‘Twas a great weekend of holiday preparations! We were the first to hit the tree stands on Friday and brought home a beautiful Christmas tree. Decorating it was another matter. We very quickly discovered that over-zealous Hadley would be a problem. The moment we brought out the ornaments and tried to hang them, she kept screaming, “Ball, ball” (she is unfortunately obsessed with anything spherical). She would then use all of them as projectiles. OK, not all of them; just the breakable ones.
This proved to be a good introduction to her new second home: time-out. We thought we knew what we were doing. After all, we’ve been devout followers of Supernanny. The pattern was simple. Devil child throws tantrum. Put devil child in “the naughty seat,” explaining their indiscretion. Let them stay there for one minute per age. Explain again what they did. Demand an apology. Everyone kisses, makes up, and lives happily ever after.
Ours started out the same: devil child throws tantrum. Put devil child in time-out, explaining their indiscretion. It went downhill from there. Somehow on Supernanny, the devil child did not stare blankly at the parents and throw an even more volatile tantrum. Supernanny also never dealt with the 18-month-old devil child who explains in no uncertain turns that she is not yet ready to suffer the consequences for her actions. And then threatens to turn her parents into child services.
The solution?
We simply moved all ornaments to the upper portion of the tree, making it look like a busty, top-heavy woman. Supernanny would have never approved. Haddie: 1 Parents: 0.
Don’t be surprised if you see us on next week’s episode of “Supernanny: Parents Gone Bad”….
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 