Ok so here’s a fun fact: Guess what I was voted in high school? Not Best Smile or Most Likely to Succeed…
I was voted Biggest Airhead.
Now, I wasn’t that upset about it at the time BECAUSE it was slightly true. I made myself feel better about the whole thing buy suggesting that, in a fairly large high school like mine, it was a good thing to be voted anything at all. At least people knew my name right?! Also, I told myself that I was “flighty” because I was just busy thinking about bigger, more important and more intellectual things. So the problem really wasn’t at all that I was AIR-headed but that I simply had TOO MUCH going on up there. It’s rough being a genius.
SOO..it would stand to reason that in this season of my life with ALL that I have going on, I am now more of an airhead than ever. I know we all relate to this a little bit. When we were pregnant it was “Pregnancy Brain”…but then when pregnancy was over, and we realized we didn’t recover, we switched to calling it “Mom Brain” or “Momnesia”…and the condition appears to be terminal.
But I think I am one of the worst cases, and it seems to be getting worse. I used to have NO NEED for a calendar…I could always manage days and dates with just a quick moment of concentration. Now, I have THREE calendars and still lose track of where the heck I’m going and when.
I have left my purse in various public places more times than I can count. Just last weekend, my husband received a phone call from my cell phone…while I was standing right next to him. He looked at me and said, “why are you calling me?” Puzzled, I answered the phone to discover a nice man in possession of my purse AND cell phone, trying to track me down. Just a couple of weeks before that I was paged at the Pumpkin Farm to come get my purse after leaving it by a haystack during picture time with the kids.
One word for that: EMBARRASSING.
AND…just the other day I realized all too late that I had succeeded in packing up all of my kids into the van after Bible Study, but had apparently left the stroller in the parking lot. If anyone had seen this mom of three load all of their kids into the car, then drive off with the stroller left sitting there…don’t you imagine them just giggling?
But the real kicker was today. It was my turn to bring food to our MOPS meeting. After the meeting was over, I ran the leftover food out to the car before getting the kids from their classrooms. Later, after picking up my renegade stroller that someone nicely returned to the hallyway, I hustle all three kids out to the car when I realized I had no memory of actually bringing my BAG out to the car…and I began to think I must have left it upstairs. (The funny thing about this too is that I realize this right after sharing with someone about how I had just left the stroller in the parking lot the day before). I was officially beginning to hate myself at this point.
SO…I turn everyone around and wander all the way back inside, down the hall, and up the elevator to find that it is not there. I begin asking around…”Have you seen a black bag?” “Have YOU seen a black bag?” No luck.
I finally wander back OUT to the car (after picking up some left over donut holes, and stopping for a crazy conversation with a friend in the hallway while my youngest whines for the sippy cup he sees in my hand but that I can’t give him 1) because it’s empty and 2) because as soon as I won’t hold it for him he’s going to lose his ever-loving mind AND while my 2 year old sneaks the donut holes out of the bag because he knows I’m too busy talking to do anything about it). When I get to the car after all of that, I discover my bag sitting right there in the seat.
Proud of myself for not forgetting it but oh so disturbed that I FORGOT that I didn’t forget it. Is there no end to the insanity?
So yes, I’ve always been a big of an airhead but motherhood is only making it worse. I am just grateful I have yet to forget any children anywhere.
