Are you a yoga parent? Know someone expecting? Have a real soft spot for having kids AND keeping up a semi-regular, aka whenever possible, yoga practice? Then you will definitely relate to Brian Leaf’s book: “Misadventures of a Parenting Yogi: Cloth Diapers, Cosleeping, and My (Sometimes Successful) Quest for Conscious Parenting.” If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the exclusive excerpt we posted last week where Brian describes his ninja-like maneuvers in just trying to go pee in the middle of the night. Ah, kids.
Description via Amazon blurb:
In this hilarious, heartfelt book, Brian Leaf tackles parenting with a unique blend of research and humor. He explores Attachment Parenting, as well as Playful, Unconditional, Simplicity, and good old Dr. Spock parenting. He tries cloth diapers, no diapers, cosleeping, and no sleeping. Join him on his rollicking journey in this one-of-a-kind parenting guide.
WIN: We’re giving away TWO copies of “Misadventures of a Parenting Yogi: Cloth Diapers, Cosleeping, and My (Sometimes Successful) Quest for Conscious Parenting“ by Brian Leaf, courtesy of Brian Leaf.
TO ENTER: We don’t need to convince you, parenting is hard! As another talented author and funny dude/dad, Neal Pollack, aptly noted, “K. Pattabhi Jois said that family life was the ‘Seventh Series’ of Ashtanga Yoga, the most challenging and almost impossible to perfect.” Parenting is not a perfect science, which makes it so much easier to laugh at it. Share with us in the comments a fun or funny moment you’ve experience with the little one(s) in your life, whether they were yours or not (fur babies count, too!). Perhaps they’ve imparted some wise yogi wisdom without even trying.
Giveaway will remain open until 11:59pm ET Sunday, May 18th. Two winners will be selected at random and announced soon after. Good luck!
UPDATE: Congrats to Greg and Marjorie! Thanks to everyone for sharing your endearing and hilarious stories!
Loved the first set of misadventures!
My 4 year old son upon discovering the children’s story characters who don’t wear pants: “They don’t have pants. Or undies. Or weiners.” Well said, my son.
I’m two months in with my newborn and I don’t think of make it without yoga. Our mantra is just breathe – it’s for my little girl when she’s freaking out and for me and her dad when we just need to get through.
Luckily yoga has imparted us with a go with the flow attitude.
We send our two year old son to a “school” and part of the curriculum is teaching them Yoga. They send home sheets of paper with the pose that they did that day and we save them in a notebook that he can reach. At least 2-3 times a week he will pull the notebook out and want to do his “Yoya”! The latest that they taught was the sun salutation and he remembers almost all of the poses in order!
I just had my first baby last week. I’ve got nothing good yet for stories, but I’m sure they’re coming!
My @ the time two year old “now 3” loved talking to random people in the grocery store, she would just talk ther head off! She was hard for unfamiliar people to understand, but they would be polite and listen to her and occasionally comment back, all of a suden clear as day she said “mommy farts!” and of course everyone laugh and look at me! For a slpit second I decided to die from embarrassment but decided to just brush it off!
everybody fart
When my 9 year old was small, he used to see people in the store and say, “You’re a BLACK man.” /facepalm
When my 9 year old was small, he used the ladies’ room and came out and announced to the store that it smelled like fish. /facepalm
As a yogi and a new parent this looks perfect!
Babysitting my friends’ 4 year old son I had to make a trip to the ladies room. Just as I was finishing my business, the little guy stormed into the bathroom (personal space is non existent with littles), stops in his tracks and comments, “I like your underwear! Blue is my favourite colour!”. I could have died from embarrassment! I was mortified when I had to tell his parents but thankfully they also saw the humor in the situation.
Last summer my 3 year old daughter and I were changing in the locker room after swimming lessons on a busy Saturday. After she’s dressed, I’m changing as fast as I can and she says “Mom, we don’t talk about nipples” as loud as her 3 year-old voice goes…another lady changing next to us looks over and says”don’t you love that age??”
I have two sons and one baby due in four weeks. When the second baby was born it took FOUR DAYS for them to have a farting competition. They’re best buds.
At around age four, my young son said the autumn leaves were falling because “they’re cold.”
Harvee
harvee44@yahoo.com
During my daughter, Chloe’s newborn photo shoot, the photographer was doing an outfit change and in between swaddles, Chloe sneezed from a chill and poop shot across the room! Was a probably one of the most hysterical moments and gave me some therapeutic laughter after the overwhelming and exhausting first weeks as a new mother. It was a nice reminder that in parenting, you really do need a sense of humor!
My daughter looked at my belly and said I have stripes. Another time, when I had yet to shave my legs in many days she said my legs have spikes. And yet another time, when I thought she was gazing lovingly into my eyes she remarked, mom you have cracks on your eyes.
She was ages, 3, 4 and 5 in the order of the sentences above. As a over 40 year old Mom I am thankful, Yoga taught me to love my aging body so I simply cracked up at the innocence of it all!!
I just found out [yesterday] that I was pregnant. This will be our first baby and I am daily yogi. I currently practice the Bikram method and was registered for the Evolation Teacher Training in July….looks like I will need to reschedule that! I would love to win a copy of this book! It will be just what I need as a yogi and a new mom! On a side note, I am a special ed teacher for kids in the early intervention program that have been diagnosed with autism….I have more stories than you can even begin to imagine! Namaste
I have a 7-week old and his morning big open mouth smiles make us laugh– much needed after so many sleepless nights!
We just told our 8 year old we are pregnant and he says “I hope my baby sister doesn’t kick me in the coconuts.” Lol—and he decided he wants to name her “Wild style”.
i forgot how fun it is to “fart” newborn babies by lifting their legs up into happy baby. i’m a second time mom and enjoying every moment of applying my yoga learnings on kid 1 and now kid 2!
I’m currently nursing my third baby (she’s 3 months old already…how time flies) I love when she does what we like to call gymnurstics, but my favorite is when we nurse and she finds her toes. It’s a half happy baby pose 🙂
My two year old loves to do yoga with mommy. Right now she is obsessed with rolling mats up and going buh bye. This means my practices are often very short! But always fun filled. She is my favorite teacher when it comes to not taking life too seriously.
I just read Misadventures of a Garden State Yogi a couple months ago and really enjoyed it! Looking forward to this book, whether I win or not! 🙂
When we were flying from RI to CA with our then 3 month old as soon as the plane pushed away from the gate we heard the explosion. We were going to have to wait until cruising altitude to get up and change her!! A very kind flight attendant said we could change her on our laps (so long as we kept the diaper bag under the seat in front of us!). My darling Ruby reminds me daily (sometimes hourly) to breath.
My kids are great at teaching me how to be present and not take myself too seriously. They like to take every yoga pose I’m in and turn it (ie. me) into a jungle gym.
Warning: Funny stories involving children often have to do with poop. Our first funny (and maybe to this day most embarrassing) moment as new parents involved a constipated 1 week old infant. We searched Google and read threads with all sorts of ways to help our little one who hadn’t had a bowel movement in two+ days. Finally, we settled on the solution that seemed to garner the most positive results. It involved inserting a lubricated baby thermometer or Q-tip in… well… We can say that the technique was successful. Our little one probably pooped for 10+ minutes non-stop and we were clambering over ourselves to prevent a mess. This was an apt introduction to parenthood, which in the past 14 months has so far involved many silly, funny, and awkward moments.