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Andy worked on Saturday morning, so Liam and I had the whole day to ourselves. It was like a dream. No painting, no plans to be anywhere. Just. Us. So I decided to take him to Mommy and Baby Yoga at a studio in Camp Hill (about 35 minutes away, for those who care). So I dressed him in a little comfy outfit, put on my yoga gear, grabbed my mat (never been to a yoga class, yet I own a mat. Go fig.) and out the door we went.
When I was imagining baby yoga, I was expecting a few twenty-something moms, driving in their Volvos and other five-star safety test rated cars, toting immaculate GAP-wearing babes with perfectly organized Coach diaper bags. I pictured perfect bodies and perfect pony tails and perfect nails. Essentially just a photoshoot for Fit Pregnancy Magazine.
When we got there, we were early and they weren't open yet. The teacher wasn't even there. Liam and I sat and watched the cars until a VW mini bus pulled up, the bumper sticker on the side pondering, "Got Autoharp?" Since I had forgotten my autoharp, I was interested to see who was getting out of the hippy van, and if she in fact had remembered hers.
If I had to make a guess, I'd say the girl was younger than me, her name was Katie and her baby's name was Rose. She was about four months old. (Liam immediately tried to rip off her face. I intervened with a quiet "gentle, Liam" and he decided to hold her hand instead.) We started talking about breastfeeding and I proudly announced that I had made it to five months (just about) and Liam was healthy and happy. She had plans to breast feed until Rose was graduating high school. Oops. But she was friendly and I liked her.
The teach arrived and opened the class room, and we went in. The teacher was a low talker and slightly vague about where we should sit and what we should do. In the front of the yoga area there was a little boutique which was filled with organic products, baby wearing apparatus, and breast feeding paraphernalia. A huge sign stated, "We welcome breast feeding here." Katie immediately whipped one of hers out and Rose obliged.
A third mom came in toting a PJ wearing baby named Zade who was a few weeks older than Liam. He had curly hair and his skin was like milk chocolate. He was busy chewing on his fingers, which lead me to believe he too was getting teeth. HE was no where as active Liam, but I've often noticed that Liam is far more active than other babies.
Which is probably why he wouldn't lay still when we were doing yoga over him, and why every time I tried to do the baby stretches and massages that Low Talker was instructing us to do, he would laugh and flip over and try to crawl away. Zade ended up falling asleep. Rose was breast fed again and changed. Her brightly colored cloth diapers intrigued me, but not enough to go out and buy a bunch.
Liam was enjoying it for the most part, mostly gawking to see exactly what Rose was doing, but he enjoyed the ups and downs and he giggled with all the massages we were instructed to do. He wanted to stand and flip over and crawl and basically just take Low Talker's place at the head of the class. I finally popped in a pacifier so he'd calm down a little. Every mother gasped.
She didn't just put that dreaded piece of plastic in her child's mouth...did she?
Oh yes, she did.
At the end of the class, the teacher turned out the lights and we were supposed to fold our children's hands in ours and repeat this mantra type thing and then say three "oms" and say "Namaste" to our babies. Yeah, as you can imagine, Liam was like, "You said we'd go for breakfast." And wanted nothing to do with the class finale.
So much to Low Talker's chagrin, we will not be going back to Baby Yoga. As much as I had high hopes, it just wasn't a good fit. I don't think I was the kind of mother they were looking for there. Katie and Rose bought the punch card, and then started an in depth discussion on cloth diapering. We snuck out. She had mentioned starting a baby dance class, which is more up Liam's alley, but we will start baby swim class in July and try that.
And then we went for breakfast. And Liam got a pancake in the shape of Mickey, and he was in heaven.
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