Alternate Version

Kids are so frackin' smart. I think my daughter is really, really bright, and I also know that all the kids I've ever met are super smart too. At the age of 4 (or "4 and a turd"), her brain is absolutely on fire!

I guess between birth and 3 is where they learn the most (I feel like I've heard that, or perhaps I'm making that up--either way, it's an impressive statistic, no?), and I heard on an episode of This American Life that around middle school, brain activity kind of levels off for a bit. It's not like they become dumb, it's just not the optimal time to be learning new things.

But back to Zora. She asked a really intelligent question question as we were laying in the dark together, me trying to get her to fall asleep (she does some of her best work during this time), then proceeded to give me an absolutely fantastic answer. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did:

We were laying there together, and suddenly Zora sat up and said "Mama, what about the people... well the person, the very first person? How did that person grow up without anyone to take care of her?"

Part of me wanted to squelch this, get her to go to sleep, and come back to it in the morning. But I know that's not how she operates. I replied, "Wow, that's a really big question. How do you think that worked?"

"I think that in the time of the dinosaurs, there was a dinosaur village, and they had a statue of a human. All of a sudden, there was a really big and powerful storm. It killed all the dinosaurs, and there were none left on the whole planet. But then the storm came down on the statue, and suddenly the statue became real. It was a girl, and she looked around and said 'What is all this?'

Then she decided to become a builder, like a construction worker. She decided to build a house. Every day she would go to the store and buy wood for her house. She worked very hard building this house, and she liked being a worker.

There was another big storm, and there was another statue in the old dinosaur village. That storm made the other statue alive. It was a papa. When he turned around and saw the storm, he was really scared. Then suddenly he saw the house. He ran to it, ran inside, slammed the door and locked it. When he turned around, he saw the worker girl. She said she wanted a baby. He took some seeds out of his pocket, then put them back in and said 'That will have to wait until tomorrow'.

The next day the papa gave the worker girl the seeds and she ate them. Then she had a baby growing in her. A couple of weeks later the baby came out. The baby was a little girl, and she grew up to be a construction worker too. "

Zora proceeded to weave the tale of an entire society of construction workers. The men didn't give birth to babies, but they would carry babies in a sling while they worked. It sounds like it took many generations to build, what I later found out, was a castle (like the castle we went to today for E's b-day party--The Museum of Flight! "Yes," I told her, "that was a lovely castle."). The workers would die, but their children and grandchildren would grow up and keep building.

At the end of all of this, I told her "Well this is quite an amazing hypothesis you had, and that was a lovely story!" To which, she replied "Well, I don't really know if it's true. I don't know if a storm can come down and turn a statue into something real"...

Coyote

So, Zora and I had a run-in with a coyote today. For reals. He was HUGE (like the size of a German shepherd)! At the time, I was convinced he was a wolf. I was scared, which Zora could totally smell. I told her to get ready for me to stick her up in a tree, in case he started to approach. She said "ok". I was armed only with a piece of bark Zora had picked out for an art project. I knew not to run away, but I wasn't sure if I should try to scare him away or not. We stood and stared at each other for about 5 minutes, until he decided to walk away--toward our car. Once he passed our car, I managed to unlock it (my hands were shaking pretty hard), threw Zora inside, jumped in myself, and then leaned on the horn. I know, the horn honking is pretty dorky, but I was so freaked out!

I'm not far enough away from the situation that I'm no longer shaking, BUT, next time I go to Grace Cole Nature Park, I will definitely come with a big group of *noisy* people! I think one of the reasons the coyote was out and about was the park was completely deserted. It was a very pretty park though...

The one shaky shot I got when I first saw him, before he saw us!

I told you so!

A little over a year ago, I posted this photo of Zora eating her lunch (see original post):

 

And then  I took this one a few days ago. Notice any resemblance?

Our Camellia

After 5 straight weeks of filling our yard waste bin with the branches and leaves from our camellia bush, today was finally the last load. This story is probably told better though, in pictures...

Zora hugging her beloved "climbing tree" early this fall.

The camellia is the big shrub in the background.

Zora climbing her tree.

Her favorite spot to sit.

And then it snowed, and sleeted and camellia snapped in two :-(

Alex got to work immediately cutting
branches off the downed portion.

Shrub carnage.

Split in two.

Doesn't look too good.

A little lopsided.

Alex with a chainsaw!

Bernadette and Marcel helping out too!

The downed portion was left behind to see if it
would grow. It is now a favorite little fort.

And this branch is a train. Or a bus. Depends on the day.

We'll see how she does through the spring and summer
before making any final decisions.

Om

To my delight, Zora has gotten to see me practice yoga pretty regularly lately. She's usually running around playing, arranging toys, looking at books, and sometimes crawling under me or on top of me in postures. The other day though, I stepped up to the front of my mat to do the opening prayer, and Zora asked "Can I chant with you?" Then she busted out with the prayer (in Sanskrit). I guess it shouldn't have been too surprising, as she's been hearing me chant it for awhile now, but it still took me awhile to learn it myself. She definitely has her father's brain when it comes to memorizing things! This morning I managed to catch her on tape. And yes, that's Zecky cleaning himself in the background ;-)

4 Things I Learned This Week

1. Just because you know how to use a pair of scissors doesn't mean you know how to cut hair.
2. Cutting hair is difficult, and cutting bangs is difficult-er.
3. A three-year-old will not only forgive you for giving her a bad haircut, she will adore the haircut, and still love you crazy hard.
4. Zora can rock any haircut you throw at her. This will be handy in life...

Way shorter and crookeder than I intended,
but you can see her beautiful face!

A Shift

A little over a month ago, Zora and I went in for our yearly physicals. I wasn't too surprised when I stepped on the scale to find that I had gained almost 10 pounds over the past year (we don't have a scale at home, so I never weigh myself). Zora is still nursing, but far less frequently, and I probably haven't adjusted my diet to match. What really hit me though, was when my ND asked me what kind of exercise I was getting. "Um, none really". This was the first time I have ever had that answer, and it felt kind of like a kick in the stomach to me.

I've always been pretty active, and when I started my Ashtanga practice (it will be 8 years this March!), it was the first yoga practice I had that was so physically rigorous. It felt like I was exercising as well as doing yoga. I should probably stop here, since I know a lot of people do consider yoga to be exercise, and it certainly can be. I am not intending to discount or belittle that in any way. It's just to me, the reason I did yoga was not for exercise. Sometimes it was for physical reasons--it did make my body feel better. Mostly though, it was a way for me to calm my mind, my spirit, and be present in both. Exercise was always a separate endeavor for me. When my Ashtanga practice started to be 2 hours, 5-6 days a week though, it seemed like a bonus to be able to count that time as exercising as well. And I think somewhere along the way, I became attached to that. Attached to my yoga practice exercising my body.

I've chronicled here, on this blog, the journey I've had with my Ashtanga practice. My practice has gone up and down. I stopped for awhile, and started up again, only to stop again. I've felt all kinds of frustration over not being able to do certain postures, and having such severe wrist pain that I could no longer do vinyasas. I tried making my practice public a little, to keep myself accountable. I tried practicing in "secret", without Alex even knowing (only Zora knew, since she was there). I think all of these things were symptoms and consequences though, of my attachment to my yoga-exercise. I wanted that rigorous practice back. That was what I was working toward. To do any less than that, I would not be getting the exercise I needed. But I wasn't even close to achieving this goal, which just led to more frustration.

So I completely stopped again. And it sucked. Then, somewhere along this path of no-yoga-at-all, there was a shift. Something clicked and I realized that, even if I was exercising my body during my yoga practice, that was not what I wanted my practice to be about, and I needed to let go of that attachment. I decided to start off again, with sun salutations as a goal, and that's it. So far, every time I've practiced, I've gone beyond the Surya Namaskaras, which is fine, but I'm intentionally not trying to build up to something. I need some time to get to know my practice again, for what it is--yoga.

For now it's taking place in the middle of our living room (not in the yoga room), because that's a place where I know I can exist peacefully for 20 minutes. Sometimes Alex is there to interact with Zora,  and tend to her if needed. Sometimes I am alone with Zora and my practice is interrupted briefly a couple of times. For the most part though, Zora seems cool with me yoga-ing in the living room.

I'm using these 20-30 minutes a day as a way to reacquaint myself with a practice that I don't want to lose completely. Even in the middle of my living room, with the noise and activity going on around me, I'm able to find little moments of calm and clarity. And really, that's all I ever would get even when I was practicing in a room full of Ashtangis surrounded by all kinds of wonderful yoga energy, or alone in our yoga room at home, before Zora was born, with nothing to think about but my practice. Little moments.

And exercise will be separate. I'm finding ways to exercise that will fit in with all the craziness and business of my life. I just started hooping. We'll see if it sticks. I hope next year when I go in for my annual exam, I will be able to say "yes, I am exercising regularly, and I have my yoga practice". And the scale can shove it, since I really don't care what it says!