Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Mommy Brain


Research in neurology and psychology suggests motherhood has the potential to make women better at many tasks, including managing stress and multi-tasking. And research has proven that motherhood makes us smarter.

Oh yeah? Then why can I never find my keys, always go to the store and leave the shopping list on the kitchen counter, walk into a room and immediately forget why I went in there and do 10 things at one time and not remember doing any of them? I'm constantly forgetting if I've done something like pay the bills and half the time I can't even hear the words coming out of my own mouth.

One thing I've learned about motherhood: You have to have a sense of humor. My son is 15 and I become more warped the older he becomes. I've found I love zombie movies and know who Edge, Triple H and Big Show are. I can recite baseball stats like no other mom I know and when my son's playing basketball I'm the loudest cheerer in the crowd. Ketchup was once considered a condiment but now it has become a vegetable and ice cream is a dairy product.

And I do things I never thought I would. Like when he was very young and I enrolled him in a karate class and had to buy him a cup. We went hand in hand to the sporting goods store and bought him one and went home and I had him try it on. He was only about 5 and I didn't know how to explain to him how important that cup was, so I lifted him up on the bathroom counter and started banging away at that cup with a hammer. Bam, bam, bam for about 10 minutes. He giggled the whole time because I was like a maniac banging on that cup, my way of teaching him how protective that cup was.

I've also learned how strong I really am. I used to be very shy and put up with a lot of crap until I had my son. But not anymore! When he was about 3 I got a call from his nursery school teacher telling me I needed to see her when I picked him up because of his behavior. What behavior? Well, when I got there I learned they had run out of paper during a painting project so he painted half his face this really beautiful navy blue and they were concerned that something was wrong with him. Any other child I probably would have wondered about, but this was my son. I defended him for being creative enough to use his own canvas. Of course from that moment on we were both labeled as "strange," which I would argue with us being "unique."

To say motherhood has changed my life is an understatement. Sure I have many moments of "Mommy Brain," when I don't know what's up or down or if I'm coming or going, but it has been and continues to be the adventure of my life. Yes I get overwhelmed sometimes, but like all Super Moms I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

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1 comment:

Mauigirl said...

Thanks for commenting on my blog! I'm so glad you did, because now I have discovered yours! I'm looking forward to reading all your back posts! I don't have kids myself but I can certainly understand the ways they change your life. And I can also tell people I work with who have kids because, as you say, they are up on all the latest bands, latest trends, etc., and I feel like such a dork in comparison!