Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Pregnancy Brain

My friend Karen and I once had a discussion about "pregnancy brain" and if it really exists. She and I agreed that pregnant women sometimes find themselves being absent-minded and forgetting things because their brains are simply overwhelmed with everything they've got going on. When you're pregnant, the fact that you are growing another human being is always in the back of your head, so stuff like where you parked the car just gets pushed out.

Karen and I felt pretty triumphant about the fact that neither of us experienced this phenomenon. She and I, at the time, had the same job, one that required us to keep track of a tremendous amount of projects, all full of tiny details, and all in different stages of production. Being pregnant, for us, was just one more project, certainly not one to be preoccupied with. And by the way, the fact that Karen could be 40, pregnant, and about to be a single mom and not be preoccupied with all of that is a testament to her ass-kickery.

The trouble is that now, even though I am not pregnant, I seem to have a case of pregnancy brain. Between my last week of work, trying to find another job, taking care of the barnacle like clinger monkey that is Jack, packing, moving, trying to find mirror boxes that I don't have to pay $100 to have shipped, and a gazillion other things, my brain is full.

This morning, I got dressed, cajoled Jack to get dressed and get in the car with a combination of gummy vitamins and the Dora "We Did It!" song, only to discover that I could not find my keys. They weren't in my pocket. They weren't in my purse. Great. Now what? Well, I did have my spare key in my wallet, one that the fine folks at Saturn give you for emergencies just like this. I could use that key to drive Jack to school, go to my eye appointment, then to and from work. I wouldn't be the first to arrive in the office, so not having that key was fine, and Steve gets home before me, so no house key necessary. I would, as the sexsay gay visionary Tim Gunn would say, make it work.

Then I realized that I must have had my keys at some point, since I used them to unlock the car. I vowed to search for them, maybe in the front yard, after taking Jack to school. But there was no need. My keys? I was sitting on them.

3 comments:

KB said...

You'll remember to take Jack with you when you move, right? =)

Dysd Housewife said...

Very similar to "where's my sunglasses??" Oh..they're on my HEAD.

Anonymous said...

I TOTALLY had pregnancy brain when I was pregnant! I could barely read, my concentration was so bad. Though my hormones were all screwy, too (like, documented screwy). I think that really affects your chances of getting pregnancy brain.

I do think there is such a thing as Mommy Brain... that's where our kids suck out all our "organized thought" waves and replace them with coffee cravings.