Resurrection

THIS WEEK'S ACTIVITIES:

• Transferring
• Pouring
• Using Tongs
• Bead Stringing
• Clothespins
• Bottles and Tops
• Hardware Busy Board
• Dusting
• Sweeping
• Cleaning Surfaces

Here's what you might call an anti-revelation: 24 hours per day is just not enough. Hasn't every human being, living and dead, uttered this aggravating truth at least once in their life? I can even imagine neanderthals feeling frustrated by the fact that they couldn't hunt and gather everything they needed to hunt and gather before the day was done. The crazy thing about this not-enough-hours-in-the-day syndrome from which I'm currently suffering is that I can recall periods in my life when I would cast about for ways to while away those self-same, now insufferably insufficient hours. Double feature at the cinema? Awesome, that should kill at least four hours! Brand new Tony Hillerman book? See you in 48 hours, world! Slightly dirty car? If I go slow, cleaning it should take something like three whole hours! And if all else failed, I would just lay down in bed and sleep forever and ever. Now I find myself maintaining a to do list in my head. It remains in my head because I can't really write it down--I'm constantly having to reorganize it, reprioritizing and reprioritizing and reprioritizing as the day unfolds and Life gets in the way of me actually accomplishing anything.

OK, I know what your thinking: welcome to parenthood, and stop whining already. I'm not the only one who experiences a time crunch on a daily basis. Come to think of it, I'm pretty fortunate. Sure, my husband works a TON, but it's not like I'm trying to hold down three jobs while raising four kids. I'm responsible for raising (and now educating) one kid as well as for performing my housewifely duties. But [she says in her most plaintive voice] I want to blog, too! Well, you can guess where this blog repeatedly landed on my to do list this past week. That's right, at the bottom. One of the very worst things about getting sick is that Life refuses to stop (or even slow down!) while you're under the weather, so there's always an insane amount of catching up to do once you finally make it back on your feet. Plus, we were not only recovering from illness this week, but also from the St. John Festival. Yes yes, boo hoo hoo, we had to "endure" our island's carnival celebration this past weekend. Life is so hard. I just mention it because returning to work/school after being sick is hard enough; returning after being sick and after a holiday weekend kind of knocks the wind out of your sails. OK, enough with the sob story. Wait, did I mention it's incredibly, uncomfortably hot right now? There, now I'm done with the violins.

Here's the thing: I definitely could have accomplished everything--including blogging--if I'd really wanted to. It would have just meant quite a lot of multitasking. My mom is a champion multitasker, so I know I have the skills, genetically-speaking. And I know that motherhood as a rule requires at least some degree of multitasking (fixing a broken toy while making dinner, folding laundry while playing with blocks, nursing while trimming fingernails), but it just doesn't come naturally to me. I do not have a type A personality; I'm not ambitious, I'm not an over-achiever. More importantly, I hate feeling frantic and I hate hurrying. So when my to do list looks super long, I just let stuff fall by the wayside. I'm the tortoise, and I don't really care if I win the race in the end. (Though I do care if I blog or not, so I'm going to have to remember that when I'm reprioritizing. Really, isn't blogging way more important than spotless floors and pristine toilets?)

I was thinking about multitasking (and my aversion to it) while out walking this morning, and it dawned on me that when I do multitask, it almost always detracts from my parenting skills. The minute I set out to accomplish something while I'm actively mothering (that is, while my son is awake), the probability that I will lose my patience/temper and fly off the handle increases tenfold. Whether it's cleaning the bathrooms, writing an e-mail, creating school supplies (like that darned dressing busy board) or cooking dinner, the task at hand becomes my main focus, and I'm no longer mindful of myself as a mother. I interact with my son distractedly and doing so quite often results in discordance between the two of us. This is not to say that my child can't/doesn't play by himself for periods of time throughout the day; or that I can't occupy myself, cleaning or cooking or reading or what have you, while he's doing so. The distinction is that I'm still mainly focused on being a mom during those times, so I'm not frustrated or upset when my son inevitably interrupts me and I have to stop what I'm doing. (And the interruptions are not only inevitable but incessant: whether it's that he has to go pee or he's hungry or thirsty or that he has a question about big rigs or pulleys or that he wants to simply narrate his actions to me.) When my own personal agenda supersedes my job of parenting my son, that's when my son's interruptions ogre-fy me, and calm, patient, loving mommy becomes angry, mean, yelling mommy. So, though I know plenty of people can multitask their hearts out to no ill effect, it's just not for me. And if, because of this, the house occasionally stays slightly unkempt or my mom's phone calls don't always get returned or I ignore my blog for over a week, then that's OK. I'd rather be a calm, patient underachiever than a stressed out, ogre-y overachiever.

Postscript: School went well this week. Parker's movements are becoming more refined and he seems to be able to focus on the activity at hand for longer periods of time (rather than, for instance, spilling all the beads and rolling them around the tray after only a few minutes of actual bead stringing). I did get a lot of work (read: sewing) done on the dressing busy board during his naps this past week (usually I blog while he naps), so I'll finish that this weekend and introduce it on Monday. Then we'll start sensorial activities, which should be very fun and exciting. I'll discuss these sensorial activities--and why they're part of our curriculum--more in an upcoming post.