Princess, the Pool, and the Purple Paper Kitty

Whew!  Today has been... interesting.

I obviously didn't take this photo today.
Read on and you'll see why.

For those of you that are up on the Crazy Train summer schedule, you know that today is our Wednesday Swim.  My girls LOVE the pool.  The sensation of weightlessness, plus the added bonus of uniform sensory input across all their skin at once, makes swimming very relaxing for my girls-- usually.  Today, the pool was a little less relaxing than I had hoped it would be.


Normally, we get to the pool early, before it gets crowded, and leave before the after-lunch crowd arrives.  Today, we were late getting to the pool AND the weather was swelteringly hot, so real estate in the pool was cramped-- like trailer park at the beach cramped.  We were elbow to elbow in the pool with about 90 of our neighbors.  As you can imagine, it got really ugly really fast for my personal space-loving ladies.  A little over an hour after we arrived, I was hauling my crew into the locker room so we could get out of Dodge.  You could say our autism was showing a little too much, and it was making several of the other pool patrons nervous.  

Several things led to us leaving, including Princess accusing a little boy of following her in the pool and then trying to swat him away. (It was crowded in there, dude-- someone was bound to be following someone else in there, just to get by the masses.)  She also spent half an hour crying because her goggles weren't working right, the water was cold, the sun was hot, and the ten-minute break was too long.  This drama should have been my cue to leave.  Instead of reading the tea leaves before me, like a good autism mom, and making the right call, I decided instead to let the kids get back in the pool so I could enjoy the sun just a little longer.  Ha!  I will not make that mistake again any time soon.  Birdie saw Princess's sensory overload as a wonderful opportunity to poke the hornets nest that was her sister and see what would come flying out.  Well, what came flying out was enough for us to leave right away, and for me to threaten that if THAT ever happened again, the only way those two would get wet again this summer was in the shower.  (Imagine two cats, tied up in a sack together, having it out.  Now throw that sack in the pool and you pretty much have what I had to deal with today.)

After getting home and snacking, Princess and Birdie opted for some low-key crafting to pass the afternoon.   Earlier in the day Princess had made a tiny two-inch tall purple paper kitty named Kitten, or Kitty for short.  She decided to spend her afternoon crafting time to build what she called the Fantasy Playground Habitat for Kitty, using construction paper and glue.  (Birdie got in on the action and decided to make herself a baby seal named Nippy and a Tiny Tundra Habitat for it, as well.)  Princess spent the better part of an hour making the Fantasy Playground-- which is really awesome, by the way.  It comes complete with a Milk Pond, Scratching Post Tree, Climb & Slide, and a Hidden Pocket House!  Cute and very creative.

The Kitty Memorial Fantasy Playground Habitat,
including gravestone and memorial portrait.

When the time came for the great unveiling to Kitty, Princess called me to come look at her masterpiece-- and discovered that Kitty was missing.  OMG!  Princess lost her goop and began calling Kitty.  "Kitty, where are you? (You do remember Kitty is made of paper, right?)  Stop playing around and come out here, THIS MINUTE KITTY! *balled fists and stomping feet*  Kitty, I'm not mad if you are hiding, JUST COME OUT ALREADY!  Oh no, Kitty?!  Kitty?!  Mom, KITTY IS GOOOOOOOONE!  I JUST KNOW THAT THE DOG ATE KIT-TYYYYY!  WHY DO WE HAVE SUCH A STUPID, PAPER-EATING DOG?!"  You would have thought that a real cat died, and that our dog had committed murder.  It didn't help matters that I pointed out the dog would only keep Kitty for a little while before depositing that little piece of purple paper in his litter box with the rest of his breakfast.  We had so many tears and so much drama for the next 35 minutes over that 2-inch scrap of Kitty-paper, that I began to understand how mom's accused of shaking their babies could say "I don't know what came over me.  I just lost it for a minute."  After much cajoling, and prayer, and threats of sending her to bed for the night at 3:30 in the afternoon, I finally convinced Princess to make another damn paper kitty.  She made a new purple paper kitty named Peace this time.  She also made a tombstone and a memorial photo of the original Kitty.  And she renamed Fantasy Playground Habitat as The Kitty Memorial Fantasy Playground Habitat.  There was even a brief dedication ceremony, in which Birdie said a few words of remorse for the "dead" Kitty and laid down catnip in front of the memorial photo.  It was ridiculously touching.

Nippy and the Tiny Tundra Habitat

At the end of the dedication, I felt I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.  The dead Kitty crisis was over, and Peace the kitty had been deemed an acceptable substitute for his predecessor.  All was well again on the Crazy Train...

... that is, until Birdie invited Peace kitty over to Tiny Tundra Habitat to play with Nippy-- and told Princess that Peace would need to wear a parka.  "A PARKA?!  I CAN'T MAKE A PARKA!  I'M THE WORST PARKA-MAKER IN THE WHOLE WORLD!  DO YOU SEE THIS CRAPPY PAPER PARKA, SISSY?!!!"

It's still not too early to go to bed for the evening.  I wonder if they'll miss me?