For much of the first week of the new year, we were cabin-bound as inches of snow fell in the Sierras. It was beautiful! But when more snowplay wasn’t in the cards, I went searching for some yoga programming to watch with the kids for some indoor activity.
Have you ever seen Cosmic Kids Yoga? It was so brilliant—exactly what we needed: it’s a YouTube channel where an enthusiastic instructor named Jaime Amor makes yoga fun for kids with stories. You can choose by variables like length (under 10 minutes, over 15 minutes), category (relaxation, dance, etcetera) and energy (calm, focused, or active). We started with an episode of Frozen Yoga, where Jaime tells the entire story of Frozen to yoga poses. At 30 minutes, it was on the long side for Skyler, but she would start and stop at will.
The one we’ve done a few times now, however, is a Star Wars episode IV program. Grab your light sabers for warrior pose! All four of us did it together.
It was exactly what I was looking for!
Have you found any great guided exercise- or mindfulness-based activities for kids? Would love to learn of more.
P.S. We also discovered The Wiggles for the first time (you may have seen the IG stories post), and that was definitely Skyler’s favorite for getting up and dancing.
Whenever the stories about what principles we as Americans hold dear to seem to be shifting, I like to re-read Emma Lazarus’s sonnet, The New Colossus, the last lines of which are famously inscribed on The Statue of Liberty:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
It’s beautiful, isn’t it? “A mighty woman with a torch…Her mild eyes command”: with unwavering tenderness, she beacons that all are welcome.
Lazarus drew some of her inspiration from her work with refugees on Ward Island in New York Harbor. It makes me wonder what poetry might come out of these darker days.
We were traveling at the end of last week—escaping to Fantasyland—so I didn’t get to put out a Friday links post. There’s so much to read right now, and no doubt everyone is inundated with links on Facebook and Twitter and elsewhere, but here are some of the things that have been notable to me—mostly politically, but a few otherwise.
When choosing where to go on a vacation, the question often comes up: “is it family friendly?” Some will proudly announce “there’s no such thing!” They’ve taken their children everywhere and would have you believe that the kids can entertain themselves with nothing more than a pen and paper on a trans-atlantic flight.
There’s value in having a can-do attitude, but somewhere between the Disney cruise and the Parisian salon lies the answer for most.
When we were in Kauai, we stayed at the St. Regis for a couple of nights. They went out of their way to accommodate the kids, with welcome gifts, free-to-use sand toys, miniature bathrobes, miniature pool chaises—it was so nice. But on the other hand, there weren’t many kids there. The ambience was pretty quiet, the restaurants pretty fancy, and I gathered there were a few honeymooners among us.
Which quality is more important? The amenities or the atmosphere? How do you evaluate whether a place you’re choosing is family-friendly or not? Of course it completely depends on the kids’ ages, but I tend to have a few things on my mental checklist, and I was curious to ask friends and family what would be on theirs. Here are some things they had to say…
