A few weeks ago, I was in Hamilton and had the opportunity to go shopping with my Mom for a new pair of jeans, as my favourites had developed a hole in an "inconvenient spot". Thankfully, I noticed this hole myself and didn't need to have my attention drawn to it as my husband's students so graciously did for him a few years ago with a note left on his desk:
I digress. But this is the subject of my post in the first place, so I suppose I am allowed to digress. I have, since my childhood, been a somewhat scatter-brained and forgetful individual. I find that this condition has not become better with age - in fact, it has become worse with increased distractions. I constantly forget things and leave things behind, and my multi-tasking during the day usually means that lots of things get half-done. I'll start washing dishes, go to change a dirty diaper, then clean up toys in the living room, check the weather and clean the bathroom. By the time I make it back to the kitchen an hour or two later and discover that I didn't in fact finish washing the dishes like I thought, the dish water is cold and I have to start all over again. I will blame this on "Mommy-brain", although in all honesty, it is probably just a worsening of my original condition of forgetfulness that I have had since I was young.
This "Mommy-brain" not only has influence on my forgetfulness, but also my perception of the world. The other day, Peter came home with a colouring sheet he had worked on at school. He had written his name at the top, and I took a look at it and noted that although it was a little bit messy, and perhaps the second "e" was written backwards, it was definitely readable and I was impressed that he was writing his name on his own now. It wasn't until Mike got home and pointed it out that I saw that he had written his whole name right to left. Yeah, I didn't even recognize that my kid wrote his name backwards. It looked perfectly fine to me...
Back to the story of the jeans. So, I was shopping for new jeans, you know how that goes. I picked out a number of jeans to try on - I probably had about 6 or 7 pairs, and I made my way over to the change room. Once I had locked myself in, I turned to the pile to decide which one to try on first. To my surprise, my pile was not what I thought it was. Instead of 6 or 7 pairs of different jeans, I had a pile of 6 or 7 pairs of identical jeans. All the same size, length, colour. Hmmm. That was not how I shopped. Mom and I did a store-wide search for my original pile, which was discovered on a table where I had inadvertantly switched it with the stack of jeans for sale there. Whoops. So I tried on the jeans, and after a while I found a pair that I liked and we went to pay for them. We were almost out the door when Mom asked me where my coat was. Hmmm. That's a good question, Mom! I have no idea. Backtrack through the change-rooms that I had used, and I found it in the first one. I don't know how I manage to go grocery-shopping with all three of my kids and consistantly come back home with all three, as it is apparent that in my absent-minded condition, I can't go shopping without leaving things behind me in an amnesiatic blur.
Well, I think that's about enough embarassing revelations about myself for today. What embarassing things have YOU done recently?
LOVE this post! It's like you're living the same life as me! Jacob used to write his name backwards too! I did manage to leave one of the kids outside the school when i took the other ones inside for a potty emergency...I didn't even realize it until I went back outside and did the head count...oops =) thankfully there were other mom's around who kept an eye on my kiddo!
ReplyDeleteWhoops! I am a little paranoid about doing something like that... it's one thing to leave a coat behind, another thing to leave a kid. I'm glad the other Moms were looking out for you and yours! :)
ReplyDeleteI am sure I will do something like that too one day!
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