Tomte the thieving Christmas elf

My parents bought Max and Molly an Elf on the Shelf this year. We were at their house just after Halloween, and they decided to give it to them as an early Christmas surprise. Super early I know, but at the time it was fun and sounded like a good idea so I was all “what the hell” and let them open it.  

The idea of the elf is really cute. You get this little box which has an elf in it along with a book to read to the kids about how the elf works. The story goes that each night the elf flies back to the North Pole and reports back to Santa on all of the good – or bad – things the kids did that day. The rule is that the elf can’t talk to the kids, and the kids can’t touch the elf or the magic will get “broken” and the elf won’t be able to fly to the North Pole each night. The book explains that if this happens the kids won’t get bugger all on Christmas morning because Santa will think the kids forgot about Santa.

Every night after the kids go to bed, you (the parents) have to move the elf around the house to a new spot so that is looks like the elf made his round-trip, and found a new resting spot. The game is for the kids to try and find where the elf is every morning.
 
My mom got the idea from her hairdresser who had told my mom all about how they had an elf for their kids last year and they did all this cute and witty stuff with the elf. One morning the elf was on the shelf in the bathroom and the toilet paper was all off the roll, and another morning they put the elf in the kitchen and spilled some flour and made little prints like the elf had run through the flour.

So – not wanting to be outdone – we knew we had to take this shit to the next level.

The first thing you have to do is give the elf a name. We went with Tomte – which is the Swedish name for Santa.  

We maybe should have thought about that a bit more as it turns out Tomte is pretty fucking terrifying. I Googled him and according to Wikipedia if you don’t leave oatmeal out for him, or if you curse, or take a whiz on the floor - he will go bat-shit crazy and do everything from kill your cow to burn your house down. He also apparently beat a Norwegian chick to death after she ate his porridge. I am not even kidding.  He beat the shit out of some poor little ‘Weege for eating some god-damned porridge. What in the hell kind of messed up Santa does that? Anywhooo -  I think you get the picture. Tomte is anything but super charming and after seeing how the kids reacted to him – it turns out that maybe it was a pretty appropriate name choice.

This is a drawing on Tomte from the 1600s. If I woke up and saw this dude sweeping my floors
with his chicken feet and  troll face I think the odds of me having a stroke would be pretty high.
I do not want any part of anything this guy would leave behind as a "gift."



SWEET JESUS! Run kitty run! YIKES!

 So – I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s back it all up and bring it back to the first morning after Tomte arrived…

For the first morning (and keep in mind it is like November 2 at this point) we thought it would be cute to have a piece a Halloween candy stuck to Tomte’s face. Kind of like Tomte had stolen it and hadn’t finished eating it yet.  We thought it was pretty witty and were excited to see how the kids reacted.

When the kids got up in the morning – my dad asked if they could find Tomte. They raced around until Max spotted Tomte sitting on the fireplace – with a marshmallow ghost stuck to his smiling, perky little face.

Max looked at me – looked back at Tomte – looked at his Halloween candy sack and was like “what in the what Tomte? Is this how you are going to play me?” He tried not to let on - but I could tell he was pissed. Max grabbed the candy off Tomte’s face (rule number one already broken) and shoved it into his mouth. The whole time he chewed he never took his eyes off Tomte.

Shortly after that we loaded up the van and headed back to Calgary. About an hour into the drive – and totally out of nowhere – Max stated that Tomte is a jerk, and if Tomte touches his candy again, he (Max) would eat all the elf food.  Okay – fair is fair. I have no idea what Max thinks elf food is - but so long as Max doesn’t think it is the dog’s kibble, or my beer, we should be all good.

That afternoon when we got home the kids were a bit whiny and were not listening. I yelled a bit and then remembered I had an ace up my sleeve – Tomte! So I pulled the trump card out and let them know that Tomte would be telling Santa all about how they were acting and if it keeps up, they may end up on the naughty list.

If looks could kill – Tomte would have gone off like a tiny nuke on the mantle. Max and Molly both gave Tomte a look of pure hate and stomped off upstairs. But they did start to listen, so in my book, it was a total win.

That night, I moved Tomte to the ledge on the chalkboard in the kitchen and in keeping with theme of making him real, I put one of the Christmas ornaments the kids had just painted into his lap and put his arms around it like he was hugging it.

The next morning as the kids were finishing getting dressed, I told them that Tomte should be back from his trip to the North Pole and that we should go find him. They both raced downstairs and started to look.

Max spotted Tomte first and started to shriek like he had spotted the devil himself perched on the chalkboard ledge. He started yelling at Molly that Tomte was stealing all the ornaments they made. Molly came barreling around the corner was started yelling at Tomte to stop being a jerk and get his own stuff.

I do not think that this is what the book – or the hairdresser – had in mind. Our kids were starting to see Tomte as the enemy – a thieving little snitch who was basically there to steal their shit and narc them out to Santa. 

That night, before going upstairs to bed, Molly looked at Tomte and gave him a stern pointing to and told him to leave her stuff alone. Max looked at me – and with genuine worry on his face - asked me to tell Tomte to not touch his stuff and not to keep moving to a new spot.  “He should stay there…right there…on that bear,” he specified.

This little Tomte project had clearly come off the rails and Tomte was in need of some reputation management and damage control. So that night we didn’t move Tomte at all. We left him exactly where he was – no new props, no clever actions, nothing. I did however write a “note” from Tomte to Max telling him he was sorry.

The next morning Max came down and checked to see where Tomte was. When he saw that Tomte hadn’t moved he was visibly relieved. I made a pretty big deal about the note and explained what it said. That did not go according to plan either. Max gave Tomte a look like “what is your game dude?” and walked sideways out of the room so that he could keep his eyes on the thieving little asshole on the mantle.

Here is Tomte...riding a weird rusted metal bear and his poorly written note in crayon.
I am starting to understand why the plan may have backfired...

For the rest of the day I noticed Max and Molly kept watching Tomte and sort of backing away without ever turning their backs to him.

Tomte went back in the box that night and we told the kids the next morning that Tomte got called back to Santa’s workshop to help him make all the toys for Christmas. They still (like three weeks later) ask if he is back, but they do it with a look of fear and worry. Kind of like a face you would make when someone tells you there is a spider on you. 

We are bringing Tomte back on Saturday and are going to have him bring the daily advent calendar present. So here is hoping that because he will be connected with delivering fun stuff daily we will be able to turn Tomte’s reputation around.

I heart Ruby

We took the kids out of the day home just over a month and a half ago and I am pretty sure that it was the best decision we have ever made.

I think I have told this story to anyone who will listen – but what the hell – one more time for the cheap seats in the back:
• We had been unhappy with the day home we were using for quite a while. 
• Max started telling us that the day home owner's son was bullying the heck out of him – to the point Max was peeing his pants (sorry Max)  and begging not to go to daycare. We did talk to the day home women about it - LOTS – and they “resolved” it by asking Max, in front of the bully, if he liked the bully.  When Max said yes – they looked at me like “Problem solved!”
• They started applying special rules to their kids – kind of like a Lord of the Flies scenario expect instead of except for Piggy dying and everyone getting rescued – all the kids who went to the day home got to sit and watch while the day home owner’s kids got treated like royalty. The day home owner’s kids had special toys only they could play with and they had special rules. The day home owner’s kids also got to go on all kinds of special outings while the day home kids got to stay at the day home. The owners were also really great in telling the day home kids about just what a special and fun day their kids would be having and really making sure to rub it in and point out that the rest of the kids did not get to go. Okay – so maybe that is nothing like Lord of the Flies – I haven’t read it in a long time.

So – unfortunately it ended up getting super ugly and the daycare people took a hard left from Sanity Street. They threatened to sue us for slander and told the other day home parents that we had accused them of physically abusing our kids (WTF?). They went one step further and asked all the other parents to be character witnesses for when we go to court. They also threw in that since Molly loved their dog we were wrong about everything and that as I had changed jobs a few times they should have seen this coming.

Seriously. That all happened. You can’t make this shit up.

Anyway – it was a messy and ugly thing but it totally restored my faith in karma because out of the whole thing we got Ruby. 

Ruby and the kids

Ruby has been a nanny for my friend for over a year, and my friend and her family really love Ruby. So when my friend saw what we were going through – she talked to Ruby and they asked if I wanted to have Ruby as a nanny as well.

We have been taking the kids to Ruby since the ugly break-up and Ruby is beyond fantastic with them. Since the kids have been staying with her and my friend’s two children – the changes in Max and Molly are almost unbelievable.

Molly at the zoo with Ruby and Max

Anders and I have both noticed how much the kids have seemed to develop right before our eyes. Their maturity is pulling ahead by leaps and bounds and both have had an explosion in their vocabulary. They are blossoming and growing every day. They are smiling again, and are eager and happy to start their days.

Ruby takes Max and Molly places, makes up songs and signs with them, does crafts and makes them feel loved and secure. She thinks of creative ways to engage them, and takes them on little daily adventures out in the woods, or to local parks. 

Max crashed out after another adventure with Ruby

Every night when we are getting the kids dressed for bed we ask them what the best part of their day was. A few nights again Molly told me that playing with Ruby was the best part of her day, and Max said that hugging Ruby was the best part of his. 

Nina the Beana, or Girl Reno, or just "the new dog." Turns out – it doesn’t really matter since she is stone-cold deaf. Or just really good at ignoring us.

Nina has been with us for almost three weeks now and we (and by that I mean Rusty, the kids and I) totally love her. She is really sweet, loves to cuddle and is pretty smart.

The problem is I am pretty sure that Nina is not loving us all that much. 

She has been doing a lot of slinking along the walls, and hiding under shit since she has come to live with us. At first, I wrote it off as her getting used to her new home, a new schedule and bunch of new people in her face. Then, as the days went on, I noticed that she was only hiding and slinking when the kids were around.

Holy shit Rusty - is that them coming? I can't hear a god-damn thing here...

I totally get it. Trust me – there are plenty of times I have pulled the same type of things.

I used to be a heavy sleeper, and was one of those people who woke up by throwing the covers off and jumping up with a stunned look and crazy hair. Since having kids, I have managed to train myself to wake up from a dead sleep and not open my eyes or move a muscle. It all started as a sort of fucked up game of chicken between Anders and I when the kids were born, since the first one who “woke up” (which meant visible movement or breathing pattern change) had to get up with whichever baby was screaming. It was like Jedi training - both of trying to zone out the wailing baby and outlast the other and see who would snap first.

But I have to say I have really perfected this skill over the past few months. The kids have started stumbling into our room in the middle of the night and basically putting their mouths directly on my eye sockets and whispering “Momma….are you awake….Momma…can you hear me…Momma?” If I flinch or open my eyes – it is game over. I am up doing Lego and making waffles. But – by lying dead still, I have learned that they eventually give up and go try their luck on Anders side of the bed.

Anyway – bad parenting aside, I get the slinking thing Nina is doing.

We have tried getting the kids to calm down around her (good luck!) and have tried redirecting the kids attention to Rusty or something else – but Nina is so damn cute you just can’t not hug and squeeze her. So really – it is her own cute-ass fault!

How can you not squeeze that face? She brings it on herself really.

And – I am not sure how deaf she actually is. The rescue group thought she was almost completely deaf but I am not so sure about that. She is pretty clever and – much like my fake sleeping – I am starting to have suspicions that she has just mastered selective hearing.  I have been watching her when we are around and her little ears are constantly moving. And – unless she can read lips – she can somehow - and pretty miraculously - hear the words “treat” and “walk”. But when she is standing at the fence barking at people and we are yelling at her to stop - apparently she can’t hear a damn thing. 

There are signs she is starting to come around. Mainly the fact she doesn’t haul ass for under the table when the kids appear – but also the fact we found her sleeping curled up with Molly this morning. Plus, the kids are getting a bit calmer around her so that is helping. Anders - for all his grumbling - is actually starting to pet her when he thinks no one is looking.

I should also look at this whole thing from her side. One day – she is a puppy, cruising all feral and free up in Northern BC, and then BAM! She gets thrown in a crate, loaded on a plane and shipped to a place where she was thrown into an enclosed space with two wild and free three-year-olds.  I can imagine that shit is terrifying!

Poor Rusty - they look like a before and after ad.