Kids Are Excellent at Judging Character

Mila’s daycare, like many, is a family-owned business. Its original owner is now the grandmother, with three total generations represented in the teaching staff. The daughter and grandson are fantastic, which is part of how I manage to ignore that the actual owner is … interesting. She’s not my cup of tea, though she has done a fantastic job raising her own daughter and does a respectable job hiring good teachers.

I knew going in that “interesting” was one way to describe her. Much cyberstalking led me to that conclusion, but it also led me to discover that she’s almost never there. Seriously. I went three years without actually seeing her face. But, lately she has been there in the mornings. Like, for the past two months or so.

Meh.

She’s still not the one interacting with my kid all day every day, so it’s fine.

By the way, Mila disagrees. Mila has very strong opinions about absolutely everything in life and she has ZERO patience for anybody who instigates a Kidz Bop dance party at Way Too Early o’Clock in the morning. I’m not even kidding. Lately the owner has been in the preschool room standing in the center of a dance party when Mila and I arrive. Mila is all sorts of, “OH HELL NO” about the whole thing, so she goes to sit in the corner with another teacher who respects that mornings are for sleeping and not making eye contact. There’s a whole bunch of grumbling the whole time, and it’s not just me who is appalled at all of that perky so early in the day. Mila really super hates it.

It’s hilarious.

But it’s not as hilarious as the happenings of this weekend. I had the girls at the little local library because they’re still nerds who think that it’s a treat for me to sit in a chair and ignore them while they look at books. They both need to be dragged out of the place after much coercion, but Mila is THE WORST. I have to bribe her to leave, and even that doesn’t always work. I have literally drug her out of the library kicking and screaming multiple times. She just doesn’t want to leave.

Thus, imagine my surprise when Mila went from ignoring my “you have two minutes” to “I’M READY TO GO NOW!” in a matter of seconds. Seriously, it happened faster than blink. She looked up, declared her readiness, and started walking towards the door.

There had to be a reason.

As I followed Mila to the door, I saw the reason. “Look, Mila! We can go say ‘Hi!’ to Daycare Lady!” I said.

“NO, WE CANNOT,” Mila replied. “I want to go now.”

AND SHE TOOK OFF RUNNING.

Mila ran faster than Usian Bolt with his shorts on fire. She even ducked under a counter to avoid making eye contact with the owner of her daycare. If I didn’t happen to agree with the “avoid conversation” theory Mila was practicing, I would have made her chat just so I could watch the little person squirm. But, you know, I had really important introverting to do. Far away from the, ahem, interesting lady.

Mila has since spent several minutes of her day telling me about how she REALLY didn’t want to talk to the daycare owner lady. When asked why, her most convincing reply is, “I’M NOT DANCING WITH HER NO MATTER WHAT.”

I second that emotion, Mila.