Just a quick look at using mutiple selectors in jQuery to say animate mutiple dom elements at same time. Remember the animate function is asynchronous in the fact it can execute at the same time on mutiple elements.
http://api.jquery.com/multiple-selector/
Multiple Selector (“selector1, selector2, selectorN”)
//does not work
$('#content', '#sidebar-grab').animate(
//works
$('#content,#sidebar-grab').animate(