Because of our brief blip in believing, The Puddings are now the proud owners of an Elf on the Shelf. (I suppose OWNER is not the best choice of words. One does not really OWN a little helping man. At the same time, we haven’t really gone through the proper channels to say that we’ve adopted him. We have a visitor! A new roommate!) Our elf’s name is Charlie, and every night he flies north to tell Santa what’s going down in our house. If the girls are being good citizens, Santa hears about it from Charlie. If the girls are going ape, you better believe that Santa’s going to hear about it.
Last night the girls were having a particularly terrible, dreadful, not-so-good, slightly abhorrent night. Lots of doors were slammed. Lots of tears were shed. Lots of drama, and no stage or playbill—and that’s unacceptable.
Me: You know, Charlie is not going to want to come back from the North Pole tonight.
Meredith: What?!
Me: Would you want to come back? He’s been sitting in that candle holder all evening thinking, “I’m not quite sure what I did to deserve this cruddy situation, but I’m outta heyah.”
(All elves and babies speak with a Jersey accent.)
Just as I predicted, this morning the girls got up and ran around the house looking for Charlie, and he wasn’t there. Oddly enough, they got ready for school with zero fighting. I didn’t have to tell them twice to brush their teeth, get dressed, use the bathroom, etc. Perfect morning.
I just went into my bedroom and found this in the closet.
Apparently, Charlie did NOT stay at the North Pole last night. He returned to our house, slipped a Xanax out of my drawer, and took shelter on top of Jeff’s summer clothes. (I sort of wish I weighed less than two pounds so I could do the same thing.) Anyway, if all goes well this evening, Charlie’s activity will return to normal after tonight’s North Pole visit.
This morning I helped out in Meredith’s classroom. While I was collating book order forms, a student came over and sat next to me to work on a report. Another student sat next to the first student and said, “I don’t mean to say this in a mean or teasing way, but I think it’s really funny that you can’t hit a ball.” She then did a mocky little nyah-nyah laughing thing that really shouldn’t be done if one is over the age of three. The first student was hurt by her words.
What I WANTED to say: What the hell was that?! You don’t mean to say that in a mean or teasing way?! What way did you MEAN for that to sound? Respectful?! Responsible?!
What I DID say: That wasn’t a very nice thing to say. Ooh! You have only twenty minutes to finish your report before recess! You better focus on that if you want to go outside and play!
What I continued to say in my head: If you have an Elf on the Shelf, don’t be surprised if he’s filling out Change of Residency forms when you get home from school this afternoon…
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