To shake on it is to have a mutually acceptable agreement where two people understand and agree to certain terms.  Today my husband and I shook on it.  We both agreed that when we are talking to each other we need to give each other our full undivided attention.  That doesn’t mean stopping to answer a co-workers text or check that email that came through – it means to stop and focus on one another completely for the few minutes it takes to get our thoughts out. 

My husband is currently working every day in the Boston Seaport.  Traffic can be so congested that what is supposed to be a one hour drive can be a 2 hour and 15 minute drive one way.  Then he still needs to work all day and drive home.  I am going to be honest and say I don’t think I could do it.  (The company rescinded on their contractual agreement for hopefully just this project.  It stated he could work remotely two or three days a week.)  Due to this, he leaves around 7am and doesn’t typically get home until at least 6:30pm on a good day.  This leaves my daughter and I two hours to spend with him at night before he heads off to bed to start this process all over again unless he must do something like take his car into the shop. 

When something like this happens and he works out of the house for the day – suddenly it happens.  I gush about a months’ worth of things that we were too tired or too busy to talk about at night.  Which brings me to our handshake.  I feel like we don’t or can’t give each other our undivided attention most of the time unless, we plan for it.  In addition, I feel like he eats dinner then gets on his phone which is an understandable thing to do if we saw him for the previous 4 hours, but that is not the case. 

Moving forward I would like to put our phones and electronics away from after dinner time until we go to bed which will also teach our daughter that time without electronics is better for all of us.  Hopefully. 

All we can do is see – and hope that for the first time in a long time we actually start to stick to a routine – and provide our daughter with a message – a message that is also our reminder – time and people are more important than everything and anything else.