How a Real Mom Does Yoga

It is afternoon, and the three-year-old is settled down in front of the tv for his alloted screen time. He has enough snacks and drink to last the hour, or so I hope. The baby is asleep in her swing. I pray she stays sleeping. (She is a newborn, a good sleeper, but you never know).

The lulu's are put on. The candle is lighted. The mat rolled out. The toddler beckons. I politely attend to his needs and remind him I am going to be doing yoga so I can't be readily available.

Inspiring music hits the airwaves. I can already feel my body soften. I start my ujjayi breath while kneeling over and picking up toys. With the space uncluttered just enough to exsist in my concentrated yoga bubble, I say a little prayer for help to stay focused on the task at hand. I only  have so much time...go, go go!

With divine power I hit the mat, trying to ignore the kitchen to my left where dishes are piling up, seemingly expanding exponentially each minute. Curling into child pose, arms extended, I draw deep breaths up my spine and into my back ribs.

Twentish minutes into the practice, the baby wakes up calls for my attention. With all the sun-salutes and vinyasas, I am thankful for the concentrated time I have had (while fighting  the compulsion to pick up that random piece of cereal on the floor). I try not to desire more time to practice. Desire creates attachment, I remind myself, and attachment leads to samsara.

I get the baby and place her on her pillow next to my mat. She remains pretty contented there, and I buy myself another 15 minutes. My practice now is less focused, but I am enjoying being able to get through some more poses.

Rushing into the closing poses, hoping to finish out the practice, the baby gets fussy. I pick her up and bounce her around, trying to settle her down, while attempting to keep my own mind calm. I put the baby down and manage one more pose, but without success. She needs me. I feed her and concentrate on the flow of my breath, in and out, in and out.

I remember the words my first teacher always spoke, "try to find a sense of peace and equanimity no matter what the challenge." Today my challenge is wanting to finish the practice I started. The energy was building, I was feeling so connected, but now it feels like it all went flop.

After feeding the baby, I blow out the candle, roll up my mat and turn off the music. No use trying to fight it. My practice is over. And that is okay. I am blessed with the riches of little spirits around. And with a smile I kiss my baby, knowing that tomorrow is another day.

My Yogi Dark Side

I call myself a yogi, but here, I will say it...I find it impossible to practice at home. Huh? What kind of yogi can't practice by themselves at home? I could give you a million excuses. Too much clutter, too dusty, too much distraction, and on and on.

At first, I failed to develop a home practice because I was so blessed to be in an environment that offered me regular easy access to great teachers. I could just stop by the studio after work for an amazing ashtanga group practice. Or get up extra early, bike to a  mysore practice on the way to work. I could walk to a practice on weekends, or go to a free class in the park in the summer, and on and on.

Then I moved to Costa Rica, where I lived in the middle of nowhere. Now I was ready to go deep and really make waves into my yoga practice.  I remember one great practice I did on the deck amid the trees, listening to the waterfall, surrounded by nature. But then, each morning after I couldn't get out of bed. I was so tired. I couldn't figure out why. I got so mad at myself. Since it is coolest in the mornings, it is the best time to practice.

Soon after, I started to feel so sick in the mornings. What is going on with me? Oh whoops, it turns out I was pregnant.

I continued to teach yoga though. For a month I stayed at an ecolodge on the Osa peninsula. There, I taught twice a day, morning sickness and all. But every time I sat down to practice by myself, nestled in a tropical paradise, I just felt so off and so ill, and so if I did anything, I would just flop into soft stretches.

Finally, I had my baby and my body(ish) back. Joy, I thought, I could finally start to practice at home! No. Sorry. I have the fussiest baby in the world (so it seemed) who never slept and needed me at every moment.

Attempting to do yoga with my three-month old son

  

I remember laying out my mat in our small cabin home in the country next to the wood-stove. My son, just a few months old, sat on his pillow watching me with wide open eyes. It was so cold outside, and the wood-stove helped me to loosen up quick. Not quick enough though. Even while talking to and incorporating my son into the practice, he became weary. I aborted my attempt at yoga, and didn't try again until the spring.

I just felt all too frustrated, and innately sad. Now living far off in the country, I didn't have access to teachers and yoga studios that I once had. I missed my old teachers, my old body, my old yoga practice. Doing my new (pathetic) version of yoga just made me all the more sad. So, excuse #52, instead of dealing with the frustration and sadness, I just choose to focus on my new baby. And that was okay. My practice had just changed for now. I have plenty of time to be practice yoga, but only so much time to have babies.

With my son a few months old, I started teaching yoga regularly again, and it made me happy to at least be doing a bit of yoga. In the spring, I'd try to do a few stretches in the morning sunlight on the porch after my husband left for work. My son would manage to stay contented at my side for a good 15 minutes, if I was lucky. Until he started to crawl at least.

Spring yoga with my five-month-old son

It was in the spring, that I started to fully accept my new path as the fallen yogi/new mom. The less I strived to be the person I was, the easier it was to be happy just being.

In my old life, I was a "doer" who ran herself ragged from doing thing after thing. Now, busy as I may be with the fussy non-sleeping baby, I was also quite isolated in a new place without any friends. This left me a lot of empty time. I went from learning and practicing, to putting it into practice. To my own dismay, I had no mind or will to sit and practice my hatha yoga or my chants or the vajrayana buddist practices I spent so long learning from my gurus. Now I had to be my own guru and live the practice.

Fast forward to now. My son is three. I have a new baby daughter who is two months. Although I didn't get to practicing yoga like I used to, I did get back into decent yogi shape. However, I didn't do any better with practicing prenatal yoga during this pregnancy either. Even though I taught vinyasa yoga well into my sixth month, my body just screamed at me to do less. Having a toddler was enough. And yes, I admit it. I got lazy. I put my yoga practice down on the list of priorities.

38 weeks with baby #2

Although I felt pretty healed up and back to it after about a month post-birth, I have been feeling extremely weak and "empty" feeling. Not the good sunyata emptiness either (the Buddhist view that everything is devoid of any inherent existent). More like the I-have-zero-chi-or-fire-in-my-belly-zombie-no-zest-for-life sort of feeling.

Out of complete fear that I shall remain a zombie the rest of my life, I have broken my old lazy habit and have actually started to practice yoga at home. No excuses.

My little angel girl actually sleeps during the day, unlike her brother. So, while I let my son watch his alloted one-hour or so of video or wi time, I get to indulge in yoga.

The first day back it was completely defeating. Strength and flexibility feeling like they were at ground zero. By day three the flexibility returned, but the core strength was still a far dream away. My mood, however, was starting to improve. Hints of the old bright self are emerging.

I try to do what I can given my circumstances. Sometimes 20 minutes is all I can get. Today, I was blessed with an hour, but as soon as I finally drifted off into savasana, I heard "MOM! I am done! Come wipe my bum!" And I couldn't help but laugh.

House Haunting at Our House

I first noticed our "visitor" immediately after bringing home our new baby daughter. Like a nice wife, I decided to spend the first nights on the couch with the newborn baby. What I didn't realize was that I was being watched.

A month or so prior, I took a trip home to visit my mom. My husband went with my son and some friends to a special native sweat in Kentucky.  They had a fun time, and stayed overnight at the host's house. The host happen to mention that they've had experiences at their house with a ghost. Apparently, the previous owners had a young daughter who had died a few years earlier.

Our friend Mike, a medicine man helper who is very attuned to the spirit world, said he felt the ghost's presence as soon as he stepped outside of the sweat that night. He spoke of feeling her sadness and isolation.

At one point on the way back from the sweat, my son threw a kicking and screaming tantrum until he looked up and stopped crying and laughed. "A pink bunny," he said. Mike and the others looked at each other and thought, uh oh.

"I think that little girl ghost followed us home," said my husband to me one night a few weeks after their trip to Kentucky. "Why," I asked. My husband spoke of hearing strange mischievous knocking sounds. "Oh," I said and didn't think twice about it. Besides, I was the stay-at-home mom who spent most of the time in the house, and I hadn't noticed a thing.

It wasn't until the middle of the night, while sleeping on the couch with my baby girl nestled at my side on the inside of the couch, that I realize my husband may be right.

The last couple nights, my daughter had slept on her boppy pillow at one end of thc couch, and when she woke up, I sleepily nursed her and then put her back on her pillow to sleep. By the middle of the third night, however, the baby has been a little fussy and I have been comforting her back to sleep as we lay on the couch together.

I am in that "in-between" state of half sleep/half wake when I sense a shadow enter the far side of the room and float towards us on the couch. I feel an energy take a hold of my baby and feel her (as clear as day) being lifted up in the air. My whole consciousness jumps awake and I instinctively send huge waves of peace and love to the shadow. I am able to wrestle the baby back to my arms.

I bolt upright, the baby stirs a little, and I put her back to sleep on her pillow where she finally falls into a deep sleep. I turn on all the lights, adrenalin pumping, hands quivering, and light some sage to purify the room.

I manage to calm myself down, trying to reflect on what just happened. I realize that it must of been a spirit or ghost that connected with us. The vibe wasn't bad, nor is it good, it is neutral. But none the less, it was scary. Although, it didn't take the baby away from me on a physical level, I felt the baby being taken from me on some sort of level. I feel sick revisiting that feeling over and over again. It felt as real and potent as if it was my husband lifting her up.

What gets me the most is that I have no control over this situation. Normally, I feel quite safe and secure locking doors, living in a safe place, to make sure strangers don't enter my house at night. But what in the world does one do to keep ghosts out? This is a whole new world for protective services.

As well, I don't like the idea of some ghost stealing my newborn daughter's spirit away! And what for? What are they doing to her? Are they being nice? I am supposed to protect her. I feel so heart-broken that I can't protect her. How many times has it picked her up without me knowing. So many unknowns. I am such a rational person, and I hate the mystery of it all. I start to think that the ghost is stealing her spirit away and then going to enter her body. I think about all I went through the last nine months carrying this little baby just to loose her. I start to think other crazy things too.

Thankfully, not long after, my husband gets up for work and asks why it smells like sage. I tell him to sit down and feel better after I tell him the story. He says that it probably was the little girl ghost, and that she probably just wanted to pick up the baby. Little girls like babies, he said, that is just what they do.

That makes me feel better, but I am still not liking the idea of a ghost in our house.  All day I am a little uneasy about the whole thing. Around ten or eleven o'clock everyone is sleeping and I am on the couch again. The lights are dimmed as usual, and all the hairs on my body seem to stand on end. There is a "spooky vibe" to the whole room all of a sudden. I admit, I am totally spooked out. But I am an adult, and it is silly to be scared. Especially of a little girl ghost.

I start thinking about how sweet little girls are, and try to calm myself down. Then all the scenes from the movie "Exorcism" start to play in my head and I turn to the only thing I know for protection. Softly, out load, I start to pray. I pray to Buddha, the enlightened ones, to Tunkashila, the Great Spirit, Grandmother earth, my guardian angels. I ask them to look out for us, especially to protect my new daughter. My prayer last about a minute, and I finish off with "mitakuye oyasin," the dimmed lights turn up an obvious notch.

That is it. Enough of this toughing it out crap. I stand up and go into my bedroom where my husband is sleeping. He senses my entry and half awakes. I stand there like a scared little girl, and whine, "I'm scared." I tell him what happens, and he says to just sleep in the bed. I grab my daughter and happily sleep next to my husband, baby in the middle. My husband has more experience and confidence in the spirit world than I do, so I am feeling much better.

In bed, it takes me a while to fall asleep. The walls creak, and the tv cracks from time to time. It is not usually this noisy I think. But I am confident that it's just my imagination. My husband wakes up after a load crack a couple times but falls back to sleep quickly. In the middle of the night I wake up and have to go to the bathroom. Hesitantly, I leave the room, and happily note that the energy of the living room is now perfectly fine. No ghost vibes. I fall back to sleep fast.

When my husband and I talk again that evening about it, he mentions that he heard a lot of noise, like creaking and cracking, after I came to bed. I heard it too but it seemed like just the house being a house. No, he said, I was in that "in-between" state and it was intense. He tells me that the little girl was in a wheelchair, and that she probably was still in her wheelchair in her ghost form. "It sounded like she was trying to get into our [small] room but her wheelchair kept hitting against things," he confessed to me. Great, just great, I think.

A week goes by and I learn to fall asleep really fast and not to think about things too much. Until one night, for some reason my daughter and I are sleeping at the foot of the bed together, which happens to be the side closest to the door. Again, I feel the baby being lifted from me. This time I scream my husband's name, but my eyes are closed and I feel more like I am trapped in a dream state. I become a wild women with my screaming and eventually I wake up out of it.

Another week goes by and my husband is talking to Mike on the phone about what to do with the ghost. Mike wants to come to the house and do a ceremony to invoke his helper spirits and other enlightened spirits to come and help "Terry", the ghost, cross over.

That night, after the phone call, my husband is watching television with my daughter fast asleep on the couch wrapped up in blankets on her pillow. Out of the corner of his eye, he  sees the baby flip forward off the couch, pillowing falling on top of her. Luckily, bundled as she was, the baby is fine, and barely stirs.

There was no way for the baby to have fallen off the couch. He said it looked like someone hit the pillow causing it to flip off. He figures, Terry overheard the conversation about trying to get rid of her, and like a little girl, acted out.

"Not cool," I think. No one hurts my baby. Get Mike over here now!

Thankfully Mike does come. He fills his crow pipe, and we all sit down in a circle. He says he senses her presence. There is a chair there for Terry to sit and join us. Mike starts by talking to Terry. He says that he is here to help her, and not to be afraid. This isn't about us wanting to kick her out, but it is about helping her get to where she needs to be. He knows that she is sad, and feels trapped. He understands why she has followed us to this house.

Apparently, Terry's parents were not very nice. The neighbors admitted to finding dead animals, carcases all over their property. Mike thinks that the animal spirits of that land were mad, and could of put a curse on the family for disrespecting the animals.

When Terry saw Mike, my son and the other visitors having childish fun at her house, it was probably the first kid she has seen. She liked their light energy and followed them home.

"I want you to have the experience of becoming a mother yourself," says Mike. "I know you want to, but it is not okay for you to go and pick up the baby." We are here to help. He tells her to please follow the spirit helpers and go to the light. It is a beautiful place, and people who know will meet you there. That is where you need to go in order to be all you can be.

Mike invites her to sit on the chair and be with us, however he senses she is hiding somewhere in the house. He takes the sage bowl and smudges off the house looking for her. He says he finds her hiding in a corner in my son's room.

Back in the circle, he starts to sing sacred Lakota songs which invites in his spirit helpers and tunkashilas. We all take turn saying prayers. We all say that we love her and want to help her. We don't want her to think we are kicking her out. We are not. We are trying to help her cross. Mike also has special protective tobacco we smokes on us to help protect us all.

After, he says, he cannot feel her anymore. He thinks she may have run away. He goes around the house looking for her. He says he doesn't feel her. I don't know exactly how things work, he says, but he hopes the spirits have grabbed her and taken her back. And I hope so too.

And that was that. He leaves us to wait and see.

I hate this not knowing. I am a bit scared of her. If she flipped a pillow then, what will she do to us now? Oh God oh God...

So far so good though...

Just Schedule a C-Section?

A very delicate subject. I firmly believe that every woman has a right to decide how they bring their baby into this world. Drugs, surgery, no drugs, hospital, home, whatever. I try not to judge when I hear of women looking at their calendars and penciling in the time of their c-section, so simply like they are scheduling their next dentist appointment.

Now, pregnant and one week overdue, I am exhausted by days upon days of constant nagging thoughts of the oncoming onslaught of labor, the uncertainty of when it will happen, how it will happen, how long it will take. I constantly question if the baby will fit through this time or will I just end up with another c-section. Not to mention the pain of it all (drugs or no drugs).

Why didn't I just schedule a c-section? I could of just checked my zodiac charts, and chosen a good date and time (and had a happy libra instead of another fussy scorpio), and not have to of carried around this "mental baggage" for the last couple of weeks.

My last birth experience was completely exhilarating. No drugs. Super intense. The highest high I have ever experienced. And then at the end, they realized the baby's head was upside-down and he wasn't fitting through. Subsequently, I spent, what seemed like hours (could of been), of fighting the natural intense instinct to push every couple minutes. I kept, unintentionally, ripping out the IV in my arm. I was hooked to a heart monitor, and forced to breath into an oxygen mask, doing these ridiculous short breaths, and refused the plea for water. Physically, I was suck on the bed in one position. I couldn't move positions even if I tried.

I felt like a specimin trapped to a hospital bed; everything distorted and spiraling out of control. I felt like I was witnessing first-hand some trauma case on TV. Just when I think I possibly can't go on, I am in a surgical room surrounded by people with masks and sterile gloves, and bright florescent lights.

In a blink, there goes my hopes of a peaceful birth, low lights, ending with skin-to-skin connection, a delayed cutting of the cord. A beautiful entry for my baby into this world.

Instead, my son is ripped out of me screaming and (understandably) terrified. I can not help him. The nurses whisk him away to make sure he is okay. He finally comes back fully wrapped and hatted, eyes wide and, I might say, a little pissed off. "Sorry." I say, "we did the best we could." A few minutes with my son, and they whisk him away to the nursery against my wishes, even though he is okay, for the next six hours for monitoring. My heart aches.

No skin-to-skin contact here.
My husband bringing my son over to me for the first time.

It is no wonder that I sit and contemplate my next birth with an element of trepidation and fear.

That said, I have no reason not to believe the next birth will be nothing but utterly uplifting, peaceful and full of deep connection.

Birth of a child, to me, is a major life event. I take it seriously. I see it as a special and sacred event that is an honor bestowed upon women. When everything goes well, a birthing woman can be transported straight to the heavens, connected directly to her deepest innermost self, as well as connected to the "great mystery," or "great void" or "great spirit," whatever you call it.

The shear magnitude of the power a birthing woman 

harnesses within her natural-born body is out of this world. 

It puts her male counterparts attempts at a spiritual-high to shame. 

As a yogi and spiritual conquester, I believe that giving birth naturally is the highest, most empowering experience a woman can have in her lifetime (with exception for some spiritual women).

By giving birth naturally, 

I am truly honored that I get bestowed this tremendous opportunity to test my resolve, and deepen the connection with myself, my baby, my husband, and with the great spirit.

This is what it comes down to for me. Deepening the connection I feel to myself, to life and to others.

That is why I cannot absent-mindedly schedule a c-section, as nice as it does sound to me sometimes. I need to know that I did everything in my power to try to bring my baby into this world as consciously as I could.

I want my baby to start her life journey feeling the full magnitude of the universal life-force that descends when a women labors. I want my baby to know deep into her cell memory that I am there by her side, working with her, doing everything I can to remain focused, in tune, in order to deliver her into the hands of this earth-world as gracefully, and peacefully as I can. I want to be able to hold her for as long as I can, as soon as I can. I want to ease the startling transition to the outside for her.

The first mom/son meeting 

Let the struggle bring us closer together. Bring it on labor. Lets start this journey as mother and daughter out right.

A natural birth is the path I have chosen. I certainly now have much more compassion and understanding for women plagued by fear and who do decide to schedule a c-section.

Every woman is different. Every woman has a different outlook, and a different tolerance level. At the end of the day, it is her big life experience (and babies and dad's) and she has to live with the birth.

Teaching Toddler Yoga - Yes, it is Possible!

I went to teach my first Toddler/Parent yoga class with deep anxiety. I had no idea how it would go. Sure I had a toddler, teach adults yoga, and had several sessions of “Music Together” behind me, but these are toddlers, who at their best, are charming and unpredictable.  Add to it that from all my research, it seems no one really attempts to teach toddlers yoga. It seems like a gap between baby yoga, and teaching children who are mostly five and up. I ask myself, am I crazy!?

At the beginning of class, I explain that children learn best by seeing and doing. If the parent is having fun, doing yoga, the toddlers will look and learn that the class if fun, and is important. Young children do not have long attention spans, so I prepare the parents to let their children oscillate between participating with the group and self-directed play. Group instruction can be overwhelming for toddlers, especially the younger ones.

My goal for the Toddler/Parent yoga class wasn't to simply run the toddlers through movement and poses. What I really wanted to do was get the parent interacting with their child, so they would have "skills" to bring home and do with their toddler later. I also wanted lots of opportunity to "teach at the toddler level", but also give time and space to cater specifically to the parent, so the parent would feel like they also got something out of the class.

For the first class six mom's and six toddlers, (ranging from 17 months - 2.5 years) managed to have a joyful time throughout the class. Both parent and child smiled, clucked like a chicken, did standing/sitting/inverted yoga poses, and played. Many children held tight to mama's leg. But eventually relaxed and let mom do her thing as they toddled behind or around.

Some children were quite observers. Some children excitedly interacted with me. It seems that the toddlers under two were less apt to actively participate. However they did observe and absorb, had fun with mom, and learned about "group instruction" and socialization. In fact, one little observer, I am told, went home and tried airplane pose by himself even though he didn’t try it in class.

The energy in a toddler class can flip on a beat. One moment the toddlers are all deeply engrossed in whirling the yoga straps around. The next second, two toddlers burst into tantrums, and their fitful energy captures everyone's attention. It's up to me to redirect the classes attention to something more attractive (and peaceful) so off we go singing row row row your boat while sitting on the floor, toddler facing parent, "rowing" forward and back. The parents are great at managing any outbursts (which are perfectly expected in a toddler class), but it never really seems to effect the flow of the class. 

Toddlers sure love songs, so it has been fun thinking up poses we could do to songs. For example, we all sing "London Bridges" while the parent does a modified bridge pose (on your hands and feet lifting your seat off the ground).The children love when the bridge falls down and we have to “build it back up with wood and clay”. Some of the children braved crawling under the mama bridge (hoping it didn't break). For the parents wanting more work, I show them the full pose with straight legs to hold while we sing. Some of the children even tried to create their own bridge shape with their bodies.

It was really great to see and teach the same kids each week. Each week the children were more comfortable, participated more and knew what to expect. I was tickled to see some of the older kids really getting into trying the poses with us. Even when I was teaching to the parents, some toddlers would float by and try the pose then float away (or even stay).

I remember one class when we were doing our animal walks in a circle, and 2-year-old Ella calls out "unicorn!" so we all morph into unicorns pointing one arm out of our head and galloping. There is so much give and take, imagination, and intuition happening in each class. As the teacher, it really ignites a special part of me that normally lies dormant. It makes me be spontaneous, and helps to pull my creativity out, while prompting me to stay completely intuitive in the moment, always making sure there is harmony and peace.

The beginning of class is full of fun and energy and enthusiasm, but by the end of class, the mood is calm and relaxed and centered. It always amazes me at how quiet and peaceful the energy is by the end. I look around the room awed by the sweetness of parents lying with their little one by their side.

Another unexpected result of the class is that it has strengthened my mini yoga sessions with my almost-three-year-old son. Before I didn't really know how to teach him yoga at a level he could comprehend. Now I feel like I have a whole pocket of tricks to pull out when we are bored at home and need some movement and interaction. We have created this whole "play" where one of us pretends we are a seed (crouched in a ball with our head down and knees apart) while the other waters the seed until it slowly grows into a tree (eventually moving into tree pose). Then the non-tree picks the apples, and bakes a pie, while the yogi tries to hold the balancing tree pose. Then the tree gets chopped down and made into wood.

Teaching this Toddler/Parent yoga class has definitely touched something inside of me. I am thrilled to expose such young ones to the joy of movement and yoga. Even if they never do yoga again, perhaps when others talk of yoga when they are grown, they might smile remembering that seed planted long ago.

Now that the five-week session at BABS is over, I am missing the weekly buzz. I am bummed that I can't continue teaching my little yogis until January (I am pregnant and due this month). But happy that another teacher is courageous enough to teach it while I am on my maternity leave. 

Toddler Yoga - is it possible?

My son, gifted in movement and agility, has learned to master the downward dog, headstand, shoulder-stand and a few other poses comfortably on his own. It makes me giddy to walk into a room and find him doing his headstand against the wall. It has been two years of me showing him a few poses here and there while his attention was peeked.

I became inspired while at a special children's yoga class lead by none-other-than visiting kundalini yogini and singer Snatam Kaur. Noticing how blissed out we all were and how much the class resonated with my son, I realize - hey, it is not just my wishing thinking, my son really does loves this!

I would love to inspire my son towards a life-long journey in yoga. I also would love to communicate to him the deeper meaning and teachings of yoga to help him navigate and ground himself throughout his life. But how exactly does one do this for a nearly three-year-old? I have been struggling for years now to find a method or good techniques that will engage and teach him on his level.

All the books I have found, and the videos I have seen (including YouTube) demonstrate poses and activities that work best for children in the 5 - 11 year range. There are some great yoga-for-kids stuff out there, just not for toddlers.

Am I crazy to think toddlers can be inspired to do and love yoga?

Maybe. But I wanted to find out. So with my son's potential life-long-love of yoga resting on my shoulders, I offered to teach a five-week session at BABS - Bloomington Area Birth Services. I knew BABS would be the perfect place. It already has a following of hip and aware mommies who came to BABS when in need (aka pregnant) and now visit for support groups, regular play dates and other things.

I went to my first class with deep anxiety. I had no idea how it would go. Sure I had a toddler, teach adults yoga, and had several sessions of Music Together behind me, but these are toddlers, who at their best, are unpredictable. 

Find out how toddler yoga is going, and read samples of my best "toddler yoga activities" in my next post!

More Poop! The Diaper-Guilt Dilemma Calls Again!

I hate disposable diapers as much as any yogi environmentalist. I have as much guilt as any mom who has a conscience and knows better. And yet, I still go for the convenience.

I tried. I really did with my first. I even bought a bunch of great hand-me-down "pocket" cloth diapers. How green is that! I had a blast in the summer time with my son romping around in his colorful trendy cloth diapers. I loved seeing him in them. Ah, and all those colors hanging on the clothes-line. I loved blissfully drinking in the air of being a good little earth-mom.

But then winter came. No more dumping the poop water outside and using the hose. No, it had to come inside, and in my small space.  I had to draw the line. No poop in my sinks. And definitely no unrinsed poop in my washing machine. Ew. Did I mention my very poopy vegetarian son? He has a three-times a day habit, and very loose. Not so friendly. So I failed for most of the year.

Now at two, going on three, my son is *blow whistles now* potty trained.  Yeay, no more guilt about wearing disposable diapers! (Next on our environmental agenda: water conservation). Oh but wait. I am pregnant and only have a couple months break from diapering again. Darn.

I was in our local green baby story, Barefoot Kids, gazing all starry-eyed at the different types of cloth diapers, and all the different inserts, and all the sales. The sales-guy even tried to tempt me with the "hybrid" cloth diapers with the disposable inserts. There was even a diaper swap going on in the next room.

But all the while I knew: NO.

Seriously, I thought, there is only so much poop and pee one woman can be expected to deal with. Two kids is dirty enough. It will be a fight to keep anything clean. I don't need to add a whole new level of dirty feeling to it.

So away I went smiling, guilt free (almost), no money spent.

But now I am getting closer to my due date. The reality of having a brand-spanking-new-barely-been-exposed-to-our-harsh-chemical-ridden-world actual mini-sized human being is smacking me in the face.

I am revisiting everything that may come in contact with her skin, or respiratory system. From chemicals in her bedroom (fake-wood storage unit emitting formeldahyde is out, air-purifier in), to lotions and wipes.

Friends of ours gave us a few packages of their left-over bleached-white cheap newborn diapers. They smelled like plastic. I couldn't help but visualizing that tiny new-born-bum sitting in that plastic, with who knows what chemicals inside. Ah! I suppose I could splurg for a while and get some chlorine-free more natural disposable ones. But they are quite expensive - as much as fifty cents a diaper! That is fifty cents times 8 diapers a day = $120/month on diapers! Not really in the budget. At all.

But at last,  the decision was made for me. So I feel. I was trading in some of my son's old shoes for some newer ones at Once Upon a Child, and happened upon a steal of all steals. While browsing through an aisle, totally put off by most of their overly priced second-hand items, I happened to look down and see a brand new package of very trendy expensive "G-diapers". They were amongst the first generation of "cloth diaper hybrids". They are cloth/velcro fitted with a green disposable insert you can flush or compost. Or you can have the regular cloth insert.

Nice I thought. But how much. Mmm, $15. Okay, well what exactly is in this stash. Turns out this brand new starter pack buys me four g-diapers (two small, two large) and about 40 disposable inserts. Sweet. Somebody didn't price this one properly. The going rate on amazon for such would ring you up to about $80! So, with that little purchase, it sent me into a tissy on getting my hands on more g's.

Sure, buying the refills are a bit expensive, but at least they are biodegradable. And it gives me an easier out if I need it. I hope to get some cloth inserts too to try it out to see if I can handle it. We are in a new house, and hopefully I can rig up a hose that runs from the sink to the toilet to wash them out or something.

Now, my conscience feels a little better. Even if I fail again, I know I tried. I figure I will give the g-thing a go at least for the first few months. I still have my old cloth pocket diapers if I make it beyond three months too. Summer for sure. So, with that, I can feel better about calling myself a proper earth mom.

Read More 10 Weeks Down: A Newbie's Cloth Diapering Review