They're Baaaaack!

Mila would like to take a photo with every single one, please and thank you.

Grand Theft Auto

It's been about a year since I found Mila sitting on top of the fridge and decided the best path forward was to enroll her in gymnastics classes. What's that? I never mentioned that I found her on top of the fridge? Well, that was by design. Mila is the type of kid who senses when something bothers you and then does it more. If I had even thought about how much I didn't like that she was way up there, she would have made it a hobby.

Of note: I showed weakness when it came to the pantry shelves. I pulled her down from those shelves approximately 400 times before I figured out that I needed to act like I didn't care. Switching to not caring has taken the edge off of her nuttiness.

Gymnastics classes have helped, too. While everything about them is awful for me, Mila looooooooves those silly classes. They've helped her figure out how to be a little safer when it comes to climbing her way to destruction. Sometimes she even holds on when she's in a ridiculous place. She has definitely gotten better at following directions and waiting her turn, so win?

(I say she's gotten better at following directions, but I literally running tackled her three times last week because she decided she was going over THERE when she was supposed to be over HERE and OMG I don't know why she loves throwing herself in harm's way so much.)

So this gymnastics thing is going well, is what I'm saying. There's happiness in standing on a balancing beam, jumping on a trampoline is THE BEST, and diving into a pit of foam blocks is perfection. Everything about it is pretty great. It's so great that Mila legit knows when it's Monday and she is going to go to gymnastics. She wakes up Monday mornings talking about it and keeps going all day long.

There's no classes this coming Monday because of the holiday. That's definitely going to be an issue, you guys. Mila will rage when Monday rolls around and she doesn't get to go to her favorite place. Thus, I preemptively warned her. I explained that we had to go some extra days until the next gymnastics day and that we would get to see fireworks instead.

Mila likes fireworks. That should have been a satisfactory substitution.

I guess it wasn't, because tonight Mila spent the whole night telling me about how she's going to take my car and drive herself to gymnastics.

Uh oh.

A post shared by Burgh Baby (@burghbaby) on Jun 28, 2017 at 8:15pm PDT

She knows how to unlock the doors to my car. So.

If you hear about a toddler getting arrested for running red lights and driving without a license, at least now you'll know that she did it for a good reason.

It's Like Parenting Your Parent

As I sat across the table listening to the hilarious details of a vacation gone awry, it dawned on me -- I could be telling the same story. If we were to travel to the Grand Canyon, I most definitely would be telling the same story. There would be just one difference; my story would feature a toddler instead of a senior citizen.

I don't know how it has passed by all these years without me noticing, but toddlers and senior citizens are essentially twinsies. Let me count the ways:

1. Which is more likely to wander off and end up in a senseless conversation with a stranger? I ACTUALLY DON'T KNOW. Mila did it twice today. One of those times she wandered off while a senior citizen was telling me a story about ... uh ... something.
2. Is it the very young or the very old that you have to remind constantly to focus? My money says they're both highly likely to run off to find their shoes and instead end up standing in the kitchen eating a banana.
3. Three words: Elastic-waisted pants.
4. If you lock a toddler and a senior citizen in a room together for a day, how many stories will be told? TRICK QUESTION. Two. Two stories will be told because they're both incredibly likely to pick one story and tell it over and over and over again.
5. Ask a toddler to sing her favorite song. Now ask a senior citizen to sing her favorite song. Which one of them got more of the words correct?
6. I'll just say this: Diapers.
7. They all fall down. It's not fair how we all manage to grow out of that phase only to grow back into it.
8. If you need help finding the remote, don't ask a toddler or a senior citizen. Odds are it's missing because one of them touched it and now doesn't remember touching it.
9. STAY WAY FROM THE STAIRS, PLEASE.
10. I've yet to meet a toddler or a senior citizen willing to admit they were wrong about something. Ever.
11. But if you talk to either of them, you'll always be blown away by how wise they are.
12. They're never too busy to stop and smell the roses.
13. They both have to be told to quit dawdling in the middle of the street.
14. Have I mentioned that both senior citizens and toddlers like to repeat the same stories over and over? Because Mila wants to tell you about her trip to the library. Again. And again.
15. She's still talking about the library.
16. She's going to be talking about the library until I'm a senior citizen.
17. And maybe until she's a senior citizen.
18. They're fantastic, even with all of their little oddities. It doesn't matter if we're talking about a toddler or a senior citizen, they're fantastic and unique and STILL TALKING ABOUT THE LIBRARY OMG.

 I could go on for a while, but I've got a story about a library I need to pay attention to.