June 3, 2016

Dear Baby,

I’m really sorry because a few minutes ago as you played  with some toys on the floor I got caught up in my phone and missed you falling and hitting your head. It wasn’t hard or very bad but I sure felt like a total asshole parent for letting it happen.

It was silly. I have been waiting for an email to come in, went to check it, got caught up in another email and boom- down you went.

You only cried for a few seconds and my guess is that it was not at all impactful to you but to me it was a good and needed reminder to be present and in the moment. That email could have waited. Anything could have waited. I could have just waited.

We do ourselves a huge disservice every time we turn to text, email or scroll through our phone when we could be totally aware and alive in the moment we are in.

We all need breaks but the point of a break is to make one. To take a designated time away from your task at hand (which in my case is you) and do whatever you need to do to relax and unwind.

With texting and instant communication so rampant I often know that the conversations being had are happening simultaneously with what is happening in life. You are with your kid but on your phone, watching something but on your phone, in bed and on your phone.  The phone becomes an extension of your own arm and it’s kind of gross.

I’m not holier than thou. I am equally guilty but that doesn’t make it less gross.

So today a lesson for both of us: Be present. You won’t be able to do it always and forever but try when you can to send your awareness to the moment you are in- even if that moment seems boring or silly.

We all need a little more real life action and less bubbles of wireless conversation in our lives.

In the meantime, sorry about your little crash. I can promise you it will happen again but not because I am lost in cellular land.

xo

Mom