Whenever someone tells me that pregnant women are (is there a nice way to put this?) ‘easily distracted’, or perhaps ‘not operating at tiptop mental ability’, my knee-jerk reaction is to think, “Hah! I haven’t lost my key in MONTHS, you stereotying moron!” Then I lose my phone; then I cry.

However. Ever since we returned from our bucolic American travels, I have been doing things which are unexplainably stupid. And I guess I’ll take “seven months pregnant plus jet-lagged” as an excuse, if the only alternative is “getting old and losing brain cells”. Behold:

-I threw out the silverware. Not the good stuff, thankfully, but the ones that came with the kitchen. I had collected them to store for the unfortunate tenants who inherit our furniture when we leave: yellow plastic handles, child-size fork prongs, you wouldn’t think a person could wrap them neatly in a bag and then put the bag in the trash instead of the cupboard, but that is exactly what I did.

-I tried to give Henry a haircut by myself. Without remembering that to cut a two-year-old’s hair one needs a minimum of four arms: one for scissors, one for comb, two more for pinioning the struggling victim’s arms to his sides lest he end up with scissors in his eyeball.

-I bought two kilos of cherries at the grocery store. I hate cherries. They are sitting in my refrigerator making me feel bewildered right now. What was I thinking? What am I going to do with them? Any ideas?

-I washed a black dress with the towels. Now I have beautiful pale-blue towels which used to be white, and a gray dress.

-I make appalling spelling mistakes, ones that I can’t seem to get right: gorcery store, dishwahsing detergent, midevil art. Luckily, my handwriting has degraded to the point where I am illegible anyway, so it doesn’t matter too much.

-Every time I put a Sesame Street movie on for Henry, I watch the first few seconds thinking, “Where did this come from? I don’t remember SuperGrover trying to fly off with Big Bird -” and then I remember that we only have five of them, each of which I have seen five hundred times or so.

-I am constantly moving my books and forgetting where I put them. This morning I found my current read (“Gothic Tales of Terror, Volume 1″) in the freezer. Where I put it while I was moving vegetables around in search of ice cream (which I had put in the refrigerator with the cherries. Maybe I had fruit sundaes in mind? or soup?).

-Perhaps best of all, I keep forgetting I am pregnant. I am constantly trying to sleep on my stomach, or wondering why my shirts don’t fit the way they used to, or having amusing little mental arguments like:

“No, you can’t have any martinis.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t remember, but there’s a good reason. Please put the drinks menu down.”

I have ten weeks to go before Baby’s due date, and frankly, the potential for bigger and more stupid mistakes is a little disconcerting. Maybe I should hire a personal assistant to keep track of books and diaper changes and whether or not I remembered the ice cream. Now that sounds like an attractive position:

Household assistant needed: must be willing to deal with grocery mishaps, mislaid keys, and lost cell phones in an efficient and cheerful manner. Sympathetic, reassuring character a must. Compensation: your weight in gold.