The Rules

Mila is enrolled in a dance class again this year. Dance isn't a thing I think she would have found on her own, but she has that big sister constantly influencing her. She wants to be like her sister. It's a thing.

But not EXACTLY like her sister.

At age 5, Alexis already knew ballet was her favorite. She has since had lyrical and modern creep into her life, but one form of dance that is not her speed is hip hop. It's not ... formulaic enough for her. Let's go with "formulaic." Alexis excels at precision and flawless technique and having a "proper" way to do things. Hip hop offers NONE of that so basically she ends up looking like a ballerina trying to twerk. She looks like it because that's exactly what she is. A ballerina trying to twerk.

(Fun aside: At a hip hop class with a guest teacher, she actually got WAY better and loosened up a ton, but only because the guest teacher stopped directly in front of her, did an awkward pirroute, and then said, "THIS IS NOT A BALLET RECITAL, PRINCESS." It was exactly the right thing to get Alexis to loosen up. She a more than passable hip hop dance now because of that teacher, though we all know hip hop is never going to be her favorite.)

So hip hop is not Alexis' thing, but she's required to take it for her dance program, so she trudges through.

Mila picked a hip hop class for this year. I let her pick between all of the classes for kids her age, so she picked hip hop over ballet, tap, and all sorts of things. It was genuinely what she wanted and she went into it with full information.

Some of that "full information" included a thorough description of the proper dance attire. Both Alexis and I explained that hip hop means shorts and a shirt along with some black tennis shoes. Mila agreed that this was acceptable.

AND YET.

Mila had her first hip hop class this week. Alexis went along for the ride because she can't let her little sister have the dance spotlight for a single solitary second. Alexis also wanted to dress her little sister for class, but Mila refused. REFUSED. Mila decided she was wearing a glittery leotard.

Alexis' brain broke. She tried SO hard to explain that hip hop requires shorts and such, but Mila was all, "Whatever." The girls fell into an all-out fight over the whole thing. The fight can be boiled down to Alexis yelling, "YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THE RULES!" and Mila yelling back, "OH, YEAH? WATCH ME NOT FOLLOW THE RULES."

Legitimately, Alexis could not comprehend how Mila could be willing to walk into a class dressed differently from everyone else. Mila couldn't comprehend why Alexis cared what she wore because Mila wears what Mila wants to wear. As the parent just trying to get a moment's peace, it was frustrating as all get out. And yet, it was also the funniest thing ever because LOLZ AT THEM ARGUING ABOUT THE RULES.

They're going to spend their entire lives not understanding why the other one doesn't respect rules in the same way. It's going to be SO fun to watch. For me. And only for me.

"Challenging," Indeed

Alexis has fallen all the way down the dance rabbit hole. I mean, we're "I drive an hour to a private lesson" level of crazy at this point, so whatever. She's happy and doing exactly what she wants to do, so I will suffer through a FREAKIN 300 MESSAGE LONG GROUP CHAT ABOUT A HOTEL RESERVATION NEXT MARCH.

Ahem.

I said "suffer through." I didn't say I would do it without whining.

ANYWAY. Now that she's riding the Crazy Train up and down the tracks, she has fun things to do like adopt a "little sister" for competition season. It's a very mundane thing that her dance studio does. The big girls on the competitive team get assigned to a little girl and are their "helper" for the season. We skipped being on the little girl side of the equation because I'm not THAT nuts (WHY DO PEOPLE SPEND THOUSANDS FOR THEIR VERY SMALL CHILD TO DANCE WHYYYYYYYYY I AM SO CONFUSED), but being on the Big Sister side of it seems to make Alexis happy.

The whole assignment thing happened over the weekend at our annual "Back to sucking your pockets dry" party at the dance studio. I think they call it "Back to dance" but we know what's really happening. So a little girl drew Alexis' name and together the two of them ran off to get to know each other.

Mila saw it happen. Families are invited to the "Back to sucking your pockets dry" party so Mila was watching everything as it happened. A little girl named Samantha was assigned to Alexis and off they ran to talk.

Possibly related: I now know what it looks like when raging waves of bright green jealousy shoot out of a 5-year old at light speed.

They are definitely related issues. Mila screeched, "But I'm the little sister!" and started bawling for her big sister.

She.

Was.

Livid.

And hurt.

And all kinds of sad. "I'm the only little sister!" she wailed at one point. She even broke free of my grasp, hunted down Alexis, and climbed her like she's a tree or something. Mila did everything she could to lay claim to her sister, including glaring at poor Samantha (who is probably 7 or 8 years old and has clearly never been the object of someone's disdain before - SORRY SAMANTHA). She cried. She screamed. She generally was a giant jealous jerk, to the point that I made her leave. For real, Alexis stayed at her dance party and Mila was escorted off the premises because she could not find her chill. Not even a giant pile of cookies could make her forget just how jealous she was that her sister had a "little sister."

We've been talking about the whole scene for the past few days now. Mila is still working on processing what happened and even though we've explained that there is only one REAL little sister, she's still mad. So mad. After we talked about it for another half hour today on the way home from, you guessed it, dance class, Mila very seriously looked up at me and flatly said, "That was a really challenging day for me."

WELP.

Weaponized Sharing

It's been a few months since Mila figured out a pretty great trick. When she sees that I have something she wants (i.e. candy or some other form of junk food), instead of begging for it, she nonchalantly states, "Sharing is caring!" and then adds, "Do you care about me, momma?"

It's diabolical. She has straight-up weaponized sharing.

IN MORE THAN ONE WAY OMG.

Last week we went to Cedar Point. Early in the day, I looked down at little tiny Mila and asked that super fun parenting question - Is that pinkeye or did she stab herself in the face and forget to tell me? Both options are totally possible, of course. That's the magic of 5-year olds. They either nearly died when a bug landed on them and need 24583741 Band-Aids, or they don't even know that a door slammed on their finger and nearly amputated it. It's all very confusing and is probably the reason Dr. Google always diagnoses death. With little kids, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

Which is why it was not at all shocking when that maybe pinkeye vanished after a few hours. There was a little bit of goop? And a tiny tinge of pink? Legit, it wasn't enough to even get my attention, other than the fact that I mentally prepared my army for war JUST IN CASE. I had an urgent care plan all worked out in my head, but then I didn't need it. Because POOF! All gone! It came in went over the course of maybe five hours. Possibly even less.

I forgot all about it until yesterday when I discovered a tiny bit of goop was hanging out in my eye after I took a shower. But, no worries! If it was what Mila had, it would be gone in a few hours!

Why exactly is my five-year olds immune system stronger than mine? HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? Did she steal some of my magic immunity? I went from a little bit of goop to straight-up nightmare fuel in the matter of 30 minutes. No joke. Everything was cool when I took Alexis to a tumbling lesson. It was still fine during the back-to-dance dance party. But when I ran down the road to buy mulch? ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. I went from not at all worrying to driving my butt to urgent care in the span of 30 minutes.

So, uh, drugs are good. We definitely live better thanks to modern medicine.

But sharing is bad. So bad. I really need to figure out how to get Mila to knock it off with the sharing.