They're Cute for a Reason

While she certainly had some REALLY bad phases, I have to admit that Mila was a not-terrible sleeper when she was an infant. She wasn't perfect and she didn't set any records for sleeping through the night early in life, but she wasn't awful. Not even a little bit. I never really admitted it out loud for a few reasons:

1. When the internet hears things like, "My baby sleeps," it rubs its hands and digs in for some major screwery. I know saying it would have jinxed it.

2. I don't like to give too many people a valid reason to throw me off of a cliff. I can't completely help that there's definitely a few of them, but I can hold off on giving too many people valid reasons for plotting my untimely demise.

3. All things parenting are subject to change at any given moment.

AND THAT'S WHERE WE ARE.

I don't know what's going on, but Mila is SUCKING at sleeping through the night lately. There's a bunch of stuff going on, but the end result is she was awake from 11:00 pm to 2:00 am last night and spent every minute of those three hours screaming at me.

It was super delightful.

It's been going on since before Christmas, which basically means it can stop now. Please. I'M BEGGING YOU.

Soooo ... there's your explanation. If you've been reading along and thinking that Mila is being extra cute lately, you're right. She is absolutely putting in her best cute efforts. That's how it works, of course. The cuter they are, the more they're doing to make life difficult.

I need a nap.

Reindeer Food

I had never heard of the oddity that is "reindeer food" until I moved to Pittsburgh, but it sure is unavoidable with preschools and such around here. Alexis used to make it every year when she was tiny and now Mila does. A little bit of oatmeal, a whole lot of glitter, and there's inexpensive magic to spread in the yard for the reindeer to eat while Santa is busy climbing down the chimney and stealing cookies. I'll admit it's a cute idea; mostly I just roll my eyes about it because there are SO many things to remember at Christmas. What's one more?

(An aside ... it turns out that if you just stop moving the Elf, nothing bad happens. Whowouldathunkit? At least that means I have one less thing to try to remember.)

So Mila came home with reindeer food before the holidays and she was SUPER excited about it. She was super excited and we were all super distracted and WHOOPS. We forgot to put out the reindeer food for Christmas Eve.

Mila had concerns when she realized what we had done. She had enough concerns to talk about it for a few days ("The reindeer are going to be hung-ger-y!") and it very quickly became the conversation I didn't want to have. There's no talking sense into an upset 3-year old, so you just have to sort of listen and nod and say nice things.

Or let the universe fix it all for you.

Western Pennsylvania is a hotbed of deer activity. I slam on my brakes to avoid one at least once per day and often more than that because SHEESH THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. I have actually already hit one this winter (with minimal damage to all involved parties, fortunately) and nearly hit basically all of the rest of them.

Including the one on Monday.

I was within millimeters. We were driving down a heavily wooded road and just as we rounded a bend, there was the deer jumping across the middle of the road. I slammed on the brakes and thankfully narrowly avoided A Very Bad Evening.

Of course, you can't slam on your brakes without getting a LOT of questions from the backseat drivers. As luck would have it, Mila saw with her own eyes why we had suddenly stopped. "Woooook! It's a reindeer! Awwww! It's so cute!"

Deer = Reindeer in her head. Don't bother telling her otherwise unless you have six hours to spend arguing with a 3-year old. Spoiler alert: You'll lose. I don't care how good you are at arguing, you will always lose when arguing with a 3-year old. Also, you should probably focus on the adorableness of the kid's excitement rather than technical details. Life is better that way.

So, Mila was really very excited to have seen a reindeer and then she realized said reindeer was probably looking for food and YOU GUYS, SHE HAD A BAG OF UNEATEN REINDEER FOOD AT HOME.

All of the excitement followed as Mila tried to get me to turn around and pick up the deer so we could give it a ride to our house. She had full intentions of taking it home so she could share her reindeer food with a real reindeer who could use a little help in life.

3-year olds really are the best.

Making Sense Out of Nonsense

I think after 3 1/2 years of parenting the creature known as Mila, it’s fair to say that she’s an interesting character. She is who she is and it isn’t going to change and that’s okay because she’s pretty damn awesome, frankly.

Mark my words, glass ceilings will shatter when she enters the room as an adult. Just watch.

In the meantime, I think it’s her mission to shatter ALL OF THE THINGS. She is destructive all the way to her soul, with a side of crazy thrown in for good measure. Things she has done because she legit thought they were a good idea:

• Tried swinging from the light above our kitchen table. As in, she tried to swing from a chandelier like it was Miley’s wrecking ball or something.
• That has happened more times than I can count. If it was a good idea the first time, it was an even better idea the second and third and allllll of the times.
• Thrown everything she could reach over the half wall in our loft because all things make a fun sound when they fall two stories onto a hardwood floor.
• The good news is that the cats are still faster in her.
• Bonus points if the thing that was falling hit a wall or two on its way down.
• Attempted to teach herself to juggle using the really good Christmas ornaments on the one and only tree that I have declared MINE ALL MINE NO KIDS CAN TOUCH THIS DO YOU HEAR ME?
• The cats have had a lot of practice proving they’re faster than her. The reasons they’ve had practice is too long for me to list.
• Decided she would make Sissy switch bedrooms with her by climbing into her sister’s loft and proceeding to throw all of the things down, including herself because why wouldn’t you try to jump from the top of a lofted bed that’s six feet in the air?
• She has tried to ride cardboard boxes down the stairs. Multiple times.

That last one. That last one is EXACTLY why I was all, “We’re going snow tubing.” If ever there was a kid who was meant to hurl herself down a hill at top speed, Mila is the one. You could easily convince me that the kid’s destiny is to be an X Games star because she has no fear. None. Zip.

(At this exact moment, I’m sitting in the waiting room at gymnastics watching Mila in her class. She’s standing on top of the higher uneven bar. Like, standing there. No hands. At least the floor is padded? And her coach sees her? Let’s go with that.)

ANYWAY.

Giant hill.

Controlled hurling down said hill in a lovely inflated tubey thing with padding at the end of your path and a lovely magic carpet that takes you back to the top of the hill.

IT’S A REALLY GOOD IDEA.

Seriously, tubing is so fun. We have a ton of fun every time we go.

EXCEPT THIS TIME.

Mila decided that only really dumb humans would purposely sit in a tube and then go down a hill. She was cool with the cold weather and the bundling up and all of that, it was the going down the hill part where she was all OH, HELL NO.

I made her do it twice because OBVIOUSLY. She needed to try it before declaring it dumb and then she needed one more go at it to be sure she felt that way.

She did.

There was a lot of yelling and annoyance and anger about the whole thing so FINE. SIT HERE AND EAT A PRETZEL AND KEEP ME FROM HAVING FUN, YOU MONSTER.

Ahem.

The next day it snowed a whole bunch. Mila spent two hours riding down a hill in a sled. Because nothing says, “Now THIS is fun” quite like taking away all of the safety measures and such and flying down a hill where you could land in a pond or smack into a tree.

This kid, man.