Day Forty-Five

Quarantine makes you do crazy things. In this case, I told Mila what she's getting for her birthday a full month before her actual birthday.

I KNOW! Total rookie mistake.

But the thing is, she's not getting a party. It's official and all that. There's no way the world is going to magically change in the next month. Group get-togethers just won't be a thing. And, thus, I had to find a way to get Mila to stop planning her birthday party.

It was her full-time job. She has spent most of her waking hours planning the location and the theme and who she is going to invite and really, she was so excited. So, when she brought it up AGAIN over the weekend, I said, "You know, I have an idea. It still might not be safe to be around each other when your birthday comes. Maybe we could do a really special present for you instead?"

AND SHE WENT FOR IT.

And that's the story about how I promised to build Mila a playhouse. She has now spent the last few days searching websites for furniture and a tire swing to hang under it. There are going to be twinkle lights and sissy needs her own chair and ooooof. She is properly diverted in her excitement. It's adorable, even if I am now on the hook to build a thing.

The thing I will remember for a long time, though, happened when I was trying to temper her excitement just a bit. I can't deal with her being at a 10 for the entire month, so I thought we could dial it down to a 7, maybe? I reminded her that she wouldn't get the playhouse until it was actually her birthday and she seemed to get it. And then she asked, "But when it's my birthday, can I FaceTime my friends and show them my playhouse since they won't be able to come over and play in it?"

And that's the moment when I'd had quite enough of this whole thing.

Day Forty-Four

I've mentioned before that Alexis is obsessed with Friends, which is a special kind of joy because did you know there are enough episodes to fill a DVR? There are. When Netflix lost the series, Alexis dealt with it by setting the DVR to record every episode ever and forget it. You don't get to record anything else ever. She will know if you delete even one episode and it won't be okay.

She has watched the show all the way through six times. That is a self-reported data point, so I expect that it's an exaggeration and the true number is closer to ten. She can quote an insane quantity of lines from the show, and can correct you on small details. Like, I said Ross's dinosaur conference was in the Bahamas and Alexis was all, "Bitch, please. It was in the Barbados. Duh."

She was right, by the way.

That little correction led to a moment of clarity for me. It happened to occur on a day when Alexis' hair was having feelings about the humidity, and by that I mean POOF! Her hair was so big. It happens from time-to-time. She manages to somehow still make it look good, but since she was being a know-it-all, I let her know that her hair was looking a whole lot like Monica's in that episode.

Alexis gleefully replied, "Thank you so much!" She geniunely took it as a compliment.

Because she wants to be Monica when she grows up. I'm totally serious. Recently Alexis has set out to be more like Monica, which is why she has declared this week to be "Cookie Week." She is baking cookies every day because that's what Chef Monica would do during a global pandemic.

Even better, Alexis is trying to be as clean as Monica. So far she has mostly cleaned the playroom ("mostly" because that room is a BEAST), scrubbed the kitchen, and scoured her bedroom. Mila's room is on her list for tomorrow and can I just say one thing?

I LOVE SMALL PARTS OF GLOBAL PANDEMICS. Obviously, I don't love all of the parts, but this thing where my kid focuses on cleaning my house? It's pretty great.

Day Forty-Three

Mila likes to push things a lot too far. If I comment that she's whining too much, she'll start whining more because even when she's miserable, she gets joy out of bringing others down with her. Some day she's going to admit that she thinks it's funny to make me mad, but she's not quite ready to go there yet. It's either that, or she truly doesn't ever learn her lesson and really does think that she can keep on doing whatever without circumstances.

Wait. I think that's it. It's not the joy of making others mad, it's the genuine belief that she should get to do whatever she wants.

Mila really does think the world revolves around her. It sort of does, so I get it.

ANYWAY.

Alexis was always the opposite. She haaaaates to make me mad, to the point that I've only truly yelled at her two or three times. She can tell you a detailed story about each of those times and she remembers EVERY second of what played out, which means she can tell you what I was wearing that one day when she was six and thought it would be a good idea to tell me to, "Shut up." I don't remember it, but she does. She doesn't do conflict. The rare occasions where conflict has been self-inflicted stick in her memory.

All of that is to say that the two of them make quite the pair. Truly, they fit each other very well because Mila will push every limit, but Alexis is there to know when they've gone just a little too far. They combine forces in exactly that way all of the time. It's how they get half the things they get. Teamwork.

But imagine my surprise when Mila decided to go for a Very Bad Day and Alexis reigned her in. As much as they are best buds, Alexis does enjoy watching her baby sister dig herself a trench once in a while. It's part of their quest to be my favorite (they legit compete to be my favorite which is hilarious because I prefer which ever one of them brings me food). And if Mila is making me mad but there's no hope for them to both gain something, Alexis usually bails on Mila and enjoys the show.

And yet.

Tonight Mila went all in on whining. She was whining about absolutely everything that exists, except for the fact that we're never going back to "normal," which I only mention because I would have joined in on the whining instead of getting annoyed. Instead of whining about the legit awful going on around us right now, she whined about the TV being too loud, the dog looking at her, the blanket not being blue enough, her box being moved three inches ... EVERYTHING. Every syllable that fell out of her mouth was full of whining.

I tolerated it for a while, but then it started to truly wear. Knowing that Mila doesn't listen unless you FOR REAL get mad, I unleashed. "Stop. Whining. Now." I gave her my best Mean Mom face and snapped sternly at her, which worked. She snapped out of her whinefest and gave me The Look.

Mila has The Look down pat. It's a mix of "I can't believe you just did that" and "I'm going to cry because I hate your guts SO much right now." It's disbelief mixed with victim-posturing. She doesn't think she deserves whatever was just doled out so she's going to punish you. Usually she runs away crying, but sometimes she throws in a little bit of violence along the way. It super helps her case when she throws things, by the way.

Anyway, Mila sat frozen with The Look on her face as Alexis watched things play out. Then Alexis put on her smarty pants and told Alexis, "Whatever you're about to do, it's not worth it. You should just say 'Sorry' and hug mom."

AND MILA LISTENED.

I mean, Alexis was right. Mila was about to corner herself and really the only way out was an apology, BUT STILL. Mila listened. And flipped her behavior.

Alexis for President, you guys. She's just so good at conflict management.