I Forget

Sam Levenson once said "Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your children." Although I admit I am definitely battier than I was five years ago; more than anything, I am more forgetful.

There was a time when I prided myself on my ability to remember anything. I never took notes in school, needed a scratch pad as a waitress or forgot a cute boy's name. Now, I have to take notes in church, need a scratch pad in the grocery store and forget two cute boy's names quite often. And I'm the one who named them.

Now even though I can clearly see the linkage between birthing children and losing braincells, I must admit I come by forgetfulness honestly. My mother, God bless her, is the most absent minded woman on the face of the earth. (The exaggeration comes from my father). This is a woman who, when we were younger, would constantly be on a search for her glasses only to have one of us say, "Mom, they are on your nose." A few weeks ago, I found myself looking for baby C only to look down and realize I was holding him.

My mom is a fabulous woman. Incredibly gracious and encouraging, very kind and generous, and completely dotty. She has an amazing vocabulary (loves to read dictionaries- no joke) and uses it in these enormously long streams of speech which jump from topic to topic and somehow gradually fade to a point where she will stop and ask "What was I talking about again?" and look puzzled for a few moments whilst trying to figure out how she started a sentence talking about her mother's immense vocabulary and ended it like this.

Apparently, she and I are now competing for the loopiest-woman-in-the-family award. I will tell you two of our best stories. You decide.

Hers:

When I was in college, she missed my birthday one year. It was not a big surprise. Obviously, remembering is not her forte. But when she called me a few days later, I gave her a mild guilt trip. She sounded puzzled and said, "Jenn, didn't you get my message?" I said, "What message Mom?" She replied, "I called and sang Happy Birthday to you on your answering machine." After checking with my significant-other-at-the-time to make sure he hadn't accidentally erased it, I asked her again if she was sure she called me. "Yes," she replied, "I remember because it was SOATT's voice on the machine." "Mom," said I, beginning to realize that this was a classic mom moment, "MY voice is on our machine." She had called some random stranger and left a Happy Birthday song on his machine.

Mine:

I hadn't seen a friend of mine, from my work days, in several years. I had two kids and she was about to have her first. She was having a baby shower, and I really wanted to go, even though she lives about three hours away, in a different state. I diligently wrote the date on my calendar, scheduled a sitter for the oldest and did some shopping. That Saturday, I loaded the truck with goodies and the baby, and set out on the long, long drive to see my friend. I got to her house and didn't see any other cars. I thought maybe I had the wrong house, so I tentatively went to the door and knocked. I heard a "Who is it?", and recognized her voice. I said, "It is I, Jenni!" (Because of course, my grammar, in retrospect, is perfect) When she opened the door in her pajama pants, I burst out laughing. I just started shaking my head until she confirmed, "Um, the shower's tomorrow." I had written down the correct date, but somehow missed it anyway.

I have had to make some adjustments during my marble reduction. I carry a datebook now. I make lists for everything . I ask the kids to help me remember things. That works to some degree. A, however, is starting to catch on. I will ask him what I needed to get at the grocery store. He will reply, "Bread, eggs and M&Ms. Oh, and ice cream and popsicles, too, Mom." I use the camera on my phone to take pics of people and label them with their names. That is really handy. Now when one of my nephews asks me a question, I can just whip out the phone, scroll through and answer him by name.

Actually, speaking of that, I do have a funny name-forgetting story. We have a very fertile family. On my side, my three siblings and I have 13 8/9 children between us. One Christmas Eve, we were all gathered around the tree opening gifts. We are the sadistic kind of family that makes the children open gifts one at a time. My mom was handing out the gifts, when she called one of my nephews, Micah. My sister's husband from across the room said, "Micah? We have a Micah in the family?" He was dead serious. Thankfully, he wasn't Micah's dad.

Anyway, I have come to accept that I will probably continue on this steady decline. As we have more children, I may start getting their name's tattooed on their butts like Cabbage Patch Kids. Of course, they may not like dropping their drawers when they are fourteen so that I can remember to whom I am speaking. I actually bought some Gingko Biloba a few weeks ago and am going to start taking it. Um......as soon as I can find it.