The “Don’t Show Santa” Video Series

I have some pretty brilliant friends. Most of them are pretty brilliant without even thinking about it, which makes them even more, well, brilliant.

Let me explain.

Last week I was telling a few friends about this colossal melt-down both girls had at the mall a few days earlier. I'm going to spare you the details of what was perhaps the most stressful 30 minutes of my life and just say they were world-class fits. They were going off at the same time and we were in public!

So I was telling S. and A. (my friends, not my kids) about how I just started singing to them, telling them in verse how they were going to be in trouble when we got home as we were making our way out of the mall and into our car. They were wailing the whole time, but I just kept singing. I had to. It was the only thing keeping me from handing them off to a stranger with the promise of a notarized letter transferring parenting rights to them within 24 hours.

Of course, because it wasn't her, and because it was over, S. thought it was pretty amusing. Honestly at that point, I did, too. But then she said something so brilliant she deserves, like, a Nobel peace prize for parents.

"Do you ever think to record them when they get like that?" she asked us jokingly. "I know that I always try to record A. (her son) when he's doing something cute, but wouldn't it be great to catch him having a fit like that?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "It would be awesome!"

So, fast forward a week to this past Wednesday.

I don't even remember how it started (do we ever?). I just know that A. (my daughter, not my friend) started throwing this fantastic fit, refusing to go into her room when I told her too, and crying about how she didn't want to lay down. I picked her up under her armpits and placed her inside her room, where she crumbled to the floor like feta cheese on a greek salad and resumed her screaming there. We'd all been sick all week. And on that particular day my throat was hurting really badly, so I wasn't much in the mood for screaming or yelling. I did ask her to kindly cooperate, seeing as how I wasn't feeling well. But she didn't care.

Wah, wah, IT'S NOT FAIR! Wah, wah! She wailed. I shut the door and stood outside of it. Less than a minute later I hear this thumping around coming from her room. It did not sound good. I opened her door to see that she had turned over her plastic kitchen and her rocker chair.

"Oh," I said. "You want to start throwing things around you're room, huh?"

I took the kitchen and the chair out.

"Are you going to leave the tv and dvd player alone or should I take those too?"

"Noooooooo!" she replied.

Alright.

And then back to the screaming and wailing- this time about how it wasn't fair that I took her chair (she didn't care so much for the kitchen right then, I suppose). I stared at her, at a loss as to how to handle this.

And that's when I remembered my conversation with S. last week.

Without saying anything I went and found dh's camera, which takes videos. I walked back to A.'s room where she continued to carry on and turned the camera on.

At some point she turned her head and noticed I was recording her.

"Noooooo!" she cried. "Don't take a movie of it!"

"Why don't you tell me why you're upset, again?" I asked. She got up off the floor, went behind her door and tried to shut the door on me. Unfortunately for her I was close enough to put my foot out and stop it before it could close on me.

So not cool.

I went behind the door where she was trying to hide and raised the camera up to her face.

She calmed down enough to tell me again that she didn't want me to take a video of her.

"Are you going to stop throwing things around your room?" I asked.

"I don't want you to show it to Santa!"

"Are you going to be good?" I asked again. She nodded and agreed to lay down for a little bit. When she started up again a minute later, I just went back in with the camera and started recording. She calmed down as soon as she saw the lens pointed at her.

I set the timer for 15 minutes, but somewhere about minute 8 she thought she'd try sneaking out of her room.

Again, I grabbed the camera, turned it on and told her she had 7 minutes left. A. took one look at the camera, crossed her arms and then stomped back to her room, where she stayed. Quietly. Until the timer went off.

That was all it took.

I would love to show you the video, but I promised her I wouldn't show it to her friends or to Santa (who just might read my blog, you know).

Just know that this has become my favorite discipline technique! We've only had to take the camera out two more times since then. Her last outburst didn't last very long.

So now I carry dh's Canon with me, to gather evidence for Santa when they act up in public.

I imagine we'll have a nice little collection of Don't-Show-Santa videos by the time Christmas rolls around this year.

Or maybe not…

Stranger things have happened, right?

Stupid Human Trick Lessons

Stupid Human Trick Lesson #1

It is not a good idea to talk while trying to spit into a trash can where the lid pops up when you step on a pedal. It's a guaranteed collision course to smacking your nose right on the edge of the lid. Especially if you are not paying any particular attention to where the lid is in relation to your nose.

And it hurts.

Stupid Human Trick Lesson #2

It is not a good idea to jump through a moving hula hoop onto a yard landscaped with pokey rocks. Your hands will get scratched up.

And it hurts.

You’re making a mess, mommy

S. walks into my office with her hands on her hips. She looks around and sees the cabled knit squares I was putting together on the floor.

S: Hey, you're really making a mess on the floor!

Me: Oh, I am, am I?

S: (comes closer to investigate. Steps on top of the squares) Yes, you are. Stop it.

Exit, stage left.

In the living room to dh and A.

S: Mommy's really making a mess in the office!

A: Yeah, I know.

Japanese Zombie Game

This may be the funniest video I've seen in months! I love it, almost as much as the Japanese women's self-defense video.

Bonus- It's sub-titled, which is really what makes this video even more hilarious!

A Little Lesson In Manners From A.- sort of

A: Can we watch cartoons?

Me: Ak your daddy if it's okay

Dh: Sure

(we walk into the living room)

A: Is spongebob on?

I flip to Nick.

Me: No spongebob.

Flip to Noggin

Me: But Little Bill is on. Lucky me.

A: Is Little Bill one of your favorites?

Me: Yeah, not so much.

A: Why not?

Me: Because I think he's obnoxious (never mind she has no idea what this means). Much like Ruby in Max and Ruby. She's rude and mean.

A. thinks about this.

A: But you're rude and mean.

Me: EXCUSE ME?!

A: When I'm bad, you're rude and mean. Just like when Max is bad, Ruby is rude and mean.

I think about this.

Me: I suppose you're right. Except that Ruby is sometimes rude when Max is not bad. But good thinking. I love you.

A: (smiles) I love you, too.

When Will I EVER Learn

It all started innocently enough.

Weeks ago, A. came into the living room where I was reading to tell me that she was having bad dreams (although she'd only been in her bed a matter of moments and never really fell asleep).

I must point out that this has become a common occurence in our house.

So anyways, that night I told her to tell the bad dreams to "go away. You're not the boss of me!" She said okay, went to bed and came back less than 10 minutes later.

"The monsters won't listen to me."

Thinking myself to be very clever, I remembered she was sleeping with her princess blanket. And Disney princesses are magical, right?

Me: "Well, tell the monster that if it doesn't leave you alone, the princesses will beat them up."

A: "But, it won't go away!"

Me: "Just try it, okay?"

Silence.

Seconds later, compliance.

And minutes later, she returns.

Of course.

At a complete and total loss as to what to do, I racked my brain for something- anything I could use to get her to make the monsters go away and her stay in bed for the rest of the night.

Ah-ha!

A dream catcher!

Feeling quite pleased with myself for being so brilliant, I promised her we would go to Michael's and find some things to make a dream catcher the next day. I explained to her that it catches the bad dreams and only lets the good ones through the netting. Satisfied with this response, A. agreed to go back to bed and stay there and hold the monsters at bay for one more night.

So the next day we go go Michael's and because I hate buying things like this just for A., I bought a Dream Catcher kit for S., too. Not a terrible idea, though, since she seems to be catching onto the whole "I'll just keep coming out of my room and tell mama I'm having bad dreams until she decides to let me sleep on the couch and/or sleep with me" bug.

I promise you, I did look at the directions on the back before we bought them and it didn't look terribly difficult. It turns out I conveniently ignored the "6+" label as the appropriate age group. Because sometimes the girls can play with things meant for older kids provided there isn't anything to choke on. A.'s past the age of shoving things in her mouth but S. is just getting started (yes, at 3 years old. I know!).

I pay for the kits and we go home to make their dream catchers.

You know what I took out of the box?

A silver ring, a thin purple suede ribbon, some beads and feathers and this flossy type string. I look at the front of the box and notice the (finished) dream catcher is wrapped with the purple suede ribbon. I look back at the contents. The ring and the ribbon were two separate pieces coming out of the box.

Ooooh-kay.

I took out the directions and saw that I had to wrap the ring with the suede ribbon myself, securing the ends with glue.

Alrighty then. How hard could that be?

Yeah, well- it took me more than 10 minutes to wrap that damn ring because the suede ribbon was so thin and I had to keep readjusting. But finally it gets done and satisfied, I move on. I consulted the directions again and notice the nice netting in the ring on the box. I don't have a net to attach to the ring. It turns out, this flossy string- I'm supposed to create the netting by wrapping loosely around the edges of the ring and then wrapping through the loops over and over till we get to the middle.

Fuck.

I grab the flossy string and begin looping it per instructions. It looks like shit but I keep going. Then I began the second round of looping. It still looks like shit. I look back and forth between the box and the dream-catcher-in-progress in my hand. All the while, the girls are pestering me about finishing it, and telling me, "you have to put in the beads and feathers."

Yes, I know that.

Clearly, I am incompetent. In addition, I'm not moving fast enough for them.

After a half hour trying to create a dream catcher net, I give up. I am nowhere near being finished and there's no earthly way the girls can manage this themselves if we want them to be done before they graduate high-school. But I'm so fed up with it already that I just undo the netting, pack everything up and promise to get to it again… some other day.

Of course, in preschool-speak, "some other day" means "now".

The girls are upset that I'm giving up on the dream catcher so soon, and I'm upset with myself for creating not only more "work" for myself, but now a whole new drama because I know they will continue to tearfully admonish me for not finishing their dream catcher soon enough to make the bad dreams go away.

"Sorry, guys," I say. "But I just can't do this right now."

Or the next day- which A. doesn't really think about.

It's not until bed time that next night that she remembers my stalled attempt to create her dream catcher. She tearfully comes into the living room, telling me that if I don't finish her dream catcher, she's going to have bad dreams. I have no answer for this because I'm the one that told her the dream catcher would keep the bad dreams away. So I tell her, "go to bed. I'll work on it later." She reluctantly returned to her room. Peeved, I'm sure, that she must endure another night of bad dreams because I'm a retard who can't pay attention to detail!

Lucky for me, A.'s birthday comes along within days and between the gift-getting and ice-cream eating she forgets all about that damned dream catcher. Its days before she mentions it again, but mentions it, she does. And this time, dh is in the room to witness her distress.

"You've got to finish those dream catchers." He tells me.

Really? I think.

"Yeah," I say instead. "But you don't understand how much work those fucking things are!" (or something like that). He laughs because I've done it again- gotten myself in over my head with a project that was supposed to be for the girls but ends up being for me. I'm a fucking genius, I tell you.

I just can't bring myself to finish it. Because I feel like, if I have to spend one more second creating a fucking net out of dental floss, the floss would somehow end up wound around my neck, instead of in the ring- and that could lead to something tragic!

But now A.'s back to (consistently) reminding me about her dream catcher, and how I need to finish so that she doesn't have bad dreams. And all I can think of is… fuck. Because not only do I have to finish hers, but then I have to start on the one for her sister!

I should have just gone to some nearby reservation and bought authentic ready-made dream catchers! It may have cost me a little more cash-wise, but the sanity I would have maintained would have been priceless.

Just priceless, I tell you.

In Which We Learn A. Doesn't Have Shoulder Joints

Thinking that, perhaps, this really can't be that hard, I attempt to do it, too (just pretend like the mess in the background isn't there):