Striving to be in the moment

As most of you know, I am a new mom. My beautiful daughter, Sydney, is now 4.5 months old. (You'll notice that many of my upcoming posts are going to be about my experience as a mom.)

I have to admit that before becoming a mom I often found it difficult to be "in the moment." I define being in the moment as being able to appreciate what you're doing, who you're with, you're enviroment, etc. without multi-tasking or thinking about what's next.

Having Sydney has made me very aware of how quickly time passes. She is changing every day and I don't want to miss fully experiencing all the stages of her development. I realized, early on, that if I wasn't careful I could easily miss out of fully enjoying time with her.

So I've made it a mission of mine to work on being in the moment more. For me, this means that I take time to do nothing but be with Sydney - watching her and playing with her. I have to resist the urge to put her on the playmat while I do work or cook dinner. Of course it would be impossible for me to pay attention to her 100% of the time. I'm not striving for that, but I am striving to have time every day when I thoroughly enjoy being a mom. This means reminding myself (in those moments) that there's no where I else I need to be and nothing else I need to be doing.

Being in the moment more has brought more joy and peacefulness into my life.

I wonder... how could you practice being in the moment more?