It’s a much studied fact that too much multitasking has the same effect on our I.Q. as a bong hit. It makes us stupid. And yet, life with young children can require, at times, an absurd, stuntman level of multitasking.
I first noticed the stoner effect of multitasking after my first child was born. That’s when I started switching dates and times around in my head. I arrived an hour early for a dentist appointment. I showed for a meeting at her preschool on the wrong week. In my rush to get in the house with a crying baby, make dinner and simultaneously answer a urgent email, I left the keys in the front door lock and didn’t discover them until the next morning.
When my second child was born, it got much worse. I started losing my train of thought in mid-conversation and once, to my mortification, in the middle of a big presentation at work. (After that, I always made sure to have handwritten notes prepared in case it happened again.)
We all have these stories.
Our heads are crammed so full of details—the donation for the teacher gift, the overdue DVDs, the work file we need to resend, how to get our one kid to eat food that’s not white, how the other kid is starting to use the potty and doesn’t own any underwear, the meeting we need to reschedule, ordering new glasses for the pair we lost—that we miss our train stop, return the DVDs to library without a DVD in the case, leave our bank card in the ATM, burn the rice, and write cryptic notes on the calendar that we can’t read an hour later. We promptly lose our new pair of glasses, only to find them on top of our own head.
An informal poll of my friends confirms this is a pervasive problem. One says she showed up with her kids for an Easter egg hunt a week early. One says she finds herself driving in circles because she forgets to print the map. Another says that last week she started running a bath for the kids, then forgot about it until it started overflowing the tub.
My favorite is a friend who found her son’s pajamas in the freezer once, next to the ice cream. Right where she’d put them.
What about you? What was your best multitasking stoner moment?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
You capture those hurried moments very well. I’m forgetting little things but thankfully my son is at an age where he is prompting me. “Mommy, you forgot to brush my teeth”, “mommy, you are forgetting my lunch”, etc.
To ward off rushing and feeling frazzled, I keep one day of the week completely open. No commitments. It’s just simple family time, grocery store, cleaning or a friend for my son to come over. Saying no and going to sleep at 10 or 10:30 AND drinking Emergen-C have helped me get on track for the most part.
Last night was a good one. After shopping at Trader Joe’s for an hour and having a full basket of groceries rung up by the nice cashier I realized I left my wallet at work. I had been multitasking, signing up for e-scrip to raise money for my daughter’s school, whilst working. So the kids and I headed across town to retrieve my wallet and then we ate out. Not sure multitasking really works that well in the long run.
Not one of my finer moments-I was grocery shopping with my two girls one morning. Put the groceries and one child in the car, assumed the other was in as well, and started to drive off. Suddenly I heard frantic screaming from outside the car, and my older daughter calmly informed me I had forgotten to put her sister in the car. Said sister was now running across the parking lot after my car. Thankfully I didn’t get very far and there were no other cars around. Still….got to just hope she was too young to remember that experience!
I thought things would improve once the kids were older and I started sleeping again, but not so much. Now I’m just worried that the stoned feeling is here to stay-I can’t imagine it will get any better as I get older.
About 6 weeks ago, I agreed to do way too many things in one day- teach my last dance class and make it an open house for the parents with treats, take my 2 children to see a special child friendly nutcracker show, and show my handmade wears at a craft show that night. Each of those things by themselves would be enough to stress out our normal routine becuase each requires special timing, planning and preperation, but all 3? Oh, and I should also mention that my husband was away on a trip, so it was just me…. In one day, I left the hot water running in the bathroom sink for 8 hours straight (thank god the landlord pays the water bill!), left my camera at home, went to go it and promtly dropped and broke it, left the snacks from the last class in the back of the car after we were done and did not find them until days later (so that’s why the car smelled like rotten fruit and sour milk…..), and after the craft show was done at 10:00 pm, I returned to my car to find the inside light on, and you guessed it, the battery dead. Obviously I won’t be signing my self up for too many things in the near future 😉
hm, not much to share except for the fact that I’ve lost my driver’s license and digital camera in the past week.
I am so thankful for these anecdotes—I thought I was the only one slightly losing my mind! I have worn the booties from my infants’ daycare out the door on more than one occassion…thankfully, I have noticed they were on my feet before I walked into my office.
I read an article (who can remember where?) about this exact problem and the author decided to stop multi-tasking for one month. I got motivated by her story and decided to try and stop multi-tasking too…this included no cell phone in the car…nothing but complete attention on what I was doing. I was so great with the kids, but I ended up so depressed. If I don’t multi-task, there is no room for friends, books, the small pleasures.
haha! I love this post because it totally describes me, well, most of the time. I have definately done the freezer/fridge thing *multiple* times…. Its so hard to keep up with everything and keep our heads on straight. Atleast I know Im not alone. 🙂
{ 1 trackback }