Note: from 2003. I’ve always been a bit of an airhead, and the scattered nature of motherhood only magnified it. Here I shared a few amusing/embarrassing anecdotes, but I wasn’t prepared for the drama that ensued. Click here for a separate post with comments and letters to the editor (usually for paid subscribers, but today for all).
I'm a space cadet. Scatter-brained, forgetful, unorganized, absent-minded … what was I saying? Use whichever term you like; basically, I tend to dwell in la-la land.
Oh, I suppose I had a brain once. I vaguely recall times of lucidity in my distant past. Somehow I made it through college and held a decent, respectable job. Then I married and had children.
Each child has seized a portion of my brain and taken it out through the birth canal. My husband stole his own piece when he said "I do (accept this section of your cerebellum)."
It's true, even if there's no scientific evidence to prove it. It's the only way I can explain my incremental loss of brain cells, in direct proportion to how long I've been married and how many babies I've had. With five children, my brain is five times less functional.
Some examples:
Exhibit A: The lost wad of cash
Early in our marriage (one baby), I have $700 in my wallet at a large book sale with my baby and a friend. We tasked with helping her boss find a huge haul of books to fill built-in shelves in his new home. I can’t be trusted with cash. So yeah, I lose it. My little leather wallet gets away from the top of the stroller somehow. To soften the blow, I imagine someone’s day being brightened by an unexpected windfall during hard times. Meanwhile, I am devastated, crushed, horrified.
My understanding husband doesn't send me packing right then and there, yet many more of these incidents will follow. He has no idea. I appreciate my friend’s boss for allowing me to work off the debt, and for being kinder to me than I am to myself.
Exhibit B: Lack of spatial awareness
Pregnancy has always been a scary time for me. Besides cravings, nausea, moodiness, and weight gain, I contend with an onslaught of extraordinary brain-deadness. I don't remember this particular incident as clearly as my husband, but he swears I stepped right out in front of a moving car, completely out of the blue, without a care in the world. He yanked me back to safety, gallantly saving me from certain death.
Exhibits C and D: Keys (ugh)
I lock my keys in the car on a regular basis. I’ll never forget he time I'm out of town, alone, at a gas station in a large intersection in a big city, nine months pregnant with a 2-year-old in tow. It's time to pay, but my toddler is enjoying the music so I leave it on and securely lock the door, keys in the ignition. I realize this when I absently yank the door handle to get back in to resume our journey. Horror. My daughter is all smiles from the car seat, though, thankfully.
Through some miraculous act of divine intervention, a locksmith across the 8-lane street just happens to have a new set of "Slim Jims" and is all too happy to figure out which one is best for my car’s door, no charge. It all happens so fast, my singing baby never knows there's a problem. Oh, but I do.
I lock my keys in my own house, too. Helpful neighborhood firefighters once used climbing ropes to lower our 3-year-old through a microscopic bathroom window to unlock the front door. For her, it's was an adventure. She was a hero! For me, it's up there with the most embarrassing moments of my life. For the fire department, it was just another crazy story about a dumb lady, I’m sure.
Exhibit E: Wallet redux
I’m installing a tile kitchen backsplash, in the throes of a self-created, home improvement frenzy. I don’t have everything I need, dangit, so I rush to the hardware store, get to the checkout stand with an overflowing cart, and, you guessed it, can’t pay because I have no wallet.
Unsuspecting shoppers see a frantic woman on her hands and knees in the grout section, groping beneath shelves and running up and down aisles, scanning fruitlessly for the fugitive bundle. Again - dejection and horror.
I drive home, ashamed and aghast at the spectacle known as me. I’m dreading the required phone calls to get a new driver's license and cancel my credit cards, but I’m panic-stricken as I prepare to face the disappointment, pitiless teasing, and chagrin of my husband.
I slink through the door. "Lose something?" he chortles. Really? Sure enough, someone has found my wallet on a shelf, seized it, and called my home. Another welcome miracle.
Not one week later, I come home to a message from the car wash owner. He wonders if I would like my wallet back. I am confused since I don't even know it's missing. He's discovered it on the ground by the vacuum. Geez.
Exhibit F: Glasses
This week I lost my glasses for two full days (and no, this wasn’t the first time) until my 4-year-old triumphantly proclaimed "Mom, I know where your glasses are!" She did.
So where am I going with all this? I've tried to analyze the sources of my forgetfulness, but then I can't recall what I'm trying to figure out. Did my children promise they would return the stolen segments of my brain? I have no idea. I hope so.
My 4-year-old knows a lot of things, though. Maybe I'll ask her.
