A Million Little Pieces

Do you remember that book A Million Little Pieces, and how the author claimed it was an autobiography based on his alcohol and drug addictions, and Oprah rocketed him to fame with her extra special Book Club, and then it turned out he was lying about it and wasn't really the cool former junkie/felon he pretended to be?

I do too.  That book was published 10 years ago.  Do you feel old now?  You're welcome.

But seriously, ever since having children, I feel like my brain is in a million little pieces.  No hard drugs here, just falling apart au naturel.  It's like I can't get my brain to actually focus, ever.  It feels like the neurons in my brain no longer fire how they used to, and I can't think of words I need to use and feel just a little dazed all the time.  

It's hard to pinpoint when it started, but I think it's pretty safe to say it was the year of sleep deprivation that came with a newborn, and then the second year with the second newborn finally put me over the edge.  I'll admit, I'm kind of spazzy and high-strung to start with, but I think the number of times I freak out in a given week over "losing" my car keys (which are always sitting somewhere in the house) has grown exponentially.  Then, there are moments when I get really spazzy, and I probably shouldn't be on the road let alone caring for two small children.  Like the times I'm driving along, and then get a jolt of panic, and look up in the rear view mirror to confirm that, yes, I do have two children in the backseat and I didn't just accidentally leave one at home.  Sometimes a little screaming in the backseat is helpful to know everyone is present and accounted for.

Sure, it's no big deal when you're doing Playdoh molds or building a birdie nest out of pillows.  Probably having a whacked out brain makes that stuff a little more fun for everyone.  But, then there are the times when I'm supposed to be really concentrating or problem solving (like um, lots of hours at work) and my inner voice starts yelling at myself that I need to snap out of it and focus and stay on track.  

Oh that's the other fun thing.  Along with my brain being fried, I feel like I have a much louder inner monologue that is super annoying.  The voice in my head is constantly lecturing me, about how I'm running 5 minutes late, if only I had left 5 minutes earlier, oh look at the clock now maybe I won't be as late, oh shit I am going to be late still.  (A friend of my sister's purposefully sets her car clock hours and minutes off, so she won't know how late she is.  It's true, once you're in the car, there's nothing you can do about it anyway.  Might be worth trying.)  Or sometimes the voice is consoling me, like when I say something weird in passing to a parent in preschool and I feel all self-conscious about it, but I just need to calm down because that parent was probably half-listening to me anyway.  I swear this wasn't so bad before kids, either.  It's like the years of being with little babies who can't speak and having one-sided conversations out-loud with myself have spawned a crazy voice in my head.

The little voice also likes to sing a lot, and I think I make it worse by watching The Voice.  I get about 4 hours of singing from the tv, which gives the little voice in my head all kinds of material to work from all week long.

My theory is that I have entered a state called "mom-brain" and that a lot of us suffer from it and don't really talk about it.  Is this a fog that lifts as some point, or can I do some mental exercises to shake it?  Like maybe a little Sudoku or a crossword puzzle every morning to get the neurons going?