She's Lovely

The Big Guy

Hey, remember how I said Four was absolutely fantastic? How many of you laughed and laughed because you knew I was jinxing myself? Well, I'm here to say, YOU WERE RIGHT.

Oh my.

Four has taken a turn for the OMGSTAAAHP. Mila isn't just doubling down on all of the age four clichés, she running laps around them. She's testing boundaries and throwing fits and just plain refusing to do any of the things I ask her to do. Which, hmmm, this sure is interesting timing considering SANTA IS WATCHING, YOU LITTLE MONSTER.

It was about a week ago that Mila and I were in the mall shopping for things for the big sister when Mila decided that buying things for other people was stupid. She wanted to shop for herself and she expected me to buy three of everything she requested. There was an LOL doll and a dress and LEGOs and books and a little car and and and and and ... I think Mila decided to fit a year worth of requests into ten minutes. I was about to jump off a cliff (or from the second floor of the mall - that would have worked) and then Little Miss Wants It All thought she would throw herself to the ground and proceed to flail.

Flailing is funny.

Fits in the middle of the mall aren't funny.

Needless to say, I was mad enough to pull out the big threats. "Santa is RIGHT THERE!" I said while pointing towards the big guy in the red jacket. "He can see you. Do you need me to tell him what you're doing? He's going to be so disappointed in you." I went on and on, laying it on all sorts of thick.

Mila was completely unfazed. COMPLETELY. She kept yelling and flailing and carrying on, so eventually I drug her out of the mall and gave up on being productive. But not until after Mila explained, "That's not Santa."

Oh. Hmm.

"That's Santa's brother."

Well then.

"The REAL Santa is making dinner for his girlfriend."

WELL THEN. I'm not going to argue with that.

I Was Missing Out

YOU GUYS. I wish one of you had told me that Advent Calendars are the bomb diggity! Or, I guess you could have used slightly less archaic language and just encouraged me to give one a try. I HAD NO IDEA.

Poor Alexis survived the first 12 Christmases of her life without having some sort of means of counting down the days. Even Mila had to survive three years without, but then she became obsessed with "How many days until Christmas?" which is super fun coming from the kid who still thinks all points in the future are "tomorrow" while all points in the past are "yesterday." She desperately wants to understand time, but she's not about to put actual effort into understanding.

And, thus, I gave in. Well, actually I gave in because I happened to find a Hatchimals Advent Calendar sitting on a random end cap at Target for $15. Considering it promised a decent pile of tiny creatures, it was worth buying just for the toys.

But, I GET A COUNTDOWN, TOO! And a semi-cooperative kid! It's quite the great deal.

Mila has been infinitely better about getting out of bed every morning since we started the calendar. She's a giant pain in the butt to get moving every day, but that little bit of incentive seems to be enough to get her to lay off the cranky. And then she's so happy to figure out which "number is today!" Bonus! And then! And then she's even more happy to find a little prize inside! It's awesome dipped in great doused in fantastic.

Which just means I missed out by just now figuring this whole Advent Calendar thing out.

So, what else am I not doing that I should be because they're way more fun than they sound on the surface? FIX ME, INTERNET.