December brings families, friends and communities together as it's full of winter holidays. It's impossible to avoid the sale racks, evergreen trees and wreaths, and holiday foods and sweets. 

Being pregnant, having a new baby or in the midst of raising young children often means navigating the winter holidays in a very new way. Perhaps you've rung in the New Year with bubbly and stayed up until dawn, celebrating with friends and loved ones. Or maybe Hanukkah meant keeping family tradition and spending hours on preparing special dishes. Maybe last year, when your little one was just a few weeks old, you spent Christmas at home, missing large family gatherings. 

Wherever in the parenting stage you are this year, I encourage you to keep your focus on making it joyful and peaceful, based on what you and your family need. Try not to push yourselves any further than you want, even if it means you're going to disappoint your family because you're not traveling to make the annual holiday dinner. Maybe you have a young child and you'll be searching out kid-friendly activities. Find what interests you and will bring you joy, and let everything else go. Try not to overload your calendar or else you may find yourself very overwhelmed. If you've planned on attending some great community event but your little one is just having it, then skip it! Give yourself permission to make special memories on your own, without the stress that may come with pushing yourself to each and every event on the community calendars. 

With that said, one of the great things of having young children is seeking out the different happenings in your community. You'll have the opportunity to see the "same old" with new eyes. You've seen those lights downtown for years; no big deal, right? But when you see your child staring up in wonder, it suddenly feels magical. 

Think about what two or three priorities you have for December, and go from there; keep your family time easy, peaceful and full of joy by keeping it simple. 

I am all about support- receiving, giving, asking for. When I was pregnant with my daughter in 2006, I joined an online community supporting women all due in the same month. It was life-changing to be surrounded, albeit virtually, with women experiencing similar feelings, physical challenges and transitions. 

Years later, I joined FaceBook and my social network expanded past my in-real-life support network. It was amazing to share the important moments with my friends and family (and let's face it, acquaintances). Clicking "Like" communicated to others that I was present, aware. And each time I saw someone comment or "Like" something I posted, I felt this invisible thread connect me to the outside world. 

Instead of picking up the phone or writing a letter, I connected to my community via the computer and eventually my phone. This gave me a feeling of support and community, because here at my fingertips was the ability to share, ask questions, and celebrate the joys. It also gave me the chance to complain and admit my shortcomings. 

I continued to make connections outside of social media, however I spent a lot of time growing my online relationships. Some of those friendships flourished and grew into in-real-life support, where we'd actually spend time together. Other friendships remained online, offering me an almost constant source of support at any given time. 

I value online support. It serves me well and I appreciate the connections to people with whom I wouldn't otherwise interact. But I've grown to understand in-real-life connections are valuable beyond words. You can't replicate the connection that is made, sitting across from someone and sharing a deep conversation, over the Internet. Can those virtual conversations be fulfilling? Yes. But can they replace in-real-life relationships? No, I don't believe so.

Here in Bloomington, there will be a free group happening three times before the end of the year. New Moms' (Again) Group takes place at Bloomington Area Birth Services. It's facilitated by someone trained to listen and support groups, without judgement. This group meets Sunday, November 16 from 4-5:15pm, Monday, December 1 from 5:30-7pm and again Sunday, December 14, 4-5:15pm. 

Here is a place where you can come with your new(er) baby and meet other moms who have also recently welcomed their second (or third...) baby. Here is a place where you can sit down with other women and help guide the conversations to both support and find support. You can share how amazing it is to see your children interact or you may feel completely overwhelmed and learn ways to make it more managable. Or maybe, you'll simply sit and hear someone say, "I know how you feel," without trying to make it better. Because sometimes we don't need someone to make it better or take away the hard stuff; sometimes we just need to be heard. 

I hope you can find the in-real-life support that will lift you up during the rough times and cheer you on during the good times. Because that, my friends, is what makes this journey more enjoyable, more managable. 

Birth is not what you think. 

It's so much more...more challenging, more gratifying, more sacred than what you can ever anticipate. Even for someone who has had a child prior, it still exceeds any expectations. 

So how do you possibly prepare for birth if there's essentially no way of predicting how it's going to unfold or how you're going to feel during? 

Easy. You do what you can. 

That may mean writing your preferences down to share with your birth team. That may mean attending classes or workshops to learn about the stages of labor or reasons why interventions may be recommended. Maybe preparing means digging deep into what scares you or exploring the worries that keep you up at night? Perhaps it means acknowledging your fears then putting them to the side, focusing only on the here and now. 

Birth will push you to your limits: physically, emotionally, mentally. And I speak of vaginal birth and cesarean birth! You have to let your soul crack open in a way it never has in order to settle into the space that is required when you're preparing to meet your new child. 

Seeing, reading, and hearing about birth may help you as you near towards your child's birth. It may demystify the whole process, however when it's happening to you, it's a whole different story. You can lean on some of what you've learned, but you must let go and open up your body and heart when you're laboring and birthing. 

If interventions are warranted, you may not be able to process right then and there. That's okay. Staying present to your needs and those of your child is very important, too. But I suspect you will reach a place where you need to revisit the what, when, how, etc. of your child's birth in order to move forward. That's not to say you can't be an amazing parent without analyzing how your child's birth unfolded. However, you may discover that as you move forward in your parenting journey, you're driven to see your child's birth as the powerful and sacred experience it was, even if it didn't happen as you had wanted or expected. 

Birth is mystical and scientific and everything in between. There's this very real spiritual journey to becoming a mother, and yet it's also very much an experience that is biological. 

You get to decide what you need to do to feel prepared. You get to be in charge of how much ownership you take in your baby's birth. You have the decision of who attends your birth and where you birth. There is no right or wrong, only decisions that are made. 

Birth is really something that can't be described. It's only something you can experience. 

When I was pregnant with our third child, I put together activity bags for our older children (ages 4 & 6 years). We had planned on having the kids home during my labor and their sibling's birth, and I wanted them to have something to open and explore while I was laboring. 

One of the things we included was a disposable camera for each of our older children to use at their discretion. I pictured us looking through the photographs, remembering the day the new baby was born. Perhaps they'd have photographed me laboring in the bathtub or the leaves that fell on the beautiful fall day. Maybe they'd capture their Thanksgiving dinner, eaten only hours before the baby was born. 

Instead, there were about twenty photos taken in their bedroom of their favorite stuffed animals, random pictures of the wall, and some blurry ones of the cat and dog. They even captured me in early labor. Maybe one or two photos were of their baby brother. 

This was how they captured the day their brother was born. 

It wasn't exactly the birth photography I was expecting, but it was perhaps even better than what I was anticipating. They captured the moments they wanted, and they did so without guidance. They had this opportunity to take photos without the instant gratification of looking at the picture seconds later. They spent their time at home, comfortable and safe, filling the hours with what they wanted as I labored and prepared for birth. 

There's a real beauty in seeing the world through your child's eyes. 

This mothering-bit is funny. 

For the longest time, I was really consumed with the quality of my mothering. While I still check myself, I no longer obsess over whether I'm doing it "right". That's not to say I don't care how I interact with my kids or the decisions I make, rather, I am more relaxed about where I am in my parenting journey. 

I have my days where we all get along, my youngest is incredibly charming and sweet, and we're in a groove. Dinner out is a happy time, my kids say the most thoughtful things, and we aren't correcting behaviors or rolling our eyes at our children's antics. 

And then I have my days where I'm tired, my kids are just not pulling it together and instead behaving like they've never been in a store before, and it's just not working. 

When my middle was a handful of months and I was mothering a 2 year old alongside him, I about lost my mind. I expected so much of myself and of him, and he clearly needed different things from me than my daughter did at that age. So I let him cry-it-out in his crib. Some times it was because I had no other reserves and it was a better alternative than feeling extreme frustration while he was in my arms. And other times it was because I just didn't feel it in me to meet his needs. When my two young children were in bed and it was 9pm, I wanted to be done with parenting for a handful of hours, at least until I was feeling recharged. So if my son woke, I'd let him cry, hoping he'd "figure it out" and self-soothe himself back to sleep. This wasn't my response EVERY time he cried, but I'm ashamed it happened as many times as it did. 

I am the mother that let him cry in his crib, alone and needy. I am the mother that was exasperated by my children's needs. I am the mother that didn't have a village to turn to for support. I am that mother. 

Do I respond to my youngest, nearly 2 years old, the same way? No. I have more patience, more understanding for what my child needs, what he expects. When he cries, he expects someone will respond to him. And because I reacted very quickly to his needs early on, I truly believe that he is just more trusting and connected to me. 

That last part makes me feel so sad, mostly for my older son's sake. 

My older son, my "needy-child", my child that just felt more difficult, is an amazing person. He seems well-adjusted and happy and he's just wonderful. I don't really think I harmed him for the rest of his life by letting him cry in his crib (though it did something to affect his development, I'm sure). But there is something that will forever reside with me, and that is the feeling that I should've been more present to his needs. 

That's the part that is hard to swallow. 

I feel connected to him now, and I have for many years. I love my children, but part of my mothering story is that I just wasn't able to meet his needs when he was very young. I felt frustrated, confused why he seemed so much more challenging, and I didn't get how my two children could be so vastly different. I believe he would've benefited from being held more. I believe I should've focused on one day at a time, with the effort to meet his needs first and foremost. 

With many years between those early months and now, I have more perspective. I also have grown as a mother. It doesn't feel "all-or-nothing", where I felt so much pressure to do it right, and when I didn't, I just gave up. I am more comfortable with reading my children's cues and meeting them just one day at a time. I don't analyze my mothering efforts with such a critical eye, and that has helped tremendously for me to just enjoy the journey. 

I also don't label myself as a "bad mother" just because I lose my patience or take a break to fill my cup and recharge my energy. 

In public, there are probably times where it looks like I have it all together, and I'm a great mom. And there are times where it looks just the opposite. And I'm okay with that. Because it doesn't really matter what it looks like to anyone else; I know I'm doing what I can in any given moment to meet my kids' needs, to meet my needs, to make it through another day. I am the mother that let my older son cry alone, when he just wanted to be close to someone. I am the mother that would do anything for her kids. I am the mother that still loses her patience and raises her voice. I am the mother that takes it just one day at a time (mostly). 

And I love having the perspective that mothering isn't perfect; it's messy and amazing and hard. You will have regrets, I'm certain. You will feel frustrated and lost. And that's okay. Because parenting is not pretty and easy and  perfect. 

Take it one day, or even one moment, at a time. Learn to forgive yourself and move forward. Say "I'm sorry" when you mess up. And then try to do it differently next time you're in that situation. If you don't like how you react to your child's behavior, then change that reaction. Do something different. Do what you need to meet your needs, your child's needs, your partner's needs. Ask for help, then accept it when it's offered. 

Be comfortable saying, "I'm not the mother you think I am," knowing that images and appearances don't mean a thing. It's what you do, who you are, the connections you share with the ones you love.