Brains, must eat brains

I've spent today goofing off. Let's rephrase that. Today was Brain Gym Day. Good. That sounds better.

Since joining Facebook, the majority of my online time has been spent playing word, trivia, and geography games. Yes, I am a nerd. I was so pumped up last night over my Traveler IQ Challenge that I stayed up until late o'clock trying to identify the location of such places as Timor and Antwerp. Woohoo!

I have an ulterior motive for playing these games. During my pregnancy, I was quite shocked and angry to discover that my memory was failing me. I would forget words, places, people... everything that I held dear to my nerdy little heart. This is a cruel effect of bringing life into the world. Why must a woman's brain shrink when she is growing a person inside of her? Why must this effect stick around even after the tiny person is on the outside and rolling a baby bottle cap around on the floor?

Biology is cruel and unusual.

Sometimes during my pregnancy I would become so angry that I couldn't remember words, so I began to create curse words that have never existed. I would substitute these words for the thing that I couldn't identify. Such as:

Sarah: Mister, could you hand me the thingy?
Phil: What thingy?
Sarah: That thingy.
Phil: What?
Sarah: THE THINGY!
Phil: I don't know what you are talking about.
Sarah: Give me the ding dang thingy!
Phil: I still don't...
Sarah: Oh, hell. GIVE ME THE SHITFIST!!
Phil: Oh. That makes so much more sense.
Sarah: I'm going to kill you.


Not that my current pursuits are any more intelligent than that. I just played a game of "a ball" with Amos. It involved bouncing a super-crazy bouncy ball once and then catching it in my hand, then yelling, "A ball!" He would squeal in delight or make a hissing sound. Is that yay or nay, in baby talk?

I tried to make "a ball" more of a learning game by putting the bottle cap in one hand, the ball in the other, and then asking, "Where is the cap?" Amos would then slap the ball out of my hand while squealing. I would shake my head and say, "No." Then he would shake his head. Then I asked, "Where is the ball?" He promptly slapped the cap out of my and hissed. Then he crawled away.

Either Amos tires of his mother's attempts to create games, or his mother has yet to figure out the sophisticated rules to his playtime.

Who's on for a game of, um, Thingy? You know, the thingy game with the letters. You know, Shitfist Twist. I mean, Word Twist.

Damn it.