Not the ones posting the pictures of the progress of their facial hair projects. Those, I believe he's pretty jealous of. He tried to put his big man-foot down over a long weekend trip we took for his buddy's surprise 40th, probably to honor that friend who makes it a practice to not shave whenever he's off the job...a "stick it to the man" gesture while we're on vacation together. My guy didn't make it very long...but he made his point. A couple days without a razor was good enough. Also I told him either he could shave himself or I would do it for him in his sleep but that I could not guarantee that I wouldn't cut him...or take off an eyebrow.
The posts that annoy him (hilariously) are the 30 Days of Thankfulness. All that positivity really puts him in a lather. You'd think that my ball-and-chain bubble of negativity would counteract it and soothe him, but alas...no.
So I spare him the stroke and I keep what I'm thankful for to myself in November. But really every day it's the same thing, and every year the people at dinner get sick of hearing about it. I'm thankful that none of our lives worked out the way we thought they should. If they did, almost NOBODY at our Thanksgiving table would be sitting there.
Cheers to screwed up plans!!
So this month my friends have been unwillingly subjected to a daily picture of the incredibly nerve wracking phenomenon that is: THE ELF ON THE SHELF. Or, as ours is usually: The Elf OFF the Shelf. His second appearance in as many years, he joins the ranks of other creepy minis out there terrorizing children and forcing them to behave. Apparently the appropriate behavior for this guy is to just move each night from one location to another to be found by children in the morning. Ours is a bit more....interactive.
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| Fred wanted to be part of Movember too. Too late!! |
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| Actually hiding. Daddy is the worst finder in the house. |
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| Telling Nutcracker not to peek at the presents. Casualties: Nutcracker's right eye and eyebrow. Oops. |
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| Super glad the MOM stocking wasn't up yet. |
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| It should say: "From Fred, with irony". We have no stairs. What a joker. |
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| The map lead to the Toys 4 Tots barrel. |
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| Elves on Strike "What Do We Want? SNOW!!! When Do We Want It? NOW!!!" |
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| Fred doesn't care about what's appropriate... or the environment. |
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| A stranger called me a bad mother over this. She obviously doesn't realize that other people's opinions of me don't matter.... whether I know and care about you or not. Just kidding. The people I care about thought this was hilarious, and that matters to me. |
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| There are consequences. |
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| On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me... three anatomically correct sock monkeys. Fred is a lousy "Toy Maker" Elf. |
So that's it for now, I'll update when the month is over if he sticks around but things are about to get busy and if you didn't notice, it was May when I posted about Fred's 2012 antics. Anyone with an Elf should feel free to rip off any ideas they see anywhere on the interwebz or from their friends because, after all, lack of sleep that comes with being a parent of any shape or size sometimes zaps our creativity. But I have found that the best reactions from my kids are to those things that are personalized to them, that make them feel that Fred dances closer each night to that blurry twilight line between their life and his, where dreams come true and where anything is most certainly possible. The fact that there have been some adults along the way who have been pulled kicking and screaming into our Christmas Spirit-sprinkled fantasy land? That's a plus. Or they've blocked me. My friends who have their own Elf? Know that I love them, I love that you share, and I love knowing that your shorties *whom I also love* are going to remember this for a long, long time.
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