Recently my toddler turned 2 years old. Like many parents, I feel I’ve learned more from watching my kids grow up than they’ve learned from me.

Here are 35 pieces of wisdom I learned from my toddler, all in one day:

1. Crying really does work better than screaming. But scream first anyways.

2. Fruit snacks are the best choice at any time of day.

3. When you’re overheated, just take off your clothes. (It doesn’t matter where you are. See above picture, not taken at home.)

4. Seat belts are uncomfortably tight, but we have to wear them anyways. Regardless, make sure you yell in the car about your seat belt being too tight.

5. Car rides are too bumpy. Make sure Mom knows.

6. It’s impossible to walk by a grate in a parking lot and not jump on it.

7. Always choose the one with sequins.

8. Forgiving and making up after a fight doesn’t have to be hard. Just kiss and snuggle and say, “I’m sorry.”

9. It’s important to communicate our needs. When we can’t, the next best thing is to toss yourself on the floor and cry.

10. Mommy is a fruit snacks dispenser. Or at least she should be.

11. A big sister is the best. Except for when I want to play with every single one of her favorite toys and she actually wants one for herself.

12. I don’t have to kiss or hug anyone I don’t want to.

13. Candy from strangers is only OK on Halloween, even though that’s still kind of confusing.

14. Adding 750 different grains to a bread makes it both healthier and more disgusting.

15. Tissues are actually for fingertips.

16. The best place to sneeze is on Mom’s face.

17. As for throwing up: always choose the softest place to puke. Examples in order of preference, from least acceptable to most: bowl, carpet, Mom’s hands.

18. Experiment with which feet you like your shoes on. Stay strong in your choice no matter what.

19. Take the road less traveled. Like, the one with the most mud, or the wet grass even if there’s a sidewalk nearby.

20. Tutus go with everything. Everything. Everything.

21. Dad’s the sucker. Go to him first, and then again after Mom says “no.”

22. Don’t let a single day go by without the people you love most knowing it. Or without screaming at them for no real reason either.

23. Encourage Mom to shop at stores that give you stickers.

24. Every day is a new start—and a new opportunity to ask for fruit snacks for breakfast.

25. The secret to making sure Mom stays off her phone and plays with you is to consistently cry loudly whenever she makes a phone call.

26. When your parents kiss, they like it if you stand right between their legs.

27. Restaurants are so much fun. I don’t know why Mom and Dad don’t take me out to eat more.

28. For some reason, Mom always needs company when she goes to the bathroom.

29. The best things in life are free—hugs, spending time with my family, going outside. So I don’t know why Daddy has to leave and go to work every day.

30. Fix everything with tape. Lots of it. Like, lots. (And when Mom says the tape is broken, ask her for tape.)

31. Trying new things is fun. Unless the “new thing” is a vegetable.

32. Don’t ask Mom where hot dogs really come from.

33. Making people laugh is awesome. If someone does think you’re funny, do whatever made them laugh 10 more times.

34. Poop goes in the potty. And in the bathtub.

35. My family is the best. I love them so much. They love me so much. They make every day worth getting up for. At 6 in the morning, even on weekends.

The post 35 Life Lessons From a Toddler. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

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I miss having friends, but not as much as I thought I would.

I still have friends, but not the kind of friends I used to. Currently, with two kids under the age of 6, it’s mainly texting. Rarely is it phone conversations. Actual in-person interactions are even more rare.

Initially, when I became a new mom for the second time after giving birth to my second daughter, I had visions of playdates and excursions and, essentially, my life remaining the same as when I just had one child. It didn’t stay the same.

My new baby was difficult to breastfeed with any noise or activity anywhere nearby, so nursing her at restaurants was completely out. The friends I had, who would invite my oldest daughter and me over, stopped inviting us. I had to retain a sense of normalcy for my oldest, and for myself, but it was hard. Everything was harder with two kids, at least at first.

Then, somewhere, it got easier. It happened so gradually I didn’t notice it. But I began realizing I was taking my kids out to lunch, or to grocery stores, and that we were places besides tucked in our family room, and it was going relatively well. To be fair, I save most of the “big” errands for the weekends when we can do them as a foursome with their dad. Going on our main grocery store runs, for instance, or apple picking like we hope to do this afternoon—these have become Saturday things instead of “Mommy and Me” weekday ones.

Somewhere my two daughters became friends. Two days ago they were sitting cross-legged with their knees touching, heads huddled forming a heart shape with their bodies, whispering about the television show they were watching, while my husband and I watched them without their knowledge from the kitchen. They play so well despite their age gap that, twice last week and once the week before, my toddler had meltdown crying sessions over missing her big sister; begging me to go pick her up from school.

Somewhere having two kids became easier than having one. I could shower—fast, hurried showers still, but, nonetheless, I didn’t worry as much, or hear phantom cries, about my children getting hurt because now they’ll run into the bathroom and say “uh oh” if anything happens to each other (even things I don’t need to know about, like a booger on the end of someone’s finger).

Somewhere on this meandering journey of raising two little girls, I’ve become so used to having two children that those four years when it was only my oldest daughter and me seem like warm, fuzzy memories I have to hold onto carefully.

Somewhere I have to remember these “Mom of little kids” years, although full of challenging days when I wish I wasn’t the only adult home with them until close to dinnertime, are so far easily the best of my life—maybe they always will be.

I told a stranger during a conversation at a restaurant—out with my two kids—that if I had known how wonderful having siblings would be I might have been less afraid and done it sooner. (He and his wife are getting close to wanting their second child.) I wouldn’t do it differently, of course—even if I could. I love these two little people, and I really do cherish the “alone” time I had with my oldest. More, this spacing allows me to have some “alone” time with my second born before she goes off to school, too.

But my daughters are not my friends, although I want them to enjoy my company—although I enjoy theirs—they’re my kids. I’m the grown-up. And I still need friends.

I need friends, but my time right now is limited. I can and do plan self-care. Exercise, reading a good book, writing—all ways I nurture my own well-being—are activities I plan and wiggle into my life, but the stark truth is I only have a handful of years out of all of the ones that will make up my life to have these two little people under my care.

It will be gone in a flash.

In what will feel like a split second, my husband and I will have no more diapers in the house. Our sleep will be mostly unbroken. Our lives will fold back into itself in a new kind of normal; one where we aren’t caring for people smaller than waist or knee height.

I don’t want to rush these years, even if some days I would speed up a touch. I don’t want to talk over my kids asking me to do a puzzle with them to make a phone call to a friend who I do love and miss, but who hopefully will understand I’ll have a much easier time talking in five years. In this meantime, let’s text and keep one another close in our hearts.

In this meantime, I’m here, living mindfully with my children, more than aware that my “Mommy” years are limited.

My oldest already calls me “Mom” sometimes. I asked her yesterday when she started calling me Mom instead of Mommy, and she tilted her head curiously at me and grinned. Like I caught her at something. Like I caught her at growing up.

And I do miss my girlfriends. My sister is getting married, and I’m racking my brain to figure out how I can plan a halfway decent bachelorette party around kids’ bedtimes and the fact that they still wake up at 5 a.m. regardless of when Mommy drips herself into bed.

I do miss my easy, hour-long talks with friends in other states. I miss making plans to see movies my husband won’t want to see with me. I miss it, but not as much as I anticipated.

Because, somewhere, my life as a mother became not a consumption of the person I still am outside of parenting, but it became enough. At least for right now.

The post I Miss Having Friends, but Right Now Being a Mom Is Enough first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I cuddle and hold her and for this one moment in our entire day she seems like a tiny girl again. She tries so hard to be a big girl, like her big sister. She is a big girl—and then she asks me to nurse.

Hearing an almost-2-year-old ask to nurse is possibly the cutest thing ever. Sure, she doesn’t need my body for food, the way she did when I fed her as an infant. I try to show her also that we can snuggle, and that I can comfort her, without having to breastfeed. But she wants to nurse, and I want her to.

To be fair, she didn’t want to stop nursing during the day, but I forced it. It was sad at first, and upsetting for both of us, but she was showing signs that it was time to give it up, so I led her. Now, however, she still happily breastfeeds in the morning and at night. I know it’s not much, and even this will probably be given up soon, but she likes it and I do, too.

She’s my second child. I breastfed her big sister until she was over 2 as well. People don’t want to talk about breastfeeding toddlers, and I don’t think it’s completely a “taboo” thing, so much as most of the people I try to bring it up with just don’t do it. But I do—we do.

I breastfeed my toddler, in part, because I’m lucky enough to be able to. I’m overjoyed that we both took to nursing in the first place and that it’s something we’ve kept up. This once in the morning and once at night routine of ours is familiar and soothing for both of us, and yet it’s not as straightforward and “easy” to nurse a toddler.

I hold her and she sometimes kicks me in the throat, or she moves and wriggles. Occasionally she tries to sing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” while nursing. Last night she insisted on putting a sock on as a glove before we had our nightly session. She has a mind of her own and, because of this, nursing an almost-2-year-old is nothing like nursing a smaller baby.

Nursing a toddler is nothing like nursing an infant. Instead, it’s special and awesome and wonderful in its own way.

More, as I get to the end of our experience—and as I recognize this might be the last time I breastfeed a child—I can’t help but reflect back on why exactly I’ve loved doing this for both of my children so much.

I’ve loved this connection—I’ve loved how special and unique it is with each of my daughters. In many ways their personalities are nothing alike, and nursing them has been completely different. I’ll admit I’ve loved being needed, especially as my toddlers grew and began to assert independence whenever possible–I’ve enjoyed being reminded I’m “Mom,” and I’m a necessary part of their lives.

This isn’t to say other moms who don’t nurse, much less into toddlerhood, are any less of a needed mother. It is to offer that many nursing moms feel excluded when we get in public and everyone’s pulling out bottles and snacks and we know what our babies want, and we either have to become OK with being—what feels like—confrontational, or we have to simply accept that we need to be brave, and loving.

In my house, it means I have a self-imposed curfew when I get invited out, but I need to be home to nurse my child. It means my family’s morning routine is centered around our children; on my oldest having to get to school and my toddler wanting to nurse when she wakes up. But this is my choice. I know I’m not alone in this choice.

It shouldn’t be confrontational or unusual to care for our children in the ways that work best for them and for us as parents. It shouldn’t feel so weird to talk about nursing my not-quite-2-year-old. It shouldn’t be strange, but often it is.

And the reason I breastfeed my toddler is simple—it’s because I love her. It’s because these waning moments in my day, when I hold her warm little body so close to mine, are ones I hope to hold inside of my mother breast long after they’re physically gone.

The post This Is Why I Breastfeed My Toddler. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I’m putting on a brave face, but I don’t always feel brave.

I’m holding so much inside that I have to be careful to not snap at my family for no reason. What I’m holding in is all of these concerns and weighty feelings I have for my daughter as she goes to kindergarten.

I know—it’s just kindergarten. I logically know she’ll love it and that it’s a relatively easy first step in the many things that wait ahead for her, and for us. I know it’s not that big of a deal. Except for it is.

It’s my first baby’s first time being gone all day, away from me, with other people for more of her awake hours than in my care. It’s her first time experiencing so many of the many interactions with other people, both wonderful and awful, that are inevitable parts of life.

I know that my job as a parent is to help her as she experiences these things, not to shield her. Yet I am her shield, because although she’s getting “big,” she’s still so small.

And she’s nervous. I was surprised when she told me so. She told me she was scared, and it made me sad because I had no idea. We talked about what she was nervous about. I tried to both soothe her, as well as let her know she can always talk to me, even when I can’t “fix” it.

She’s nervous, so I paint on my smile. Some mornings, mascara helps because it makes me not want to cry. But I do show her my feelings.

I’m not completely false and inhibited in offering her my own strong emotions about her going to full-day school for the first time, but I am the grown-up. She needs me to be strong. She needs to know that part of being strong is sometimes crying and feeling sad, but she also needs to see my happiness, and the excited anticipation I have for all that lies ahead for her this coming year.

Because the truth is that while I am sad, I’m also ecstatic. I know she’ll love school. I know we’ll miss each other. I know it will be both.

I know we’ll both adjust, because that’s what people, and especially children, do. I know we’ll have new things to look forward to, like the coveted after school snack. I know that from here on out our life is different. It’s changing. It’s evolving. Life does this, whether we fight it or embrace it—it moves and shifts.

But I can’t help noticing that lately I find myself just looking at her; just looking at the way the dimple in her chin becomes deeper when she throws her head back and laughs with her baby sister. I find myself frequently plopping onto the middle of the carpet more and more often, with my daughter asking, “What are you doing, Mommy?” and me answering, “Just sitting here,” as I pull her and her little sister into my lap to read.

I’m finding how true it is that laundry, and dishes, and phone calls and nearly everything can wait, at least for a few minutes, at least for one book. I’m already discovering how I wish I could go back in time and stop what I was doing when she asked me to play dolls more often than I probably did.

And I know this transition will be even harder for this little sister left at home than it will be for me, so these smiles and cuddles of mine are for her, too.

I’m putting on a brave face, but my face crumples and leaks tears more often than I wish it did. I’m putting on a brave face, and I’m smiling at tiny things I might not have noticed so easily just last year when kindergarten seemed a world away.

I’m putting on a brave face even though I know I’ll smile and wave to her as the school bus leaves our driveway, and that then, after it’s out of sight, I’ll silently sob as I walk back up the front steps.

I’m putting on a brave face, and I’ll be doing it all over again in a few years for this little sister. I’ll be doing it again for high school, and college, and for so many things that right now seem that world away.

But, for right now, I have an almost kindergartner, a toddler still home with me, and the clarity and gratitude to stop and simply appreciate it.

The post I Know Kindergarten Isn’t a Big Deal—Except For It Is first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Next week my oldest child turns six. The week after, she starts full-day school for the first time.

She’ll eat lunch without me, for the first time. We’ll be apart for longer than we’ve ever been apart before, unless you count that rare weekend I flew out to see friends or a few other random times in life when I was gone all day, but that were exceptions and not typical.

I’m not okay with her being gone, but I have to be. More, I have to be a grown-up and put on a smile because my daughter is a little nervous about going to kindergarten, and because I already cannot imagine how much her little sister will miss her. (Last year when her big sister was in preschool, my youngest would ask by 10 a.m. if we could go get her.)

I anticipate how I’ll handle this change.

I plan on starting my toddler in a Mommy and Me class, and I envision morning library excursions. But the truth is that I won’t be able to activity away the pain and emptiness that we’ll both surely feel at this loss of our regular companion, my oldest child and her big sister.

We’ll adjust. People always do. Kids, especially, always do, because the nature of childhood is getting into a routine right before it switches up. We’ll adjust, but my life will never be the same. This point, of my daughter leaving for full-day school, is a marker in her life and in mine, and although I may seem dramatic, I know how important this moment is to the place of where her life with me somewhat ends and her own life shoots off.

We raise our kids to leave us, and we adjust and move forward because we have to, but it still hurts. It’s hurting now just thinking of it. This ache in my heart rises up through my throat and splashes down my cheeks at the craziest of times, like when I’m laughing with her, and she’s sitting in my lap and we’re cuddling after we’ve finished dinner, and I have to smoothly excuse myself to go cry in the bathroom for a few minutes.

Mostly, I’m starting this big adjustment by trying not to overthink, by trying not to look forward too much, by staying present. Which is hard, considering all of the planning I’m doing right now for her and our family’s new schedule.

But as often as I can, I just look at her when we play dolls. I take in how the dimple in her chin becomes deeper as we giggle while pretending a wooden spatula handle is the dolls’ gymnastics balance beam. I enjoy watching the way she plays with her little sister when I’m in the other room and they think I don’t see. I watch how they fight, like siblings who play together do, and I know I’ll miss all of these things in only a matter of weeks.

1. Making and eating Jello with whipped cream.

2. Reading our favorite books together.

3. Going to the open-air market for fresh fruits and local treats for snacks.

4. Eating lunch at the zoo.

5. Unrolling our yoga mats next to each other and doing downward dogs.

6. Listening to the rainstorms and talking about what makes thunder and lightening.

7. Looking for rainbows after the rain goes away.

8. Really paying attention to the cool things my kids come up with when playing pretend.

I stay here as much as I can, not so much ignoring reality and what lies ahead, as tucking myself into this treasured space of these final days of this one summer—that one before my daughter started kindergarten.

I do this, particularly, when I glance at the time and it’s only three, and I think something along the lines of, “Oh my God, two more hours until a glass of wine is appropriate!”

I remind myself that this chaos coupled with the frequent simplicity is a lot of what makes having children beautiful, even if it’s what makes it hard. Having kids is one part magic and one part monotony, and I’ll miss this intricate combination a lot starting in two weeks.

I know I’ll have complicated feelings all over again when my youngest goes to school, too. But for right now I hold them. I kiss them. I sometimes mediate their fights. I deal with temper tantrums. I take them for ice cream. I’m bored with them on sticky, humid days when it’s nearly too hot to go outside. I make Jello. I look for shapes in the clouds. I enjoy watching my kids be kids.

The post Stay With It, Mama: 8 Simple Ways to Enjoy These Final Days of Summer. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I wanted to “have it all together” before I had kids.

I wanted to overcome my eating disorder (and I did). I wanted to learn how to love myself. I wanted to finish college. I knew some things were out of reach.

My husband was finishing his second Master’s degree when we got pregnant with our first child. We didn’t own a house. We didn’t even know what state we would end up in. I knew my life wasn’t “figured out” or perfect, but I did feel like I had some key elements in place. And then I had kids.

And then I was up late. And up early.

And then I was challenged to my capacity of being overwhelmed, and relatively friendless (these early stages of motherhood, for me, have been lonely), and my go-to stress relievers were now stressful to incorporate into life rather than readily helpful.

Exercise, for instance, became a dance between my husband and me for how we could both workout and also spend time together in this “free” time we have. Meditation and yoga took on entirely new meanings—I often laugh at myself while I’m practicing yoga, thinking “Namaste” as I ask my kids too loudly to please let me do this for a few more minutes.

To further complicate this play of my tangled emotions, of a mother loving her children and also struggling to maintain sanity and healthy individuality, my oldest daughter is on the cusp of entering her first year of full-day school. I don’t want her to be. I want her to be here, with me, forever, even though I obviously don’t.

We raise children to grow and develop into their own selves who, we hope even though we alternately miss them with every space in our bodies, will leave us; they’ll fly away, doing their own dance of becoming the best people they can be.

I’m aware I’m still messing up with my kids with all these same things I tried so earnestly to fix before I had them.

I’m still battling my temper, my cravings for alone time that rarely exists, and my distinct need to inhabit and enjoy this relationship with their dad that they were born from. In short, I’m fighting to keep this person in me alive and well; this person so intertwined with my role as mother while not completely defined by it.

Some days I do it better than others. Some days I’m amazing at it. Some days I’m terrible.

I’m glad I held onto my own personal reasons for making myself into the woman I knew I could be before I had my children. I’m glad I learned how to eat for both pleasure and health, and to breathe through my stress through yoga. I’m glad my husband and I knew each other and our relationship and had already gone through difficulties together. I’m glad, more than anything, that I believed in myself enough to challenge my accepted level of competency, because I needed this faith in myself when I finally had babies. But it turns out there is never the perfect time to have kids.

Many people told me this when they asked what my husband and I were waiting for. Considering we’d dated for over ten years before marrying, and even though we were only 25 when we did, I was often asked if and when we would have kids and then offered this response of, “There’s never a perfect time.”

Sometimes I think the athletic “me” of my twenties would have been physically more suited for active toddlers. Sometimes I’m relieved I had so many experiences before having kids so that I can focus fully on helping them experience their own. More typically, I feel grateful for where I am, at the times that I arrive, and I simply do my best as both a mom and a human being.

I hope I show my kids how much I love being their mother, even as I clearly display, too, how fallible I am. I hope they know there will be choices they’ll face as they grow older, and that there isn’t usually one good answer. Many instances in our lives contain decisions, and we must make them as best and as capably as we can, if only to move forward.

Cliche as it is, the most shocking, upsetting, humbling, and obvious lesson I’ve learned as a mother is that there is no such thing as a perfect one, like I always dreamed I would be. There are only people trying as hard as we can.

And despite my wanting to be seamless as a mom, the reasons we love people are often because of our humanness, and our fragility, not in spite of it. May I remember this on any randomly difficult day with my children, that I’m perfectly filled with love and imperfectly doing my best.

The post The Myth of ‘Having It All Together’ first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

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.

I’m allergic to dogs and I don’t have many kids over to play with my two little girls.

I’ve never made homemade Play-Doh and I don’t plan on it either. I prefer my kids to eat ice cream out of dishes rather than from messy cones.

Mother guilt creeps up silently and throughout my day. It’s an ugly feeling and one I’m embarrassed to even acknowledge. But the thing is, I don’t want to be perfect. I want to be me, and I want to be real and genuine about myself with my kids. I want my girls to grow up and feel like they really knew their mom as a person outside of this special role. And I’m not perfect, but I am a great mom. Sometimes I have to consciously remind myself of this, with careful parts of equal logic and reason, alongside these unexpected, subconscious fears over my clear lack of mythical perfection.

I’m sure there are Pinterest-worthy moms in real life; ones who make homemade clay from flour and food dye, and who don’t have near panic attacks just thinking about sticky, food-covered fingertips; ones who don’t carry Wet Ones in their diaper bags. Having kids does mean messes, and I want it to mean messes. I want my kids to cook with me and experience the joys of dribbling watermelon juice down their chins in the hot summer sun. I want my kids to know that they are good enough exactly as they are—messy and beautiful—rather than who society will make them occasionally feel like they should be.

Yet the strange thing about mother guilt is that my kids don’t even know what their missing, and sometimes that alone is what makes me sad. Still, it’s important to gently remind myself that every family, and every mom, and every individual, has special things that we’re great at, as well as traits and quirks and qualities that are challenging. I want to teach my kids not how to be perfect, but how to kiss their imperfections. I want to display to them that Mommy knows how faulty she is, but that it’s my powerful choice to decide whether or not a flaw is something I choose to be embarrassed about or that I choose to embrace with the same kindness and love I try to show my kids.

Being perfect is boring. Being our original, badass, real-life selves is glorious.

Every time I catch myself internally harping on my failings, I stop. I observe where this feeling is coming from. I give myself permission to feel whatever emotional sensation that’s moving through me, even the uglier ones that I’d rather not experience, but then I’m careful to understand that just because an emotion is real, it doesn’t mean that it’s the truth about my life or who I am. It’s exactly like when my daughter told me she’s scared to go to her new, big-kid kindergarten school, and I hugged her and told her I understood what being scared feels like, even though I knew she would love it and be fine.

My kids are not cookie cutters, and neither is their mama—thank God.

The only truth is that comparison is a small death for our confidence, and for our abilities to find joy within our lives and within who we naturally are. Comparing ourselves, especially with how we parent, to other people steals what makes us unique and wonderful, too.

So there might be days when I tell myself today will be the day that I make Play-Doh from scratch, even when I know I probably won’t. I hope there are many more days when I look in the mirror and smile at how hard I’m trying to love my kids and myself.

The post Banishing Mother Guilt to Find Joy. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

It’s funny that sometimes we are afraid to interact with other people, both strangers and friends.

As a society, we are thankfully becoming increasingly aware of how words have impact, and how differences are something to celebrate rather than judge. Still, with parenting–and even more specifically, with motherhood—people can feel too free to offer their opinions of a situation they might know nothing about.

I remember one low moment in particular when I had my generally hyper child with me in the supermarket and we had been having that kind of dance all afternoon where she’s just being an energetic kid, and I was tired and very pregnant with my youngest. All afternoon we had run errands and we had made it work, but in this one instance at the check-out line, I said to her through too tight lips that she needs to stop running away from me while I’m trying to finish up our shopping. The woman behind me overheard my frustrated, mildly angry tone of voice and shot me the nastiest look. It shrunk me.

On the other hand, once when we were in a nearly identical situation, the stranger behind me started asking my daughter sweet, appropriate questions at eye level. She kept her entertained and standing next to me by asking her, for example, what grade she was in and if she liked being a big sister (my youngest now born, and sitting in the shopping cart on this trip). She made my heart swell with gratitude.

The exact same situation handled with intentional kindness can make all the difference in other people’s lives.

Mothers of young children can be overwhelmed and raw feeling, but there’s also an ever-present joie de vivre during this season of life that’s unmatched. Following are a few tips, from my mother-to-young-kids heart to any stranger or friend who might be behind me in the grocery store line.

Let’s begin with words we can usually refrain from offering:

1. Take a breath/calm down.

Do you know how to make a frustrated person more frustrated, or an angry person more angry? Tell her to calm down.

2. You look tired.

Seriously?! Unless this is immediately followed by an offer to come over and watch my kids this second so I can nap or put my feet up, don’t say this. Ever.

3. Constant unsolicited advice.

There are pieces of advice given at appropriate times from friends that are genuinely helpful. There have been several instances when someone near to me offered an idea and I thought, “Why didn’t I think of that?” This said, there are multiple, correct ways to raise children, and what works for one kid and family may or may not work for another child and parent. In short, butt out.

And let’s say these things more please:

1. I’m here to listen.

Rather than offering advice, offer a listening heart.

2. You look beautiful.

This is so uplifting to be told and to say, too.

(It means even more when we tell other people they’re beautiful while they’re doing ordinary, everyday things and being who they are naturally.)

3. You’re doing a great job.

It seems all too easy to point out when a parent has apparently failed, yet we all can use a kind compliment now and again.

On one occasion I was getting my weekly allergy shots and, as usual, I had my daughter along. (This was before the birth of my youngest, and when my oldest was that antsy, extremely active toddler.) The nurse told me I always do a wonderful job with my daughter. At the time, I wasn’t feeling so supermom-ish, and her words took me by surprise. She stopped what she was doing, looked me in the eyes, and repeated that the staff are continually in awe of my relationship with my child. This bolstered my tired mommy-heart much more than she knew.

Because the bottom line with parenting is that we are trying our best, and it’s truly amazing how a few gentle words of encouragement, or taking the time to listen rather than speak, can have a positive impact on both the lives of the hard-working mothers around us and on their beautiful children.

The post 3 Things to Say to a Mom of Young Kids and 3 Things Not To. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.