Out of the Mouth of Babes

For reasons I will never understand, tonight Mila insisted that she accompany me when taking Alexis to dance class. On Thursdays Alexis has a late night dance class that starts after Mila's bedtime, but sure. Normally the Tiny Human is happy to stay home and watch TV, but this time she wanted to ride along. Whatever. It's not like I planned to yell obscenities at the radio during the Penguins game or anything.

Ahem.

After dropping Alexis off, I decided the smart thing to do was to just drive around. I figured the tiny person who should already be asleep would do what she does best in the car and go to sleep. Instead, Mila served me a Nope Sandwich with a side of oppositeness.

She was SO awake. She was extra super awake and extra super talky talky. When she ran out of random things to tell me, she decided to start asking questions. As we slowly cruised by a shopping center, she gazed into the stores and then quizzed me.

"Is that the pizza store?"

Yes, Mila.

"Is that the shoe store?"

Yes, Mila.

"Is that the chair store?"

It's the furniture store, yes.

"Is that the dress store?"

Yes, Mila.

"Is that the doggy store?"

Yes, Mila.

"Is that the mommy and daddy store?"

Yes, Mila. Yes, the liquor store is definitely the "mommy and daddy store." I WONDER WHY.

Mila. With Scissors. Oh.

Mila is 3 years, 10 months, and 28 days old. There are a lot of things she has done in that short time. For example, she has visited Kennywood on DOZENS of occasions. She has learned lots and lots of words. She has figured out how to get her own cup of water, even.

She has never had a hair cut.

She hasn't even had a trim.

I thought Alexis was a bald toddler, but Mila takes things to a whole new level. Her whispy fine hair is definitely (finally) growing, but it's mostly sort of even, so I've just left it alone. Alexis at this point had at least had a few trims to force things into some sort of organized chaos.

(For the record, the almost 4-year old version of Alexis was SUCH a tiny adult. She was also basically double the size Mila is now. It's CRAZY.)

Now that Mila is kinda sorta maaaaaybe starting to need a tiny bit of a trim, it has occurred to me that she doesn't know that scissors can be used to cut hair. She's never witnessed such a thing and magically hasn't had the idea come to her independently.

So now I'm scared.

If I trim Mila's hair, she's going to gain a whole new appreciation for scissors and what she can do with them. If I take her somewhere for a trim, I have to deal with her discovering that other people touch scissors. Either way, this can only end badly.

The dogs should probably be grateful we already took them to the groomers.

Growing Pains

The thing about having blogged for 12 years is that I have history at my fingertips. I can scroll back through old posts and discover patterns that I might not see if I weren't doing so much to document each day. While I don't write down a comprehensive summary of what happens each day, I leave myself enough puzzle pieces to figure out what's happening.

Hi, I have absolute proof Alexis turns into a MONSTER the month before her birthday. There's something about the month of January that just brings out the cranky in her and it always has. She spends more of January getting yelled at for her attitude than every other month combined.

Mila, though. Mila is closing in on a month to her 4th birthday and ZOMG THE MONSTER HAS HIT. I see no evidence that it came last year at this time, but maybe the weather matters? We have had a lot more pleasant days in April during most of her life. This year has been dumb, so we've spent significantly less time outside. I have a theory that playground time and emerging from the darkness of winter can offset the getting biggerness that leads to Monster Mode.

The only way to know for sure is to gather a bit more history, so here we are. In the past week, there have been tears every single morning for reasons ranking from "That's the wrong cereal" to "I don't like those socks." And when I say "tears" I mean that this morning she literally sat her butt down in the kitchen and kicked her little feet, angry that her plain white socks were plain white socks. Which was what she asked to wear, except apparently she meant the OTHER plain white socks.

There's a reason tiny people are so cute. I just can't remember what it is because my tiny person is definitely not cute when she's growling at me.