Mommy Brain and Other Fairy Tales

Is "mommy brain" a self-fulfilling prophecy? If I hadn't heard that motherhood would affect my memory and intellect, would I notice any difference? True, my vocabulary isn't as rich as it used to be. I've found myself searching for the right word or phrase and just giving up and using something adequate, if not the most appropo. But maybe that's just because I haven't slept for more than five straight hours since December 10.

Maybe it's an indirect result of motherhood. If I had a nanny to wake up with the baby during the night and I had been sleeping a full eight hours, perhaps I wouldn't find those words so elusive. So, rather than a physiological reaction to childbirth, it's a circumstantial reaction.

Maybe it's because I'm distracted by the constant aching and tenderness in my breasts from nursing. If I fed the baby formula, perhaps I could write an eloquent speech or engage in some devastating repartee.

Maybe it's because I've started referring to myself in the third person, because babies don't understand pronouns (or so I've read; who knows what babies understand?). Or because my life is divided into two hour chunks of feeding, wiping up spit-up, changing diapers, and finding out if it's going to be a good day (naps) or a good night (playtime!). Could it be because it takes me the whole day to finish two cups of coffee, or because I count myself lucky when I get a chance to brush my teeth or go to the bathroom? (Thanks to the nap fairies for this short time to write.)

Whatever the cause of "mommy brain," I'm trying to combat it by doing crossword puzzles while I pump breast milk in the evenings. It used to be my anti-Alzheimer's exercise, but mental deterioration ...

(Sorry,I had to stop because typing the words "pump breast milk" made my breasts start leaking through my shirt.)

Lemonade: A Recipe I Keep Forgetting

I keep forgetting how to make lemonade. Here I am again, with a whole passel (or bushel, as it were) of lemons, staring me in the face. Oblong beasties, pebbly skin shouting up at me in an almost obscene shade of yellow. I mean, that's some bright fruit. They tend to roll off the counter, so I have to keep juggling them back into place while I think.

What am I supposed to do with these things? They are really starting to annoy me. I tried just pretending they weren't there, but you can't really avoid a whole bunch of lemons rolling all over your new granite countertops. (Yes, I have new granite countertops. Too bad I can't see them for all the lemons.)

Then I just got mad at them. Why do I have to get all the lemons? Why can't someone else have them, for once? It's like every week, I get a delivery of these obnoxious little monsters, and I have to deal with them. Sure, eventually I remember how to make lemonade, and all is well, but as soon as I turn around, there they are again.

Sometimes, I cry over the lemons, or get close. Now, that's a real waste of time, a real pointless consequence of a simple memory lapse. If I could just remember. If I could just remember to remember!

The worst part is making other people wait. If I were the only one who wanted a drink, it would be one thing, but with other people involved, there's a clock, you know?

Then, like a slap upside the head, it comes to me. Much like the name of Patsy's older sister Jacqui comes to Bubble in an almost regurgitant spasm (0:29 in), the recipe for lemonade spills out of my head and all those lemons seem like harmless little puppies. (Well, not puppies, really, you don't squeeze the juice out of puppies, but you know what I mean.)

And the lemonade is gooood.

Next time, I'll remember. And if it takes me a while, they're just lemons, after all!

Goooaaaallll!

The World Cup must be inspiring my little monster. He or she is kicking away with more frequency now, of course, only when it's just me. When Sean is home, the hybrid alien in my tummy snoozes away, offering an elbow here and there, but not enough for Sean to get his hands on. I'm sure he'll get a chance soon.

It feels like soda bubbles deep in my belly. Sometimes I pretend I'm Charlie in the Wonka Factory and I have to burp out the bubbles to keep from getting caught in the exhaust fan. Maybe that's just from the constant gas...

The Surf Sounds

Yesterday I got to hear an everyday miracle. It's true, it happens every day, all over the world, to all kinds of women.

At first I couldn't hear anything. I was holding my breath so I wouldn't miss anything. But there was nothing but a sound like the ocean echoing in the pink hollow of a conch shell. I wondered if there would be anything to hear, momentarily doubting my surety of the past two months.

Then suddenly, it was there. Woosh woosh woosh. Woosh woosh woosh.

My breath caught in my chest and tears sprung to my eyes, stinging them and doubling my vision. It was real. It was the sound of my baby's heartbeat. My baby. I'd been thinking of it as "the baby." Now it was "my baby."

How could this be happening to me? Will I be good enough to take care of something so important? What if I fail, what if I make mistakes? Nothing else in the entire world seems important at all anymore. Only my baby, keeping him or her safe, healthy and happy. I've never had this kind of single-mindedness, and it scares me. But fear keeps you on your toes, right? It's like performing. If you're not nervous, you won't be giving it your all!

How To Feel Pounds Lighter Without Losing Any Weight

Last night I hit the wall. For a few months I have been trying to have it all, do it all, and be the best while simultaneously not creating any income or moving forward in any significant way. Last night it all became too much, and I realized why everything had seemed so hard.

I have high standards. I have high expectations for the people I work with and for. It should go without saying that I also hold myself to those standards. But it had gotten out of control. I had found myself reacting defensively to anyone who reached out to me. Everyone wanted my time, but just to have it on hold. I was living in limbo. An e-mail would arrive and my first thought would be, in modern parlance, "WTF? Now I have to deal with this?" Not, "Gee, it sure is nice that someone out there thinks of me and needs my help or requests my presence." Where was my gratitude? Where was my kindness? I was stuck in a cycle of ego-fulfillment, rather than living a life of giving and receiving.

Last night I cried, because I realized how mean I have been. I thought about the look I put on my face (yes! I know I'm doing it!) to register my disgust and disappointment, and I knew I had done it to people I think of as friends, to strangers, even to myself. Passive aggressive superior muscle-flexing. But what is so superior about thinking you're better than someone else? I'm not better than anyone else. (No one else is better than me, either, don't get it twisted.) I'm so sorry that I hurt anyone's feelings. I don't want to be that person anymore.

How could I move forward if I was pushing everything away from me? How can I receive what I want if I can't give it away? I'm done with "Yes, but." I'm on to just "Yes." I felt tamped down into the ground. Now I feel like I'm walking a foot off the pavement.

Several Trees Grow in Brooklyn

You know that feeling you get when you've rushed out of your house or office and you're just trying to get to the train and you're stuck inside your head thinking about (and only about) all the things that are annoying you or stressing you, and you feel like there is a dark cloud, rumbling with thunder, just over your head, following your every step? I'll bet you're nodding your head in recognition, because I see it on the faces of my fellow commuters every day. I've found a sure-fire method of interrupting this cyclical and detrimental thought pattern. I look at a tree.

OK, I know it sounds simplistic, but I've been reading about maintaining a sense of awe and bewilderment to broaden your mind and make a closer connection with the universe, and I find no better way to do this than to contemplate the natural world. It's even more impressive when you look at a tree growing in the middle of a sidewalk. Even the bare trees of winter give me pause. Where did it come from? Why did man first remove a tree from this place and then put one back? I like to think about the potential of a bare tree, dormant for now, but harboring the magic of the spring bloom, imagining what it will look like in April and how many different leaves and flowers will appear, seemingly overnight. I mean, that's pretty amazing!

I stop thinking in circles, and allow myself to be awed. Maybe the sun didn't really come out from behind the real clouds, but when that self-imposed thunderhead is blown away, everything looks brighter.

Calming, Separating

Very stressed this week. I quit my job and haven't gotten my conceptual business off the ground. I have been putting off doing the laundry for two weeks. Not a success in business or domesticity. Plus, I developed a strange eczema on my eyelid, which puts a damper on public performances, which is supposed to be the reason I quit my job. Yesterday was a "depressed" day. I tried telling myself not to think thoughts that weaken me, but I wouldn't listen. Despite depression being a relatively sedentary state, internally it panics me. I feel caught in an overwhelming whirlwind of inactive action items.

Today I went to the doctor. The man who normally sits in the lobby had died. There was a sign on the wall. I've been going to that office for a good eight years, and he was always there, although I didn't know his name. His name was Gene. Well, how can you be depressed now, I thought? At least you're not dead. The doctor gave me a prescription and said it would "calm it down." I liked that. I needed something calm. Rite Aid was no help, so I tried a Polish pharmacy I'd never noticed before. They had what I needed and were very friendly. For seven years I have relied on the chain store, even though they never recognized me ("Have you been here before?" Yes! Practically once a month for seven years!). Why do we think that just because it's expanded and homogenized it's good?

A disappointing condo viewing threatened to push me back down, but I remembered I promised Sean I would d the laundry. Accountability. You want to make sure you do something? Ask someone else to hold you to it. While I was there, I ran into my neighbor. I found out he's a minister. No wonder his little family is so pleasant! (His wife and four-year old son came by this morning to return a plate to me and thank me for the brownies I put on it. Jonah had written a note, but was to shy to give it to me. Do I scare children? Anyway, it was sweet.) We talked about making your own hours and the discipline it requires. I realized that I have a lot to offer, but I can't do it all. I have to choose what to focus on. And if I have been putting something on my list over and over and I haven't done it, I think I'd better just do it or take it off.

That's when I separated from depression and rejoined the land of the living. I turned off "True Life: I Have Tourette's Syndrome" on MTV and put Boston's first album on the CD player while I made chicken soup from scratch for my sick hubby. I made a decision not to perform in an audience-vote competition tonight, which would be unnecessarily stressful and unfulfilling and would not advance my actual career. No longer a failure in business or domesticity. And no one had to die. Except Gene. Sorry Gene.