Jailbreak!

We have had a jailbreak at our house - at least that is what I call it. Needless to say Christmas with a 13 month old is very interesting. I thought long and hard about how to decorate for Christmas with Brady. The first day that I set things out, he was into everything. I wondered how in the world would we manage a tree. There was no way we could possibly go without one or put a little one on the table. That is not Christmas (at least in our house). So we went out, picked out the tree, decorated it and placed some presents under it. I do not think that I was done putting presents on the ground before Brady was under the tree playing in the water. I managed to get him out of the water, just to have him tugging on ornaments, pulling off bows and tearing at wrapping paper. This was going to drive me crazy.

The solution for us was to get a gate to protect the tree. Yes you read that right, protect the tree. The gate now goes around the front of the tree from wall to wall so Brady cannot reach anything. However, he has found a new past time. Anything he can lift goes behind the gate to be opened on Christmas day. Sunday I could not find my strainer. Sure enough it was under the tree. The remote for the TV, under the tree. Who knows what else is under there.

So back to the jailbreak. We have had the tree up for 2 weeks now and the gate has worked perfectly. That is until today. Somehow the clever little man figured out how to sneak around the side of the gate and get to the tree. I found him pulling on more bows and throwing his treasures back out from under the tree. The look on his face was priceless. He knew he was not suppose to be back there, but he thought he had got away with one. That is until Mom found him.

I truly thought Brady was the only one I had to worry about with the presents and tree. I was wrong, that is what I get for thinking. Today we had to run a few errands and it was raining really hard (like usual), so we left Dexter inside. When we leave Dexter inside, I need to dog proof the house; put away anything edible on the counter he can reach, hide the trash and generally make sure things are out of his reach. We got home from our errands, I walk into the front room where the tree is and the gate has crashed down. Hiding around the corner is what Dexter was after. He found his 2 Christmas presents and had opened and eaten half of the treats. Will I ever win?

Happy holidays to everyone, we wish you well.