Mommy Moments
When “Mommy moments” are looking more like “senior moments”
By Melanie Lewis
Recently the dentist’s receptionist called and asked if I was coming to my teeth cleaning. I answered, “yes.” She said it was scheduled to begin 5 minutes ago. Apologetic, I told her I’d be down in 5 minutes. Hold the chair, please. It’s a good thing I chose a dentist nearby. About a week later my son had a friend over to play. Around the time his mom was supposed to come and collect him, she called. She asked if I could watch him for another 45 minutes. Her dentist had called with the same question. She had completely forgotten her dental cleaning appointment and was en route to the dentist chair. I had chalked mine up to extreme spacey-ness. I had checked my calendar in the morning, but by afternoon that schedule had gone out of mind. But, how could this happen to my friend? She carries her Smartphone around everywhere. How could her appointment skip town? It turned out she had forgotten to enter it to her phone. Is it dentist phobia?
Here’s another situation I witnessed. We were at a playdate and I was asking if her son had gone for his teacher conference. She gave me a panicked look and then excused herself to check on it. She came back with a despairing look. Then said it was yesterday. She’d forgotten to enter it to her laptop.
Oh, how I’ve been there! That panicked feeling strikes first, and then the search to the nooks and crannies of memory takes over. It stands to reason it can happen to anyone. We’ve been flooded with multi-tasking and constant distractions. There’s so much happening at rapid-fire pace, we’re left in a frazzled state. These situations were innocuous and easily remedied. But, what about the stories we’ve heard of babies forgotten in cars, or fires started because the grill was left on. Somehow we’ve got to gain control of the situation to regain sanity.
I’ve found that too much over-doing is a culprit. I may have been up for the break-neck pace once-upon-a time. But his is no fairy tale. My solution was to cut my hours at work in half. I limit each child to 2 activities. I’m entering appointments and events on calendar with alarm setting on my old cell phone as soon as they’re made. And I started taking a few minutes to organize myself at the beginning of the week.
There are moments still when the chime goes off on the phone and I can’t remember why it’s going off until I read the note on the screen. At least I’m getting to the dentist on time these days.
Melanie is the mother of 2 boys, 5 and 7 years old. They have a Ragdoll, named Percy and a Golden Retriever, named Rosie. She works part-time as a weight-loss consultant and is an independent Silpada Jewelry Representative: http:/mysilpada.com/melanie.lewis