Baby/Tot Yoga: I Love You

This pose is a Penelope favorite. She soaks up all the eye contact and love. For babies that still don't mind being on their back, lay them down with their feet going towards your body. Take their hands and bring them into the middle of their chest. This simple action of bringing their hands to the midline of their body, helps them with crawling and clapping. And then you say Iiiiiii!




















Next, bring their arms out wide, give them a big stretch, but be gentle. Remember, the younger the baby, the slower your movements should be, so they can process what you are doing. As their arms are out wide, you say Llllloooooovvveeee!

Then bring their arms back to the midline of their chest, but cross one hand over the other and sort of rock them back and forth and say Yyyyooooouuuuu!
Do this several times. For older babies and toddlers, who don't want to lay down, you can do this with them sitting in your lap, facing out to be able to look around.

Just FYI, most of the baby yoga poses I post, I learned at my Itsy Bitsy Yoga training. The founder and creator, Helen Garabedian, has a great book and dvds that you can purchase to help your home practice. Or you can go to her website and try and find a class near you!

Send Me Your Questions!

I have a dear friend, Lia, who has a daughter three months younger than Penelope. We have been friends for almost 10 years. She started sending me emails with questions about birth even before she was pregnant. And once Lucia actually got here, the emails started coming on a weekly basis. She asks me all kinds of questions!! I don't want to toot my own horn, but most of the time I know the answer and if I don't I have a pretty good hunch of where to send her in order to do more research on her own.

I LOVE answering her questions. One of my favorite things to do, is simply to be helpful. I like sharing my information and life experiences, which is, hello, why I started this blog in the first place!

So who's got questions?? Ask me anything! If you stick to the areas of my interest you will likely get a more through answer, but I will try and answer anything. My areas of "specialty" are:

Attachment Parenting
Babies and Toddlers
Breastfeeding
Crafting
Gardening
Green Living
Healthy Living
Pregnancy/Childbirth

You can email me your questions to Info(at)MamaAndBabyLove.com and I will post my answer on the blog for everyone's benefit!

Mama's Musings: The Mastery of Love

I love (no pun intended) the book The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz. I read it about 5 years ago and was blown away by it. If you haven't read it, its a must-read.

I have a 48 card deck with daily affirmations based on the book and I think I have started a new tradition. For the past couple of weeks, I have been reading one card a day to Penelope after she gets a bottle or nurses, while she is still in the mood for a cuddle.

Here's the card I read to her yesterday:

Front:
"Accept your own beauty."

Back:
"You are beautiful not matter what your mind tells you. That is a fact. If you are aware of your own beauty and accept your own beauty, the opinion of others doesn't affect you at all."

Ah, don't you wish your mother had taught you that when you were a baby? Actually, babies already know that. When they become older toddlers and children, they forget this truth, based on what they are seeing around the house. They instill their parents belief systems about themselves as their own. So really these cards are daily reminders for me. Reminders that I need accept my own beauty, in order to pass that skill along to Penelope.

Reading these cards everyday is also a nice pause, something else that helps me be present and in the moment with Penelope.

What do you think of our new tradition? Do you do anything similar?

Friday Link Love: 6.25.10

This is a funny blog post in response to Kim Kardashian's Tweet that the mother next to her in a restaurant breastfeeding was "gross and needed to cover up." I officially DISLIKE Kim Kardashian now.

Here is an article from the Columbia Tribune about moms breastfeeding in public. I think that more moms need to breast feed in public, WITHOUT covering up, to show how normal and natural it is.


This is a nice prayer/positive thinking for the oil spill in the Gulf. I am a big believer in prayer/positive thinking and visualizations to help manifest what you want in life.

Also, I am switching my Link Love to Friday's, because I am only going to post during the week now. There is just so much going on in my life right now as we prepare to move to Santiago, Chile!

And the Winner Is....

Sarah!

Sarah posted on the Breath Awareness link and

Sarah said...

I go through the same emotional process when I am going through my daughters clothes when she is growing out of them. I feel a bit saddened when I can't remember everything but am thankful for what I do remember and am trying to get better about writing memories down.
June 13, 2010 2:37 PM

Please email me at Info@MamaAndBabyLove.com and I will mail the diaper bag to you!

DIY: Toy Storage Bag

 
I made a bag with a zipper to house some of Penelope's wooden blocks the other week. I used scrap fabric I had left over from when I reupholstered a chair when I was pregnant. I also recycled and used the pink zipper I tore out of the Lilly Pultizer skirt I made into a Pillow Case dress. So it doesn't really match but I figured reusing the zipper was more important.
 
I didn't take a super great picture of the bag, because Penelope was being so cute with her blocks. The girl makes some funny faces.
 

Here is where I learned to make this type of bag. I didn't double line it like the tutorial, because this was my first time using a zipper and honestly I just couldn't figure it out, maybe next time.

Oh and if anyone is wondering her dress is organic and from Sage Creek Organics. Pretty cute, right?

Yoga for Mama and Child: Down Dog

Oh, how I love this pose! It's one of my favorite yoga poses. It is a great all over body stretch and you are giving lots of muscles in your arms, back and legs a bit of work out too. Now, its been awhile since I have been in a regular yoga routine for myself, so don't laugh at my technique! And besides, you are doing yoga no matter what the pose looks like, as long as you are breathing. In through your nose and out through you nose!

Start on your hands and knees. Any yoga I do these days, involves Penelope. She loves to be underneath me with this pose. She giggles so much when I do Down Dog! Then you lift your tail bone in the air and put your body into an upside down V. Your hands and feet should be equal distance apart. Try to balance your body's weight equally between your hands and your feet. You are trying to get your heals on the ground and your back flat at the same time. If that is not possible, bend your knees to get your back flat and then slowly work on your flexibility, so that you can straighten your legs and then get your heals down. Come in and out of the pose as you need to rest. A pregnant variation of this pose, would be to place your hands on a wall and to make a 90 degree angle with your body.


Even babies can do Down Dog! This is Miss Ava at about 10 months old. She had been doing Down Dog about a month at this point. Babies will naturally do Down Dog as they are learning to crawl and walk, but at about 9 or 10 months, you can teach them to do it when you say Down Dog!! Anytime you see your baby naturally do it, say "Yay!!! Down Dog!!! Good job!!! Then do it yourself and say again Down Dog!! Similar to the concept of how you would teach them sign language by repeating the word and showing the sign over and over again. Eventually, they put the word recognition and the body movement together and ta da! They can do Down Dog! Let me tell you it's the best feeling in the world when they do their first yoga pose on their own! Ava's self esteem sky rocketed, she was so proud of herself. And that continued all through her toddler hood. Yoga is something all babies and toddlers can excel at. So not only is it good for their health it is great for their self esteem.

Just FYI, most of the baby yoga poses I post, I learned at my Itsy Bitsy Yoga training. The founder and creator, Helen Garabedian, has a great book and dvds that you can purchase to help your home practice. Or you can go to her website and try and find a class near you!