Balancing Motherhood, Yoga and Writing

After an exhausting day yesterday I decided to treat myself to curling up with a DVD: ‘Closer’, a film with Jude Law, Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman. As depressing as it was about the state of modern relationships, I enjoyed the movie and felt well-rested from doing nothing but lie on the couch all evening!

Rarely, the Pibler slept three hours solid thus allowing me to watch most of it undisturbed. As usual, though, I first had to deal with the guilt of not doing any writing or anything productive. I decided at the last minute on Sunday night not to go to the breastfeeding counselling diploma course on Monday. A conversation with a good friend helped me realise that I was over-committing myself again, and that I had been ignoring my feelings of not feeling ‘right’ about leaving the Pibler for six hours without breastfeeding him. I felt a huge sense of relief once I made my decision, although I hope that I can still do the course in the future. I think I have been operating under an assumption that ‘more is better’, when in fact I have enough going on as a mother-writer-yogi! I need to relax into that more and allow more spaces in my life. It’s an ongoing process and my attempts to bring more balance into my life often feels like ‘two steps forward, three steps back’.

As my partner has not been enjoying our pots and pans being tossed about (and one sieve broken) by the Pibler’s attempts at ‘cooking’, I bought him two pots at a charity shop yesterday, as well as a whole toddler tea set. Even so, dinner preparation time last night was extremely fraught as no matter what I tried, he was cranky and whiny! It was so frustrating: he’d only napped for a measly half an hour during the day, so was over-tired, but we’ve realised that too-long naps impair his sleep at night, so it’s a Catch-22. 

I tried putting him in his booster seat so he was closer to my level to see what I was doing as I cooked, giving him a carrot or two to ‘chop’ with his safe knife, and so on. He had been quite happy playing next to me with washing-up water before dinner while I washed the dishes, but by the time I was cooking he had had enough. We’d had a busy day of me volunteering at the breastfeeding drop-in while the Pibler played around and alongside his ‘friends’ (he seemed mildly disconcerted by me holding a 2-week-old baby whose mom had gone to the bathroom - I couldn’t believe how light he felt!), then going to a meeting where I helped set up (where he had his brief nap), and then some grocery shopping. 

Although I’ve been feeling quite overwhelmed by it all again lately, I’ve had a week of unexpected abundance: receiving two parcels of clothes and books for the Pibler (from my mother and his other grandmother), a vegetable stall worker giving me some basil and a banana for free (for no particular reason!), finding an unexpected 50p, and the bus driver letting me have a free ride up the hill at the end of my long day yesterday. People seem to be kinder, lately, and I wonder if it’s because I’ve been practicing the ‘Metta’ (loving-kindness) Buddhist meditation, both as a sitting practice and just walking around during the day. This is one where you cultivate feelings of wishing people well, wishing them to be happy and free of suffering. So I think I’ve possibly been giving off a different vibration than usual.

My ribcage, stomach muscles and legs still ache after the strong navel set I practiced at sadhana on Sunday: it’s called Nabhi Kriya and it’s hard to believe I once did it as a 120 day practice (the same set every day for 120 days). The Pibler likes to climb on top of me and poke me in the exact spot of the ribcage where I am sore!  Today we are having a more relaxed day with no plans as such, and tonight I’m teaching my Kundalini yoga class.