Mommy Brain

My hair is falling out--postpartum hair loss strikes again. I knew it was happening when Forest found a hair in his enchiladas the other day. He just sweetly set it to the side of his plate and didn't complain, but I saw the horrific evidence and realized it was time to take some kind of action to try and prevent further damage. I got 10 inches chopped off and donated in hopes of letting some of it go to better cause than just clogging up the shower drain (and gagging my family at mealtime).

I wonder if each strand of hair that departs from my head is somehow taking brain cells along with it--it seems like I have had some fairly severe cases of "Mommy Brain," lately.

My first experience with Mommy Brain occurred while I was pregnant with Ramona. We lived in a small one-bedroom apartment a few blocks from the old Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana. I often cut through the mall to walk to the bus stop, library, school district office, or doctor's appointments. (Amazing how much I could do without a car while we lived there). Anyhow, the point is that I was very familiar with this mostly-deserted mall and frequently used its facilities because something about walking + pregnancy really makes you feel like you have to go. One day as I came out of a bathroom stall, I noticed something different on the wall: urinals. (Thankfully, that was ALL I saw). Then realization hit that I had turned right instead of left, marching straight into a clearly-labeled men's restroom after correctly using the women's bathroom so many times previously. I felt confused and betrayed--how had my brain let me down on such a simple task as distinguishing between a men's and women's restroom?

In the past year, my Mommy Brain incidents have been more prevalent than ever before. While I was still pregnant with Paula, I dropped Ramona off at preschool and took Mika with me to run an errand. Afterward, without realizing it, I buckled her in her sister's car seat, (which was behind the driver's seat), and started the car to head home. At the stoplight, I turned to check on my little toddler, and felt my heart sink when I saw her empty car seat. "I left her at the store!" I thought, in a panic. Thankfully, there was just enough brain function remaining to help me calm down and realize that my two-year-old was in the car, just not in her usual seat. And that I had not left her at the store after all.

Since Paula joined our family,  my condition has noticeably worsened. There are days when the effort to be productive appears to result in more harm than good. For example, last week after posting our old printer on craigslist, I set up a time for someone to come and look at it. He was happy with it, paid me the asking price, and took it away. Just as I was patting myself on the back for getting things done, I realized I had left one of my music books under the scanner lid of the printer--and this music was worth more than I had made by selling the printer.

I ended up having to contact the buyer, who was kind enough to meet me at the local Staples store so I could get the music back. I loaded the kids in the van and headed out to retrieve the book (successfully), then decided to run an errand at Staples since we were already there. Again, I was over-confident in my ability to be productive--even though I completed the Staples errand, I forgot to load the stroller back into the van, so I had to drive back over to pick it up from the parking lot later (at least it was still there). I had to wonder if I would have been better off throwing the old printer in the garbage that day.

Despite such occurrences, perhaps it isn't fair to attribute so many of my mental shortcomings to the fact that I have children. Sure, motherhood can hurl a woman into a whole new world of distractedness and chaos, but it also can do her heart a whole lot of good. For me, having Ramona, Mika, and Paula in my life have helped increase my patience and compassion for others. They remind me every day how important it is to be kind, to be forgiving, and to enjoy the simple things in life.

I don't know if my lost brain capacity can ever be recovered, but I hope the lessons I learn will always stay in my mommy heart. And that my family continues to put up with me mixing up birthday parties, missing exits, and brushing my teeth with face wash.

Paulamontage

Ramona recently declared that she wished Paula would stay little forever. While I often share this sentiment, I also find great satisfaction in watching my little ones grow, gradually transforming into the people they were meant to become.

Paula, like most babies, has changed so much in her first first three months. I believe all of the veteran parents who tell me: "She'll be a teenager before you know it." The past few weeks have gone by so quickly that when people stop to ask me the frequently-asked-question: "How old is your baby?"--I realize that quite often I am not even sure. I had to sit down with a calendar to figure out exactly how old Paula was when each of these photos was taken.

Two weeks old:

3 weeks old:

Here she is trying out one of her first voluntary smiles:

4 weeks old:

5 weeks old:

6 weeks old:

 7 weeks old:

8 weeks old:

9 weeks old:

10 weeks old:

(At some point in here she rolled over for the first time, belly to back.)

11 weeks old:

 12 weeks old:

13 weeks old:

 

I know she won't always be a doll-sized bundle, but she will probably still keep her nickname "Paula Doll," no matter how big she gets. And we will likely continue to sing this little song to her, too (whether she appreciates it or not):

Baby Paula's song, sung to the tune of "This Old Man:"

Paula Doll, Paula Doll
She is not quite two feet tall
With a fuzzy head and a tiny little nose
She is pretty as a rose.

I like it best when Ramona and Mika sing it to her. We love you, Paula Doll!

the Month of Forest

March is definitely Forest's month. It includes his birthday, NCAA March Madness, and availability of Cadbury Creme Eggs in most stores. If I had my act together, I'd bake him an apple pie for 

Pi Day every year to add even more special-ness to his month, but at least we made green pancakes for St. Patrick's Day. Making "yummy delicious" pancakes (of any color) is one of Forest's many talents.

The girls of the house greatly enjoyed celebrating his 34th birthday. He came home from work for lunch, presents, and cake.

 

 

 

 

In the evening I got Forest all to myself--a sitter came over to watch the kids while we picked out some manly shoes for him and went to a restaurant for dinner. The birthday boy scored us a free chocolate souffle for dessert.

I hope he had fun celebrating another year. 

St. Patrick's Day came next in our Month of Forest festivities. We are not very Irish and generally don't give too much thought to this holiday, but this year Ramona was so excited about leprechauns, rainbows, gold, and the color green, I put just a little effort into the green part. And I dug up a rainbow-y onesie for Paula.

Green pancakes for lunch, green clam chowder for dinner.

Green angel food cake with green whipping cream for dessert.

This week it was time to tackle our brackets for March Madness. Lately Ramona has a hard time with anything that involves decision-making, so she got a little overwhelmed by all of the choices at first. But eventually she got into a groove and made her picks.

Her champion: The somewhat obscure NCCU Eagles.

Mika seemed a lot less stressed about filling out her bracket. I think she enjoyed sorting through all of the team logos.

For a while it looked as though she was going to choose Oregon (Donald Duck) or Florida (Gator = fire-breathing dragon) for her champion, but in the end she opted for the Massachusetts Minutemen. Naturally, they would beat the ducks and the dragons, because they have "shooters" (guns). I love two-year-old logic.

This year marked Paula's very first bracket. We have never filled out a bracket for a child this age, so in the beginning we weren't certain what method to use for determining her picks. With Ramona in utero, we pressed on my belly and felt for kicks. When Mika was six months old, she was old enough to reach out and grab cards with her preferred team logos. For our barely-toddler-aged girls, we used bribery and set snacks on the cards to help designate chosen winners.

Paula missed out on an in utero bracket, and she is still too little to intentionally grab cards, much less snatch food off of them, either. So we decided to watch her eye and head movement for cues to complete her bracket.

 

It ended up working quite well--most of the time she would turn to focus on one logo before the other with two cards held up in front of her.

After two sessions of eye-movement picks, she made her final decision: UNC is her chosen champion.

Because of all the effort expended on filling out brackets for our daughters, Forest only spent about five minutes on his own bracket. And I didn't even bother. But we had fun keeping up our family tradition for this time of year--all a part of celebrating the Month of Forest.