Baby Brain - Guest Post : Fussy Eater's Mum

Baby Brain Bumper Cars

My husband, Mr Fussy, tells me that for a woman, I have a very good sense of direction and can handle our big 4WD on the country roads pretty well. Ah, thanks, love.

I also have a bit of a reputation for always being able to find a car park. You know, the ‘Holly wood Car Park’. The one that’s right in front of the shop you need to go into. When we are ferrying friends in our car, my husband puts me in the driver’s seat and then proudly announces to the passengers, “Don’t worry, she can always find a park.” And he loves it when I slid the car into a parallel park in one smooth motion and he can hear murmurs of admiration from the back seat. So I’m a fairly confident driver.

But when I was pregnant my driving skills disappeared, vanished, gone. Poof!

Just when I needed a close park the most, I could never find one. And as if that was not bad enough, I started bumping into things with the car.

At first it was just one or two gentle, barely noticeable bumps.

Then they became more like a big thud.

The signs of my pregnant driving skills are all around our small town. The dented pole outside the local grocery store, the black scrape of my tire on the curb outside the post office, a small roadside pole near our farm gate flattened; all to remind me of my bad case of Baby Brain.

The crack on the rear bumper where I took out a low concrete wall still makes Mr Fussy cringe. (But really, who makes walls so low down?) I’m still haunted by the memory of angry drivers honking at me as it took me 15 attempts to parallel park in the city one day.

It finally got the stage where I was afraid to get behind the wheel.  My Baby Brain had temporarily rendered me unable to drive a car. Blind spots had become baby spots. It was as if I was in La-La-Land.

And La-La-Land is exactly where I was one day when I cruised past our local police officer doing 80kph in a 60kph zone on the edge of town.

Darling No. 1 was sitting in her car seat, the Wiggles were playing on the radio, and I was 8 months pregnant with Darling No. 2.  I saw the police car sitting at the side of the road. I even waved a good country wave hello.  But it wasn’t until I noticed the flashing lights behind me that I realised what my baby brain had done. 

“The Wiggles made me do it,” I blurted out. 

He grinned and told me not to let it happen again. Believe me I won’t.

Fussy Eater’s Mum blogs over at Life with a Fussy Eater and she’s happy to say that her driving skills have returned and she’s safe to be behind the wheel again.