Mom brain gets a bad rap.
Don’t get me wrong — it drives me nuts most of the time. Oh, who am I kidding? It drives me nuts all of the time. I either feel like I’m in some hazy, half-awake state, or my brain is so overloaded with the things I need to do, it feels like it’s going to explode.
And I forget things. A lot of things. Like, the other morning, I opened my computer to do… something. I mean, it took literally about five seconds for me to walk over to my laptop, open it up, and stare blankly at the screen. I did eventually remember what I had come there to do (yay, me?), but it was hours later.
My brain isn’t a pretty place to be these days, but it’s the only brain I’ve got. And with two small kids, work, and a host of assorted responsibilities, it’s not going to change anytime soon. But as I was blaming some shortcoming of mine on mom brain recently, I realized that maybe I was looking at things the wrong way. So much of parenting is about perspective — why not this?
Mom brain has its perks. Really! For example…
My brain is like the triage ward of an emergency room. I may forget the little things from time to time, but the most important things take priority and actually get done in a somewhat timely fashion.
When I remember to write down a realistic amount of things on a to-do list, I’m frighteningly efficient. After all, there is a finite amount of time before my son needs to be picked up from preschool and my little catnapper wakes up prematurely from her nap.
Plus, I can multitask like nobody’s business. When four things suddenly need to get done immediately while I happen to be nursing an infant and having a sword fight with a preschooler, mom brain makes it possible.
I finally understand that perfection is overrated. To get anything done — or because I’ve forgotten to do whatever it is until the last minute — I have to let certain things go, Elsa-style. For someone who’s been a control freak for most of her life, this is a biggie.
I get insanely excited when I remember something. Seriously, you’d think that Oprah had just given me a car.
Mom brain can be de-fuzzed by a hot shower, which is a really good excuse to stop and actually take a hot shower. Last week, I remembered 15 things (15!) that I had forgotten to do while I let the hot water wash away the dirt and stress of the day — along with the actual dirt that comes from parenting a 4-year-old who likes to play in, well, dirt.
I remember really weird things. I may forget to make a haircut appointment every day for two weeks in a row and I may respond to an e-mail in my head instead of in an e-mail, but I know which random, seemingly unidentifiable toy pieces go with which sets. Yes, every single one. Those are some mad skills right there, don’t you think?
The days fly by. When you’re in a perpetual state of motion, it’s bedtime before you know it. Don’t panic if you’ve forgotten half the things on your to-do list: Tomorrow’s another day!
Originally published on Momsanity.com.
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