What’s it’s like to be a mom with A.D.D.

A while ago I observed some classes at a local public middle school, for some graduate work I was doing. (Don’t you like how I said “graduate work”? I’m glad I said that, and not “a class I was taking that I should have taken in college.” It’s so much cooler.)

Anyway. It was quite an experience. I should make a separate blog about the unnecessary amount of cleavage I observed in sixth-graders, and how I have 101 reasons spanking should be allowed in middle school.

These are both fascinating topics, but I learned something else interesting.

I hated school.

It was horrible. I wanted to claw my eyes out; I was so bored.

Maybe it’s just because I’m so smart(t) now. Maybe these teachers were extra lame and boring. Maybe I didn’t eat enough protein or something.

But also (and I am just theorizing here), is A.D.H.D. one of those things like cavities and varicose veins and hemorrhoids that people get after having babies? Is it possible? (Not that any mom I know or have ever known has any of those.)

Because I’m pretty sure I have Attention Deficit Disorder. or something.

I used to love school. I used to love knitting, and long theology classes, and studying in the library for hours.

But now, I think if I had to sit through eight hours a day of that school stuff, I, too, would try to throw tiny bits of scrap paper in the long braids dangling in front of me.

Because the following is a sample splice of my day. Here is me attempting to make a bowl of spaghetti.

• Open a drawer to get a pot.
• Remember that Ty used the frying pan to make soup out of the nativity pieces.
• Head to the living room to get the frying pan.
• Ask Sam why there are diapers strewn all over the floor, and get sidetracked for 35 seconds explaining that, yes, diapers are bigger than snowflakes.
• Start putting the diapers away, and spot Ty, who looks like he has a water balloon between his legs.
• Start to change his diaper.
• See he’s wearing no socks in the freezing cold house and run to the dryer to find some clean socks.
• Get out two socks, but determine if you don’t fold this load of clothes now, you won’t ever.
• Retrieve the laundry basket from the foyer where it was being used as a giant train going down a mountain. Go get the clothes, stopping first to remove Ty’s toothbrush from inside a shoe.
• Dump the clothes in the basket and bring them to the kitchen.
• Wonder why Ty doesn’t have any pants on. Or socks. Ohhh…the socks…
• Dress Ty.
• Remember you were supposed to be boiling water. Put a pot on to boil, and go to the pantry to get an onion.
• Open the pantry, and for some reason realize you haven’t actually brushed your teeth today.
• Or taken your vitamins.
• And you’re hungry.
• Start feeling a little stressed, and like you should be doing something else but you’re not sure what it is.
• Hear loud sounds coming from the dining room, and intercept a wrestling match with a stuffed reindeer, two toddlers, and a broom.
• Try again to figure out what you were in the middle of doing.
• Notice the water is boiling. Add pasta.
• Start to set the timer, and discover there is a cup of coffee in the microwave. Reheat it.
• While you take a sip, think, It wouldn’t hurt to read a magazine with this coffee. Head out with the boys to get the mail.
• Remember it is garbage day, and suddenly feel that the very messy diaper upstairs in the hallway that must be taken out of this residence today.
• Herd the boys inside frantically to retrieve the diaper.
• Remember the pasta that was supposed to be “al dente” is still cooking. Mushy. Mushy is good, too.
• Drain the pasta.
• Feel an unnatural amount of satisfaction in finally completing this one small task, even if it did take 28 minutes and resembled one of those “Family Circus” cartoons showing all the paths the little kid made around the neighborhood.

I feel like I was trying to make a point with this piece, but, oddly, now I can’t remember what. I’ll suffice it to say that if you were one of those kids I had, who never knew what paragraph we were on, and brought the wrong binder to class, and kept tapping your pencil on the desk…

I’m sorry. I really am.

And do me a favor. Ask your mom if that weird herbal remedy she was giving you worked at all? Will you? 🙂

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