Poor Barbie, Silly Mylie, Intense Connor

The other day, I did something I had never done before. It was so easy, I didn't even know I'd done it until it was done. I melted a Barbie. That's right. Melted it. In the oven. Poor girl.

This is the latest mishap in our household that can be attributed to Mylie's silliness. See, for her, the barbie can't just be a barbie. I guess it had to be a food instead. And since Barbie is a food, she must need cooked. In a pan in Mom's oven. The same oven she uses to cook dinner, which she usually does by first preheating the oven without looking inside to see if there might be a barbie in there. But that's Mylie for you. She's quite the girl. The line between real and imaginary is very foggy for Mylie. She's the best pretender I've ever known, in fact. The following recent examples are great evidence of that fact.

Yesterday morning, Mylie was laying down in the kitchen and tried to do a situp. I was encouraging her "Come on, up, up, up! You can do it!" as she struggled. She couldn't quite get it, so I just moved on with what I was doing. Then I hear Mylie saying, "Good job. You did it. Mom, my cereal is good at situps." What?!? I looked over to see her "helping" her small tupperware bowl of cereal tip from its side to an upright position. What can't bowls do situps?

Tessa shared another example with me. Mylie stayed at their house last week, and started playing something very concrete with Tessa--dominoes. Then things got out of hand. Mylie built a house with the dominoes. Then she started using buttons as people! She wanted Tessa to play with her, but Tessa (like me) had no idea how to play something so ridiculous. Luckily Grandpa did, and stepped in quickly.

It looks like Mylie is being a ballerina, but honestly--who knows?

Here she is making "witch food."

Mylie is also quite a story-teller. I think this is a result of her shady understanding of what is real and what is not. One day, while traveling in the van, Mylie started telling me all about something she and Connor had been playing earlier that day. She went on describing many details of their game. I then asked, "When did you play that?" One word came from Connor in the back seat: "Never." And that is the first piece of evidence to support the fact that Connor is the most serious and intense (about REAL things, of course) kid I've ever known.

When we go to the library, Connor heads straight to the non-fiction section. He has no time for the nonsense of stories. He wants to know about REAL things--like how many feet tall T-Rex was, or how many mph a drag racing car can go.

Connor's serious, intense, and obsessive personality really comes through in sports, which he LOVES! For about 5 months this winter, Connor spent every waking moment with basketball on the brain. He watched it on TV (full Jazz games!), in highlight films (he knows every superstar from 1985 to today), and of course in real life. He went to ball practice with his dad nearly every day, where he'd spend two hours dribbling and shooting. You think that would be enough. Not hardly. He created his own basketball court in our kitchen (see below) where he would work on his basketball at home, too. He told me he had to practice for 99 minutes every day (He used a timer!), since he was going to be in the NBA someday. And he would do AT LEAST that every day. Suddenly his old computer games were worthless. It had to be basketball. At the library, he checked out books about basketball. He wore a uniform every day (under his clothes, if we were going outside). It was intense.





Then about a month ago, things started to change. It's now track season. Dad coaches pole vault, and Connor now has a new obsession. Take everything I mentioned above (TV, highlight films, computer games, practice, and building your own model at home), substitute pole vault for basketball, and you have Connor's current life. The kid is crazy. I now need a new broom, since mine became a pole vault pole. My couch is never put together, and my bar stools are never where they belong, since they serve as the pit and standards for his crossbar. Oh well. At least I don't have a basketball court in my kitchen anymore.



So, I wonder, what will Mariah be like? Apparently, these kids come with personalities and interests all their own. However, Connor goes to school next fall, so the majority of her time will be spent with Mylie. Looking at the picture below (Mylie's doing, of course), I wonder, does she have much of a chance?