They Do Have One Thing In Common

That eight-year gap thing sometimes works for Alexis and it sometimes works against her. Obviously she's okay with it regardless since she doesn't know any other way, but occasionally I almost feel bad when she's stuck hanging out her toddler sister.

Like while riding rides at the little towny festival thing.

Alexis was 100% okay with cramming herself into that tiny ride so Mila could go for a spin, which was good because Mila really wanted to go for a spin. I felt bad, though, because crammed. So crammed. Alexis also patiently sat through a camel ride, a pony ride, and three baby amusement park rides because Mila.

She's a good sister is what I'm saying.

But even a good sister sometimes needs a break, so I was cool with things when Alexis ran into a bunch of her friends and wanted to go on some rides with them. Her little posse is filled with awesome, which is hardly surprising. Grandma Alexis has high standards and chooses to spend her hours with people who are also rule followers.

As the rule followers took off, Hurricane Mila set her eyes on the rides again. She does not possess that hesitation thing, so she was back on the baby whip in a flash.

By herself.

All alone.

Meeeeeh baaaaaybeeeee.

And she was SO very happy about it. She became even happier when there wasn't a line so she managed to stay on the ride for six straight runs. Which means I was there for six straight runs. Which means the other kid, the rule follower, had a few minutes where I wasn't hovering around her and her friends.

A normal kid would have taken advantage of that distracted time. We're talking about Grandma Alexis, though. She continued to follow all of the rules just like she would have had I been there. Of course. Not only that, but when I did catch up with her, she filled me in with a play-by-play of every single thing she had done while I was busy with Mila.

There was a lot of detail, you guys.

Meanwhile, Mila was busy telling every human within a three-mile radius every detail about her many rides on the baby whip. So. Much. Squealing. And. Talking.

It's never going to be quiet in my house again, is it?

Want Goat

As if getting to go to the beach wasn't enough, Mila went all in on the Best Week Ever activities by ending last week with a little fair. It was one of those small town events that's all of the corny, but when you're two, corny is AWESOME.

I mean, petting zoo.

And not just any petting zoo, but a petting zoo with a ton of goats who haven't already figured out that the smaller humans are jerks.

Though, to be fair, I suppose it's hard to consider the smaller humans to be jerks when they're very happy standing there and handing over food.

We stood there feeding goats for at least an hour because both Mila and Alexis were in their element. Surrounded by animals is their way to be, with Alexis preferring cats and Mila being on team dog. Alexis, for her part, will happily tell you all of the reasons cats are the superior animal. She fully intends to grow up to be a "Crazy Cat Lady" with 7 cats and no husband because Crazy Cat Ladies are the best. (Seriously, she has described this scenario to me dozens of times.)

Mila hasn't planned quite that far out. For now she'll take whatever she can get, which is why she's team dog. Generally the dogs are the only animals who are willing to risk being near her. They've deemed the potential reward of finding dropped food to be greater than the potential abuse by the Tiny Human.

But goats.

I think both girls would be willing to cheat on their first loves just as long as it means they can feed some goats.

Which brings us to this week. Guess what the girls have bee asking me for? BOTH OF THEM. Alexis has been asking in her usual begging way while Mila is all, "Want goat."

WANT GOAT.

The answer is no. All of the no. Nopity nope nope nope. Noooooope.

But damn is the begging cute.

They're Not Pigtails, They're Devil Horns

There are a some guarantees in life -- Michael Phelps will win a gold medal in the Olympics and I will stop for Starbucks while on a road trip. Put money on either thing because you will come out a winner. During our most recent road trip, I dragged the girls into a rest stop under the guise of feeding them dinner, but really, coffee. Because coffee.

World peace will be a real thing when someone figures out the most perfect cup of coffee. We'll all gather, sit in cozy chairs, and share a pot of that magic as we smile and sing Kumbaya.

With pizzas for the girls in one hand and Mila's chubby little fist in my other hand, I stood in line for coffee. Alexis was chatting her head off, as she always is, while we waited patiently. Well, at least two of us were waiting patiently. The other one doesn't understand that word nor does she care to understand that word because she has things to do.

Like explore a shelf filled with tumblers.

Mila looked at the tumblers, and then she looked at me. I looked back at her because seriously. Just stop. KEEP YOUR HANDS TO YOURSELF, CHILD.

TOO LATE.

Mila went from visually verifying that I was watching to grabbing a tumbler in a snap. She picked it up and casually dropped it to the floor. For funsies. Of course, silly me, I thought it was plastic and that her scheme was about to be ruined but NOPE. Somebody who has never met a Mila decided to put glass tumblers on a low shelf.

And now they had one less tumbler to straighten and dust each morning. So.

As I set out to clean up the shattered glass, I scolded the Bad Idea Queen. Between my scolding and my glaring, the wrong kid found herself under a pile of guilt. Alexis started to apologize profusely, tears in her eyes, because obviously it was all her fault that her sister chose to be a jerk.

Mila, on the other hand, was oblivious to my "MILA, THAT IS NOT NICE STOP IT BAD CHOICE NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."

She looked me straight in the eye, smiled, and lifted her arm to sweep all of the tumblers off of the shelf.

The good news is that I've met Mila so I know that she is the Donald Trump of getting into trouble. When she does something dumb and gets caught, she denies that it's dumb and then does it bigger. She double-downs on her jerkiness so frequently that I already had a hand headed her way when she went to sweep a whole shelf of glass to its death, so it was no problem to stop her.

She laughed when I stopped her, and then she tried to sweep the shelf with her other arm.

I stopped that, too.

I may not have any idea how to teach Hurricane Mila that bad ideas should be avoided, but at least I'm developing that Neo superpower that prevents the really bad stuff from happening.