We have now experienced three Christmas celebrations, taken a couple long car rides, hosted a few shindigs, and done all of the shopping, eating, drinking and making merry that goes along with our holiday season.
Throughout our travels, the packing and unpacking, the laundry, the grocery lists, the gift exchange spreadsheet, and the gazillion details (that always work themselves out one way or another), I have been overcome by emotions a few times as I tried to put into words what Christmas means to me. Here goes:
It was a simple sentence uttered on the playground by a neighbourhood mom. As we watched our boys playing, our talk turned to how hard it has been to get my kids out the door in the mornings. Recently, my five year-old son has decided that every step of the morning routine is unnecessary. The chart that was so effective at keeping us on track no longer holds any weight. And that particular morning had been, let’s just say, plain difficult.
In the quest to find the Zen in motherhood, I encounter obstacles every day. They range from the mind-numbing monotony of tidying up toys, to unfinished to-do lists, to managing the household and my own business. And then there’s temper tantrums, being woken up numerous times a night, unexpected trips to the garage to get the car fixed, and my husband having to stay late at the office when we have a family dinner planned.
I’m frequently asked how I fit my own yoga practice back into my life after having kids. Frankly, for me, it was a struggle. I’ve always joked that it’s lucky I teach yoga, or I would never have had time on the mat. And that my downward dog often involves a child crawling under me. I don’t think there is one way of getting back to the mat that will work for everyone; there is no single “answer.” But I do have a couple of suggestions for how to come back to your yoga practice after having kids.
There are many moments in parenting when I wonder if I’m doing it right. I question how my choices will turn out in the long term, and whether each decision I’ve made will have minor or major implications on the lives of our kids. And then there are times when I can take a pause, breathe into the moment at hand, and feel content that things are going okay.
School had just let out, and my six year-old son and I are headed back inside against the flow of student traffic because we forgot something in his cubby. Kids are zooming down the stairs, teachers are urging the slackers to stop dawdling and put on their backpacks. As I head up the stairs, there’s a small space that kids are walking around and, when I get to the landing, I see why. A grade one boy is sitting on the floor, with tears streaming down his face, gripping a Tupperware container.
I don’t know any parent who hasn’t experienced some kind of struggle with their kids at bedtime. There’s a reason for the extreme popularity of the book Go the F&@k to Sleep. Reading stories is always an important part of our night-time ritual but I also use a few other tools that have saved my sanity and helped my little ones slip into slumber with greater ease. Some worked for a few months, some a few weeks, some are used on rotation, and some have become a standard part of our bedtime routine.
There is this myth of motherhood that has been perpetuated over the years about moms who do it all and how does she do it and oh-my-god-how-do-you-manage? I admit, I’m guilty of it. I look at other moms and wonder how they can look like they just came from the salon when I know full well they were wrangling four kids through breakfast and the get-to-school routine. We all have our struggles so why do we think that everyone else is handling things with seeming ease?
Who doesn’t want to be happy? Or want their kids to be happy?
According to Richard Davidson, a professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, it’s simple. Just as we can acquire a skill like learning to play the violin, we can learn to be happy through mindfulness.
With my kids now ages eight and five, our family came out of the holidays this year in a completely different way than we did a few short years ago. We actually started the year off relaxed and energized for the coming weeks and months. Before the back-to-school rush, my husband and I were reminiscing about the early years of our children's lives, and memories started to surface of the first Christmas we were new parents. Lizzie was three months old, and despite living six hours away from our closest family members, we had decided to do a whole bunch of traveling to see everyone.
