That sounded better in my head

Bryan used to jokingly ask after Noah was born if I was losing brain cells through my boobs. His amusement at his own joke lasted only long enough for him to realize that the smirk on my face was not in fact mutual approval of his creative wit and honest sense of humor, but was instead a look of "that comment just cost you access to these boobs for the rest of our newly shortened marriage."

I do not profess to having been a "50 cents in late library book fees", Good Will Hunting "smarty" prior to children, but I do know that my commendable B+/A- IQ has settled somewhere around a solid B- since my third child. You can imagine the depths of my despair when someone tells me to "bring my A game". My mental response, which at one time would have stayed in my head, but is now also my verbal gift to the world, is this: "That was impossible before children, ass-munch, to say nothing of my "A game" now." These comments are not appropriate in front of friends, to say nothing of complete strangers. You know that awkward silence that follows close-ended questions like "So, where are you from?" and "How many kids do you have?" That space of silence, that moment after those easy questions are answered and there is a feeling of "Now what?", that is my specialty. It is at this defining moment that I realize I have now made the effort to converse and that the conversation has reached the limits if its initial efforts. This is where my B- game steps up and brings his good friend Stupidity. While I'm thinking how not to let the thread of conversation come to an end, it is as though my mouth forgets to wait for good manners and propriety and says "Oh, Noah picks his nose like that, as though he's digging for brain matter, does little Joey always go to a corner and eat it afterwards, too?" And this is where I get the "Did that just come out of your mouth?" look. I know it well.

I used to think it was the lack of adult conversation that was responsible for the inappropriate comments I make at inappropriate times like the poor woman who, upon being introduced to me the other day, said "I may not remember your name. I didn't take my meds this morning and I often forget", to which I jokingly commented "Since children, I don't remember names either and there are no meds for that disease." Perhaps it is just a long history of social awkwardness or a genetic disorder that makes me predisposed to saying before thinking. I feel safer in my home most days, away from the lurking conversational disasters that await me outside my doorstep, safe from the sound of crickets that follow in the aftermath of my spoken words.

Parenthood is, I think, one of the most crippling jobs at times. It is certainly the most demanding, often requiring that you "bring your A game". Nobody tells you it will be this hard or that when it gets hard and all the kids are screaming at once, your over-exhausted, under nourished brain is quickly closing the doors to its' more complex departments in order to keep the reverberating noise contained so that the migraine that is already growing at the base of your skull can't grow to be quite so large. They don't tell you that once those doors close, you lose the keys. What is amazing about parenting, though, is how all of this brain collapse is conveniently counter-balanced by the fact that being a parent and bearing witness to the moment when your 2-year old finally says " I wuv you" back, makes it the most rewarding job as well. I wonder, though, how comforting all the "I wuv you"'s will be when I'm old and my children have claimed my old brain cells for themselves. I suddenly and completely understand mid-life crisis.

My optimistic mother tells me it's a permanent phase, this early dementia. If so, my kids are indebted to me for a lot more than just breast-milk and Bryan won't have to worry for too long about sleeping on the couch for his own inability to filter his comments. Chances are my limited brain capacity means I won't remember why I put him there in the first place.