Why Santa is skipping our house this year: Volume 1

I'm not one of those "I'm not going to lie to my kids by telling them there's a Santa when there isn't" kind of people. I love Santa, and goddammit my kids will believe in Santa until they're 12 if I can pull it off.

However.

This year, I don't think Santa is going to be stopping at our house. Why? Because Audrey is VERY VERY NAUGHTY. In fact, this post is merely Volume 1 because I have a strong feeling there will be many more disciplinary infractions over the next month.


She threw plastic bags all over the kitchen

This little monster walked herself into the pantry and ripped the bag of plastic bags off the wall -- hook and all. She then marched back out into the kitchen and, bold as you please, turned the bag over and shook it until all of its contents had fallen on the kitchen floor.

"A big bag full of fun toys for babies to play with? Tell Santa I know exactly what I want!"

She made sure to maximize the damage by spreading the bags everywhere. At least 60 plastic bags blanketed the kitchen floor. By the time she was done, you couldn't even see the laminate anymore -- it was bag world.

Also, she was wearing some Christmas jammies at the time, and her shirt said "Dear Santa: I can explain!" Best start talking, kid.

It took a lot of effort to get ALL the plastic bags out, but when it comes to vandalism, Audrey is nothing if not fully committed.

She threw Christmas ornaments all over the kitchen

I decided to get a head start on Christmas decorating, so I brought the box of decorations downstairs and opened it up. As I switched out pictures and hung stockings by the chimney with care, Audrey took it upon herself to open the tub of Christmas tree ornaments and remove them one by one until they were all over the floor. Naturally, the hooks to attach the ornaments to the tree all managed to fall off, meaning the mess I got to clean up consisted of 50 colorful balls and 50 little green hooks.

You get coal in your stocking, child.

"Don't worry, Mommy; of course I am going to clean all this up when I am finished." 

If you look carefully, you can see several ornaments have been shoved into the planter amid the fake flowers. You know, for science.

She threw her binkie behind the dryer

Audrey's diaper changing station is on top of the dryer in the laundry room. Usually, I can keep her distracted during a diaper change with a singing elephant, a tube of butt paste, and a couple rounds of If You're Happy and You Know It.  But not always. The tube of butt paste has ended up behind the dryer on several occasions.

Audrey loves her binkie. She doesn't get to have it very often (mostly just naptime and while sick or teething badly), but she always wants it. If she sees it and isn't immediately offered it, she loses her mind. If I take it away from her, she loses her mind.

So imagine my surprise when she pulled her binkie out of her own mouth mid diaper change and threw it behind the dryer. The worst part? She then looked right at me, smiled, and said "uh oh!" Like it was a friggin accident.

That was not an accident, kiddo. I watched you take it out of your mouth and throw it back there. It was a first-degree premeditated binkie-tossing.

And of course, since she loves her binkie so much, she then stood there crying, whining, and trying to pull my pants down for the entire 10 minutes it took me to get the damn thing out from behind the dryer using a broomstick and duct tape contraption.

Santa will bring you one present this year, and it's this:

She took the ornaments off the tree and threw them

I had a feeling that decorating the tree with ornaments would be a big risk this year with a curious and mobile toddler around. But ever the optimist, I decided to do a little trial run to see exactly how Audrey handled it. So I pulled out those shatterproof ball ornaments and hung a few of them at varying heights.

Audrey immediately grabbed any ornaments she could easily reach and yanked them off the tree, chucking them across the room. As for the ornaments she couldn't easily reach, no problem -- she just used the tree to pull herself to a standing position, used the tree to pull herself onto her tip-toes, and then pulled down on the tree until the ornaments came within reach.

She then chucked those across the room too.

"I don't like where you've put this one. I think it would look much better under the dining room table."

We're going to try decorating the tree with tinsel instead, and then bows as the final backup plan. If all that fails, we'll have a naked tree with nothing but the built-in lights instead. And Santa will save a little time by flying directly past our place.



She keeps stealing the snowman

There is a family of stuffed snowmen that lives on a side table, and Audrey is obsessed with them. She waves at them every time she sees them, and steals the smallest one whenever she gets a chance, hiding him in her usual spots (the Zany Zoo, the tree house, and now of course the Christmas tree. Yes, she hides things in the branches of the Christmas tree).

I tried moving him out of her reach, but that turned out to be an even worse idea. Next thing I knew, she had pushed a box over from next to the recycling bin and was attempting to climb on top of it so that she could reach the snowman.

So now I just let her kidnap the snowman as needed. I rescue him, she kidnaps him again, and on and on we go until Christmas comes and goes and Audrey receives no presents whatsoever.



She threw scrambled eggs on the floor while making full eye contact with me

The throwing of food on the floor I could handle. That's just something that toddlers do. But the fact that she held eye contact the entire time, staring directly into my soul as she picked up the piece of food, moved her hand over the side of her high chair, and then flung it onto the ground while daring me to do anything about it? That shit was uncool.

YOU ARE NOT THE ALPHA, AUDREY. I AM THE ALPHA.

SANTA AIN'T BRINGIN' YOU SHIT.



Except I'm 100% full of it. Of course she's going to get a million presents. Because of course she is.

Look at that little face! How can you not give a child that cute all the plastic bags she could ever want!??!

(don't answer that. I know.)

Volume 2 is located here