Karma

The thing to do when you have season passes and high heels that fit a tiny person is to make use of those season passes and high heels often. And we have.

I've done a pretty solid job of taking the girls to Kennywood for an evening here and there and then a weekend day scattered all about. We've managed to ride just about everything at some point, but the things that we've ridden the most have been the things that require "A responsible person" to ride with Mila.

The most responsible person I know is Alexis. Alas.

Instead of riding The Phantom 500 times this summer, Alexis has ridden the Lil' Phantom 500 times. She has suffered through the Kangaroo, Paratrooper, Whip, Log Jammer, and all sorts of things over and over and over because Mila could go on.

And she has been completely happy about it every time. In fact, I offered Alexis a "big girls only" trip to Kennywood in the next few weeks and she declined the offer. She says she would rather ride with Mila than me. Which, OKAY! 

It's pretty awesome.

The last time we took a dash through Kennywood, Alexis and I were discussing this very topic. She was talking about how she doesn't mind being her sister's +1 and I was telling her that she's awesome. That led to a conversation about karma and about how the universe will make it all work out for her in the end.

It was at that exact moment that a spectacle walked by. I choose to think we all have moments when we are a train wreck, and HOOBOY was one family's train wreck on display. There was a whole lot of yelling, including a kid around Alexis' age yelling, "Just shut the *ahem* up" at a person I assume was his mom. Except, you know, he didn't say "ahem." Ahem.

The probably mom retorted with "YOU shut the *ahem* up," and really, they just weren't having their best moment.

Alexis watched the whole thing with big eyes. After they passed by, she turned to me and said, "I think karma already took care of me by making you my mom."

I think I like that kid. 

Oh, Mila

There's this thing I've done with Alexis FOREVER that's been coming in super handy lately. Every day, I make her tell me the best thing about her day. She also gets to tell me the worst part of her day, so there's balance, but mostly the exercise serves to make her find some good even if the rest of the day was total crap. 

Which, hi. The worst thing about today? Harvey. Absolutely, positively everything about the flooding left behind by Hurrican Harvey is the worst. The photos and videos are all-consuming and worrying and just plain awful. I don't have words for how hard the whole thing is to watch.

The best, though. There's value in digging through the bad to find something good, so let me just say that the best thing about today is that Mila is a tattletale.

Expert level tattletale.

Mila tattles as a survival instinct. She most certainly doesn't think rules are important. She's not mortified that someone is breaking a rule and therefore she has to draw attention to it. Nope. She tattles to make her life better.

Exhibit A: If Alexis tells Mila "no," even in a completely justified way, Mila will start sobbing and tattling. "Alexis told me noooooo," she'll choke out between tears. It would be super effective except that Alexis is probably right if she's telling the younger one to stop with something. One of them has a more developed sense of self-preservation and it most certainly isn't the one that sits on top of tables all of the time.

Exhibit B: Mila sells out every adult in her life. She doesn't do it to get anyone in trouble. Rather, she's looking to pit them against each other. She will flat-out tell me that Daddy gave her a piece of candy. Her goal is to convince me that I should give her two pieces of candy. She wants everyone to compete for her love.

The best, though. The best was today when Mila decided she was going to tattle on the cat. The first problem with her plot was that she picked Max to tattle on and Max is THE BEST. I'm sorry if you think you have the best cat ever. You are wrong. *I* have the best cat ever. Max is my cat, but he's taken a bit of a leave of absence while Mila outgrows the Hot Mess phase. Now that she's less nutty, he's willing to reclaim his spot in my lap. He lent it to Mila for a few years, you see. 

Mila wants full custody, though. That means she's all about tattling on Max for breathing. Heaven help us all if he does more than breathe in her presence. Today Mila started out by tattling on him for being on the couch. She then launched into a series of complaints about how he was sitting on her blanket. Finally, she tattled because he was purring.

PURRING.

Mila felt it was a reportable offense that a cat was purring out loud.

I love that you can always count on a toddler to deliver a little hilarity on the days when the good is hardest to find.

Parenting Achievement Unlocked

Sometimes you figure things out when your kid is two years old and it sticks. "Shake Out The Grumpies." It's a game I've played with Alexis since she was two and IT WORKS. That kid, to this day, cannot stay grumpy if I force her to wiggle and shake.

It's super convenient, for the record. The kid grumps at me, I say, "Shake the grumpies," she starts wiggling around, and we're done. The days that she's too grumpy to voluntarily fix her own attitude, I grab her hands and we twist and shake together. The results are the same -- I get a less miserable kid in exchange for a few minutes of trouble.

Mila, though. Shaking the grumpies does not work on her. It doesn't make things worse; it just doesn't have that magical curing effect. Which, SO ANNOYING. I need magic to work on that kid sometimes.

This weekend, I was pondering how the magic doesn't work on Mila and how it has evolved with Alexis. Alexis can now substitute tumbling for shaking (which is really dancing, for what it's worth -- go figure that the dancer's mood improves when she dances). If Alexis goes and does a few back handsprings, she's HAPPY. It's like I drugged her or something.

One thought led to another thought and I wondered if upside-down was the way to be with Mila.

Fortunately(?), I didn't have to wait long for Mila to land herself in a cranky mood. Mere hours after I originally had the thought, Mila began snarling at the universe. I told her "Turn that frown upside-down" and flipped her upside-down.

I'll be damned if she didn't start giggling.

When I put her upside-up, she started cranking again. So, we repeated "Turn that frown upside-down" and such. BACK TO HAPPY! After the third or fourth try, the happy stuck. VICTORY!

Even better, by the end of the weekend, I had the kid flipping herself upside-down. After I said the magic words, Mila would bend at the waist and look between her knees. Each time, it came with a real smile instead of the grumpy mood.

THANK GOODNESS.

It may have taken a year longer than it should have, but at least I finally found the path to my sanity. And not a moment too soon because grumpy Mila is meeeeeean. I like it much better when she lets me keep my head attached to my body.