Mommy Brain

I seem to have developed a bad case of Mommy Brain. You know, that fuzziness of not-remembering-anything. Unfortunately, while I once thought this affected only me, I now realize that there has been spillover.

Like the fact that I forgot to send Sofia into school with 75 cents to buy a little pumpkin on her hayride yesterday. Or, that I put Bella in the wrong soccer uniform. Again. And how about the fact that I actually never sent in Gabriel's birthday treats. Okay, that's not completely true...I actually forgot to buy them to begin with.

I forget to do homework. I forget to start dinner. I'm so busy running around, trying to tread water and be all things and do all things, that some very large cracks are forming.

Now, my theory on Mommy Brain is that there is a direct and positive correlation to Mommy Guilt. An increase in Mommy brain is related to an increase in Mommy Guilt.

And it's the guilt that keeps me awake at night. Little whispers of, "You forgot to go over Sofia's sightwords with her...," "Damn, that's three evenings in a row without reading Gabriel's book with him...," "You really ought to spend more one-on-one time with Bella..." And so on, and so on.

Thoughts like these eventually turn into cause and effect statements which aren't necessarily true but still manage to keep me awake at night. For example, because I haven't read with Gabriel for 3 days in a row, he is going to fail his FCAT in March, then he will be held back in 3rd grade, he may get made fun of by all his friends moving on into 4th grade, ohmygod, he's going to get depressed, feel like an under-achiever and do drugs; we'll be discussing this on A&E's Intervention in 10 years and it's all my fault.

I'm not sure why Mommy Brains make these type of cause and effect leaps around 1:30 a.m. Maybe it's because all the other hours of the day I'm back treading that water, trying to keep the house clean (ha!), cook healthy meals, and con my kids into thinking I am Supermom.

I hope I have them fooled, but it's doubtful. I'm the mom with stains on her clothes from juice boxes, hair in the pony tail, speeding across town in order to make it to the soccer game on time, all the while yelling for them to be quiet, stop poking each other, read their homework because we are swamped today, not to mention discussing important topics like how girls can be anything they want, stand up for themselves, and all my other third-wave feminist, liberal ideals.

It's like throwing it all at the wall and hoping something sticks and matures and turns into something great and beautiful (and productive) without the need for too much therapy. Why don't those pregnancy books warn us? Warning: Pregnancy leads to Mommy Brain and Mommy Guilt which lasts a lifetime. Beware.