A Short Explanation of What’s Wrong with My Brain

By TMoM Team Member Laura Simon

I’ve been attempting to write this blog about motherhood for four hours now.

Why on earth would a blog take that long to write? Well, motherhood is why.

Every time I open my computer, it sets a predictable course of events in motion. I think the laptop might actually have an alarm on top, an alarm that is indecipherable to adult ears. Children and dogs, however, can hear it in a dead sleep.

Not only do they hear it, but it brings up every possible physical ailment, symptom, and need known to man.

Here’s a short list of the interruptions to date:

Someone had to poop. Not only did they have to poop, but they needed me to know. Not only that, but the toilet paper roll is empty, and the extra rolls conveniently placed in the bathroom are JUST outside their reach.

Someone hadn’t said the word “mom” for an unacceptable 45 seconds. But no worries – they fixed that two times over.

Someone squealed that they were catastrophically near starvation, despite being too full to eat another bite just 15 minutes ago.

Someone looked at someone the wrong way and a sibling fight ensued.

The door was left open and a dog escaped.

The cat fell in a bathtub full of water – and no, I am NOT making this one up. It was every bit as hysterical as you would imagine.

A prized Lego was lost in the cracks of the couch, never to be seen again. Not only that, but a sibling in another room was somehow found to be the culprit and a sibling fight ensued.

Someone remembered a riveting part of a YouTube video about video games and needed to tell me. Immediately.

Someone was afraid the FedEx driver stole a package.

There was a bug.

Someone needed to say “mom” again.

Everyone needed second breakfast.

Someone stepped on a Lego and will likely never walk again. (My level of sympathy, as a parent who has stepped on countless Legos: 0)

Someone heard a scary sound.

Someone was attacked by a very large hornet. Investigation revealed it was actually a hummingbird and no actual attack took place.

Someone had absolutely nothing to wear, despite have a full basket of folded laundry ready to be put away.

Someone was very near throwing up from hunger pains – despite receiving second breakfast just fifteen minutes earlier.

Someone needed supervision to go on a bike ride.

Someone changed their mind about the bike ride before leaving the garage and needed help getting the helmet off.

Someone found their math practice cruel and unusual.

Someone couldn’t find a favorite shoe. Just one shoe, though. The other was right where it was left.

Someone breathed wrong and caused an unavoidable sibling fight.

Someone reminded my that my untouched coffee was (still) sitting on the machine.

Someone wanted to talk about the dream they had two weeks ago.

And it went on and on and on.

Friends, if I act scattered and confused in public, this is why. I haven’t completed an entire sentence – uninterrupted – in 13 years. Even when I think they’re in bed, sleeping soundly, someone stumbles out to complain about a funny sound or a twinge of discomfort or a memory that just popped up and needed to be shared.

To be sure, I wouldn’t trade this for the world. Being the keeper of a child’s very heart is a privilege, and one I don’t take lightly. In fact, I daresay I might miss this in a decade, when I’m able to think straight for more than a minute.

But for right now, please give me – and all the overwhelmed moms – some grace. Our minds look like computer browsers with 364 tabs open, and the hard drive is working a lot harder than normal just to function. We might not be witty. We might not even make sense. We might have to ask you to repeat yourself. Twice.

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