Living undistracted

I had a pretty painful realisation this evening.

Every night as I feed my kids to sleep, I either play around on my phone (if I have a hand free, which is not always the case when feeding two at the same time!) or I pretend to be asleep so that my toddler won't have anything to distract her from falling asleep.

Often she performs various gymnastics (Downward Dog with nipple in mouth is a particular favourite) or she attempts to engage with me, kiss me... and until this evening I've always dismissed that as attempts to evade sleep, so I ignored or discouraged it. But what if those attempts at connecting with me are genuine expressions of love? I believe they are - and as of now I'll no longer distract myself or ignore her, I will receive and reciprocate her love and if that means some extra time at bedtime then so be it. I enjoy her company, after all.

I don't think I'll ever make a draconian resolution like getting rid of Facebook or the smartphone - after all it's not the tool but the mindset which takes me out of the moment. I can be perfectly distracted without a smartphone, if I'm physically there but making my shopping list in my head. And to be fair, I do enjoy my children so much that I'm pretty good at being fully present with them, much of the time.

But, no more distractions at bedtime.

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