I See the Future

I often wonder what Mila and Alexis will be like when they're old and grey. Alexis is already a grandma while Mila lives life in the fast lane and C'MON. That's going to be hilarious when they're adults. It's hilarious now, frankly. It doesn't seem like they should get along but they super do.

And I suspect they always will.

I think I figured out what they're going to be like when they're old. It turns out that Mila is a savant at the coin pusher games. You know the ones where you time dropping a coin and hope that the pusher thing will cause a whole bunch of them to fall in the front? THAT game. While I try to carefully time and aim my coin drops, Mila is all BOOM BOOM BOOM LET'S GO FAST BOOM BOOM BOOM. She is in a hurry and it turns out her technique is amazing.

She gets SOOOOOO many coins to fall.

Which means this thing where Alexis keeps dropping the money on the game but Mila does the actual gambling is definitely going to happen. This is exactly how they're going to spend their senior years.

Preschooler Hunger Games

I was sitting in an airport banging away on my keyboard when I got the text. The words on the screen said something like, "Mila is sick," but I read, "Why didn't you schedule some meetings for tomorrow? STAY AWAY FROM HOME FOR ANOTHER DAY."

Alas, it was too late. I had to continue on my way home.

(A reminder - I am not a competent parent when it comes to sick kids. It's not in my skill set and, frankly, I'm not just bad at it, I'm AWFUL at it.)

I walked through the door at about 1:00 am and promptly was greeted by a blond-haired sprite who was SUPER excited to see me. I don't know how she knew to wake up at that exact moment, but she did. I was stuck with her. Which was great because it took about ten minutes for me to confirm that she was indeed sick.

The good news - Mila is now a competent sick kid. She can handle things all by herself which is great since I'm no help. The bad news - she can't reach the light switches. I still have to turn lights on and be awake while she handles the rest of it by herself. I guess that's fair, though.

Eventually morning came and I settled on the couch with Mila thinking I would do some work while she finished recovering. I made it about five minutes before it became clear that whatever had haunted the kid in the middle of the night had moved on. I couldn't get through one email without her turning into a loon. It became REAL clear REAL fast that she might as well go to school and enjoy her Easter party with her friends because she was TOTALLY FINE OMG.

I let her eat her usual three breakfasts and then made her sit around for an extra hour JUST IN CASE, but woah. The kid was TOTALLY FINE OMG.

So, I took her to school. We were a few hours later than usual. And so were ... a lot of other kids. Out of 23 who are in the class, only 10 were there. Some had been there and left and some hadn't made it there and WELP. As Mila's teacher said, "Welcome to the infirmary."

I left Mila there anyway. She was obviously feeling just fine and with any luck, she wouldn't catch a second round of the sick. There was a super fun Easter celebration planned, and I was glad she was able to be there for it. So, off I went to do some work.

When I returned to pick Mila up, I saw exactly what happens when you give a bunch of preschoolers a giant pile of Easter eggs filled with candy and some of them are sick and some are fine and WOW.

I swear it looked like the Preschooler version of The Hunger Games. Open eggs were strewn about, candy wrappers were here and there, and the kids. OMG THE KIDS. The survivors were high on sugar and the others were sitting around and staring blankly and goodness. I felt terrible for the teachers who were doing everything they could just to survive.

It's a real good thing they have a 3-day weekend to recover. Hopefully that recovery will involve lots of antibacterial stuff, bleach, and possibly booze. I'm not sure who is drinking the booze, but somebody needs it.

Forgotten, but Not for Long

I've been in Oklahoma City for a work thing this week, which means I've seen a lot of airports, conference rooms, and hotels. Such is life. But, sometimes life leaves an extra hour sitting around and I pick it up and use it to see something important while I'm traveling.

The site of the Oklahoma City bombing.

I've been to Oklahoma before and not made it to the memorial. An oversight, I suppose.

For as much as the site is full of sadness and yet hope and and achieves all of the things that it should achieve, I was left with one thought - I don't remember the correct names.

With distance from the event, somewhere along the line I've lost the names of the people who deserve to be remembered. I instantly remember the names of those who should be forgotten, but that's not acceptable.

So I'm going to spend the next few hours re-remembering the names of the people who belong in those chairs. It's the right thing to do.