the early bird and her worms

First day that dawns in autumn. Hello wood stove. How I love thee.

I woke with Sandi at 4:55 a.m. She was off to the gym before work and I was off to the living room to my yoga mat. I am in week 3 of another 13 week round of P90X and my dedication is unwavering. My muscles are back, my body feels good, my mind is set right and I like putting my jeans on. Need I say more?

It took a few minutes of ash cleaning, kindling gathering and general greasing of the fire-making skills but soon a snap and crackle filled the dimly lit living room. Still dark outside but no longer 64 degrees inside. I was on my way to a somewhat ridiculously long yoga workout. At an hour and 32 minutes it is hard to get through without some commercial interruption. Thus the early waking. I especially like to get at least through the first 52 minutes of it which is all the standing postures where they build on each other and the difficulty comes from the momentum.

Socks off, yoga mat flat out before me, fire aflame... Maya wakes up. 5:12 a.m. NOT FUNNY.
Wide awake, standing in crib, full grin.

Bring her down, change her, feed her. She makes faces at Sandi who is now late for her workout. Set her down to begin, heavy feeling in my heart because I did NOT wake this early to have company. Plus, it is hard to relax the mind when you're watching a baby, hoping to preserve her life lest she try to threaten it by putting small airway obstructions in her trachea.

A few minutes into the warm-up, the phone rings. It is the hospital calling to see if Sandi wants to be on call. Spend the next 5-10 minutes trying to locate her at Gold's Gym (through a receptionist who misunderstands me and hangs up after saying, "Okay, I'll tell her to get to work right away.") She declines call which is a good move since she is already up and out of the house through quite a bit of effort on her part.

Press play, working into sun salutation. Maya begins to rub her eyes. YES!

Put her up to bed. It is now 6 a.m. All is quiet in the house. How long will I have until the next one wakes? Miraculously, I get through the hard part, ready to move to balance postures, when I hear Ella ("Momma?") from upstairs. Go up and get her.

After getting Ella something to eat and drink, twice, since the first thing I brought was wrong, go back to yoga. Maya wakes up 20 minutes later after a one hour nap.

Proceed into the shoulder stand portion of the workout and then a very interesting thing happens. Let me try to paint the picture. I am in a posture wherein I am lying on the floor, feet over my head, knees by my ears. This leaves a small opening between my legs where my knees are apart and my face is between them, pretzel-like, with me looking up at the ceiling. Maya thinks this looks like a fun structure to climb. She pulls herself up by holding my legs and then plays peek-a-boo with me, looking at me between my knees. Deciding to take it to the next level, she then puts her chubby little hand between my knees and grabs my face- grabs it- my nose, lips, eyeballs. I am defenseless in the somewhat tricky pose and my almost 1-year-old is mangling my face. Hello serenity.

I finish the yoga workout approximately 2 1/2 hours after I begin. But I did it. Then we had breakfast, Ella and I painted some questionable faces on the mini-pumpkins Sandi brought home yesterday, did some quick dancing in the living room and took her to school. I am supposed to be paying bills now but am blogging instead.

Lastly... we were in Target with my mom a couple of days ago. Out of the blue, Ella says, "I want to pretend Gramma's a dog and walk her on a leash." Okay...

10 more days until Sandi's birthday and our get-away (aptly named) at the Lucerne Inn!