Decorating-Check

I feel like I have spent the majority of this past week decorating for Christmas. I don't remember it being as long and drawn out as it has been this year. But I think I have finally got it all up. One of the things that makes the process so long is that I first have to clean my house because I am not about to set baby Jesus up among dust bunnies. Also my kids really like being part of the process- the putting decorations up process, not the cleaning the dust bunnies process.

I have found there are some things you do in parenthood that sound and seem a lot more quaint and charming before you actually do them with your kids. One of these things is baking with your 6 & 3 year olds. Another one is decorating with your 6&3 year olds. They go through the boxes all willy-nilly pulling out decorations and scattering them everywhere except where you actually want them to put the decoration. And because I have a 9 & 11 year old, I know this. So in the past I have learned to do the majority of the decorating while they are at school and save a few things for them to put up in their rooms and I do let them decorate the tree . But for some reason, that didn't work out this year. So I spent a lot of my time trying to keep Suzie out of the Christmas boxes or redoing her decorating choices. So this may have added to the lengthy decorating process.

But all this decorating reminded me of about 7 years ago when Finn was about 4 or 5 and we were putting up decorations. We had this little Christmas wreath that had a train that would travel around the wreath in a circle and make noises. He LOVED it and wanted to put it on his bedroom door. He asked if he could put it on his door but I told him I would figure it out later. Later in the day I walked by his room and saw the wreath hanging by a screw on his door. Eric hadn't been home between the time Finn asked me and the time I saw it hanging there. So Finn must have taken matters into his own hands and gotten a screw and hammer out of the toolbox and jimmy-rigged the wreath on the door. I was impressed by the resourcefulness of this little 5 year old. But I was also a bit ticked by the hole he put in the door. I told him I was glad he figured out how to solve his problem but that he had put a hole in the door! He didn't seem to get the permanence of the hole or the fact that I might be upset by the damage done to the door by driving a screw into it. He seemed to think he was doing himself and me a favor by thinking ahead because when I said, "Finn, you put a hole in the door!" he responded, "Yea, now I won't have to do it again next year."

Well, if that isn't a logical little man-in-training, I don't know what is!