I am weird.

I’m sure there are numerous things about me that could prove this title to be true, but today I’m just going to talk about one specific, not normal thing about myself: My ability to let my mind go to the absolute worst case scenario possible.

I know you’re saying to yourself that everybody does that. But seriously! The places and possibilities I let my mind wander to can be down right disturbing. And I can’t seem to stop. I mean once I’m doing it I can change my mind to something else, though that takes a lot of concentration, but I can’t stop myself from starting. It’s ridiculous.

I’m not going to tell you about some of the more disturbing possibilities today because that’s no fun. Today I’ll just take you through one particular bout of crazy. And away we go…

We only have one car and so most days the kids and I have to drive Andy to work and pick him up again at the end of the day. This is really no big deal, but it can be a pain in the butt as far as making dinner is concerned. One day last week I was making chicken for dinner and put it in the oven for what I thought at the time would be long enough to cook it before it was time to leave. Well, I underestimated and was left with the decision of what to do – turn the oven off and then come back home and start it up again making for a late dinner (on a night the kids were already destined for an early bedtime), or leave the oven going for the 20 or so minutes it takes to pick the mister up. I have never left the oven on before in my life. Ever. It just always seemed too dangerous. I don’t even feel all that comfortable leaving a crock pot cooking with no one around and that’s what half a trazillion people do everyday. Yeah, trazillion. Never-the-less I decided to go with leaving the oven on, but it truly was a huge decision for me. I was sure we would get into a terrible car accident, be rendered unconscious (or worse) and that the house was going to burn down to the ground and that Abby would be trapped and killed in the fire (but I had made sure she had at least four possible exits before leaving) while we were gone. So sure, in fact, that I wrote a note that said:

CHICKEN COOKING IN THE OVEN!!! [NUMBER] SUCH AND SUCH AVENUE!!!

And it was in red marker. And underlined. Needless to say when Andy got in the car it was the first thing he noticed and he just shook his head at my explanation. Then on the way home I joked with him that if we did get in an accident and some one saw the note they would think I had deliberately crashed the car because “Who else does this? This is not normal.” And Andy whole heartedly agreed that it was indeed not the slightest bit normal to leave a note for the rescue team of your future horrendous car accident about dinner being in the oven.

And then I spent the rest of the drive home secretly coming up with my defence for the upcoming trial.

Right this moment

Both of my girls are outside laughing, dancing and screaming outside having a “rain party”.

Oh, February, I could get used to this.

Forgive me for another post that contains nothing more than a forecast, but obsessing about weather in the summer is just what I do.

(For reference: 22°C = 71.6°F and 29°C = 84.2°F)

A day at the museum

For the past few months E has developed a keen interest in dinosaurs. Thanks to things like the ABC Kids website and her (pretty cool) dinosaur book she is able to identify a Brachiosaurus, a T-Rex and some others. She can even tell which dinosaurs are meat eaters or plant eaters based on their jaw shape or if they have protective spikes on their back. Of course she doesn’t always get it right, but her knowledge always impresses me since she currently knows at least as much as I do about dinosaurs, if not more*.

We decided it would be a fun idea to make a trip to the Melbourne Museum to see the dinos and so much more! So Sunday was the day and we made the two hour journey to Melbourne to see what we could see. Upon arrival we were not disappointed as we were greeted by a giant dinosaur that I probably should have noted the name of and E lost her mind with excitement.

This is not the dino that greeted us because I didn’t think to get a photo of him.

Our first stop had to be The Evolution Gallery, but on the way there you have to go through the Science and Life Gallery which just happened to be temporarily housing the original Phar Lap (a race horse). We stopped and had a look and almost straight away E noticed a *ahem* certain part of Phar Lap and commenced pointing and giggling. Given her height and age it was unavoidable, really. And given mine and Andy’s twelve year old maturity (more on this later) it was also hilarious.

We eventually found our way to the dinosaurs and E absolutely loved it.

I took the photos with my cameraphone, so the quality isn’t the best.

She had brought a couple of her dino toys for the trip and matched some of them up with their fossils. They had videos of dinosaurs playing on the walls and sounds of them throughout the entire display. It was really good and at some points E was a little afraid that a dinosaur was coming and she needed to be reminded that they had all died a very long time ago. I don’t think we’ll be showing her Jurassic Park any time soon. Once we saw the Evolution Gallery we found ourselves in The Human Body Gallery. Here we saw all kinds of interesting things like real human organs cut open, dna displays, historic post-mortem tools, and plenty of other fascinating bits and bites. Unfortunately (for our family and only because we are who we are) this display also contained a whole lot of nakedness. E had more than one point and giggle session – if you know what I mean, and I think you do. (I did tell her she had to stop and by the time we were at the last “specimen” she didn’t react at all.) Also, thanks to me, Andy, our teenage boy mentality, a naked, life sized statue of a 65+ old woman and my cameraphone we managed to – and I’m not proud of this – get in trouble. Well, it was just a ‘no pictures’ warning, but given the placement of Andy’s hand at the time it was an embarrassing moment for the family. I would also like to add that I was telling Andy to stop and only agreed to (attempt to) take the photo so he would get away from the display.

By this point we were well into the afternoon (about 3:30) and getting a bit hungry. We headed to the museum cafe for a bite only to get there and find out they had stopped cooking and all there was to order was what was leftover in the display case. They didn’t close for AN HOUR and they had stopped cooking to clean up, what kind of lazy bs is that? So we ended up getting four cookies, three milks and Andy braved a wrap from the display. $26.40 later (!) we headed to the Children’s Gallery for a bit before heading home. The kids had a blast here. K was finally allowed out of the stoller and I think she actually shouted “FREEDOM!” as she ran around like a nutcase.

Last stop was the museum shop for a souvenir for each of the girls; a dinosaur bath toy set for K and a $30 (!) toy dinosaur for E. Normally I would not spend so much on an overpriced plastic toy, but the trip was originally planned for overnight so we had spent way less than budgeted. Plus E just loves this guy and even brings him to bed every night to sleep with her.

Overall we had a great time and the kids were well behaved for the entire trip. The museum is amazing (save the cafe) and we are planning to go again soon since we didn’t get to see the whole thing on this trip. If you’ve never been and are around Melbourne I highly recommend a visit!

*Did you know that there is no longer a dinosaur called a Brontosaurus? I didn’t, but apparently the dinosaur originally known as Brontosaurus is now called Apatosaurus. First Pluto, now this? They’re just trying to erase everything I learned as a child.

Time keeps going forward no matter what I have to say

Somebody had their first day of preschool yesterday. Here, I’ll give you a hint…

The big day finally came.  I was expecting tears from both sides, but it didn’t happen. I was also expecting it to be hard for me to leave for both of us, but the only one who put up a protest was K because she wanted to stay and play.

Once home K went straight for E’s new toy dinosaur that she hasn’t let K even come near since getting it at the museum on Sunday. We fluttered around the house for a while, went to the grocery store and then just waited until it was time to pick E up. I think it will take us a bit of time to figure out what to do on E’s school days because the reality is that after a couple hours we were both kind of bored.

The time finally came to pick up E and we found her with a “Good Manners” sticker smack in the middle of her forehead. We said our goodbyes, I forgot to sign her out (On the first day! I’m such a failure. ) and we headed to the car. Again K tried to get away to the playground so I had to chase after her with my arms full of treasurer paperwork (So much work! I had no idea what I was getting myself into!)  and then attempt to wrestle open the child proof gates with a kicking toddler in one arm and all my papers in the other. We managed to get through and then I started asking how E’s day was. It was as difficult to get info out of her as I had expected, but I managed to find out a few things like her favourite part was playing outside, she ate her whole lunch and she played with a boy named Jason. She spilled out a few more tidbits throughout the afternoon and I think I ended up with a pretty decent recap.

It didn’t sink in until last night, but I have to admit that I didn’t realize how hard it would be to miss out on a huge chunk of her day. I’ve been there for every part of every day of her life for the last four years (minus a couple outings in Nova Scotia and one shopping trip here). Not knowing what she did for five whole hours was weird and sad. This is the beginning of E having her own life, separate from me. I knew it would happen eventually, but I just didn’t know it would be this soon.