Mommy Brain
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The other day, I was trading emails with my friend The Kitchen Witch (or “Kitch” as she is affectionately known in this neck of the bloggy woods). Anyway, in one of my emails to her, I closed by asking her how her “belly baby” was. No, that’s not the uber-popular “baby belly.” That would’ve been cuter. But I was going for unique. And so. I said “belly baby” as in how is the baby in your belly?
(Who says this? Why not an old school “how are you feeling?”)
Anyway, Kitch responded. Was kind. And then at the end of her email, she said, “What belly baby?” And as I read her words, I turned white. (I think. I didn’t have a mirror. I must have though.)
Truth be told, I was multi-tasking. Emailing two (okay, about seven) people at once. And information about one person bled with the next and I ended up asking this friend about her pregnancy and she is decidedly not pregnant.
And so. I promptly apologized. Hit send. And then beat myself up. Big time. And then I got the most wonderful email back from Kitch which read:
Eh, who gives a shit? I arrived for [my daughter's] parent-teacher conference an entire day early, so I think we all have the same dang Mommy Brain. We’re all losing it, truthfully.
Now. Those of you who know me know that I don’t curse on this blog. And if I were staying true to my mommy morals, I would have edited the above and said “Eh, who gives a shiitake?” But sometimes. Sometimes, life calls for a naughty little word.
And so.
Shit.
I have Mommy Brain.
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- Tell me about your best (or worst) Mommy Brain (or Daddy Brain or Human Being Brain) moments and make me feel a bit better. Pretty please.
- Have you ever gotten in trouble while corresponding with several people at once over email?
- Do you think something actually happens to our brain once we become parents (or just older creatures) that makes us do really embarrassing things?
- Do you make exception to your moral/interpersonal rules every now and then?
- Will you forgive me for cursing?
- (Will I forgive me for cursing?)
ILI DAILY CHARM: SISTER C PASSED THE NY BAR EXAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Three months ago, on the day Sister C sat for the New York State Bar Exam, I wrote a post called Baby Before Bar in which I expressed my pride in C for doing things her own way. For welcoming her gorgeous little guy before sitting for that dreadful but necessary test. I said then that I had immense faith that all would go well and that she would pass that beast of an exam. And she did! Congrats, C! I am so so proud. And thrilled that Mommy Brain didn’t sabotage your testing efforts 
I think this happens to everyone! Only the rest of us don’t have motherhood to blame it on :p We’re just kind of dumb
I figure you lose about 20% of brain function with each child so after 6 kids I’m in the negative now. I’m lucky to remember my kids’ names, much less anything else.
Yeah, that pretty much describes my life since having my daughter… three years ago. *sigh*
Before I got pregnant with her I had never ever ever lost my car keys. Now? It’s a daily occurrence.
There are days I really miss being intelligent. But at least I have an excuse.
Fortunately, being a man, I’ve never had “mommy brain”. But I know what it is. It leads to keys misplaced in the fridge, cups of tea brewed with cold water and purses lost.
Ah, there I am, doing myself proud yet again!
See how quickly you lower your standards when you hang out with me?
I just had birth announcements printed (yes, it’s been three months she was born, but hey. I’ve been otherwise engaged). Anyway, being the wundermom that I am, I quickly designed them and entered all the pertinent details. Two days later, the cute little announcements were at my doorstep. As I was marveling at their cuteness, a thought crossed my mind. This says Lil Mil was 19 inches when she was born. Yes, that’s the length I entered when I created these things. And yet… that doesn’t sound right suddenly. So I dashed to her wildly-incomplete baby book (again, otherwise engaged), to the one page I have actually filled out, and, well, SHIT. She was 20 inches. So now I have hundreds of birth announcements in which I’ve shafted my oh-so-tall lil girl of 5% of her height.
And here I was, going to post a comment and ask you where you get your pictures for your posts! I LOVE them. Swear words and all! Welcome to motherhood is all I can say. My brain turned to mush the day my daughter arrived.
Congratulations to Sister C! I’ve heard that NY and CA are the two hardest Bar exams to pass. Kudos!
As for Mommy Brain… When I was 14 weeks pregnant my husband and I were vacationing in Switzerland. After visiting a cathedral in Lucerne we were headed back into the heart of town.
“So, at the bottom of this hill we turn left, correct?” I asked my husband?
“No, we turn right.”
“Huh?”
I was 180 degrees turned around and frustrated at my lack of bearings. So we sat down on the cathedral steps with the map in our laps (at only 14 weeks I still had a lap) and he showed me where we were vis a vis the town. I nodded with understanding and we started walking. At the bottom of the hill I made a hard left turn. My husband followed along, enjoying the swans and ducks that were paddling around in the river at our side. After about 15 yards he said, “You know we were supposed to turn right back there, don’t you?”
Agh! All I could do was laugh at myself and turn around.
Yes, I plead Mommy Brain – all the time. Although, I do wonder, wow long can I use this excuse for really?
And as for cussing, for the sake of my daughter, I’m trying to curtail my, uhm, flowery language, but seriously, blogging without my usual lingo (which is very second nature to me, especially when I’m driving) seems so out of character for me. I look at the writing and I see the person living day to day, and there’s a slight disconnect. Who IS this polite woman writing these things that SEEM familiar to me…but not?
I guess I can blame the holes in my memory on mommyhood. I do, in fact, have two little ones that require so much planning, thinking, and remembering. But, I have a feeling that most of us, at least those of us whose lives are so packed-full of stuff that we are contstantly mutli-tasking as a way to attempt greater efficiency, have this problem. I think it is just the symptom of a busy life. What an unfortunate, and couter-productive, symptom!
At the risk of sounding disloyal, I am done blaming mommy brain for my lapses. I am an extremely busy person who balances work, family, and board involvement in two outside entities. And most of the time, I am pretty awesome but of course I have messed things up on occasion. But it’s because I have a lot on my plate, it’s not because I am a mommy or a woman or deficient (nor are any of you). I am human and busy and sometimes I screw things up. Men never plead “daddy brain” and why should we. I hope this doesn’t sound shrill, I think I’ve run into one too many condescending male adversaries of late!
D – I think you raise an important point. Motherhood doesn’t rob us of our brains, short-term memories, or powers of deductive reasoning. I’ve limited my finger-pointing at Mommy Brain to pregnancy and the initial weeks thereafter. I noticed an increased forgetfullness about myself in that time that was different than any of my “normal” memory lapses. But in the past year or so since I went back to work I’ve assumed that my brain is fully functioning. For the most part.
can’t blame it on mommy brian since I’m not a parent…
here goes.
A few years back, in an absolute panic, I sent a belated-happy-birthday card to my lovely sister-in-law. It was OVER 1 month before her birthday.
A month later, when her actual birthday approached, I thankfully snapped to my senses and sent her a legitimate card and gift.
I don’t have kids, so I can’t say I know if mommy brain exists, scientifically, or not. But i’d call it multitaskers brain. And moms major in multitasking. I have become quite the mulitasker myself, and I don’t say that in a good way. I’m not bragging, I’m embarrassed. I once was emailing someone who commented on my blog and just hit send halfway through the email. who does that? Literally, I just sent it midsentence and didnt even realize until, like,hours later. That was a bit embarrassing….
I blame my forgetfulness, ridiculousness, um, stupidity on being absolutely, totally, crazy tired All The Time. And I guess that has to do with being mom. But I have to say, the mistaken emails, forgotten phone numbers, and coffee left atop the car, are all better than forgetting to put a diaper on my baby, forgetting the baby in the car or leaving scissors on a table unattended. Our brains work overtime at keeping our kids safe so SOMETHING has to be left by the wayside right? RIGHT?
I think your little mistake was funny. If you had sent it to me I probably would have given you a really hard time, just because I’m like that, but laughed all the same.
It just adds to your charm.
BWAHAHAHA!!!! now THIS POST cracked my ass right up. LOVE IT!!!! i have a mommy brainer for ya… and @PrincessJenn can back me on it… yesterday, i was taking photos of jackson because @PrincessJenn is prettying my site and wanted a few shots of him. so we do our shoot, quickly because thunder clouds are rolling in and then head off to his 2 year check up at the doctor’s office. come to find out that jackson has BOTH ears “raging with infection” (so said the doctor) and i’m all “of course BOTH are because paul and i leave friday for 5 days in the dominican, OF COURSE he’s sick RIGHT NOW. so, we go home, i shlep jackson up the three flights of stairs to our apartment, get him settled for lunch and sit down at the computer… cuz, i knew, i just KNEW there was SOMETHING that i was supposed to do or email or something. but i couldn’t remember it.
it dawns on me, in the middle of jackson’s nap, an hour later, that i needed to email @PrincessJenn the photos i took of jackson… i walk down to my car to find that the passenger side door had been open, not wide open, but alas, it was ajar, and my canon camera was sitting right there on the passenger seat.
i guess it’s a good thing that we currently live in base housing, because cops are around here a lot, making sure no one is doing things like stealing my canon that i leave in the OPEN front seat of my car.
oy!!!
I caught myself in a ‘Daddy Brain’ moment the other night. I was making a bottle for the baby and the hot chocolate tin was right next to the formula tin. Woops. I only had a dim little lamp on and barely caught the mistake in time.
Congratulations to your sister on passing the exam!
I feel like my brain is full of holes, like I pulled out memories, stuck them in a pensieve, and then forgot where I put it.
I’ve been this way for years longer than I’ve been a mom. I’m going to agree with D that I’m just over-committed and under-protective of my downtime.
Worst offense? Forgetting to show up for a meeting with a restaurateur (for a series I’m running on my local blog). I mean *completely* forgetting. So much so that when his assistant called to hash things out with me, I couldn’t figure out why they were perturbed.
As other have pointed out, this phenomenon is (unfortunately for me) not limited to Mommies. Not too long ago, I couldn’t find my wallet, and found it in the freezer in the break room at my office. Yikes. I’ve also heard of “pregnancy brain” which I find totally fascinating.
You come by it honestly, Anne. You’ve heard the story about our grandmother, haven’t you? (Mom’s mom, not Dad’s.) She couldn’t find her glasses for several days. They were in the freezer…
As far as “Mommy Brain” I can remember being younger, when our mom was calling for one of the kids, sometimes she’d run through a few names before she got to the right one (forgive her, there are 6 of us!) No biggie, unless she called you “Snowball” before your given name…that was the dog!
Not a mom myself, but have a full-time job, plus a husband, plus our own business of running a farm, so I’d call it “busy brain”. I was at Staples buying toner and handed over my rewards card (blue in color), the nice guy at the counter says “uhh…this is for CVS…???” The card was for the pharmacy. And bright red in color. We both had a good laugh!
Do you ever have a few blogs open at once, and then open more than one comment form…… I think you can see where I’m going with this! And I can’t blame ‘mommy brain’ either.
I must be really punchy, because I cannot stop laughing at the image of TKW reading your email about a belly baby and having her give a “what the ***?”
Love you both!
My mommy brain is ridiculous. And what’s really funny is it’s gotten WORSE instead of better since I stopped drinking. I was hoping it would be the other way around!!
I was reading this going HUH? She’s pregnant???
Then I caught on.
One time, I tried to use an apple corer on a peach. I had a newborn, what can I say? And around that same time, I made sweet and sour chicken and served it up with no rice. My husband got up from the table and got bread and I had no idea why he’d add bread. Then it hit me.
Um…I am “that” mom at preschool. I forget everything. Orange day, pj day, conferences, NEVER a clue. It’s humiliating.
How about a couple weeks ago, when it was my week to take the garbage cans to the curb for pick-up? It’s a chore I hate because 9 times out of 10 I forget to do it until I see/hear the garbage truck out front. So I was coming in from a run, *knew* it was my week and I was *totally* all over it, so I emptied the trash in the kitchen and dragged the bins down to the street…and then realized: “Wait. It’s…Tuesday. Trash day is…Thursday. Wait. Right? Today…Tuesday…trash goes out…Wednesday…for pick up…Thursday. Awww, crap.” So I had to bring them back up to the garage. My across-the-street neighbor watched the entire time.
(And I’m definitely not a mom.)
What does it say that I read this post and immediately thought, Kitch is pregnant? Where and how could I have missed that?!
As for mommy brain, I assure you, most days I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.
at first this post really struck me b/c i happened to use a bit of an expletive (the mother of all expletives, in fact) in my comment yesterday. i was very hesitant to read on, but so glad i did. my friends and i exchange our mommy brain stories daily, remind each other when it’s one of our turns for snack at preschool, and just generally decide to take no offense w/a little bit of tardiness. we consciously remind each other that we’re outnumbered by our little people…and believe me, it doesn’t take them long to realize that old adage about there being strength in numbers!
I think it comes from all the hats we have to wear! Seriously, who can keep a dang thing straight???!!!!!
Yay for Sister C! Yay for Kitch and her ability to contextualize a potentially awkward moment! Yay for Aidan for fessing up to the kind of mistake that any of us – mommies, daddies, non-parents – could have made!
My brain requires visual aids to function, namely Google Calendar. When those stop working, I’m doomed. Also, my husband inaugurated a lovely sound effect when I was pregnant that he uses anytime I have a “Mommy Brain” moment. It sounds like a grapefruit imploding. I give him the eye, he laughs, and then he retrieves whatever it is I’ve left on top of the car or calls the bank to unschedule the bill I’ve paid three times.
(Congrats to your sister!!)
Now that I’m 48 my family tries to blame my mommy-brain on impending peri-menopause. I keep telling them “I’ve always been this way!” At least since the first time a baby grew in my belly.
Congrats to Sister C – passing the bar is no small accomplishment!
I get PMS brain – my fluctuating hormones give me a couple incredibly frustrating days every month where words escape me. My vocabulary is cut in half and I’m stuck looking like a dum-dum. Strange, this being a woman.
I just had another baby girl in December (my other baby girl is 2-and-a-half). A few months ago, I put my coffee in the microwave to heat it up for the 30th time (haven’t been able to finish a full cup in 5 months) then looked over on the counter, and there sat my cup. I had a panic attack as I wondered what in the world I had put in there, only to open up the microwave and find….nothing.
PS – Cursing is great!