Good Night, Mila

Mila has 100% decided she is ready to be a big girl who sleeps in her own bed, or at least it sounds like a good idea when it's time to turn in for the night. She still hasn't managed to stay there an entire night, but what would life be without a screaming 5-year old at 2:00 am? More rested, sure, but way less exciting.

(I really REALLY hate the middle-of-the-night screaming. I can't seem to find a way to fix it, though. Alas.)

The best part about this whole "I want my own bed" decision is that Mila super loves going to sleep. She always has. All you have to do is tuck her in, sit down in the chair in her room, and play some lullabies for a few minutes. A few minutes later, she's out.  It's BLISSFUL. So easy. So peaceful. So fantastic.

And then along came Alexis.

Alexis can't let me have my fun, so now she's fighting me for the right to put Mila to bed at night. There's a part of me that realizes that it's super awesome of her to offer, but STEP OFF, KID. THAT'S MOM'S QUIET TIME.

That 10-15 minutes of sitting in the dark in Mila's room while she falls asleep is 10-15 minutes when nobody is talking to me. Absolutely nobody. Sometimes I answer work emails or something like that, but it's on my terms. Basically, it's like locking yourself in a closet, except there's nobody knocking to disturb my joy.

UNTIL ALEXIS STARTED FIGHTING WITH ME.

Alexis wants it for the same reasons I do. She's enough of an introvert to enjoy some down time, but SHE HAS A BEDROOM. AND LOTS OF TIME TO SIT QUIETLY. LEAVE MINE ALONE, KID.

Ahem.

This whole thing has escalated to Alexis trying to con Mila into going to bed before I can get a chance to tell Mila it's time for bed. Which, well, Mila could stand to go to bed earlier. This no nap thing is still killing her, so we can definitely move things up. But not to before dinner, ALEXIS.

It's getting nuts. In another few days, Alexis will have backed things up to the point that she's trying to get Mila to go to sleep half an hour after the sun rises in the morning and I'm pretty sure that will break the "good goer to sleep" thing we've got going on.

The war is on. I will win and I will be the one who puts the little one to bed. OR ELSE.

The Daisy Photo, Volume 14

And here we go again ...

Every year on the girls' half birthdays, I force them into a little photo shoot. It involves flowers (daisies from my garden for Alexis and white roses from the store for the summer baby, Mila) and a simple white dress.

Alexis has been at this game for 14 years now.

The shoots have gotten MUCH easier with Alexis because practice makes perfect. It's also because Alexis knows these photos are going on a wall for all to see. She can play nicely and be happy with the outcome, or she can spend the rest of her life regretting her decision to be a jerk.

This year she was good. VERY good. It might have had something to do with the fact that Mila tried to steal the show. Alexis is NOT going to allow that. Ever.

So they took turns, but Alexis made sure that she had her moments to shine.

And HOOBOY did she shine.

She has fully mastered styling her curls at this point, so basically I hate her for having perfect hair.

She loves that I hate her for having great hair, by the way. She reminds me that she spent all of five minutes styling it every single time I compliment it.

Great hair ... and she's lovely. Seriously. This kid is a beautiful person, inside and out.

She's kind, giving, and she geniunely wants to make the world a better place. It's all a matter of figuring out how best to do go about that.

She'll figure it out eventually. Problem solving and critical thinking are two of her strengths.

And so is taking a good photo. I have no idea which of the 20 or so favorites I'm going to get printed to hang on the wall with the rest of the collection because they're ALL this good. So good.

And wow is this kid growing up fast.

Anthrocon. Again.

For those of you who may be new here, let me just say that I've been over here saying Anthrocon is fun loooooooong before the rest of Pittsburgh figured it out. I'm not mentioning that to be all "I'm too cool for cool" or anything (... though I am. Heh.). I'm mentioning it because I happen to know a thing or two about how to indulge in fully furry fun.

(For the like one of you who is super confused right now, Pittsburgh is home to a huge furry convention every July. It's called Anthrocon and it is THE BEST.)

Like, I REALLY know how to enjoy Anthrocon without crashing into anyone else's joy. It's sort of my thing.

It's also Mila's thing.

It comes as no surprise that Anthrocon is on Mila's Top 3 Pittsburgh Things list. The girl loooooves her some furry watching. It's up there with Milkshake Factory and The Point, which is to say that Saturday was the day when Mila lived every bit of her best life. We went to the fursuit parade, grabbed milkshakes, AND walked to The Point so her inner yinzer was on full display.

She was really very happy.

The fursuit parade has been making Mila happy for all of her life. It's an easy chance to see a whole lot of different fursuits and Mila is always overjoyed when she gets a chance to give a lot of fuzzy high fives. This year was no exception. We've learned to arrive at the parade about an hour early, grab some good seats in the shade, and then chill until the fun begins. We followed that plan again this year, but then ran into a problem. Apparently yinzers have forgotten that those people who have chairs at the fursuit parade are supposed to SIT DOWN, JERKFACE. If you want a chair, you sit in that chair. Standing up means other people can't see and SIT DOWN, JERKFACE.

Ahem.

So THAT happened and Mila couldn't see anything and for a brief moment, everything was terrible. But then this guy showed up and fixed it.

So, thank you sir.

In the fixing it, we ended up next to a woman who was REAL excited about seeing furries. Like, more excited than Mila. It was ... WOAH. It turned out that her 14-year old daughter suits and was in the parade and this was her first year getting to watch. Yay for her? Except maybe not because let me just tell you, I am not friendly to strangers. I get completely flustered when strangers start talking at me and I just plain shut down. I don't even manage to nod like I understand what they're saying. It's more like I give them the silent treatment, which isn't meant to be mean, but certainly comes across that way. I just don't know what to do with myself, if that makes sense.

AND YET I KNOW DETAILS ABOUT THAT WOMAN'S LIFE.

I did NOTHING to encourage a conversation and yet she totally had one. A very one-sided conversation, but a conversation nonetheless. I reminded myself about 153851309482094 times that she was just excited, even as she went on and on and on explaining how to be a furry parade watcher.

Is that fursplaining? I think it's fursplaining. Definition: When a newby gushes basic information to a pro. See also: Annoying.

I took a lot of deep breaths. It's probably for the best that I freeze when strangers talk to me because there were definitely times that I wanted to say, "Do you know who you're talking to? Do I need to whip out my credentials or what?"

ANYWAY.

Possibly the most frustrating thing she did was adopt Mila. As in, SHE KEPT TOUCHING AND TALKING TO MY KID. Said kid was too distracted by unicorns in sparkly dresses to lash out like she normally would, but I totally would have let Mila destroy the woman who wouldn't stop touching her. Mostly the woman was coming from a place of trying to help. She very badly wanted Mila to have fun, so she was frantically trying to get furry attention and beckon them over to Mila for a high five. She furiously waved her arms, jumped up and down, and pointed down at Mila's little blond head over and over and over for the entire duration of the parade.

Pro tip: A lot of the furries can't see much beyond what's directly in front of them. Waving wildly doesn't actually get their attention and if one of them is walking down the middle of the street, away from reaching hands, there's probably a reason. LET THEM BE.

Ahem.

Mila, fortunately, was oblivious to the whole thing. I was sitting RIGHT THERE and inching Mila away from the overzealous lady as much as I could without actually ruining the kid's fun.

Alexis, though.

Alexis was seated a few feet away, mouth agape, staring at the woman and mouthing, "WHAT THE F&*K."

ALEXIS SWEARS, YOU GUYS! That's new! I mean, she mostly did it because she was appalled that someone was touching her preshhhuuuusss sister, but still. She swears! I'm so proud!