Where did all the words go?

I recently read a survey that new mothers had done about what they liked and disliked about motherhood. I don’t remember exactly what the results were, the likes were baby smiles and first moments and the dislikes were things like loss of sleep.

Now all that is good, I could definately go for more sleep, but what I would really like back is my vocabulary.

I don’t mean my vocabulary in terms of big words. I’m meaning more the little things that I can’t quite articulate. The key words in a sentence that actually are what the sentence is about. The punchline per se. I get half way through a sentence and have to think really hard about the thing I’m actually talking about. I can picture it perfectly in my head, it just isn’t coming out that way.

So I could be telling someone about “that swimming box, water pit thing” (paddling pool), or be putting the “round-milk-holding-sucky-thing” (bottle) in “that light-up-go-round-heat-up thing” (microwave).

And if I can’t remember what the words I’m saying are, I definitely can’t remember things further down the track. I’m forever writing lists to try and remember something that I thought of and then either forgetting where I put the list, or forgetting what I was going to write in the time it took me to find the list.

I don’t remember being like this before having babies. But then apparently I don’t remember a lot these days.

“Baby brain” has been commonly blamed for forgetfulness during or after pregnancy. Something I would say probably blame at least twice a day on average.

But according to latest findings, baby brain doesn’t exist. Researchers of the study found that although pregnant women were frequently warned about the possibility of short-term memory problems, they didn’t find any difference between the women before and after pregnancy, or before and after motherhood, and there were no differences between the non-mothers and the mothers, and the pregnant women.

The researchers found that in fact, having a baby can improve mental ability and protect against degenerative diseases. So having a baby can change our brains for the better. “One might assume that women were more likely to have better, not worse, mental ability during pregnancy compared to before, and that the improvements could be permanent”.

So there goes that theory.

Maybe I’m just forgetting all these little things because my brain has a higher calling now, and doesn’t have time for processing trivial things like the word ‘microwave’ or ‘paddling pool’. Too busy when there are young brains to grow.

Now I was going to say something clever to finish this. But oh well I’ve forgotton.