I focused on myself this week.  Things are going pretty well with Bella, we’ve got a good routine and rhythm to our days and weeks, but I feel like my own goals are falling by the wayside.  There were two things I wanted to focus on: my health and my ‘addiction’ to my phone.  Ironically ,this post has no photos due to the latter issue.  I refuse to wait and take photos before I hit post, so there we go.

Sadly, I’m in the worst physical shape I’ve ever been in my life, and I’ve always had a tendency to the larger side.  I like food, I like eating, and I’m not keen on exercise.  It doesn’t make for a good combination.  I used to go to the gym, but with Bella, that would mean signing up to an expensive gym with a creche.  Once you factor in travelling to and fro, it simply didn’t feel like a good use of our time.  Instead, I’m jumping on the home exercise bandwagon.

Every morning, after Bella and I have had a nice cuddle in bed, I change straight into my exercise clothes.  We go downstairs and I set Bella up for breakfast – she gets a tub of the cereal of her choice, a jug of milk, an empty bowl and glass, and she can dish them out as she wants.  As she does this, I press play and get moving.  I set up my laptop and mat the night before so that I don’t lose any precious time while Bella is occupied.  I usually have to dart to her help a couple of times through the routine, to give her more milk or wipe something up, but in general I can make it through a 20-30min routine.  Once she decided not to bother eating and stood behind me, copying my moves, but these days she’s happy to sit and watch me work out.

It feels good.  I’m really pleased that it’s not “dead time” for Bella, that she’s doing her own thing, being independent with her breakfast.  Working out first thing in the morning works well for me too, because it starts my day off positively which then influences my subsequent eating habits.  Part of me is also proud to be a good role model for my daughter and that she can see me trying to make positive changes to my own life.

The second thing I wanted to tackle was my phone addiction.  I really struggle not to continually tap away and check on the latest notifications, even when I’m not expecting anything to be happening.  Ironically, we’re really good at keeping Bella screen-free, but my phone is the one sticking point.

My strategy was simple.  I was going to leave my mobile upstairs in my bedroom all day long.  I’m allowed it at naptimes.  Otherwise, it simply stays out of reach.

I got to 9.46am on Monday morning when I couldn’t take it anymore and ran up the stairs to get my mobile.  9.46am.  It’s appalling.  The main thing I learnt was that it wasn’t the messages that I was after, but my camera.  I really wanted to capture those moments of Bella’s life, and that simply doesn’t happen without my phone.  And once it was captured, I wanted to post it to Instagram, and then my email notifications caught my eye, and so on.  I did manage to rein things in and put the phone down, but it didn’t quite inspire me to keep going with the experiment.  I have gotten better at not using my phone after Bella’s naptime until she goes to bed, but the morning is still a struggle.

The only solution I can see is to buy a stand-alone camera, but frankly our finances are stretched and I don’t want to spend the money on it right now.  I’m not sure where that leaves me.  Ideas on a postcard most welcome.