It happened. You put a Christmas tree within the reach of a VERY curious and daring toddler --every single day, all day. It's bound to happen.
I think it would make me feel a little better to say "the twins pulled our Christmas tree over". But, poor Elly. She had absolutely nothing to do with it. Just Liam. He tested his strength and didn't stop before it came crashing down.
We thought we did well when we only decorated the top half of the tree with KJ's collectibles (every year, she gets to pick out a new ornament (and has also received a few as gifts along the way) . We started in 2007, so her collection was growing, and super cute and meaningful), and other non-breakable items. The bottom half of the tree had plastic ornaments and felt cut-out ornaments, which we thought would be safe for the twins to decorate and pull off as they please. Well, within the first two days, all the toddler-friendly ornaments were destroyed. ha! Who knew. Things don't last very long around here, with our little mister.
Within the first week of the tree being up, Liam went from gently loving on the artificial tree, to swatting the branches and watching the needles fall off. By the second week, the pulling started. Liam would grab a branch and lean back, with all his little 24 lbs, or so, of body weight, until the tree would tip just a bit. Then it would teeter-totter back on all four leg-posts, and he would really get a kick out of all the ornaments swaying and jingling around. I bet he thought it was the coolest thing he could do! [Of course, at the first glimpse of him pulling at the tree, I was already running across the house, yelling out, trying to save him and our tree from any harm --I always planned on saving Liam first, I promise. But as I'm sure most of you know or can imagine, sometimes things just happen in the blink of an eye. There was one particular time that he was caught pulling on the tree. I ran as fast as I could, but the tree did not teeter-totter as it usually did. It actually started to fall down towards where Liam was standing. He took off running soooo fast! And somehow, the tree just paused for a split-second, and then went back to all fours. Strange, but what a sigh of relief!
Sunday morning, I'm sleeping in. Chris is downstairs with all three kiddos. I hear a very strange sound. Then KJ crying and screaming (upset). Liam crying (later I found out it was because he was upset that he was placed in the playpen). Then I hear the sound of Chris's voice, but I couldn't make out anything he said... KJ came storming into my room and told me that Liam knocked over the tree and broke her ornaments. Apparently I was very tired, because I actually fell back asleep after hearing that news. ha! Liam's cries woke me up shortly after... and then I remembered what KJ had told me. That was definitely my cue to get up and head downstairs.
After making sure everyone was okay, I asked what broke, and if there was anything I could do. Chris had already glued the majority of KJ's ornaments back together. I think only four had somehow NOT broken. How incredibly sad.
After emotions had calmed back down, I did ask Chris if, by chance, he had thought to take a picture of Liam and the fallen tree. He just looked at me... I couldn't help but laugh so hard as I told him that I really would have stopped to take a picture before picking it back up. Is that bad? haha! BUT I did get a picture of all the little ornaments in the "O.R."
It sure makes for quite memorable stories to be able to tell the twins when they are older. :) Oh, and last night, when we plugged in the tree, we saw that the mid-section of lights no longer light up.
*Things that we have had for years, before the twins, only seem to last for a very short time, once the twins ...uh, I mean, Liam gets a hold of it...
Artificial tree: 2001-2014
Dora pop-up play house: 2006-2014
Coolest toy race-car: 2006-2014
Handy Manny hard hat souvenir: 2007-2014
He sure knows how to help us de-clutter around here. ;)
'Tis the season!
'Tis the season!
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