Christmas Spirit

Yesterday Jayce and I started off on the wrong foot.  The night before, I was completely exhausted for some reason at about 8, but didn't go to bed as early as I should have and woke up just as tired as when I had gone to bed.  Not a good way to start the day.  Also, Jayce woke up about an hour earlier than usual that morning, so needless to say, he was whinier and I had less patience than usual.  Naptime couldn't come soon enough.

When he woke up I was determined to have a better afternoon.  I put on some Christmas music and we each had a Christmas cookie, complete with icing and sprinkles.  This helped.

Then I asked if he would like to help me wrap some presents, and he was ecstatic.  I had been wrapping up an etsy order that morning and he was all over me, so I figured that giving him some tape, boxes and brightly colored paper might help.  It did.

I gave Jayce one piece of tape at a time, and he excitedly danced around me and the present until I had the paper pinned down, and would direct him as to where to stick the tape.  It rarely made it to where it was supposed to, often stuck to random spots on the paper with no edges to hold down in sight.  Eventually I started holding the paper down and telling him to put the tape between my fingers, and this helped him to get it in the right general area.  I soon realized that we didn't have any labels, so I got some chunky foam Christmas stamps that I got for $.25 last year, a few stamp pads and some mailing labels and set Jayce up to make us some labels.

This was a very good task for him.  He did a great job, I was actually really impressed!  I had to restrain myself from trying to jump in and help him space out the designs or colors, but it was an easy enough task, and periodically he would call out, "Look Mom!  Snowpakes!!" which was highly entertaining.

I then would write down who the gift was for on one of the labels, and he would go slap it on the present.  (Literally.  Actually he kept slapping the presents for a while after that.)  He then picked up each wrapped present and delivered it to the bottom of the tree.

I wish I could say that the afternoon was as ideal as that first 45 minutes after naptime, but it wasn't.  By the 2nd present he was getting bored and started randomly sticking the tape to other things.  By the 3rd present, he didn't even want to put the sticker on it or take it to the tree anymore.

 

It was a good start though.  And certainly better than the morning.