I start packing the boys' bags with the requisite number of shirts, shorts, and underwear. Then on my way to the back door to get their runners and hats, I notice the vitamin bottles still on the counter from breakfast. Oh yeah, we should bring vitamins for the weekend. I fill up a container with vitamins, scoop up the runners and hats, and head back to the bedroom to finish the kids' bags. But if I'm going to pack the vitamins, I may as well get the tylenol, eye/ear drops, and thermometer. Opening the closet door and collecting those just-in-case things, I notice the sunscreen and mosquito spray. But that doesn't fit in their bags so I take it to our bedroom to add to our bags, when I realize I haven't gotten our bags out yet. On the way down the hallway to get our them I trip over a dinosaur and spend a few minutes doing a lap around the house picking up animals. As I retrieve a Tyrannosaurus from under the table, I see a crusted milk puddle and the offending sippy cup. I toss the dinosaurs, horses, and pig in the animal bucket and head to the kitchen for the mop. Sliding the dining room table to the slide, I clean up the floor. Lachlan comes barreling full speed at me to rescue him from Emerson's antics and wipes out on the newly cleaned floor. I lift him to my hip, give him a kiss, and carry him down the stairs to get our packs for the lake. While I'm taking them off the hook in the laundry room the dryer beeps. Lachlan is ready to go play, so I put him down, pile our bags on top of the laundry, and carry everything back towards the stairs, stopping for a minute outside the storage room to think about whether there is anything else I can bring up while I am here. All I can think of is the cooler, which is too big for this load, so up I go. I dump the contents of the laundry basket onto our bed and start sorting. Suddenly a yelling match has broken out in the boys' bedroom. I find teary faces and furious eyes in a stand-off over which toys they can pack into their bags for the lake. To make room for the toys, they have removed their clothing from their bags. I also notice that their beds are not made. Smoothing quilts and soothing wounds, I undo the damage to feelings and packing progress. One of them yanks a pair of pajamas out of my hands, saying I packed the wrong one. The right pair is missing, so back I go to sort more laundry until it turns up. The phone rings and a friend is coming to borrow two lifejackets, whilst Lachlan has made his way back upstairs driving a car through the pile of laundry. The right pair of pajamas in hand, I squeeze past the fort being built in the hallway and repack the kids' bags. Except stuffies which need to go in after their naps and the movies, which I need to remind them to go choose - later, when they aren't getting along and need a distraction. Speaking of distraction, a board game might be nice for the cottage. I head downstairs to choose one, thinking that I'll grab the beach towels while I am down there too. Trouble seems like a good game, but halfway there I remember that we're missing two pieces. Sorry will do. I find it and can't remember what else I was going to get down here. Oh, the cooler. Right. I bring them both upstairs, even grabbing the dried swimtrunks on the way up the stairs where they hung damp on the railing last night. On the top step, I remember it was the towels I was going to grab from the basement...
With this Family-Circus-esque chain of events, I sigh and recognize again that very little of me moves in a straight line. I want to sing with the Psalmist "I will praise you with my whole heart," but my heart is as fragmented and distracted as ever. How do I praise with my whole fickle heart? How do I love with my whole multi-tasking heart? How do I get my whole heart to slow down be all in one place at the same time?
