GAIL WHITE It's official: My mind has turned into jelly

I made a jelly and jelly sandwich this morning.
The peanut butter was sitting on the counter right next to the bread. I never saw it or even contemplated using it.
As I stared at the two slices of bread smeared with grape jelly, the realization hit me.
I have completely lost my mind.
It's been coming on for quite some time, the slow deterioration of my brain cells causing confusion, culminating to this point when I cannot even make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I believe I started losing my mind after my first child was born. I did the usual silly things that a new mother does. I walked out of the house with my slippers on. I showed up at church with all my makeup on, except for the blush because the baby started to cry and I forgot to go back into the bathroom and apply the color to my cheeks. I went to the store with the baby, the stroller, the diaper bag and toy bag, but not my purse.
The day I gave the baby the coffee and my husband the pacifier, we began to suspect a serious loss of mind.
Even that was dismissed as through the years, with more children arriving in our household, I began calling them the wrong names. My misnaming used to garner a rise out of my children. Now, they just roll their eyes, figure out which one I am really trying to talk to, and respond. My youngest child will answer to anything as long as I am looking at him and speaking.
'She thinks I'm the dog'
Even my misnaming has gotten progressively worse through the years. Once, I was looking at my child, running down through the names of all my children trying to address this particular one, and the dog's name slipped into the list.
My son was appalled. I tried to explain to him that I said the dog's name because the dog was the reason I was calling him. I wanted the child to feed the dog. Instead, my son thought that I thought he was the dog.
"She thinks I'm the dog," he announced to his brothers.
After he relayed the story, the boys immediately consoled him with reassurances that his mother truly does not think he is the dog. "It's just mom," they said with their fingers going in circles around their ears.
I could justify this morning's jelly and jelly incident: It's too early to be making sandwiches. ... I was actually going to make two sandwiches. ... I believe peanuts make you nuts... (Maybe that's my problem!) But an incident a week before the jelly and jelly has brought me to the conclusion that I am becoming dangerously brain numb.
Forgotten child
We were sitting at a freshman football game. One of the mothers had to go to a meeting and asked me if I would take her son Ben home after the game.
"No problem," I told her. But there was a problem. I have no mind.
After the game, I picked up my son, gathered my other two boys from their practice and headed home. Fifteen minutes after we were home, Robert was talking about his team.
"We have a great line," he was saying. "Me, Kyle, Chris, Ben ..."
My hands went up in the air waving frantically as I screamed, "Ben! Ben! Oh my God, I forgot Ben!" I ran out to the van, still screaming, still waving my arms frantically.
(It was a panic I had not felt since my fourth child was a baby and I pulled out of the driveway and left him sitting on the kitchen table in his car seat )
I backed out of the driveway at Mach speed and sped down the road. My family stood at the door, their mouths open with a queer, questioning look on their faces. They thought I had gone completely insane. They, of course, knew nothing of my promise to bring this child home. If they had known, they would have remembered.
I found Ben safe at home. He had called his dad after the game. I apologized profusely. They assured me my blunder had caused no harm.
Forgetting to buy milk is harmless. Forgetting to take the trash out on garbage day is somewhat offensive, but forgivable. Forgetting someone's child is an inexcusable act of mindlessness.
It's gone
This morning, when I announced the jelly and jelly situation, I saw the boys nod knowingly to one another.
They've been telling me I've been losing my mind for years. Between Ben and the jelly, they knew it had finally taken its leave.
My son came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.
"I don't like the peanut butter anyway," he said with a kind, sympathetic tone.
I looked at him with a pathetic stare of befuddlement. "Thank you, (pause) son." We both knew I couldn't remember his name just then.
gwhite@vindy.com