By Beth Cato
After I gave birth, it seemed my brain had been yanked out of my body along with my newborn son. In those next weeks, everything became a murky fog, with calendar dates blurring and conversation threads lost in mid-sentence. The mental lapses made sense while I coped with middle-of-the-night feedings. "Oh, it's just 'mommy brain,'" other women would say with a laugh, relating how they left the store with groceries on their car roof, or showed up for an appointment on the wrong day with the wrong kid.
After I gave birth, it seemed my brain had been yanked out of my body along with my newborn son. In those next weeks, everything became a murky fog, with calendar dates blurring and conversation threads lost in mid-sentence. The mental lapses made sense while I coped with middle-of-the-night feedings. "Oh, it's just 'mommy brain,'" other women would say with a laugh, relating how they left the store with groceries on their car roof, or showed up for an appointment on the wrong day with the wrong kid.
However, months passed. Little Nicholas began to sleep through the night, yet I remained in a constant state of confusion. It didn't help that my sailor husband was often stuck on ship for long stretches at a time, leaving me to manage the house on my own. The days were a blur of diaper changes and feedings, with the occasional outing for groceries or a game night at a friend's house. And the game nights weren't that much fun when I could barely add 2+2 without pausing to think about it.
I told myself that I'd start to feel competent and intelligent again after Nicholas was a year old. Then I said I'd have time for myself after my husband returned from deployment. Then he returned, but was still kept busy on the ship for days and weeks at a stretch. I was still muddling along in my mommy brain-fog. Enough was enough. No more excuses.
I thought about my life pre-baby, pre-marriage, and then, pre-college. What brought me joy? What made me engage my brain?
I wandered through the house and found hundreds of answers staring me in the face: books.
Back when I was a kid and a teenager, I used to go through a book a day. Contrast that to the past year. I had read about five books, and bits and pieces of others. A lot of those books had been about pregnancy and babies, not the escapist historical fiction and fantasies I used to love. The problem was, I didn't sit down and read like I used to. I didn't know how to find time during the day, as everything revolved around Nicholas. By my bedtime, I was so tired that all I could do was sit in front of the television and vegetate.
I looked online, and on LiveJournal I found the exact motivation I needed: the 50 Book Challenge. Read at least 50 books in a year, whatever subject or genre I wanted. Members could post book reviews on the community, creating a huge database of new and old books to recommend or revile.
This was what I needed, a brain-booster that didn't involve price comparisons on diapers. Goals always worked well for me -- give me a deadline, and I can get a task done. For a long time I hadn't had any ambition other than to sleep, eat, and keep the kid clean and happy. Now I had a goal of my own.
I began to follow the online community and within days I discovered new books of interest. I compiled a wish list, and ordered some fresh reads. I tore apart my bookshelves and organized the books I already owned so I could start whittling my way through my unread stockpile.
January 1st arrived. I had my resolution for the year: 50 books, and no excuses. I started reading.
A few days into the year, I saw someone had already read five books. Wait, what? I was already behind? No way. My competitive spirit kicked in.
I found time where it had never existed before. I read as my son watched Sesame Street. I read as I ate lunch. If I rode the bus, I brought a book in my purse. I read as I stirred pasta for supper. I read before bedtime, even if it was just a few pages. I brought my own books to doctors' waiting rooms so I wouldn't squander time on magazines.
My brain awoke from hibernation. I could recall what I did on a certain day or week, simply by remembering the book I read at the time. And I admit, for a long stretch I was the dreaded stay-at-home mom who could only talk about her kid. Now I had new and exciting things to discuss, whether it was the latest bestseller I learned about in a review, or my newly completed read about the settling of the western United States. At my moms' group, I struck up a friendship with a fellow reader. We talked books and new releases and favorite authors.
Then my son Nicholas started joining in.
He knew his letters and numbers, and he began to recognize the black squiggly lines in the books I read aloud to him. He saw his mommy reading -- and obviously enjoying what she was doing -- and he began to bring me armfuls of books. "Read?" he'd ask in his hopeful little voice. Therefore, it only made sense that when he was two, the very first word he read on his own was "BOOK" on a store sign.
I had started out with a selfish goal to bring my own brain back to life. I did that, and more. I showed Nicholas the joy of reading. Reading also became a habit and wasn't something I squeezed into the day. If I sat in a chair for more than a minute, that meant I needed a book. Nicholas began to do the same.
Now it's not uncommon for my lanky first-grader to bring a stack of books to the couch and stretch out for an hour or two of reading. I sit in a chair nearby with a cat in my lap and a book in my hand.
We're together and reading, and all is right with the world.
I told myself that I'd start to feel competent and intelligent again after Nicholas was a year old. Then I said I'd have time for myself after my husband returned from deployment. Then he returned, but was still kept busy on the ship for days and weeks at a stretch. I was still muddling along in my mommy brain-fog. Enough was enough. No more excuses.
I thought about my life pre-baby, pre-marriage, and then, pre-college. What brought me joy? What made me engage my brain?
I wandered through the house and found hundreds of answers staring me in the face: books.
Back when I was a kid and a teenager, I used to go through a book a day. Contrast that to the past year. I had read about five books, and bits and pieces of others. A lot of those books had been about pregnancy and babies, not the escapist historical fiction and fantasies I used to love. The problem was, I didn't sit down and read like I used to. I didn't know how to find time during the day, as everything revolved around Nicholas. By my bedtime, I was so tired that all I could do was sit in front of the television and vegetate.
I looked online, and on LiveJournal I found the exact motivation I needed: the 50 Book Challenge. Read at least 50 books in a year, whatever subject or genre I wanted. Members could post book reviews on the community, creating a huge database of new and old books to recommend or revile.
This was what I needed, a brain-booster that didn't involve price comparisons on diapers. Goals always worked well for me -- give me a deadline, and I can get a task done. For a long time I hadn't had any ambition other than to sleep, eat, and keep the kid clean and happy. Now I had a goal of my own.
I began to follow the online community and within days I discovered new books of interest. I compiled a wish list, and ordered some fresh reads. I tore apart my bookshelves and organized the books I already owned so I could start whittling my way through my unread stockpile.
January 1st arrived. I had my resolution for the year: 50 books, and no excuses. I started reading.
A few days into the year, I saw someone had already read five books. Wait, what? I was already behind? No way. My competitive spirit kicked in.
I found time where it had never existed before. I read as my son watched Sesame Street. I read as I ate lunch. If I rode the bus, I brought a book in my purse. I read as I stirred pasta for supper. I read before bedtime, even if it was just a few pages. I brought my own books to doctors' waiting rooms so I wouldn't squander time on magazines.
My brain awoke from hibernation. I could recall what I did on a certain day or week, simply by remembering the book I read at the time. And I admit, for a long stretch I was the dreaded stay-at-home mom who could only talk about her kid. Now I had new and exciting things to discuss, whether it was the latest bestseller I learned about in a review, or my newly completed read about the settling of the western United States. At my moms' group, I struck up a friendship with a fellow reader. We talked books and new releases and favorite authors.
Then my son Nicholas started joining in.
He knew his letters and numbers, and he began to recognize the black squiggly lines in the books I read aloud to him. He saw his mommy reading -- and obviously enjoying what she was doing -- and he began to bring me armfuls of books. "Read?" he'd ask in his hopeful little voice. Therefore, it only made sense that when he was two, the very first word he read on his own was "BOOK" on a store sign.
I had started out with a selfish goal to bring my own brain back to life. I did that, and more. I showed Nicholas the joy of reading. Reading also became a habit and wasn't something I squeezed into the day. If I sat in a chair for more than a minute, that meant I needed a book. Nicholas began to do the same.
Now it's not uncommon for my lanky first-grader to bring a stack of books to the couch and stretch out for an hour or two of reading. I sit in a chair nearby with a cat in my lap and a book in my hand.
We're together and reading, and all is right with the world.
http://www.chickensoup.com
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий