Disappointments

It's been a rough few days for the girls in this house. Mila is blissfully unaware of all of **waves hands wildly in the air** THIS, but she will eagerly tell you how very unfair it is that I keep fussing at her to clean up her mess in the family room. I've been working on a complete redo in that space, including new curtains, paint, and flooring, so I tore it up a bit. Mila took that to a whole other level and trashed the place like a hair band in a hotel room in the 80's.

I'm not amused.

Neither is she when I give her grief about fixing it.

While Mila's bad days are because I've enforced reasonable expectations, Alexis is in a WHOLE other world. All of her expectations are falling through. She is super not amused about the prospect of attending school online, but that's where we're headed. It's the right thing to do and makes sense, but that doesn't mean Alexis has to like it. She also doesn't have to like the fact that the field trip she has looked forward to for three years is now cancelled.

It's not going to be rescheduled.

It was to be her first chance at going to Washington DC. It's the field trip that the 8th grade takes every year, and every year of middle school Alexis has been all sorts of cranky that she wasn't old enough. The trip was just a few weeks away, but now it doesn't exist.

I can't fix it. I want to promise her a spring break quick weekend in DC, but we all know that's unlikely to be a thing that can be done. At this point I'm not sure that there will be a window of time any time soon when it would be wise to travel further than a couple of bridges, so all I can do is feel bad for the kid.

Just wait until she finds out cheer and dance competitions currently scheduled for April probably aren't going to happen. She is going to be SO sad.

But, hey. Maybe by the time we cross that bridge with Alexis, Mila will finally have cleaned up her disaster zone. I can only hope.

Raising Special Kids, Indeed

We could talk about how all of my work travel has been cancelled and how I'm sure the girls are going to be moving to cyber classes in 3 ... 2 ...

Nah. Let's not talk about that. Not yet, anyway.

(Wash your hands. Stay away from everyone if you're even a little bit sick. Shut up about how it's being overblown because the people who are immunocompromised need you to take this whole thing seriously, jagoff.) (ANWYAY.)

Besides the World of Chocolate, there was another thing we did between the Big Kid doing that dance thing and making her little heart sing.

WE WENT SHOPPING.

That seems like no big deal, I'm sure, but that's because you've never gone shopping with Mila. That girl is a MACHINE. She will pillage every story in the mall and she will do it happily. She touches every last thing, asks for nearly all of the things, and generally just thinks everything is exciting. She is aggressively happy, after all. We hit the outlets and scored a couple of excellent deals, but then we went to downtown Lancaster.

The Lancaster Central Market, specifically. It has occurred to me that the little jaunt through there may be the last time we are in a crowded public space for a while, and it was CROWDED. It's basically no different than the Strip District on a Saturday morning. There's a little farmers market action, food vendors, and assorted stuff. It's all lovely and good.

And the girls LOVED it. They are both super into that type of thing.

But ... if ever there was a moment that perfectly defines my children, that moment happened at that Market. I have a rule that I allow one special treat when we go places like that, but I don't cough up the cash for it until we're ready to leave. Basically, I want the girls to see everything before they make a decision. No regrets allowed, and all that. So we walked back and forth and up and down and checked out every single thing in the place. Then, I asked the girls to pick what they wanted.

Alexis picked tea leaves. TEA LEAVES. She wanted fancy tea.

Mila picked a plant. A PLANT. For real, the kindergartener walked past candy and pastries and toys and still asked for a plant.

My kids are nerds, and it's pretty much the best.

Truer Words

I think it's the law that you must take a side trip to Hershey if you are forced to be in Lancaster for two and a half days. I mean, Lancaster is fine and there's stuff (shopping and ... that's just about it) to do, but HERSHEY. THE CHOCOLATE MOTHERSHIP. IT'S RIGHT THERE.

We left the dance competiton on Sunday as if our shoes were on fire. I even managed to convince Alexis that she would be okay if she wasn't there for the last set of awards because skipping them gave us a five-hour head start on the next chapter of our lives.

She agreed that the Chocolate Chapter was more important than the Another Giant Trophy Chapter.

So the girls and I ran over to Hershey real quick then made a couple of important decisions. 1. Lunch was at Primanti's. That was the moment I learned that not all Primanti's use the same bread and SHENANIGANS. I CALL SHENANIGANS. I'm going to need to go to a legit Primanti's soon because my life is incomplete now that I've had that sandwich with the wrong bread.

It was disappointing.

The 2nd decision we made was to run through the Hershey's World of Chocolate. We really didn't have much time, but there's a free tour there and a giant store, and that seemed like enough to make a few hours super fun.

And then I saw it.

The opportunity to make our own chocolate bars.

HUZZAH!

I have some thoughts about the whole experience. Mostly it's worth it because you do get to leave with a giant chocolate bar. You don't reallllllly get to make your own, though, since you're picking from a very limited menu of options. You pick a couple of filling, whether or not you want sprinkles, and design your packaging. "Making" it is a bit of a stretch since it's a conveyer belt and automated process. Also, it's stupid expensive. Like, super stupid expensive.

Still, it's pretty cool. Just ask Mila.

Mila is going to be talking about how cool it was to make her own chocolate bar for the rest of her life. She loved every second of the experience, especially the seconds that involved eating. And the best part?

Mila says the name of the place we went to is "World of Happiness."

Indeed, Mila. The place where they make the chocolate is the "World of Happiness."