#BaxtersBuzz
I don't want to spend much time revising and reworking this. I want this to just flow. It is Thursday morning and I feel the best that I've felt all week. The most coherent.
On Sunday, while at tennis, Zara had a meltdown. Something that was very unlike her. She was dejected and confidence was leaking from her pony tails, to the pink Nikes on her feet. Not my boisterous and self assured Zara. This girl had her head down and felt every mistake was the end of life as she knew it.
It was concerning because this was a repeat of last week at tennis. I was disturbed by the situation and unsure of how to resolve it. I immediately called the wife to share my concerns and brainstorm a solution. Bryce, our two year old commands a lot of attention. A LOT. Is this diminishing our focus? Has Zara been neglected in some way as we work on getting Brycie to use more words and to stop destroying our house? Have we been too hard on her and not allowed her to be a child? Is our tolerance too low for her (newly five!) five year old behavior? Are we expecting her to give us a break because we feel that our bandwidth has reached its limit? Do we have a realistic set of expectations when it comes to raising two small children? Are we making enough sacrifices?
When wifey is talking to me and I'm laughing at a thread on Twitter....not cool, right? Maybe she rolls her eyes, but doesn't get upset because she did the same thing to me earlier. Or maybe she has gotten used to getting only part of my attention. But there's a moment where I've chosen to put some strangers and their comments above my wife's words and she can feel it. She can tell that I'm not completely present. How do my children feel when I'm only partially listening to them? How does my extremely observant daughter interpret my absence? If my family is truly the most important thing in my life, why aren't my actions aligning with my feelings? How do I feel when I don't have someone's undivided attention? Not cool.
On Sunday I decided that I'd be taking myself away from social media for the week. I wanted to ensure that I was more mentally present at home and my hope was that my mind would be less full of clutter. I owe it to my family. I've prayed so long for them, so why do I take them for granted at times??
Kanye West has tens of millions of people following his every move and providing feedback. How many people are truly invested in me and my loved ones? What deserves more of my attention? If I only had 24 hours to live, how much of that time would I dedicate to my family versus social media? As I mark off my proverbial checklist after each day, what do I want to see? I can't imagine social media being anywhere towards the top of that list.
Read more. Write more. Love more. Pray more. Live more.
