How many times have I heard that? Dozens, hundreds, thousands? I don't know for sure, but it's been a lot. Too many to count. I do know it used to be a constant hum in my ear, the background noise of every mom taking her kids to the park. The white noise of daily activities when your kids are little, when they constantly want your attention and your praise and want you to see how they jump off the swing.
And bike up the ramp.
And do a new dance.
And I wasn't always watching.
I would pretend to. I would do the absent-minded nod and murmur the standard, "Yep, good job."
"Mom, are you watching?"
"Yes, I told you I was."
But I wasn't always. Years ago when the kids were really little and I would wrangle them up and take them somewhere to run wild, I would sit somewhere where I could view them the majority of the time. Back then there were no smart phones to distract you, but you can better believe I would pick up a copy of anything accessible to read, even if it was a copy of The Shopper, just so I could mentally escape.
Now there are these constant guilt-inducing articles about the iPhone Mom. How mothers aren't paying attention to their kids because they're so engrossed in checking email, and updating Facebook and ignoring poor little Junior who has somehow managed to flip upside down in the swing, and is now licking gravel with his open mouth while he waits for his mom to finish her tweet.
And for this fault I will readily admit guilt. I have been that Mom.
My kids would probably say I still am - at least partially.
But I am trying to be much better. It's not easy.
One thing that helps is the ever revolving relationship with my kids. Now that they're getting older, I seem to be a lot less stressed. I no longer have to devote 4 hours each night to meal prep, bath times and teeth brushing. Sometimes I don't make a meal at all. Sometimes I tell the kids to dig out some leftovers and brush their own teeth afterward. And that, my friends, can be true bliss.
In addition to removing their own tartar and plaque, they can now keep themselves busy for hours on end. They don't need me to start a game timer on again, or scoop up the Legos and help them decipher a diagram. That's bittersweet though too, isn't it? Not being as needed as you were before. Sure, it frees up your time, but you are missing some of that precious interaction with them.
So why the hell do I whip out my phone when my kids are actually asking me to spend time with them? It's like an iCrack addiction.
The last few months I have been waning myself off my drug. And while it's not as easy as I had hoped, some of the one-on-one time I'm spending with the kids now is priceless.
Take, for instance, our discussion of Miley Cyrus and her pornographic use of a foam finger.
"She can't even twerk, Mom," Chloe, my 11 year old, informed me. "She's not even doing it right."
Now I'm not completely out of touch. I had recently YouTubed a tutorial on that very dance. "Well, she didn't seem to be able to do The Bounce," I told my daughter. "There wasn't a lot of front and back hip motion, but she seemed to be able to do the Side to Side part ok."
Chloe rolled her eyes. "No she didn't. She couldn't even keep the side to side part shaking. She barely has a butt at all anyway."
And then, for a reason I can only chalk up to temporary insanity brought on by childhood exposure to lead paint in my crib, I accepted my daughter's challenge to do the side to side booty shake. Luckily I was wearing yoga pants, so I merely bent forward at the waist, extended my arms out, and shook my ass like it was nobody's business. I was completely ready to see my daughter collapsed on the floor in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. See, I have no problem embarrassing myself in front of my kids for their amusement. It's a win win if we all laugh.
But what I wasn't expecting was my daughter racing up the stairs and barging in her sister's room. "Ohmigod Sophie, you are not going to believe it. But Mom can twerk and she's actually kinda good."
As much as I wanted to be the Jennifer Lopez of mothers, I had to come clean.
"I'd like to attribute it to my years of childhood dance classes, girls, but it simply comes down to Newton's Law in physics - An object in motion tends to stay in motion."
They stared at me blankly. I'm surprised they didn't ask if I was talking about a Fig Newton.
I tried to explain it in simpler terms. "The sheer size of my butt is what kept it moving back and forth. Not any technical skills on my part."
I think they grudgingly accepted that their mom was no Dancing Queen, but we still laugh about it and I am so glad I didn't have my nose buried in Facebook while the Shake Challenge went unanswered.
Another reason I knew I had to scale back in the use of my phone was due to a nightmare my 9 year old son recently had. Around midnight he scurried into my room and under my blankets.
"I had a nightmare," he whispered in the darkness.
"About what?"
"I can't say. It's too horrible." He buried his head next to me.
A nightmare too horrible to tell a parent usually only means one thing.
I turned to him. "Did you dream I died?"
He nodded, and with a little prodding began to spill the beans. To summarize a 9 year old's middle-of-the-night rambling, the dream started with me in a hot tub with Mitt Romney and President Obama. And somehow I ended up shot with a machine gun, but in Wyatt's dream he was rushing to my side and apparently while I was bleeding out I looked at him and whispered, "Quick. Take a picture of me on my phone before I die."
Now I know that was a horrible dream for my son. But I laughed so hard when he told me I almost cried.
Because seriously, what does that say?
I'll tell you what it says. It says I need to Put My Damn Phone Away. And it took a dream of a swimsuit wearing Romney (ewww) to remind me that I was on the right path by using my phone less and less.
In a couple years my oldest will be off at college. I don't want her to think of her mom scrolling through Facebook and "liking" a stupid photo of a bear in a tree.
I want my kids to remember me that I was present. And enjoying their childhood right along with them. And laughing at shared memories of their mom attempting to dance, and other ridiculous things they talk me into.
I want them to know the answer already when they asked the question:
"Mom, are you watching?"
Yes. I am.
