Nanny Yoga

For nearly three months now, I've been spending two days a week with Mira - a new found guru of mine. Most days Mira and I take long walks together and sit on the mat in her living room, laughing and pondering the meaning of life. I've learned from her how to take delight in the simple things and approach life as if every experience was a new one. Mira's way of moving through the world is steady and profound. Its clear that she's an experienced yogini. After all, she's been practicing for more than 10 months now.

Mira was born last May and I'm her nanny.

Mira's dad, Parin and I used to work together at Green For All. When I ran into him in January and mentioned that I was wanting to pick up some babysitting gigs to support me while I was doing yoga training, he was thrilled. He and Alison, Mira's mom, had just started thinking they wanted some help a couple of days a week. The timing was perfect. Every Monday and Friday I travel across the San Francisco Bay to her house in Oakland. All jokes aside, its been a pretty magical experience spending time with a person who is so new to this world and I do believe have grown almost as much as she has since we started.

Here are some of the most important lessons my mini-yoda has passed along:


No more multitasking.
Its impossible to do 15 things at once when you're responsible for an infant. Its impossible to do two things at once when you're responsible for an infant. When I'm watching her, I have to give Mira my full attention, in the same way that being on the yoga mat demands that I focus on my body and my breath. After all, she is a tiny baby who is depending on me for both survival and entertainment. My only downtime is when she's napping. And she decides when that is over, interrupting whatever I've decided to do with a cry that I can't ignore. The "poses" of nanny yoga that I focus on range from the basics (watching her to make sure she doesn't put foreign objects into her mouth) to the more advanced (keeping her entertained with toys, songs, and bubbles - oh my!). At times I'm really challenged to not do something else like read a magazine, do my homework or text a friend. I've also struggled internally with the fact that as a college graduate I should be doing something more stimulating. The truth of the matter is, focusing on one thing is proving to be much harder than the multitasking I'm used to - it is also more rewarding. I always have to come back to focusing on Mira because she needs me to and that's my job. There is one time she and I are both content to let me put my focus somewhere else - when I have to pee. Its very considerate of her to not make a fuss when I sit her down in front of the open bathroom door. She must know this is a serious business matter that has to be handled when it has to be handled...

Shake what your mama gave ya!
When Mira hears music, she just has to dance! Her little torso bobs up and down and she bends her knees and lets out a huge grin. Its pretty adorable. Sometimes I marvel at how new she is to moving through the world and I'm constantly amazed at the pace with which her body is growing and learning to do new things. I've seen her go from sitting to crawling to pulling herself up to nearly walking and its truly a miraculous process. What's more, perhaps because she doesn't have solidified kneecaps yet, she's super flexible and will just naturally put herself in very yoga-like positions. If she only knew the poses, she'd be better than I am!

Silence is golden.
When I started taking care of the baby, her grandparents, who are living with the family for a year, were around all the time. I'd come on board because I was more able to take her on outings and run after her as she began to crawl but it was definitely challenging to hold the baby's attention while her grandmother was in the next room. No matter what calming words I said to her, she'd cry (in my ear as I held her) until her "Amma" appeared again. There were a couple of nights when I'd hear her phantom cries as my body unwound when I was falling asleep and I swore that this just wasn't going to work. But as I kept going back, I got lots of reassurance from Aruna that Mira had been just like this when she and her husband first arrived from India and Alison went back to work. The trick, she told me, was to take Mira to the window and stand there silently with her until she calmed down. A little meditation time, if you will. It worked!

Now Aruna and her husband spend long weekends with other family members who live in the Bay Area so I am alone with the baby and our paths rarely cross. Still, Mira and I have spent many hours at the back window, staring at the yard, breathing quietly and just admiring the simple beauty of things. We have a lot of fun now, too, of course, playing and laughing and talking (babbling in her case) but the back window and silence continues to be a golden ticket when times are tough and she, well, lets face it, when we both need to catch our breath.

Just Play.
This is what we do all day. I recently read about the idea of Lila or Divine Play that is a Hindu concept describing the sum of the actions of humans as a play in which we are all actors. Yes, just like the Shakespeare quote. My first read of it, however, I thought they were talking about play the verb, not the noun. This is how I think of Mira's playtime. Totally important and divine, yet play nonetheless. It has been a divine pleasure to be paid to play with her.


Parin and Alison have reconsidered their need for a nanny because its an expense they can't afford at the moment. So, I'm moving on to work for another family and Friday is my last day with Mira (aka "Mira Al-Jazeera" or "Mirabean" as I prefer to call her). I'm going to miss spending time with her. She's taught me a lot about life on her play mat and as cheesy as it sounds, I think I needed her to remind me how simple and miraculous the world can be.