I don’t often stop and enjoy the moment.  In my crazy-busy life I have a million things going through my head all the time, so I am constantly forgetting to embrace what is in front of me.

Unfortunately, often times that means I am not enjoying Lily.  When I say enjoying I mean totally putting my whole heart into spending time with her, focusing only on her and putting down my phone.  Oh how the phone is such a problem in our house!  Both Kevin and I are so addicted to the stupid phone we sometimes don’t even talk to each other after Lily goes to bed — we just stare at our phones.  Granted we both have work emails to catch up on, and I have Disney clients that have urgent needs, but sometimes you just need to “unplug” for awhile.

Last night a friend from my old job asked me if I wanted to bring Lily and head to the sprinkler park in our area.  It’s a great space, tons of different water things for the kids to do and it really appeals to all ages.  She has a 5 year old granddaughter so she was all prepared to play with Lily.  I got Lily ready and we headed out.  I fully expected to sit down and chat with my friend as Lily and the other little girl happily trotted into the water.

Didn’t. Happen.

It turns out that Lily really likes someone to be in the water with her and wanted me to hold her hand.  I was all about not doing that.  Then my friend grabbed Lily’s hand and her granddaughter and went straight into the water, getting soaked in her clothes.  What an eye opener.  Here I was at a park where I knew no one else and I thought “oh I can’t get wet, I will look ridiculous.”  The only thing that was ridiculous was that thought in my head.

So guess what?  I went in, grabbed Lily and we had an hour and a half of water fun! I was beyond soaked, in my jean shorts and tank top that was totally not made to get wet and cling to me.  But who cares?  Lily laughed and played and searched for my hand anytime we got separated by another little kid running through.  I played with my friend’s granddaughter under the big dumping bucket, and although I felt like I jumped into the pool in my clothes, I had a ball.

There is nothing like watching your child light up at the fun you are having together.  The best part is, there were no distractions.  Obviously there were other little humans running around, but I couldn’t have my phone with me because I was in the water and I wasn’t sitting around the edge socializing with the other moms that I would most likely never see again because I was engaged in my child.  And it was awesome.

The really amazing thing was another lady, who I assume to be a grandma because of our conversation, came in after she saw me and my friend sopping wet playing with the kids.  This lady was in full scrubs, obviously had a long day at work, and she came in and got soaked playing with the kids as well, while her daughter watched from the sidelines.  You could see all of those little kid’s faces light up when she got in the water.  So much fun!

The only thing I missed out on was catching up with my friend, but there is plenty of time for that.  We can have a nice phone call on the way home from work or a few texts passed back and forth.  I will never get that first day at the splash park back with Lily and I’m so happy to have had it be so great.  Although next time, I’m wearing my bathing suit.

My goal for the rest of the summer is to stay plugged in to spending my nights after work with Lily and staying “unplugged” from the distractions that don’t add any value to my life, at least until Lily heads to bed for the night!