One such mistake happened just the other night. Usually, I get home with the boys and I make their dinner, give them a bath, etc. It is all very well timed, until I got the wild hair to actually try to make myself a real meal before they went to bed. Let me repeat - mistake!
The evening was going great. The boys played well, riding their scooters with their helmets (i.e. skull caps). Side note - Scott has already influenced them and they want to be skaters so badly. Anyway, there were minimal fights to break up that night; they ate well. All was going very smoothly. It was that false sense of calm that lured me into deciding to make dinner. The dinner of choice was pasta with mushrooms and broccoli. Really - not fancy at all. My biggest challenge was to boil water and throw pasta in it. I wasn't making some complicated dish that needed my undivided attention.
Picture the scene: The water is in and the stove is
set to high; the broccoli and mushrooms are on the skillet and it is now time to get the boys to brush their teeth and go to bed. That is where my multi-tasking skills fell apart. When you multi-task at work, you decide when to switch from one thing to another and while you are doing task B, task A isn't screaming at you. Tooth brushing went as well as it goes every other day - Grayson complied, Peyton complained. Then Grayson asked to watch yet another episode of Curious George. When I said 'no' the 2 year old tantrum erupted - crying, rolling on the floor. All over a monkey.
I could sense the water boiling and no pasta was in it yet. I run over to the kitchen and throw the pasta in. Meanwhile, Grayson is still screaming and Peyton is pouting because I made him brush his teeth. Back to Task A - "Boys, go to bed" - The answer in unison was 'NO'. Me - "GO TO BED!!" The answer in unison again - "NO!!".
Now the broccoli and mushrooms were starting to burn. I ran into the kitchen, stirred them, lowered the heat. Back to the boys. I say calmly, 'Boys, it's time for bed, let's lay down'. NO, they shouted. Task A is really getting out of hand. Task B is sizzling in the kitchen. I'm about to lose both tasks. It's like the boys knew I did not have 100% attention on them and they were going to let me know about it. There will be no multi-tasking when it comes to spending quality time with your kids. Even if that quality time is mere tooth brushing and singing a song for bed.
In the end, Scott came home to save the day. He calmed the boys down and got them to sleep while I saved our dinner.
Lesson learned: Do what I'm doing and nothing else. It's way more rewarding and way less stressful. It's one of the hardest lessons to learn for an obsessive person like me, and I will undoubtedly make the same mistake again. Family is first, then pasta.
