Not Even the Cereal is Safe

Mila and I have had the exact same conversation three times in the past week or so.

"Go to sleep?" Mila says.

YES. MILA SAYS THAT. She has said it about an hour before her normal bedtime. It's a trap, right? IT HAS TO BE A TRAP.

Thus, I respond, "Quit lying to me, child," but then she asks to go to sleep again and again until suddenly I find myself in her bedroom putting her down for the night. If you're imagining that I look scared out of my mind while doing so, you win!

I would probably be calmer in a hostage situation than I am when my one year-old asks to go to bed. On purpose. Without prompting. And apparently means it.

I have essentially spent my every waking moment trying to figure out what the trap is. There's definitely a trap. Tiny humans do not willingly go to bed. It's not possible. So what is she up to?

I think I figured it out somewhere between the moment when Mila threw a package of oatmeal all over the pantry floor and when she emptied a bag of crackers all over the pantry floor. She long ago figured out that the pantry is where we hide all of the food, so I've been moving things to higher and higher shelves to keep her out of them. The candy stash, the boxes of cereal, the cookies ... they've all been relocated to higher ground in order to protect them from hurricane Mila. Each time she takes an interest in something new, I move it.

That means our pantry looks like something you'd see after a flood. There food is all above the water line with empty shelves surrounding the lower part of the space. If Mila could reach it, I have probably moved it by now.

Mila's bedroom is above our kitchen. It's not far from being above the pantry.

I think Mila is digging a tunnel from her room to the pantry. THAT is why she's been asking to go to bed early -- she needs the time to dig a bit more of her tunnel.

I AM ON TO YOU, MILA.