Oh, Christmas Tree!

We waited until the Tuesday before Christmas to put up our tree, due to the "Tornado" (Nathan) watch in effect since early November. I know they call them, "terrible two's", but it's not really that the boy is being "terrible". He's just so curious and he's exploring his world with eager excitement. He wants to see how things work, feel their texture, and find out what happens if you throw them! Who of us doesn't have the same curiosity most of the time? I mean, David Letterman has made himself rich with some of the same curiosities on his "Late Show". Why is a grown man dropping large fruit off of a skyscraper on television hilarious, and a two year old pulling clothes out of the washer and slinging them around is infuriating? Perhaps it is the fact that I don't have to clean up after David Letterman.

Anyway, Nathan loved that tree! He liked the lights - so much he would twist the poor little bulbs right out of their sockets and then inform me, "those lights are broken, Daddy!" He really loved the glass ball decorations - and he discovered they don't bounce! And his favorite thing about the tree was the switch. I installed a "trunk-line" extension cord to the trunk of the tree, with outlets spaced along, to prevent plugging strands of lights into each other. It had a switch on it, to turn it off and on. I thought this would help prevent the "Tornado" from trying to plug the lights in and out of the wall outlet. It worked. We just had to remind ourselves a few times that we did not have a "blinking" mode on our lights, and rescue the switch from the "storm". All in all, it wasn't too bad. He learned after a few broken bulbs, balls, and spankings that the tree is to look at and not to play with. (Everything else we've given him with lights, shiny attachments, and switches are hands-on play things, so I understand the confusion.) He's learning each day that disobedience hurts.

Oh, and the tree came down (we took it down) two days after Christmas!