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All In A Day’s Work
By Lisa Barker.
Multi-tasking is not a lost art with this mom. What I used to do well in an office for somebody else, I now do for free at home, but on a higher stress level.
Take yesterday for example. While writing up an invoice and taking care of business on my home computer, my two-year old had discovered that mashed banana on laminate flooring makes for a nice skating rink while at the same time his three-year old sister had somehow managed to fall and scrape herself just below her eye.
Those are merely three things. How hard can it be to juggle them? Let’s cover the scene step by step.
Step One: Save documents on Word; print invoice; call older kids to help clean up banana skating rink; yell for middle child to bring a wet cloth for head wound on oldest toddler.
Step Two: Oldest children run down hall to living room and hit banana slick at top speed and slide through to far wall while middle child dances in place upset at younger sister’s head wound while banana-maestro steals over to printer and grabs newly printed invoice with sticky fingers.
Step Three: Instinctively grab invoice with blood-covered hands thereby upsetting the banana-maestro who now wants to know why older sister’s head is leaking while oldest siblings slip-slide to gawk at bleeding child. Middle child has disappeared.
Step Four: Wring out one of MANY wet cloths middle child has managed to bring for small wound while older siblings realize how fun banana-skating is and three cats inspect invoice trying to discern if it is worth sampling.
Step Five: Bark out orders for banana clean-up, make middle child hold bleeding child who is now fully wailing at site of blood, whisk banana-maestro out of reach of bleeding sister while scaling fridge to reach the first aid kit on top shelf above fridge.
Step Six: You got it — phone rings, UPS shows up and curious neighbor wants to know if everything is all right.
Step Seven: Now that things are cleaned up, sink onto sofa and make mental note to reprint invoice and vow to replenish chocolate stash…just as husband walks in the front door.
Step Eight: Before he gets a word out try to explain that you really DID have a grip on the day before the last twenty minutes had unfolded. No, you don’t know why the UPS man is still standing around outside or why the two-year old is packaged in a box while middle-child is smirking and looking suspicious.
Step Nine: Slip off to kitchen to make dinner, sign homework papers, pack lunches for next day and trip over cats that want their dinner, too.
Step Ten: Say grace--Thank you, Lord, for these and all my blessings. (DING-DONG!) That UPS man is still out there??
Copyright © Lisa Barker. Jelly MomTM is written by Lisa Barker and syndicated through Martin-Ola Press/Parent To Parent and is available for newspapers, websites, e-zines and newsletters. For more information and details, please contact editor@parenttoparent.com. Reprinted with permission.
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