Dalton's Christmas Tree Fetish

Of course, this is most likely the first year that Dalton has any idea of what's going on, as far as the whole Christmas-thing goes. Last year, he was pretty into opening his presents and anyone else's he could get his hands on, and he thought the tree was pretty, of course.

This year, the tree seems to be holding a certain fascination with him. Well...mainly the ornaments ON the tree. lol For one, he can't get over that there is a tree in the living room! He wasn't here when Dean and I (well, just Dean, lol) put the tree up in the first place. I wasn't really excited about having him destroy everything before we could get it up! So, we waited until he was at his grandma and grandpa's house. When he got home, the first thing he did was stop in his tracks, point at the tree, and exclaim, "A TREE!!!"

At that point in time, we hadn't put up the ornaments or any decorations, but of course, we apparently accidentally left a teeny-tiny bird ornament on one of the branches when we took the tree down the year before. Neither Dean, nor I, saw it when we put the tree up this year, but of course 3-year olds have super-vision! Needless to say, Dalton was having a really hard time keeping his hands off the bird!

Once we put up the rest of the ornaments, his fascination spread to some of the others. There are a couple of candy cane reindeers that he made in daycare a while back that I put on the tree. I think he's mainly obsessed with those because they're candy. lol He knows he gets into trouble if he touches the tree, so he pulls this sneaky move that he thinks we don't notice. He'll start off in the kitchen playing with one of his cars on the floor. That's pretty noisy, so it's easy to notice when he's moving on to something else. lol He'll slowly sneak to the edge of the kitchen and look to see where I am. If I pretend not to notice him, he'll crawl towards the tree. It's only about a 3-4 foot distance, but he'll stop every few inches and look at me to see if he's caught.

Usually, right as he's reaching for the tree, I'll clear my throat. He'll jump about a mile in the air, point his finger at me, get an attitude, and say, "No mommy...no touch the tree. I LOOK!" It's hard not to laugh!