Happiest of Happy Birthdays, Tiny

Mila has birthday money burning a hole in her pocket and Alexis ALWAYS has an urgent need to spend every penny in her possession, so the two of them combined forces and convinced me to take them shopping today. It did require convincing, by the way, because I wanted to spend the day doing yard work. I badly want to finish weeding and edging and mulching but ... WOW, do I sound like a grown-up. Maybe it's a good thing the girls won out.

ANYWAY.

There was shopping. Mila gleefully spent $46 of her own money on a stuffed animal. Alexis bought two swimsuits that I would have -never- paid actual money for. So, a win. In the midst of all that spending, the girls started playing a game. It basically was a, "If you were an XXXX, you would be XXXX." For example, "if you were a color, you would be yellow." That's Mila, for what it's worth. She's yellow. Apparently Alexis is dark blue, almost black, and I'm a sort of light denim blue.

I don't know. I just listen in on the shenanigans.

They figured out which season each of them would be, which holiday, which animal, which flower, all sorts of things. A pattern emerged very quickly - Mila is, in every instance, a cheery, joyful, warm, and sunny little being. That makes her summer, Christmas, a bunny, a sunflower, etc., etc. Mila is happiness. Whatever it is that you picture as being happiness, Mila is it. Through and through.

I poke fun at her magical ability to make poor choices, but Mila's poor choices are always driven by an urge to find more happiness. It's a thing that is going to serve her well as an adult; it just needs a little directional assistance now. Like, maybe let's not run into the street just because it's more fun to run than to walk.

My favorite thing about Mila's insistence on joy is that it cuts through everything. I can be in the -worst- mood and ready to string her up by her toes, but she'll keep on smiling through the yelling. Literally nothing can persuade her to be in a bad mood other than her own decision to be in a bad mood. The usual driver is not getting what she thinks will make her happiest, FWIW. See also: This instagram post.

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Which is all to say, I already know Mila is going to have a great birthday tomorrow. The Tiny Human is turning 8 years old. An impossibility, I know, but it's also a fact. There will be cheer practice and then a day of whatever Mila wants. I'm predicting Kennywood with a Taco Bell chaser because there's not much in this world Mila likes more than those two things. Regardless, it will be happy. Mila (almost) always is.

The Magical Money-Making Kid

Did anybody notice that I stopped posting daily? I stopped posting daily. There is no grand reason for it. I just decided one day that 16 years of posting every single day had proven that I could. So I stopped. The one an only negative consequence of that is that I'm falling behind on a few things that super need to be here so I can remind Mila about them later, like the time she demanded to hang out with the Easter Bunny and it turned into a dance party.

I gotta dredge up the photo for that post. So it waits. Again. There's also a weekend of dance recitals to formally throw in this here makeshift baby book, but the photos are still sitting on a memory card.

And that is why we're going to skip right on ahead to last night.

Mila has been furiously wiggling a few teeth for weeks now, which is the exact thing I think of when you say, "What's the opposite of a good time?" It's wiggly teeth. That is the opposite of a good time. The kid does not care about my feelings, though, so she's been walking around acting like it's her job to make me throw up. Late yesterday she finally achieved her dream and wiggle-wiggle-wiggled her way to having a tooth in her hand instead of in her mouth.

In true Mila fashion, when it happened she ran over to me and shoved it in my face. When I responded, "I only like teeth when they're in your face where they belong," she responded by showing me that she could fit it back in and then laughed like a maniac when it immediately fell back out after she let go of it.

I haven't eaten since. ::blech::

That wonderful childhood moment led to the usual Tooth Fairy shenanigans. I would like to out source the whole thing in the future, btw, so if anyone is looking to make a quick buck by dropping by a stranger's house, picking up a piece of discarded human tissue, and throwing a couple of dollars down, let me know. I will happily pay a premium to never again blindly fish around Mila's loft trying to figure out where the stupid tooth is sitting. See also: touching other people's teeth is stupid.

Dentists don't get paid enough. Or are a special kind of insane. One of those things. Maybe both.

ANYWAY.

I fished and found the grossest little thing ever and threw $2 in its place and WOW was I proud of myself. I have not yet once missed on assisting the Tooth Fairy when Mila is the kid with the lost tooth. I screwed it up all the time with Alexis, but maybe I'm becoming better at remembering things in my old age. Let's go with that explanation and not pull on the thread that is my utter and complete fear of what Mila would do if I forgot.

So I left $2, went to bed, and awoke to a very excited Mila. Not only had the Tooth Fairy read her note and taken two stickers as instructed (go, me!), she had left $7.

SEVEN DOLLARS.

It was $2. I'm not losing my mind.

So where did the extra $5 come from? Given that Mila said it was super stuck in the space between pieces of wood, I'm guessing she actually hid it there and forgot about it. That's definitely a thing Mila would do - take money that is hers and hide it REALLY well so that nobody finds it. I could walk over right now and dig up a handful of candy wrappers because Mila hides things in her loft. It's one of her favorite pastimes.

Which is all to say, WHAT A WASTE. I could have skipped on all of my Tooth Fairy assigned duties and let the kid just find her own $5 and she never would have known. I didn't even need to grab the tooth because it is a very scary mess in her loft and she wouldn't have found it anyway.

Seriously, kids need to come equipped with flashing lights or something that tells you when you're allowed to ignore their weird traditions. I would LOVE to skip this one.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

Mila's birthday is coming at me like a wrecking ball, which means I need to quick-like figure out what I'm doing for her birthday cake. Lest we forget, I have a habit of getting a wee bit carried away with that particular project. This year there's an extra twist, though. Mila is having her first party in 2 years (thanks, COVID) and she invited every person she knows plus their friends, family, and neighbors. Either there are going to be 10 kids at the party or 1000. I'm genuinely not sure.

Alas, I need to figure out cupcakes instead of full-on cake, and I need to figure out cupcakes that I want to eat because I might end up with a few dozen extra. Or I might not. Why would we believe in RSVPs so I can predict these things?

ANYWAY.

Hummingbird Cupcakes. I'm going to see if Mila might be game for Hummingbird Cupcakes as an option alongside the traditional vanilla and chocolate. I've made them probably once per year for a long time. The last time I photographed them was when I made them for an Alexis cheer thing probably 3 years ago? Maybe 4? It was before COVID.

Here's the original recipe for Hummingbird Cake. I didn't make any changes when turning it into cupcakes.

Hummingbird Cupcakes
(makes 36 cupcakes)

3 cups all purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 8-oz can crushed pineapple (do NOT drain)
2 cups chopped bananas (about 4 small bananas)
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Cream cheese frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Stir together with a fork or whisk.

3. Add the sugar and stir, eggs, vegetable oil, and vanilla. Stir until just barely mixed, then add in the pineapple (with its juice!) and bananas. Finish stirring.

4. Fold in the toasted pecans.

5. Spoon the cake batter into the cupcake liners. Each one should be about 2/3 full.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Top with cream cheese frosting. If you want, garnish with a few toasted pecans.