Overstimulated and "touched out?"

I was, until I put my phone away for 3 weeks

Photo by Henry Be on Unsplash

My newborn is latched on to me every two hours or so, 10-15 minutes each time. When I’m not nursing or burping him, I’m changing a diaper. I have six little talkers in my house, all with their own ideas, complaints, and questions.

We feed chickens and collect eggs. I help my 5 year-old with his swimsuit at least four times a day.

One of the promises of a smartphone and social media apps is that you can be more connected. Connection. What does that mean anyway?

Right now, with seven kids to raise, homeschool planning to do, fifty meat chickens, twenty hens, and our new house build, what I need is less connection, not more of it. I don’t need people to reach me on my cell every second of every day. I understand that this is part of some people’s jobs... for me though, my main job is my kids. They’re the ones who need to reach me, and a smartphone constantly interrupting has never helped with that.

Since putting my phone away…

It’s been refreshing to simply engage with my tiny humans instead of with strangers on a tiny screen. When I want to check the weather, I step outside. My glasses fog up. 85 degrees and 80 percent humidity? Sounds about right.

When I go outside, I don’t stop to grab my phone, hands full already with Baby and a water bottle. When I’m getting ready to meet up with someone or run errands, I’m not bombarded with texts and calls as I leave the house, trying to help kids find their shoes, which is hard enough without digging for my phone in the diaper bag again.

Is it boring to not have my smartphone around? I do have pockets of time where one could say I’m bored. Maybe I’m waiting for a potty-training toddler to finish on the toilet, or I’m sitting to nurse the baby for the 10^th time that day. This is when I give my brain a chance to think through things, reflect, pray, make a mental or written list of what I need to do next.

If it’s more than a small pocket of time, if I’m blessed with three little ones napping, I pull out the sudoku puzzle I’m working on that day. I can also work on writing or read one of the six books that I’m in the middle of.

These are small changes to my daily life, nothing flashy or drastic. The changes are subtle.

For example, my kitchen floor. It turns out, it’s hard to sweep the floor when a phone is in your hands every spare moment. I’m sweeping my kitchen floor now, twice or three times a day, which is what it has needed all along, but I never thought I had the time to do it.

The best thing about these last three weeks? Hair braiding. I have long felt like a second-class mother for not being about to braid my daughters’ hair well. Of course, I would do simple braids and ponytails but those never stay in for long, and the shorter hair in front always comes out too soon.

There were times my kids would come home from being babysat and my friend had French braided their hair. I loved it, but again there was the reminder that I was failing. If you have unruly (and beautiful!) curly hair, then maybe you can relate. It’s one thing to manage my own wild hair, but it’s curly hair x3 in this household.

So not only have I freed up mental clutter, found time to sweep the floor, have more pockets of time for prayer and sudoku puzzles, but I have discovered that I can braid. I can French braid. It’s a bit sloppy, but with practice I know I’ll get there.

I’m calmer, less hurried, less scatter-brained. Who needs digital connection when you have newspaper sudoku, or have kids who say strange and entertaining things?

It’s been three weeks away from my smartphone. I’m hoping for many more.

Read the first post about why I put my phone away for the rest of the summer:

https://thelargefamilyletters.substack.com/p/why-my-cell-phone-is-going-away-for

I would love to hear your thoughts! What would you miss if you gave up your phone? Do you think you’d pick up any old or new hobbies?