This weekend, I was playing with a new bean bag toss game with one of the kids. They had been on a winning streak all day. During one of our games, I started outscoring them.

They started getting very agitated that they were losing and made many attempts to change the rules of the game to go in their favor. There were many tears. Score sheets were destroyed. The lines from where we each tossed were moved.

This is one of the first times that this kiddo “lost” and I forgot how devastating it is to lose. The pain of losing is something that my body has gotten used to – the tightening of the chest, the immense feeling of being let down and not good enough. But for my little one, it was brand new and uncomfortable.

I did my best to be compassionate while maintaining a firm line on the rules. I reminded myself that the sensation of losing is new and uncomfortable. And at the end of the day, we made it through the new experience together.

I read to my kids every night, and now that there are three of them, often it takes over an hour. I have always held reading to them to be a very important part of our bedtime. Over the last three months or so, I’ve read through nearly the entire Harry Potter series with my oldest and almost always acquiescing to the request of “one more chapter.”

I have very few memories of actually feeling disappointed from when I was growing up. However, I have one core memory of my childhood when I was in bed and I asked my mom to read to me. I must have gotten the idea from school that parents read to kids at bedtime. So one evening, I found a Chinese book with a story about a purple police cat, put it in her lap and asked her to read. I don’t remember exactly what she said, but she didn’t read it. I felt like I was missing out, like all these kids in my class were being read to and here I was not.

Because of this, I may very well over-read to my kids. In my attempt to never have my kids feel that disappointment, I have gone the complete opposite extreme. I find parenting is so very much this oscillating pendulum swinging from one extreme to another.

Growing up, Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. It was all about food and family, the two things I was most thankful for. There was no way to disappoint me if I had my cousins around me playing card and board games and a table full of delicious food for me to graze through all evening.

Becoming a mom, I have felt a pressure to create traditions around holidays as these are the memories that my kids will hold onto for years.

This was the third Thanksgiving I hosted and with each year, I learn more about how I want to shape the holiday (and also how better to cook a turkey).

Being second generation Chinese American, I did not grow up with a “traditional” Thanksgiving. Mothering in a biracial household, my image of Thanksgiving is not as clear cut. Landing somewhere in the middle is where authentic feels to me. And most importantly are the feelings my kids have about the holidays. It brought joy to my heart yesterday when my oldest expressed how excited she was for the holiday.

While I fumble my way through making Thanksgiving my own, I am reminded I don’t need to be perfect as my kids’ favorite things about the holiday are probably the same as mine – family and food.

Being a procrastinator is one of those parts of who I am that I appreciate (this girl works well under a deadline) and also one that I could do without (why do I always have to wait until last minute?!). I could do almost everything in the moment I think about it, but instead, I wait and wait and wait and make things harder for myself.

This goes down to something as silly as brushing my teeth. I floss and brush my teeth 99.9999999% of my nights before bed. But many nights, I wait until late to do so. When I wait until late, I do it begrudgingly, when normally I actually don’t mind the process at all.

Tonight, as I am writing this, I brushed my teeth early and it feels so good to have knocked that off of my list. As sleepy thoughts take over, I can roll into bed and conk out.

We don’t have to make things harder for ourselves. Finding smaller moments like tonight with brushing my teeth earlier allows me to practice and know it is okay for things to go smoothly and easily. I don’t have to make it hard to make it worthwhile.

Above all, we want to be seen and validated. Many of us were not fully (or sometimes never) seen and validated growing up – this can be on a familial level or on systemic, societal and cultural levels. To be seen by others is crucial at all ages and stages of our lives in order to develop a sense of self.

Before there were mirrors, there were people in our communities who reflected back to us who and what they saw. To be mirrored gives a realness and a boundary to our experience. Without mirrors, we constantly seek that definition of who we are.

When we are seen and validated, it brings a sense of ease within ourselves, and through that ease, we build capacity for empathy and for doing tough things. The more people who are seen and validated, the better chance this world has to be saved.