Try to put down your phone

It’s good to put down your mobile phone Lawrie.

As I write this the iPhone is king, a smartphone. You’ll probably have something that I could only dream of as your communication/information/entertainment device of choice. But I hope that whatever it is, you make sure to put it away, put it down and switch it off on occasion.

Don’t be one of those parents who's more interested in reading Twitter or Facebook than just watching their beautiful child carefully pour water from one empty yoghurt pot into another at bath time. Take the time to just watch what your child is doing. You’ll very soon have memories of this wonderful, quiet moment which no post on any social media will beat.

Put down the phone and offer to hold one of the pots. Watch the concentration in that pair of sky blue eyes as a little brain works out the basic physics of water and its behaviours.

Lose yourself in that moment, so that you’re so involved it sends small shivers down your spine.

And when you go on holiday switch it off altogether. Enjoy the walks, throwing pebbles into the sea, eating ice creams and putting endless coins into a grabber machine in the hope of winning a George Pig cuddly toy for your little boy.

By the way, you won’t win one, but you will find a teddy shop down the road, that sells them for a fraction of what you put into that arcade machine.

By all means take the occasional photograph. But don’t ever forget the vivid power of your own precious memories.