"Why My House Is So Dirty" or "Multitasking is the Devil"

For years, or maybe my whole life, I've heard multitasking is a good thing.  We women excel at it; it's in our DNA.  It is right and good that we drink our coffee, make breakfast for a toddler and look for a preschooler's shoes all while on the phone with the cable company (who will be out to fix the cable sometime between noon and next Tuesday.)  Why not pay bills online while making dinner and mentally formulating my next blog?  It's just an efficient use of time.
Well, lately I've noticed an irritable streak in me.  I am snappy with the kids at times I can't even blame it on PMS.  What's wrong with me?  I tell myself. "You're not perfect.  No one expects you to be sweetness and light all the time.  It's inhuman."  Be that as it may, I realized railing at Jack for leaving his shoes in the middle of the floor when I'd ask him to pick them up three time already wasn't really venting for me.  If anything, it made me feel worse.  So, I started an informal study of myself to see when I was most irritable, trying to figure what the triggers were.  Here's what I found:  I am pissy in the morning.  I do not like being talked to early in the AM, especially if it's not even light yet and I haven't had any coffee.  I certainly am not up for a detailed account of the making of hand print ghosts in preschool the day before. (How does he wake up thinking about these things??) This is not really fixable.  All I can do is get coffee as soon as possible, sit on the playroom floor and expect very little of myself until the caffeine kicks in.
Secondly, I noticed I am most irritable when I am multitasking.  I am more likely to get snappy when both kids are around.  And, at 5:00, when everyone is tired and whiny and I'm trying to make dinner, it's the perfect multitasking storm for me to blow up over some tiny infraction, like Jack putting all the forks under the napkins instead of on them while he sets the table (He thinks this is really funny.)  Okay, so how do I fix it?  Well, I decided, I just need to do less stuff at one time.  These are the changes I've made:

1. I finally caved and decided the kids could watch cartoons while I make dinner, instead of trying to integrate their help into the dinner-making process as all the parenting mags suggest.  Everyone is happier this way.
2. I do not clean.  Instead of running around tidying up the kitchen after a meal, I pile all the dirty dishes in the sink and leave them for later... or for Jason, which is even better.
3. When something is irritating me (usually some innocuous thing Jack is doing like, taking his sweet-ass time picking out clothes in the morning or Gage banging pots on the tile floor), I focus on something else.  I leave the room if possible and go brush my teeth or text my sister, whatever.
4. I remind myself over and over again I'm not responsible to fix every real or imagined problem my children have.  It is okay for them to be upset and cry sometimes.  It is not only okay but good for them to work things out themselves.
5. If I have a hectic day planned, i.e., first to the grocery store, then to a play date, then to the grandparents' house, then play date part two, I ask myself if I can truly handle all that on this day.  I say to myself, "Because if you are going to get all frazzled and pissy, you need to cancel some of that shit.  It's not worth it."
6. I try to remember to be present in the moment.  This one is hard for me, because I am a pathological planner.  But, when we are at the park, I remind myself to make eye contact with my kiddos, really see them, really enjoy them, instead of letting my mind go off planning some future event.  Even if we are just in the car or at the grocery store, I try to find things to enjoy about it - sing silly songs with the kids or whatever.  That's not to say we don't still have those times I am driving white-knuckled and teeth-gritting whilst screaming and whining ensues in the back seat.  See numbers 3 and 4 for this scenario.

I've been telling myself for a long time it's okay not to be the perfect mom.  It's okay if I lose my cool occasionally.  I just want to save it for the big infractions and not socks on the floor.  Most of all, I want to increase my own happiness and contentment, and when I am patient and relaxed with my kids, I am happiest and they are too.  On top of all this, I tell myself not to analyze every statement I make to my kids, worrying what impact it will have on their impressionable psyches.  I am a great freaking mom, and despite that, my kids will, without a doubt, someday think, "wow, that was fucked up," about something I do or say to them.  Why fight it?

Go Outside and Play!

I've just been reading a bunch of articles, posts, responses, etcetera on line about whether or not kids should be allowed to play outside unsupervised.  There are a LOT of people who think its an outrage and even neglectful to do so.  What drives me nuts is, in all that I read, nowhere is a discussion of circumstances.  How old are said kids? How responsible are they?  Are they playing next to a busy street where gunfire abounds?  Do their parents check on them every once in a while?  Can they go in the house if they need to?

There seems to be a whole lot of paranoia out there about abduction.  One mom actually said she was wouldn't let her kids play in the fenced-in BACKyard alone, because sexual predators might be observing her kids' play schedule and planning to snatch them.  Really?

I know child abduction happens.  It is every parent's worst nightmare.  But how often does it really happen?  Hardly ever, actually.  And it is responsible to teach children how to deal with a stranger who asks them to get in a car or tries to force or coerce them into it.  My tag line with Jack is, "Don't go off with strangers," or with anyone actually, without telling me.  We've also had the conversation that, if someone tries to force him to go with them, he's to kick and scream and fight like hell.  That being said, I don't anticipate he'll actually need any of that advice.  If I thought there were a good chance he would, we'd move.

My current outside play policy is this:  Jack is four and a half.  He can play outside in the backyard by himself as long as he wants.  He usually comes running in screaming at the top of his lungs ten minutes after I've gone in because of a wasp, though.  Only recently, I've allowed him to play in the front yard by himself, as long as I am downstairs and can check on him frequently, and with the reminder that he stay in our yard.  I think it makes him nervous after too long, though, because he's never out there for more than ten or fifteen minutes.  Gage is, of course, not allowed outside by himself, as he is eighteen months old and has a fondness for picking up bugs, even wasps, and I wouldn't put it past him to taste one, either.

That being said, if another parents didn't allow their four year old outside by him/herself, I'd respect that.  Jack is a cautious kid.  He's not going to run into the street or forget he's not supposed to leave the yard.  He also not going to stay out there very long without me.  In this particular situation, his cautious, sometimes fearful nature can actually be a virtue.  Every child is different and is ready to handle responsibilities at different times. I think it's vital we let kids have some independence so they can grow up feeling competent and confident in their abilities, and also that we trust other parents to know their own kids and what they can handle.  So my question to you is this (yes, I really want an answer via comment):  Do you let your kids play in the front yard unsupervised?  And/or at what age do you think you'd let them, if ever?  What do you think of other parents who let their kids play outside unsupervised?

"To Be Early Is To Be On Time..."

"To be early is to be on time, to be on time is to be late, and to be late is to be sorry, dead, toast."  That was the motto of my high school marching band, drilled into every incoming sophomore's brain during summer practice.  I actually added the "dead, toast" part my senior year, for emphasis.  (And because, as a senior, I was quite full of myself.)  This motto spoke to my inner core from the beginning.  It is how I was raised and how I have always lived my life.  When I was a kid, sometimes we'd go to my dad's parents' house for an afternoon family gathering of swimming and eating hotdogs.  It sounds relaxing, but it always began with my dad sitting in the car in the garage, honking and yelling, "Let's go, let's go!"  You see, when Dad said we were leaving at 2:30, he meant we should be backing out of the driveway at 2:29, and not a minute later.  Why we had to be so exactly on time for an afternoon of swimming, I don't know.  No, I do know.  My dad, raised by his parents, had timeliness ingrained in him.  He couldn't help but get agitated when he perceived we might be less than on time.  So, by the time I reached high school, the "To early is to be on time..." adage was in fact already old news with me.
My genetic timeliness worked to my advantage, for many situations.  I was always early for interviews, on time to work and punctual with bills and paperwork. The reasoning behind it is this:  when someone is waiting on you to arrive, it is respectful of them and their time to be on time.  It did lead to a lot of frustration with others, however.  My high school friends had absolutely no concept of time.  And while I wouldn't go so far as to get angry at someone for being late to simply hang out over at my house, I did experience a degree of irritation with some of them who thought, "I'll be there in fifteen minutes," was a suitable E.T.A., when they still had to shower, eat dinner, and drive twenty minutes over to my house.  I would reason with them exasperatedly that their "fifteen minutes" wasn't just a poor estimate, it was ridiculous, since the travel time was more than that.  Mostly, I'd just get a shrug and a "whatever" in response.
Now that I have kids, my phobia of being late has necessarily waned, though I am still the most on time person I know.  When I think about what time to leave the house with the kids, I factor in surprise poopy diapers, surprise messy snacks and surprise traffic.  Regardless, I am early less often now and, even on rare occasion, late - even Little Miss Prepared can be caught totally unawares by a child under five.  It has taken a lot of pointed effort to let go of my, "I HAVE TO BE ON TIME!" mentality.  I really have to work hard not to act like a shrieking harpy as we gather all our crap to leave the house.  ("Where are your shoes??"  "Didn't you JUST go potty??" "GET IN THE CAR!!!")  I can feel myself tensing up when I experience totally unexpected traffic delays.  I take a deep breath, get my shoulders out of my ears, and repeat my new mantra, "It's out of my control.  'Might as well relax."  Nine times out of ten, I get there on time anyway, just not as early as I thought I would. I have, in the past, felt really stupid/crappy/irrational when I have hounded the kids mercilessly to get them in the car with exclamations of, "We are going to be late!!" as if it's a cardinal sin... and we get there early - oops.  Okay, so I'm my father's child.
Where am I going with all this time nonsense?  Basically, I realize I get myself all worked up worrying about being late, when I am nowhere close to being late.  Many times, it's for something where it's not even that important to be exactly on time.  I am working on letting it go, relaxing about that which I cannot control and not getting so annoyed with everyone else for being late, because, as I said before, often it's not even that important.  Therefore, I promise to be more relaxed about tardiness, if the rest of you will work on being on time for a goddamned change every once in a while. Just kidding... maybe.