And you are…? Right. My children.
There’s a word for the condition in which you frequently blank on words but I can’t remember what it is.
My mom, who is going to be 70 in a few weeks, and I were talking about it after I held a Thanksgiving yam in front of her face asking if she wanted me to cut it up and neither of us could make our mouths form the word. For whatever reason, I could remember that it was a tuber, but not a damn yam.
OK, Googling it (forgetting words, condition, help!). The word is aphasia. I’ve had it ever since my kids were born seven-plus years ago, and it’s worse in periods of stress (Thanksgiving was stressful, as usual). The words come back, often in the middle of the night, when I find myself sitting bolt upright shouting “Yam!”
Naturally, every single mom I mention it to attributes it to “mommy brain,” the result of too much running around, too little sleep, and multitasking to the extent that your brain simply can’t conjure the information you need when you need it. But my having kids just happens to have coincided with my crossing into Formerly territory, so maybe it’s a Formerly thing. (more…)










