This is how just a few words can be so meaningful, they were powerful enough to fold into my husbands arms and cry one night. Inspiring enough to prompt me to write this. After my husband worked a 15 hour day, I’m sure the last thing he wanted do was listen to me, but he did. He listened. He sat and heard me talk about how my day was with the kids, I talked about work, went on and on about my dreams and new goals for my blog. He then interrupted me and said such powerful words. “You sound like you did when I first met you.” I stopped and said “What do you mean?” he answered with “Your goals, your positivity, the I love life attitude, the reason I fell in love with you.”
I hugged him, cried and simply said, “Thank You.”
I recently made the decision to stop managing my life and start living it aka The Hands Free Journey. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I knew it was going to be hard work, but man I had no idea it was really going to be this difficult to change my ways. However, I’m doing it and it’s shown in a lot of ways.
Reflections. How do you reflect on your days?
My husband has been working well past the kids bedtime and weekends the past few weeks and though there were some tough times and yes some even ended in tears, however they were different kind of tears. Many of these long days ended with my kids bouncing on my bed giggling and laughing and I enjoyed it instead of counting the minutes until they were in bed. After the kids go to bed I usually reflect a lot on the day. I think of what we accomplished, what we didn’t accomplish and what is left to get done for the week. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the day and remembering all of the smiles I saw from my kids that day. I could name them all right now if you asked me too. I saw past the things we didn’t get done and remembered the important parts of the day. The smiles, the giggles and the memories we made. So many times I would reflect and think of all the mistakes I made that day or all of the times I lost patience with my kids. Now I’ve been thinking back and remembering the great decisions I made like taking a moment to pull my daughter aside at school for an extra hug to calm her fears as she cried when I was leaving. Or the time when I chose to truly enjoy being with my kids by jumping up and down singing a new song I had made up instead of getting on Facebook. I can’t help but think that looking back on the positive moments was more rewarding than looking back on all of the things I may have done wrong in a day. I’m learning to remember those bad decisions and learn from them for the next day that lay ahead instead of being so hard on myself.
Are you connecting with your loved ones?
Do an experiment for me. One whole day write down the amount of time you spend on a technical device, iphone, laptop, ipad etc etc. I know we all work and it’s a must but I’m talking about when your watching TV with your significant other and a commercial comes on, are you reaching for the your phone to hop on FB or pin your next recipe? I know I was. I was missing the simple conversation that I should have been having with my husband instead. The “How was your day?” or “You seemed rushed earlier when we talked, what was going on?” What about when your at a Doctor’s appointment with your children. Are you checking in to see when the next Dancing with the Stars shows premieres instead of watching your children color and realizing just how far they’ve come with coloring within the lines? Make the mental notes and you will realize just how much you are connecting with a device and not connecting with your loved ones. One day while attending an appointment with my husband I remember the words from Rachel, the author of Hands Free Mama. She told a story of how when she goes to appointments with her daughters she puts her phone away and truly spends those few minutes of waiting in the waiting room connecting with them. My husband and I were 20 minutes early. We sat down and he pulled out his cell phone and got on Facebook. My eyes watered while I watched him. I left my phone in the car. I wanted those few minutes to connect with him. I kept my feelings to myself (for the most part) and the next day I simply said. “You lost 20 minutes of connecting time with me because you were on your phone. You chose Facebook over asking me how my day was or talking about how our daughter cries everyday when I drop her off at school.” He said I know and I’m sorry about that. Here is the thing it made me see. I used to do that too. I can’t tell you how many times we will have a date night and the second we sit down I jump on my phone. I was just as guilty. Now we’ve talked about it together and now I see that those times will change for us. Well except when we go out to watch a hockey game, I will be on Facebook or Pinterest.
Why I decided to give up some family photo’s that capture special moments:
I hate that I may be missing special picture opportunities with my children because I left my phone in the car, my phone is my camera, my device I use to capture special moments. However I’m trying to give up some phone time. I ask you to think about this, you’re never going to forget that special moment. You will never forget when you see your child ride their first bike for the very first time with no training wheels. You will never forget when you see your baby take their first steps, all moments we want to capture on film. What about capturing it within your heart? I love pictures. I love seeing how my babies have grown over the years, this journey is teaching me to capture those moments while they are happening and not just on film. Sure I will always take pictures, but maybe just maybe it’ll force me to take out my real camera more often. Maybe I’ll even push my kids to go outside for a fun picnic with the big old Nikon that we spend hundreds of dollars on and really connect with capturing those moments with my kids as they run around checking out cloud creations. Temptation can be the biggest of evils, when I have my phone near me I reach for it. I now make sure I leave it upstairs charging from 4-7pm where I can truly be with my family. I leave it in the car and hit the local park. The other day at 6pm my husband said “Where is my phone I haven’t had it all day?” That day we painted birdhouses with the kids, we stained shelves together, watched a little football, he napped while I recipe planned for the week, we ate dinner together….all without a phone. Imagine that. It’s really just about picking and choosing when you want give up those photos. I will never not take pictures, my best friend and her husband are professional photographers, I see them capture such amazing moments in ones life however walking this Hands Free journey has helped me find the happy medium behind the phone and/or camera.
Moments I would have missed if I ran to grab that phone:
My children were truly beautiful. Sitting in a pile of leaves. I saw my daughter pick up a leave and show it to her younger brother. It was such a photographic moment. The colorful leaves all around them, the trees curving over their little bodies. The love that I saw in my daughters eyes as she made her little brother stare in amazement at a leave. I can still close my eyes and see that moment.
I love Sunday mornings. It’s the one day a week we get to be a family of four a lot of the time. My husband gets the kids breakfast and I get to sip on a hot cup of coffee what is there to not love about that. I looked over and saw my son playing with a dump truck. He adores trucks. He was figuring out how to dump it, he put a few lego’s in the back of the truck and dumped it, he saw pure joy in this. I looked up and saw my husband staring at him in a way I’m not so sure I’ve ever seen. I said “What are doing?” he replied with “I’m having a Hands Free Moment watching my son discover how a dump truck works. I can still close my eyes and see that moment.
My daughter has a vivid imagination. She pretend plays a lot. I snap pictures a lot. One day I saw her playing “Fireman” I decided to join her and I jumped in on a few rescues with her and when she saw I was joining her vivid rescue of a kitty in the tree I saw her face light up in a way I had never seen before. That is a moment to capture a picture, and maybe I would have but would I have seen that “look” that smile that was just so pure and genuine? I decided to just live in the moment and enjoy that strong connection I was feeling. I couldn’t believe how my heart felt to see my daughter so happy in that very beautiful moment.
Do you ever just say yes?
I know I get caught up in the day to day responsibilities of this thing we call life. Appointments, parenting, work, laundry. Do you ever just say Yes when you know you normally would say No? I say the word “No” A lot. My kids are young and we have rules and it’s up to us to shape and mold these little people into good big people right? A new thing I started doing along this journey is “Just Say Yes” to something I normally would say No to at least once a day if not more. I found myself saying yes to my son when he asked me for cheerios one day. Normally I’d say no because it takes me an additional 10 minutes to clean up breakfast in the morning because he insists on dumping them out and eating them (milk and all) off of the table. I said yes to sitting on top of the coffee table one day when I looked up from the book I was reading and saw that both kids were so engrossed in Sesame Street. I figured why not, they were happy, I was happy the TV program was an educational show. One habit that was hard for me to break with my kids was eating in the kitchen, dining room or outside. I’d kneel in a sticky pool of something come 8pm at night when I was cleaning up the playroom. That’s where that popsicle ended up! I’d spend at least an hour a day on sweeping up crumbs and spraying bug repellant on the baby ants in the laundry room because of those very crumbs. I knew he didn’t eat that cracker! So all Summer we ate outside where the neighborhood dogs would clean up the mess (oh sweet Summer I will miss you!) slowly but surly my kids now know to go to the kitchen breakfast bar or outside to eat their meals. When they got up from either one that meant they were done. Hurray! No more sticky messes in the playroom and ants in the laundry room. One morning my “Just say Yes” moment came when my husband had worked a lot of hours the week before and it was his first weekend home with us in two weeks. He was making them breakfast and I announced “Picnic in the living room on the coffee table.” My daughter asked where will we sit Momma?” I pulled up the huge futon they have and they sat on that futon and enjoyed their breakfast with big fat smiles. Sometimes I need to just say Yes more often.
Do you just say Yes sometimes just so you can see the pure happiness from your child? Are you putting your phone down so you can truly connect with the people that are sitting right in front of you? Can words from a loved one really mean so much to you that you can cry tears of emotions? I hope to god your answers are all YES.
