Women Multi-task Better. The End.

Each morning Rob and I have the same disagreement.

I am going to re-phrase that.

Each morning I get the shits at Rob because I can manage at least a couple of dozen tasks in the time it takes him to do one. It really is like groundhog day.

Each day we both wake up at the same time to the second chorus of our two year old screaming like a banshee at around 6.30am (concerto no.1 happens at around 5am). These are each of our weekday schedules for the next forty five minutes

Steph
Get Jude up, change his nappy and give him milk.
Make coffee and check emails.
Make four packed lunches, all different because, you know, kids like to mess with your head.
Make four breakfasts, all different because, you know, kids like to mess with your head.
Dress all three boys and yell at Holly to get dressed too.
Do Holly’s hair.
Deal with unfinished homework someone forgot they had.
Repeat Holly’s hair because I’ve not done it to specification.
Have at least two arguments over the kids playing iPads and not eating breakfast.
Feed the pets and check the house for midnight dog wee.
Read the Daily Mail online on my laptop which sits amongst the breakfast debris.
Make more coffee.
Threaten to throw out the iPads
Get myself dressed.
Shut the windows so the neighbours can’t hear me yelling at the kids.
Locate and pack school bags.
Deal with lost shoes.
Wonder what it would be like if I’d had less children.
Make Rob some toast because he’s in a hurry and running late.
Inform him over cold toast that he has contributed nothing to the morning chaos.
Leave house at 7.15am

Rob
Have a shower.
Put clothes on.
Eat cold toast and ignore wife’s ranting.

Now even if we are going to a black tie event I don’t take that long to get dressed. I’m fairly certain that in half an hour I can shower, dress, blow-dry my hair and put my make up on.

If all I had to do was shave my face, wash my 3cm long hair without conditioning it and put a pair of trousers a business shirt and a tie on, I reckon it would take me around nine minutes. If I had done the same routine for the past, say, 30 years … I’d probably have fine tuned it down to around seven.

Like I would expect that my lovely husband would have.

I happen to know that this scenario isn’t rare. I have consulted other experts in the field and they inform me that I am not alone. That it is a condition well known in other households and not to worry because in about two hundred and sixteen thousand years when my kids have finally finished school it won’t be a problem anymore.

What’s your morning like? Do you need Valium by drop-off? Or do sixteen coffees cut it?

Note:  Because I have an agreement with my older kids and Rob that if I write about them I will show them first so they can agree to publish it or not, I showed Rob what I’d written. His only response? “I think two hundred and sixteen thousand years is probably exaggerating too much”. DEAD SET. Hilarious.