Mila Figured It Out

I'm neither here nor there with this whole "Halloween all week" thing, but Mila is very much so all in. There are costumes happening for all sorts of different things pretty much every day for a solid week. Because she has to be the opposite of her sister in every way, though, Mila she had to find a way to twist the whole thing around. While Alexis very much so wanted an official fancy costume for each and every event, Mila is SUPER happy to scrape through piles of fabric and patch together something.

Sunday's cheer costume involved an old witch hat, a skirt Mila made out of felt and a safety pin, and a random cape she found hidden in a bin somewhere. She was very proud of it. Alexis would have rather had a toe nail ripped out by ants carrying tiny sporks than wear a felt skirt. Which, for what it's worth, is why there is an actual witch costume in the house somewhere. Mila didn't want it. She preferred her cobbled together idea.

For gymnastics, Mila decided to be a vampire. Once again she rummaged through piles of things and assembled a rather perfect rendition. There was a cape, a black t-shirt, a black skirt, fangs, and she talked her sister into giving her fancy vampire makeup. It was pretty perfect.

And it led to a realization.

As I went to drop Mila off, she put on a mask, as usual. She cocked her head for a second because GAH! NOBODY COULD SEE HER TEETH! Mila didn't consider it the end of the world because she's a normal 7-year old who wears a mask without complaining, but she definitely took note of the fact that her plastic teeth would go unappreciated.

She still wore them, by the way. The stupid plastic teeth are one of her favorite things.

On our way back home, Mila had a little time to ponder her day and all of its events. I suppose that's what led her to a simple realization. "If I can wear vampire teeth and nobody knows because of my mask, that means REAL vampires can walk around with us and none of us know!"

That's probably how this whole thing started. Vampires wanted to walk among us.

Ready for Halloween

Important Work

Just so we're clear, this is a photograph of a scissors thief.

I know it is a photograph of a scissors thief because late last week, I went rummaging through Mila's art stash. She has a little craft table in the corner of the family room which has been piled high with projects and papers and glitter for months.

MONTHS.

The literal glitter is why it went on so long. If I left the pile undisturbed, I didn't have to cause a glitter breakout. To make eye contact with glitter is to command it to multiply and spread for miles, but if you pretend you don't know it's there, it's stays compact and neat.

Alas, it was time.

And so I grabbed a garbage bag, elbow-length gloves, and a HAZMAT suit then left all of my empathy and care at the door before taking the entire pile of stuff and throwing it away. Did I throw away a perfectly good coloring book or ten? Yes, I did. They all had a page or two colored in them so they couldn't really be gifted, but clearly Mila doesn't care about them since she hasn't touched them in months. So, buh-bye. All of it.

Except the scissors.

Do you want to guess how many pairs of scissors there were hidden in the depths of that disaster? EIGHT. EIGHT PAIRS OF SCISSORS.

I didn't know I owned eight pairs of scissors. At some point, I must have run out of findable scissors and bought more, never realizing that the thief was stockpiling them in the corner. My sewing scissors, the craft scissors, the haircutting scissors, and all of the junk drawer scissors your heart could want. They were united together while hiding between pieces of construction paper and coloring books.

When I told Mila about what I had found, she suddenly became a woman of few words.

"Mila, I found eight pairs of scissors piled on your table. Care to explain?" I said.

"They have important work to do," she replied before running off.

WHAT IMPORTANT WORK? Should I put them back?