Where is My Mind

Back in August, fuelled by caffeine or testosterone or sweat or the sweet, sweet smell of fresh babytoes, I went on at some length about body image post-partum. Something about terrorists and body changes and life changes and pants? I’m not going to re-read the whole thing – like I say, I was on some kind of drug (endorphins?) and frankly I can’t imagine why I didn’t give a passing whoop-dee-do to the part of me I really want “back” now that I’m no longer pregnant.

My mind.

1. I think it’s 2006. I really do.
2. I leave the house at roughly the same time every day, to go one way or the other, often by bus. Every time I take a bus, I look up the bus schedule. They run every half hour. Every day, the same schedule. Every day I get on the 11:40 bus. Every day I look it up.
3. I wrote #2 earlier, after I looked up the bus schedule.
4. I walk around thinking I should email X, I should call Z, I should really do laundry. 24 hours will pass and I think I’ve done all those things until I get to the laundry, which is still dirty and then I realize I’ve done none of it.
5. This morning I trudged into the kitchen, slopped some milk into a coffee cup and then poured water into it instead of coffee. Mmm.
6. That’s the 2nd time this week I have done this.
7. I can’t remember the words to The Philosopher’s Drinking Song! This scares me because I have ALWAYS known the words (I was a very cute 2 year old, yes) and I’m afraid the post-pregnancy is going to eat even my old memory stores! (Not that I need the prices of Stilton in my head [$3.49/100g, 11 years ago] but there is a kind of security in knowing that I still remember the dumb things I haven’t needed to remember for years but still have always remembered.)
8. Sentences. Are. Hard.
9. I couldn’t remember Trombone’s name today. Just stared at him for a few seconds while it came to me. It’s not like I’ve go 6 other kids (Maria, Consuela, Orlando, Sebastian, Francesca, Gordito! WhoEVER you are!) to cycle through. Just the one.

My mind has lost its elasticity. I was setting about archiving this blog and looked at some of the stuff I wrote 3 years ago and it was witty. It made me say, “Heh! Witty!” like a chimp learning to speak. And then I cried because yeah, checkitout, my elastic brain is all sloooooowwwww and squiiiiiiishy now. Where’s my sock? Beans!

I did not give birth through my brain! There is no reason for it to be all stretched out!

Boing! Boing! BOING!

I know it will come back because I have seen other people have babies and they still have their brains. Isn’t there a loosening of ligaments in pregnancy? Where the elastin in the body gets augmented so your bits can stretch all to hell and back to birth the baby? Maybe I need elastin supplements. Is it in Jello? I would be willing to eat a lot of Jello. Especially the orange kind.

In those first few months I was so busy and hopped up on hormones I didn’t have time to care that I had no brain. But now that the infant is starting to self-amuse, I sit staring at my hands, thinking, the baby will soon be smarter than me because its brain is growing and mine is shrinking! And then I surf the ‘net and find all kinds of better written blogs than mine and then I watch more Tyra. Her hair is different EVERY DAY!

I guess, the way some people do crunches or go to the gym to lose that post-partum belly flab, I’ll have to get Saint Aardvark to greet me every morning with, “What day is it? What YEAR is it? What’s the sum of 4 and 12? Who was the first prime minister of Canada? What is your son’s name?” and make sure he supervises as I pour my first cup of coffee.