Classic Poopie To Do List: DON’T EFFIN’ FORGET!
Hi Poopies! Sorry I’ve been away for so long. Being sick just stinks. I’m up and down. Then up and down again and at the end of the day, I collapse instead of blog. I know you understand and I appreciate your patience and support as ‘ole Poops here slowly makes her way back to normal. You know it’s not because I don’t want to post to my Poops!
So yesterday I had the pleasure of finally getting out of my house and accompanied D on a playdate over at a good friend’s house. It was wonderful to be among the living and have a real conversation with an adult. At some point during our conversation, my friend and I started discussing the subject one of the articles I’d recently written for the Parenting section of Examiner.com (incidentally, my link is down below…please subscribe to my content, it only takes a sec!) Anyway, it was the article in which I gave tips for how to keep your house clutter-free and emphasized the use of keeping bins around. We were talking about various bins for a few minutes when both of our brains literally froze-up trying to remember the name of the store where I’d purchased said bins. It was, needless to say, a rather typical Mommy Moment for both of us. And we know we’re not alone!
How many times since becoming a parent has your brain failed you over the simplest thing? It’s amazing how often mine has retention problems. I will have something pictured in my head and on the tip of my tongue, but for the life of me, I can’t will my mouth to utter what the hell it is that I’m thinking! It’s crazy annoying and it happens all the time!!!! So what is this Mommy Memory problem all about? I had definitely been warned and then experienced pregnancy brain when both of my little gals were cookin’ in my belly, but I had no idea that this phenomenon would get worse and worse with each year of motherhood. Where have our sharp, precise pre-Mommy brains gone? And will we ever get back what we lost??
Just to give you an idea, more specifically, of what I’m talking about. Here’s a list of tof the top ten greatest hings my Mommy Memory has been responsible for recently:
1. Make a thorough to-do list of errands and tasks ole ‘Poops here needs to accomplish for the day and then walk right out of the house without it and barely retain a fraction of the items from that list. hence, accomplishing very little.
2. Tell myself over and over again as I’m running into the grocery store that we only need the following items: garbage bags, milk, bananas, pull-ups and sliced turkey. Repeat this list over and over again to myself while in the store and then without fail walk right out of the market without at least 1 item, usually milk…the one I need most.
3. Forget to schedule or cancel babysitters – chronic at this one, despite having a calendar of sitter dates on my phone and hard copy in the kitchen. I’m surpised these girls haven’t formed a mutiny and rebelled, vowing to never sit for me again.
4. Stood my friend up for lunch. Literally. This Poopie knows who she is and I will forever feel bad about the fact that she called me from the restaurant asking me where I was and, embarrasingly, I had to admit that I was standing in my kitchen in a towel having just taken a leisuresly shower (a very rare luxury these days) completely oblvious to the fact that I was 20 min late for our lunch date on the other side of town. This was one of my worst, most shameful Mommy Memory offenses.
5. Forgotten to send the PoopieGirls with snack during their assigned rotation. Once a month, we provide snack for their preschool class. Again, despite a reminder calendar, I have been that mom standing in the hallway outside their classroom with my hands completely empty when the teachers asks where the day’s snack is.
6. Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays. Please. Even with all the birthday reminder technology at my disposable, I will forget your birthday. It’s a sad fact of life, Poopies. My Mommy Memory really fails me on this one.
7. Important events and dates. I have a friend whom I literally confer with regarding all my dates. I jokingly refer to her as “my social secretary.” But it’s no joke! If I didn’t run this shit by her often enough, I would forget to show up for everything. It’s pathetic. She also knows who she is and is, no doubt, laughing her ass off right now.
8. Missed appointments. Oh, I’m really good at this one. Yep, I’ll get the reminder phone call from the dentist on my voicemail, I’ll have the little reminder card in my wallet and of course it will be on the calendar. But my Mommy Memory is a powerful force that will still enable me to skip the teeth cleaning and then have a look of utter shock and surprise on my face when I get the call from the dentist office wondering why I haven’t showed-up. If they were giving out awards for this one, Poopies, I would win first place!
9. THIS ONE IS CONSTANT: I will leave the house headed for a particular destination in mind and then before I even realize what I’m doing, I’ve completely missed the turn heading into the direction I need to be going. I did this yesterday! I needed to get on the highway heading west and literally drove right past it heading further in the wrong direction. Mommy Memory has completely usurped my brain power’s ability to navigate the car in a timely, efficient fashion. Please tell me I’m not the only space case out there who forgets where she is going sometimes!
10. Bills. Oopsie. PoopieDaddy is responsible for most of the bill-payin’ around here. But I do have a few things I’m definitely responsible for and I have to admit, I’ve had to fanagle my way out of a few late fees before when I’ve forgotten to pay my wireless bill. And of course the great irony here is that AT&T literally texts you reminders directly to your phone. Luckily, I’m very convincing and talk my way out of the fees (as PoopieDaddy says, “I could sell ice to Eskimos.”)
I never made any of these mistakes in my pre-Mommy life. So what’s the deal? Of course Poopie has theory! Ready for it? It’s actually quite simple…it boils down to this:
Our brains are already working overtime to keep up with our kids! I have to think of so many things throughout the day in order to keep them safe, healthy, fed, entertained, taught, referreed, clean, etc that there seems to be very little brainpower left over for Poopie’s thoughts. My memory is exerting all it can to remember all the important things pertaining to the PoopieGirls’ lives and schedules and routines, that it runs out of steam when it comes to reminding me things I need to know. And it manifests in things like yesterday when my friend and I are staring at one another like morons desperately trying to remember the name of The Container Store. We could remember the intersections it’s at and we could remember the name of Bed, Bath and Beyond, but it was like pulling teeth to get our brains to finally come-up with The Container Store. Sad, but true. And it’s a rather frequent occurence.
Ok, Poops now it’s your turn to get involved in the discussion. Please, please take a few moments and post your most recent Mommy Memory Moment. We would all really love to hear it and could definitely use a good laugh to remind ourselves that we’re not alone and that we all experience these forgetful, brain-fart moments throughout motherhood. I really hope you’ll share with us! I look forward to hearing that ole’ Poops isn’t the only one driving in the wrong direction, showing up at the wrong time or not even showing up at all!!!! : )
As always, here are my social media Poopie pleas (all of my SM buttons are at the top of my full site, just click and you’re there). If you haven’t signed up to follow the blog, please do so. You won’t regret it! The Poopie Community rules! Also, please follow my Poopie Pins on Pinterest and subscribe to my zany Poopie Tweets. And of course, if you haven’t liked the Poopie FB page (just search PoopieMommy and it will show up), please take a second to do so, it would be most appreciated. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! Here’s all the crazy links y’all! xxoo.
http://www.examiner.com/parenting-170-in-st-louis/meredith-johns
PoopieMommy on Twitter @MeredithJohns1
I’m laughing so hard right now. I literally have sOooo many stories and can’t think of one at the moment.
))
My husband refers to my right hand as my “iHand”…. My memory is absolutely useless without my phone and iPad.