Dear Oliver,

‘Baby Brain’ is a phrase that’s thrown around a lot when a woman is pregnant.
Unfortunately, over the last few months (well, weeks to be fair) I’ve done very little to dispel  this stereotype.
In my defense, I’ve always been pretty clumsy.
One of your Dad’s favourite memories of me is when I accidentally punched myself in the face while I was lying in bed.
Aunty Ciara regularly hears me curse down the phone when I forget that you need to push a door open before walking into it and I constantly drop my phone onto my face when trying to read a message lying down.
I’m also the perfect height for whacking my sides off tables. A lot.

Although this pregnancy has resulted in less stays in hospital, it has exacerbated the dreaded ‘Baby Brain’.
I find myself mid sentence not remembering what on earth I was talking about or asking questions like: “Why don’t the ice caps fall off and go into space?” That gem was met with a stunned silence from your Father at lunchtime today.
To be clear, I know it’s because of gravity but for those two minutes I just couldn’t get my head around it.

The bad news is: this ridiculous condition is getting worse.

Last week, I decided that you and I would have dinner in the Living Room (it was gammon, mash, gravy and veg – this is important).
I sat my plate down and got you settled on your seat with dinner.
In the thirty seconds it took to do this I completely forgot that I’d already brought my dinner in and I settled myself on the sofa…right on top of the plate.
The cream, fabric sofa is now nicely decorated with gravy stains that squelched out the sides.
Your dad came home to find me sitting on the sofa with my trousers off watching tv.
He didn’t ask any questions and accepted this as normal behaviour – which should really tell you the level of insanity he’s been coming home to on a regular basis.

I’ve not let this culinary disaster stop me from being my usual domestic goddess self *ahem*.
I decided to make some butternut squash and red pepper soup to bring into work.
Being organised, for a change, I had it sitting waiting in the blender for me this morning.
You can see where I’m going with this can’t you?
I came downstairs ready to leave and switched the blender on.
If you’re curious, blenders work fine without the lid on.
You and your Dad came into the kitchen to find me covered in soup. It was a lovely orange shade that did nothing for my colouring unfortunately.

You may be reading this and thinking it’s all harmless fun but I haven’t got to the worst one.

Continuing with my domestic goddess-like behaviour, I was recently cleaning the kitchen before we were to head out to visit Granny Annie and Granda Seamus.
Before leaving, I could swear that I smelt something ‘odd’ but decided that it was my hyper-sensitive pregnancy nose.
When we arrived home, weary and ready for bed your Dad opened the door to the unmistakable smell of a gas-filled house.
I’d successfully managed to leave the gas on the hob on. For seven hours.
So after opening all the upstairs windows, we decamped to Granny Betty’s for the night.
Que sobbing Mummy who kept saying: “I nearly killed us all.”
As you can imagine, it was a fun evening for your Dad.
By the next morning the house had properly aired and it was safe for us all to come home again.
This incident has now resulted in me checking the hob at least six times before going to bed.

Now, I’m not one to be paranoid but I’m beginning to sense that you are not helping my condition.
You’ve started a fun habit of hiding things around the house which is making it difficult to figure out if it’s me losing things or you purposely finding new places for them.

So far I’ve found the house phone in the letter box, my keys in the tumble dryer and my glasses were last seen on your mischievous face. Don’t deny it, here’s the proof:

I’m begging you for a truce. My brain isn’t working at full capacity and this is just bullying.
I will remember this in later life – who am I kidding I won’t remember this by the time I hit ‘publish’.

Love always,

Mum