Mothers Invented Multitasking

Let's get one thing straight. Multitasking may be computer lingo, but Bill Gates and his crowd didn't invent the process of doing more than one thing at a time . . . unless you want to ignore the daily life of every mother who has lived on the planet, that is.

I recently watched a young mother at church who could demonstrate the finer points of multitasking in her sleep between midnight feedings of her newborn and to the tune of her dryer running. On her day of rest, she had carefully seated herself amongst her brood of three preschoolers. With the poise of an angel, she was holding her infant and feeding it a supplemental bottle, helping her daughter hold a hymn book open, adding her lovely soprano voice to the congregational hymn and nudging her son to stop kicking the pew in front of him . . . all at once. No doubt there was a roast baking in the oven at home awaiting the family's return from church. It was 10:15 in the morning. She had the look of complete serenity on her face. I can only imagine the multitasking adventure she and her husband had been through between the hours of 7:00 and 10:00 . . . waking, bathing, scrubbing, dressing, feeding, combing, driving and directing the behavior of themselves and their little ones in order to arrive at this blissful point.

I remember those days. Come to think of it, I still play a pretty mean game of motherhood multitasking on occasion. Since my laundry room and kitchen are next to each other, I can simultaneously wash dishes, launder clothes, make chili, listen to a book on tape and wait up for teenagers to get home without even breaking a sweat as well as I ever could.

I guess once a mother learns the benefits of multitasking and earns the talent for it, the real fun of enjoying its fruits goes on and on.