The pic below is a reminder of how real mom brain truly is.
For starters, I was taking Mackenzie to daycare that day, which was off normal routine because Chad usually handles drop-off. And I obviously had to take her picture because she looked SO CUTE and I wanted to capture the moment! Another thing I did differently that morning…took my phone out of my purse in the car. You can probably guess where this is going.
After dropping her off, I drove to the bus station, got on the bus, sat down, reached in my purse for my phone and…it was nowhere to be found. Panicked (because let’s be honest, who can go one second without their phone?!) I got off the bus, thinking it fell out in my car. Nope. I must’ve left it at home. So I drove home and searched everywhere…no phone. I even walked up and down the street and looked in the grass, in my driveway, in the garage…nothing. Already running late and completely perplexed, I drove back to the bus station, got on and went on with my day at work.
But it continued to nag at me and thanks to a lovely feature on iPhones, I was able to geo-track where my phone was, and lock it with an alert for whoever found my phone to call Chad’s cell phone. Long story short…someone found my phone, brought it with them to work not too far from my house and ended up calling Chad. We met up, she gave it back to me…she found it laying in the grass near the park by my house! So, what I must’ve done is absent-mindedly put my phone on the back of my car after I took the picture, drove off and there it flew. Classic mom brain.
I remember another moment when I was in the fog of the newborn phase…instead of putting Sriracha sauce on my food, I poured coffee creamer all over it. And proceeded to sob. My wonderful hubby calmed me down and quickly whipped up another meal. Not one of my finer moments. And not the last moment.
I mean, when one of my co-workers recently called out from her cube, “Hey, Mary…” my first response was, “Yes, honey?” Totally an automatic response that I typically reserve for my toddler. Thankfully we’re tight colleagues and good enough friends that we were able to laugh about it. But seriously. Where was my brain?!
And to my utter relief, I realize that I’m not alone. A simple “mom brain” search on Google brings up more than 234 MILLION results. The one that caught my eye was a Psychology Today article called, “The Science of ‘Mom Brain”” – because if it’s a scientific thing, then I can rest assured that I’m not just suffering from crazy. My favorite excerpt from the article sums it up well:
The moral of the story? If you’re having “mom brain,” take heart in knowing that we’ve all been there, and there’s evidence from neuroscience that it’s not only normal, but may be beneficial. We can’t, of course, blame our brains completely — a big part of “mom brain” probably just comes with being overwhelmed by new and challenging responsibilities that invade the same space where our old responsibilities still reside. We may never return to our pre-mom brains, but our new brains — forgetfulness, emotionality and all — might end up helping us become good, responsive parents.
I find great comfort in the fact that not only is it real, it’s what makes us good mamas! So my mama friends, the next time you suffer a “mom brain” moment, don’t feel bad about it…remind yourselves that your brain is far too busy trying to raise a human…and give yourselves a little grace. 🙂