Life with two children under the age of five has both its unbelievable rewards and, frankly, its insanity.

Last night, I watched my two girls play in their Halloween costumes and I had a few realizations that struck me as profound yet simple. Often, I find it’s these little types of “aha” moments that help me enjoy my life most—if I only embrace them as larger lessons.

1. Stop creating unnecessary pressure with ideals.

I was at my 5-year-old’s fall party and I was talking to another parent about my 1-year-old’s Velcro shoes. He said that they never bought the lace-up kind, even though they are the preferred standard, because it was so much easier for them as parents. In our conversation, I happened to mention that what saves our sanity ultimately is good for our kids too.

Another example of this came to me via my daughter’s Halloween costume.

She told me adamantly that she wanted to be a dinosaur way back in September. After perusing the costume selection and deeming most ugly, hot and uncomfortable, we chose to special order a dinosaur hoodie. Here we are a week before the costume fun begins, and I’m afraid it won’t arrive on time. I buy her another costume and hide it, even from my husband (which is big, since I invented the play-by-play). The hoodie did arrive, and she enthusiastically wore it to all of her special activities, but I gave her this second dinosaur outfit while we’re sitting around the dining table eating candy on Halloween night.

Guess which costume she wanted to put on today? Not the hoodie.

2. Stop caring what other people think.

To be fair, this is a lesson we all “know” we should be doing, but actually putting it into practice is not easy. (And one of my least favorite things is writers telling people what we “should” be doing, without actually helping to put this sage wisdom into something accessible in real life.)

However, I actually thank my yoga practice for helping me with this.

Anyone who’s ever been to a yoga class knows that it can be intimidating, regardless of skill level. That said, everyone who has ever really paid attention to what’s going on has come to the conclusion that worrying about what other people think of us on our mats is a total waste of brain space, because we are all concentrating on ourselves, on our own mats, and not on the other people present.

Taking this back over to my daughter’s fall party at school last week.

The kids were doing a silly dance, and the teacher said she was happy to see some of the other parents joining in. I looked around and realized most parents were standing there, while the mom next to me and myself were the only ones sticking our tongues out, and our butts in the air, and our knees together, and singing like this, like the song hilariously dictated. We shrugged at each other and she whispered, “We have this CD.”

The thing is, I hadn’t even realized I was singing and dancing along. Instead, I was just having fun at my daughter’s party. And that’s the key: when we stop thinking about what we look like, or thinking we have to be cool, we become more available to enjoy our lives.

3. There is always more love.

Every day as a stay-at-home mom, I feel challenged to fulfill my needs, my children’s needs and the needs of my relationship with my husband.

There are only so many hours in a day, and I only have so many arms, but one thing I’ve definitely been shown, again and again, is that there is always enough love.

I personally was never concerned with loving a second child as much as my first because, growing up an identical twin, I knew that both my sister and I were loved. Also, I’ve been with my partner for over 21 years. I love him so much, and I love our kids, and I love my twin, etc. In other words, there is always enough love to go around.

And my kids have taught me so many ways to enjoy life, not just these three. I could write forever on the joys of my children, even if I could also thank them for reminding me that it’ll be a long, long time until I sleep in again with the “fall back” time change.

What are the most rewarding lessons your kids have taught you? Leave them below in the comments.

The post 3 Ways My Kids Remind Me to Enjoy Life. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

My life has become a welcome haze of new-mother mornings and exhausted afternoons.

My days are filled with little girl activities and newborn needs.

My relationship with my husband is fixated around the beauty that we’ve created for ourselves and the reality of the workload that it entails.

And then there’s my body.

My physical self needs to move and sweat and yawn through my muscles; stretching and howling from within.

My body craves toning and tightening, loosening and lengthening in order to fully recover from my pregnant months, but the time for this is limited and never quite enough.

Yet I stole 30 minutes this morning. I felt like a thief.

I ran downstairs while my husband bathed our daughters and worked out some of my body’s kinks on my circa-1980-whatever Nordic Track. It felt delicious—I love that thing.

And, afterwards, when my hot muscles wanted to move more through a yoga practice, I settled for a couple of simple postures—because the all-or-nothing approach to life does not work.

I’ve tried that too.

I’ve tried exercising nearly all of my fat away until I was whittled down to less than 95 pounds. It took therapy and hard work to regain my health, especially my mental and emotional health.

And I recovered from my anorexia, but I realized that I’m an all-or-nothing sort of person.

I’ve been with my husband since we were 14—for over 20 years. I prefer long-term and routine and 75-minute yoga classes and long reading sessions with good books.

Or I like flipping through Netflix movies, watching only 15 minutes of one before changing. I like short online articles and magazine leaf-throughs.

But life, I’ve discovered, is so much better when I have only one glass of wine and not three (or none). It’s better, also, when I let myself have a day off from exercise. And it’s so much better when I steal those 30 minutes rather than making excuses and doing nothing at all.

I think this is why I can’t stand the new trend of calling our eating habits “clean.” Because, apparently, the opposite is “dirty”—and I think food follows this same rule too.

I’ll be honest, we still have Halloween candy from last year—even my little girl prefers dark chocolate and, okay, her recently discovered treasure, Peanut M&Ms. That said, I don’t own a microwave.

So, yes, I might be a bit of a food extremist, but I’m going to write this out loud: my husband and I have recently eaten Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. So there’s that. Because food should not be shameful. It should be something that fuels our bodies with energy and, equally, our souls with love. It’s why so many familial and cultural celebrations revolve around food. Simultaneously, we need to consider that, culturally, our exercise is often limited and that we don’t need to live around our food either.

In other words, we need to remember that we can’t eat everything and anything we want to if we want to be our healthiest selves.

And, here’s another thing—my healthiest self walked away from this writing.

While my preference is to hole up in my bedroom with coffee and my laptop, this, again, is a current rarity.

So I poured myself that glass (and a half) of wine, and I set myself up at the dining table with football on the television in the background and my husband beginning to cook dinner and our children hanging out.

And then I paused to sling the newborn child close to my body; close to my heart.

I walked into the kitchen and listened to my husband chat with me about things going on in his life that he spontaneously felt like sharing.

I laughed with my daughter when she acted silly on her pretend phone. And then I sat back down to my laptop, still spread open at the nicked, antique dining table, with most of my glass of wine sitting next to it.

Because that’s life. And, trust me—I’m an all-or-nothing sort of person (if you’ll recall). So, I understand that multi-tasking is a myth; that life is easier when performed orderly, cleanly, neatly and entirely. But I’m also a yoga practitioner (I think I mentioned that too)—I believe that living moment-by-moment is the only way to truly live (happily at least).

I inhale and feel my baby, strapped tightly to my breast, sigh and breathe along with me.

I ask my husband to go check on our other little girl in the adjoining room because it’s gotten too quiet (a mother alarm). And I know that, while I’d love to go on my much beloved circa-1980-whatever Nordic Track for more than 30 minutes and, yes, I’d also have loved a tandem yoga practice, that my life is at its fullest when I’m actually living in it.

I exhale and look over at my partially full glass of wine. The obsessive writer in me begins to regain her senses.

I start to smell the food cooking in the kitchen and notice the precise words that my daughter speaks into her play phone, and I’m so thankful to have figured this lesson out—that life cannot be all-or-nothing if we want to fully live—while I still have so much left to experience.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

Photos: Flickr/Martin Bartosch; Flickr/Lars Plougmann.

The post The All-or-Nothing Approach to Life Doesn’t Work. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

There’s something nearly ubiquitous about moms—they give you tons of advice that you proceed to ignore and then later wish you hadn’t.

Moms are right quite a lot of the time, and I have a vague understand of why, now that I’m a mother too.

And it’s simple. It’s not complex:

Mothers have your best interests at heart.

So, here are ten things that my mom was right about.

1. People need space. When I was 14 and in a relationship with my boyfriend (now husband), I was definitely inappropriately possessive.

My mom told me that this type of behavior has the opposite desired effect. She also told me that if I wanted him to want to spend time with me, that I needed to give him the freedom to do whatever he chose.

Not shockingly, she was right.

If you’re in a relationship, you’ll find that, ironically, when you stop demanding attention that it’s usually more likely to come your way.

2. Take your shoes off in the house. This isn’t necessarily sage wisdom, it’s just good common sense.

3. Don’t be late. I was always late for high school. My hauntingly annoying alarm clock couldn’t even wake me up.

My mom explained to me that when you’re late, you’re placing more importance on yourself than on others.

In short, you’re being a self-centered asshole.

She was right.

4. Say please and thank you. They make everything sound nicer.

Please, stop farting and go use the bathroom.

Thank you for hugging me after my temper tantrum instead of fighting back.

You get the idea.

5. Be kind. My mom is the sort of lady who is kind to everyone.

She doesn’t treat anyone like she’s above them and she’s polite, even to absolute strangers, and, you know what? She’s got a lot of wonderful friends and people who love her.

See, nice guys (and gals) do win. So there. (Oops, wait a minute, my mom taught me not to gloat.)

6. Clean up. My mom is absolutely amazing at keeping a clean house. I am not. This did not work on me (but I tend to think that I’m still in the ignoring advice phase and will shortly be bumped up to the she was right, this works so much better status).

Regardless, I do feel better when I get off my rear and do the dishes and wash the laundry and, you know, take care of my surroundings…because I live in them…and that’s what you do.

I’ll be sure to keep you posted on progress in this arena. (Although, for more accurate information, you should probably just go and ask my husband.)

7. Find joy in your daily life. Oh, I could write an entire book on the merits of this mindset. Come to think about it, I’ve definitely written several articles.

One of my absolute favorite things to do with my mom is go to the grocery store. Yep, the grocery store. Why? Because we have fun!

If you can’t smile and laugh and find the simple joy in those small, seemingly inconsequential aspects of your life and of your day, then, in my not-so-humble opinion, you’re missing the entire point—and you’re definitely missing out.

8. Eat together. We always ate together. It was a big deal in my family.

Sometimes you live alone and sometimes you work alone and sometimes you simply can’t or don’t eat with others—but try to as often as you’re able.

Once you do, you’ll understand immediately why this makes life better.

Food and love are meant to be shared. (And if you think that food and love are not one and the same, then you obviously haven’t tried my gingerbread.)

9. Say excuse me. For example: No, I’m not mad at you, but thank you for saying “excuse me” and going to the restroom.

Moving on…

10. Work hard—and then accept that some things are not within your control. Okay, that might have been a slightly lengthy intro line, but it’s true.

My mama always said to put effort into everything that I do.

If I’m driving, I pay attention to the road. If I’m listening, then I’m not thinking about what I want to say.

She taught me that life requires elbow grease and gumption—and then you have to learn to go with the flow and accept those moments where no amount of personal effort will change your circumstances.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. (Although, that was John Lennon and not my mom talking there.)

Still, same principle.

My mom has a lot of faith that things generally work out for the best if you also try—and, I don’t know about you, but I might be working on putting  #10 into practice for much of my life.

My mom actually taught me a lot more than 10 good things. (Don’t worry.)

She also taught me where the forks go on the table and how to shop frugally—but those didn’t make it on this list because they’re boring.

So thanks, Mom. If I can teach my little girl, your granddaughter, an ounce of the wisdom that you’ve imparted to me, then I’ll consider myself a success.

Now, if I could only remember where those darn knives go…

Photo: Gordon/Flickr.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post 10 Things Your Mom was Right About. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.