I should have joined the circus

Like all moms, I can do more than one thing at a time. In my experience, dads can't do this; they can only concentrate on one thing--their heads explode if they try to do anything else. Recently, my husband was putting batteries in one of the kids' toys. He was removing the old batteries when I came into the room and asked him if he wanted spaghetti or lasagna for dinner. He didn't answer, so I asked him again, and that's when I was treated to the eye roll, the one thing he does that drives me absolutely insane. "Can't you see I'm doing something here? Wait a second," he said, and I waited while he changed the batteries, screwed on the cover, and passed the toy to our son. Only then did I get an answer: "Spaghetti." See? One thing at a time.

Now I don't know if all husbands are exactly like mine, but enough of my friends have told me similar stories that I tend to believe my husband is the rule rather than the exception. We moms, on the other hand, have to do fifteen things at once in order to get everything done. We just don't have time to complete one task before starting the next. The other day, I was feeding the kids their lunch while calling for a doctor's appointment, putting laundry in the washer, sweeping the kitchen, eating my own lunch, planning the next week's meals, and writing the store list. We multitask. It's how we survive.

A few days ago, my kids and I had just gotten home from running some errands, and I sent my oldest, who's three, to the bathroom while I took the baby's coat off. (I still call her the baby, even though she'll be one and a half tomorrow.) Afterward, I went upstairs to change my clothes, then went back to the kitchen to wash my hands so that I could make lunch. As soon as I began running the water, my three-year-old was yelling that he pooped and the baby was standing next to me asking for "boom-boom." (This is how she tells me that she wants to nurse. Cute, huh?) Anyway, I thought my head would explode because of all the directions I was being pulled, everyone wanting something from me at once and me with a splitting headache, a rumbling stomach, and a desperate need to eat. Of course I rallied like we moms always do and got everyone taken care of and lunch made. I wonder, though, how my husband would have handled the situation. Kind of makes me laugh to think about it...

So I juggle things--my time, my energy, pieces of my mind. We all do, which makes me think that all moms would make great circus performers! Besides our families, we have other balls in the air too, like attempting to achieve our personal dreams--as I said in my first post, mine is writing--and we have to work hard to balance our "Mom" role with the other things we want to accomplish in life. But we can do it. We're Moms.