Multi-Taskers In Training Pants

Like all busy moms, I multi-task. I don't think I do this necessarily well, but I do it simply to survive. For instance, I live on my cell phone. It's permanently attached to my head probably wreaking extraordinary havoc on my overworked and under-rested brain cells, but it's my essential instrument in which I conduct business with the outside world. So while I'm in carpool lane I can usually be found talking to my editor, making doctor's appointments for my kids, strategizing with my babysitter about all my kids' activities that will transpire over the next six hours, or commiserating with a girlfriend about how exhausted I am because my son is still sleeping in bed with us (he's 4) which means no one is getting any sleep. (For the record he starts out in his own bed and inevitably ends up in ours)

Because I work from home or at Starbucks where the bulk of my book was written, (because I couldn't get any real work done at home) along with being attached to my cell 24/7 I am also always on email. No, sadly I don't own a BlackBerry, but I cart around a laptop wherever I go and obsessively check my email. My children are highly aware of this, and this morning I realized just how much my multi-tasking can trickle down into my children's lives.

My daughter, who is not quite 2 years old loves to crawl into my lap when I turn on the computer and race the mouse all over my desk. This morning when my AOL came on she repeated in unison with the mechanical computer voice: "You've Got Mail." Now this may not sound exceptional, but given that her only other two phrases are, "I Want It" and "Pick My Nose" this AOL welcome phrase feels well, sort of incredible or incredibly sad.

I'd like to think that I'm somehow teaching my toddler computer skills as she squirms on my lap punching all of the keys as I desperately try to restrain her from crashing my computer. But I can't help to feel kind of guilty that "You've Got Mail" has become implanted in her new repertoire of expressions.

My son, on the other hand, seems to know exactly what it is that I'm doing when I'm on the computer. Last week he said to me sweetly, "Mommy now that you're book is done, you don't have to work anymore, right?"