You know there is a two-year-old in your life when...

Have you ever tried to wrap an elephant? It’s not at all as easy as boxing up a monkey. That? That was easy,  I shared my thoughts with him, he agreed and I popped the little guy in the box then patted his head and taped the box up and it was a wrap. Monkey is happy, I’m happy and I didn’t even waste any paper - which for me is practically a miracle as I can waste paper mailing cards. Win-win-win.

Use gift bags! I hear you saying Save time and paper! Bags make it easy! No muss no fuss no waste! Okay, are you two? When you were two would you have been satisfied by unbagging your gifts? No., No you would not.Bags would have made you sad.

I do not want my two-year-old niece to be sad. So I had to figure out how to wrap an elephant. First I tried to box it up, like the monkey. That was easy, win-win-win! I thought so I assumed that Mr. Elephant would also obediently curl up. Elephants are co-operative aren’t they? Elephants live to serve, right?. No, no they aren’t and they don’t. In reality they are willful, uncooperative, obstinate and quite passive aggressive to be honest. First I pulled too much paper off the roll, then not enough. The box would not be wrapped. I tried it on every possible angle. My problem remained the same, no mater how I positioned the box I had either too much or too little paper. I then said Okay. I won’t wrap the whole box. I’ll slip cover the box! Eureka!. It soon became evident that I am not an upholsterer.

!@#$%^&*((!! We started out on the wrong foot. I decided to shake it off and try again. I freed Mr. Elephant from his box. We both took a deep breath and we sat down to try to come to a solution we could both work with. First, we decided we would forgo our attorneys and work it out elephant-o- A- woman-o.

Regardless, Mr. Elephant  speaking through his legal team expressed some concerns when I balled up the used paper and disposed of it. He felt I was using it to express feelings of dissatisfaction with him. I assured him through my legal representatives the timing of the disposal, while unthinking on my part was not in any way an expression of any dissatisfaction with him or his contribution thus far.

We had some coffee, talked about our families and shared individual holiday memories - True fact, elephants don’t really have a great memory. Mr. Elephant shared a humorous story regarding his Mother and a misplaced fruitcake that had us both rolling! But it wasn’t all small talk. We had work to do and an agenda to stick to. We didn’t always agree. I felt that a tidy box approach would be the best, while Mr. Elephant brought forth the suggestion that he may need some sort of custom box solution. I countered with the idea that we might just be able to get by with a festive bow.

Negotiations broke down at this point. After some heated words and some last minute interventions from our attorneys, we came to a solution.