Zoe vs. 2018: A Seven-Year-Old's New Year's Resolutions. Plus Her Word for the Year

This year's list of Zoe's resolutions is late because it was the first New Year's she stayed up to watch the ball drop---and I haven't recovered yet.

I am a walking yawn.

But even sleepy I'm working hard to entertain my five readers---see how much I care?---so this year I decided to add Zoe's and my "word" for 2018.

Have you heard about this? People now pick a word for their personal year, and then attempt to live up to that word for the rest of it.

I'm not a New Year's resolution type of person, but I am a word person, so I feel like I'm a natural passenger for the logophile train.

However, this took some soul-searching, because I'm also not the sort of person who thrills to memes featuring people scaling cliffs at sunrise or rowing a skiff at sunset with words like "Aspire"  and "No Limits" written at the bottom. If I ever say I'm "living my best life," you should know that my best life includes sarcasm.

In the interests of becoming at least the sort of person who's maybe not like the sort of person I am, I decided my word for 2018 will be "insouciant." I like the way it sounds and I think I'd like to be insouciant.

Think devil-may-care. Think champagne and fluttering clothes in fabrics that need to be hand washed, which is very impractical and also annoying, but do I care? No? Correct. Because I'm now insouciant.

I was also rewatching Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade---a movie I've seen a million times---over the holidays and I decided I want to embody that movie, Henry Mancini score and all. Charade's a movie with insouciance to spare.

"How about making me Vice President in charge of cheering you up?"
Actual line from movie. Can you stand it? I can. Because I'm insouciant.

Still, I think I'll start being insouciant tomorrow, which is when my diet starts. Now, here's Zoe.

(Warning, she uses the phrase "pretty much" in almost every sentence and it pretty much drives me crazy.)

Zoe here! I can tell Mommy's tired because she slept past her alarm the past three days and this morning when she opened the spoon drawer to get me a spoon for my cereal she dropped the spoon, bent down to pick it up, and then hit her head on the open drawer when she got up again. Poor Mommy! I said. After I stopped laughing. Here are my resolutions!

Zoe's New Year's Resolutions for 2018

1. Decide on my word for 2018. (I got a dictionary for Christmas and thought it was boring until I saw it had words like "die" and "feces" in it.)

2. Get the last Lego dragon I don't have, the Queen dragon, which is white with gold and purple wings, and is pretty much bigger---and apparently pretty much more expensive---than all of my Lego dragons put together which gives me an idea.

3. See if I can connect all of my Lego dragons together so it will pretty much be a necklace of Lego dragons.

4. Play all the YouTube videos I want for one thousand one million googleplex hours till Mommy uses the weird voice she uses when she's amusing herself with some imitation she should know by now I can't understand to say I should go outside and play in the fresh air which I know she doesn't really mean because we live in an apartment and so she'd have to go with me into the fresh air, like the air at the park which she hates though she tries to hide it but pretty much doesn't try very hard.

5. Write more run-on sentences.

6. Learn Italian.

7. Write run-on sentences in Italian. Molto bene, abbastanza.*

8. Gain weight. (I put this one in to mess with Mommy because she's trying to do the opposite. Don't know why it's so hard for her.) 

9. Go to the bathroom when I have to go and not wait till I'm so desperate it's almost too late and sometimes pretty much a little bit too late. 

10. On the other hand, don't stay too long in the school bathroom just to show each girl who comes in the bad word (the one that starts with "f") that was scratched in the cell [Ed: stall] door so that I pretty much miss snack time. A bad word is not a reason for show and tell, and show and tell and bathrooms should never go together, unless you require medical attention. Plus, I could get in trouble, even though I'm sure it was a bad boy who snuck in and wrote it cause a girl wouldn't do that. Right, Mommy?

That's all! And I already did my first resolution.

Ready to hear my word for 2018? Schadenfreude.

Because it may be wrong to laugh at others' misfortunes but it's also funny.

Though next time Mommy drops my spoon then hits her head on the open drawer I'll ask if she's hurt first before I laugh. Pretty much.

Zoe: 176; Universe: 0

*Very well, pretty much.

 If you enjoyed this post, you may like last year's resolutions.

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

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Zoe vs. 2016: A Look Ahead

Welcome to Zoe's third annual look ahead at the new year.

If you review Zoe's 14 resolutions for 2014 and 15 resolutions for 2015, you'll see that Zoe's come a long way. At five, she's now a far cry from that toddler whose favorite word was no.

Now, instead of saying no she comes up with complicated excuses to weasel her way out of things ("I don't like broccoli, it's too spicy."), pretends she didn't hear me ("Did you say something, Mommy?"), or out and out lies ("But I never had chocolate ice cream before." Well, technically, she means "today," history not existing before the present moment).

Folks, we couldn't be prouder.

Rereading her posts, besides appreciating what a riot the kid is---I mean, wow, five years old and already a comedic genius---I see Zoe kept a lot of her resolutions. Last year, she did indeed have a fifth birthday party, go trick or treating, and enroll in kindergarten!

I can only imagine how she will top these successes in 2016. So here are:

Zoe's 16 Resolutions for 2016

1. Get more toys. At Christmas I got a lot of stuff from Santa, from the Grandmas, and from the assorted aunts and uncles and cousins. I noticed, however, that I did not get anything from Mommy and Daddy. Hopefully I can leverage this criminal negligence into acquiring more goods and services. Cause I played with everything I got already.

2. Count to the highest number: one hundred million thousand, one hundred seventy-six. 

3. Grow as tall as the sky. Or Daddy.

4. Speaking of Daddy, get him to unlock the next level on the Go Thomas game so I can race Thomas and his Speed Boost against Toby and his Lightning Burst.

5. Convince the world I'm a robot. Beep-beep, boop. I. AM. A. ROBOT. I said that in a robot voice. I mean, my voice. Cause I'm a robot.

6. Insist on wearing a particular outfit and then change my mind at the last minute, a continuing trend since 2013. Why fix what ain't broke?

7. Have three sixth birthday parties. Since it wouldn't be fair to confine my celebrity to one hotspot, I'll have parties at Bounce U, Chuck E. Cheese, and that little gymnastic place, but not the little gymnastic place where I had my fifth birthday party, the one where my friend Olivia had her fifth birthday party.

8. Remember to add a pyramid to the end of every sentence. Zoe. Is. The. Best. Ever. Pyramid.

9. Get Daddy to unlock the next level on Go Thomas so I can race Toby and his Lightning Burst against James and his Turbo Boost.

10. Become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.

11. Learn to tie my shoes.

12. Avoid peeing on the toilet seat so that my butt doesn't get wet when I slide off.

13. Cover every inch of wall space, from the floor to four feet high, with my Art. Use an egregious amount of Scotch tape.

14. Eat a new food and then spit it out to make a point.

15. Eat a previously introduced food and spit it out without anyone noticing.

16. Get Daddy to unlock the next level on Go Thomas so I can race James and his Turbo Boost against Percy and his Track Jump. Pretend I don't hear Daddy when he mutters something about death by a thousand paper cuts. When you have smooth, unwrinkled, perfect skin, criticism rolls right off you.

Like a ball.

A large pink ball with glitter inside it. Like the one I saw at the toy store.

I don't have a large pink ball with glitter inside it.

Yet. The year, after all, is young.

Zoe: 122; Universe: 0

For more of Zoe's hijinks, follow me on Facebook and on Twitter at @zoevsuniverse. 

I need a win here, people. 

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