If you have something you need repeated, some words or even a gesture, I have got the girl for you. Mila has hit the parrot phase in a BIG way. That means we're all having a grand old time doing all sorts of crazy things so that we can watch her mimic us.
But, with great power comes great responsibility. I can't speak for the other people in this house, but I'm making sure I teach the kid useful life skills. Like, I taught her to say "trick or treat" on Halloween.
If you're thinking that a tiny person in a giant blond wig saying "trick or treat" sounds like the cutest thing ever, YOU ARE CORRECT. While you're picturing her awesomeness, you should add in a plastic pumpkin bucket. She saw other people carrying them, so she insisted that she drag that thing around all over the place. She mimicked her way to strangers' doorsteps, peeped her little "ti-teet," and then carefully placed candy in her pumpkin.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
That means that it was only a matter of time before her lightweight little bucket became something altogether different. I tried to help her about a bajillion times, but Mila was having none of it. She wanted to drag that bucket around, even if it did weigh more than her.
Now, most of the time, Mila rode in her car. This is probably the only year that I won't make her walk for her treats, so I made sure to encourage her to enjoy being the blond cruising around in the red convertible as much as possible. But, the girl likes to walk. Thus, she spent more than a few minutes staggering in that wobbly way only toddlers and drunk people stagger. While dragging her candy bucket. While wearing the ridiculous blond wig.
It didn't take long for the wig to go askew.
Not long after the askewness struck, Mila found herself fighting a losing battle. She wanted to carry that bucket, but she just couldn't do it. Her answer to that horror was to sit her butt down in the middle of the street and drunk whine.
You know the whine. The drunk-sorority-girl-who-just-can't-go-on-another-second whine. She's always got big hair, impractical shoes, and she's completely incoherent as she babbles about the injustices of the world.
In theory I took Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers trick-or-treating. In reality, I took Fred Astaire and a drunk sorority girl trick-or-treating.
