My neck is finally feeling better and I hope to be back to exercising by the end of the week. Part of me feels really annoyed about pulling out my neck—like my body hasn’t been through enough with carrying and birthing a child.

Tomorrow I will be 11 weeks postpartum and I still don’t feel completely healed. At my post-partum doctor’s visit she cleared me for most things (yay exercise, nay hanky panky) and that was that.

But here’s the thing: I have been kind and honoring my body. I have not once thought I need to lose the baby weight quickly or go on a restrictive diet. I am currently breastfeeding and nourishing my body with healthy foods so that I can produce milk to feed my child, but I am certainly not counting calories. I’ve even grown to love my baby pouch and respect it, because it gave me my beautiful Giuliana.

Throughout my pregnancy and postpartum period meditation and yoga have been mainstays. And even with ALL OF THAT being said, I still pulled my neck out, even after honoring my body’s request to slow down and to heal.

So, it’s frustrating. Even when you do all the right things, bad things can happen, which clearly translates to the situation our world finds itself in today with the coronavirus. We can be as cautious as we need to be and we still have setbacks. But I realized that I pulled out my neck, I didn’t throw my back out. Three days later, I’m starting to feel better. There IS light at the end of the tunnel, I just need to have patience and know in my heart things will get better. And that’s how I feel about this whole time where we have to socially distance ourselves from our friends and family. Let’s all remain patient and stay the course. It might be a slow recovery, but we’ll get there.

As it would happen, I’ve felt drawn to Tai Chi lately. I’ve gotten my mother to now do it with me and my husband joined us this morning. We plan to do a simple 5 minutes every day, for our mental and physical wellbeing. My father hasn’t gone on the bandwagon just yet, but we’ll get him to eventually, no doubt. He is, after all, stuck with us for a while.

So with Tai Chi on deck, it’s time for a celebration today. It happens to be St. Patrick’s Day (and despite my name and my child’s, I am 67% British Isles, according to 23 and Me!) and I am a proud Irish-American. This is also my dear cousin Kara’s birthday. Kara tragically died three years ago and was taken from this earth way too soon. But Kara is with my family today as we celebrate our first St. Patrick’s Day with my daughter.

Food feeds the soul and to celebrate Kara on this day, we’ve made a traditional Shepard’s Pie, gluten-free scones and Phil’s Irish Coffees.