Pregnancy Brain: Take 3

One of my fears has been recently realized. Pregnancy brain — or the new fun term I just learned called “momnesia” — has worsened for me the third time around. While these are playful terms, the pregnant public and also new moms are no strangers to memory problems, poor concentration or absent-mindedness.

Ahead of my second daughter’s birth, I wrote about how I’d asked for yogurt to drink or mixed up “Sbarro” and “Subaru.” Full disclosure: I still mix up the pizza chain and car dealership even when not pregnant. While considering Subaru as a larger vehicle for my growing family, it was painfully worse.

At least I’ve finally figured out the multivitamin thing and no longer try to take my prenatal vitamin multiple times a day or forget to take it at all. I am, however, going through body wash twice as fast. I’m unsure if I’ve used my body wash. Therefore, to be safe, I’m obviously using it two times and adding body wash to my grocery list more frequently.

Sure, most moms call their kids by each other’s names. However, me calling my oldest daughter, Charlotte, by the name of her younger sister, Riley, and vice versa, is just the beginning. A visiting relative once noticed Riley’s nose was running. I grabbed tissues and wiped Charlotte’s nose by mistake. Thank goodness Riley finally turned 2 because having whole milk and 2 percent milk was constantly surprising the wrong daughter. I’m incredibly thankful for one type of milk in the house now.

One of my more unique pregnancy brain moments was throwing away the toilet paper holder instead of the cardboard roll the other week.

I also may or may not have done everything to get the wash ready but forgot to push start. I was highly confused when moving a load of dry clothes to the dryer.

Total absent-mindedness and pregnancy hunger took over the other week too. My husband and I were making Elmo-themed cupcakes for Riley’s second birthday. To make Elmo’s smile, I needed to remove the Oreo cream filling and cut the cookie in half. A truly tough job, but I was up for eating some filling. I thought I’d eaten only three cookie fillings. My husband, Scott (who I, of course, shared some cream filling with too because I’m not a monster) attempted to correct me on my math. His count was eight cookie fillings. Did I mention they were double-stuffed Oreos? I’m still going to agree to disagree on that count, but mathematically, it was more cream filling than I needed to eat.

I wish this was an isolated incident, but another time, Scott and I were going to split the last taco. Then I ate the entire thing. Scott wasn’t going to call me out on it. Five minutes later, I looked up and said, “Wait, weren’t we going to share that? Did I forget to give you half?” The answer is yes. Yes, I did.

Poor concentration was on full display during this recent conversation with my husband:

Scott: “Where was I when that photo was taken?”

Me: “I think you were on Adam’s bachelorette. No, I think you were on your bachelorette. Or dear God, I mean bachelor party.”

Here’s the bigger question: Are these incidents all due to pregnancy brain or just me casting blame?

I’m not going to overthink it because clearly that helps no one. Instead, I’ll ride these last few weeks of pregnancy brain blame while I can.

Toddlerisms Follow-Up Story

Thank you to my readers who had such a positive response to my toddlerisms story! Toddlers really do say the darndest things at an endless rate. Due to popular demand, I’m planning a follow-up story that also showcases stories from my readers. Please email me at Lburke15@gmail.com to share your stories or funny one-liners from the tiny people in your life! I look forward to laughing with you soon.

Lauren Burke Meyer is a Severna Park native who was inspired to write Lauren’s Law as a humorous play on the well-known Murphy’s Law adage: “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”