Pay Attention

According to a book I’m reading, pregnant women become flaky and forgetful and have trouble paying attention. I have begun to notice this at work. You don’t know how many times I have needed to copy something and I stand up to go to the copier, walk to the copier, arrive at the copier only to get there and not even know why I’m standing there. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I have nothing in my hand to copy because I set it down on my way out of my office. Stupid!!! Wait, I did that before I was pregnant. When I told Brian of these pregnant woman characteristics he responded, “great, nothing will be different.” Rude, but correct.

I am already flaky and forgetful and unable to pay attention. These are horrible traits that I try and work on, but to no avail. Here is my favorite example. Brian called me at work one morning and we were talking about nothing in particular and he told me to listen to something he had read in one of his political science books. I told him to go ahead and read it. He’s reading…and reading…still reading. He stops in mid-sentence and says, “that’s it, I’m not finishing this.”

“What?” I respond. “Why not? I thought it was interesting.”

“No you didn’t, you aren’t even paying attention.”

“Yes, I am. I swear.”

“No you weren’t. You were whistling! I can hear you.”

Oops, I have a tendency to whistle when I’m bored. My bad.

However, while at work I have definitely learned it’s better to pay attention than make huge mistakes you regret. For instance, I always thoroughly check my work and make sure everything is right before sending out a condescending email to someone implying that they are idiots. There is nothing worse than sending an email to someone, believing you are completely right and they are completely wrong, and then realizing, after you hit send, that in fact, you are wrong. It’s quite embarrassing and has only happened once or twice.

Brian thinks that I inherited this from my father, which isn’t true because I was adopted. He thinks it’s one of those nurture v nature things, but I don’t agree. My dad is just stupid most of the time, which is not the same thing as being flaky. Being stupid is annoying, being a little bit flaky can be endearing.

When Brian and I went to Las Vegas last summer we took Brian’s mom’s cell phone to use in order to get in touch with my family who were also going out there for my sister’s wedding. When I gave my dad the phone number I told him repeatedly that this was not my number, we were just using it for this trip and he if he needed to get a hold of me for this trip, he could use it. However, my father doesn’t hear anything except this is my cell phone number. To this day he still calls the number and leaves messages on a voice mail that isn’t mine. I never return his calls. I am refusing to return his calls until he dials my home phone and leaves me a message on the answering machine stating that he has reached Brian and Jolynn. You don’t even know how frustrating it is. Plus, every single time he calls me he asks for my address and phone number. Every time!!!!

Alright, enough of that. I’m getting myself worked up. I do believe that this flakiness can be passed from parent to child, however, because Darby and Riley have the same idiosyncrasies. Darby more than Riley I think. Riley’s flakiness isn’t quite the same as mine. He doesn’t pay attention to how he dresses himself or how his hair looks or what he’s doing when it comes to homework. Those are the things I pay attention to. On the flip side though he can spend an hour setting up his little plastic army men into a huge war on the kitchen floor. So, who knows what’s wrong with him.

Darby, on the other hand, is very much like me in this department. I told a co-worker that every year Darby’s hair gets blonder and every year Darby gets blonder. The other morning Brian was talking to her, “Darby have you brushed your hair this morning?”

“No,” she replies.

“Well, if you want to brush your hair you should go brush it now. I mean, it looks okay, you can wait until we get home if you want, but the brush is out now if you want to use it. We’re going to pack everything up pretty soon and you won’t have a chance to use the brush before we leave.”

She looks up at him, sort of dazed, “what did you just say?”

“Oh Darby, never mind.”

I only bring this up because I have been spending the past hour and a half fixing something, that had I been paying attention to in the first place, wouldn’t have need to be fixed. Now, I have a huge mess on my hands that not only effects me, but about three other people. If only I had done it right the first time. Stupid!!!