My son and I were tackling his weekly kindergarten homework assignment the other day. The tasks are usually fairly simple -walk through town and count the pumpkins, draw a picture of your family, etc. But this time, the teacher threw me a curve ball when he included ,”Do five push-ups and five sit-ups.” 

Of course, my son didn’t know how to do either a push-up or a sit-up. I’m guessing that teaching him these basic fitness skills was the goal of the assignment.  Instead, it provided a humbling experience for his mother. Although I do my fair share of cardiovascular exercise, I will admit that I haven’t done a push-up since college. I always hated them.

This was the first time that I can ever remember feeling embarrassed in front of my five-year-old. I’ve always been physically superior to him – I mean, he’s only four-feet-tall. But my attempt to touch my nose to the floor in proper push-up form was not entirely successful. He managed three to my almost-one.

We both had a good laugh. But I was feeling a wave of panic emerge beneath this good-hearted chuckle. There isn’t a women’s magazine in the world that hasn’t published an article about osteoporosis. I’ve read them only halfheartedly – until now.

I don’t exercise in order to fit into a certain-size pair of jeans. I just want to be young and healthy for as long as possible – able to keep up with my kids and feel good when I wake up in the morning. Walking, running, and skiing always seemed to be enough.

But I think that my mid-thirties have snuck up on me a little. Maybe it’s time to start doing a little more. With the threat of osteoporosis looming around the corner, some good old-fashioned strength-training might be a good idea. For now, I’m just praying that pull-ups aren’t part of next week’s homework.

Since becoming a mom, I often have the feeling that I’m under siege — and the only means of defense available to me is to never pick up a parenting-related magazine, turn off the news programs, and avoid groups of other over-informed mothers. The negative, alarmist-driven media is likely the greatest threat to parental peace-of-mind.

It’s unfair, really — and not terribly different from using headlights to hunt a deer. As mothers, we are completely vulnerable and defenseless when it comes to anything that might possibly threaten our offspring. This is a beautiful fact (of most) of the natural world. Our ancestral mothers may have used sticks or stones to chase away threatening animals or enemies that lurked in the darkness, and hopefully the menacing creature would go away.

Today, the monsters in the shadows are more elusive. But whether they take the form of a possible flu pandemic, environmental toxins, or child predators — these information-based demons produce in us the same fight-or-flight response that our foremothers experienced in ages past.

But we can’t just blame those people out there who keep yelling, “There’s a big, horrible, scary creature in the forest!” They’re simply trying to sell magazines or attract viewers. We’re the ones who keep running for the hills.

As humans, our brains are hardwired for fear. I think that motherhood must put this part of our physiology into overdrive. So how should we respond when we encounter a piece of information that appears to give us the option to either protect our little ones or throw them into harm’s way? Of course we’re going to panic!

That’s why I think that we need to just reduce our exposure to the astounding amount of fear-based messages that are being sent around out there. It’s good to be informed and to be aware. But it’s not good to live in a perpetual state of fight-or-flight when it comes to our children’s welfare.

As mothers, I propose that we take a vow to stop passing along so many alarmist news bulletins and start helping each other embrace and enjoy this precious time in our lives.

So the next time we catch ourselves on the brink of sharing immunization-scare stories with a new mom whose baby has just been immunized …. we should check ourselves. Instead, let’s tell her about all of those sweet, sloppy kisses that soon will be coming her way.

I’ve always made exercise a priority. That’s never really been a problem for me, which is probably because everyone’s telling me that I should do it. I’ve yet to find a health-related magazine on the shelves that doesn’t praise the benefits of sweating-it-out a few times a week. But creating time and space for my spiritual life has not always come so effortlessly. 

I think that many of us today suffer from a dry well when it comes to our souls. We’re just not in the habit of consciously keeping an eye on the water level. Now that I’ve started to become more in-tune with this part of my life, I can sense when I need some spiritual recharging.

Just recently, I began bringing my family to a nondenominational church in town. It feels really good to me. I enjoy just sitting in that quiet, contemplative place every Sunday morning, listening to the music, and waiting for the minister to say something that really hits home for me. He almost always does. And I leave there feeling more connected to God, the community of churchgoers around me, and to the natural world outside those church doors. It’s just a good space for me. I look forward to going — and I think that my kids get a lot out of it too. If nothing else, it’s something that we do together as a family. While so much of the week pulls us apart from one another, church brings us together. 

During other times in my life, church wasn’t necessarily the answer to that spiritual calling. My soul has been touched on a long cross-country ski tour through the mountains or even while soaking in a warm bath with some inspirational reading. I have friends who meditate and who practice yoga. Personally, I find some deep satisfaction in being a part of a community of others who are on a similar spiritual quest. But every person is different. And I do believe that your spiritual life is deeply personal.

But I have challenged myself – and I would challenge anyone – to try and find an hour out of every day (and certainly every week) to be still and feel connected to the world that exists beyond our five senses. I think it’s certainly a worthwhile investment of time.

Once the kids storm out of their rooms in the morning, I know that anything I might have had on my personal agenda for the day simply might not get done.  It’s just the way it goes. So for someone who once took physical fitness rather seriously, this part of parenting has been a challenge. Motherhood and a dedicated exercise routine are not exactly compatible — but there is hope.  

It may sound intimidating at first, but a morning exercise-routine is probably the easiest one to keep up. You know how it goes with after-school programs, dinner to prepare, and little ones to bathe and put to bed. The afternoon and evening hours are just too unpredictable — plus you may just be too tired by then. 

It only takes a little bit. Get out for a 20-minute walk around the neighborhood first thing in the morning, and you will feel refreshed and invigorated before you even step foot in the shower. While so much of the day can feel like it doesn’t truly belong to you, the early morning hours are yours to savor. You are giving your body and your mind a leg up on the day.

But if you’re like me, getting up in the morning involves more than just good intentions. If it’s going to happen, I need a plan. Here’s one that works for me:

Get to Bed Early!

I struggle with my bedtime hour, because the evenings are often the only times that I have with my husband or to just relax alone. But I also feel that the imbalance that often rears its ugly head in my life is a result of frantic, unorganized mornings. So if I can sacrifice a little time at night by going to bed earlier, then the payoff is worth it. I try to start my bedtime routine around 9 p.m. That way, I know that I’ll be ready to hop out of bed in the morning (well, theoretically).

Set Your Alarm

My grandfather once told me that we all have mental alarms. If you want to get up at a certain time, then just tell yourself so before you fall asleep. Believe it or not, it actually does work sometimes. But I don’t trust this mental trick on a regular basis. So setting alarm – and getting up the moment it goes off – is a good plan for any morning exercise routine. You may soon find that you’re waking up several minutes before the alarm.

Put Your Workout Clothes Beside the Bed

I find that if I make the process of getting out of the house relatively effortless, then I’m less likely to lie in bed fretting about the seemingly insurmountable task of getting up and going. So before I fall asleep at night, I place my clothes next to the bed for an easy morning transition.

Don’t Overdue It

The goal of a morning exercise routine is to feel good about doing it. If taking a nice walk down the street sounds more appealing than running five miles on the treadmill, then take the walk. Fresh air is a good thing, and enjoying the time to yourself is really what it’s all about. 

Keep It Up 

They say that it takes two weeks of doing something to make it a routine. Getting up in the morning may seem difficult at first, but it will get easier every day. After a couple of weeks, you’ll probably be hopping out of bed.

Six months after my son was born, I decided to leave the job that I’d held for almost six years to stay home and focus entirely on this new little man in my life. I remember about a week after I became officially unemployed, my mother sent a huge box of silk flowers as a housewarming gift. We had moved recently, and she thought that a few vases of flowers would warm up the place. It took me almost two weeks to make those floral arrangements.

I kept doing and undoing them until my husband finally said, “Aren’t you a creative person? You’re overthinking this.” He was right. The problem with my arrangements was that I was approaching the process in a very linear way .. the designs were perfectly symmetrical. I took my husband’s advice, relaxed a little, and let my creative juices flow. It felt great — and the arrangements looked more natural too.

Most women I know were in the work world for a decade or more before having their first child, and most of us reported to our desks until the day the baby arrived. We have had plenty of time to refine our job-place personalities  — whether we realize it or not.

When I decided to stay home with my son, I took the “me”  who had been successful at work and tried to relocate her … only this time my office was the entirety of my house.  I took this new domain and set of responsibilities very seriously. I was going to be the super Director of the Child and Home now. My baby boy was always thoroughly entertained, the house was spotless (whenever anyone came to visit), and I was always busying myself with something productive while my son napped. But I couldn’t for the life of me arrange a vase of flowers. 

It took awhile, but I finally came to understand that the “office-me” didn’t really fit in at home. Over the years in the career-world, I had changed to fit my job. Now that I was a mother, I didn’t need to play that role any longer — I had a new one. And this one involved getting back in touch with the more creative, less-linear me.

Whether or not new moms stay home or go back to work, motherhood changes us. And I think that this metamorphosis causes as much mental confusion as it does physical. It’s as if our brains and our lives have been simultaneously rewired. Letting ourselves think about and approach things differently than we did before kids is probably an important step to really enjoying this time in life. Parenthood begins that mental transformation for us — and we can either fight it or embrace it. 

For me, I finally just selected a few of my favorite silk buds, put them haphazardly in a vase, and had a nice laugh at myself.

Some mothers are victims of over-obsessing, and others are not. I am the former. Any obsessive-compulsive tendencies that I had before kids increased exponentially the moment I brought those bundles of joy home. Anxiety and worry became almost second nature. 

But I was given some good advice once. Whenever you’re fretting about something, turn your attention to caring for others … and the self-induced anxiety just kind of goes away. As mothers, our worlds can become rather small sometimes. We are focused on our families, our jobs, and our closest friends. It’s not that we’re being selfish, it’s just that we can’t find the time to fit in anything or anybody else. But that’s one of the reasons why we’re so lopsided (from a balanced-life perspective). Getting involved in your community in some service-oriented way is a very healthy move.

Unfortunately, I’m just now figuring this out. I think that my worry resulted from a life that was just too inward. For every minute that I’ve spent working in some form of community-service, I’ve noticed that I’ve become remarkably less anxious. And I’m not trying to set the world on fire. Trust me. I’m just volunteering here and there to do things like set up tables for a Chicken Pie Supper at the community church. It took 20 minutes. But the personal rewards were huge. 

There are so many ways to get involved, and you don’t have to choose something that’s all that time consuming. Whether it’s visiting a retirement home or delivering meals for a program like Meals on Wheels, you and your kids will benefit more from the experience than the individuals you’re serving. 

So next time you’re standing in the checkout line at the grocery store worrying that you didn’t buy the $7/pound organic grapes (which makes you a horrible, unloving mother), just walk right on outside and help an elderly person or another mother with a wailing kid load their groceries in their car. I bet that you’ll forget all about the grapes.