Family Lexicon

Two of my precious daughters are expecting right now, one due to deliver any second and the other in January. In conversations with them, they commented how their minds seem completely preoccupied with being pregnant (go figure), which sometimes impacted their ability to remember or think of other things, or to communicate normally in conversation.

From that and similar conversations of late, we’ve added three new words to our family lexicon: pregaphasia, pregnesia and pregnasia. Allow me to offer up suitable definitions.

• Pregaphasia – an inability to properly use language to communicate due to being pregnant.
• Pregnesia – an inability to remember dates, times, people, tasks or one’s own name due to being pregnant.
• Pregnasia – the combination of symptoms when experiencing pregaphasia and pregnesia at the same time.

You are welcome to add these new words to your personal lexicon in daily conversation. Perhaps in a few years we’ll see them added as generally accepted words in the English language. If we do, just remember they were invented by pregnant Card women and those that love them best.

While you are borrowing words from our family lexicon, here are some more great ones:

• Hunamuna
• Rackemshrackem
• CNDREND
• Dinglefarb
• Dorklamation

What new words are in your family lexicon?

A piece of notebook paper

A piece of notebook paper

Sliding across the sidewalk

Making only slightly more noise

Than the rustling leaves

Keeping it company

On its aimless, wind-driven trek.

On the grass now

Doing lazy back flips,

Resting now and then

To whisper to the leaves.

It does not belong there

Among the lounging leaves

Speaking of summer spent –

This thing of man,  

Harsh against the fading pastels,

The lingering echoes of festive Fall

Skittering along,

Nudging each other

Like unruly school children.

I pick it up to dispose of it properly.

In my hand now,

The paper soiled and scuffed,

Its war wounds trying to obscure

The delicate loops and curves

Of a message carefully written.

Reading the words

I am an interloper

In the heart-song of secret feelings

Committed to ink on paper.

Love tenderly expressed.

Hope and longing exposed,

Reaching out from words

Risking everything

By simply being penned.

In my hand,

The paper soiled and scuffed,

Love carelessly discarded

To be driven by the autumn breeze

That now speaks of winter coming

More than summer spent.

Gently I place this emblem of love lost

Back among the leaves

To be carried away 
With the fading colors

Devoid of life,

Driven by the mindless wind.