Something is very wrong! "Mommy brain" doesn't even seem to cover how absent my mind has been lately. Sometimes I feel like I'm wondering around the house aimlessly running from child to child meeting need after need with no other purpose, goal, or plan to strive for. I walk into a room and grab a diaper but no wipes, I'll pick up one shoe but leave the matching one behind, I'll be laying in bed and realize my phone and the baby monitor are still downstairs.....Yes, these are just little things, but they're really starting to mess with my head.
I don't care what science says, I'm convinced a child in the womb feeds off brain cells. Then whatever you have left you push out with the baby and you never quite get them back! I had 3 children in 3 years....it's not looking good for me!
Not to long ago, our church had a marriage retreat night. They catered in a meal and provided childcare (woot! woot!...we don't get out much!) then had a speaker. Forgive me, I don't remember the speakers name. This goes right along with my topic about my brain working at slower speeds and comprehending less than it used to. This man was a professor at a nearby college and had studied the brain for years. He proceeded to tell us all about our brains and how men and women's brains work differently. As he's babbling on about the hypothalamus or something it hits me that this is way over my head. I wasn't absorbing 40% of what he was saying. My mind kept wondering to all kinds of insignificant places like the lady's hair in front of me, and if I listened really hard, I think I can hear my baby crying from downstairs. What has happened to me? Over my head?....wait no it's not! I graduated from nursing school. Not too many years ago not only did I sit through microbiology, pharmacology, chemistry, and anatomy and physiology, but I passed them at that! Had motherhood really dumbed my brain down that much?
The whole irony of my even thinking this, is that one of the speakers big points was that our brains actually stores everything we've ever seen, heard, or read. We just don't tap into all those parts regularly. (Yes, I paid attention a little bit!) So, no. I've not gotten more dumb....I just don't use those intellectual parts of my brain anymore. I sing the abc's and say things like "let's go potty" and "be gentle with your sister" like 100,00 times a day.
Sometimes it's easy for me to get down on myself and think, "Good gracious, Maggie you used to literally be helping save people's lives." or "I've got ideas. Good ideas too. Maybe I should be doing something more with them." Then I'll turn around to hear all three of my kids laughing together or watch one of them share without being told and I know I'm right where I'm supposed to be.
I'm supposed to be loosing my mind in this house with these kids. This is my job. It's more important and bigger than anything else right now. And, at the end of the night when I check on three peaceful precious little faces I know without a doubt I'd willingly give up every last brain cell for them.
