This morning was one of those rare — like, white buffalo rare — days where I woke up before the kids. Even though it was a “mommy morning” (hubs and I alternate the early parenting shift), I managed to get my butt out of bed and on to the mat for a lovely, gentle practice that was mostly about being on the floor and giving a shot of oil to my Tin Man hips. (Reclined hand to big toe pose, crescent pose, cobbler pose, pigeon pose, with a couple of downdogs thrown in for good measure.)
I had just flipped open my dog-eared copy of The Woman’s Book of Yoga and Health to see which poses boost immunity, as my adorable little germ smugglers have brought YET ANOTHER virus into the house which I have YET AGAIN fallen prey to. Seated twist, check. Legs up the wall, check. All that was left to do was a corpse pose. And that’s when my daughter walked in.
Luckily, I have two yoga mats, one of which is blue — her favorite color. She said, “Mommy I wanna do yoga too.” I did have to check myself, because part of me was wishing I’d been done one minute earlier and we could now be on our way downstairs to proceed with our standard routine. But hey, I’m no dummy. If the kid wants to get her yoga on, and time allows, let’s do it.
She plopped her butt down on my bolster and then laid back so her head was on the floor, knees bent. “Mommy, this is crab pose, try it!” I tried it. Felt pretty darn good. Then she flipped over on to hands and knees, put her forehead on the floor, and reached back and grabbed her feet. “Mommy, this is knee stand, try it!” I had no idea if I was going to be able to pull this one off, but I managed a fair approximation.
And then I said, “OK baby, time for the last and most important pose, lie still on your back and listen to your breathing pose.” I lay down in corpse pose, and she “fixed” my arms so they didn’t touch her mat. Then she lay down on her stomach with her hands underneath her and said, “Mommy this is cloud pose.” “Are you pretending you’re a cloud floating through the sky?” I asked. She nodded. Then she snuck one hand out from under her and held my hand. And we lay there for a minute, quiet, floating. Perfect.
