Brain Drain

Prior to having children I was the undisputed lyric champion for songs produced during the 80’s and 90’s. I could name that tune in three bars with no clues and finish the entire song in bad karaoke style. I also thought that the Franklin-Covey number-highlight-prioritize-heavier-than-a-phonebook-organizer system was only for the obsessive compulsive or the professional organizer (a fake job that was invented by Oprah and her clean team.) But now that I’ve reached my middle years my memory resembles Swiss-cheese, it stinks and it’s full of holes.


I blame my children. Before becoming a parent I would have laughed my crazy-laugh if you had told me that I’d have to say to my son, “Sweetie, boogers are not for eating and you need to take your sister’s underwear off your head right now—they do not make you look like a savage Indian.” Now I’m constantly erupting with my crazy-laugh which causes my family to look at each other as if they’re contemplating strapping me into a straight jacket so I don’t hurt myself. I can’t help it. They always side-swipe me by asking me at 10 pm if I remembered to wash the football jersey they need first thing in the morning. Truth is, I can’t remember if I was ever told about it, and I swear my kids know that. It’s just one big head-game. I’m not sure they even bother to tell me important deadlines anymore, they just drop them on me followed by “I told you this last week Mom”, and I’m helpless to defend myself. Because I can’t remember!

What was I just talking about? Oh, right. I was talking about how I never realized that I had given birth to brain-suckers. It was all that cute, soft pink skin that threw me. One look and I immediately forgot the vast vocabulary I’d spent a decade developing. I was saying stupid things like, “did baby do a doo-doo?” And it hasn’t gotten much better. My youngest thinks her name is ParChaslyn. I’m just running through the list of names, mashing them together and hoping one of the children will answer. I lied and told my son that I was just calling him by his call-sign like “Maverick” on “Top Gun.” He thought it was cool for a few days until the other kids let him in on the gag—“Mom just can’t remember our names, and she named us,” his brother said with an exaggerated eye-roll.

They really think we’re dumb. Vast professional experience and advanced degrees are no match for parenthood. You may be able run a Fortune 500 company, but you’re stuck deaf and dumb when you find one of your children standing in the middle of your kitchen covered head to toe in mud (this really happened—I can’t make this garbage up.) I have had arguments with my teenager that sound like I’m interrogating Forest Gump—you get no-where fast, and you’re scratching your head by the end of it.

All of this is completely counterproductive to my brain development. Kid logic is so counter-intuitive to adult-speak that my brain is positively straining at the seams to keep up. And it’s pushing my memories out of my head in the effort. It’s like that one song—you remember—it was something about “clouds above my head” by that one guy with the dark hair. Wait. What was I talking about again?