Multi-Tasking

I hit my first crisis in multi-tasking between Baby Z and work.

Today was the first time I worked from home WITH other people. I had to call into a meeting at 11am. Perfect. Baby Z will go down for a nap at 10:30am, like usual, and I'll have time to do a little work and log into the meeting. Naturally, for the first time in about 3 or 4 months, Baby Z decided to cry A LOT before settling down for his nap. And this wasn't the off and on, settling down cry that I could probably talk over (What, that? I think that's the neighbor's dog). It was the loud screaming that made me worry about the cops showing up (See police incident in "New Patch for My Sash"). I sat there in front of my computer, with my phone on mute, wondering, should I check on him?...should I hang up the phone?...should I tell my boss I can't work because of an emergency? What would usually be a challenge just from the perspective of the routine was now more complicated because I was trying to juggle working also.

After a few minutes of my head buzzing with confusion, I finally decided to pretend I wasn't trying to work and do what I would normally do. I did check on him, because the crying was so out of the ordinary, and it didn't show signs of stopping. I went in and calmed him down and reinitiated the nap-time routine. As I walked Baby Z around, with the wa-wa-wa of the work meeting droning on my phone in the background, I realized that my priorities were pretty clear. I also realized that I wouldn't want it any other way.

Needless to say, I stayed on mute for the majority of the meeting. About 45 minutes after the meeting started, Baby Z finally settled down and slept. I was able to participate in enough of the meeting to get assigned some work... just as my cell phone dropped the call. Better timing than Baby Z.