Lately our kids have been obsessed with finding out what they were like as babies and the regular answers aren't cutting it. They want detailed answers about when they first started talking, what they said and what was funny or cute about them. The standard party line of, "Dude was cuddly, Crafty was pukey and Mischief was quiet" is not enough, they want anecdotes.
I have been wracking my brain trying to remember details of their infanthood but for the most part I am drawing a blank. From March 2000 until about December 2006 my memories are all a murky haze. I have flashes of being awake all night, people puking on me and clothes strewn all over the house...much like the heyday years of a rock star, I would imagine, but not very many clear memories. I remember that Dude loved his bouncy chair, that Crafty started talking at a freakishly young age and that Mischief was a fast little crawler. But that's about it.
This kind of memory loss is common among mothers and I have a theory.
Women who have children, especially more than one child, tend to be more forgetful and not as bright as they were pre-pregnancy because they suffer from BUBFRS, Brain to Uterus Blood Flow Reversal Syndrome. During pregnancy the uterus requires more blood so it re-routes the blood flow from the brain to the uterus, thus starving the brain. This is when women begin to notice increased clumsiness, short-term memory loss and a dip in their cognitive abilities. They chalk the deficit up to the pregnancy and expect things to return to normal after the baby is born but it doesn't happen.
Add sleep deprivation to the already oxygen starved brain and you get Mommy Brain, a permanent condition with no cure. Mommy Brain causes us to over schedule our time, start multiple tasks at once while completing none, repeat the the same five sentences over and over (for example, clean your room, don't hit your sibling, I'm not the maid) and, of course, the continued wide spread memory loss. The most dangerous part of Mommy Brain is that it fogs over the exhausting and stressful moments of your baby's infanthood and leaves you only with the gooey, giggly, cuddly parts so that by the time your infant is approximately a year old you are often battling Baby Fever.
It's a vicious cycle. We should start a campaign for a cure, maybe chose a color for a ribbon...but first I have to switch the laundry over, unload the dishwasher, finish making cupcakes for Crafty's class. Oh yeah, then I have to run to the store and pick up a few things for supper but before that I should vacuum while everyone is out...oh wait, what's this ribbon for? Oh look at that cute baby! Wouldn't it be nice to have another baby?
2 comments:
It's my theory that mothers give half of their brain cells to their children. So, you were left with half after Dude, then 1/4 after Craft, and 1/8 after Mischief.
More kids equals less brains.
this part had me laughing out-loud... "much like the heyday years of a rock star". So true! Maybe I will pretend that is the wild life I am living when things are blurry around here.
Post a Comment