Multitasking Marcher

There are times when I do two things at once. I can cook dinner and do the dishes. I can do laundry and workout. I can read and listen to Danny tell me about his day. I can walk for a good cause and help the environment. Danny says that there is no such thing as multi tasking, that in fact I am doing one thing, stopping what I am doing and doing the other. Until recently I understood where he was coming from, but pretended to be a good multitasker anyways. After all I am a woman, and that’s what we are supposed to be good at.

This past Saturday I participated in the March of Dimes walk for babies. Being a NICU nurse, the cause is one I hold near to my heart. Plus I could get a nice little walk in after my long night at work…then go home and sleep like a baby.

I walked with some of my friends/coworkers and their beautiful babies. My godson Ryan came along for the ride. He was a late pre term infant…who has been growing like a weed into a big healthy boy. During our march, it was brought up that the March of Dimes was started by Franklin D Roosevelt in his fight to find a cure for polio. (Yay vaccines!) People were asked to donate a dime towards the cause. My sleepless/ignorant mind had no idea that this was how the March of Dimes started. Of course I knew FDR had been paralyzed from polio, but clearly I should have looked into the cause I am supporting a little more.

This news was very exciting to me. In fact it reenergized me. I mean we basically cured polio! How amazing is this?! I definitely started walking with more purpose. If a group of people donating dimes and marching 4.2 miles can help some scientist discover a vaccine against polio, think of what else we can do.

As we were passing one of the rest stops, I noticed tons of tiny Dixie cups littering the sidewalks. I was hoping that the litter was the result of little children and not adults. Either way, it needed to be picked up. As awesome as the March of Dimes is, I’m sure they don’t have a street cleaner like New Orleans does during Mardi Gras.

I decided to take action. If we can cure polio we can do anything. I can pick up all these Dixie cups while marching for babies. My friends helped out with my additional cause. We can help the world in more ways than one, in a single instance. We can multitask.