Attention Spans

I will openly confess: I have the worst attention span EVER.

This has been a source of great frustration to my husband, who has many times thrown his hands up when I've grown weary of listening to him answer a question I ASKED him to explain. Such topics as technology, restaurants, anything to do with the latest Apple craze, and business plans pretty much lose me within the first 10 seconds, 30 on a really good day.

I sadly seem to have passed this trait on to my children.

I am noticing it popping up more than ever these days. Case in point, the other day my eldest child purchased a tiny dragon toy which was supposed to grow up to 600% if placed in tepid water. Sounds fun, right?

Here's the catch: the dragon takes TEN days to complete his growth spurt. TEN! That's like 9 months in kid time!

The first day, she couldn't watch that dragon enough for signs of change. She carefully measured the water temperature, carried him around with her in all kinds of containers, and made excited observations when his little nose was no longer under the water due to growing larger. She even designed an entire "dragon house" for her little friend and kept it in her room.

She sadly forgot that she's not allowed to have water in her room. This did not end well for the carpet.

Day two was much the same, the little dragon lovingly cared for and played with and happily graduating to ever larger containers. That night he slept in the bathroom.

Day three he received a little less attention. He only left the bathroom a couple of times and was pretty much on his own most of the day.

We are now on day 7.

The dragon has not moved in four days. He is barely under the surface of the water in his small bowl b/c he's grown so much. There he sits, day after day, on the bathroom counter right next to her toothbrush, and yet continues to go unnoticed.

I am just waiting for the day when I wake in the middle of the night to see a huge shadow looming over me in the shape of a dragon. It will have grown so much that the dog will be afraid of it.

Attention span is not a strength in this house, I'm afraid. More evidence to suggest my theory is correct are the random things I find around the house every single day. Dolls which were clearly in the process of being dressed are laying on the floor with half their pants on b/c their stylist tired of the makeover. Coloring pages with one tiny dash of color on the whole page are left in their black and white shame. Shoes of all kinds and sizes are found 3 feet in front of the baskets where they live b/c their owners simply tired of putting them away.

I have decided it is a very good thing young children don't exercise using weights. If so, they'd have one giant bicep instead of two, one toned leg instead of two, and one strong shoulder vs. both of them. Why? Because halfway thru each workout they would tire of the routine and go chase a butterfly.

I need to remember to pick up some toothpaste...

See? Attention span problems strike again! Now what was I saying? Can you tell me? Oh, nevermind.