Not You Again!

The Elf is back and tensions are already running high. Less than 4 hours into his holiday stay on a reconnaisance mission for Santa, the Elf has already elicited a visceral reaction from the little lady and has provided more than one example of her ability to avoid detection while participating in acts of outright defiance. (For those of you not in the know, Google "Elf on the Shelf" to learn all about this tool of child behavior manipulation.)

Episode 1, The Bottle Incident: Daddy to Ellie, "please go put your brother's bottle in the sink." Ellie marches into the kitchen and sets the bottle on the barstool. Mommy to Ellie, "I think your Daddy told you to put that in the sink. The Elf is watching you. You don't want him to tell Santa you're being bad already, do you?" Ellie to Mommy, "the Elf can't tell on me if the Elf can't see me." I'm stumped. Her reasoning is unassailable under the Georgia Rules of Evidence.

Episode 2, No Whining: After being told she didn't need another snack this morning she begins to whine. I say "no whining, the Elf doesn't like it and he'll tell Santa." (Maybe I've been to this well too often already.) She ducks behind the couch and continues full on whining. I give her "the look." She says, "he can hear me, but he can't see me so he doesn't know the whining is coming from me." I'm setting up the law school fund right now. She has already mastered the evidentiary concepts of both foundation and hearsay.

She just asked whether the Elf likes loud sounds, quiet sounds, crunchy sounds or laughy sounds. I said definitely not loud sounds, but he was probably okay with the others, even though I'm taking a big chance on that "crunchy" sound. Currently she is standing in front of him laughing. "He's not laughing back. I don't think he gets it." Only 27 more days!