January 26, 2011 ~ Day 48 Balls In The Air

Image by Salvatore Vuono


It's 5:39. Time to make dinner.

Except that it is also time to pack more boxes.

Oh, and it is also time to get started on my content writing work, because I have 16 hours of writing to get done by Monday and a full weekend ahead with the kids.

Hmmmm.... but then again, my 20 month old daughter has a fever. So it's probably time to rock and cuddle her, and try to entice her to drink fluids.

When I'm done with that though, I'd better get back to Craigslist where I'm busily selling furniture we don't want to bring along on our upcoming move... and also focus on purchasing trundle beds.

I forgot! I need to pick up cupcakes to bring to my son's preschool tomorrow since it will be his last day. I wish I could bake them from scratch but,

instead, I'd better work on the list of 21! items our current landlord wants us to fix before we leave the property. Just got his email this morning.

And then of course, there is this blog... so dear to my heart. My active daily work toward fulfilling a promise I made to myself and my children on my 35th birthday. A search for the meaning in life, from the very limited perspective of this optimistic middle class caucasian stay at home mother.

So there you go. Seven things to work on at once! The balls are in the air and it's time to juggle.

When I first became a stay-at-home mother, my working friends would ask me, "So what do you do with all of your extra time now?" At the time, pregnant with at toddler at home, I was still surprised by how quickly my days filled up.

"Well, by the time I have my son bathed and dressed - changed any diaper accidents - and in the car, it's about 10am and then we head to the park, the library, sometimes the grocery store. Home for nap, and while he sleeps I write content. Then when he awakens it's time to stroll, cook dinner, get my boy bathed-storied-ready for bed and then spend time with my husband. You'd be amazed at how fast the day goes by."

Four years and two more children later, I have to laugh (a warm, full-bodied, appreciative laugh) whenever a friend or new acquaintance asks me what I do with all of my 'extra' time.

The reality is that I consistently have between five and ten things to be doing at any one moment. Which is why I am currently holding my daughter on my lap while boiling pasta and sauteeing broccoli, helping my son with his homework, and typing this blog one-handed.

The surprise in all of this is how much I love my life, and how great it is to be this busy all of the time. When I have multiple things to do at once, I seem to be more productive and more focused upon each task. It's also a wonderful way to get into the state of "flow".

I first heard of flow a few years ago when talking with one of my mother-in-law's dear friends about the way hours would seem to fly by when I was teaching in the classroom. "I swear, I don't know what happens," I told him. "I get so involved in every moment, I'm so fully engaged, it almost feels like time itself speeds up. Before I know it, it's 5pm and time to head home."

Her friend told me about the ideas of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, a Hungarian professor of psychology (former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago) who defined FLOW as being "the mental state... in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity".

Csíkszentmihályi went on to identify ten things that characterize flow:

• Clear, attainable goals


• Deep concentration


• A loss of self-consciousness; action and awareness become one


• Distortion of time... the subjective experience of time passing is changed


• Immediate feedback within the activity


• The activity is neither too difficult nor too easy


• A sense of personal control over what is taking place


• The activity itself is by its own nature rewarding, so that participation is easy and enjoyable


• One forgets about bodily needs such as hunger, thirst, exhaustion - without even noticing


• Becoming so absorbed in the activity that you are aware of nothing else

You don't need to experience all 10 of these for your personal experience to qualify as flow.

I just love the whole idea of flow, and it applies so well to motherhood. Whether I'm baking brownies, bathing babies, strolling, organizing drawers or reading bedtime stories, I can always get a good sense of how fully present I was in any activity by assessing how deeply into the flow I got. Folding laundry, for example, is a zero-flow activity. Time drags and drags. Whereas, singing Christmas carols with the kids or decorating the tree together are 100% flow activities.

Flow extends into all spheres of life - athletics, live performance, artistry, cooking - even sex. Just about anything you truly love doing, where you lose all sense of time, is a great example of flow.

Since I started writing this blog over two hours ago, I've fed and bathed my children, baked them a homemade dessert, cooked a separate gluten-free dinner for myself, read a bedtime story, packed two boxes for the move and spoken at length with both my husband and sister on the telephone. I actually can't believe it is 8pm already, seems like 5:39 rolled by only a second ago.

It's true that I have many balls in the air right now. Honestly though, I couldn't be happier. As it turns out, I love juggling.