Absolutely Not

Remember Jojo?

Yeah, me neither. I mostly forgot he was a thing because children somehow manage to take up all of the extra space in my brain. I WONDER HOW.

Anyway, Jojo was the hamster that Mila got as a reward for sleeping in her own bed. Exactly once. As in, she accomplished the feat to get the prize and then was like, "Well, we're done with that." She went another two years without doing it again and then magically decided that having an alarm wake her up was worth sleeping in her own bed for real.

Yes, really. She started at the beginning of the school year and has stuck with it. AN ALARM WAS THE KEY.

Not a hamster.

Anyway, I have mentioned Jojo in past tense about ten times because he is officially that ... past tense. The senior citizen hamster finally FINALLY travelled across the rainbow bridge last week.

It was the least eventful death of a kid's pet EVER.

Seriously, Mila was like, "Okay. Whatever." I'm guessing that the fact that it was VERY expected (he put the senior in senior citizen - like he needed a cane and talked about how much he loved prune juice and all of it). She was fully prepared and ... sort of just didn't care.

Because of course. Why wouldn't she set a lofty goal, achieve it, and then realize the prize wasn't all that great after all?

Anyway, the fact that Mila completely didn't care that Jojo went to the great Werther's farm in the sky was all I needed to support the decision that there will not be a replacement. It didn't seem to matter that I had made that decision, by the way. Mila didn't ask, so I didn't have to say no.

Until tonight.

Tonight Mila was like, "Can we go to Petsmart?" I know to deny that request before the full sentence is spoken, but that didn't stop Mila from continuing on. "I think I want to pick a new pet. One that doesn't sleep during the day and maybe one that will follow me around and ..."

"Mila, you already have two dogs. You're describing a dog. Pay attention to the dogs you have," I interrupted.

It didn't land well. Mila was apparently trying to describe a lizard.

NOPE.

NOPITY NOPE.

ALL THE NOPES.

It's too bad she already decided to sleep in her own bed because there is literally no way she can beg her way into this one.