Adoption is not easy. It doesn’t matter how well prepared you thought you were or that you got the sweetest and best little boy in the world. Your whole life has changed completely. To keep from turning into a raving lunatic when the stress got to be too much (although my husband would beg to differ and say that I have turned into a raving lunatic), I turned to yoga and stretching.

HB thought this was a fun new game. As soon as I got on the floor, he would climb on my back and cling to me like a monkey.

At first I tried to get him to let go, telling him, “Mommy’s doing yoga.” But he refused, so I kept stretching and practicing with him attached to me like a leech.

When I stopped, he would laugh and shout, “More!” And I realized that yoga was a great way for me to bond even more with HB.

Yoga helps us attach to each other.

He learns that he is safe with me and I will always hold him tight, even when a dachshund is frantically licking my face.

He becomes secure in my strength to always hold him up, even when the other dachshund is determined to make me buckle.

And he learns that he can trust me, and that I’ll be there for him no matter what.

He is gaining strength, and is already holding his mommy up with one hand.

He is working on his balance, and yoga is helping him become a more stable and confident little boy.

And he is learning about flexibility, both physically and in his daily life.

Most important of all, yoga let’s us work on our face-to-face contact and when he looks into my eyes, he knows I’ll never let him go.

To him, yoga is just something fun that he does with mommy and at school, but to me, it is so much more. It calms me down when I think I can’t do this. It makes me focus on my physical body when my emotional mind is going crazy. It helps me bond with my little boy, who has turned into the happiest, most loving boy any mother could have. And it reminds me that life is tough, but I am tougher and I will get through the hard times and look forward to the good times.

And now when we say, “HB, do yoga,” this is what he does:

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