Parenting Causes Adult-Onset ADHD

I used to be able to focus on things for more than a few minutes at a time.  I could work on a task for hours and have my mind completely engaged in that task the entire time, until it was all finished.  Now, I find myself getting antsy for a change after 10 minutes.  That means I can get through about four pages of a book, a tv show until the first commercial, a dishwasher load of dishes, or using two candy crushing lives.  Anything that takes longer than that ten minutes has very little chance of getting done in one sitting.  I find myself even having a difficult time completing a thought or long sentence.

So, what happened to my attention span?  Where did it go??  I'll tell you where it went...it was flat out stolen from me and here are the thieves:

 

Cute, aren't they?  Who would've thought they would be able to perpetrate such a crime against someone who has devoted her life to keeping them alive?  I'm pretty sure they took my attention span and sold it for candy money.

Ok, to be fair, there are a few positives to having a short attention span.  I've become a pro at breaking tasks up into small chunks and dividing my attention between multiple and completely unrelated things.  I can bathe a child, jammie them, brush their teeth, and have them kissed and in bed in 15 minutes flat. I can play...uh, lose...a game of Candyland faster than most people take to do a long division problem.  I can cook four different dinners in 20 minutes.  I can have meaningful conversations with three people at the same time.  I can stop in the middle of a sentence, fill a sippy cup with chocolate milk, and finish the sentence and still make sense to the person I'm talking to.  I can identify with a toddler with a naturally short attention span on a whole new level.  I can listen to my husband vent about work while writing a blog post.

Also, to be fair...I'm pretty sure that my kids didn't really steal my attention span...I kinda just gave it to them...freely...along with my heart.