Christmas in June

Last night, Ben was throwing a tantrum about- oh I don't know- EVERYTHING, and being the Mother of The Year that I am, I snapped, and not in the rhythmic carefree way. I was fatigued, tired, and out of patience and parenting steam. I wish they sold Parenting steam at Costco, or at least on ebay because I would buy it in bulk, build myself a parenting steam storage shed, and give it away to all my parent friends at Christmas. Maybe I'd even sell it on the black market.

Anyway, when World War III kicked in around the moment I announced it was time to brush teeth, I was 1) on the verge of throwing myself on the floor in a screaming tantrum to join him, and 2) struck with a genius idea. Note to self: ALWAYS wait for option #2 to come to you, even if it takes 10 minutes. DO NOT EVER go with option #1, experience has proven it will always end badly.

The genius idea? Santa! But of course! Santa is watching! SANTA IS ALWAYS WATCHING YOU! Ben, don't you remember the song we sing, where it specifically states he "knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake"? This is one of those moments. In fact, June is Santa's biggest sneak attack month. He knows that most of the children think Christmas is way too far off to really behave, but this is when it counts the most because he sneaks in and watches you even more closely. The month of June is like behavioral overtime in Santa's book.

I'm not saying it was my best progressive parenting moment, but that boy stopped his screaming, opened his mouth wide, and let me brush his teeth for a full 60 seconds, sweetly hopped into his bed and slept a solid 11 hours. So I played the Santa card in June, no big deal, right? Isn't that like 90% of the reason Santa even exists, to help ease the parenting load?

I have a very strong feeling Santa is going to be crucial to our survival this summer.