Better Watch Out... Better Not Cry

Well, like every other family in America, we now have a picture of our little sweetie wailing on Santa's lap before her 1st Christmas.

We actually thought we were going to get a smiling picture, or at least a stoic one, since Tenley loves men. All men. The day before this was taken she accosted a grandfatherly type in Borders and insisted that he pick her up. The nice Mexican man walking into Alin Paper she was smiling and waving at. The kid in line behind us at Target who looks like he's a hit man for the IRA that she was playing peek-a-boo with and flirting with (at least all his tatoos were spelled correctly!). And everywhere we go, she points at Santa Claus- pictures, inflatables, manequins, live people- it doesen't matter. So we were quite surprised when it came time to actually meet the fat man in the red suit and she wanted none of it.

The photo location was being run by TweedleDee & TweedleDum, so we had a few minutes before the photo was going to be taken to introduce them. We sounded excited as we said "Look Tenley! It's Santa Claus!!" but she just stared at us. Santa held out his arms to try to get her to walk over to him. She clung to Mommy. Daddy took her and sat down next to Santa...she tried to climb off the other side of the bench. Finally the moment was upon us, and we handed her to Santa and Tenley wailed and had body racking sobs as she held up her arms and called for Mama who was standing with Daddy & Dee trying vainly to get her to look at us and smile. Uh-huh. Like that was gonna happen.

At last the ordeal was over and she snatched the See's candy stick the jolly guy offered, stuffed it in her mouth and toddled as fast as her little legs would carry her out of Santa's Beach Hut and into the safety of the Hello Kitty store.