When a small thing became a big thing, I knew I was on the right track

A beautiful day in Sydney

This morning, Rafael woke up next to me in my bed, having crawled into bed with me in the middle of the night while his Daddy was working night shift.

I had already been awake for a little while, listening to little Florence chatting to herself in her cot in the next room.

I was watching Rafael sleep, when all of a sudden he rolled over, opened his eyes, looked at me and announced that it was morning and that it was time to wake up.

(How is it that kids always wake up so totally alert?!)

His next words were "Get up Mummy but don't look at your phone".

I was surprised and to be honest a little upset. In my mind, I hadn't looked at my phone in the morning for months and when I used to he had never said anything to me about it.

In response to my question about when I look at my phone in the morning he said, "to check the weather and I get bored. Don't check the weather".

He's right of course. I do check the weather on my phone every morning, particularly now that it's at that awkward time of year when it's freezing in the morning but it warms up during the day.

My weather check takes 30 seconds, if that, and so I had never really given it much thought.

It struck me that now that I am making a conscious effort not to use my phone in front of him, something as brief as the morning weather check must stand out to him.

It gives me heart in a way.

Whereas once upon a time the first thing I did in the morning was roll over and reach for my phone to check my Facebook account, now I make an effort not to use my phone at all in front of Rafael unless it is for something pressing, like looking up directions or making a necessary phone call. And when I do those things, I always tell him what I am doing.

Now he is my everything when he wakes.

He is who I see first (usually he's up before the baby and my husband).

He is who I hug and kiss first.

He is who I play with first.

So, those 30 seconds checking the weather seem to him like time away from him.

Depending on how we each use our phone, reducing it's use might seem like a big deal or a little deal.

Regardless of how challenging it was to me to stop it's excessive use, it is worth everything to know that my son knows that he is my focus when my day begins.

That's how children come to feel loved.

(I check the weather before I go to bed each night now)

~From my journal 9 May 2016

A Full World

My full world

Today I was playing in the backyard with Rafael. He fell over playing football and grazed his arm on the sandstone. He was very upset but we had a big cuddle and came inside to wash the dirt and blood off and put a really big waterproof bandaid (he calls it a bandage) on it.

Then we went back outside to keep playing.

At first he said that he wanted to keep playing but shortly thereafter he very gravely informed me that we needed to go to the house of some friends of ours to play on their grass. I explained that our friends were at work.

“What about Tia and Tata’s house?” he asked (his Aunt and Grandfather). I gently explained that they were at work too.

“Can Daddy come home from work?” he asked. I told him that most of our grown up friends and family worked during the week but that I am home to look after him and his sister and I can play with him.

At this, Rafael had a little break down. My sensitive little boy who looks for new friends no matter where we go, started crying big wet tears. As he gulped in big mouthfuls of air between sobs he said, “but my world will be empty” and began to cry even harder.

But my world will be empty.

It was a heartbreaking moment but at the same time it was an eye opening moment. A hopeful moment. A comforting moment. A teaching moment.

In that one sentence, my son showed me his heart.

His world is made up of the people that he loves.

Magic.

I was able to take him onto my knee, cuddle him and whisper into his ear that no matter where our family and friends are they love him very much and that as long as they love him and he loves them, his world will always be full. A teaching moment.

I don’t really know to what extent he understood my meaning but he did start to calm down. Slowly he started to calm down and he gave me a quiet “oh” which looked and sounded like relief.

It comforts me to think that he gets his sense of place in the world from the people that he loves.

It gives me hope that his foundation seems rooted in people rather than things, regardless of the fact that my previous distraction could easily have given him a different idea.

It makes me feel grateful that I have started to live a less distracted life. That I didn’t have my phone in my hand while we were playing. That I wasn’t reading a book or just waiting for our game to end so that I could get back to the housework.

I was outside playing with Rafael. I was in the moment, focused on him and because of that I got to have a special moment with my son and to understand something about him and how he sees his place in the world. How lucky I am to have had that moment and to have made the most of it for both of us. 

Written on 15 April 2016

A little reminder about being present

Rafael and Florence holding hands in the living room

No matter how hard we try, we can’t always be present in the moment all the time.

The mind wanders. We’re human.

My mind wanders a lot. It always has. Controlling its wandering is, and probably always be, a challenge for me.

It is so easy to start thinking about the groceries, the dishes that need doing or the laundry that needs folding. Even just day dreaming about that nap that it would be lovely to take.

And that’s ok. Sometimes I need to remind myself that it is natural for the mind to wander.

But every now and again I am sent a little reminder about how important it is to try to remain present in the moment, particularly in those moments that I am spending time with my children. 

Some important reflections

My inspiration

Decluttering my house had a much bigger effect on me that I could have foreseen. As my life became more straightforward, as my sense of well being improved and as the amount of my stuff reduced; I started to think about what I wanted.

How do I want to live? What do I want to teach my children? What kind of parent to I want to be for more children.

These are some of the things came to mind....  

I want to be more engaged in the moment. I want to be more engaged with my children. I want to be more engaged with my husband. I want to me more engaged with my life.

Then I asked myself....

Why am I not engaged? How am I not engaged? 

And I answered....

The trigger

Every journey has a trigger and then a first step.

For me the trigger wasn’t about my distractions, my relationship with my family or even about whether I was using my time on earth in the way that I would have liked.

For me, the trigger was twofold – my supremely out of control house and the sad passing of my mother-in-law.  

I’d been aware for a very long time that the state of the house was having a negative impact on my state of mind.

I was becoming sick and tired of always feeling out of control because of the state of the house. It was untidy and unclean. No matter how much I tidied, the house would be messy again within hours. You couldn’t see the kitchen table or the benches for the amount of stuff just lying about on them. There were clothes and detritus all over the place, in every room. I couldn’t see the bed or the bedroom floor under all the clothes everywhere. Who knows if they were clean or dirty. The bedroom had become downright hazardous at night time as I tried to navigate my way out of the room in the dark to the baby’s room. The family room could barely be played in because of the volume of stuff in there. The bookcases and drawers were full of miscellaneous stuff that had no other place to go and just collected. The more stuff there was lying about, the more stuff seemed to accumulate.

One of the most frustrating effects of this excess of stuff was just how often I would lose things. Nothing seemed to have its own space. Everything ended up anywhere it felt and as a result I could never find what I needed and needlessly spent valuable time looking for lost objects like keys and phone and being stressed about it.

I felt unhappy at home and would try to go about to avoid the mess, only to get that sinking feeling again as I walked up the front steps at the thought of the mess that was going to assault my senses as I opened the front door.

I was increasingly aware that we were spending way too much money and I suspected that a lot of that stuff was stuff that I didn’t need. Yet, when I left the house to avoid the stuff, I usually ended up at the shops spending more money on more stuff that we didn’t need.

Here’s the thing. I have always been aware that my environment impacts greatly on my sense of well being. The more stuff I had, the messier my house was. The messier my house, the more stressed I was. The more stressed I was, the more overwhelmed I felt. The more overwhelmed I felt, the more I needed to find an escape. The more escaping I did, the more stuff I seemed to accumulate. It was a vicious cycle.