Distraction

Recently while reviewing a book for work, I was struck by a phrase turned by a father writing about his long-ill infant daughter. He said that he loves her "to distraction", and I knew with every cell what he meant. I have never been such a bumble-head in all of my life.

Not that I didn't see it coming. My childfree younger sister and I often kvetched about the difficulty of carrying on a conversation with our older, saddled-with-three-children sister. It started after the birth of her first, so the athletics-band-lessons-friends chaos of her current household could not possibly be the cause. She would start sentences that were never finished, and telling any one tale took her hours at times. You could go out for dinner, just the two of you on a special Friday night out, and at the end of the evening she had managed to tell one, maybe two stories of everyday life. It was like she lost half of her brain.

Read more about the joys of Motherhood. Other "Now I Know" columns include:

Introduction

Clutter

Equal Parenting

Grandparents

Memories

Pain

Photographs

Sacrifice

Preparation
Pride
Sentimentality

Later, as I was going through my own tribulations with trying to conceive and maintain a pregnancy, I heard that, indeed, some scientists are saying what has always been suspected may be true: women who are pregnant have shrinking brains which may not return to their normal size until well after delivery. When I told my older sister this, and that the researchers estimate mom's brain is back to normal by the first year post-partum, she laughed and said "it's more like five years!". Other friends with kids echoed her sentiments, also laughing with a sort of happy resignation. A bunch of giggly fools, content with being less-brained.

I confirm that this situation, this reported brain-shrinkage, must be true. For the first month after Toby's birth, in the words of another friend with children, I "sat and stared with my mouth gaping open" whenever anyone tried to converse with me on any topic other than Toby. What did I have for dinner last night? Um, give me a minute, I think I remember the word "dinner"... Even now, over three months later, I find myself searching for the simplest, most common words on a daily basis. Try being a writer when you usually end up flapping your hands in the air to finish questions about daily household tasks directed toward your smirking husband who now feels superior due to his larger vocabulary -- "oh, you know, the (flap, flap, flap) thingy....".

For this reason, I propose that new mothers should not be allowed to drive. I have always prided myself on my driving skills, and for added (albeit sexist) confirmation, the men in my life agree. I grew up driving in one of the toughest, most congested places in America and had mastered the art, except for one thing: I had never driven with my own child in the car.

We had planned to purchase a larger, safer car than my reliable, but tuna-can-like subcompact before the baby's birth; then he came a month early. So much for grand plans. So, I made plans to avoid driving him anywhere until his scheduled well-baby appointments; then, he had rising bilirubin levels in the first week which meant almost-daily trips to the doctor's office. I guess that I should be happy that I was broken in to this new driving experience quicker than many new moms. Now, I scoot about town in my tiny little car (thoughts of a bigger one have taken a temporary backseat) with my growing baby in his best-that-money-could-buy carseat, avoiding the swaying eighteen-wheelers, Metro buses, and the far left lane.

My point is that (and this is really hard to sum up, with my shrunken brain and all) I have never in my life been so utterly, dangerously, hopelessly distracted by another human being. The first day back at my office, someone asked me where my son was -- "safe", I answered. Laughing, she then asked me how I felt having left him with my sister -- "like I'm missing my liver", I stated plainly and without much thought.

Now, I can pack my diaperbag with the best of them. I can actually arrive nearly on time to appointments, child in tow, both of us fully clothed. I can get there from here. However, I must be excused while talking or driving (or, heaven forbid, both at the same time) -- I have a feeling that I will never quite master those, um, you know, again when my heart now lives outside of my body. Oh, wait -- did I already say that?

"Now I Know" first appeared on Moms Online, part of the Oxygen Media network (http://oxygen.com), and is reprinted with permission.