She sits in my lap and we read this same book three times in a row. Each time we finish it, she says, “Again.”

My throat feels dry. My head aches dully. I want a sip of water. I read the book again; we get to the end, and her little voice says, “Again.”

I put the book down and she cries. Her cry gets louder, and my headache becomes momentarily sharper. I tell her Mommy needs something to drink.

The truth is that even though this day is coming to a close, I haven’t fully woken up. The truth is that this book isn’t really that cute. The truth is I know she wants to read, but I have a billion other grown-up things I feel like I should do.

After drinking some water, I decide to return to the couch, where she still sits holding her book and whimpering. She climbs back into my lap.

Her big sister, home from school, leaves the TV show she was watching, and curls up next to me. I cover her feet and legs with a blanket, too, and squeeze a girl’s hand in each of mine. We read the same story together again, and then they temporarily leave my side to get more books.

We sit intertwined like this—reading, and holding hands, and snuggling—for about 15 minutes.

Dinner still needs to be made.

The kitchen is filled with both clean dishes that need to be put away and dirty ones that need washing.

I still have to make my oldest’s lunch for school tomorrow.

Both of my kids should probably have a bath.

For 15 minutes, I ignore all of this and instead bury myself inside of the softest part of being a mother—that special place where there’s only me with my children, holding hands and being together.

The dishes can wait 15 minutes.

Starting dinner can wait for 15 minutes.

Packing a school lunch can be done in 15 minutes.

Everything can be put on hold for this tiny span within my life, but if I get up and walk away to do these chores weighing on my grown-up mind, and come back only a minute later to say, “Ah, never mind kids, let’s read a bit,” more often than not they’ve found another little kid interest and have moved on.

And I’m left standing in the doorway alone, wishing I’d sat down for just 15 minutes.

The post It’s Just 15 Minutes to a Grown-Up, but Not to Kids. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

The makings of a mommy timeout:

It’s difficult for me to embrace time to myself unless it’s productive.

There are things that I do that I don’t feel as guilty for doing by myself—exercise, a doctor’s appointment, or a much-needed massage for example—and these things I rarely do alone, too.

My workouts are often on my yoga mat, next to two tiny unrolled mats  beside mine, where little girls hop on and adorably attempt to do what I’m doing, but, often, they instead march around the space, as I exercise, with books in their hands and a show playing in the background.

Doctors’ appointments are also places I typically take them along. (For a long time I was known—by name—as my daughter’s mom, and she’d never even been a patient there.)

Massages are hugely beneficial, yet infrequent.

But sitting on the couch, reading a seriously worn, old novel with a mug of coffee and my heating pad nearby? Nah. Never—until I got sick.

Getting sick does something funny to you. I’m not able to just mentally fight through some extreme situations—a few illnesses I’ve had—like I did when I was a runner, or when I gave birth. There are some instances when we need help, whether we want it or not; when we need to admit that we can’t do it alone, even if we aren’t regularly surrounded by a village.

I have, like many people I know, a long-distance village. I’ve moved around, and I’ve made dear friends, and we keep in touch, but they aren’t here sharing my space and my physical life. My family isn’t close by either, and even the friends I do have here don’t have kids, or have older kids, or have kids the same age whose schedules don’t match up.

So intense illness is a reminder, for me at least, of my vulnerability. More than my physical vulnerability, it’s a reminder that I cannot be Superwoman, or Supermom, or whoever I think I am as I typically go about my usually slotted week.

I feel unworthy simply sitting on the sofa and reading while my husband changes all the diapers, and does all the snack getting, and the question answering—as I hear his patience thin the way I feel my own fining through a typical day alone and “in charge” of the kids while he’s at work.

And fathers are daddies and not babysitters, or helpers, but, regardless, it’s still me home during the day while he’s off being a scientist at the nearby hospital—it’s me tightly holding my lips together when I cannot reword an answer any other easy way, and I feel I’m about to burst. It’s me at daily lunchtime, and it’s me waving “hi” as the bus pulls up and the rest of our afternoon lies ahead, together.

So I sit on the couch, and I read my book, and I pretend that I can’t hear this beautiful chaos around me—I pretend I am walled and closed, although I am always transparent—accessible—as “Mom.”

My neck hasn’t been sore for two days since I’ve been resting with mastitis. My body hasn’t hurt, although I usually do simple workouts regularly to relieve cranky muscles. I am not fully relaxed either—since I do care that my husband is thinning in the way that I normally am, and I’m sympathetic—because I know that it’s his weekend to relax from the week, too.

But I take my timeout, and I feel rejuvenated—I am refreshed in a way that is incredibly complicated, and more honest, than the hour I did this morning of HIIT cardio and weight training and yoga. I’m breathing more deeply than even in my most wonderful yoga practices, because I needed a timeout—and I took one.

The post The Importance of Taking Care of Mom’s Needs, Too. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It’s one of those weekends where my soul feels deeply the need to recharge and replenish.

My skin feels thirsty for the sun’s warm kisses, my face hungry for touches from my husband’s hands, my arms achy for my daughter’s tiny body to be embraced warmly in a hug.

I feel physically my emotional need to slow down, to breathe and simply to be.

So yesterday I went to a hot, sweaty flowing yoga class.

I let my legs hold me up powerfully in my warrior poses, my hips release yesterday’s burdens in restorative hip-openers and my heart be lifted skyward in my backbends.

I sat with my discomfort at the beginning of class, when my bra irritated me and my pants slipped down in just the wrong spot. I honored my need to wipe sweat from my forehead before it went up my nose in downward facing dog. And I worked through my inner tensions and physically-held stresses until I sat cross-legged, spent and bowing forward, humbly speaking the word, “Namaste.”

And today I cuddled my little girl as we watched cartoons in bed on the laptop.

I bent over the top of her head and kissed her reddish brown curls lightly as I whispered the words, “I love you.”

I smoothed my fingertips down the baby-soft skin of her shoulder as she sat sheltered underneath the crook of my protective mommywing.

I snatched my husband as he walked down the hallway to shower off mud from mountain biking.

I ushered his thumbs to my neck as he held me tightly against his chest, and I felt the letting go in the space just between there and my shoulder blades, where my heart has felt a little battered and slightly bruised and injured.

And I realized later as I felt the wind in my hair on a family drive in our recently restored twenty-plus-year-old Toyota truck, that restoration doesn’t have to involve intense steps like sanding, re-polishing and a fresh coat of paint. No, sometimes all it takes is a little attention and the intention to love.

My soul felt tired and needy and empty. I thought, initially, that I might need weeks of recovery and extra-special care.

But, as it turned out, the basic act of paying attention to my weariness—and my cravings for human connections, sensations and love—began to heal me from the inside the moment I took that first step down the seemingly daunting road to rejuvenation.

So, today, as I admitted that my recent hard work and personal devotions have left me feeling slightly overwhelmed, I decided to take a step forward into my neediness instead of retreating into loneliness.

And, sometimes, the sun on our skin, the movement of our bodies with our breath, and the soft kisses from someone we love are all it takes to make us feel invigorated, new and whole.

“We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Photo: Lady May Pamintuan/Flickr.

This article was first shared on elephant journal.

The post How I Recharged My Soul. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I’m outstretched in pigeon pose.

My back leg is long as I curl my toes under and wiggle my knee in, more towards the center of my sticky purple yoga mat.

My front leg is positioned with my shin parallel to the top of my mat; toes curled protectively up towards my knee.

I finally lengthen through my back foot and allow its unpainted-toenail top to rest flat on the purple waffled rubber.

For a moment, I lift my proud pigeon heart towards balmy blue sky, fingertips cupped on the dark, wooden floor alongside my hips; wrists and hands off the floor, lifting energetically skyward too.

I arrange an ordinary white gym towel over the studio’s cushiony blue block before elongating through my arms and torso, reaching them forward towards my imaginary horizon as I press my front-lying shin-bone deeper into the mat.

Resting my forehead on the soft yet stiffly textured towel, I feel my baby kick at my calf muscle as my pregnant belly begins to drape over it.

I feel two more punches and then can’t help but be transported back nearly four years prior when another enclosed child kicked more furiously at my heel. (It was at this point in my practice that I began to work my shin forward, having only ever cautiously tucked my front leg in.)

Yet so much changes in a yoga practice, along with many other things within an expectant mother’s life.

Fanciful daydreams that I almost forgot I was capable of having inadvertently creep into more of my day than not.

Visions of tiny baby fingers, holding a still small big-sister hand, plant knowing smiles across my face while in line at the grocery store.

I peruse the newborn outfits when I shop for my daughter in the adjacent toddler section.

The purpose of life shifts before we even greet our infant’s new face.

My preferred closed-knee child’s pose turns into a wide-legged one, allowing my rounding stomach to fall between my thighs rather than over-top them.

No longer lying flat on my back, I recline slightly lifted onto forearms or rearrange a posture entirely to suit my mother tummy.

So many things change.

I sit typing on tiled bathroom flooring while my daughter plays in a lightly scented bubble bath. I watch her take the green bowl that we keep there, turning it into a ginormous waterfall in her imagination. Just as I write this, she takes her green bowl and dumps the water outside the tub. Tiny foamy splashes hit my bent legs, perched upon a folded tan towel next to her.

So much is shifting for her too.

She’s suddenly decided to start kissing my expanding belly; hugging it gently but firmly. I have no idea where this came from, as she never did it until I became fuller.

I’m outstretched in pigeon pose, and I finally understand the necessity and wisdom of relaxing into a posture, and into my life.

It takes effort and active engagement to properly get into my pigeon pose, but then to fully explore, enjoy and be successful I must surrender, completely.

Photo credits: Author’s own; Leland Francisco/Flickr.

The post Learning to Surrender On & Off The Yoga Mat. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.