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| Palm Trees on South Beach. |
After a VERY eventful morning at the airport (that's a whole other blog post) we finally made it to his friend's house where we met he and his wife and their lovely little girl, Victoria.
I could tell right away that Victoria was set in her ways. She was also someone whose trust you had to win over first before she'd be your friend. Victoria is 2 years old.
I quickly gained that trust when I very enthusiastically began reading some of her books to her, played "tea party" with her dolls and stuffed animals and kicked the soccer ball around. She always wanted to play. At one point, she jumped up on the ball for some reason, and before I could reach her, crashed to the ground. She looked at me, my eyes wide, and just got up and brushed off. I would have cried my eyes out.
One parent is very calm and quiet while the other is more animated. However, during our entire stay, I never heard a voice raised once. Victoria seemed to listen very intently and knew how to use her manners - and, spoke very eloquently - for a 2-year-old.
Later in the evening Victoria's mom (who was 4 months pregnant) and I wanted to escape the Miami heat while the boys caught up outside by the grill. Victoria, naturally, came with us, and we began playing "ball" again, but this time, as it was late, I was trying to give mom a rest and encouraged Victoria to just sit and roll the ball with me, back and forth. All of a sudden, she seemed to do this stretchy yoga pose, so of course I took the opportunity to show her a few more.
We stretched our legs out wide, straightened our hips, and leaned forward with our elbows on the ground: Upavistha Konasana. We crossed our legs for a little Lotus pose. We went on our bellies and stretched like a bow: Dhanurasana. We even did a twisted bow pose that I think we made up! She wanted more. I've tried to teach kids yoga before and a 10-minute attention span was all I got. When I stopped for just a second, she was creating her own poses right before my eyes!
For the standing sequence we started with Vrksasana, the King of all standing poses, but quickly moved into lunges, revolved triangle and I think we even through in a Wild Thing! I was thrilled. Her momma was, too and we even practiced long enough for her proud Papa to see.
I didn't get to practice too much on this trip, but teaching a 2-year old who was psyched to learn some poses? That made it all worth it! I'm sure she went right back to playing tea party with her Muppet, Bear and Ariel (yes, I believe those were the names) but just the thought of her retaining one little pose to practice when she's rolling around on the ground left me smiling the whole week.
It would've been too weird to ask to take a picture of a little girl I had just met doing yoga poses so you'll have to settle for this instead:
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| Our morning hotel view. |
