I'm Not Done Yet. Sorry (Not Sorry).

Hold on.

Wait a second.

Let me see if I can do it ...

NOPE. I cannot stop with Mila's rose photos.

It's just ... you guys ... she was SO COOPERATIVE. The kid knows a lot of words, but I didn't think that was one of them.

Seriously, my plan was to give it one hour's worth of effort and then to just hire someone else to take photos. I figured Mila might be a bit more willing to go with the flow for someone else, but I say that knowing that she looks like she's about to rip off some heads in her preschool photos.

I should dig those up and post them sometime. They are hilarious, if you find a toddler glaring at the camera to be humorous. Which, I do, but I'm still glad Mila chose to play nice when it was my camera in the room.

It's probably worth noting that the key to the whole thing was that Mila and I were sword fighting with the roses. It was like a scene out of Star Wars, but with less glowing and more sweet scents. Also, there were a lot more injuries. Mila managed to land several blows because of course she did. She's scrappy, that one.

Which just goes to show, you can dress that kid up so that she looks as sweet as can be, but she'll still kick your butt. And she'll be absolutely delighted as she does it.

Whim-sical

In case you haven't noticed, I am completely enamored by the two little people I'm responsible for keeping alive. While the keeping them fed and clothed part of my duties are a pain in the butt, the rest of it is pretty darn fun ... mostly.

I do what I can to make it fun. Let's go with that.

Part of making it fun is deciding on a whim that everyone should pile into the car and go look at Christmas lights. Because CHRISTMAS LIGHTS. There is nothing more fun than a little holiday sparkle and shine!

Neither of the girls thought it was as great of an idea as I did. Alexis wanted to keep holed up in her room reading while Mila was like "PAJAMAS, LADY. I DON'T LEAVE THE HOUSE WHILE WEARING PAJAMAS." But, half the fun of whims is that all of the details aren't perfect, so I made them go. Adulting may mean having to do things you don't want to do, but it also means you get to make other people do things they don't want to do. HOORAY!

So we piled in the car and drove to one of the many drive-thru light displays around the area. It was well past Christmas by the time I decided to force the issue, so the place was pretty much empty. I think we saw two or three other cars the entire time, in fact.

Since there was essentially nobody else there and I wanted to drive slowly enough to get passed by a snail, I decided the girls could pile into the front seat so they could see better. Two things happened:

1. Alexis discovered that the front seats of my car are heated. She may never forgive me for not telling her this before because having a warm butt is AWESOOOOOOME. Or so she says.

2. I remembered that there's a reason I don't reach back to unhook Mila's seatbelt. I have to walk around and unhook her so that I can immediately pick her up. If I don't, she imitates the Garfield suction cup things people had in their cars years ago. She shoots out of that seat and basically turns into a little lunatic. She glued herself to the glass, bounced around, and generally was all AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! FREEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOM! I had to tell her to quit licking the window, you guys.

The good news is that the crazy of the two of them discovering new fun things was quickly squashed by the sparkle and shine. They shifted focus to the lights and were completely enthralled. Mila being two means Mila was extra full of wonder and delight. Which, awesomeness.

I questioned my decision to drag the girls out to see lights many, many times. Sometimes my idea of fun isn't exactly what they think is fun. All the doubt melted away when we crawled through the tunnel of lights, though. It was then that Mila gasped and with eyes wide whispered, "Wook at dat! It's booty-ful!"

Whims are the best.

Five Minutes

If you really think about it, this blog is nothing but a series of five-minute excerpts from our lives. It's not the full picture at all because I pick and choose which five minutes from the day make it here. That means you miss the moments like the ones when I want to run around screaming because TWEEN GIRLS OMG, which is sort of only fair since I probably shouldn't ruin her life by telling everyone about who she thinks is cute and which boy asked her out now and blah, blah, blah. Ugh.

But for as much as 5 minutes can't tell the whole story, sometimes 5 minutes does tell the whole story.

Mila.

Miss Mila. Her name is short for Mischievous If Left Alone, except that she doesn't actually need to be left alone to find mischief. I can be fully paying attention to her and sitting RIGHT there and she will still find a way to cause chaos.

This weekend, for example, I needed to wrap a few gifts. There are some people that we exchange with after the holidays, and I for sure don't have all of the preparations done for those late exchanges until I have no choice. As I sat on the floor pulling out the paper, Mila magically appeared. Of course. If there's a situation to insert herself into, she will find it.

My little helper started by grabbing each of the candles I was trying to wrap one at a time so she could smell them. Except, she kept grabbing the one I was actively trying to wrap, so it looked a little like a shell game. When Mila grew bored of that game, she somehow managed to get her grubby little fingers on the scissors.

The thing about Mila is that when she gets her grubby little hands on something she's not allowed to have, she turns into Jerome Bettis on the 7 yard line. She protects that thing like crazy as she barrels her way to the safety of the end zone. As I yelled, "NO RUNNING WITH SCISSORS!" I tackled her and put them up on a high shelf.

In the two seconds it took me to move the scissors to a high shelf, Mila grabbed the end of the tape and made herself a six-foot long "sticker." She wrapped it around a cat before I could steal it from her. Then, while I saved the cat, Mila climbed the shelves to reach the forbidden scissors.

"WE DON'T CLIMB WITH SCISSORS!" was met with a giggle and a tackle. While I fixed that moment, Mila ran over to the wrapping paper and started turning it into confetti. With a beautiful confetti party happening all over the floor, she decided to add some glitter, so she grabbed the ribbon garland on the Christmas tree and started shaking it.

Oh. Hi. My big Christmas tree? It's leaning. I think I may need to replace it because attempts at a repair haven't worked. Thus, the pulling of the ribbon? Was also the pulling of the entire tree in the general direction of the lean. Wanna see me panic? THAT WILL DO IT.

The tree somehow managed to stay upright, but only because I chased Mila off to her confetti party.

She found the tape again.

This time she made herself a scarf.

I pulled the scarf off of Mila, only to find myself all wrapped up in tape. While I tried to unstick myself, Mila ran off to the kitchen. She went straight to the junk drawer, which is handy because it happens to be where we keep the Chapstick. The kid is addicted to slathering an entire tube of Chapstick on her face in under three seconds. So, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

I grabbed a baby wipe to clean up Mila's face, but not before she had time to run back to the wrapping paper and start unwrapping the one thing I had managed to wrap.

She was a little disappointed when there wasn't a fun toy inside.

And on and on and on ...

It was just five minutes, but it very much so represents every minute of every day with Mila. It's everything that is challenging about her, but it's also everything that is fantastic about her.