The Mommy Haze

If you've ever been pregnant, you may have heard of a little something called "Pregnancy Brain".  Pregnancy Brain is an unexpected and debilitating disorder that causes pregnant women to say and do stupid things that, before being "with child", would have seemed ridiculous and alarming.

This ailment is no laughing matter.  Few diseases can force an otherwise healthy 24 year-old woman to attempt washing a load of laundry by putting dryer sheets in the washing machine and, even worse, detergent in the dryer.  

 

These mothers should have your sympathies. 

I certainly wasn't proud of myself when I pulled the clothing from the dryer, hot and crusted with soap and likely not very clean.  But at the time, I was amid a tumultuous pregnancy with Cael and simply grateful to be capable of ruining my own laundry and not stuck on bed rest.  I was very frustrated by the way I couldn't do math in my head or remember where I had put my keys and purse, but I knew that in a few addition months I'd have a beautiful baby boy, and I'd get my brain back.

Unfortunately, WebMD failed to tell me about a little thing known as "The Mommy Haze".  This condition is a secondary, more severe form of Pregnancy Brain brought on by exhaustion, poor nutrition and Cheerios stuck in one's hair.  Although it can cause anything from addressing a child by the wrong name to wearing your shirts on backward all day, Mommy Haze gone one step further to anoint me, "The Most Absent-Minded Mommy In All The Land".

When winter vacation was over I struggled a bit to get back into the routine, but when I dropped him off at school last Thursday I felt confident that he was prepared for the day.  Then I picked him up and was reminded not once but twice that my son needed snowpants "EVERYDAY", and I felt as though I was one step away from remedial parenting courses.

I wouldn't make the same mistake on Friday.  I crammed the snowpants into a bag with Cael's other winter gear and headed to school, remembering only feet from the school's front door that it was "Fresh Vegetable Friday", and Cael had no fresh vegetable.  He didn't even have a canned vegetable.   

 

Thanks, Mommy Haze.

So when Monday morning rolled around, I resolved to handle the new week with a cool head and a fresh approach.  And that probably would have worked if not for the four children I was watching and the mere 25 minutes I had to get them all fed, dressed and to the car so that my son actually arrived at school before the doors locked.  Unfortunately for Cael, however, the perfect storm brewed and when I reached in his bag to pull out his gloves, I discovered that, while I remembered the snowpants, Cael's hat and gloves were nestled warmly in our coat closet at home.  

 

The hat that made me look like an absent parent.

 

I called Papa, who generously offered to stay with the car while I checked in at the school office so that I could deliver Cael's gear and prevent my neglectfulness from leading to a case of frostbite.  When I retrieved my son later in the morning and the teachers assumed that any number of mismatched and unidentified gloves and boots must belong to us (because I had brazenly forgotten to label our gloves and boots), I knew that my case of Mommy Haze had gone from suspected to confirmed. 

 

Forgetting his backpack on Tuesday was just insulting. 

 

There is one hour left before preschool is over for today, and I am afraid to learn what way the Mommy Haze has clouded my day and my parenting skills.  And while, at this point, I hope I remember to pick him up at all, I will be a little embarrassed if he went "commando" to school again.

 

I'm done beating myself up about it, though.  If anyone interprets my absent-minded omissions as neglect or signs of a parent that has officially checked out, they simply need to look at the smile on Cael's face or the hug he gives me when he runs to my side.

 

And hopefully, they won't look at the crusted detergent on his clothes or Cheerios in his hair.  

 

It's been a long week.