El Nino's Big Adventure

I realized just this week that a) I have been struggling with myself to become the "perfect mother" who, of course, does not exist. And that b) in order to be an adequate mother I need to just be myself and that c) anything less than that is a failure. And realizing all of these things means that sometimes I will choose selfishly to do what feels right to me - like practicing yoga instead of holding el nino while he sleeps.

Now some of you are reading this and thinking, well duh! And I even thought that myself. But what makes sense in theory is sometimes very difficult to put into practice. I'm not sure I have much more to say on this subject other than that I am grateful to have come to this point. I only hope that I can remain a practictioner in this regard.

I have not been able to mediate for quite some time, and it is not all due to the new demands of motherhood. But the understanding that I have now of what I have been doing came out of my first mini-meditation session in quite a long time. It felt good to sit. It felt right. It felt like I was coming back to "me" - whoever that is.

El has changed my life, and I sometimes don't recognize it. I started work two weeks ago. So that felt good, felt familiar. But not much else has felt familiar since before el nino was born. This motherhood thing is challenging to say the least, and most of the time I really don't feel like I know what I'm doing. But I just keep plugging on. So when I can do the things that I like to do (like yoga, like meditating, like visiting with friends) while el nino is in the room or in my arms or just in my life, it feels really good, it feels like icing on the cake, it feels like victory. And who wouldn't want a mother who feels good, who feels joyous and victorious. Maybe, just maybe, the child of such a mother will learn to feel that way about himself.