The Incident with the Glitter

Mila wants to be funny. She's not aspiring to class clown levels of comedy, but she definitely collects friends based on who is funny and who thinks she is funny. She's constantly telling jokes and generally has a really good sense of humor.

And now she has discovered sarcasm.

There are a couple of problems with this. The biggest one is that I am the Queen of Sarcasm and I wasn't really looking forward to the day when Mila would start to separate statements of fact from statements of sarcasm. It was easier when she would ask, "Do you want to hear about the TV show I watched?" and I could say, "I would love nothing more," and she thought I was serious. Instead of going on and telling me about all the ways Bluey is Public Enemy #1, now she pauses and asks if I'm being sarcastic or not and blurgh. Just tell me about the stupid show and ignore the fact that I'm not listening, kid.

The second problem is that Alexis is most excellent at sarcasm and now she's busted. Every time she says something sarcastic to Mila, Mila yells at her to stop being sarcastic. Anything that leads to them fighting is annoying in my book. So. They can both stop now.

But then we have the BIGGEST problem with Mila discovering sarcasm - she uses it. Except, I don't always know when she's using it because she has a lot of opportunities to learn how to use it well. She's a Mini Master, so to speak.

That means that earlier this week when Mila popped by my desk to say, "Oh, are you still working? You go right ahead and finish what you're doing. I'll take care of the incident with the glitter myself," I didn't know what parts of that were sarcastic or serious or .... what.

I chose to stay away from the incident with the glitter, which maybe worked out for me, but maybe I want to know? Maybe I don't? I really am not sure. Wherever the incident occurred, it doesn't seem to be in my direct path, so let's go with she was totally serious.

I hope.

Finally

IT HAS HAPPENED. FINALLY.

For the entirety of Mila's life, Alexis has considered her little sister to be a convenient accessory when it comes time to pick Halloween costumes. Alexis is always in charge of what they will wear. Though there have been a few years when it has almost been a mutually agreed upon thing, mostly Mila has been whatever Alexis has told her to be.

She was once a guitar so Alexis could be Elvis. Another year she was a Taco so they could be Taco Belle. Eventually I will dig up the photos of their ongoing costume saga, but stick with the point here. Alexis tells Mila what to be and Mila just goes with it.

NOT THIS YEAR.

They have been talking about costumes for easily two months already. Neither one of them knows how to keep their holidays neatly tucked into the proper month (Hello, I rearranged my office today so I could have space for a Christmas tree in 27 days, so don't get the impression that I'm judging the girls. Mostly I'm proud.). That means there have been 40 iterations and another 50 ideas ranging from something Harry Potter (Mila wanted to be Hedwig at one point, but to that NOOOOOO because that sounds like a costume I have to make and Momma ain't got time for that this year) to something Superhero. Every idea they - and I use that term loosely because mostly it was Alexis - had was either real close to something they've done before or an idea that has been beaten into the ground by the rest of the world.

And Mila was demonstrating very little willingness to be her sister's accessory. She nixed several ideas because she correctly noted that Alexis' half of the costume was the cool half of the costume.

And then came a tiny little idea last night. It was 100% Mila's idea, all the way down to who would be which part of it, and ALEXIS AGREED.

The costumes are ordered. There's no backing out now.

Details to come when Halloween actually shows up, but let's just say Mila is a little genius. Because she is.

Definitely in Charge