my latest column…

After each of my kids was born, I went through a stage of mental fuzziness. Phone numbers that had been locked away in my brain for years suddenly seemed just out of reach, names evaporated from the tip of my tongue, and every day my car keys, which I could swear I had set down on in the dining room, seemed to get sucked into a magical vortex and spewed back out someplace else, like the foot of my bed, or the refrigerator.

And I shudder to remember the times - plural - that I wore mismatched socks or forgot to take off my pajama pants before I left the house.

“Yep, you’ve got mom brain,” women around me would remark when I trailed off in the middle of a sentence.

Now, scientists have finally confirmed what we moms knew all along: “Momnesia” isn’t just something dreamed up by a bunch of addled and sleep-deprived new moms … it’s real.

Moms may go hazy on the details after giving birth, but experts agree that it may serve an important biological function: keeping our children safe. An article in USA Today by Liz Szabo surmised that our brains may just need to refocus themselves in order to ensure an infant’s survival. The parts of your brain that aren’t focused in on keeping your baby alive, are “sort of taken offline,” said neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of “The Female Brain,” in the article.

“Taken offline.” I like that metaphor. It sounds businesslike and organized, something I definitely did not feel when I forgot to file important paperwork, pay the cable bill or check my voicemail for days at a time.

But fear not, new moms: momnesia doesn’t make you stupid. Instead, the article suggests, you’ll become smarter, more efficient and learn faster once your brain adjusts. And certain parts of your brain - the parts that are worried about your baby’s safety, development and well-being - actually go into overdrive. “You’re on the mother beat all the time. It requires certain parts of your brain to work hyper, hyper, hyper well,” Brizendine said. “But it requires other parts of your brain to play second fiddle.”

That would explain why I lost track of what day of the week or sometimes even what month it was, but could tell with amazing accuracy how long it had been since my baby had been fed. I couldn’t keep concentration long enough to finish a chapter in a novel, but could focus on a game of “your feet are soooo stinky” as long as Owen kept smiling. I tuned out most background noise, but could detect a change in his breathing or the tiniest whimper from across the house.

One unexpected side effect of momnesia? It affects your long-term parenting memories. I learned this when my older boys started asking questions like “What was my first word?” and “When did I start walking?” I’m amazed by how much I’ve forgotten about their babyhood - even the adorable stuff I was sure I’d remember forever.

My “baby” is now almost - gulp - two-and-a-half, and during the last year or so I’ve seen signs that my brain is slowly but surely returning to normal. I’m back to reading entire books from beginning to end instead of starting one, getting two chapters in and forgetting about it until I find it under the bed a few months later. OK, so I still mix up my kids’ names, but I might be doing that forever.

Having been in the throes of momnesia for most of the last ten years, I wonder if I’ll be amazed at how well my brain functions once Owen’s 4 or 5 years old. On the other hand, I think I’ll kind of miss that slightly fuzzy, baby-focused mindset. In a culture where we’re all expected to be running around here and there and thinking on our feet all the time, it’s nice to be able to take a mental break and just hone in on a sweet little baby.

So moms, if you’re feeling a little scatterbrained, don’t worry about it: it serves a function, and it’ll pass. But take it from me: do get out that journal or baby book and start writing down those cute things your baby is doing.

Now. Before you forget.