Mommy Brain goes Back to School

One of the easiest ways to tell whether I'm feeling stressed and overworked is my level of absentmindedness. It has caused me to do a lot of stupid brainless funny things in the past. But it has been a good summer. I've been very relaxed. I haven't had any incidents since the time I thought aliens had vaporized my father-in-law from the back of my van. It has been nine months since I threw my smartphone into the trash, and since I thought I had finally left those absentminded days behind, it might actually be safe to buy a new phone.

Then the schoolyear started.

And already I've had two Mommy Brain incidents.

The first was showing up for library duty two hours early. Usually I'm five minutes late, but even I'm not that eager to shelve books. It turns out I was thinking of The Pea's class library hours, but I was actually signed up for Jammy's class library duty that day. I put that one down to having too many kids, and had a good laugh about it with the librarian.

The second was a bit more embarrassing. Last weekend 3Po and I showed up at his classmate's house for a class party -- only to find out that we were one week early. The party is this weekend. The really funny thing about it is that the classmate's parents were actually having a party, so we saw all the grownups mingling and talking at the front door and assumed we were in exactly the right place. Of course, I failed to notice that everyone was in cocktail attire, while 3Po and I were in jeans and tshirts. 3Po's classmate's mother was quite amused and very understanding, and she pleaded with us to stay and have a drink, but having my Mommy Brain displayed in such an embarrassing way in front of so many (well-dressed) people was just too much, and I fled.

I know I'm not alone: these past few weeks, on my way back from dropping the kids off at school I've seen harried-looking parents literally running to school, dragging their kids along in the vain hope of getting to their classrooms before roll call.

Still, maybe I should wait until things settle down a bit before I buy a new phone.