And the Other One

Alexis was probably about Mila's age when I started with the endless questions, so at this point it's second nature. She can either voluntarily tell me how her day went, or I can ask probing questions until I get answers out of her. "How was your day?" "What was good about it?" "What was the worst part of your day?" "What did you do today that was different from other days?" and on and on. I have a whole list of ways of prying information out of that kid.

Fortunately, I don't really have to pry anymore. The second I pick Alexis up after school, she starts giving me the play-by-play of all of the things. It works out quite splendidly, I must say.

But it gets better. I never imagined it would happen, but somehow Mila has picked up on the whole thing. For the past few months, she has also started spilling it when she gets in the car. I wouldn't have noticed, but she instigates.

"Ask me what I do today?" she'll say. That's my cue that I screwed up and forgot to ask her, so she had to tell me to do it. Which, awesome. So I ask "What did you do today?" and she spews a bunch of information.

I know when she played outside. I know when she didn't like her snack. I know who did what, including the low-down on who is doing a great job with potty training and who is standing on the sidelines in solidarity with Miss No Thank You. It rules.

Today went exactly like every other day lately, except that for some reason pets were on the top of Mila's thought list. She felt that she had to tell me that she has two dogs and three cats they all like to eat and blah, blah, blah. Mila listed a whole bunch of details about her perspective on the lives of cats and dogs.

I decided to extend the conversation with some questions. I asked her to name the dogs, which went as expected. "There's Penny and Cody. Penny is bad."

That's a true statement, right there. Penny doesn't just make bad choices, she is legit BAD. Often.

And then I asked Mila to list the cats. "There's Max. He's my favorite. Keeeey-arr-uh." The way Mila pronounces Kiara's name is basically the best, for what it's worth. And then she listed the third cat.

"And the other one."

We should have just named Ali Cat "The Other One" because that's the truthiest thing ever right there.

Comments

[Kate]

I'd be really surprised if any household with more than one cat doesn't have "the other one." (We have two, and the second one is remembered at all because he looks very similar to the neighbors' outdoor cat who comes around, and is actually the preferred cat among them all.)