Let’s be honest… parents of toddlers can’t have nice Christmas trees. With the throwing, grabbing, tantrums and general mistreatment of ornaments – it’s a feat! Last year, we ended up putting a child gate around the tree – it wasn’t the prettiest set up – but hey, it worked. The tree looked fantastic and baby wasn’t able to play with it. AND, we still got to use our pretty glass ornaments

This year, we thought we would use the Christmas tree as a “learning opportunity” for Jackson.

My nickname for Jackson is “the energizer bunny”… He NEVER stops! lol Plus, he’s a typical 2-year-old and has entered the phase of throwing, hitting and screaming (for no reason). We knew it would be a challenge for him to leave the tree alone.

We were super excited to decorate the tree together this year and decided to do it while my parents were in town so they could experience it with us. At first, Jackson’s reaction was priceless! He grabbed the ornaments and started shaking them by the hanger and saying “ding, dong, ding, dong” – like it was a bell. I didn’t even know he knew what a bell was! It was hilarious and sooo cute!

Then, he moved on to treating them like balls – I mean, they look like balls – can’t blame him there. Fortunately, last year I had thought ahead and bought plastic ornaments for the tree. Thank goodness. He started throwing all of the ornaments on the ground… we used this as a learning opportunity to teach him not to throw ornaments. It wasn’t extremely successful but I suppose it didn’t bomb completely either. He’s a good kid and listens MOST of the time.

Of course, we forgot to put the bins back in the garage – the ones with all of the glass ornaments – and soon were reminded. We came home from shopping the next day and not one minute went by before we heard a giant crash. Jackson had gone into the bin, grabbed a “ball” and thrown it as hard as he could at my feet and onto the floor. Kid has good aim – and a good arm! ha ha! Needless to say, it was in a million pieces all over the floor. Daddy quickly cleaned it up while mommy cleaned Jackson up.

Other than that, it’s been fairly uneventful. Thank goodness! Every now and then, Jackson goes up to the tree and throws a toy into it. He grabs ornaments off the bottom of the tree and likes to hit the tree – all the while looking at us with his guilty side eye… I can live with that. He’s learning

Today I noticed that our tree only has ornaments on the top half… lol! Little by little as Jackson would grab ornaments I would reposition them – and that is the story of why my tree looks the way that it does! I know a lot of parents can relate! Merry Christmas everyone! #lifesswell