She won't be a rocket scientist

The girls are excited about the upcoming holidays and put the Christmas tree up today. I don't mind. It's fake and can stay up as long as we want it to. (This is the first time ever that I've had the tree up before Thanksgiving.) The lights from previous years wouldn't light so I sent Alli and Beth to the store to get all new ones. They all spent the afternoon putting on lights and ornaments. For some reason, amongst all the ornaments, we had only one red ball ornament. We commented on how it must be the lone survivor from at least a dozen. I promptly knocked it off while trying to straighten the leaning tree. It fell onto another decoration and shattered into a hundred pieces. R.I.P. little red ball. Sorry I killed you.

Cori wasn't in the room but heard the crash and we gave her all the details about the death of the one sad little red ornament. Later, she was holding two gold ball ornaments. I reminded her about the recent death of the red one and cautioned her to handle them gently. I heard her say, "They don't feel like they'd break. They feel like plastic." Before I can stop her, she bangs them together a couple of times and, of course, they exploded! She seemed so surprised. Duh, we'd just told you what happens if you aren't careful with them. She had a mini-meltdown, ordering Alli and Beth to get the vacuum and clean up the glass. Um, no. You knew better. You made the mess. I don't care if you are barefooted, you and you alone will clean this up. She got a tiny cut her finger in the process and began demanding I get her a band aid. Again, no thanks. You are 15 years old and chose to do something stupid. (As Cindy would say, - "She's stuck on stupid" That fits so well.) I just let her deal with it all. I never flinched, never moved. She'll no doubt tattle to her counselor that I made her (and only her) clean up broken glass for no reason and that I almost let her bleed to death. Sadly, the counselor will believe her and probably hotline me for abuse. With some kids, I really think I'm just wasting my time and energy.

In the meantime, though, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around our house...even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet.