Failing Multi-tasking 101

One of the reason that I like reading Lilek’s Bleat is to get inspiration. He watches a kid AND writes three columns AND scrubs the tub with a toothbrush AND writes a blog AND scans in pictures of matchbook covers AND smokes a cigar AND calls into a wacko radio show AND pauses to appreciate the perfectness of the world under the current administration.

I am humbled before the master of multitasking. Lately, I am pleased if I nudge my two kids through the day with three meals and a clean outfit. If I get in a shower, it’s a gold star day.

I had a good run of it. After my oldest was born, I learned how to work during naps. Even pumped out a dissertation during those couple hours of silence. I worked in the evenings. I also had some daycare back in those old days. Then I had another kid. A kid with issues. Still, it was okay, because he took two naps a day and the older one started school. Moving to the suburbs saved time in some ways, but took more time in other ways.

This fall, Ian stopped napping. I now have only two hours a day to myself, while he is in school. Hardly enough time to answer e-mail and scan the paper. Many days, I don’t have a chance to even use those two hours for work, because I have an appointment with the school, the doctor, the accountant. Or I have to buy some more jeans, because Jonah’s new pants are too big and kept falling down and the kids made fun of him all day sending him home in tears. Those two hours routinely get eaten up by newly hatched crises.

As Steve’s work responsibilities have mounted, he has managed to keep his hours constant only because he works even harder during the day. He still comes home at 7:00, but is more wrung out. I had to pick up some slack at home.

All that illness this month meant zero work. The kids are off this week from school — zero work.

I just made a list of the half written or half conceived projects that I have brewing. Seven projects. Zero progress.

Ian’s school just nixed the idea of daycare for him. He still needs too much individual attention to get his speech up to snuff. They thought that maybe a home-based babysitter might work, so I have to go into the mommy underground to find one. I think that a couple of afternoons a week might work out okay.

I guess it would be easier if I just did one thing. If I only watched the kids and did that well or if I only worked and did that well. But I want both. Some days, it works out. Some days, not so much.