Six Eyes on the Road is Better than Two, I Suppose

Quiz time! You're driving down the street and suddenly someone in the car yells, "STOP!" Do you:

1. Stop! The voices tell you what to do!
2. Cautiously proceed while thinking about all of the ways you're probably about to die.
3. Speed up because ain't no voices going to tell you what to do.
4. Does it really matter? THERE ARE NO WINNERS IN THIS GAME.

The correct answer, of course, is #4. It seems obvious in retrospect, but I only figured out that was the correct answer after trying the first three options. They didn't really work out, you see.

Oh, I should probably mention that Mila figured out how traffic lights work. She's now very convinced that I need a little lesson because maybe I don't understand that green means go and red means stop. Just in case I am that oblivious, she keeps telling me.

"STOP!"

"GO!"

"STOP!"

"STOP!"

By the way, she understands that green means go and red means stop, but she doesn't understand which light belongs to which people. So, she might be yelling "STOP!" because the traffic light 1/2 mile away and headed in the opposite direction turned red. She might also be referring to the traffic light that is ten feet ahead of us. There's no way to be sure until it's too late to be sure.

To summarize, Mila is now in charge of traffic lights. Which, that's just great because I still have Alexis who has never stopped being in charge of the speed limit. Between the two of them, I have the best back seat drivers a person could ask for.

She Left Her Listening Ears in Sandusky

I'm a little slow figuring things out, so it just recently dawned on me that if I want to keep Hurricane Mila from destroying the world, I should probably take her places where she's most comfortable. Playgrounds, trampoline parks, amusement parks, they're all her jam. If the mission is to run and jump and be crazy, she's right where she belongs.

This all occurred to me when we were at a trampoline park a few weeks ago. Girlfriend ran at 1000% the entire time we were there. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Climb. Jump. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. For as much as she loved every second of literally climbing the walls, she was also ... compliant? That's not really the right word. It's more that she had her listening ears on. It's really hard to redirect that kid even when she super needs to be redirected, but it worked that day. "Hey, let's go that way!" and "Let's take turns, please!" and "We have to put the toys away before we get more of them." It all worked. Magically.

So just imagine how great those listening ears work when we're at an amusement park! SO GREAT. We took a quick run up to Cedar Point this weekend, which is basically Mila's definition of heaven, and she was SO GOOD.

Cedar Point is extra magical and stuff because Mila can ride a whole bunch of stuff there. Sometimes you look at a ride and you think "there's no way she's big enough for that" but then she is and of course she's game for it. The kid was asking to ride Top Thrill Dragster, for goodness sake. She meant it, too. I don't think there is a single ride she wouldn't happily go on.

We started the day with a conversation about how we needed to use our listening ears all day or we wouldn't be allowed to ride anything. And then, for the most part, Mila used those listening ears. I mean, I only had to yell at her for standing up in the stroller about 4569035 times. That's WAY better than normal. She waited in lines nicely. She sat patiently waiting for her turn.

And she had the best day ever. She declared as much when we got home at 2:30 and she was suddenly wide awake. And jumping on the bed.

We're going to need to move to Sandusky.

An Explanation That Makes Sense

Mila was in rare form today. And by "rare form," I mean I NEED A NAP OR TEN. She's normally a firecracker that's taken too much speed, but today she seemingly threw some caffeine, Red Bull, and energy pills on top of it all.

Zooooooooom.

Jump. Jump. Jump.

The looks that I got for the stunts she pulled when we were in Target were judgemental enough to last me a lifetime. I KNOW, Y'ALL. SHE IS NUTS. I CAN'T STOP IT.

There was a point between when she was climbing shelves at one place and tearing down an entire table filled with pants at another when I asked her why she was so wound up.

"Because I'm happy!" she replied before she ran off to destroy more things.

It's really hard to be mad at that.