So I realise that the title of this blog post is controversial. Based on the number of times is has been brought up - or eluded to - in the Toy Tub and cross analysed with the number of times the 'boy' toys have felt the need to justify their ability to do said title (resulting in a very messy incident involving Mickey's ears, some playdoh cutters and a foam ball) all while the 'girl' toys looked on (those Russian Dolls just get smugger and smugger)
I also realise that the very mention of 'boy' and 'girl' toys is controversial, but in our house there are toys the girls play with and there are toys the boy plays with, and there are some toys the girls play with and the boy plays with very differently (usually involving the boy booting the toy as hard and as high as he can). And none of this has been down to any form of directed play.
But I do feel that I need to bring this up, not just to be controversial, but because 5 years into this job I finally think I might actually have a certain preliminary base at this skill.
Now, while Mickey would shout at you that there is no such things as multi-tasking (mainly cos of the ear thing) and that you just end up doing lots of things badly. And the Russian Dolls would just do what they do without saying anything, and the firemen on the Melissa and Doug fire engine would say that the Russians were all just doing one thing each but at the same time. I actually NEED to be able to multi task - my job - my life - now requires me to do it, whether it's fictitious or not. And I'm not helped by the fact that one of my paws (paws I tell you!) is permanently holding 2 hoops of differing textures and the other a plastic flower filled with several tiny balls.
I'm a lion who was very used to solitary walks, full of contemplative thoughts on one subject at a time, and if I did 'chat' it was talking to one other person at a time, in one place at a time. The reality of life with this pride was like being punched in the face - which in fact I was...a lot...during my 1st year. Couple that with the incredible and unpredictable noise, the missiles intermittently flung (you occasionally being one of them) and the degree at which you suddenly changed room and indeed purpose, all while being constantly hit in the arm with a spoon, and I was begging not to be retrieved from the top of the fridge after day 1.
I could't handle it. A life couldn't be lived at this frenetic pace, nay, 7 lives being lived simultaneously could't be lived at that frenetic pace. And it could not go on...
...and it didn't.
...it just multiplied.
None of us were very good at more than 1 thing at first. Watching Mam and Dad try to pass the only baby they had and a muslin cloth in the early days was more than enough to handle (the only solution back then was for Parent 1 to put the baby down on the sofa and for Parent 2 to then pick up the baby and both of them to just always wear a muslin cloth each).
But then it struck me the other day, as I was hanging off the bunk bed, roaring as I did and twirling back and front that, not only had I become Beth Tweddle, but I was doing several things at the same time.
And all this would encourage me, you would think, and it did put a certain swagger in my walk, and compelled me to swing my hoops in time with my steps as I sauntered down the landing but then I was met with this...
As I rounded the corner of the bathroom door I saw one Parent sat on the toilet reading a book, brushing a child's teeth, dressing another and doing the 3rd ones hair... AT THE SAME TIME. Seems I'm not the only one to have come a long way in 5 years...
