Brain atrophy

Do you ever feel like your brain is slowly wasting away?  As it if had atrophy?  Sometimes I truly believe this is happening to me.  Really!  I can recall times when I felt genuinely smarter than I do right now.  My vocabulary was greater, I remembered how to spell words, and did not second guess myself on diction and sentence structure.  There are people in this world (Warren) who remember most of what they learn and there are people who lose skills from not using them (me).  I can be quite studious when taking classes and score rather well, but I will not remember anything that I've learned unless I use those learned skills.  My sister barely pays attention in any class and still remembers everything.  I'm not sure exactly how that makes any sense.  Sometimes I think the theory of osmosis really works in her case because she falls asleep reading all the time.

And on to reading!  I used to read all the time.  Really.  I know it's strange sounding now.  I read the same books over and over in high school and still enjoyed them.  I read the books that I was supposed to read in college and enjoyed them, too.  No idea where that part of me went, but I rarely read anything for pleasure anymore.  I can't even remember the last book that I read purely for pleasure.  We had a game at church the other day and my question was "What is your favorite book", and the only books that popped into my head were books on autism or child-rearing for special needs children.  Seriously, in what world would those be considered a favorite book?  Those are mainly educational.  Now I could have said the Bible, but honestly, that kind of answer seems trite in church and not really realistic.  I would categorize that as more educational as well.  So much of me seems absorbed by gaining information that I seem to be losing information.  Does that make any sense at all?  It sometimes feels like my brain just can not hold any more information, so it decides to "brain dump" bits and pieces of knowledge along the way in order to make room for more.  If I could just learn to purge my brain of all useless knowledge... that would be fantastic. :)

baby bell pepper

Babycenter is such a wonderful invention to mothers who already have at least one child.  Before Benjamin was born, I used to paw over baby books and knew everything that was happening every week/month.  It was all so interesting!  It is still interesting, but I just don't have the time/energy to devote to reading about babies.  Babycenter will gladly send you an email (or ten) a day if you sign up, and some of them are very informational.  For instance, today I read that my baby is about the size of a bell pepper all tucked up.  Isn't that adorable?  Baby Bell.  We haven't come up with names yet, but I think that Bella is a cute name.  Too bad it's already the name of a pet in our family.  I doubt that Warren would go for that sort of thing anyway for a little boy since he is determined that is what we're having.  Not knowing is sort of fun, really.  

It just isn't the same

I find myself checking my email 8,000 times a day.  8 something or other is usually my big number.  You know, the number that you say when you're stressing a point about how big something is, or how much something costs.  "If that house didn't cost 8 million dollars, I'd buy it."  That of course is just an example because I wouldn't even be allowed in a neighborhood that had houses of that caliber in it.  Not in Virginia anyway.  8 million dollars in California gets you a very nice condo, however.  They might let me at least look at the pictures of it.  Anyway, so email is a nice alternative to actually speaking, but it just isn't the same.


So Benjamin and I were very spoiled in 2009 for a Navy family.  Warren was home nearly every single night- actually, he was home every single night except for the month of January and even then he was only gone for four days.  I wouldn't say that year was an easy year for him work-wise, but he was home at night.  Maybe not home to eat dinner at a reasonable hour every night, but he was home.  I find myself wanting to tell him things all day long lately.  Texting is the joy of modern day technology.  Got something you want to say, but doesn't warrant a telephone call?  Text it!  That should be my new motto in life, I think.  Warren's phone will not receive texts in Haiti.  Oh yeah, he's in Haiti in case you didn't already know.  I find myself picking up my phone wanting to text him when I'm out taking Benjamin to school or running errands and something funny has happened.  Texting is another great alternative to speaking when you have the option, but it just isn't the same. 

So we sit and wait and try not to get sad because there are literally thousands of people in worse situations than what we currently have.  I mean really.  We have a house, we have two cars (paid for, woot woot!), and we have so much food it's probably sinful at times.  It's hard not to get sad though when Benjamin looks at a picture of Warren and says, "Daddy work.".  Benjamin never said that before Warren left because he just expected his Daddy to come home every night. 

It just isn't the same around here.