When I was trying to get pregnant, I combed the internet for ways to conceive. I felt like I was a failure, because you spend your whole life being told "It only takes once!" and then when you ACTUALLY want to be pregnant, it can take forever! I felt so lost, but I also felt foolish for trying too hard to find an answer to something the internet clearly wouldn't be able to solve.

When my daughter was a newborn, I was freaked out all the time. One time she scratched her eye with her tiny nail and was beside herself. The nurse did her best to be patient with me as I demanded a slot for her to be evaluated, only for her to be perfectly fine by the time we got to the doctor's office.

When she was two, I chewed my nails off over how much she enjoyed playing with my phone. Clearly giving her any screen time made me a terrible parent, and every choice I made, every time she refused to eat fruit, so I gave her a fruit Popsicle instead, I felt like a terrible mother.

Then I realized that my daughter was fine.

We were doing the right things all along--loving our child in a million different ways--and no matter what anyone else said, no matter what I read on the internet, I realized that that was all that really mattered. It was then that I released all the microfears that consume the everyday world of parenting, and I let it go. I can be a real fruit and veggie ninja when I want to be, but sometimes I'm not, and somehow my child is still perfectly healthy and happy.

We're raising her to be a kind, loving, healthy (mostly-come on, she's a toddler who hates food that grows) child, and we're supportive of other parents who do things differently. The human race fights so hard to make sense of everything, to sort it and put it in a box so that they can justify their actions and decisions.

Children are the antiserum for that mentality.

There is no one road. There is no one way. There is your way, and if it works for you, that's fantastic. It took me 2.5 years to learn this--that we can be who we are without feeling like we have to apologize for it, and we can enjoy hearing what others do without comparing ourselves. Comparing child rearing is like comparing sugar cookies to bulldozer trucks. Just don't. I don't anymore, and let me tell you, I am a much better mom for it.

Don't sweat the small stuff. Just love your child, focus on living your life, and leave the rest to the rest.