Day Fifty-One

For as much as Alexis has always been the dancer of the house, Mila has always been the singer. I'm not saying she's good at it, by the way. She's delightful, is what she is. It doesn't matter if she can hold a tune because everything sounds fantastic when you're a tiny human singing at the top of your lungs.

Which she does, by the way. Nearly always. I used to manage to catch it on camera a lot, but now she refuses to leave evidence. It's fine. Sometimes I sneaky get video.

While Mila's singing is delightful in every way, it's her song choices that make everything perfect. She sings a lot of Spice Girls, for example. Be a prude about it if you want, but Mila singing, "If you wanna be my lover, you gotta be my friend" truly is the best. It's just so darn cute and wholesome and all of that. She also sings a lot of Britney Spears, Never Ending Story (from Stranger Things Season 3), and old school hip hop. No, really, she knows every word to Whoomp There It Is and Hypnotize by Notorius B.I.G.

It's possible that the Big Kid is obsessed with "oldies" and is spreading that obsession.

Mila knows some more recent music as well. She can sing all the words to Havana by Rihanna, Break My Heart by Dua Lupa, and the girl can put down some Billie Eillish. That big sister thing, y'know?

The song that makes me insane, though, is Barbie Girl. She sings it A LOT, in part because she has changed the lyrics to, "Come on Barbie, let's go potty!"

Obviously, she sings it every time she goes to the bathroom. The only thing is that she lets the true lyrics seep into whatever it is that she's doing in there because if you go in the bathroom after Mila, you will find evidence of a party. I never did get an explanation for why there was soap on the ceiling yesterday ...

Mostly, though, the song frustrates me because it reminds me of the endless supply of Barbie content Mila has discovered on Netflix. If you've never seen one of the cartoons, DON'T. I like you too much to let you put yourself through that sort of hell. Every Barbie cartoon is a giant pile of animated trash. It's filled with smart-ass teen girls acting like jerks and uuuuugh, Mila keeps repeating what they say. It's gotten so bad that I blocked it from Mila's view.

The thing that broke me?

"Whatevs."

I told Mila I liked when she sings out loud and she replied, "Whatevs."

I hope you're happy, Barbie cartoon creators. You're officially known in my house as the people who taught my kindergartener to be a smartass.

Day Fifty

How is it that March was 18 years long but April was less than a week? Isn't time supposed to be linear, with individual units that are identical? A day is supposed to be a day, AND YET. April definitely had shorter days. Thus, I blinked and here we are in May.

MAY.

May is the month that I barely survive each and every year. It's the month when all of the things happen from dance recitals to cheer competitions to band concerts to the end of the school year to a big deal work event to Mila's birthday to ... all of the things. If I recall correctly, and I do, May usually has about 3 years crammed into it. May involves a lot of running around and a lot of compromise. We can't possibly do all of the things we're expected to do, so we try our best to do the right things.

I don't hate the current version of May.

Tonight would have been the night when I left work early so I could get Alexis to dance and then picked her up to get to her last middle school band concert. Mila would have had a thing as well, and I really don't know how I was going to do it all. There wouldn't have been time for dinner and there DEFINITELY wouldn't have been time for breathing.

But, you know, since all of the things are cancelled, we spent the evening like this.

We hiked for an hour, pausing to enjoy a small creek and countless wildflowers showing off in a way that only wildflowers can do.

Mila skipped and sang for the entirety of the hour, pausing only to blow on a few wishers.

We paused.

And it wasn't terrible.

Day Forty-Nine

The girls are continuing to bake every day, which pretty much means I won the kid Olymics. The whole thing plays out with Mila barging into whatever meeting I'm in at 3:00 yelling, "The cookies are ready!" After I'm done explaining what is happening to my co-workers, I then manage to get Mila to deliver a cookie or two me. Life's little victories are pretty darn great.

One of last week's cookies was a total disappointment to the girls, but only because they didn't know what a "scone" is. They were expecting sweet and didn't get that, exactly, but I was all about the scone thing.

I wasn't sad when I got to eat nearly all of them.

This started out as a whole other recipe, but Alexis is doing a solid job of learning to substitute. Forget blueberries; blackberries were in the fridge. She has a weird love for coconut sugar going on, so forget granulated sugar. The end result is a scone shaped like a cookie and they were REALLY good with coffee.

Quarantine has its benefits.

Blackberry Scone Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coconut sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (cold)
1/3 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup blackberries, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

3. Cube the butter and mash it into the flour mixture with a fork. You want it to stay coarse and cold.

4. Pour in the cream and stir until a dough forms.

5. Fold in the blackberries.

6. Form the dough into 12 little balls. Place them on the baking sheet and bake at 350° for 20 to 25 minutes or until they are lightly browned.

7. Move the cookies to a cooling rack right away.