Hi, I'm a Parent. What Was I Saying?

Hey, parents.  Remember when you were younger, when you didn't have kids, and when you were so brilliant and had it all together and wondered in hushed tones about the parents around you who seemed a bit frazzled, forgetful, crazy-eyed, and perhaps not altogether "there?"

I only ask because I have a certain, vague recollection of putting a strong brain to good use in reasonable, logical, useful ways, and often.  I remembered stuff.  But now that I have kids, I do strange things that do not compute.  I forget mid-action what I'm even doing.  It's because I'm actually doing 62 3/4 things at once, but which one was I doing just then?  This is Hi-I'm-a-Parent Syndrome.

It really hit me a couple months ago when I was trying to finish my coffee, clean up breakfast, corral the kids, ponder a melody for a new song, call the pediatrician, and sweep the floor.  I was sweeping when my flow was broken by the kids, and after I resolved the crisis, I (thought I) recalled what I was doing and proceeded to hold my coffee cup up to my ear and put my phone in my mouth.  After I realized I can't make a phone call by chewing my phone (or, sadly, by listening to my coffee cup), I made the call and moved on to something else on my list.

Much later, I spotted the broom leaning against the wall by Jed's music station and remembered to finish sweeping.

There are also the little bits of insanity.  The coffeemaker sits next to the microwave, and it's been more than once that I've removed the carafe, poured my cup of coffee, immediately considered what I needed to do next, opened the microwave door, and set the coffee carafe safely inside. 

I was stirring the oatmeal on the stove this morning, emptying the dishwasher in between stirs.  Adelaide loves the dishwasher and always seems to find the sharpest, most dangerous object on which to attach her affections.  She also loves to climb, and will get inside the dishwasher the minute I turn my back.  By now you know I can be rather slow in the morning, so I was keeping it to the oatmeal, the dishwasher, and Adelaide.  Remove Adelaide, stir, stack some dishes in the cabinet, stir, remove Adelaide and soothe her protests while managing her recalcitrant little wiggles, and so forth.  But somewhere along the lines, the Hi-I'm-a-Parent Syndrome overcame me, and I began to lose focus and start thinking about something else I would finish later.  I remember keeping Adelaide out of trouble throughout, but it wasn't until the microwave timer I'd set for the oatmeal went off that it jolted me back to the present and I realized what I was doing.  I had emptied the dishwasher, filled it with the few dirty dishes, then begun removing the dirty dishes I'd just put in there and putting them away.

I'm not sure it's the best use of my time to repeat everything I have to do, but with all the fun stuff we get to manage in our crazy, full, blessed lives, I guess it's not the worst thing to sometimes just totally forget what we