Check Out My Guest Post: Momnesia

Editor's Note: This post originally appeared as a guest post at Little Bites of Heaven, where Rachael blogs about life with a singleton and a set of triplets.

MOMNESIA

If you are pregnant or have ever been a mom, you've undoubtedly been plagued by momnesia.

C'mon, you left the house in your slippers, had a two-hour meeting with a colleague you work with every day and couldn't remember her name, headed out to the grocery store and ended up at daycare (after hours) instead. It's safe to admit it here. None of us will remember what you told us tomorrow anyway.

Friends warned me about mommy brain when I was pregnant. I listened politely and smiled, but silently laughed at the idea. I was organized. I was great with names. I had a mind for details. How could the appearance of one small being change all that?

Then I found myself six months pregnant and demanding that my husband find the car keys that he clearly did not put back where they belonged, because they were nowhere to be found...while I was holding the car keys in my hand. Oops. That's what happens when pregnancy hormones and momnesia collide. My husband, perhaps sensing a very real threat to his life if he laughed, simply handed me the other set and walked away. I was in the car before I realized what I had just done. I drove away thinking that no one in my mental state should be behind the wheel.

"That's OK," I assured myself. "It's just pregnancy hormones. It will go away once the baby comes." Right, and I'll still get to sleep as much as I want, too.Soon the baby arrived, and I entered the whirlwind of parenting.

Not enough sleep, new problems to solve every day, chaotic schedules (if any schedule!), and the mommy brain continued. I started signing checks with my maiden name and no longer knew my zip code. I could not remember the name of anything and was reduced to using sentences full of pronouns. Many a conversation with my husband went like this, "I talked with whatshisname about the thing." It was up to him to fill in the gaps, which he did admirably, again perhaps sensing that his survival depended on his interpretive skills.

When my daughter began to sleep through the night occasionally, I felt some of the fog begin to lift. Not enough to make me the organized, detail-oriented, conversant being I once was, but it was progress. So what did I do? Logically, I decided to have another child. And I got pregnant with triplets.

Somehow, I managed to come up with names for three children despite the fact that my brain was replaced completely with Swiss cheese during my pregnancy. Not that their names matter. Now that I'm parenting four children under the age of three and three of them are 7-month-old boys who are CRAWLING, I have given up any hope of ever getting their names right. Fortunately, they are all learning to respond to "Hey you," "Buddy," and "Little guy." I use those names so much that it's all their sister calls them, too.

I've decided that I have no choice but to embrace my momnesia and let others share the laugh. My neighbors certainly got a kick out of my latest bout of momnesia (http://trippin-lifewithtriplets.blogspot.com/2009/05/momnesia.html) when I forgot my daughter had "fixed" my hair and took the garbage to the curb with a perky little white bow smashed into the top of my head.

So join the fun ladies, and confess your best bout of momnesia. Your secret is safe with me. I’ll file it away right next to my zip code and the proper names of things. No one will ever find it there.