Episode 7 - Yoga with my 3 year old

Yes, I should know better.  But between the small people, the husband, my work and running a household, almost all the hours my day are spoken for and finding a few minutes to exercise can be tricky.

So with the baby asleep and Smudge happily watching Bob the Builder on DVD on our laptop, I cued up a yoga session on the TV.  Here is the breakdown of the next 30 minutes:

An impossibly perfect and limber creature on screen began intoning instructions at me and I figured the first exercise wasn’t too hard.  All I had to do was simply breathe and lift my arms over my head and back down. 

After a minute of heavy inhalations, Smudge looked up curiously from his DVD and decided to join in.  Standing next to me, he waved his arms, huffing and puffing.  “Isn’t my son adorable!?”  I thought to myself.  About 20 seconds later, it all went downhill.

It was my own fault really:  As I leaned into triangle pose, I clearly represented a challenge to my son that had to be accepted.  Smudge decided to climb Mt. Mummy by grabbing my track pants and sticking his foot into the back of my knee.  Unfortunately my pants slipped and made it all the way to my calves before I could straighten up and scoot him away.  As I yanked up my trackies and hoped no one was looking through the window, the yoga teacher on the screen had already moved on.

In downward dog, Smudge crawled beneath me, rolled over, looked up and giggled.  “Hello mummy!” he shrieked delightedly.  The next pose required me to put my foot exactly where his cute little face was planted, so I shuffled over a few feet.  He followed.  

“Hello mummy!”  

I moved back. 

“Hello mummy!”  

I gave up.

Five minutes later, I was kneeling in child’s pose, with my head on the ground and the teacher saying things like, “Really relax into this position, just breathe.”  All of a sudden, my son launches himself off the couch onto my back.  “Horsey!  Nay, mummy, nay!”  All of the wind knocked out of me, I pushed up to try and remove him, but he simply locked his surprisingly strong legs around my waist and giggled.  “Come on mummy!  Nay!”

Finally, the end of the session came.  I lay on my back, attempting to complete the obligatory relaxation period while keeping one eye cracked open for any other sneak attacks.

I was surprised.  Smudge crawled up to me, laid his little head on my shoulder and gave me a kiss.

It was the perfect work out.