Decorating for Christmas

Last week, we put up the tree and all the decorations.  Audrey and Kate had fun putting the candy into the doors of our advent calendar.

Simon didn’t have fun wearing a Santa hat.

Audrey and Kate put all of the ornaments on the tree by themselves, so everything was down really low and very clumped together.  I thought that I would eventually get back to it and spread it out a bit more evenly, but I never got back to it…. until Monday night.

Here’s the story:  Simon and Kate were playing by the tree.  Audrey was practicing the piano.  I was in the kitchen cutting up serano and jalepeno peppers and Scott was at work (the real place, not just upstairs).  All of the sudden, I heard Kate yell, “Mom!  Simon has a red ball in his mouth!”  Not just any red ball – a tiny, glass, Christmas ornament, red ball.  I yelled, “Audrey, hurry get it out of Simon’s mouth.  I have peppers all over my hands and I’ll burn his mouth!” At the same time I hurried to the sink to wash my hands.  Audrey jumped off of the piano bench and ran over to Kate and Simon.  A couple seconds later I heard, “Mom! Come quick!  It broke and I can’t find all of it.”  I ran in there and Simon is completely happy and calm in the midst of all this drama.   Audrey pointed to the floor to show me half of the broken Christmas ball.  Simon was obviously fine, but still we had to find out if there was any broken glass in his mouth.  Audrey was really concerned.  She ran back throwing herself onto the piano bench yelling, “I’m so sorry.  I’m so sorry.  Please help him!  I don’t want Simon to die.”  I fished around in his mouth and found nothing.  So, I looked at the half broken ball on the floor a little closer and saw that the smaller half had slipped inside the bigger half, so nothing was in his mouth.  I told Audrey, “I found the other half of the ball.  It’s inside the other one.”  She yelled, “It’s inside him?!”  It took a little explaining but she eventually understood.  Poor kids.  What pressure.  I told both Audrey and Kate I was proud of them for being so helpful and taking care of their little brother.  Simon was just chillin’ the whole time.  He really had no clue that anything had taken place.  He has my fingers fishing things out of his mouth several times a day.  Anyway, after that, we moved all of the ornaments up much higher on the tree.