exams, mandatory peeing in cups and getting weighed, waiting in waiting rooms or counseling about genetic testing that I do not wish to have.

See, I had thought I would do concurrent care at Kaiser along with my homebirth prenatal care so that I could have all the testing that was necessary covered ad so that in the event that a transfer was necessary during labor they would not necessarily label me high risk because they would have their own records.  But after being informed that they wanted to re-do my 3 hour glucose test every four weeks to "monitor" me and being given a "standard procedure" 8 week vaginal sonogram with no discussion of whether or not i wanted one I realized that i was denying myself a true homebirth experience.  DUH.  It has been a really great choice. I really feel so different i can hardly explain it.  I am definitely owning my own pregnancy.  Talk about a weight being lifted.

Sue gave me a great book, called the Natural Pregnancy Guide by a midwife named Aviva Romm.  Tons of great info on making herbal infusions for nutrition during pregnancy, as well as herbal remedies for stuff.  And dietary info and just a great, feminist and woman centered approach to health self care during the childbearing year.  Highly recommend!  She also wrote one called raising children naturally that I have coming from Amazon as we speak.  Am thinking infusions would be super for Ava to drink instead of so much cows milk... so long as they were of the proper sort for kiddos.

Have started to show, which is good.  I was just looking chubby.  Today I had a nice thought as i was resting after lunch, that soon i will lay in my bed and nurse my baby while i stroke it's little ear.  sweet thing.

MaryStarr

hello

funny how time works...

here is bunny in her dance digs last friday before her very first class... doesn't she look just like Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face when she does the spontaneous dance in the beatnik club?  wicked cute.

today my dad called and asked me to cosign a car loan for him.  i guess his car died, poor guy, head gaskets blown.  that car was all paid up, but he filed chapter 11 five years ago so now he can't secure a loan on his own.  so he called me.

isn't it funny how given enough time, all things will eventually come full circle?  here i am, being a financial steady hand for my father... of course we said yes, no problem.  i think it was hard for him to ask me, not only because i am after all his youngest child, but mostly because he has a history of having so much trouble keeping money stuff sorted out.  but honestly i know that he is very solvent now that he isn't struggling to maintain a practice and mortgage and all that, so i have faith in him and it will be nice for him to have something simple he can prove faithful on to himself... you know?  maybe a bit of a selfesteem builder for him to show that he can make good on a favor from me.

the funny thing is, i asked him what the payments will be so i could help him sort out if it is a practical loan for him given the fact that he could possibly be unable to work sometime in the next several years (he is, after all, 73 years old) and then would be living exclusively on his social security.  i just wanted to be sure that if it came down to me needing to take over the payments that I would be able to swing them.  hehe.  yeah.  the payments will $160 a month.  ONE SIXTY a month.  remind me, next time i am buying a car, to do it in new hampshire...

dance class

Biscuit had her first dance class yesterday afternoon!  It was very exciting.  She is taking Junior Contemporary Movers class, kind of like pre-modern I guess, at ODC dance Commons where I train too.  She was awesome and very happy and the class was good. Especially because they did not allow parents in the room and kept the door closed.  Woohoo!  As we went home i told her how proud I am to have a daughter who is a dancer and she said, "I have been a dancer all my life Mama".  Duh.

I had a great practice yesterday.  I did 40 minutes on the elliptical trainer first, so I was really warm and limber.  I did a 90 minute practice and my range was huge.  It was great.  It felt amazing.  That is a good combo.

practice

So yesterday i saw 5 clients in the 6.5 hours Ava was in school, so I didn't have time to practice or workout or anything.  Actually, I had no time for lunch either.  But Ava and I had a snack of avocados with salt, soymilk, and bananas with peanut butter when we came home.  And i did the mountain of dishes.  But i guess that since I renounced the fruit of my actions (dishwashing) and did it simply because it had to be done, it was, in fact YOGA.

Ava and I practiced together from her new yoga poster from Auntie Michelle and the girls before bedtime.  Ava said "that's not cat and dog, mama, it's cat and COW".  color me proud!  But we loved it and had a fun time together.  She really digs her mat, especially the having her very own mat part.

feeing good so far

no sickness yet or anything.  did the level one series last night after I spoke with Lis, and did pilates during the day.  Today i am going to do a big hard practice and rock my danurasana while I still can ;p

today I clean the house, too.  wish me luck...

midwife!

so yesterday I did some internet research and read up on various local homebirth midwives.  chose to call Lis Worcester of the Bay Area Homebirth Collective. ~ www.jadelotusmidwifery.com ~  www.bayareahomebirth.org ~ because she seemed like a nice one and the bay Area Homebirth Collective appealed to me.  The childbirth educator for them is Jane Austen, who is a very well known prenatal yoga teacher here at Yoga Tree.  

Anyways, she was super nice and asked could she call me back in the evening so we could talk at length after she put her kids to bed.  (RAD)  So she called me at 8:15 and we spoke for nearly an hour.  She is an RN, since 1986.  Wanted to be a midwife all along, but felt she was too young when she left nursing school.  She started as a labor and delivery nurse, then left hospitals to be a nurse practitioner doing primary care, then became a doula and then went into direct entry midwifery training.  She has been CPM since 2003.

I like her.  She said that nutrition is a big focus for her, she likes moms to follow a whole foods diet and she works a lot with specifics of nutrition.  She used to be a gestational diabetes educator when she was an in hospital RN so she is very savvy about GD.  And their care is so cool.  They come to your house for prenatal visits, which are between an hour and an hour and a half long each time.  She has an intern who she works with all through, a woman who had three homebirths.  One with a midwife and two on her own with her husband!  For most tests she uses her own lab, and she has me drink a big bottle of juice for my gd test instead of glucola.  So hooray.  At the birth would be her, her intern and a another midwife from the Bay Area Homebirth Collective.  They do everything, and would accompany me to the hospital in the even of needing a transfer to a hospital birth.  But their rates of that are fairly low.

Anyways, after delivery they stay for about 3 or 4 hours to make sure we are all tucked in and cosy and have what we need.  They come back the next day, check me and do all the baby care.  Then they come back for extensive postpartum and newborn visits on days 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 40 and 60.  Can you imagine?  Post partum care and breastfeeding support extending to day 60?  In home newborn screening and care so we don't have to rush out to a pediatrician?  Getting to rest in your own bed with your husband and baby and other children after you deliver?

guess how much?  for everything, start to finish, all included: $4000

That is not very much money.  Not at all.  It is unbelievable really.  We are so happy.  She is coming over next wednesday with her intern to meet us and so we can interview her (her words).  If we didn't like her we could check out others but I like her a lot so far.  I expect she'll be my midwife if we get along when we meet on wednesday.

it worked!

so, Hooray!  I didn't think it had, because I tested saturday and it said definitely no.  But I was very sad and very puzzled, because I really thought that I was.  It made me scared we would have some kind of problem... but since no period still as of yesterday morning I decided to test again and WOOHOO!!!!  two lines.

I am thrilled and delighted.  I remember that the first time I was thrilled and simultaneously like oh shit! what will I do?  None of that this time, since I know the drill I guess but also because it is easier to know you are ready the second time around.  That makes me happy because I really always meant that I would have another baby when I felt like I wanted to.  So I am glad that I was listening to my heart and am so happy and ready to be pregnant and give birth and have another child bless my life.

Ava is very excited as well.  She swears my belly is already a little bigger, hehe.  Cutie pie.

Have fallen off the wagon a little with the daily practice in the last week or so.  Having dance class again kind of made it harder to schedule.  But I am going to commit as much as I can to a daily practice through my pregnancy, since it is a conveniently packaged time frame.  And, hey, atleast this time I don't have to quit smoking.

hot

so hot right now.  perhaps we have started indian summer. it's funny though, because last week it was foggier and colder than it's ever been in summer here since we moved here.  Ava was refusing to wear short sleeved shirts to school and because of course all her new birthday clothes had short sleeves because everywhere else in the world it is short sleeved weather in august.... so matt and i went to h&m and bought her a whole slew of long sleeves that she can wear under her short sleeve stuff, tank tops, etc.  And then, promptly it became HOT.  So now she needs sunblock under her shirts instead.

isn't that always the way?

this morning i did the level I DMY sequence, including savasana and pranayama.  Didn't have time for meditation.  am going to try to do the level one early morning each day with meditation and pranayama, then do a more challenging asana practice later in the day.  want to really know the level one like the back of my hand so I can start to teach...

woohoo thirtyTWO!

yes indeed.  twas my birthday last thursday... I had a nice day.  taught in the morning, wandered and window shopped in the afternoon while Matt prepped for my party... went to a yoga class while matt and Ava made cupcakes... came home and had a vegetarian pizza party with nice friends.  

Sadly, 2 glasses of wine had me rocked and sick as a dog the next day.  or maybe it was the cheese.  either way, my new clean vegan lifestyle seems to demand total adherence or else I feel yucky.  I wonder if this means I am more sensitive now or that I felt yucky all the time before and didn't notice??

Have been pretty consistent about practicing.  It has been two weeks since my training wrapped up and I think both weeks I have missed one or two days.  Last week it was because I was super sick friday with a sinus cold and acheese/wine  hangover.  But mostly have been doing asana every day and pranayama/meditation every few days.  Probably would be better to be doing pranayama & meditation more, even if it meant skipping asana.  I am missing the lightness that I felt, so today I am eating only raw food and practicing asana, pranayama and meditation.  In a few minutes...

I woke up a half hour early this morning though, and did my neti pot.  Then some khapalabati, and was just starting to do some nadi shodhana pranayama when Ava came out, so instead I sat with her on my lap and wrapped my shawl around us both and sat quietly for a few minutes.  Wouldn't necessarily call it meditation, but it was nice and it was a start.  Seems like the best way to introduce her is just by welcoming her into my practice...

Ava recieved her very own Yoga mat in the mail yesterday from her so super loving and considerate Auntie Michelle.  She is super stoked.  I put the DVD and the poster away until her birthday, but she was already using her mat yesterday.  Thanks Gurley !!

ok, back soon...

ok, I'm back

Thought I'd post that last one even though I never finished it.  Life of a Yogi Training was wonderful, brutal, soul searching, gut wrenching and ultimately life transforming.  As all things really worth doing are.  I had no idea what I was in for.  It's funny, really.  I fell down the rabbit whole of self realization for sure....

Now I am home and so is bunny.  She hung in there like a champ in Chitown.  I am so proud of how grown up she is to be away on her own for almost two weeks without us.  We missed each other loads and it took a couple days to settle back in.  We were kind of awkward for the first day or so. It was strange.  

I love her so and am so unbelievably proud and honored to know her.  She is so beautiful and smart and funny and cool.

Got my period so our initial cycle of welcoming a new addition was not accepted by said new addition.  Probably for the best given my intense yoga initiation and all.  Feeling excited to try a lot this month :)

over and out.

day 3... life of a yogi training

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

feeling much restored today.  day one was just totally wild, all new.  day two was achy, my neck spazzed out in headstand during maha sadhana with Dharma and put my whole right neck and shoulder into a spasm for the rest of the day.  today it released with the helpful hands of a marvelous teacher, Howard, during a spinal twist in Dharma's class.

my energy is great today as well. considering the whole yogi diet i am on for this training (all vegan, 60 percent raw, very little food in general)

oy

just went to pick bunny up at school.  was in lovely, meditative state after watching dharma mittra spiritual discourse and practicing for an hour or so.  i got to school and initially she was so happy and excited because it was her friend laraiaes' birthday and they had cupcakes.  by the time i signed her out and got her outside she had started to meltdown and became hysterical.  so we sat in the school yard for 15 minutes while she screamed and cried.  finally i picked her up and started to carry her home.  she punched me in the eye.  it hurt a lot.  she screamed all the way home.  i carried her upstairs and put her in her room, to much protestation.    now, after 15 minutes or so she seems to be slowing down the tantrum enough to say her tummy hurts.

fucking cupcakes man.

why?

why do you feed my kid crack and then send them home for me to deal with it?  poor thing.

baby vibes

sleepy today.  need to go watch the dharma mittra dvds, but wanted to share first.  so last month I wrote down my cycle because we have been thinking that we would start trying for baby the newer in august after my yoga course, and i was curious what that would mean in terms of actual days etc.  since i started my period june 20, i counted out i would be theoretically ovulating in august around the 22nd.  so that is where my mind was.  but today one of my colleagues in the studio was teaching a new mom who brought her 3wk old baby with her and the strangest thing happened to me: i got the nursing tingles.  that's wierd, see, since i stopped nursing ava almost a year ago, and my milk dried up a year ago for sure.  but it made me think that, ok, this isn't just a theory... i really do want another baby, now.  which is good because it has seemed a little theoretical up until now, which was a positive change from DEFINITELY NOT RIGHT NOW which was the predominant sentiment from september 2004 until this past march.

so anyways, i came home and looked at the calendar and noticed that i will start a new cycle on the 18th which is a full moon, so that seems auspiscious.  that would put me ovulating around the last of the month.  seems to me that being only a day or two pregnant during my yoga course wouldn't be a problem.  so now i think i may as well put out the welcome mat to my second child starting the 18th.  which is next week!  yay!

and that means, if it takes it takes.  and if it doesn't, no harm trying sooner than later.  and if it takes then i am due for babyhaving a month sooner and have all next summer to get my figure back before fall dancing season.  i like this plan.  plus it means no condoms on vacation and that is always better ;)

L8

hmmmmm... here i am.  this will be a short one since elmo's world is wrapping up which means DINNER TIME.  i have decided to cook vegan during the week for me & biscuit and only eat meat when daddy is home to cook it.  atleast through the summer when the veggies are so abundant.  last night we had a kind of crudite raw veggie plate with kidney beans and yummy vegan ranch (i mean it, it was actually yummy).  tonight we are having corn on the cob which came in the box today and a salad i made with: garbanzos, cucumber, green pepper, cilantro, basil, garlic, olive oil and seasoned rice vinegar.  it has been marinating through sesame street.  i am hungry.  woot.

bunny does great with the vegan stuff and the raw stuff, so hooray.  matt and i have been trying to eliminate our recycling pile in an attempt to de-polymer our life.  he has been making homemade hummus from dried garbanzos and bulk tahini, and making his own yogurt too, since we figured out that we were buying most of our plastic containers with those items.  so far, so good.  it is amazing how much of a relief it is to be making less trash.  everytime i look at the pacific i think of that floating plastic island... still so far to go, though, on that carbon imprint.

off i go.  dinner calls.