Joe in a Button Factory

Many people have been asking me lately if things are settling down back to normal.  I'm reluctant to say yes, afraid that the other shoe will drop again in another setback. That, and we are still figuring out what normal is for us.  As the dust settles, my attention is now turning to details I expected to be figuring out two months ago.  How to get dinner on the table with an infant crying and a toddler asking an explanation of "why" to every word uttered.  How to give Oliver the attention he needs when Charlie is needing something nearly constantly.  How to load the kids in the car and get somewhere- anywhere- on time. 

This week, I'm finally starting to find a rhythm.  I'm no longer anxious the night before worrying about how to feed Charlie and get Oliver dressed and to daycare without tantrums. I've figured out how to keep Charlie content long enough to get Oliver set up with his train set so I can get started on dinner.  I've become an Octomom; no, not the nutty lady with collagen lips and kids crawling all over, but rather a mom who must have eight arms, for all of the things I need to be doing at once.

In middle school, there was this dumb chanting song we used to sing, probably at camp or something, that went like this:

"Hi, my name is Joe, and I work...in...a button factory.  One day, my boss came up to me and said 'Hi Joe, are you busy?' I said, 'no," he said "push..the button... with your right hand." (you then push an imaginary button in the air with your right hand)  The song repeats itself, with the boss telling Joe to push the button with his left hand, right and left legs, head, butt, etc until your whole body is doing this bowl-full-of jelly dance. It's at this point in the song that it ends with, "one day, my boss came up to me and said, "Hi Joe, are you busy?' I said, 'YES!'" 

That's kind of how I feel.  I'm Joe in a button factory.  Last week, when Michael was gone at an appointment, I found myself feeding Charlie with my left arm, trying to teach Oliver how to hold down a button (ha!) on the Wii remote to make a race car move forward, while steering the cartoon car on my own remote with my right hand.  This evening, I had a lion puppet on my left hand chasing Oliver upon request, making a bottle with my right hand, while answering Michael's question about a tampon commercial (uh, whaaaa?).  Parenting two presents with the oddest accomplishments of multitasking. 

And yet today I walked into Caribou to meet with a college student I'm mentoring with a headband looped around my neck.  Yesterday I discovered well after I had gone out in public that my fly was down.  And let's not count how many times in the past week I have put Oliver's shoes on the wrong feet.  Hey, I said I could multitask, but I never said I could do it well.

I went for a swimming workout tonight, against all odds and excuses.  I was exhausted.  Charlie was asleep so I could be going to bed early instead.  Oh, what's that I see out my window?  A heavy snowfall?  But I still climbed into my car and rolled out of the driveway.  Only to discover a block later that I left my goggles and swimming gear in the garage.  I turned around, and then still headed for the workout.  The water in the pool was freezing.  They might as well have opened up the outdoor pool.  I jumped in anyway, cursing the cold, and pushed off the wall. 

And there I was, finally in a familiar space.  I knew how to do this.  This was a rhythm I had down, and the only multitasking I had to do was breathing as I pulled myself through the water.  At least for this moment, things are indeed getting back to normal.