Today’s Highlight

My husband bought me a beautiful leather box for our third wedding anniversary.  Bella has discovered it this morning, after much straining to reach it on my dressing table.  We have a busy morning ahead, so I intended to get both Bella and I washed and dressed after waking up, rather than getting ready after breakfast.  However, when I am just about ready to descend down the stairs, I see her immersed in this box.

She opens it, takes out the leather bracelet within, puts the bracelet on her wrist, closes the box, opens the box, takes the bracelet off, puts it on her head, closes the box, opens, puts the bracelet in… you get the picture.  After five minutes of this, she starts to really take the box in.  She touches the non-leather surfaces and says “soft” in response to the suede material.  She sniffs it curiously a few times.

I am itching to go downstairs, but I let her go on for as long as she needs.  And eventually, she puts the bracelet in the box, shuts the box, and puts it down.  I ask her to put it back to its place on the dressing table, and she does.

I often spend hours immersed in the wonderful world of Montessori blogs, reading about all the lovely pieces of work that you can DIY at home.  But at times like this, I wonder if they’re more for the parent rather than the child.  Surely the home environment is enough in itself?

The Low Point

We’re a screen free household.  This has been incredibly easy to maintain with Bella.  I literally don’t put the TV on all day long with her and it’s not a problem.  There is a problem though, and it’s me.  I struggle with my own screen time.  I struggle to put down my phone, to not check it over and over again.  The way I planned to deal with it was simple: leave it in my bedroom.  If it’s not with me, I can’t use it and problem solved.  It worked yesterday.  But today, I had a meeting and the person ran late.  I grabbed my phone at 9.20am and it stayed with me all day.  I don’t think it was the end of the world, I was hardly staring at it non-stop, but there were definitely moments here and there where I was looking at it instead of being with Bella and that’s what I want to stop.  So tomorrow, it stays in the bedroom.