Smartypants

There are all kinds of studies and research into siblings and how the oldest is usually legit the smartest, but I'm here to call shenanigans. I mean, I have no idea which of my kids is smarter than the other if we're talking about basic IQ. They're both smartypants? I think? It's probably not too early to call that Alexis will end up with the better grades. She can't stand to get an A- and works her butt off to make sure she gets 100% as much as possible. (We're working on taming that ... we're not succeeding, but we're working on it.) Mila, on the other hand, is going to know exactly how much she needs to do to pass. She's going to do the minimum because that's how Mila thinks. That's to say, I know for absolute certain that exactly one of my children uses their smarts for good/evil.

Hi, Mila.

On the way home from daycare today, we drove past an ice cream/pizza place. Mila, of course, asked if we could stop and get ice cream. The short answer was NOPE-ARONI because the ice cream/pizza place turns into just a pizza place in the winter. I don't know why that's a thing, but it is. No ice cream for you in February, Mila!

Mila thought that was dumb. She expressed her opinion as we continued to drive by. And then, she came up with a plan.

"Mom, I really like ice cream. Do you like ice cream?"

She knew the answer to that question. It's at the top of my food pyramid, right next to pizza. I responded as such.

"I wish we had ice cream at home," she continued. We don't have ice cream at home because my children are monsters who consume it all before I can consume it all, so now nobody gets it. That seems fair in my head.

"Wait! I know! We should stop and buy some ice cream! We can have it for dinner!" Mila had a really good plan going there, but she topped it with a cherry when she added, "That way you won't have to cook! We can just eat ice cream for dinner and you won't have to do any work. I'll clean up the dishes."

Younger siblings aren't as smart as their oldest sibling, eh? We'll see about that ...

It's a Start

So I've been over on Instagram doing #morningthings for like ... three years? Maybe a little longer? It's something like that. The purpose from the start has been to capture a quick moment each morning basically so I can bash myself over the head later in life with little memories of simple things that are easily forgotten.

Timehop is helping with this, of course. It does a most excellent job of telling me when I was travelling for work, when the weather was amazing, and when Mila was all, "MORNINGS ARE STUPID, Y'ALL." She often declares her hatred for mornings. It's one of my favorite things about her.

But there's a thing that I've realized doesn't come across in the #morningthings. It's been consistently going on for as long as I can remember. Each and every morning, my alarm goes off and I have a 4-year old sleeping next to me. I gave up on her sleeping in her own bed (I blame this on dance and I'm not crazy for doing so). So, my alarm goes off and I have to somehow pry myself away from a tiny human who somehow grows ten sizes in the middle of the night.

It's probably appropriate to add that Mila is the big spoon and I'm the little spoon. Seriously. The kid is a cuddler, and she ALWAYS keeps a hand on me. She would put a leash on me if she could figure out how to attach one. I basically have to slither out of bed every morning and just hope that I don't wake the beast. If I wake the beast too early, I might as well cancel my first two meetings of the day because it completely screws up our morning. Mila cannot morning early. Period.

If I successfully slither out of bed without waking the beast, I'm generally good. She might show up while I'm in the shower, but that's fine. She sits down on the floor right outside the shower and stares. It used to creep me out, frankly, but now I'm just glad she's not wandering the house setting things on fire. I'd rather she focus on thinking about all of the ways she could destroy me while I have shampoo in my hair.

On lucky days, which there are many, I make it out of the shower before Mila realizes I have escaped her clutches. On those days, she generally catches me drying my hair. I can't really hear her over the blare of the hair dryer, but I sense her barreling down the hall at top speed. She busts into the bathroom with her hair flying in every direction, her pajamas unzipped just a bit (So her chest hair can breath, of course) (Seriously, check the #morningthings and #bedtimethings photos. She ALWAYS unzips her pajamas just a bit, exactly like an Italian dude who wants to make sure you see how glorious his gold chains look up against his chest fur.). She's disheveled and still a little sleepy and...

lovely.

She's really very lovely when she first wakes up.

And the first thing she does every single time she explodes onto the scene is demand to be picked up and hugged for a minute.

Every morning.

It's a darn good way to start your day.

Back in My Day, We Wore Coats

Mila and I are just going to fight about the weather every day. I've resigned myself to my fate and IT IS FINE. Or something.

There is still this little matter of hating when the sun shines in her eyes. Miss Mila can scream at the sun for existing like nobody before her has screamed at the sun. I finally found a pair of sunglasses she will wear, so I'm hoping there will be less yelling along our morning drive to daycare.

Spoiler alert: There won't be. After one day of having access to them, I think I can safely say she's still going to yell, "THE SUN WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE!" even as she puts the sunglasses on her face. Whatever.

For what it's worth, I've tried very hard to explain that the sun is our friend. I even explained that it helps us get warm when it's cold outside, but Mila isn't interested in being aligned with one enemy for the sake of fighting another. The only thing that makes her madder than the sun in her eyes is cold weather. She yells at me daily if she deems it too chilly for her little behind. AS IF I CAN CONTROL THE COLD. The sun and the cold are both terrible and evil and that's all there is to it.

A big part of Mila's disdain for cold weather is that she also really doesn't like wearing pants or a coat. She is a free spirit who is best served by wearing a free-flowing sundress. I've actually been letting her do that, but with leggings underneath and a sweater over top. And, well, when it's negative degrees outside, we just have to wear a coat.

I've said the words, "We wear coats in January in Pittsburgh" more times than I can count. I finally flipped to February as I chanted my mantra, but then the weather went and flipped upside-down. It was something like 60 degrees outside today, which is WEIRD for early February. I couldn't find it in my heart to force the jacket issue since one really wasn't necessary. Consistency is important, but logic reigns supreme.

Mila walked outside after school, muttering and marveling about how I had let her escape without a coat. She was telling me about how they had played outside. She rode the pink bike, but a friend crashed the yellow bike, and it was all sorts of fun because nobody was hurt. Oh, and it was too muddy in the grass, but it was fine with the bikes and it was nice out and there was a bird and ... and ... and.

She said a lot of words.

She didn't finish until she found her point. She reached deep inside to find her point, and then she yelled it.

"And, mom, PEOPLE DON'T WEAR COATS IN FEBRUARY IN PITTSBURGH. I told you so!"

Stupid global warming is making a liar out of me.