Baby Brain

Babies seem to produce the same effect as partying too much … or old age. (or maybe they just accelerate the aging process.) Suddenly your memory becomes faulty. You forget where you set things and what you went into the kitchen to get. And, like me, you will wake in the living room and not remember how you got there because you collapsed there after the umpteenth trip to sooth and feed the baby. This memory loss is progressive so that when your baby is no longer a baby you will have forgotten most of this and will be willing to have another baby.

(On a side note, there have been studies showing that increased levels of estrogen increase one’s ability to remember. Hmmmmm……)

On Monday I awoke, did not know where I was, could not figure out if it was Sunday or Monday, and had a hard time reconciling the time that was shown on the clock. After asking Daniel what day it was, I was able to remember, in that half-asleep way, the weekend, the traveling, and the fact that James was wired after his nap in the car during the drive home (hence my heightened disorientation from lack of sleep). Then I was able to stumble off to work. Counting the third trimester I have not slept more than a four hours stretch for the last six months. This isn’t too different from when I was in college, the big difference being that I would take a long nap every once in awhile to stave off the kind of disorientation described above.

What have I learned from this?

Being a parent will slowly rob you of your mental capacity. I have hopes to recover but imagine that by the time I do it won’t make much difference. The baby will be a teenager and that is another ball of wax entirely.

Sigh……

Then I look at James and he smiles at me. Awwwwww….

Who needs brain cells anyway?