As I write this, it is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I am working on a report for the spirituality website I work for and I am also watching my young son and daughter — they have the day off from school. Just as I begin to get into a rhythm with the report, it’s time to go supervise a bake sale for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop in town. It is cold and rainy today and the bake sale is outdoors. Frankly, I would rather be finishing up my report in my warm and cozy home office.

We get back after an hour — cold, damp and the kids sugared up from eating too much at the bake sale. I throw a healthy lunch together for them and in the middle of it a friend drops off some hand-me-down clothing. I get sidetracked checking out the new outfits. In the midst of all this my emails are beckoning me and yet so are the kids: “Mom, something is wrong with the computer. It’s frozen again, can you come help us so we can play games?”

As I reboot the computer for them, I suddenly remember that my accountant needs the figures from my coaching business for the last quarter of 2006. I had planned on finishing that over the long holiday weekend and now I suddenly remember it as the holiday weekend is winding down. I fix the kids’ computer, put away the lunch materials, and quickly arrange the stacks of clothing to go upstairs to their bedrooms.

Now where was I with that report? It takes me a good half hour to get back into the swing of doing it. Just about the time I am back in the groove with it, the kids start whining again from the basement playroom: “We’re bored, we have nothing to do today!” So much for my fabulous working at home arrangement. It’s quite useless today.

As I ponder all this now with the kids asleep at last, I remember that when I went to Barnard College they stressed to us how lucky we were to be able to “have it all” as modern women. I have definitely tried to live up to that in my life by working, having a family, managing a household, and volunteering. The thing is though I’m not always sure how lucky I am. Multi-tasking has become a way of life and I often feel stretched in too many different directions. I yearn for being present in one task from beginning to end.

I miss my days as a yuppie where the most important decision I had on a long weekend was what hot new restaurant to have brunch at with friends. As the David Spade character (who is single) on a new TV show says to his married and engaged friends, “I’m off now to do whatever I want, all the time, because I can!”

Not me. I’m fully booked today and for months to come. I wouldn’t trade any of it, but after a day like today being either at work OR at home with the kids seems preferable. It makes me wonder what my mother, a diehard woman’s libber, would say if she heard me uttering this? Managing it all as a modern woman takes its toll.

But tomorrow is a new day and the kids will be back in school and maybe I’ll feel differently.