My Brain Is Melting

So I locked myself out of the house again yesterday. For the fourth time in little over a month. Most of you who know me know that I am normally a fairly organized, on-the-ball, not-especially-forgetful person. But in the last several months I've basically become an airhead, and apparently this can all be blamed on pregnancy.

It all started one night several months back when I walked over to our alarm clock to set it before going to bed and realized with a start that I had absolutely no idea how this alarm clock worked. Now this is the same alarm clock we've had for years (maybe as many as seven years), and I have routinely set the alarm almost every night. So I should know how it works. But that night it might as well have been a brand new clock that I had never seen before or possibly some completely new device just invented. I could see all the buttons on top, but for the life of me I had no idea what any of them did. Peter had a pretty good laugh watching me punch randomly at different buttons (you'd think this would trigger some sort of muscle memory at least - it didn't) until I finally managed to set my alarm for the correct time as well as turn off the clock's special "nap" function which I had accidentally initiated in all my fumbling around.

At the time this seemed like a very strange, but isolated event, so I didn't waste too much time worrying about it. Little did I know that it was the beginning of the end for the fairly organized, on-the-ball, not-especially-forgetful person I had always counted on myself to be. Since that time I have not only locked myself out of the house four times, but also twice put on my socks and laced up my shoes before realizing that I had yet to put on any pants, at least twice put my shirt on backwards, left random food and drink scattered about the house (bad when you have ever-vigilant scavenger cats), forgotten the name of my library director, possibly placed the dish soap in the refrigerator (we may be able to blame this on someone else), and routinely forgotten to eat any lunch before heading to work for the afternoon shift. A few things from the house have gone missing entirely, and we are just waiting to see where they turn up.

Now this situation would be inconvenient at any time but keep in mind that I am starting a new job and trying to finish up graduate school over the next several months. And also keep in mind that my main job responsibility (working the reference desk) often resembles a day-long series of timed oral quizzes which you aren't allowed to study for (or even know the subject) in advance - in other words, critical thinking skills, as well as the ability to think on your feet, are crucial. Let me just say, it's been bad. The good news is I'm learning a lot about humility and realizing something that my former highly-perfectionistic self would never have been able to grasp: making a lot of mistakes really isn't that big of deal. You put on your pants, turn your shirt the right way around, and move on. You buy a cell phone for the next time you lose your keys (and then pray you don't lose it as well). You laugh at yourself a lot.

In the end, I guess it's good that all this forgetfulness comes with a lot of laughter because I've been told (by books and mothers alike) that while things might get better after pregnancy, there's a chance I'll never quite fully recover my former mental clarity. (I hope this isn't true, because it if is, then where am I going to end up leaving the baby?) For now I'm just making a lot of lists, triple-checking the stove and iron when I leave the house, and refusing to set my purse down anywhere other than in my lap when we go out to eat. I also do a lot of mirror-checks before going to work. Hopefully this will help me avoid any true catastrophes, but if I have any more funny forgetful moments, I'll try to remember to tell you about them here so you can have a laugh to. But of course, when it comes to remembering, I can't make any promises. :)