I’ve met countless people since I had The Bean. I say countless, not because their number is so infinite but because I can’t remember how many. I literally couldn’t count them.
I can’t remember their names. I definitely can’t remember their babies names. Sometimes I don’t even remember them… I met them in a fug of baby insomnia and tending and grieving and feeding and crying and (after the last boob feed of the night) drinking. Now I pass them in the street and get a brain itch of recollection but hurry past before hey catch my eye and my face flushes beetroot to advertise the plain and obvious fact that I can’t remember their name.
After my long stay in Scotland last year (11 to 21 weeks) I returned to the mother and baby group in the village, fuzzy headed and baby-lagged.
“Hello!” bounced the head-girl-keen group leader and well-scrubbed-super-mummy. “We’ve missed you! How is F—-? 21 weeks now is she?” (How? What? Who?). I was stunned that she remembered me, The Bean, her age … (everything bar the fact that my mother had just died).
“Great thanks! How are…er…you and…er….the baby..ies..kidsss??”
All the Tigger went out of her. A steely glint of early morning lacrosse practices flashed in her eye. I clearly wasn’t the trooper she thought I was. I had forgotten her children. I was Not Her Sort Of Woman after all.
She turned her back just as I remembered “Satchel! No… Cosmo!! Ariadne?”. But it was too late. I was in Coventry, and there I shall stay. Ah well.
Now, as the first year is creeping towards being finished and I am starting to work again, I feel I may, possibly, at a push, be able to start using my memory, trusting my brain. And hey! I tell myself, all Mums struggle at the beginning. Everyone is in a fug. Mum solidarity will forgive you!
Last week I was leaving the swimming pool and I saw a woman I recognised. Experimenting with this new ‘up front’ attitude to my maternal amnesia “I know you don’t I?” I said cheerily and confidently.
She looked horrified. “No. No you don’t” she barked and ran RAN away… leaving my ‘lets have coffee’ smile suspended in the car park like a damp plaster.
Maybe I was Not Her Sort Of Woman either. Or maybe she’s still got the baby lag?
Nevermind. In the meantime, I’ve started to sneak off to the loo and type people’s names into my phone with a short description of their baby; Corrine, Sophie’s Mum (squiffy eye); Charlotte, Nicholas’ Mum (HUGE) etc. You get the drift…. God forbid anyone finds my phone.
Now where did I put it…?
bibs & nibs 