Fire!

We had invited old friends over for dinner to see their "new" baby, and to see them to. Juliette and Nicholas were so excited to see a new baby and they were their usual rambunctious selves. If you ever come over for supper at our house you can expect the following. Lots of good food and two very excited children who spend about 45 minutes of the visit running laps around the house with very excited screams and lots of laughter. Everything was going well when my wife and I noticed a burning smell. Almost immediately I figured out it was coming from the basement bathroom. I got there in time to blow the "fire" out that was contained in a plastic garbage can. It wasn't very big but it did manage to burn a hole through the container and fill the basement full of smoke. Immediately after putting out the fire I realized it hadn't started on its own and I told my wife to find Juliette. Sure enough she was hiding in her room unharmed but very scared. I guess what had happened was Juliette had put some tissue in the flame of a candle and then thrown it in the garbage when it lit up. Knowing she had done something wrong she ran to her room and hid. She was so upset from the entire event that it took a few hours for her to be calm enough to confirm our theory of what had happened. Of course as parents we were much more relieved than angry and we tried out best to tell Juliette that not telling anyone was the worst thing she had done. Luckily the crisis didn't hurt anyone or ruin the evening and we were able to spend lots of time with the visiting baby. Juliette and Nicholas can't wait to get one of our own (won't be long now). I guess the moral of the story is to not have lit candles around the house with young children. I realize while writing this story that it was a pretty dumb thing for me to do but it had become almost a tradition when hosting a dinner. So the next time you come over, you can still expect the hyper kids, the good food but no candles.