multi-tasking, or lack thereof..

I remember years ago I had a talent. Many people have been blessed with musical, artistic, intellectual and many other noteworthy talents. I was blessed with none of those. However, I did have one thing I was good at; my talent was multi-tasking. I remember when I had a young family. I could bounce a baby on my hip, while stirring something on the stove, have a phone to my ear, and help a kindergartner with homework. It was a miraculous skill, not that I'm bragging or anything. :)

However, fast forward fifteen years and what on earth has happened to my one talent? I must have done what the parable talks about in the bible, I must have buried it. Then, due to my advancing years and dying brain cells, forgot where I buried it.

Now if I am holding a baby on my hip, my back starts to ache, I burn dinner if the phone rings and my kids have to repeatedly ask the same questions as my mind often takes long vacations and I come back to the same phrase, "Earth to mom".

In the past couple weeks, these are some of the things I have done.

I was talking to Ryan about church while preparing dinner. I grabbed the Hersey's chocolate syrup out of the fridge, thinking it was BBQ sauce, and started pouring it on the chicken. (Ok, so this tells you how often my subconscious thinks of chocolate, is it any wonder that the bathroom scale and I are not on speaking terms?)

I was chatting on my cell phone as I parked in a walmart parking lot and didn't take the the usual time to draw a map so I could successfully return. An hour later I am wandering up and down the isles in the rain, searching for my van, only to finally realize I had Kelly's car that day and had walked past it three times.

I was writing a check for school lunch while talking to one of my kids. After voiding three checks due to mistakes, Mark said, "No one talk to her right now, or I'm going to be hungry and late for school!"

I was filling up my iron the other day, typically I use distilled water as the manufacturer recommends, but as I was also watching my favorite tv show at the time, I nearly poured in milk that was left on the dinner table. They are in the same type of container, whose bright idea was that?

Hopefully one day as I am weeding in my untamed flower beds, I will come across the elusive hiding place of my long buried talent. But if you see a chocolate covered chicken, a wet middle aged woman wandering around with a shopping cart or a milk starched shirt, just assume I am still looking.