Cats and Toddlers

Today, we spent the entire day putting up Christmas decorations. Lights, garlands, wreaths, stockings, random stuffed Santa Clauses, the works. I asked my wife why we were doing all of this when we weren’t going to have anybody over this year. She said that it was for us. It was a way for us to get into the spirit of the holiday; that Jesus’ birth and what it brought into the world...hope...deserved a celebration, especially during a pandemic. It’s hard to argue with that logic, so we did the house up in style!

Troy watched in wonder as each new piece went up around the house, curiously inspecting each string of lights or picking up each giant candy cane. He ran back and forth between us, inserting himself squarely in the action and “helping” by undoing everything we had just done. But his absolute favorites were the Christmas trees.

I put a small one upstairs in the front window, and he was helping me pull out the branches and wind lights on each layer. Mostly he was just standing in front of me, preventing me from making progress, but I’m sure he thought he was helping dada put up the tree. My wife put a larger one downstairs in the den, and he was grabbing the strings of lights as they slid across the floor and bringing them to her, tangling them up in the process.

It’s very hard to try to decorate with a toddler underfoot. It’s frustrating, and it makes the whole process take twice as long as it normally would. But it’s hard to be mad when he’s just having fun and exploring, not really acting up.

But it wasn’t until this evening that we realized the biggest problem with a toddler and Christmas. And that is the ornaments on the tree. He is enamored with them, as in won’t stop pulling on them or touching them. And there are so many different, wonderful new “toys” to play with! I can hear the sounds of glass or plastic tapping together from the other side of the house, and I come running in to find him reaching up as high as his little stretched out, tip-toed body can reach, pulling an ornament down from the middle of the tree. The branch bending with the strain of trying to hold on to its treasure while also trying to resist the unbelievable strength of this almost two-year old.

And no matter how many times I’d drag him away from the tree, he’d sneak back over there when I wasn’t looking. Just like cats, toddlers cannot resist the siren’s call of pretty, shiny things. And all of the tugging paid off as the branch finally released its hold. Unfortunately, Troy wasn’t expecting it to actually work, and with the sudden lack of resistance on the other end, he immediately dropped the ornament. It shattered into a hundred pieces on the floor. I’m not sure what he’ll do when we actually put presents under the tree. He’ll probably try to open all of them early. Cats and toddlers...this is going to be a long Christmas season.