Favorite Things

I find it fascinating that Mila is already so opinionated about basically everything, so I thought it would be a good idea to document some of those opinions now so that I can compare over the years. Thus, I asked her a bunch of basic questions. My money says she changes her mind on basically the whole list. Eventually. Except maybe the last one.

Favorite color: Blue

Favorite thing to do: Play in the snow

Do you like cats better or dogs better? Cats. I like dogs, too.

Favorite TV show: PJ Max (PJ Masks)

Favorite song: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

Favorite food: Big noodles and no yuckies

Favorite place to go: Pittsburgh

Favorite thing to do at school: Play with Cadence

Favorite letter: D

Favorite number: 4

What do you want to be when you grow up? A witch

Of course, I can't acknowledge Mila's existence without Alexis showing up and being all, "MEEEE! I'M HERE! PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" She asked me to toss the same questions her way, so whatever. Here are her answers, which will likely stay mostly intact because we're talking about Alexis.

Favorite color: Yellow

Favorite thing to do: Read and sit on the couch

Do you like cats better or dogs better? Cats

Favorite TV show: Vampire Diaries

Favorite song: Bohemian Rhapsody

Favorite food: Ice cream

Favorite place to go: New York City

Favorite subject at school: Health

Favorite letter: Z

Favorite number: 1,000,000

What do you want to be when you grow up?  Something to do with politics. (Wait three seconds and she will change this.) (She changed it twice before I could finish typing the sentence.) (And again.)

I fully embrace the diversity in their answers, but why is it that neither one of them wants to grow up to be wealthy enough to take care of me? They clearly need to get better at setting goals.

Basic Life Skills with Siri

Alexis absolutely goes to effort to try to make me feel old. What she doesn’t realize is that it’s most effective when she isn’t trying. The accidental olds are WAY worse than the purposeful olds.

MY KID DIDN’T KNOW WHAT A BUSY SIGNAL WAS.

For a very long time, it has made Alexis crazy that I don’t call in to radio stations to try to win all of the things. The reason I don’t is pretty clear cut – we’re seemingly always in the car when listening to the radio and I can’t do that call and re-call thing while driving.

Alexis has her own phone now. SHE CAN CALL!

The first obstacle to her being in charge of trying to win stuff was for her to figure out how to dial a phone number. It turns out that the numbers I programmed for her before giving her the phone were all of the numbers she needed in life. She has never before had to press the numbers to make a call. On the rare days that she has called anyone prior to having her own phone, someone has done the dialing for her or she’s been able to use a stored number.

So there’s that. This generation doesn’t need to dial phone numbers. ::Blink::Blink::

The second obstacle was that she legit had no idea what that fast beep tone meant after she dialed. Apparently call waiting has been around her entire life so she didn’t even know it was possible for a number to be busy. ::Blink::Blink::Blink::

Once I explained busy signals, it came time to try calling again. The idea of hanging up and calling again was utterly confusing to she who doesn’t realize that you used to have to put actual money into phones on a street corner if you wanted to make a call when you weren’t home and don’t even think about talking about phones with a cord because ::Blink::Blink::Blink::Blink::

She will tell you that those only exist in offices and such.

We went back and forth for a long minute trying to understand how to hang up and call again. I thought maybe Alexis was starting to understand what I was saying, but then she definitely didn’t, but NO MATTER. THAT’S WHAT SIRI IS FOR.

“Siri, call the last number again,” she demanded.

I’ll be damned if Siri didn’t take all of the buttons out of the equation and just do it for her.

I remember thinking it was total garbage that we don’t have flying cars and robots and all of that yet (the Jetsons have been selling lies for a LONG time), but apparently I was just looking for the robots in the wrong places. They’re right there, making it so our kids don’t have to learn things that seemed so basic a bunch of years ago.

Man, I’m old.

Taking Off the Rose-Colored Glasses

I still remember when the Super Bowl halftime show looked like this.

6th grade, baby. Times were much different waaaaay back then.

1991 was a little bit better, I suppose, but only if you liked New Kids on the Block.

But then the halftime show became something worth talking about a few years later. Everything changed and suddenly there was a show within the show. I don't know if everybody feels this way, but I've come to think of the halftime performance as Must See TV.

That's where I went wrong.

It was the middle of the second quarter when Alexis was all, "I'm going upstairs." I was all, "No way, young lady."

I made my kid stick around so she could watch Justin Timberlake with me. IT WAS MUST SEE TV, DARN IT.

It was through her (very bored and slightly annoyed) eyes that I saw it. You guys, I think maybe I've been giving JT too much credit. As Alexis rolled her eyes and sighed and generally made sure I absolutely knew that she thought his performance was lackluster at best, I realized she ... might ... be ... right.

His wardrobe choice was worse than questionable.

The singing was - meh -.

The dancing was good, but the Rockettes were too. So.

As I watched Alexis decide JT is an average white guy doing average white guy things, I looked back on history. I THINK MAYBE HE HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN AVERAGE WHITE GUY DOING AVERAGE WHITE GUY THINGS. With the exception of a few SNL skits that are amazing, but were written by other people, he's just sort of ... Aw, hell. I think maybe JT sucks. He has basically made a career out of being the guy that slept with Britney and then told everybody he did it and then cried when she cheated on him (but he cheated first, I think, so WHATEVER). That's it. That's his whole schtick.

Talk me off the ledge, y'all. Or don't. If he really is just sort of okay at best, then I guess we should all hang out in that reality together.