There is exactly one reason why I haven't used about four dozen rolls of duct tape to attach Mila to the garage ceiling and that reason is Nintendo. Mila got a Nintendo Switch for Christmas and HOT DAMN I WAS SMART THAT DAY. I was smart again at the very beginning of this whole *waves hands* thing *waves hands*. I had an important 4-hour meeting with a lot of people who have the word "President" in their title, so I bought the girls Mario Kart for said Nintendo Switch.
It worked, by the way. I whipped that new game out ten minutes before the meeting and I didn't see the girls until the next day, and only then because they had run out of self-service food.
With that victory in my pocket, I went for one more try. For Easter, a little game called Animal Crossing wandered into our lives. It took a few weeks, but eventually Mila fell for the whole "change clothes" thing hook, line, and sinker. She was ADDICTED. It was the first thing she reached for in the mornings and I had to fight her to put it away at the end of the day.
You can judge me for the amount of screen time involved, but really you should be impressed that I've found a way to keep a 5-year old content while literally locked in her house for weeks on end. If you had asked me if that could be done before I proved that it can, I would have laughed in your face for days. Without a mask on, even! Now I would wear a mask, though. Promise.
ANYWAY.
Mila. Hooked. Animal Crossing is her jam. There is just one problem - she is a froozlenurf about reading. She can. She won't. It's a whole thing. That means that when her fishing pole breaks, she comes running for me and shoves her Nintendo Switch in my hands while shouting, "I NEED A FISHING POLE!" She has done it during a few conference calls, which is awesome, but again ... mostly she lets me work when I say I need to work. It is a very small price to pay to have to click a few buttons and make an imaginary fishing pole appear.
Making fishing poles is a gateway drug, y'all. One day I completely didn't care and the next I was up until 2:00 am searching for imaginary bugs. I COMPLETELY fell down the rabbit hole. Hooked. Obsessed ... I made Mila's island awesome. I had a very small budget to work with, and yet I kicked some fancy island butt. I was very proud of myself, thank you very much.
And then Mila woke up. Just like always, she needed to check her mail and see what cute clothes she had wasted money on the day before. Then she went about her normal business on her island.
She trashed the place. She started with taking off her shoes and socks. Then she dug a bunch of random holes for no reason. And then she drug every last freakin thing out of storage. Oh, and she ate some turnips while she was at it.
The turnips were one step too far, for the record. I was not amused. We had a little talk about taking care of our island (it's "ours" now, not hers) and moved on with life. I fixed Friendland (Mila named the island Friendland) back up and even made a couple of improvements.
Mila did her thing all over again the next day. Shoes and socks off. Holes dug. Everything drug out of storage. The good snacks gone. We're like two weeks into this cycle and EVERY DAMN DAY. SHE TRASHES THE ISLAND EVERY DAMN DAY.
I have to quit the game. I already have a life where Mila won't wear shoes, drags every last toy out, and eats my snacks. I don't need an imaginary space where she does it, too.
