Here Is Your Best Shot

With holiday greeting cards starting to arrive in our mailbox, a 'To Do' list a mile long, an impending move and having already previously canceled twice, I had to keep my appointment yesterday at Sears to have Lucas' 18 month/holiday photos taken.

I purposely picked a time mid-morning when he is usually happy and playful, full from breakfast and hours from lunch or his afternoon nap.

Lucas is really into bargaining right now, or rather being bargained with; eat three more bites and you can have a cracker, help Mommy clean up your toys and then you can watch Elmo, first we need to go to the super market and then we will go to the park, etc. I'm building trust so I never let him down. He seems to "get it", but he is only 18 months old, so I wonder.

After I told him how long it would take and what to expect, I told him we would go for a ride on the choo choo (his current major obsession) after we got his photos taken.

Big mistake!!

It was all he could focus on.

"Choo choo."

"Choo choo."

"Choo choo."

900 times.

It was insane.

I can laugh about it now, but I wanted to ring his neck during the 45 minutes we wasted in the studio.

He wanted nothing to do with the photographer or her fun antics to get him to smile, show some teeth or demonstrate his sparkling personality. Between the two of us, we must have looked like complete fools as we jumped, danced, sang, fake sneezed and peek-a-booed. Lucas was not amused and not cooperating.

Lucas only wanted "choo choo".

Of the 45 shots the poor woman (a consummate professional with way more patience than me) took, exactly ONE picture came out. And that's even debatable.The rest looked like mug shots. And I am not kidding.

This will definitely be a photo shoot to remember.

Needless to say, I followed through with my promise and took my son on that god damned train and I'm going to have to go with Plan B for the family holiday card.

Sadly, I don't have a Plan B.

countdown to...

We are counting down to several things these days... activation on his 2nd CI is 1 week from tomorrow. I'm so excited to begin this new stage of the journey. I'm ready for the challenge.

We are also counting down to Christmas, starting today. I realize I'm not alone in this, but Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year. From cutting down our tree as a family to decorating our house and tree, I look forward to December every year. Last Saturday we ventured out to pick out the perfect Christmas tree. After a ride in a horse-drawn wagon, we cut it down amidst the snow flurries. So fun!

set up tree...

add lights & an angel...

add ornaments and tinsel...

and it's done!

Lucas also has his own Christmas tree and nativity play set (great language opportunities!) in his playroom. I'm not quite sure who's more excited about the little tree, him or me. :)

Then, last week I got this great idea from one of my favorite money-saving blogs, Saving with Shellie. The idea was to make an advent calendar out of baby/children's socks and place a small gift in each sock to count down the days until Christmas. I found most of my supplies at the Dollar Tree, and some at a local crafts store, and in about 45 minutes, I had this set up:

I used red ribbon, mini clothes pins, various Christmas-themed socks, and little dollar store toys. Each sock has a number sticker on it.

It was so much fun to make, and I can't wait to open a sock with Lucas every day until Christmas. I think it's a great way to make Christmas more tangible for a child his age. It provides many language rich opportunities also. We will count the days, and look at the numbers, and talk about what's on the socks and in the socks.

How do you kick-off the holiday season?

Are you happy? I mean really happy?

I love that we can change our brain. There have been countless undisputed studies with the development of functional MRI scans on the brains of meditators vs those who do not meditate, showing without a doubt that we can change our brain in a big way. Its contemplative neuroscience. There have literally been hundreds of studies now. The video above is interesting (however it sort of screws up at the end).

More and more reasons to meditate and practice yoga. We can literally strengthen and grow our brains in different areas.

And well... just be happy!!

We can't control what the world throws at us but there is undeniable proof that yoga is the full deal. It is so much easier sailing through life with the tools to deal with those stressors. And lets face it, we all have them. And we all know what stress does.

Well, quite frankly, it kills :(

Neuroscientists have found that meditators shift their brain activity to different areas of the cortex-brain waves in the stress-prone frontal cortex move to the calmer left frontal cortex. This mental shift decreases the negative effects of stress, mild depression and anxiety. There is also less activity in the amygdala, where the brain processes fear.

The bottom line is that moving our body in fitness modalities is wonderful but we need more. Yoga's got it all.

(and it is a wonderful compliment to any other activity out there no matter what turns you on).

If you have been thinking of trying yoga for the first time now is the time. Why wait?

My class or someone else's. Give it a whirl! It's yoga-land here in Vancouver so there are countless choices, levels and styles.

Why wait to feel better than you ever imagined?