Multitasking – You’re Doing It Wrong

Tracey walked out of the bathroom, drenched from head to toe.

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You forgot to undress before your shower?”

“No. I went to the toilet,” she told me. Deadpan. She wasn’t joking.

Most of the stress at night comes from the bathroom in our house being such a hub of activity. The one room has the bath, shower, sink, toilet, 2 washing machines and a dryer. It’s a big room.

In the mornings, when I’m having a shower, I inevitably have to scream out ‘Shut the door!’ after one or more of my kids have wandered in to go to the loo. It must be the sound of running water which sets them off because if I ask them before I shower if they need to go, no one thinks they do.

Every night we production line our children through the bath, from least to most likely to pee in the water. The whole process can take up to half an hour.

Which is a long time to wait for the loo, even for an adult.

‘The bath was filling up, so I thought I’d go to the toilet while I waited,” Tracey explained.

Which would have been fine except for two small details. One, Miss1 was in the bathroom with her. Two, there’s a hose attached to the bath tap which we use to wash their hair.

Bad combination. Really bad combination.

Miss1 discovered the hose attachment, grabbed it, spun and pointed it at Tracey.

Who had little choice at the time but to sit there and take it, over and over, as Miss1 sprayed her, then would stop for a few seconds to laugh hysterically at her spluttering mother (meanwhile spraying the walls, ceiling, mirror & washing), and then take up spraying Tracey all over again.

By the time Tracey managed to get up and over to the tap the whole bathroom, like Tracey, was dripping.

“You know where you went wrong, don’t you?” I asked Tracey as she dried herself and I started on the walls.

“Yes. I should have been in here by myself.”

“Nah, that’s not it,” I told her. “You should have taken all your clothes off before sitting down. You could have had a shower and gone to the loo at the same time. Kind of like I do.”

And even though I said I was joking, Tracey made me clean the shower recess too.