I Crack Me Up

The other day, I was in the middle of writing something that really needed my attention. It was short but important. Daughter was in the living room playing contentedly. Son was wandering through the house, asking me questions that required answers. I was stationary at the kitchen table. I--like virtually all mothers of preschoolers, I imagine--am fully capable of carrying on multiple conversations simultaneously (one on the phone, one with my husband, and one with my children, for example) and keeping all the threads straight.

Perhaps I have been a bit too cocky about this ability, however. For on the day in question, I was monitoring Daughter with one part of my brain, answering Son's questions with another, and writing with a third, when a sneeze interrupted everything.

"Bless you," I said immediately, mid-sentences. And then continued answering Son's question while signing my name to the mushy birthday card I'd just finished writing for Husband.

Son burst out laughing as he entered the kitchen.

"What?" I asked, sliding the card into the envelope.

"YOU were the one who sneezed," he gasped out, giggling.

It took a minute for his point to register.

Oh. Yes I did. I sneezed, thoughtfully blessed myself in the third person, and then went right back to the different sentences I'd been writing and speaking as if there had been no interruption whatsoever.

There's no question that it was a masterful stroke of multi-tasking.

But it does seem to lack a little something on the self-awareness front.