My Ears Are Still Bleeding

We've missed the past few summers because of the magic of Mila, but now we're back to our regularly programmed bike rides. For as long as Alexis has been around, we've found our way to a fun trail, piled onto bikes, and ridden a solid 6-10 miles. Through the years, she has gone from riding in a trailer all the way to riding by herself.

Once.

She rode by herself once.

It only happened once because it turns out the kid has absolutely no interest in focusing for the 30-45 minutes it takes us to ride. Besides that, the once that she did it, she failed to go to the bathroom before riding. The last three miles of the ride were filled with her desperation because HAAAA! At least it wasn't me that needed to go super bad for a change!

She was pretty miserable, though. It was just too far and too long for her to do all alone.

So the next night we drug out the tandem bike (we have an old version of this one -- it rocks). With the theory that the kid who rides tandem is bound to be much more helpful than the one who rides in a trailer, I ended up with Alexis. I wanted the easier ride.

I'm kind of dumb sometimes. "Easier" was a joke because she only pedaled about 10% of the time.

The rest of the time, she was busy recreating the musical/singing episode from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  There were no commercial breaks, though. She just sang and sang and sang, carrying on what would have been a conversation about ALL OF THE THINGS and turning it into a song.

In close quarters.

I mean, she knew I could hear her. She wanted me to hear her. She went on and on because I could hear her.

"Mom, let's have a discussion about poop," she sang.

"Let's not," I replied in a very much so NOT singing voice.

"Yes," she continued. "Let's ... So ... why do you suppose poop is brown? Has it always been called poop? Or was it called something different waaaaaay back when you were a kid?" she sang.

Literally. She literally sang that whole thing.

She also sang about how the state tests are too easy, how much she loves sparkles, the color of her underwear, and absolutely everything in between.

The kid has a lot of words in her head. They all sort of poured out in song as we trekked along the trail.

Which brings me to one realization: the kid knows how to make me crazy and she's not afraid to use her superpowers for evil.

Round One of Oh So Many

The thing about Alexis is that she's a little smarty pants. By that I mean school comes easily to her, which is pretty darn fantastic in every way. She looks forward to classes, loves when there's a serious challenge, and spends hours and hours studying away just because she enjoys it.

Really, we hit the kid lottery with that one.

Her love and devotion to school is why it made TOTAL sense that Alexis came home and told me that she was OH SO EXCITED about state testing. Whatever her teacher has been selling in terms of the tests being fun, Alexis was buying it all. Hook. Line. Sinker.

I might have rolled my eyes when the kid started a countdown to the tests like someone would do a countdown to Christmas or vacation or something that is legit fun. And not a test. And especially not a super long, super boring test. I mean, TEST. Tests aren't all fun and games. They're TESTS.

The enthusiasm stayed all the way up to the day before testing was set to start. I don't know what happened, maybe she had too much time to get lost in her own head, but suddenly Alexis exploded into a panic. BUT I DON'T WANNA DO THE TESTS. WHAT IF I DO BAD? And on an on.

Through  the course of her panic, I got a heavy dose of third grade gossip. Somehow, other kids had gotten the idea that if you do poorly on the test, very bad things will happen. You won't get to move on to the next grade, you'll have to do summer school, you will have to sit in the principal's office for the rest of the year, your favorite boy band will break up, and you'll be forced to wear granny panties for the rest of your life. Or something like that.

Basically, the kids came up with a whole list of really terrible things that would happen. Miss Alexis found herself in a panic over the whole thing.

Total panic.

So I had to do that thing. I had to do that thing where you whip out a giant needle and stab a huge hole in that bubble that your kid lives in. I had to fill her in on the real purpose of state-mandated testing and how it's not really the kids who are being tested, but rather the adults.

Ten minutes later, she understood.

"So what you're saying is that I should do my best, but if there's a bunch of questions that I can't answer, it means my teacher did a bad job," she said.

I could have gotten into the whole concept of "teaching to the test" and how it makes me stabby, but I spared the kid an hour of my craziness. Instead, I replied, "That about sums it up."

"Well, then," she said. "I guess that means my teacher better be super nice to me so I make her look good."

Yep. That exactly.

 

What's Old Is New Again

Poor Mila.

She is so very loved, and yet she never seems to get anything. When Alexis was her age, every trip to the store seemingly ended in some new fun thing. But now there's no need for new fun things because all of the old fun things are piled in our basement and garage.

There are so many piles of things that should have been discarded years ago.

But those things weren't discarded. That leads to a fun game we play where something comes out of storage, Mila loves it with all of her heart, and The Hoarder gloats. There is much gloating happening because things like this little walker/ride-on toy were hiding in the midst of the piles.

Mila spent HOURS this past weekend walking all around the patio. It's very fun and exciting to discover that there are toys that will aid in your quest to walk. No matter that those toys are missing stickers and are old -- THEY'RE SUPER FUN. Because, you know, it's super fun to cruise around and destroy everything.

It's also super fun to sit on the toy.

So I guess the kid will forgive us for not buying her a bunch of new things. Maybe.