I had a really challenging week. But the thing about being a mom is that we have to keep pushing forward. Life with kids is full and chaotic, and beautiful and truly “never dull”. Because of this, I practice these six arts of self-care as often as I can.

1. Walk away.

I’m not only talking about trying to walk away from a frustrating situation and give it some space. More, I’m suggesting that, at least from time to time, we walk away and let someone else handle it.

Example: my oldest daughter has been getting emotional easily. It’s frustrating. It’s especially frustrating because I feel sorry for her, but my own temper still rises at so much crying and screaming. This morning my husband dealt with it completely. I took a shower. I drank hot coffee instead of letting it sit there and drinking it cold later like I did for most of this week.

For one, it’s good for my kids to have a different adult’s perspective on how to handle challenging moments in life, and for another, when that other adult is their dad it’s best that I let him parent his own way and refrain from infusing my parenting into his. While we parent our kids together, we aren’t the same, and the way we spend time with our kids isn’t the same either. I’m the one home all day and he’s not. This means that when he walks through the door in the evening, or it’s Saturday morning like today, I need to remember that their other parent is home and I don’t need to do everything anymore. Letting go of control can be tricky when we become so accustomed to it, but it’s good for everyone involved.

2. Exercise.

Not to look a certain way. Not to get our “pre-baby body back.” (Ugh.) We should exercise because it feels good and it makes us feel good inside. Working out is such a wonderful mood and energy boost for me, and it’s also a great way to relieve stress.

3. Read.

I spend so much time reading books with pictures with my kids. My girls love reading, and the voracious reader and writer in me is ecstatic about this. Still, at the end of the day, it’s difficult to muster the desire to want to read my own books, when all I want to do is spend time with my husband or veg out to Netflix. Yet I find again and again that once I pick up a novel and read two pages of it, I end up reading more, and I finish books, just not with the same speed and ease as I once did.

Reading is fantasy, and entertainment, and it’s a reminder of all the various parts of me that exist outside of this often consuming role of “Mom”.

4. Spend time alone.

I’ve always been the kind of person who needs a lot of alone time, and I don’t get nearly enough. If I have time to spare, I honestly love to spend some downtime by myself. Not only is this an excellent way to regroup and refocus on who we are as an individual, in addition to being a parent, but, for me, it’s so rejuvenating to take care of myself by remembering that I’m my own friend.

5. Laugh.

Little kids are hilarious. Each day I have many reasons to laugh and smile, but the reality of being home all day with small children is that it’s also exhausting and frustrating. Watching a silly YouTube video, or sending funny text messages with my best friend and my sister, or watching something on TV that makes me laugh after the kids have gone to bed can make even the hardest of days feel ultimately like a good one.

6. Cut ourselves some slack.

Easier said than done. I keep replaying a scene from earlier in my week when I acted in a way with my daughter I wish I didn’t. I wish more than anything I could take my reaction back. But I can’t. I’m not perfect. More, I’m filled with flaws. But the thing is, my kids will be filled with flaws, too, and it’s my job as their mom to teach them to love themselves because of their humanness. (And we all know what they say about learning through example.)

And I know these suggestions are simple, but that’s what’s interesting about self-care—it’s often these little, basic rituals that are easily infused into everyday life that have the most significant impact.

Taking care of ourselves doesn’t have to be extravagant. Often, it’s the tiny ways we show ourselves love that reflect back the most powerfully, and not just to us but to our kids, who are learning from us how to love themselves. It’s these small things we do that become our habits, that become our days, that become our years, that become our lives.

The post 6 Things Moms Should Do for Themselves as Often as Possible. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Having children changed me, even without my meaning for this to happen. I hang out with two little kids all day long, and it’s impossible for this not to shape me.

I care more about some things than ever before—ingredients in store-bought foods, public schools and education—and I care a lot less about other things.

Six things I started caring about after having kids:

1. Rory Gilmore’s love life.

I didn’t watch television before having kids, aside from Seinfeld reruns and football, and the occasional food documentary. Now, however, I have a much needed date each night with Netflix and a glass of wine (and my husband, of course).

Parenting is the most rewarding, hardest job ever. Self-care and downtime are required.

2. The size of my pants.

I started caring more than ever about the size of my pants after having kids. I started paying attention to my attachment to my weight because I’m raising two girls and I want them to avoid the eating-disorder struggles and the self-loathing that I battled. So I’ve given myself permission to be honest about my body image, but to not negatively be defined by my physical self either.

For the first time maybe ever I genuinely love myself. I’m one of those unicorn-moms who wears yoga shorts and doesn’t care what my butt and thighs look like. Deciding to accept that I’ve held myself up to meaningless societal standards for a lifetime ironically helped me purge them.

(It helps that I don’t know my true size, since the yoga pants I live in aren’t that specific.)

3. If I’m liked.

I do care if people like me, but the people pleaser in me largely went away when I had a better reason to grow up and like myself regardless of unimportant outside feedback—my children.

4. If I have food between my teeth.

I do still appreciate a heads up if I have salad from lunch wedged between my two bottom teeth, but since I generally have food on my clothes, or in my hair, it’s really less significant now.

5. Tomorrow.

Planning for our future as a family, and for my kids, is more important to me now than ever, but regularly reminding myself to stay right here in this beautiful chaos that is life with little kids means more than ever, too.

6. Perfection.

I’ll always be a little bit Type A and a lot anal-retentive, but my previous ideas of perfection are nothing like my current ones. Lately, if my house is clean, and the kids and I are clean, and cared for, and fed, then everything else is icing.

Because we have these ideas of what a parent looks like—of what a mother should be—and I, at least, work every day to try to be this ideal creation.

And then I have to force myself to stop; to look in the mirror; to see the real woman looking back at me—to choose to care about her and like her, exactly as she is.

There is no perfect woman.

There is no perfect mother.

We are all perfect.

We are all deserving of love and respect for living authentically inside of our skin and our lives. I hope to teach my daughters this, too.

The post 6 Things Besides the Environment I Started Caring More About After Having Kids. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It’s easy to throw around the words that moms should take care of themselves, but self-care, when put into actual practice, doesn’t always come so simply.

For me, self-care is the little things.

Much like my relationship with my husband during these years of raising young children, self-love also involves recognizing the small ways that love shines through on a daily basis.

I care for myself when I make a cup of coffee in the morning and take the time to have that first slow sip before starting breakfast for my kids.

I care for myself when I take ten minutes to have a shower alone.

These tiny rituals are, in my experience so far, the ones that can have the most substantial effect upon my day. (As is fully realized when I quickly leave the house in a bed-head ponytail and not enough coffee.)

Following are truly accessible ways that moms can care for themselves while parenting little kids who, you know, depend on us every second and stuff.

1. Ask for help.

My husband has mornings when he has to leave early and isn’t around to help out with our before-school routine. Even when he is home, our window of time as a foursome with our two kids is limited. However, whenever possible, taking a moment to go to the bathroom alone has the profound ability to alter the rest of my day positively.

Likewise, when my parents are here visiting, it’s great for me to see them, not only the kids. I miss their company and it’s wonderful having other adults around to have conversations with. That said, making a phone call without the baby in one arm or going for a much-needed massage appointment are things I need help with, but often don’t have.

In other words, ask for help and don’t be afraid to do it. Everyone needs help. Everyone. More, this gives other people who love us the opportunity to care for us when we need it most. (And if we are raising daughters like I am, then this displays to them through action that women need to use our powerful voices—and that we can’t, and shouldn’t, have to do it all alone.)

2. Have a massage once a month.

One way that I find to overcome the budget issue with massage therapy is to schedule half-hour appointments.

While more time is typically best, a half-hour is enough to care for my cranky neck and shoulders, and I leave a completely different person than I arrived. This relates directly to suggestion number one, though, because it will be imperative to ask for help. I find it easiest to make the appointment, and then ask for either my parents or my husband to be home with the kids that day. With the time already booked, I’m more likely to be assertive in following through.

Also, if you have a baby like I do, then our bodies are still recovering from pregnancy and birth, and, frankly, those baby carrier/car seats might be convenient, but they are horrendous for small body frames. (Insert massage therapy.)

3. Go outside and take five breaths.

Go outside. Step onto the front porch or open the back door and take five breaths. Trust me.

People are not meant to be cooped up in the house all day, but, for me as a stay-at-home mom, I’m often dealing with the kids indoors or in the car running errands. Taking the space within our every day to pause and breathe outside reminds me that I’m a healthy animal, and that the world is there to hold me up when the day has been a rocky one.

4. Practice yoga.

If you have the ability to go to a yoga class, then great. I, typically, do not.

Instead, I unroll my mat and have my baby smile up into my face in downward-facing dog, pulling not-so-gently at my hair. I unroll a smaller mat for my oldest daughter, but she usually creeps onto mine. In other words, I try my damndest to have a “real” home yoga practice on most days, but my “yoga every damn day” basically involves me sitting in a pile of kids and doing a few postures that make my body feel good. (And taking those deep breaths outdoors.)

In short, yoga, and exercise in general, do not have to be full, hit-the-gym-for-an-hour sessions to make our bodies feel good. Just five minutes of abdominal and back strengtheners rev my energy back up when I need it and help me feel good about myself, so I can be a better mom to my kids.

5. Run errands alone.

To be fair, I am rarely without my kids.

I went to Earth Fare yesterday to pick up pizzas for my baby’s first birthday party, and I realized how strange it was to be there without children.

Similarly, when I run to Target to grab my prescription on a Saturday morning, I feel like I’m forgetting something. (Oh, yes—kids! At home with their dad!) Sometimes it feels like a waste of good alone time to do something mundane like run errands, but each time I do this I know it’s not.

One of the most challenging things about motherhood is that I often feel like I need to be doing something productive in order for my alone time to be “worthwhile.” Writing, exercising—these things, sure. But sitting on the front porch with a glass of wine just looking at the treetops skim the setting-sun skyline? Nah.

And then I look—I really look at the way those rough evergreens brush against the orange clouds, as I take an easy sip of my favorite, slightly tart white wine. I breathe in those five breaths and slowly exhale one long one out at the end, and I feel truly rejuvenated.

My whole body relaxes into sitting still in this short moment of my life, and I am a better mother for meeting my own needs, independent of the needs of those around me.

Because self-care doesn’t have to be fancy pedicures out with friends—although it can be; it doesn’t have to be of a certain length of time to be effective. Instead, self-care is the way we show ourselves love every single day, and our kids are seeing this.

Our children are learning how to love themselves through our example.

Do you have self-care rituals that make your day feel happier and more fulfilling? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

The post 5 Everyday Self-Care Tips for Moms. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It’s commonly accepted that stay-at-home mothers give up their lives temporarily, only to reclaim them later on when the kids are older.

This is problematic for several reasons, the least being that a parent’s state of mind directly impacts our children.

Being a stay-at-home mother, for me, is both exhausting and demanding. I’ll admit to feeling tickles of envy—as well as, sometimes, flat out irritation—when I see other mothers perform child-rearing duties with the apparent ease and, equally, the helping hands that I lack.

My parents visit often, but living two hours away from my husband’s family and mine means that I fly solo in my daily life as “mom.”

This means I don’t have the ability to toss my kids at grandma’s house and hit a yoga class. It means, too, that my husband and I can’t have the cutesie “date nights” that I see all over Facebook—without significant planning, that is.

This all said, I still don’t believe that I should be pausing my life completely because I parent young children. More, it means that I shouldn’t be waiting for those “someday” years down the road to enjoy my life.

For one, my kids will still need me.

In my own experience with adolescence, this is when life really gets sticky. Yes, life might literally be less sticky for me—since fruit snacks and messy faces will likely be less frequent within our daily routine—but, in all seriousness, I don’t plan on my daughters’ teenage years being our cushy ones.

Secondly, life is funny—the way that things work out.

Often my life has taken a completely different path from the one I set out on very carefully—life truly is short and we don’t know what tomorrow brings. While I do sincerely hope for significantly more “date nights” with my husband than we have now (or even some), I’m not reserving all of my fun for that far-off “someday.”

I hadn’t, for example, planned on being a stay-at-home mom. Actually, it took me a long time to even call myself that. My degree is in geology, I’m a 200-hour certified yoga teacher and also—obviously—I’m a writer. Stay-at-home mom, though? Nah—I don’t have the patience for that.

I don’t, really.

I have a quick temper and those things that some moms make look simple are difficult for me—like going to the grocery store with two young kids, going to the bathroom alone, and even maintaining long-distance friendships.

But I am a stay-at-home mom—and, usually, quite happily. Additionally, I plan on being home with my kids when they’re teenagers. Again, plans change—but this is my ideal goal.

The reason that I plan on primarily wearing my “mom” name-tag as my kids grow up is simple—the physical daily life of being a mom might become easier, but the challenges of their lives become more intricate—and I want to be there for that if I can.

Having this aim of being a stay-at-home mom to teenagers means that I’m not looking to my upcoming years as stock for myself—for my own needs, wishes and wants. Instead, it means that I take great care to try to fulfill myself now. I will not lie—it’s not easy.

Yes, I hope to exercise and write more often, or at least with more ease, when my kids are in school full time—but placing importance on the present means having my husband watch the kids so I can workout and feel healthy today, not tomorrow or someday.

I hope my children are noticing how I take care of myself and love myself.

I hope they learn through this example that self-care and finding joy where we are right now are not things to shove to the wayside for any reason, even parenting young children.

The post Why I’m Not Waiting Until My Kids Are Older to Enjoy My Life. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I have to declare something loudly: loving oneself is not the same as being a narcissist.

We’ve gotten so used, especially as women, to being expected to either be full of self-loathing or arrogant boasting that we can seemingly forget one of the most simple truths of the self, and of life: sometimes self-love is just love.

I didn’t always love myself. Actually, for most of my life I haven’t felt at home within my body, much less in love with it.

But this post isn’t about eating disorders (although I’ve written extensively about my past with one) or how to love ourselves (I’ve written a lot about that too). Instead, this is a simple out-loud, fierce acknowledgment to the world that it’s okay to love ourselves.

It’s okay to give ourselves permission to love ourselves.

It’s not selfish, or shallow or narcissistic to love—it’s love, plain and easy.

To be fair, love takes work—I’ve learned this in my over-20-years relationship with my husband; that love, frankly, can be work.

Sometimes love is easy—like it should be.

Sometimes love is glasses of wine on the front porch at sunset or holding hands on a country-road drive. Sometimes, though, it’s dealing with student loans and differing opinions and essential human flaws.

I am filled with flaws. (One of the first things that I had to do in order to love myself was to own up to these flaws, because we can’t begin to either accept or transform something without first acknowledging it.)

I am perfectly flawed.

It’s often said that love is finding a perfectly imperfect match; that love is accepting someone in full, exactly as he or she is, standing in front of us with beating red heart—and self-love is this too.

Self-love is honoring who we already are, who we wish we could be and, also, sometimes it’s winging it—just like it is in romantic love.

Sometimes you wing it.

I wake up, I look in the mirror and, often, the eyes looking back at me are tired.

I don’t just see my face in the mirror—I see a reflection of my inner-self because I know her, I live with her, and I know that she’s stayed up late with the baby a few too many nights.

I know that her husband had to go to work early a few days in a row. (This is precisely why there is the potential for body dysmorphia, and why so many eating disorders have underlying mental and emotional suffering as triggers.)

But self-love, I’ve learned and re-learn regularly, is equal parts not taking what I observe in the mirror as the most important aspect of myself and honoring what I see in the mirror too.

I was putting concealer on underneath my eyes yesterday morning.

My daughter loves to pretend that she’s doing my morning routines along with me—things like the oil I put on my hair, she pretends to pat on her head, or she pretends to apply moisturizer on her face.

I told her bluntly that when mommy doesn’t get enough sleep, that she easily gets bruises underneath her eyes and that I cover them up because it makes me feel better.

Why do I cover them up?

It’s a minor thing, really, but it is a part of my daily rituals, as of late.

I’ve discovered that I conceal them so that the first thing people see—so that the first thing I see—is not my lack of sleep, but the bouncy step in my eyes, or the smile on my face.

Many days I’m sure covering up under-eye circles does not conceal my fatigue.

I’m sure it’s still made obvious by the way that I have to stiffly control the volume of my voice when I feel frustrated with my daughter, or even in the slight curl of my shoulders.

Yet part of my self-care-filled morning involves this particular routine.

It also involves moving my body, eating foods I like that make me feel good, drinking a cup of coffee made exactly as I enjoy it; and breastfeeding; and cuddling children; and running children from here to there.

And much like our lives are a collection of the way that we spend the hours of our days, our self-love is equally a cumulative, sum-total of how much, or how little, we accept who we are—where we are right now and, yes, things like what we look like.

It’s also a product of what we choose to focus on.

Do I occasionally wish I had springy, curly hair like my daughter? Sometimes. Not really. I love her hair, but I’ve learned to accept who I am, and I hope that, one day, my own self-acceptance helps her with hers.

Because looking in the mirror, smiling at my reflection, noting that, yep, I’ve got a couple of dark circles under my eyes this morning, but—oh my goodness—what a pretty shade of blue-green my eyes are too, is not narcissistic—it’s love.

Let’s not necessarily go overboard flaunting our exteriors or over-estimating how wonderfully we perform some activities, but let’s not forget that it’s okay to appreciate who we are and our capabilities and strengths—as much as it’s okay to recognize our potential weaknesses.

The opposite of love is not hate.

The opposite of love is indifference.

It’s cold. It’s unfeeling.

I celebrate 21 years of dating my husband this Saturday.

I can, most assuredly, offer that love is wonderful—if not always easy—and that it has periods of waning and waxing, and moments where we must demand change, as well as opportunities to relax into the way things already are.

I do this with myself.

This is love.

And the reason why it’s a basic human craving to seek out love is because, while it does, from time to time, take labor and patience and maturity—it feels good.

It feels good to be in love.

And maybe this is exactly why we as a society can sometimes be uncomfortable with someone who practices self-love—because we are more uncomfortable with the idea of enjoyment than anything else.

So let me offer one last thought: It’s okay to enjoy ourselves.

It’s okay to enjoy life.

And one of the best things about self-love is that we need no one’s permission—or acceptance, or patience, or care—besides our own.

Photo: Flickr/Hold My Heart; Flickr/The Bull Pen.

The post Why Self-Love Is Not Narcissism. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

When Jennifer and I first started to become friends, our plans to chat were often pushed off by the busyness that all of us deal with—especially moms.

It’s something I think we often do as women: we save what we need for last when, really, to be more effective caregivers, we need to attend to ourselves first.

Think about the oxygen masks on an airplane. They always instruct you to take your own before you help someone else.

It’s not my analogy, but it’s one I’ve read a few times and it always resonated with me. If we don’t take care of ourselves, eventually we will have nothing left to give. The time I take for myself (especially as an introverted parent)makes all the difference in how well I take care of my kids.

So here is my list: 25 things all moms need to do to recharge. ~ Kate Bartolotta

1. Take five minutes to meditate, twice a day. Longer if you can, but even five is tremendously helpful.

2. Read an article that just interests you. Not a parenting article. Not something for work. Not recipes. Not relationship advice. Just something that intrigues the you underneath all that.

3. Keep and/or cultivate friendships with your child-free friends. It’s hard sometimes, but it’s good for both their friendship and the perspective.

4. Spend a third five-minute burst (or 20 minutes when you can find it) with your tea or coffee and your journal. Even if you don’t consider yourself a “writer” it’s good to have a place to put your thoughts where you don’t have to re-frame them or edit them for anyone else’s consumption.

5. Once in awhile, stay out too late and behave inappropriately. You know, not so bad you end up in jail, but bad enough that you wouldn’t want your mom in on it.

6. Soak in the bath. Make it as hot as possible; salts or bubbles optional.

7. Get a tattoo. Somewhere you get to choose who you share it with, something that’s meaningful to you.

8. Play Robot Unicorn Attack. Okay, if that’s not your cup of tea, choose anything silly, frivolous and of no use to anyone to do for a few minutes. Enjoy thoroughly.

9. Ask for help. Learn what the halo of the onset of that overwhelmed feeling looks like and ask for help before you are depleted.

10. Go skinny dipping at least once a summer.

11. Pause. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. (I stole this one from Jenn. It’s that important.)

12. Let your phone go to voicemail at night. It can wait.

13. Get up and watch the sunrise at least once a month.

14. Take a few pictures of your child or children sleeping peacefully. You will need that reminder sometimes.

15. Read Neruda, preferably a sonnet, when you get up in the morning. Or read it to someone you love before you go to sleep.

16. Watch Moulin Rouge and sigh about true love (and Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman and the beautiful sets and costumes and El Tango de Roxanne).

17. Read The Little Prince, for the child that’s still inside you.

18. Read Little Birds, because you’re a grown woman.

19. Eat with your hands—it isn’t just for kids. Pomegranate, mango, blackberries. Let yourself slow down and enjoy.

20. Pay attention to how your body feels before you answer “yes” or “no” to doing something. It’s okay to say no when it’s what you really mean.

21. Stay up and watch the sunrise with someone you love to talk to.

22. Write! Keeping a journal is like writing your own history.

23. Go out with friends that make you laugh so hard you cry. (And skip the “friends” that do the mean girl, competitive mom or gossip thing. High school is over.)

24. Make a wish. Use a star, a wishing well, a four-leaf-clover, 11:11. Keep that whimsical place in your heart that allows for wishing.

25. Lay down in the grass in the middle of the day and look at the sky.

It’s absolutely true that there’s no better job in the world than being a mama.

Hands down, it’s the most rewarding—yet demanding—career path that a woman could follow.

Thankfully, there are plenty of rejuvenating things that mothers can do for themselves when they need a pick-me-up, be it large or small.

Here’s my little list—from my mother’s heart to yours. ~ Jennifer S. White.

1. Spend time with a girlfriend talking about your deepest thoughts and feelings—and then listen to hers.

2. Paint your nails—yourself (moving meditation in action).

3. Get a massage—regularly.

4. Sleep in.

5. Wake up early—by yourself.

6. Dance without music.

7. Read a book that opens your mind.

8. Read a book that opens your heart.

9. Learn how to say “no”—and then do it.

10. Yet remember when it’s important to say “yes”—for you.

11. Share dessert with someone you love (friend, lover, child or furbaby).

12. Take a yoga class. (Bonus points: a different style than you usually practice.)

13. Look in the mirror and tell yourself—out loud—that you are the most beautiful woman in the world. (Repeat as often as necessary.)

14. Think of one thing that you’ve wanted to do for a long time and have put off for others, and then make steps to doing it now.

15. Buy yourself a piece of jewelry.

16. Wish on the first star you see tonight.

17. Take a book to bed—in the middle of the day.

18. Have a girls night out that extends beyond 10 o’clock.

19. Learn to ask for help before you desperately need it. (Good for the entire family.)

20. Pause. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

21. If you don’t have much “alone time” during your day then make sure to look up at the sky and drink in the beauty and joy of your life—nothing lasts forever. Enjoy it—all of it.

22. Buy a new CD or download a new album—new as in contemporary/current—and listen to the entire thing without stopping it once.

23. Smile. That’s right—right now—smile. Hold it….hoooooold it.

24. Take a pottery class. (For me, personally, see # 14.)

25. Write your own list—every damn day.

Photo: Hans Splinter/Flickr.

The post 50 Things Moms Need to Do for Themselves. ~ Kate Bartolotta & Jennifer White first appeared on Jennifer S. White.