Wedding Guests Gone Bad!

We had much anticipated going to my cousin's wedding! There were trips to the used clothing store to make sure they all found a dress to wear, some girls even found shoes they liked too! We counted down the days, we inquired regularly which day we were one, how many were left, if the wedding was tomorrow and on and on. It was exciting looking forward to the big event! They planned to dance up a storm and stay up LATE!!!

The venue was a summer camp and anyone that wanted to could stay on site in one of the cabins at no charge! Woot woot, free accommodations and no driving home late at night in the dark! Sweet!

The wedding was held on the beach of a lake and it was a cool, overcast day with a bit of a breeze. Then just as they were saying their vows, the clouds parted and the sun shone down on them. It was pure magic! Their daughter was the flowergirl and she came over to us to share the flowers from her basket with the girls and everyone else nearby until it was empty.

After the ceremony, there was a bouncy castle and bubble blowing station for the kids and hors d'oeuvres for us!

As tends to happen with big events, things ran late and the reception didn't get started until late, which meant the dance, which was what they really had their hearts set on, didn't get underway til almost 10pm. They hit the floor with gusto and hopped and twirled their hearts out, with me, with Grandad, Grammie, Daddy, Aunt Cathy, any cousin they could pin down and also random girl who happened to be near us was also fair game. Then Honey got sleepy. Then Sweetie started winding down. A bit after 11, Murray decided to take them to get ready for bed. I stayed with Lovey and let her dance her butt off a little longer. At 11:25 I decided I'd better pull the pin on things as school was starting soon and I didn't want to have a ridiculously late night.

Little did I know, it was already too late. We were doomed. I got back to the cabin with Lovey and grumbling commenced about things. Squabbly conversations sputtered and sparked as we looked for PJs in the near dark (no electricity, just a small flashlight). We headed out to the bathroom for the final brush and flush and that's when things got U G L Y.

The bathroom building had open doors. In the woods. Where b-u-g-s and s-p-i-d-e-r-s live. Guess where they like to head when there are open doors? Yep. IN. There were spider webs on the ceiling, some moths fluttered around the lights and some spiders were sighted. *insert freak out here*

I'm SCARED.
It's GROSS IN THERE MUM!
I'm NOT using the bathroom in THERE! (despite 27 trips earlier in the day)
TAKE ME HOME.
WHY CAN'T WE LEAVE?
I DON"T WANT TO STAY HERE.


Knowing their bladders couldn't possibly last the whole night, I tried to convince them they had to go in there or out in the bushes.

WHAT?!?!?!?
NO!!!!!!!!!!
I DON"T WANT TO!!!!!!
I CAN'T!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
I WON"T!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NO MUMMY NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!

Finally there was just one hold out but she had her heels dug in good and strong. Finally I pushed her into the least spidery stall of the three and made her sit and she promptly took care of business while simultaneously maintaining the loudest and longest and shrillest "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" in the history of girly girldom. The bride's brother appeared in the main entrance to the building, looking concerned and uncertain. Yikes. How embarrassing. He's of course overheard all this drama. Well this is awkward now isn't it?

Him: uhhhh. everything ok here?
Me: yes, sorry, just a sudden case of arachnophobia gone wild.

With a sheepish laugh I turn back to the girls to try and talk them into quieting...... why is he still there?

Him: I just want to make sure everyone is alright.
Me: (perplexed. it's just overtired girls overreacting) oh yeah, it's just the spiders.
Him: (not going anywhere just yet) ummm. well, so..... are you, uhhh, their mother?
Me: Yes. They're tired and need to get to bed.
Him: (still not leaving and now unsure if it's safe to do so or if I'm an axe murdered about to chop them to bits) Oh. yeah. uh, ok then. I have a daughter too, I guess I'll find out about this someday. (hesitantly leaves)

Now I'm good and cranky, he's probably going to phone the police because we can't get our hysterics under control. I march them out and head for our cabin. But it's pitch black everywhere and I've picked the wrong path. and the wrong cabin. and the wrong cabin again with moany groany whining trailing in my wake as we stumble over roots. Then we double back, except this isn't where we started from.... ugh! I see the lights of the reception hall and go back up there and then find the proper path. I think.... "Murray????" I hear him answer so I know we're on the right track and we get back into the cabin.

Only to start up a new chorus of "I don't like it here." "This cabin is DIRTY and GROSS!" "Can I go sleep in the van?"  "I just want to go HOME!"  Of course these things were mentioned at top volume in our whiniest tones and with full on tears. It was the most misery in the smallest amount of space I've seen since the infant days when  I was trapped in our living room with 3 inconsolable preemie infants and just praying to hold on til 5:00 when Murray would be done work. The shrieking and caterwauling went on til after 1am and somehow one of them fell asleep. The other two decided that if they HAD to stay there, they'd hunker down inside their sleeping bags and pull the top over their heads. This created a new conundrum. It's freaking hot when you do that. So we grumble and groan and thrash around a lot, in case anyone hasn't noticed our discomfort. "Settle down and stop rumbling around over there!" "I'M HOT!!!" "Well unzip your bag a bit." "I CAN'T. A spider might jump around and get inside my sleeping bag!!!!"

Murray tried to reason with them that it was no worse than sleeping in our tent. Well they didn't like it THERE either! "Fine. we won't be doing any more camping either then!" Nothing we said was making any headway so we changed tactics.

I played some soft music on my phone and laid down with the most hysterical girl and finally got her calmed down and the thrasher eventually passed out from lack of oxygen, exhaustion, heat stroke or a combo of all three. After awhile I crawled back to my own bunk only to be awakened a few hours later by the same girl I'd left not that long ago! She was hollering, terrified a spider was coming for her. I was too sleepy to stir right away and told her to come crawl in with me. No dice. It was way too risky to walk across the room through the throng of web spinning monsters (that were never actually spotted by the way, it was the POTENTIAL threat that was cause for alarm). This must have been around 5am or so. She was hollering that she wanted to leave NOW. Murray asked her to hold it together so he could get another hour's sleep so he'd be able to stay awake to drive home. Ever heard of the honeybadger? Well she cared even less than a honeybadger. Deciding to take one for the team, I dragged myself out of my bunk, grabbed her, sleeping bag and all and stuffed us into my bunk and told her she could stay there ONLY if she was quiet or I was putting her back. Zonk! Never heard another peep out of her.

Around 8am, I heard a little male voice asking a question. It almost sounded like he was IN our cabin with us. Then I heard my cousin Shawn answer him and although he was speaking fairly softly, EVERY WORD WAS CLEAR AS A BELL. OH dear heaven. There is NO way on earth that any nearby cabin wasn't affected by the parenting fail of the century.

We gave them a quick hushed lecture on the horrible events of the early morning hours and warned them within an inch of their lives to get their stuff gathered and to get out of there without a scene. We packed up in record time and slunk off without making eye contact with anyone else. Luckily not many were up and about yet. We didn't stick around for the brunch and gift opening party. I'm afraid to think of the conversations at that event!

There wasn't anything to eat so we drove home for breakfast. Not one of them spoke a word the whole way home. Murray's pretty sure they were afraid to! Over an hour and a half of silence in the vehicle is practically unheard of so he must be right!

How the angelic faces below turned into such raving lunatics, I have no idea but lucky for them, they're so cute and loving during the day. All I can say is that it will be awhile before we let them stay up late again, special event or NOT!

Ice Ice Baby!

Things you never thought you'd see at the beach: ice pellets! The girls recently enjoyed their first hail storm. They were so entertaining to watch as they ran inside, donned their bathing suits and rain boots and zoomed back out where they commenced to dance, twirl and exclaim to their hearts' content over this natural marvel! They also brought their umbrellas out but we had to confiscate those once we saw lightning in the distance. They were scooping up handfuls of the pellets and throwing them, eating it and couldn't get enough of it. Eventually the thunder and lightning got closer and we had to cancel their party, which of course was disappointing! They enjoyed it as long as they could though!

New Cousins!

This year at the cottage, we rounded up some extra cousins for the girls to play with! Murray's cousin brought his family to visit and it was SO MUCH FUN! Their daughter Kia was just a bit younger than our girls and they all played with her and she fit right in perfectly. Their son was almost the same age as Mr Bojangles so there was some boys to offset the girl craziness in there. For the most part all 6 of them ran as a pack, sortof like a louder, gigglier version of doing the Locomotion. They kept themselves entertained and there was always somebody to do something with. Their crew runs a pretty tight ship though and we were left in the dust every time at the "Getting Ready to Go Anywhere Olympics". We would plan an activity and I was still saying "ok, girls, get..." and bam. Those other 2 kids had bathing suits on, sunscreen slathered and towels & beach toys ready and were left waiting another 45 minutes while we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off and a lot of "Why haven't you turned your iPod off yet?" "Why is your bathing suit on the floor instead of on you???!?!??"  So embarrassing when it becomes blatantly obvious that we have no clue what we're doing as parents!!!

Despite our dilly dallying, they still hung out with us and we had one of our best visits that week I think. Happy, busy kids makes a world of difference! We swam, got them converted to our "eat meal, have fruit, get dessert" brainwashing, played Pictionary, had meals outdoors, jumped off the wharf and just enjoyed the great weather and wonderful company!

Paddleboard Adventures

 Grampy got a new toy for the cottage, a standup paddleboard! We've had it out a few times this summer and although I can NOT manage to stay upright on it, others have had more success. Apparently a good centre of balance is key. The trainer at the gym shakes her head in dismay and mumbles to herself as I tip over during some balance move or other "I just don't get it! I have worked on this with you for years...." She doesn't realize I HAVE improved. I never even used to be able to get into a balance move to tip OUT of!

I think Lovey had better luck after she got used to it but the other 2 seemed to get the hang of it faster than we did! I don't think I managed to stay upright more than 2 or maybe 5 seconds. Lovey did better than that so I'm the paddleboard challenged one in the family!

Music Camp

There's a church around the corner that has great camps every summer. They're just in the morning and have lots of great themes. There's a craft week, a science week, VBS week, music week and a few others. We can't make it to them all but we hit several and they have a great time there. It gets the morning in and we still have the rest of the day free for visiting, chores, pool or whatever.

This was the first year they were home during music camp week and they loved it! Honey had a lead role in the play and worked so hard all week learning her lines. I couldn't believe how big her speaking part was! She's not normally one to be centre stage so I wasn't sure how this would pan out! She was a little nervous and spoke a bit quietly but the microphone picked up all her dialogue and she did great! She was so cute in her royal finery and you could tell she was having fun!

Lovey couldn't have been cast in a more perfect role. She was HILARIOUS! She got to be a musclebound guy who parades around showing off his physique and flexing for the crowd. As soon as I heard what her character had to do, I knew she'd be awesome and I was right. She owned that stage (so says the proud momma!) and the audience ate her right up!

Sweetie was most comfortable in the chorus and learned all the songs and also worked on the fabulous decorations during the week. The songs all had actions and she had it all down pat and looked great doing it. Every day she came home telling us of all the fun stuff they'd done that day to get ready for the show.

Grammie had to be away but Grandad made it for the big show and said it was well worth the trip!  We thoroughly enjoyed it ourselves. The youth director and her crew deserve a huge pat on the back for pulling this all together in 5 mornings!

Long Awaited!

Finally! I think Sweetie was the first one to start asking about getting ears pierced so it was surprising that she was the last one to get it done! Although, with her tendency to worry about everything to the extreme, I guess it's not totally shocking. For several weeks after the other 2 got theirs done, she really didn't say much. Then came the day they could change their earrings. Then she started telling me she thought she was ready to go back and wanted to know when I could take her. I told her we weren't going until she was POSITIVE she was ready. By the end of the day she was pretty sure and the next day she said she wanted to go do it, but she wanted it to be a surprise. I had taken the other two shopping while she was at gymnastics the day before so we just told them it was her turn to go. They immediately pounced on her though, asking if she was going to get her ears done. We deflected and evaded but they were suspicious. Earlier that day at camp, Sweetie had told Boo that she was planning to go, and Tulip overheard but they told her it was a secret. Tulip has a hard time with secrets! She told the other 2 while she was over for a swim while we were gone.

Anyway, we got to the mall and headed back to Claire's. There was a young guy working who told me they didn't have any consent forms left. Luckily I had the old one from when she balked, still in my purse. Unluckily, I'd already signed and dated it and they wouldn't accept any initialed changes (wow, they're more stringent than the bank I used to work for!!!). After we left, Sweetie said she was glad we couldn't go there because she was nervous about a boy doing her ears! We found an esthetics store that could do them for her so all was not lost.

She didn't take long picking out the earrings she wanted and then took her seat. I love her face as the first ear was getting pierced! She was really bracing herself! As soon as that was in, she smiled in amazement, and exclaimed happily "that was NOTHING!!!" She still held her breath for the second one just in case though LOL

The clerk noticed she'd put in the wrong stud though and out of the side of her mouth, to me, said "I'll give you 10% off"  and then explained to Sweetie what happened and talked up how pretty the wrong one was. The only choice was to take it out and make a new hole so we went with the pretty mistake instead (and the discount of course haha!)

She's really happy to have her new earrings and practically skipped back to the car, excited to tell her sisters her big news! (see what's coming here???) So we got home and found out they already knew and she was NOT happy and sooooo upset with Tulip for telling and burst into tears of disappointment and anger, demanding to know WHY Tulip told them. Tulip turned on the tears also and said she was sorry but Sweetie was too upset to listen. I walked Tulip home and she cried a bit more and said she doesn't like it when people tell her secrets because she knows she can't keep them! By the time I got back everything had settled down and they were getting ready for stories.|

She's been happily showing everyone her new look all week! (and will be excited to show her grandparents also, so you did NOT hear this from me!!!)