Friday, December 3, 2010

Rookie Dad: How to decorate for Christmas with a two year old


It's official. As of about two weeks ago The Youngling officially turned two years old. While that means a visit to the doctor next week where she'll be pricked with a few needles, weighed, scrutinized and measured, it also means that she's up to more hijinx than ever before.

Her latest adventures have included climbing up on to the toilet and exploring the treasures that await her in the over-the toilet cabinet, grabbing Christmas ornaments off the tree and proudly presenting them to anyone paying attention and pulling dining room chairs in to the kitchen and exploring everything on the counter and playing with knives.

The whole playing with knives thing has the wife worried and I know I should be more concerned as well but she's only ventured in to Ginsu territory. Contrary to the ads touting the cutting ability of Ginsu knives, these knives require a fair amount of pressure to actually accomplish some slicing. Nobody actually holds a Ginsu, throws a pineapple up in the air and slices it in half, that would break a Ginsu. So the knives, at least the Ginsu knives, don't worry me. Especially being that I've never cut myself with a Ginsu so how could it possibly be bad for a toddler to occasionally be holding a knife?

Outside of dangerous things, The Youngling is in the midst of experiencing her first "active" Christmas. Last year she was still in full-on crawling mode but this time around she is running, climbing and talking. Particularly amusing to her was last weekend as the two of us spent Saturday together decorating the yard for Christmas. I spent part of the day hauling penguins, Santa, reindeer, toy soldiers and bags of cords and tangled Christmas lights from the basement. With each giant plastic figurine she saw, The Youngling giggled gleefully, pointed at the figurine, touched it and proudly demanded "more, more!" as she ran around while I drug these dusty treasures from the basement through the house out to the front porch.

More fun came in seeing just what kind of focus a two year old has when it comes to following directions. As I strung lights up along our fence, I asked The Youngling to stay at least in the same area of the yard as I was in. Instead, after I focused for a minute on the task at hand then looked around to find the giddy two year old, I instead saw nothing. No child to be seen, just snow. Displeased with this development, I trudged around the side of the house and knew immediately to look in the porch where I found her having an impromptu tea party with her tiny mitten-covered hands fumbling with tea cups. This activity was soon replaced with her pushing a Tonka-like truck through the light covering of snow and in to my tangle of lights.

All told, I think I did a fair job handling the Christmas decorating tasks and The Youngling still has to peek out the second floor window overlooking the front yard every night to see Santa's village in the yard.