Calgary miscellany

Calgary pool. Fiona is finally getting it. She's swimming more than a couple of strokes. Monthly aliquots of cheerful persistence have finally paid off. She can almost make the length of the small hotel pool. Her goal for this trip is to do the whole length.

Sophie figured out treading water and is trying to work herself up to two minutes. Her first try was 30 seconds. By the end of tonight's session she had done two minutes! That should give her under-vigilant mother time to notice she needs rescuing if she ever gets into trouble in the water.

Noah opted to stay in the room and take a shower. He was in sorry need of a haircut and we hadn't got around to it before leaving home. So I brought the trimmer and scissors along and we cut his hair while he stood in the motel tub. I think it's normally only fugitives who cut their hair in motel bathrooms. Perhaps we can find him a stick-on beard and some peroxide to complete his disguise.

Today during the drive to Calgary we were trying to recall which weird words we use on a regular basis are ones we actually invented. We could only think of two, but I am sure there are more.

Buttsloosh - noun
(Etymology: a garbled mispronunciation of "boot slush," the grotty salty sandy stuff that ends up on the floor of the minivan in winter time) ... toilet water backsplash, or the messy results of a "backfiring powerflush"

Wobbits - noun
The state of giddy weakness that occurs when one laughs too hard. Often leads to falling off chairs, or the inability to pick oneself up after a hilariously embarrassing physical misadventure. "I was trying to tell him to stay back, but I had really bad wobbits and so I couldn't talk or point or anything."