New Year's Resolution

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post about parenting resolutions for 2013.

The year 2012 has been a big one for me. My firstborn turned one, and my soon-to-be-secondborn announced her arrival in my uterus. The year 2013 promises to be busy, exciting, and full of new experiences for me and my family.

Related: AAP Says Recess Is the Most Important Class of the Day

Here are a few tidbits, tricks, and tips that I’ve picked up in 2012 that will help me along in 2013:

1. Stop to take pictures! If no one is hurt, and nothing is at risk of being broken, stop to take pictures! It’s important to have these pictures to look back on. Perhaps C won’t be as happy at all of the pictures I’ve taken when she’s older, especially the infamous “poop-in-the-pool” picture.
2. Let others help you when they offer. I’ve always been an “I can do it myself” kind of girl. I spend my days chasing a toddler while my belly continues to grow bigger. It can be tough, but I manage just fine. When I’m around other people, I’m learning to embrace the offered help from others. If someone wants to get me a beverage, I’ll let them.
3. It’s OK to be a bit sassy. Strangers have an uncanny ability to ask very personal, weird questions to pregnant women. If my sarcasm switch is turned on, they can expect to get a sassy answer in return. My favorite? When asked by a stranger what I’ll be naming my child, my response was “I’ll consult the father on that as soon as I figure out who it is.” There are never any follow-up questions.
4. Encourage the silly. C is so animated and has such a unique personality. Of course, there’s a time and a place to be silly, but silliness can bring on creativeness, and I encourage C to be silly. She enjoys putting a bucket over her head and wandering around blindly. It’s funny to watch, but she’s also having to utilize her other senses to learn about her environment.
5. Take a moment for yourself. I’m a mom, but that’s not the only thing that I am. It’s an important, time-consuming job, but it’s so important to take a moment each day for yourself. My husband has been my lifesaver. He comes home from work, and insists that I do something alone. This has ranged from taking a bath, painting my toenails, or just using the restroom alone with the door shut. It’s refreshing, energizing, and essential to my mental well-being.
6. You’ll make mistakes. Accept it and move on. This is the hardest thing to learn, and will always be a learning process. No matter how hard you try, or how good your intentions are, you’ll mess up and make a mistake. Parenting is a tough job, and it’s all on-the-job training. Accept the mistakes that you’ve made, but always remember to move on. Even “perfect” parents make mistakes.

What are your parenting resolutions for 2013?

More great reads from BabyCenter:
Getting kids to sleep is a First World problem
Five things I wish I never taught my kid
Seven apps to journal your way through 2013
A new year means no more birth disappointment
Is she a bad mom if she flies to Mars?

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• Assess yourself. What part of public speaking makes you nervous? Where have you slipped up in the past? One reason public speaking is so nerve-racking is because there's so much to manage — your presence, your words, your delivery, and your reaction. Determine your weakest points, from stuttering to stiff hands, in order to tailor your speech improvement.
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1. Inhale and exhale: Breathing is an integral part of yoga. It's easy to become so focused on achieving a particular pose that we tense up and forget to breathe. Proper breathing in yoga keeps you mindful of your practice and aware of each movement. Once connected to your breath, balance improves, muscles relax, and you're less prone to injury — hello, oxygen! The best way to breathe during yoga is deep down in your diaphragm (the large muscle right below your lungs). Slowly expand the lungs, pressing down the diaphragm, and causing your abdomen to expand as your lungs fill with air.

Keep reading for more tips.

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Oven-roasting involves little more than dry heat, and is ideal for just about any type of whole food, from large cuts of meat and whole fish to fruits, vegetables, and seeds. Find out more — including how to roast any fruit or vegetable — when you keep reading.