You Know You're Tired When... Your Car Smells Like You Are Hiding A Body In The Boot

Loved a discussion recently on my online mother's group where everyone had to finish the sentence: 'You know you're tired when...'

Some of my personal favourites were:

• when you repeat the same story over and over because you forgot you said it the first time;
• when you put orange juice in your morning coffee;
• then you forget too pull your knickers down when you go to the loo;
• when you think 2 consecutive hours sleep is a good sleep;
• when your house is full of sticky notes, and notepads, and you have a whiteboard prominently displayed in the kitchen; 
• and you still can't get the days of your appointments right, or remember milk;
• when you put a disposable through the washing machine;
• when you keep putting the washing machine on but forgetting to put the clothes in;
• when you say the wrong way around all your sentences;
• when you spray deodorant in your hair and hairspray under your arms;
• when you repeat the same story over and over because you forgot you said it the first time...

I think by and large you adjust to the lack of sleep and you think that most of the time you are doing just fine.  Sure, you feel a bit groggy, but other than that most of the time you don't feel any stupider.  

It's only when one of the little mistakes you make has consequences that you suddenly realise you are not as in control as you thought you were.  I was congratulating myself the other day for attending work for the third week of very little sleep due to my sick baby, and for successfully wading through some ten thousands words of dense legal submissions on one of my cases, that I overlooked the fact I spelled my email address wrong in one of the letters.  "Oh well," I said to my PA, "I'm still doing pretty well considering.  These things happen."

"You make a lot of typos these days," she informed me, helpfully.

Most typos aren't too bad.  I do have to type the word 'public' a lot in my government job, and as long as I have the 'l' in there, typos generally aren't too much of a problem.

But today I did one of those things that made me think I don't have my shit together after all.  I went to jump in the car to take Bethany to the shops.  I was carrying a bag in one hand and a wrap in the other, and juggling Bethany and an iPad as well.  I had to put the iPad on the roof of the car while I loaded it up, and as I put it there I thought maybe I shouldn't because what if I forgot and drove off, so I promised myself not to forget.... 

...and opened the door to the most putrid smell.  

Bethany was wriggling and upset so I strapped her in the car seat and spent a few moments trying to distract her with various toys before she was taken by a clothes peg.  Then I could turn my attention to the smell.  At least it didn't seem to bother Bethany.

Was it the empty Maccas wrappers?  No.  The old Big M carton?  No.  It took some searching before I located a bag of Lenard's chicken on the back seat.  I had bought it the day before yesterday, so it had only been in there for 48 hours, but in a town where the temperature at night is close to 30 degrees Celcius, 48 hours is well and truly too long to leave chicken in the car.  I ran the bag to the bins while trying to hold my breath.

Had I really not been in the car for 48 hours?  Apparently not.  I'd been trying to keep Bethany at home cause she was sick.  What to do?  Probably best to drive it with the windows down and the fan running.

How could I have forgotten to bring in the chicken?  How, when I was wondering what to possibly cook, did I not remember I had bought these chicken parcels, to solve this very problem?

I'm too tired, I thought.

Bethany started to cry so I quickly wound down my windows, wondering whether I should tell my husband about this or whether he would use it as an excuse to lecture me about the state of my car.  The state of my car is not particularly attractive.  It's a bomb of an old Corolla, where only two of the window winders work and only the driver's door handle has not broken off.  There are about twenty baby toys, several spare nappies and some those orange plastic bags for putting dirty nappies in, changes of clothes for me and the baby, water bottles, iced tea bottles, unused but crumpled tissues, clothes pegs, one of those shade things that's supposed to stick to the windows but has fallen down, and various unread books strewn over the seats and floor, a mess I always intend to clean up tomorrow.

I drive several minutes down the road before I decide there is not enough air flow and it would work better if I opened Bethany's window too.  I pull over by the Botanic Gardens and rush round to her side, remove the shade sock, and wind the window down.  It is only when I rush back around to the driver's side that I notice, out of the corner of my eye, that my iPad is still on the roof of the car.

Apparently promising myself to remember things is not a very reliable technique for a sleep-deprived mum.

I grab the iPad and wonder how long before I make the next stupid mistake, and when I will eventually make a serious one.