...think fast...

Mister Man is bright, no doubt about it.  He always has been.  His mind is a whirring, ticking, clicking machine.  He's always thinking.

Always.

Always. Even at 3a.m. when he wakes me up to discuss the designs for his invention for the upcoming science fair. 

Even in the shower...when lathering up and rinsing off gets in the way of 'his process'. 

Not a morning goes by when he doesn't come tearing out of the bathroom, towel barely covering the necessities, to impart some newly discovered wisdom to me.  That early in the day, it's usually about design specs for future Transformers.  Super important.  And always right in the middle of my breakfast prep so I drop something, splatter hot food, slice my finger, etc...  Goodness knows my concentration goes right out the window the moment my ears process his voice.  

(Motherhood...it's a danger zone!)

At any given moment (yes, probably even when he's fast asleep) his brain is racing away.  So often when I look over at him, he's completely still...frozen in place...his eyes fastened on some distant horizon.  Conversations with him are never linear...nor circular for that matter,  I suppose.  Rather, they hop about from one topic to another....unrelated in any logical way to all but him.  One leads into three more which dissolve into something else entirely.  Pay attention or you'll get lost.  I do.  All the time.  And then I'm stuck with my own frozen expression as I search endlessly for that dropped stitch in a tangle of topics. 

 He thinks fast.
I can't always keep up.
Our conversations jump all over the place.
It keeps things interesting.

(Maybe that's partly why I still read-aloud to him in the morning...I'm stalling before conversing until the coffee can kick in and give me a fighting chance!)
Lately, I've become much more aware of this...as though after years of unconscious acceptance my subconscious suddenly issued a broadcast one morning.

Alert! Alert! You're falling behind. You're missing the point.

Now, all the time, I find myself consciously struggling to keep up...to stay focused...to follow each thread as it weaves in and out of a conversation.  Emphasis on the struggling there.  I simply can't keep up. He switches from topic to topic so quickly...while it takes me several sentences in to even realize that the previous topic has been abandoned. By the time I catch up, he's already moving on to the next one.

I'm thinking of requiring an outline first! Or a pre-conversation warm up? Maybe flashcards? At the very least, an I.V. drip for my coffee? 

 ~Leanna