Shoeless Wonder

One of the advantages to the giant age gap around these parts is that Alexis gets to cling to some elements of her childhood just a tiny bit longer than she would otherwise. That's why I'm willing to stop at a playground with both girls. Mila, of course, thinks it's the GREATEST thing ever. Alexis tries to play it cool, but she ends up playing with her sister before all is said and done.

Which is exactly what happened earlier this week. I stopped at a playground, Mila ran off to have the most fun ever, and Alexis tried to saunter around and pretend she's too old for such shenanigans. She lasted about 10 minutes, but then found herself sucked in by a giggling Mila. One thing led to another, and they ended up racing each other up and down a pair of side-by-side slides.

If they're racing down, my money is on Alexis EVERY time. Gravity prefers her. The race up, though? That can go either way. Sometimes Mila can run up a slide in a flash, but other times she struggles. There is usually a good explanation why. On this particular evening, the reason was super obvious from where I was standing - she was wearing slippery shoes.

So what was happening is that each girl was trying to run up the slides. Alexis was making it four or five giant steps. Mila, however, was getting about four feet up and then sliding right back down. It was because of her shoes. She is currently addicted to the most ridiculous bright red Mickey Mouse Crocs. They are as hideous as they sound and they have absolutely no traction.

I let the racing continue as it was for a while, but both girls are stupid competitive, so Alexis was gloating that she kept winning and Mila was getting madder and madder. Eventually I intervened and suggested that Mila try taking her shoes off. Just once.

And so, Mila kicked off the awful Crocs, wound up her little feet, and dashed right up the slide in an instant. She beat Alexis by a good three feet. Never one to allow herself to be defeated, Alexis demanded a retry and on and on it went. Mila kept winning.

And it was after about the 15th victory that I realized the error of my ways. Getting Mila to wear shoes is akin to getting a normal human to smile while having their teeth drilled. She acts like shoes are the worst thing to have ever happened to humanity. She loves buying shoes; wearing them is torture.

And I had invited her to live life joyously shoeless.

But it gets a little worse. After those 15 or so victories, Mila turned to me and shouted, "I am so powerful when I don't wear shoes!"

I'm never going to get that kid to wear shoes again, am I?

Yep ... Stitch

Y'know, sometimes I question if I'm exaggerating the diversity of personalities around these parts, but then Mila goes and proves every point I've made AND THEN SOME. It's like she put on a show to demonstrate just how much Stitch action she could muster today.

In the span of four hours, she:

1. Locked herself in her bedroom so she could try to figure out how to dispose of a giant pile of candy wrappers after she snuck a big ol' bag of fun stuff out of the pantry. She was up to "throw it all out the window" when I caught her. If she had figured out how to remove the screen, she might have succeeded.

2. Locked herself in my office so she could rummage through my desk looking for fun stuff. It's filled with exceptionally boring office supplies and papers, so that worked out well for her. Though, she thought she was going to make off with my scissors. Survey says ... NOPE.

Scissors are a weird commodity around here, by the way. It doesn't matter how many pairs of them I buy, they all disappear. That is EXACTLY why I keep a pair hidden in my desk. I'll have to work on a new hiding spot.

Also, I currently have three browser tabs of interior door knob options open with full intentions of buying some like NOW. Whoever decided every door in our house needed to be able to lock was a damn fool.

3. You know those big plastic beads little kids make bracelets out of? There are a ton of them in our house. While I was in a Zoom meeting with someone who technically has the same level title as me but is truly WAY more important than me, Mila decided to take apart one of those bracelets. She was standing juuuuust on the side of my desk so as to avoid being spotted on camera and then -ping-  -ping-  -ping- she decided to launch the beads at my head one at a time. It was a truly special few minutes of me ignoring her, her giggling like a maniac, and my co-worker trying to figure the whole thing out.

4. Speaking of meetings, just half an hour later, Mila came into my office, army crawled across the floor behind me, and then put an American Girl doll on the window sill next to me, in plain view of my webcam. Basically, my whole team watched as a creepy doll magically appeared right next to me because they never saw even a hint of a little girl playing puppeteer.

5. Mila has live school on Tuesdays. She has to be reminded nonstop to pay attention and focus, which is great because some of us don't have that skill in our parenting toolset. ANYWAY, the kid managed to nearly pull down a laptop and two monitors spinning in her chair and getting tangled in her mouse cord and then ... AND THEN, her teacher said, "Finish your math assessment and you are done for the day." Except, Mila reported that her teacher said, "You are done for the day," and it took ten minutes to unravel that particular lie.

So ... yeah. She's Stitch in every way, shape, and form. She is further proving it right now by being snuggled up in my lap sleeping because she really wanted snuggles and couldn't stay awake through them. Chaos, chaos, chaos, charming. That is her mantra.

Never a dull moment.

Stitch

Sometimes I jinx things into happening.

Last week, there was a random conversation that led to discussion about those online "Which Disney Princess are you?" quizzes. After some back-and-forth, I revealed that my children were DEFINITELY Belle and ... Stitch. I have to write-in Stitch for you-know-who because THAT is precisely the Disney character that most sums up her essence. She tries to do the right thing, sometimes goes WAY off course, but generally finds her way to good in the end. Also, she's adorable. Stitch is definitely more her speed than an actual Disney Princess.

The day that conversation came up happened to be the same day I had a work thing that was scheduled to run really late. That caused a domino effect that resulted in Mila being home and expected to go to bed at an early hour with me swooping in late in the night. So, Mila. Bed. That is where she was supposed to be when I walked in.

Obviously, she wasn't. She was on the couch watching a movie just feet from the scene of a crime. I believe a unicorn exploded? Or was murdered? Or ... something? I'm not entirely sure, I just know that LITERALLY every surface of the kitchen was covered in bright pink goo. You know, like unicorn blood. There was a bit of a sparkle to it, even as it was on the floor, chairs, bowls, spoons, counters, and ceiling. Yes, ceiling. When unicorns explode, their guts tends to fly upward.

Now, Stitch the Not-Princess denied any knowledge of what happened. It wasn't until a few days later and after MUCH punishment (don't lie to me, child) that she finally came clean.

Mila decided that sleep was dumb and got up to go make oobleck. She managed to get the cornstarch out, dig up the bright pink food coloring, and add water. There were at least 5 bowls involved in the travesty, and countless spoons. When it didn't work out the way she wanted, she tried to destroy the evidence, but mostly just spread the evidence out all over the house. She did all of this completely silently as to not wake up the adult who was sleeping just feet away.

Because ... Stitch. She's Stitch. She has the best of intentions, but chaos powers her, so things go awry. Eventually it all works out, but not until after a unicorn dies in my kitchen.

I still haven't managed to clean all the pink off of my ceiling.