Making Sense Out of Nonsense

I think after 3 1/2 years of parenting the creature known as Mila, it’s fair to say that she’s an interesting character. She is who she is and it isn’t going to change and that’s okay because she’s pretty damn awesome, frankly.

Mark my words, glass ceilings will shatter when she enters the room as an adult. Just watch.

In the meantime, I think it’s her mission to shatter ALL OF THE THINGS. She is destructive all the way to her soul, with a side of crazy thrown in for good measure. Things she has done because she legit thought they were a good idea:

• Tried swinging from the light above our kitchen table. As in, she tried to swing from a chandelier like it was Miley’s wrecking ball or something.
• That has happened more times than I can count. If it was a good idea the first time, it was an even better idea the second and third and allllll of the times.
• Thrown everything she could reach over the half wall in our loft because all things make a fun sound when they fall two stories onto a hardwood floor.
• The good news is that the cats are still faster in her.
• Bonus points if the thing that was falling hit a wall or two on its way down.
• Attempted to teach herself to juggle using the really good Christmas ornaments on the one and only tree that I have declared MINE ALL MINE NO KIDS CAN TOUCH THIS DO YOU HEAR ME?
• The cats have had a lot of practice proving they’re faster than her. The reasons they’ve had practice is too long for me to list.
• Decided she would make Sissy switch bedrooms with her by climbing into her sister’s loft and proceeding to throw all of the things down, including herself because why wouldn’t you try to jump from the top of a lofted bed that’s six feet in the air?
• She has tried to ride cardboard boxes down the stairs. Multiple times.

That last one. That last one is EXACTLY why I was all, “We’re going snow tubing.” If ever there was a kid who was meant to hurl herself down a hill at top speed, Mila is the one. You could easily convince me that the kid’s destiny is to be an X Games star because she has no fear. None. Zip.

(At this exact moment, I’m sitting in the waiting room at gymnastics watching Mila in her class. She’s standing on top of the higher uneven bar. Like, standing there. No hands. At least the floor is padded? And her coach sees her? Let’s go with that.)

ANYWAY.

Giant hill.

Controlled hurling down said hill in a lovely inflated tubey thing with padding at the end of your path and a lovely magic carpet that takes you back to the top of the hill.

IT’S A REALLY GOOD IDEA.

Seriously, tubing is so fun. We have a ton of fun every time we go.

EXCEPT THIS TIME.

Mila decided that only really dumb humans would purposely sit in a tube and then go down a hill. She was cool with the cold weather and the bundling up and all of that, it was the going down the hill part where she was all OH, HELL NO.

I made her do it twice because OBVIOUSLY. She needed to try it before declaring it dumb and then she needed one more go at it to be sure she felt that way.

She did.

There was a lot of yelling and annoyance and anger about the whole thing so FINE. SIT HERE AND EAT A PRETZEL AND KEEP ME FROM HAVING FUN, YOU MONSTER.

Ahem.

The next day it snowed a whole bunch. Mila spent two hours riding down a hill in a sled. Because nothing says, “Now THIS is fun” quite like taking away all of the safety measures and such and flying down a hill where you could land in a pond or smack into a tree.

This kid, man.