All of the Words Belong to the Big Kid

A normal Thursday looks a little like me running from work, grabbing two girls, dropping one girl off at dance, feeding the other girl, picking up the first girl, feeding that girl, dropping that girl back off again, running a few errands, picking that dancer girl up yet again, and then finally dropping onto the couch exhausted at 10:00. Ten minutes later, I realize I forgot to eat and then stay up another hour trying to decide if food is worth the effort required to move.

Thursdays are fun is what I'm saying.

But THIS Thursday was a little bit different. The husband has vacation days to burn, so he used his day off to take care of a few of those steps. He fed and dropped off a dancer and picked up and fed another girl.

You guys. YOU GUYS. That little bit makes such a huge difference in my day. There are suddenly actual hours in it where I can get things done. MAGICAL HOURS. (If you are responsible for both dropoff and pickup, you get me right now. ::FistBumpOfSolidarity::)

Anyway, with THIS Thursday being altogether different from the norm, it came to be that the first I saw of Miss Alexis was after her last dance class way at the end of the night. 8:45. A full 14 hours had passed between the time I walked out the door to go to work and the time when she climbed into my car to go home.

A lot can happen in 14 hours.

I know that a lot can happen in 14 hours because Alexis told me ALL of those things rapidly and without punctuation and she kept using words and words and more words and there was like this thing that happened and it was like exciting and I don't know how I ended up with a kid who says "like" all the time either but like she was super excited because there was this thing with this boy and I can't tell you details because I don't have permission but so much excitement and so many words and she forgot to breathe and

oof.

It basically took Alexis 30,000 words to tell me a story that could have been told with 6 words. Clearly, the kid would suck at Twitter.

But she still tells me things.

She still uses all of her words when she hasn't seen me in a while.

And that pretty much rocks.

Shut Up.

We've established that I'm a crazy cat lady, right? RIGHT. Cats are my jam, and I especially adore cats who let me dress them (She still lets me, by the way. I just don't post the photos these days.)

Dogs? Meh.

I mean, UGH NO SHOOOSH STOP GET DOWN QUIT. And SHUT UP.

Part of my affinity for cats comes naturally. They're just plain the better animal. Part of it all is a product of how annoying two specific dogs are though. Well, mostly one.

The Tibetan Terror. My goodness is she awful.

Penny was the most adorable puppy EVER, but then she hit the toddler stage and ZOMG she's still there. She is just never going to grow up. If there is a mess to make, she's making it. If there is trash to spread all of the house, she's first in line for the job. If there is food to steal, we've got your girl.

Obviously, Penny loves Mila. I'm sure she basically sees a small human who drops food everywhere she goes. I mean, if you walked up to Mila right now and shook her a little bit, Goldfish Crackers would rain down. I don't know where she keeps all of the food. It's just there. Somewhere. Everywhere. Penny thinks it rules.

The feeling is mutual, of course. Mila adores Penny just as much as Penny adores Mila's food. And THAT is why Mila's latest yelling is a bit disconcerting.

"MENNY, SUT UP!" Mila yells every single time Penny barks. For the record, Penny barks constanly, so Mila has been yelling constantly.

There is exactly one person to blame for this. Me. It's me.

Whoops.

Happy.

At 19 months of age, Mila's vocabulary is nothing short of crazypants. While she still generally uses screaming as her preferred method of getting her way, she is capable of speaking in sentences. Sentences!

Which, if it weren't for Alexis, I wouldn't have noticed.

Alexis was also an early talker, but I didn't acknowledge she was an early talker because IMPOSSIBLE. Looking at videos now, it's obvious that I was clueless back when Alexis was figuring out how to say all sorts of fun things. I didn't think real words were possible, so I just plain didn't hear them.

Hindsight being 20/20 sometimes works out for fixing the present, though. Realizing that Alexis was using real words means that I hear Mila's real words. They often still require a bit of translation, but she's really doing very good. "There's a Minion!" is "Der's a Min-en!" for example.

Minions are important in Mila's world, by the way. I think it's because they speak her language.

Anyway, Mila talking obviously leads to all sorts of warm fuzzy moments. Alexis spent weeks trying to teach her to say "I love you," for example. Which, the lessons were adorable. The day Mila started repeating the words was even more adorable. When she finally says them unprompted? I might fall over from the cuteness.

Yet. And yet the sentence Mila said today is going to be my favorite for a very long time. After a dinner complete with many of her favorite things, a few hugs, and lots of attention, Mila looked up, smiled, and said, "I happy."

Me too, kid. Me. Too.