Parental Multitasking is Disgusting
It’s been a while since my last Manmom post. One might assume that this is owed to a lack of interesting tales. Not so. In fact, the opposite is more likely true. My Manmom existence is so busy that I’ve found little time to sit back and reflect upon it.
But I had an experience this morning that brought cohesion to some other experiences, and together they certainly demand a blog post.
Multitasking makes my life as a Manmom possible. Without it, I could never get done all that is required of me in a given day. For instance, say it’s 12:15. You need to leave the house by 12:45 to get the kids to school just on time. Before you leave, you need to feed them. And there are dirty dishes all over the kitchen. And Jack needs a snack made. And both of them need their backpacks packed. And then socks may need to be put on before coats and boots can be considered. And you have a phonecall to make. And you need to grab a book for the dead time you may have between drop offs and pickups. A lot for 30 minutes, no? Multi-tasking to the rescue.
The strange thing is though, a lot of these tasks should really not be done concurrently. It is the type of thing that results in putting cooking oil away in the fridge and milk in the cupboard. But, it can result in much worse than that.
We all know parents have to do gross things. If you are a parent, you know much more than others would assume, though.
Perhaps only old-age palliative care workers have any understanding of the disgusting barrage of experiences that make up my daily life.
There are the obvious ones, like using my spit-wet-thumb (and other things) to wash a dirty face on the way out the door. Or dealing with a bathroom accident. But what happens when those activities mix with others?
This morning, I was washing the dishes when I found a cup full of oil, water and syrup (a weird science experiment, don’t ask) that needed to (finally) be emptied. Not wanting to pour the oil down the drain, I began to search for a solution. That’s when I found a diaper sitting atop the pile of garbage in the garbage bag. Diapers absorb, I remembered. So, I poured the rest of the oil and other liquids into the diaper, hoping it would sop even more than it already had in a previous life. Yes, that is gross. Yes, I did it.
Yesterday I had to do dishes too. You need to understand that kids just don’t care what you need to get done. As I write this, for instance, I’ve become a magnet for the kids, who just moments ago were happily playing a game all by themselves (which is why I thought I had a moment to write). But they know when you are doing things, they do. And they knew when I started the dishes, because I soon heard one call out “dad, I went poo”. At this stage, that means I need to come in and wipe a bum. So, I put down my dishes, went to wipe a bum, then returned to cleaning dishes. Yes, the dishes we eat off of. But I washed my hands in between. Only a second or 2 later, I heard “dad, I went poo” again, but in another voice. How do they get the timing so right with these things? So, I paused my cleaning again to … wipe a bum. And then I resumed washing dishes. If you eat at my house, I suppose you’ve now been warned.
There are more disgusting multitasking stories I am sure. Do you have any of your own, I wonder?