I'm not forgetful, it's baby brain!

Since I touched very briefly on baby brain in my last post, I thought I'd elaborate a bit more on this most mysterious of afflictions affecting mothers everywhere. Eleven months on from the birth of my beautiful little boy and the one thing (weight gain aside, that's a whole other story!) that lingers still is baby brain.


I used to pride myself on being quite sharp minded. When I was at high school, having blitzed a french test, my dutch french teacher (now that's confusing, I think I just created a language called 'dutch french'!); what I mean to say is that my french teacher who was dutch by birth and spoke in a wonderfully thick dutch accent, praised me in front of the class for having a photographic memory. Which obviously I don't. Otherwise I'd probably be on TV playing piano concertos after listening to them just once, or memorising whole phone books in just one read and telling poor unsuspecting audience members what their address and phone numbers are. But I took the complement anyway and nodded in agreement.

Alas since pregnancy and birth my mind has gone to mush. Over this time I've done some ridiculous things:

• I've left the house wide open and I don't mean unlocked, I mean both the security door and the front door wide open for anyone to walk in.
• Continuing on the open doors theme, I've left my drivers side car door wide open in the local shopping centre car park while I've gone shopping.
• I frequently call the women in my mother's group by their baby's names.
• I've gone to change my baby's wet nappy only to put the wet one back on rather than the fresh nappy.
• I've gone to the supermarket only to buy everything but the item I went there for in the first place. I once forgot to buy dishwashing liquid 4 days in a row when that was the main purpose of each shopping trip.
• I've walked into rooms in my house only to forget what I wanted to go there for in the first place. Now I know this affects people without baby brain every now and then, but I do it almost every time I walk into a room. This makes it exceedingly difficult to complete any tasks; it's a wonder I get anything done!

Now there's a chance that my memory problems could be to do with getting older, severe lack of sleep, or the fact that I spent many a weekend over the years with my old mate Jack Daniels (these days it's Jack who?), but I think this baby brain theory has some weight. I'm sticking to it anyway, especially when I need to explain to fiance that it's why I forgot to do the washing, cooking and cleaning!

I'd love to hear from any mums out there who have funny baby brain stories to share!

Have a good week!