I Used To Be Smart

Kids make you dumb.

Once upon a time, I was the kind of girl who planned things to the Nth degree, remembered conversations and events down to the scent some one was wearing or the color of their shirt, and obscure data about a song or movie. If you couldn't remember something, I was your go-to gal.

Those days are slipping away from me. I'm still very much a planner, and can still quote "Sixteen Candles" basically verbatim, but something has changed. Not overnight, but slowly. I believe the demise of my memory began 17 years ago on May 7th. That? Is when The Teenager arrived.

She was The Baby then, and a great one at that. But having children does something to you. You have to move fast, act fast, and place so much focus on these little creatures that some sense of your ability to retain information and speak intelligently erodes. Constantly having to ensure they're not swallowing something harmful, checking and rechecking that everything we could possibly need is in the diaper bag, and remembering to buy the exact right pacifier when the other was lost I think was the beginning of the deterioration. It's a hell of a mental bombardment if you think about it.

Some think this slowness of mind is due to age but I disagee. I have a bestie who will be 48 this year and never once have I known her to enter a room and said "Uuuhhh, wait. Why did I come in here?", or fogotten simple words when speaking ("I need those, uh... sharp, um, cutty things. What the hell are they?! Gah, the damn SCISSORS!"). What's the difference between her and I, besides the 5 years between our ages? She never had kids.

Once possessing a sharp and fast wit, I now find myself struggling for words and stumbling in my sentences. Fastidious scheduling has given way to forgetting the occasional appointment. Packing for every possible weather event during a weekend trip finds me leaving my damn jacket at home. As The Teenagers mind sharpens, I feel as though mine is dulling. And I just know that sometimes she thinks I'm a moron. I feel like shouting "I used to be smart!!" when she laughs because I can't remember her best friends name or what those things covering her feet are.

Maybe I'm in some way giving away my smarts to her, in some sort of parental osmosis. Maybe it's the years of listening Barney singing "the clean up song", being forced into action out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night by a puking kid, and having to repeat myself over and over a over just to get her to complete a simple task. Or maybe our aging brains just can't take it anymore and eventually rebel and betray us as a means to say "Ok enough is enough."

But all in all, I think...... that..... umm... wait, what was I saying?