Social Handicap

I'm really bad at focusing on two things at once. Really, really bad. We're talking astronomically bad. I was never one of those people who could do their homework and watch TV at the same time. My brain could focus on doing my homework, or it could focus on watching TV, but if I tried to do both, I would either finish my homework and have no idea what the hell was on TV for the past two hours, or I would watch TV for two hours and then realize I only got halfway through problem #1. It's a blessing and a curse, this whole overly-focused-brain thing. My lovely wife would probably say it's mostly a big ol' curse, especially when her spouse starts writing in a certain blog and suddenly becomes incapable of responding to her voice.

By definition, though, having twins kinda means that you sometimes have to focus on two things at once, with those two "things" being, um, your daughters. If you're reading to one daughter and the other daughter suddenly starts doing something like grabbing a pair of scissors and running with them, you're kinda supposed to notice that sort of thing. It's generally considered bad form if you're so absorbed in entertaining one daughter that you don't notice that your other daughter is about to poke her eye out.

So by nature, my brain ain't very well suited for being a twin parent. But when the potential end result of being Mr. Overly Focused is a daughter with an eye patch, your brain learns to adjust pretty fast, just out of pure necessity. So I've now gotten reasonably good at splitting my focus between Leah and Riley, although I've gotta say, it sure is exhausting if I have to do it for too long at any one time.

When I really get in trouble though is when I have to try to carry on an adult conversation at the same time as I'm watching my daughters, like when I'm at the park or some social event watching over my daughters and somebody tries to engage me in a conversation. When I'm watching my daughters, even the most basic conversational question can become quite the stumper to me.

For example, let's say that I'm playing with my daughters at the local playground sandbox and some mom there asks me a question like "how old are your daughters?"

• There's a 21% chance that I will answer like somebody with half a brain and say "they're about 14 months".
• There's a 34% chance that I will not hear the question because I'm absorbed in trying to make sure that Leah doesn't do something like sit on Riley's head. The mom of course will think I'm ignoring her and that I'm some kind of rude jerk.
  
• There's a 41% chance that I will start to answer "Oh, they're about..." and then I will get distracted by Leah trying to sit on Riley's head, and then I will forget that the question was asked in the first place. This will make the mom think I'm a total moron.
  
• There's a 4% chance that my brain will short-circuit and I will accidentally fall into my baby-talk voice. Something like "how old are my liddle sweety-pies? Oh they're becoming big girls -- yessh they are!"
  

So, in any one conversation with multiple questions, I have a very good chance of coming off as either a jerk, a moron, or in that last case, a condescending ass. Luckily, the highest probability is that I just come out looking like a moron, which I can live with. Spending hour after with a pair of 1-year olds has definitely taken down my IQ by at least a few points I'm sure, so at least it's the most accurate of the possible impressions.

No offense, girls.