When my husband is on the phone, that’s it: He is just on the phone. He is not emptying the dishwasher. He is not cooking dinner. He is not answering e-mails while simultaneously shouting out the back window, “Don’t play soccer in the mud in your brand new sneakers!” It’s just him and his phone, and it looks so peaceful. Essentially useless, but peaceful. I want me some of that.
I am forever doing several things at once while not concentrating on any one of them for very long. And Twitter and Facebook only feed my addiction to multi-tasking because when my attention span runs out shortly after writing the verb or getting out the mop or — Oooh! There’s a sale at Lands End today.
Um, where was I?
Oh yeah. Social media sucks me in. So does The New York Times, a blog about who got canned on American Idol last night, the pile of clothes on top of the dryer and darn it, I forgot to promote tomorrow’s Freebie Friday prize….
There, done. Where was I again?
Some of it is self diagnosed ADD, but I suspect that I’m not the only mom who manages to do (too) many things at once. This is why we were made to be gatherers, while men were born to be hunters. For instance, when my sons look into the fridge for cheese to put on their sandwiches, they keep their heads rigidly forward. If they don’t see the cheese, they shout, “Mom where is the cheese?” instead of tilting their heads ever so slightly to the right, where they would indeed spot the cheese.
They are hunters, focusing in on the saber-toothed tiger so they don’t get killed. But we are gatherers, picking the berries and collecting the water and drying out the saber-toothed tiger skins while keeping the children from getting killed. That’s why I can find the cheese, but my husband sits in a chair and talks on the phone while staring into the distance. We were born this way. It’s nature.
But the males in my house seem to be able to continue to focus just like their ancestors did, while my gathering has gotten completely out of control, thanks to technology. I don’t just gather dinner. I gather information from way too many sources, all at once, while doing way too many things involving everything from finding the shin guards to mass e-mailing the news of cuts to our school system’s music program — which I did while writing this blog. And it almost became a big, big problem this past weekend…
At a writer’s conference in New York City, the hotel supplied lotion that smelled like coconut, which I didn’t like. I was balancing my Starbucks green tea latte and apple muffin while attempting to tweet: “Jen Singer thinks that hotels should hand out coconut-scented lotions only if they are near the beach” followed by a joke about appearing in a Coppertone ad. Only, my Blackberry, which automatically fills in words for you, didn’t want to go with coconut. Also, the BACKSPACE button is dangerously close to the ENTER button, so if you are trying to do too many things at onceyou just might accidentally tweet something you didn’t intend to. I know. I have done that. And this weekend, I darn near almost broadcasted to thousands of people:
“Jen Singer thinks that hotels should hand out cocaine.”
But for a split second that felt like eons, I put down the latte and the muffin, ignored the many shiny things around me vying for my attention and ever so carefully hit the BACKSPACE button until I had erased “cocaine,” and then just as carefully, typed in “coconut” and finished the tweet without a hitch. Or a snort. And you know what? It felt good to focus, if only for a moment.
So, today, I vow to just talk on the phone at least once. No making a move in Lexulous at the same time, or getting packages ready for the post office or emptying the dishwasher. Just me and my phone, useless but peaceful.
Now, where was I?
Share, share, that’s fair: How is it in your home? Hunters and gatherers? Tweeters and Sitters? Tell us.
Jen, I couldn’t agree more. Our family is gearing up for our annual Cinco de Mayo party–I’ve made salsa, beans, machaca beef, green chili chicken, ordered the bouncer, the marg machine, planted flowers, stuffed the pinatas, all while taking care of my two year old and supervising the painter who is currently working on the house and the gutter installation man. What has my husband done? He’s in the process of rebuilding the deck on the playhouse so it’s not a house-of-doom when the neighbor kids come over. He’s on week #2 of building it. The party is tomorrow.
What I wish most was that we had a genetic excuse for only doing one thing at a time. Sometimes that Y chromosome is a little too lazy if you ask me, and we all just blame it on HIStory. Isn’t it time for that sucker to mutate, and start pulling its weight during this century? Perhaps I need to be using my time-of-the-month-card more often…
For me I would like to go get a mani/pedi and a massage. Come home to a clean house and my husband attention on me. I would like to be pampered. I hardly get a shower in till midnight each night. I also would like a camera that works and a wrap for me to hold our 9mth daughter in.
I would love all of this, but in reality I may get a nap and be able to dream about all of this. Though naps are good… clean houses are better and a looking and feeling good mama is the best.
I am always the gatherer, just as most women are supposed to be born as
I could talk on the phone with sis-in-law while wiping the poop from a 17m.o son, answering a client’s request via text while breastfeeding, putting clothes in the dryer and washer while holding the ever-so-needy son on hip..and the list goes on..
my wish for Mother’s Day this year is an hour or two of complete solitude, to be able to do one thing at a time, sipping a drink without having to choke on it..and time to really dabble on with my food..huhu! Or is that too much to ask for, once you are a mom?