Defeated

Mila, she who laughs in the face of "No" and then double-downs and does that thing more, has decided that if she says something enough times, it will become fact. It's not my ice cream, it's hers. She doesn't have to wear shoes because of course she doesn't have to wear shoes. There are tons and tons of examples.

And, hey, the television? That's hers. She controls it.

The interesting part about this little power struggle is that every time she pushes the issue, I turn the television off. You can demand that I turn on "Elmo Street," but if you do it too many times, nobody gets to watch anything. Yet, Mila perseveres.

While "Elmo Street" is often Mila's go-to request, more recently she has adopted a movie as her thing. Puss in Boots, to be exact. Except, she calls it "Kitty in Boots." I've figured out that she's calling it that because Kitty Soft Paws is her favorite, but she knows the word "boots" is in the name, so she mashed things up until she liked them best.

Anyway, Mila has been asking to watch "Kitty in Boots" a lot lately. Well, she asks once. The conversation tends to go more like this:

Mila: "I watch Kitty in Boots, please?" It is asked as a question.

Me: "No, thank you."

Mila: "Do you want to watch Kitty in Boots?"

Me: "No, thank you."

Mila: "We watch Kitty in Boots." It's not a question anymore.

Me: "No, thank you." (I'm consistent. It's a fact.)

Mila: "OK, we watch Kitty in Boots now." And then she grabs the remote and tries to use the voice recognition thing to change the channel to Kitty in Boots. By the way, I think Kitty in Boots might be a real thing that shows on the channels that were scrambled back when I was a kid. It's not a kid-friendly as Puss in Boots. Ahem.

The whole exchange takes a minute or two because there are pauses and some moments of silence, which means that my old brain tends to forget how the whole conversation started. I go from absolute resolution that there will be no Kitty in Boots to Mila nearly convincing me that I've asked her which movie she wants to watch and her happily answering.

Which, whatever. So what if I have been brainwashed by a 2-year old.