Nova Scotia

This week on the Crazy Train, we are very happy to have my mother and sister visiting with us.  Birdie was so excited about their impending visit, in fact, that on Friday, while awaiting their arrival, she planned a very special event for them.  When when my mom and sister got here, Birdie enthusiastically told them about the wonderful trip to Nova Scotia that they had the opportunity to be a part of.  Yep, that's right-- Nova Scotia.  Don't ask me why.

Image from Cross Canada Train Tours

By now, my mother and sister have learned that sometimes Birdie's big plans happen, and sometimes she moves onto other things before bringing them to fruition, so they weren't much worried about Nova Scotia.  After a few minutes of excited banter, Birdie moved onto a different topic, and that was the last mention of the trip on Friday.  Saturday afternoon, however, Birdie started making preparations for a day of "travel by train" to the vacation wonderland that is Nova Scotia.  She set up most of the top floor of our townhouse, including her bedroom, the bathroom, and the hallway, as different stops on the vacation tour.  She was very proud indeed of her Nova Scotia wonderland by the time she finished Saturday at dinnertime.  Everything was in place for the big event on Sunday.

"Corn Dog"

This handsome fur baby is my Buddy.  You may recognize him from my weekly Hairbrained Musings posts.  He is a bit of a local celebrity here on the Crazy Train.  He is the funniest, most ridiculous, most loving, most(ly) well-behaved (he is still a pup at 17mo) dog a girl could ask for.  He is also completely and undeniably stupid-- sometimes.

Dammit-- I AM smiling!!  YOU say "cheese" and I might look more excited.

Being a pup, Buddy still does "puppy stuff", like getting hyper for a few minutes and running around like a nut, or occasionally peeing in an "inconvenient" place (like on my mom's couch-- sorry Mom).  He gets a little "frisky" sometimes, too.  Especially around sweaty women-- and me.  (Notice I don't count myself in with the sweaty women, no matter what may be true.)  It's gross and funny all at the same time, the way Buddy will sit at your feet and whine with "desire" right before he jumps up on the couch and tries to make your shoulder his bitch.  Now that I think of it, it's actually gross and sad... oh, what am I saying?!  It's freakin' hilarious!  But I do hope that one day he outgrows his amorous side, or at the very least adjusts his sexual preferences to not include me.

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.  

The Funny Thing About Fear

At 5:18 a.m. this morning, I opened my eyes and instantly knew I would not doze back off again.  Rather than lie there for the next 27 minutes waiting for my alarm to go off, I rolled out of bed and stumbled downstairs to visit my best friend, Mr. Keurig.  After feeding Mr. Keurig a tiny plastic cup filled with magic, he showed me his gratitude by producing one perfectly brewed cup of sustaining life blood coffee.  By the time I returned to my bedroom, coffee in hand, it was only 5:27.  I had more than enough time to shower and dress before the kiddos emerged from their little caves and began to plunder the pantry at 6:05.

Unfortunately, I made one tiny error that led to very big drama.  I forgot to turn off my alarm clock.  Sounds like no big deal, right?  Wrong.

The Truth About Consequences and Noodles

Discipline is absolutely my least favorite part of being a parent.  My heart races a little just thinking about it.  I never considered when I looked at my beautiful brand-new baby girls that eventually they would need discipline.  They both looked too perfect to ever do anything wrong, right?  Besides, my parents disciplined me a certain way, and it must have worked because I turned out okay (mostly).  Surely what worked for me would work for my kids.  Hah... The past seven years of trial and error have confirmed that I was just plain delusional-- ignorant even-- about discipline.  I discovered that I needed a new bag of tricks for my darlings, and sometimes I needed a different bag of tricks for each one!  Geez-- why couldn't this be easier?  I expected to just know what to do!  I was told by my mother that I would know what to do for my kids, but this felt like a big fat lie-- right up until I started figuring it all out.