The Joy of Pregnancy?
Recently I have made the ultimate discovery: Every time you are pregnant, your baby will receive a part of your brain as a “welcome gift” to this world. I have evidence to support my point. Once upon a time, I had an “A” in College Algebra and advanced statistics. I knew birthdays, telephone numbers, and addresses of relatives and friends without having to look them up. That I would not pass elementary school level mathematics now revealed itself in a telephone conversation with a friend of mine a few days before we had a potluck at our house:
My friend: “So, how many people will be at your house?”
I : “Aehm, hmm, yes, let’s seeâÂ?¦”
My friend:”Okay, let’s make it easy. How many adults should I bring salad for?”
I: “Just bring a few bags. I don’t know. Let me countâÂ?¦Let’s seeâÂ?¦my husband and I and youâÂ?¦.andâÂ?¦. oh just bring some salad. It will be fine.”
My friend: “You don’t know how many adults?”
It took another five minutes for my friend to figure out how many adults would be there. I was simply unable to count to five. It is not enough that counting skills have vanished. Reasoning, common sense, reading, you name it, will leave at the same time.
Having a toddler at home and being pregnant with twins makes the calculation easy: �½ of my brain went to my wonderful little guy already. He is an intelligent little guy. That leaves me with �½ a brain. Each twin will get half of what is left, leaving me with nothing.
The process has already started although my husband tries to calm me down with “Honey, you are temporarily confused.” Temporarily? Yeah, right. I accept that it is normal to go into a different room to get something and forget what I wanted to get. It is normal for me to forget what I wanted to buy in a grocery store. Making a list, you say? Oh, I do make shopping lists if I could just remember where I put them. But it gets worse. The other day I introduced my husband to some friends he had not met. I knew the names of my friends but what was the name of the person I am married to for the last five years?
Preparing dinner one evening I cut up some tofu. Fumbling around in the refrigerator to find the soy sauce I wanted to sprinkle on the tofu, my husband (Joe is his name, by the way) asked me while cracking up if I would like to have some diet coke on my tofu. Rather bewildered I climbed out of the refrigerator, staring at him. “Why?” I asked, eying him suspiciously. Was he losing his marbles, too? He pointed to my coke glass with the tofu pieces in it. How did they get in there? I was so sure that I put them in the bowl. Well, I would probably have poured the coke in my tofu bowl or on top of the tofu wondering who would make such a cruel joke throwing tofu in my coke.
If you think that you only lose your “mind marbles” to your kids you are wrong. I considered myself to be halfway graceful. Today I call myself Walrus. My grace has left the building. It is not only the huge watermelon I carry as my belly although it might have something to do with it. Anything I touch seems to be slippery. Ninety-nine percent of all items I touch during the day magically swoosh out of my hands just like little rockets, landing on the floor. If I am lucky they are not broken.
My feet and toes are black and blue anyway. Corners grow as soon as I try to pass them, resulting in bumping my toes about 15 times a day and running into things. Why didn’t God created feet with eyes or sensors? At least the eyes could see where the feet go and immediately shrink or duck as a response to the imminent danger of being bruised once more.
The best situation to describe “the belly obstacle” is when I have doctor’s appointments. “Please go to the restroom. We need to get a urine sample from you,” says the smiling nurse. So I waddle to the rest room not knowing yet what I got myself into by her request. I snatch the cup, ready to perform my duty when I realize that the only thing I see is my belly. How on Earth am I supposed to pee in the cup when I don’t even see where it is? I sigh and aim as well as I can. Rest assured, I won’t tell any details. I can only say that every woman who produces the required urine sample should get a bonus, or at least an award.
While I hope that my grace might come back after delivery, I have bid farewell to my brain cells already. Maybe it is just a shift of intellectual interest that has hit me. As a single adult I enjoyed sophisticated talks. I enjoyed intellectual shows and books. I still could have that all but my interests have shifted. I am ways more excited that my toddler has captured the meaning of love; that he knows he is learning two languages and what a language is; and that he develops so many skills in such a short period of time. Above all he calls broccoli “brocci” which is the cutest word I have ever heard. Who needs a brain if you can witness the blossoming and growing of an infant into a toddler into a boy into a man? Nothing can beat that.
