Mahmee Brane

The first time I heard about Mommy Brain, I was pregnant for the first time. I knew it was a real phenomenon, because a friend and I were on a driving historical architectural tour through an old Little Rock neighborhood, and as she was reading the guide, she asked me what a dormer was. I drew a complete blank. AT THE TIME, I WAS AN INTERIOR DESIGNER WHO ASPIRED TO BE AN ARCHITECT.

I was a pretty decent student back in the day. Though my dating life precluded me from making a 4.0, I was always at least on the honor roll, and I took my fair share of AP classes (and bombed the AP tests, but that's okay because my parents picked up the tab on my higher education). But now, you'd think I'd dropped out of school in seventh grade, not only because I smiled at and said hello to a cardboard cutout of a person at the commissary the other day, but also because of the skills I have lost.

I took home economics in grade school. Having always liked cooking and sewing, I was a class star. When Joe and I got married, it was not uncommon for me to make tortellini from scratch, and pursue other more advanced culinary endeavors. But some days now, I get overwhelmed by the idea of making a frozen pizza. To top it off, when I'm done, I've somehow dirtied every bowl, rolling pin, and cutting board I own.

I made an A in Global Politics back in college. I remember enough to tell you that some of the negotiations I enter with my children make the six-month Paris Peace Conference look like a leisurely stroll down the Seine. But you would think I'd never studied any instance of diplomacy, judging from some of the showdowns we've had around here lately. I've affectionately nicknamed Luke and George "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" and "Kim Jong Il". I'll let you guess who's who, but here's a hint--George is the short one. I would say for certain that diplomacy is failing with little Kim Jong Il as he enters the rough waters of toddlerhood, especially when I try to change his dirty diapers (or "nukes"), and I'm really hoping we don't have to enter a full-blown war.

I don't think anyone would say I aced Calculus, but hey, I took advanced math and mastered most of the principles. Today, I asked Luke how many strawberries he wanted with his lunch. "Too many pwus eweven," he answered. I stood there frozen for a few minutes, thinking to myself Carry the one, multiply the tangent of Pi, and I should be able to come up with the derivative of the number he's after. In the end, I sliced up five strawberries and told him that a train leaving Boston at 5:35 going 35 miles per hour crashed with The Little Engine That Could, coming from New York, going 42 miles per hour and carrying strawberries, and the contents of his plate was the aftermath from that wreck.

I'd come up with a clever ending, but I don't remember enough from my writing classes.