This time I’m losing my mind this time

I used to really freak out about things coming up missing.

Until I started losing my mind.

When the kids started school, we encountered the typical torrential downpour of backpacks-and-lunches-and-homework-and-notesfortheteacher-and-gymshoes-and-snowpants-and-boots-and-mittens-and-hats-and-coats-and-sweaters-and-waterbottles-and-snacks-and-librarybooks-and-popsiclepictureframes-and-and-and…

Something would always come up missing.

It was usually something small, say, a mitten, or a hoodie thrown aside during gym class.

I.
Would.
Freak.
Out.

I dragged my poor children up and down the halls, like some manic Indiana Jones looking for treasure, patting the tops of lockers, pawing through Lost and Found, forcing my kids to ‘trace their steps’ like some sort of sick Bad Cop.

We almost always found whateveritwas.

I’d lecture the kids about responsibility, and how important it is to keep an eye on their hats and coats, especially in zero-degree weather, and how inconvenient it was to drag them hither and yon finding all this stuff.

They listened.
They started keeping track.
They do a pretty good job.


And then,
I started to lose my mind.


It started innocently enough.

Where were my car keys?
Not that pocket, no.
Oh, my purse.
Huh.

Where is my grocery list?
10 minutes later, oh…here it is.
How’d it get there?

Waking from a sound sleep…
…did I take out the garbage?
Did I pack the lunches?
Or did I just think about packing the lunches?
Is there even school tomorrow?

I started losing my car in the parking lot of Big Grocery/Everything Store.

There were several close calls with…uh…’feminine products’.

I lost receipts and ToDo lists.
I lost the eyeglasses from my face.

Piles of work ‘in my hand’ just a second ago disappeared before I could walk next door to talk to the boss.

I lost a full grocery cart once. (I still don’t know what happened…I had filled it with groceries and was looking at lamps for some reason…turned around…and couldn’t remember the last time I had pushed the cart. Traced my steps and still couldn’t find the thing. Had to sheepishly re-shop. Thank the Jeebus I had no kids with me….)

Now, I could chalk it up to being really busy, really stressed with the ins-and-outs of two kids and their activities and school, and the hubby, and our jobs, the house, car trouble, the cat puking yet again, the injustices of the world we’re trying to undo, whatnot.

I could say it’s because I’m getting older.

I might blame My Stupid Thyroid.

And it might be a combination in greater or lesser part of all of them.

But the kids are catching on.

I can see that look in their eyes, whenever I morph into The Mom Who Lost Something, and I get that panicked ‘oh-shit’ look.

The kids are thinking, Oh no, not again…do we HAVE to lecture Mom about responsibility?
Silly, stupid woman.

I’m just hoping they put me in a nice retirement home.