I've Been Sleeping with One Eye Open

Everybody knows that if your birthday lands on a holiday weekend, you gotta party it up. Mila kicked off her 3-day party extravaganza by going to Kennywood.

Which, okay, fine. We didn't really go for her. Mila has had some very strong opinions about Kennywood, and most of them involve anger. She is very happy to sit in her little car and people watch while eating french fries, but she is not amused by that whole ride thing.

The first time we went this year, she super wanted to go on the swings. Sadly, the height restrictions have changed, so she won't be tall enough to go on the Kiddieland swings until she's about 20 years old.

Thus, Alexis and I took her on the Turtles. It went well.

That was enough for Mila to decide to swear off rides forever and ever amen. She ripped my face off when I asked if she wanted to go on something else, so we made like Elsa and let it go. We resumed letting the bigger and crazier one ride every possible thing while Mila hung out and people watched.

It was fine.

But then we went back for Mila's birthday weekend.

The plan was to let the Big Kid ride all of the things and let Mila lay low. But then one thing led to another and suddenly Mila, me, and one of my friends were in Kiddieland wandering around. I was thinking we would let her play in the sand or something equally stupid, but then something REALLY weird happened ...

Mila made eye contact with the Whip.

Then she got in line to ride the Whip.

The she on purpose, willingly, without being bribed or coerced, rode the Whip.

The first time she hit a fast part, the world slowed to a stop. Every adult within a one-mile radius turned their head and watched her reaction, all of us wishing we were taking video because OMG. Imagine how much flailing Cookie Monster would do if Donald Trump were to say he's building a wall around the cookies.

She flailed like WOAH. Total strangers stopped to laugh.

I laughed harder.

By the third time around, Mila went into Honey Badger Mode. She didn't care and she wasn't going to care and nobody was being rewarded with so much as a molecule of emotion.

Which is to say, she wasn't screaming. Mila is a screamer. She'll rip the face off of anyone who makes her mad. No faces were lost that day!

Even more stunning, once Mila was off of the Whip, she purposely walked over to another ride and tried to get on. It happened to be one that required some adult accompaniment, so together we jumped on.

And waited.

As we slowly rose to the top of the ride, Honey Badger was in effect. I think Mila even yawned as she was busy not caring.

And then we dropped.

Mila was PISSED. She didn't yell or scream, but she did curl into a ball and let out a low growl that sounded like something between "You're dead, mother" and "You're all dead, humans."

And that leads us to the present state of Mila and rides. You know how police dogs have a magic word that makes them attack? Mila has one of those magic words. Go ahead, ask her if she wants to go on a "ride." Just make sure you've got your running shoes on when you say it.