End of church brain

I have diagnosed myself with a condition called "End of church brain." This is characterized by not being able to process non-native languages any more at the end of a busy 3 hours of church.

Actually, I was a little discouraged last week about how I still can't understand people half the time. Then we went to a baptism on Saturday, and I had a really easy time conversing with people. But after church the next day, it was all a fog again. I think I'm just going to have to face this reality that by the time I get 6 kids through church and teach two or three lessons in Primary to kids who still aren't sure they like me while keeping an eye on my baby wandering around putting things in her mouth, all in ASL, my brain is going to be shot.

It's sorta too bad that after church is really the only time I have to talk to people :)

I really don't picture this getting any better as I improve at ASL - I think the cause of brain fatigue is kids, not language processing. I mean, church is 3 hours of herding cats. I have this great dream of getting done with church not feeling like I've totally forgotten something important. Some weeks, it's announcing something. Or I forget to do singing time in Nursery. I usually forget my daughter in Nursery, and the Nursery teacher has to come find me to return her to me. (Seriously.)

Speaking of forgetting that same daughter, we went to a wrestling meet last week, and went out to the car after watching our friend that was competing. We got to the car and Lige asked where Martha was. Yup, she'd stayed behind. So I ran back to the school and found her with an official who really couldn't resist expressing his disapproval of women who leave their children behind. "Why did it take you so long to come back for her? She was here for, like, 10 minutes!" The other mothers and I totally laughed at him. He clearly didn't have very many kids.

So friends, since I can't beat it, I'm here to celebrate the messiness of life and be glad that I'm wearing my brain out in a good cause. If you see me and I can't talk to you, just send me home or feed me chocolate, and I'll recover quickly!