Fire Bug

Let me start out by saying that while I see some humor in what happened this morning, it's only funny because Carolyn is funny and the house didn't burn down with my children inside of it! Okay, disclaimer made, here we go....

When Carolyn and Lilia came into our room this morning for a snuggle, they sort of smelled like a campfire. My first thought was that our neighbors must have been having a campfire outside, and because all of our windows are open, the scent got into the girls' room. JT suggested that it sort of smelled a bit like matches, but I dismissed that because of course Carolyn and Lilia are too small to know how to play with matches. And then later on this morning, I found Carolyn in her closet and saw this,

and obviously I was WRONG! when I assumed my sweet angels would never play with matches. One of my greatest fears is that the house will start on fire, and then how will I get the children out of the house and to safety? Will I be able to break their window and rescue them? Will they wander around in the dark and smoke and get lost and die? (This actually happened to a 6 year old in this county a couple of years ago.) I worry that the dryer lint might catch fire in the laundry room and cause a house fire. (This is a particular fear of mine because the laundry room is right beside the girls' room.) Many a night I think about this as I'm going to bed and the only thing that brings me peace is praying that the Heavenly Father will watch over us and protect us. I get that stressed about house fires. So you can imagine that I freaked when found out that Carolyn and possibly Lilia were playing with matches in their wooden closet, with flammable clothes above them and a thick card board toy chest beside them. I was so upset that I didn't think I could communicate in a way that Carolyn would listen to me, so I let JT handle this one. By the way, JT blames this all on my genetics just because when my mother was a child, she burned her basement doing pretend fire commercials (don't ask) and I used to lock myself in the bathroom and play with matches until the time I singed, parts of my very flammable bangs, orange. I am sooooo regretting telling JT any of this now. Anyway, after a while I felt like I had it all together. I came back into Carolyn's room to hear her say, "Because I'm good at matches," when JT asked her why she had done this. (I know. I can't believe she said that either.) I walked back out and got a drink of water. I think that JT handled this very well. He was calm, but firm when he explained to her the dangers of fire to our family and home. As she was sitting on the Naughty Chair after the talk, he pulled me aside to tell me a few things that he had learned from Carolyn. Apparently Lilia had already told Carolyn all about how matches could start a fire that would burn us all to death and that if that happened while Carolyn was playingwith matches, Lilia would be "very upset" with her, and then Carolyn had thanked and hugged Lilia and told her what a good sister she was. Uh huh. Apparently Lilia gives better safetly lectures at 21 months old than either JT or I. But that hadn't stopped them from playing with the matches, because although at first Carolyn wouldn't admit to playing with matches in front of Lilia, she later admitted that Lilia likes to blow them out. As I type this, it's only 9:45 in the morning, and I feel exhausted.

Anyway, onto happier memories of times gone by. Or at least times gone by a couple of weeks ago. Here are some pictures from our most recent trip to the zoo.

It's the first time that JT had ever gone with us. When I told the girls that he would be going with us, Carolyn was incredulous to the point of asking, "My daddy?" (He's not a big fan of the zoo.) But it was so much more fun to have him there with us :-) I didn't have a chance to do the girls' hair before we left because we wanted to get there early and beat the heat. Sorry that the pictures are a little blurry, I'm still getting used to my new camera. Carolyn and Lilia sort of look hot and raggedy, but that's because they were hot and raggedy, and we still had a good time. (But I'll be doing their hair next time.)

Oh, and here is Carolyn's tutu.

The daisies don't really go with it and the tutu's not in the colors that I would have picked, but it's everything that Carolyn wanted and she loves it, so that's all that matters. At least that's what I tell myself every time I see it.

Oh, and also? The matches are long gone. Much like all the spinning wheels were done away with for Sleeping Beauty, so are the matches for Carolyn and Lilia and hopefully we won't need any for a quite a while. I asked JT why they don't make child-proof matches and he said that if they did, we probably wouldn't be able to figure them out, but Carolyn and Lilia probably could.