I always think of mommy amnesia as the condition that wipes away the true memory of childbearing so that we have more kids later. I won't go into the gory details, but giving birth to my first-born was not pretty. And between the three kids, there was 6 weeks of bedrest, 31 days in NICU, 10 years of cholic (I won't name names), an emergency C-section and 150 pounds of weight gain. Yet somehow I managed to forget each difficult experience and go for another round.
Other signs of Momnesia might be things like putting your purse in the fridge, leaving your bible on top of the car (I literally went through one bible per baby), forgetting your child's name, leaving your keys in the bathroom at McDonalds, becoming clutzy and bumping into things (I might have been born with Momnesia now that I think of it).
Here is where I have been hit the hardest though - I have these ideas in my head of what an idyllic family outing will look like. Or what Christmas morning will look like. Or for instance, what a nice family bike ride on the beach for my birthday will look like. We all love each other, we laugh, we smile. We are wearing normal, clean clothes and we are polite to all those around us. We are grateful for life and for whatever experience we may be having together. So lovely. There are the ideas in my head, and then there is what is true. Usually after an outing together or a family holiday, I am making plans to sell my children to the zoo. And yet, I forget all this, and the very next week, am doing it all over again. Momnesia.
This past Friday we went to the Bates Nut Farm Pumpkin Patch. I was so excited to stroll the fields, watch the boys laugh and play, smell the cold, crisp fall air of...Escondido. I knew right away that there was going to be trouble when we picked up my oldest from school and immediately the punching began. And then they got along for five minutes because I told them the name of the pumpkin patch...Nut Farm. And I have three boys, so they loved the idea of going to a nut farm, and giggled about going to get nuts for a good five minutes. And then the punching resumed. And Ben wiped boogers on Isaac's face. And Ian threw a red rubber ball at Ben's face. And then we got stuck in traffic.
At the pumpkin patch, the weather was significantly warmer than it had been at our house which is closer to the coast. The boys were too hot. They were hungry. Could they get a giant pumpkin? They picked up rotten pumpkins. They made faces for the camera. They grumbled. And punched. They found a poor fake mannequin cowboy sitting on a bench and picked his nose, pulled his ears and tickled his feet to make sure he was really fake. Getting them to all three sit still for more than 20 seconds to get a photo of our day was like pulling teeth. I told them that I was leaving them at the nut farm and they would have to forage for food and raise themselves. Ben the five year old actually thought that sounded like a great idea. Sigh.This morning, I went for a run without the children. It was cold and grey. I had a thought in my head as I neared the house... "maybe they will all have cleaned the house for me while I was away. Maybe the house will be cozy, clean and smelling of pumpkin candles and fresh-brewed coffee." Momnesia.
What throws me off however, is that today, as I entered the house, it was clean and the boys were upstairs playing quietly (they were drawing all over their faces...but they were quiet) and the house smelled of pumpkin and coffee. Sometimes they actually surprise me and live up to my hopes for them. And it makes my Momnesia feel justified. Sometimes I want to sell them to the zoo, but I look back on those moments fondly. Momnesia.  |
| peaceful pumpkin patch |
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| Brother love |
1 comment:
I thought it was a fun day and that the boys did a great job... and I don't think I have momnesia.
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