Men and Meditation Don't Mix

When the stars all align on Friday mornings, I have a new class that I'm enjoying at the gym (yes, I'm going to talk about the gym again. Oh, and I'm also going to whine a little again, too! How annoying am I?). There's a yoga class that meets on Friday mornings that is an hour and 15 minutes long. The last 15 minutes of class is reserved for guided meditation. As an over-worked, stay-at-home mother of 2 small children, you can only imagine how indulgent the idea of 15 minutes of silence is--especially when, at my home, any time there's silence in this house, it probably means that someone is doing or eating something that they shouldn't (and this applies to our cats as well).

I went to this yoga class for the first time last week and really enjoyed it. It's a very gentle, very stretching-based yoga class (as opposed to a more rigorous, "workout" type of yoga class) and I enjoy the teacher. Considering that the rest of the week, I'm pushing myself at the gym, it feels nice to have a day of relaxation and the stretching is much-needed come Friday.

Everything worked out this morning at home so that I could go to this class again. I really enjoyed the yoga portion and was totally, blissfully engaged in the meditation portion when the man next to me fell asleep and started snoring. SNORING. Ugh. Now, let's talk about this for a second. How many women do you know--especially women who are often stretched to their limits, physically and emotionally in their personally lives--who could fall asleep during a meditation, in which the instructor is guiding you through a total body relaxation? It just sort of went all over me--the fact that this man was probably bored silly and just decided to tune it out and catch some shut eye. Typical. This happened about halfway through the meditation, so I gritted my teeth, trying to tune-out the goat sounds happening next to me (which only means that all I could focus on were the goat sounds) until about 13 minutes into it, when I heard the classroom door creak open and a whispered voice saying, "Psst! Jack's mommy!". This could mean only one thing--and it means the same thing every time: Jack has taken care of his "morning constitution" and I need to go and change his diaper.

You see, they don't change diapers at the gym. About 99% of the time that Jack spends at the gym, he's sitting in his own poop because he poops when we're at the gym every. blessed. time. I am not even kidding you. Usually it's not so bad that they have to come and get me (although, there was that one time, when I got through working out and went to pick him up and they had a giant can of Lysol sitting out, within the childcare workers arms' reach) so I knew that today was special. I looked at the worker and motioned, "One more minute" and she hesitantly nodded at me and walked out. So, the last 1.5 minutes of my meditation was spent wondering just how badly my dear son had shit his pants today. Unfortunately, the childcare worker interrupting class didn't manage to awaken the snoring goat-man, so actually, in addition to spending the last 1.5 minutes wondering how bad Jack's diaper was today, I was also immersed in the barnyard sounds adjacent to me. Ah, Namaste indeed.

After the class was over, I quickly rolled up my mat, stepped over sleeping goat-beauty, put my shoes back on and scurried out of the room and into the childcare area. Jack was sitting on the floor, with his back to me when I arrived. From across the room, I could see the hot, steaming diaper lava bubbling up out of the top of his diaper. It was rough. Poor boy, but isn't that just like a man: to crap like clockwork--same bat-time, same bat-channel--and also to set out to ruin my 15 minutes of peace. Can't a woman get a moment to herself? Maybe next Friday.