Tisk, Tisk, Task-Master

I am a list-making-mult-tasker-aholic. I do a load of laundry while mopping the kitchen floor. I dictate to my kids in the midst of mulling over what to concoct for dinner. I pluck up discarded toys left on the floor that block my path as I am hustling from one side of my house to the other.
I never realized that I hurried until my eleven year old asked me why I always acted like I was running in a race.
I blame my mother for this. My mother had eight kids. Eight! Imagine getting eight children to clean up after themselves. However, my mom was brilliant.
"Let's see how fast you can pick up your clothes!" She'd exclaim.
The race was on to see who could finish the dishes or make their bed and who would be, by form and functionality and spry, The Winner!
Unfortunately, I never kicked this habit, and so my adult life is full of homemaking triathlons and grocery store sprints. What's wrong with this scenario?
Last weekend I was armed with a non-ending cranial log when my husband had a revolutionary idea. Let's go swimming. Have I mentioned I am terrified of drowning? But off we went, just the four of us.
After a lucrative stretch of time reading my book, I had the sensation of being a lobster boiling beneath a bubbling pot's lid. While carefully entering the oblong shaped pool the excitement of my family was lost on me. I was too engrossed observing where the lifeguards were located. My daughter swam to me and wrapped her entire wet and wiggling body around mine (so much for not wanting to get my hair wet) and informed me there was a bomb in the pool.
"What?" I wrinkled my nose.
"Listen." She grabbed both sides of my face and tipped one side of my head into the water. I heard it, a tick-tick-ticking sound. What is that? Is it someone's digital watch? Abruptly it stopped.
I hesitantly submerged the back of my head including my ears for a better listen. For two full seconds I gazed up at an agoraphobic blue sky, mirroring the pool. I noted a smattering of white clouds as the wind dragged them across the cosmos. As a paradox, my daughter intertwined her fingers around my big toe and began dragging me in circles. I was a cloud, too.
The pool spoke to me in whispers of what sounded like a million granules of sand pouring through a funnel. The cleverness of the water revealed another life of muffled squeals and echoed an explosion of someone cannon-balling; I think it was my son.
All at once again I heard a tick-tick-ticking noise.
From across the pool something caught my eye. A red ball was flung through the air. As it spun around, I noticed a gleaming digital clock face, just as it disappeared into the water.
The Bomb!
Determined, I scanned the approximate area. There bobbed three boys descending in height and age with sprouts of blond hair.
"On your mark, get set...Go!" commanded by the oldest looking boy. The other two boys dove beneath the shallows. After a few moments, one boy appeared, spewing liquid from his nose and mouth, "I found it! I found it!" he clutched the red bulbous prize to his stomach.
One would think I would have been relieved the ticking time bomb wasn't real. But instead, a thick coating of guilt drenched me to my bones.
When did list making and list conquering become more important to me than family? How ofter have I scowled at my kids for interrupting my mental schedule to show me a picture they drew?
As my brood and I gathered up our towels and flip-flops, a song blared from the radio, "Don't worry, be happy".
"Now that's something I am going to work on" I sighed...
Maybe I'll put it on my list.