Do Kids Grow Horns During the Holidays? :-)

So I have successfully made it home with my family from a 10.5 hour trip to Florida to visit my husband's family for the week of Thanksgiving. Mike and I feel that all in all the kids behaved pretty well and did pretty good in the car for such a long trip.

Now the stress begin...we come home late Friday and start decorating for Christmas on Saturday. Dylan has a huge fascination with gifts and even unwrapping them or telling his sister to unwrap gifts that are not even his. He is continuously asking where all of his presents are b/c he can read some words and especially his name. I want to say "hidden my son b/c otherwise you would open them!" but I just tell him we have some for him somewhere.

Once we start decorating the tree even more craziness begins. Mike and I try to be patient and hope this is a time the kids will remember as fun. The tree is creatively decorated by the kids with ornaments they like all grouped on one limb and nothing is decorated above a toddler's reach of course! We finish up the tree together as Mike and I do reach up to decorate the bare part of the tree and add some breakable ornaments and keepsakes from our first year of marriage. Then the it all starts with each little hand craftily going to the tree to take off their favorite ornament and move it, touch it, play with it anything other than what the parents feel is good. If you have a toddler you know just what I am talking about! The wonderful Christmas music has to compete with constant thumps as ornaments hit the hardwood floor and you grimace as you wonder if it was a breakable one "this time".

We put the tree up Sunday and each day there has been some kind of fight about putting ornaments back on, not playing with breakable things, you name it! I guess it is like a candy shop or shop with all items that say not to touch...but you just have to...

Today is Tuesday and it has topped all days for making me feel that the Holiday season has turned my children into little devils. It starts when I pick them up from school. Dylan refuses to listen to me or his teacher, somehow his friends seem to know what is best and this continues all the way to the car. It is a little hard to yell at preschool in front of other parents so I give my "mean look" but it does not work......Allison starts on the way home with a fight over not getting to talk on the cell phone b/c Dylan has dropped it between the seats and she "really, really" wanted to talk to HER Daddy. The fight continues in the house as someone is pushing and someone is crying. I decide it is not worth cooking...even though I did a full week of meal planning and shopping (yeah for me!) so I proceed to order pizza on line. My husband has conveniently gone outside to hang even more Christmas stuff? I will give him credit for asking the kids ONCE if they wanted to come with him. While I am ordering pizza Allison has decided to color the walls, white moulding around our windows and refrigerator HOT PINK. This is truly the point where you lose it as a Mom. My husband comes in and I conveniently decide to go upstairs to order Christmas cards. I hear lots of yelling even then but try to block it out and design the card of the "perfect" family. :-) At least when our friends get the cards they don't get a recording of what we said to get the kids to sit still and smile so one photo of 30 might be "the one". Nope, they just smiling faces.. :-)

It is now 8:40 and I put the kids down at 8pm. I think I have yelled or made no toy threats at least 10 times. Once it is quiet I will relax, go to bed and wake up anxious to see my little angels in the morning and know that somehow they grow horns during the day or at least the busy days leading up to the holidays!