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In this one-paragraph read (around HSK 3), Little Brother wants to help dad get ready to leave the house, but his contribution falls flat.
<h4>Some language stuff</h4>
<strong>一边... 一边...</strong> [pinyin]yi1 bian1[/pinyin] - This is one of the earliest structures you learn when you start taking classes, so you may have picked this up already, but these two "一边"s tie together two tasks that someone is doing at the same time. Like, definitely do not 一边开车，一边看手机 (Drive a car, while looking at your phone).
 
<strong>手忙脚乱</strong> [pinyin]shou3 mang2 jiao3 luan4[/pinyin] - This phrase means "flustered", or "in confusion", and if you look at each character individually, you can see why - if our hands (手) and feet (脚) are busily (忙) and messily (乱) moving around, we're probably flustered, or frantic. I translated this as "scrambling" in the below essay, because it works in context. This structure, where two similar nouns are paired with two similar verbs to describe lots of frantic activity, is common. Another example of this 东望西看 [pinyin]dong1 wang4 xi1 kan4[/pinyin], literally "east gaze west look", which means "looking around everywhere", and 东奔西跑 [pinyin]dong1 ben1 xi1 pao3[/pinyin], literally "east flee west run", or "bustling about". 

咦 [pinyin]yi2[/pinyin] - A sound that expresses surprise, like "Ack!" or "Agh!"

多么 [pinyin]duo1 me[/pinyin] - Translates as "so", as in "I so wanted to be there!" or "I so wish he would answer the phone."

<strong>什么也帮不上</strong> [pinyin]shen2 me ye3 bang1 bu shang4[/pinyin] - This structure is a rough ride for beginners, because although these are all individually easy words, three of them don't mean what they look like they mean. So, let's break down their most obvious meanings first: 

什么 - what?
也 - also
帮 - help
不 - no / not
上 - up / over / above

That makes no sense. So let's look again with the alternate definitions that are actually being used here, with differences in bold:

<strong>什么 - anything / nothing</strong>
<strong>也 - even</strong>
帮 - help
不 - not
<strong>上 - rise</strong>

Hm, still hard. With the alternative definitions, we can probably figure out that 什么也帮不 means "Can't even help anything", but this is confused by the appearance of 上, "rise". In this case, 上 does not mean "rise" in the directional sense, like "to rise up in the air". It means "rise", as in "rise to the task". 帮不上 is one of those action + result structures that we see all the time in Chinese. The action is helping (帮), the result is that one "couldn't rise" (不上) to the task of helping.  So, all together, 什么也帮不上 translates to "nothing one can even do to help". 

<a href="https://www.sohu.com/a/291450108_100010175">Source here</a>.
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<h4>帮忙</h4>
爸爸出差，可早晨起得迟了。他忙洗脸刷牙，姐姐帮爸爸整理衣服，妈妈给他端早餐，帮他找笔记本。爸爸<span class="highlightText">一边</span>吃早餐，<span class="highlightText">一边</span>摸口袋，<span class="highlightText">咦</span>，火车票哪去了？爸爸放下牛奶、蛋糕，<span class="highlightText">手忙脚乱</span>地找车票。小弟弟<span class="highlightText">多么</span>想帮爸爸做点儿事啊，可他<span class="highlightText">什么也帮不上</span>。小弟弟想：“帮爸爸吃早餐吧。”他爬上凳子，将爸爸吃剩的牛奶、蛋糕全吃了。
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Father was going out of town for work, but in the morning he woke up late. He got busy washing his face and brushing his teeth, and elder sister helped him pack his clothes, mother brought him breakfast, and helped him find his notebook. While father ate his breakfast, he felt his pockets, Ack!, where did the train ticket go? Father put down the milk, the cake, and scrambled around looking for the ticket. Little brother so wanted to help father do something, but there was nothing he could do to help. Little brother thought: "How about I help dad eat breakfast." He climbed up on the stool, took the leftover milk and cake and ate it all up. 
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