This past Thanksgiving, our daughter completed one of her infamous On Demand craft channel-guided holiday projects and drew a turkey. As I have mentioned before, participating in these crafts with her gives me the cold-sweats, so I sat this one out.

Apparently she wasn’t happy with her work, because she scrawled this (misspelled) disclaimer across her art:

In case you can’t make it out, it reads, “I am not a good drwer.”

Is that a sad turkey or what? And yes, we have tried to instill self-deprecation as an important skill at an early age.

To further drive home the sad point, my daughter pointed out the following:

See that mark? (Yeah, me neither.) Apparently, it’s a TEARDROP.

Thank you so much, dear daughter, for sharing this fact with your sensitive mama; you were so discouraged by your failed art project that you cried on it.

On a happier note, our fridge now features side-by-side pictures of the girls with Santa for the past two years. I am in the first one, as my baby was not even two months and there was no way in hell I would let the Big Guy handle her.

Sweet, huh?

 I figured we had another good year of Santa photos ahead of us, since Izzy didn’t start refusing to see him until age 2. She made it very clear that she would not go anywhere near him from ages 2-4. In this above photo, she is 5, and tried to bail at the last minute. In true Mom of the Year fashion, I calmly informed her that I would buy her anything she wanted at the mall that day if she would just sit for the picture.

Obviously, it worked like a charm. The priceless experience of having my daughters photographed in matching holiday dresses for the first time was worth exactly $50; $35 for the ridiculous photo package and $15 for the Disney Store piece of crap that served as my bribe.

So, like a fool, I expected our second Santa photoshoot would go off without a hitch. Imagine my surprise when this happened instead:

Am I the worst mom ever for thinking this is hilarious? Clearly, this classic Santa picture will be prominently featured on our holiday card.

It may be a few more years before we can get a picture of the little one with the Merry Menace again.

Happy Holidays, and until next time, What’s on your fridge?