No Words

"I have baby brain... did you have that?" ...

The question left her mouth effortlessly, begging me to wonder whether she did, in fact, have baby brain.  I stared blankly back at my friend as we continued in our conversation, knowing the answer in my head and unsure how to put it into words.

"Vocabulary" I grunted.

She stared at me a moment... wondering where I was going with the response.

I reached for my coffee and took a large gulp, hoping it would help me find my words to explain.

"I've lost vocabulary... whole words.  They're gone."

She smiled, reassuringly, to indicate she knew exactly what I meant.  And I believed, in that moment, she knew what I meant, depsite not being able to clarify it the way I could have a few years before.

Doctors probably have a name for it, but moms call it baby brain.

Baby brain is when you build a baby for 9 months and in the process you lose vital nutrients and information that once allowed said female baby-maker to be effortlessly witty and prove a point to their spouses and baby daddys in a moment's notice.

Baby brain can occur at any time during pregnancy and, in serious cases, may not go away post-partum.

Men may confuse baby brain with being forgetful, but a woman rarely forgets things (think of all the times you've wronged her- she remembers) and women pride themselves in remembering things so let's not confuse the two.

When I was building my baby I developed baby brain.  I was suddenly, like, slower than I remembered.  I wasn't as quick-witted as I once was and I would sometimes stand in my kitchen and lose all sense of what I had gone into the kitchen for.  Back up the stairs I would trek, only to remember why I had gone into the kitchen, carefully make my way back down the stairs and, all at once, lose all sense of why I was in the kitchen..... again.

Baby brain is exhausting.

I had high hopes that when my baby was done utilizing my best intellectual resources the natural order of the world would see to it that I was again effortlessly funny and the winner of all arguments in the house.

Alas,

The world is still unbalanced.

I often find myself in conversations, searching for words and apologetically stammering "I can't think of the word right now..." and feeling incredibly flustered.

A woman depends on her words. 

I've lost many of mine.

They are there, somewhere in the back of my mind.  Right behind the shopping list, baby coos, and everyday Spanish words and grammar I use to communicate con mi hija. My big words, the real good ones that could make a grown man stare blankly and leave a child rolling their eyes are covered by mental notes on things I learned from BabyCenter.com and that other mommy website that consistently has me questioning my maternal instincts.

Words, I miss you.

Please come home.