I almost wasn’t going to write about my first bloggy brainfart episode, it’s so excruciatingly indicative of my declining IQ.

But (deep breath) here goes.

Last week, at the boychild’s school, I’m in the lobby with some other mothers and nannies, patiently waiting for our little darlings to emerge from their after-school acting class.

[Aside: My son definitely has the entertainer gene. He is constantly directing our entire family to act out dramatic scenes. “OK, you be Spiderman, I’m the bad guy, you catch me in your web and put me in jail.” Subtle it’s not, but I love his confidence at the helm of the director’s wheel. I’m secretly hoping he’ll become the next Martin Scorsese and take me to the Oscars. Then I’ll finally be able to walk the red carpet.]

But back to the school lobby. Idling, I start chatting to a lovely woman  – another mother – who’s waiting for her daughter. Our kids are in different classrooms in school, but taking the same after-school acting class.

So we get to chatting about this and that – how we like the school, what our children like to eat – you know the drill – and then she tells me that her daughter is a twin. Her other child, the other half of the twin set, if you will, a boy, goes to another school.

I express my awe at mothering twins. Though I know we humans have the ability to adapt to almost anything, I do think that having twins, especially in the early days, must take brass balls.

And then I ask her: “Are they identical or fraternal?”

Identical or fraternal? Yes, folks, we are talking about a boy and a girl here.

“Um, fraternal” she replies, very politely masking an expression which seems to say “Is this woman a complete moron?” and then kindly explaining as she slowly backs away from me:  “Yes, um, they really can’t be identical, um, because….”

“Oh yes, of course!” I interject, saving this poor woman from having to explain the obvious, snorting out an embarrassed excuse: “You know how it is when you have children, you really have nooooo brain any more…hahahaha.”

Ha bloody ha.

The only blessing in all this? The conversation ended swiftly. Had the conversation taken place in another part of Brooklyn that shall remain nameless, my comment might have sparked all kinds of nuanced controversy reminiscent of a rather big brouhaha several years ago. We might have entered into a painful discussion of gender politics, as in how come they couldn’t be identical in spirit because girls are equal to boys and vice versa, and just because one has a penis doesn’t mean he’s a boy…he could really be a girl inside that penised body…and so on and so forth.

Gotta count your brain fart blessings somehow.