At Least Now I Know

I am a well-trained Disney Princess expert. Not only do I hold a Ducktorette Degree from Disney University (for real!), I have successfully navigated 11 years of Princess mania in the form of Alexis. I mean, the kid sweats glitter. From the time she could walk, I knew that she was meant to get all dreamy eyed at the thought of Prince Charming. She spends her every day looking for her happily ever after and it's fine.

Seriously. It's fine. Alexis is a stunningly adept feminist even as she swoons over all things Princess.You can get lost in the absurdity of fairy tales and still roll your eyes at radio commercials that say you should check out some granite counter tops because "they will blow your wife's mind."

(Has anyone else noticed that radio commercial? Alexis falls into a fit of fury every time it comes on. If an 11-year old thinks your commercial is sexist, it just might be sexist ...)

My point is that I know a thing or two about Princesses. I'm not saying I could win a trivia contest, but I could totally win a trivia contest, just as long as I was able to do it anonymously.

Soooooo ... when Mila started saying she wanted to "watch Princesses," it stands to reason that I should have been able to figure out what she wanted. Sure, it makes sense that I needed a minute to recover from the shock because that's the kid who is made of monster trucks and mud, but whatever. I should have been able to figure it out.

I tried everything from Elsa to Jasmine, Pocahontas to Belle,  and Jasmine to Aurora. Nothing was the right thing.  "I want Princess," she kept saying.

I tried and I tried and I tried. Each and every Princess I pulled out of my magic bag was met with, "Noooo, I want Princess."

I was stumped.

Then Mila and I ventured to Target. We just needed to grab yogurt (because not having yogurt is considered a felony around here), but she talked me into looking at toys. Once we checked out the Paw Patrol crew, we ventured over to the Trolls stuff, and then Mila said it. "I want Princess toy."

"SHOW ME A PRINCESS TOY!" I said. I was more than a little bit excited about the prospect of finally solving the mystery. I chased the Tiny Human up and down the aisles as she eagerly sought the Princess she wanted.

Wonder Woman. It was mother-truckin Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is "the Princess."

I really should have figured that out.

Patience is a Good Thing

People swear that pregnancy doesn't last forever, but I think that was said before April the giraffe came along to prove that pregnancy actually can last forever. (For the sake of future me who will be completely lost at this point, April the giraffe was a literal giraffe at a zoo who had a live webcam on her as she was "about to give birth any minute." I think it all started a week or so ago, so "any minute now" sure is taking a long time.)

In the time that April has been supposed to give birth "any minute now," I have:

- Begged Mila to stop licking food off of the floor. THREE TIMES.

- Told Mila to stop licking food off of her shirt.

- Yanked Mila from the top shelf in the pantry.

- Glared at Alexis for dumping half of a jar of Nutella over some animal crackers and then eating the messy little mountain in front of her sister.

- Cleaned the other half of the jar of Nutella off of Mila.

- Sat through 135130958 hours of dance class, give or take an hour.

- Told Mila not to open her umbrella until we're outside 6 times.

#MorningThings

A post shared by Burgh Baby (@burghbaby) on Mar 1, 2017 at 5:46am PST

- Wrestled an open umbrella out of the car 6 times.

- Picked up toys off of the family room floor at least 9483224532423 times.

- Make that 9483224532424 times.

- Ripped the batteries out of a certain doll three times.

- Put the batteries back into a certain doll three times following having my head ripped off by a small toddler.

- Thrown away two shirts because of toddler-imposed food stains. One of the shirts was mine.

- Plungered the toilet once because a certain toddler thinks it's hilarious to throw an entire roll of toilet paper in there.

- Dreamed of sleeping five consecutive hours, as if that's some sort of lofty goal worth dreaming about.

- Ignored countless hours of talk about fifth grade drama.

- Spent hours arguing about whether or not we eat paper.

- Lost many, many arguments about whether or not we eat paper.

- Cleaned up ... uhhhh ... something on the chair.

- Carefully peeled a dozen Trolls stickers out of the dog's fur.

- Worn my own Trolls sticker to work because attempts at removing it were met with toddler yelling and then I forgot about it.

And on and on.

So, basically, what I'm saying is that it's okay that April hasn't had her baby yet. She should probably enjoy every minute of the calm before the storm.

Bright Eyes is Bossy

It has been several weeks since Mila slept through the night in her own bed. It has been enough weeks that I've become fully trained. I'm fully trained to be awake from 11:30 pm to 12:30 am because somewhere in there, Mila will summon me. She will sternly yell for me to magically appear. When I do magically appear, she'll say, "Up, please" in a quiet little voice and then she'll fall right back to sleep in my arms.

It's just a thing at this point.

It's such a thing that when she somehow didn't summon me between 11:30 and 12:30 the other night, I fell asleep. Normally I lay awake for no good reason other than I know that I'm going to get woken up, but I guess once the mental timer has gone off I'm free to sleep? I don't know. These things don't make sense; they just are.

So I fell asleep, but then at 12:39, I was summoned. I know it was 12:39 because I looked at my clock and thought to myself, "Sorry, time is up" and went right back to sleep.

Mila kept calling for me.

I kept ignoring her. I somehow found the snooze button on the whole situation, I suppose.

Mila must have grown frustrated. She expects me to show up in a reasonable amount of time (Which, for the record, isn't instantly. It quite normally takes me 10 minutes or more to bother to show up.). When a reasonable amount of time had come and gone, Mila dug deep for a solution.

Remember that doll? Yes, THAT doll. Mila has been sleeping with that doll lately. Except, I turn the damn thing off because I can't handle the flashlight eyes opening up and stealing my soul at night.

Mila found that doll, opened up the back of it to turn it on, and woke it up. She straight up used the doll against me.

Have I mentioned that it doesn't just light up? It talks, too. When I finally showed up in Mila's room, she was sitting up, holding the doll, and pushing its belly so it would talk.

"Uh oh. Diapy! Uh oh. Diapy!"

Somehow having a doll yell at me to change it's diaper is about 35923953 times ruder than a toddler telling me to pick her up. I really need to set that doll on fire already.