Sometimes you all will just have to listen to me talk about books. At the moment, I am reading Hands Free Mama by Rachel Macy Stafford. I started it several months ago but stopped a couple of chapters in due to the large amount of guilt that was setting in. I started back where I left off today and I feel like I have a much more positive outlook (and am experiencing a tad less guilt). As Rachel says in the book, "The hopeful part of living Hands Free is not about the past; it is about the critical choices we make today" (@handsfreemama). I have long used the excuse of being a single mom for my addiction to my iPhone. After all, non-single moms have husbands to entertain them, keep them company, and talk to...right? All parents have difficult jobs, but being a single parent is just different. It's lonely. As a single mom, my phone was my outlet to the outside world. When I was stuck in elmo/dirty diaper world, I could pick up my phone and feel like I was somewhere else for a few minutes (or hours). It was my only escape. My smartphone was my social life. Pathetic, I know. Since moving to Ohio and being closer to family, I do have a few more opportunities to engage in a real, non-electronic social life. Although having a two- and four-year old does still limit me.
Social media has started to bore me lately, so instead I have been spending more time writing. While this is a far more productive hobby, I have been growing increasingly aware of how much I have neglected my kids over the past two years. I can sit here and say most of it was done to protect my sanity, as I struggled through a very long period of depression. Also, I had to take a second job for a year or so to make ends meet. But now all of that is over. No more depression and no more second job. So, I have already started putting my phone down more often and playing with my kids. Yes, PLAYING. As in getting down on the floor and actually interacting with them. We play board games, put together puzzles, play cars and dolls and whatever else their little hearts desire. I no longer tell them to go play on their own or with each other or ignore their cries for attention. (At least not as often). I try to remind myself that they will only be little once, and it won't be for long. There will come a day when I long for them to ask me to play with them. "Today my child stands before me wanting, needing, and hoping to be chosen. Tomorrow might be different" (@handsfreemama). I am still not 100% in the habit of this but I am getting better. And I can tell my kids are happier. I want them to have as many great memories of their childhood as I have about mine. I don't remember my parents being glued to their phones or a computer (mostly because we didn't have those things when I was growing up, but still). "Being responsible for someone's childhood is a big deal. We not only create our own memories, but we create our child's memories" (@handsfreemama).
If anyone is interested in reading the book along with me, please feel free to comment on my posts and let me know how it's going! "For the first time in a long time, I was not just managing life, I was living it" (@handsfreemama).
k.
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