It goes without saying that lots of things change after having a baby. Some expected, some surprises.

For example, I did not anticipate how often I would willingly wipe snot on my own clothing.

Also, I not only practice yoga weekly, I enjoy it like 70 minutes of the 90 minute class duration. Yoga had always been too earthy for me. But I’ve been about it. Binding, twisting, chanting. 

Chanting. Just getting earthy.

But this week, the instructor hit the triumvirate of ridiculous. How do other people not  break? Why am I the only one giggling under my yoga breath?

1. Sometimes we begin class with a series of chants. A kind of call and response. It’s something like:

Instructor: Vom-vom-vom-vom-vom

Us: Vom-vom-vom-vom-vom

Instructor: Rom-rom-rom-rom-rom

Us: Rom-rom-rom-rom-rom

Instructor: Yom-yom-yom-yom-yom

Me: Yom-meow-meow-meow

It’s not even intentional. Chant yom. You’ll fall into meow too.

2. At the end of class, we stretched our arms out wide, palms up in some kind of supplication and we were instructed to breathe in and out through our fingertips. Ok. I can roll with that. But breathe in and out through fingertips and feel the air fill the space just to the right of the heart where spirit, love and self sits. I could not not think, “My esophagus?”

3. This was it. The cumulative effect of the previous two and this made me have to blog about it. At the very close, we did this humming/buzzing exercise. But we had to hum like lady bees. Not male bees because their hums travel downward. And our hums were to travel upwards. Like lady bee hums.

I had a baby. Not a change of esophagus.