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Honey, the Kids Shrunk Me |
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 Honey, the Kids Shrunk Me
By Amy Fulfer If you have ever been pregnant or spent considerable time with a pregnant woman, you have undoubtedly noticed that the mother-to-be had memory problems. In my case, that would be putting it mildly. While I was pregnant, I felt like I had nearly lost my mind. I couldn’t explain why I had put meat in the dishwasher to thaw, nor was there any logic to placing dry, dirty clothes in the dryer instead of the washer. My only consolation was that everybody I talked to had a myriad of stories about pregnant women who did equally bizarre things. So, when I found an article that explained that a woman’s brain shrinks during pregnancy and does not regain its normal size until about 6 months after birth, I was not entirely surprised. Honestly, I was a little relieved to find that there was some scientific explanation for my mental lapses. On the other hand, it is pretty hard to be happy about scientific proof of a shrunken brain ! At least I had an excuse for being unable to complete simple sentences or some explanation for walking purposefully into a room only to stand still a while, completely at a loss for why I was there.
I do think, however, that your brain can shrink more with stress, or the feeling of being pulled in too many directions. For example, one afternoon when my son was a newborn, I was standing at the sink, filling a pot with water to make some tea. My two year old was potty-training, and she wore a “wetness” alarm to help her notice the moment that an accident began and stop before making a mess. As I filled the pot, Elyssa's alarm went off.
"Hold it! Hold it!” I called. “Run to the potty!"
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