Step Away From The Phone!

My boyfriend is addicted to his phone. He's on it constantly. He's checking or responding to his social media, his fantasy teams, his text messages, looking up whatever comes to mind (his ADD is crazy). We've been together 7 months, and it took me 4 of them to finally tell him that I would not allow the phone in bed. It frustrated me so much that we would be in bed together, and he would spend 45 minutes or more responding to text messages, tweets, facebook convos, etc. There were many nights where I would roll over and pretend to be asleep because I was so frustrated. I've established a no phones while in bed rule (unless it's a call or text from a family member), and a limited phone checking while we're together rule. This rule came about because one time when I was with him for a total of 28 hours, counting sleep time, he sent a tweet out every 6 minutes I was there. Take out sleep time, add in text messages, it wasn't worth my 3 hour drive round trip to see him for that one day. 

When I'm with my daughter, I try very hard to limit the amount of time I'm looking at my phone. I have a phone for work, so sometimes the responding to an e-mail or text message has to be immediate, but for the most part, I'm on it way too more than I mean to be when I'm with her. Last night, my daughter looked at me while we were watching Zoe dance for the millionth time last night and said, "Mommy dance with me." I told her I would, and as I hit send on the text message, she said, "Mommy put her phone away." It broke my heart. Here I was doing the exact same thing to my child that my boyfriend has been doing to me. Talk about life slapping you on the forehead when you need it to. 

From now on, I promise to try and make a more conscious effort to not check my phone when I'm playing with her. I want to be able to get the point where I can leave my phone in my purse until after she's gone to bed. The most important people in your life shouldn't feel as if they are second best to the "people who live in your phone". Every day kiddo is reminding me that I need to live in the moment and enjoy them before they are gone. So the next time kiddo asks me to dance with her and Zoe, even if it's for hours, I will dance. That's more important than anything else.