C and E's Christmas Tree Tea.

I didn't plan to share this but I can't keep myself from doing it now since it will be one of our family stories for years to come.

Recently C and J have been interacting with E more and more. They love sitting with her and playing with one of her toys which has a keyboard, piano, phone, and book on various sides of a table (that sits on the floor so E can lay on her belly and play with it or if you put the legs on she can grasp and stand beside).

C also has a favorite game to play which is Tea party. She will bring us all a variety of plastic food, tea cups, and saucers and will ask us if we'd like more to eat or drink and serve us accordingly.

E was on the floor on her play mat a few feet from our Christmas tree (which we haven't taken down since the snow put those disposal plans aside). E was playing with her keyboard with C and J. C decided she wanted to play tea party and went back and forth to her room to get cups etc. I was a foot away watching and interacting when necessary but mainly letting the kids play with each other. All was well and normal and in the course of about a minute all of a sudden C changed the game and I heard "Is that yummy E would you like some more?" I picked up E and though I assumed C was just doing pretend food again I looked at C and asked "You're just pretending right, you know you don't give her any real food, she only has Mommy milk right now?"

C realized what she'd done just about when I did. I looked down to see she had gathered some of the needles from our spruce and put them in the tea cups and some where on E's keyboard!!! My heart skipped a bit. These are tiny, and luckily I found out shortly later edible, but the idea E may have accidentally ingested any of them definitely freaked me out.

I swept her mouth, checked her body etc. and found a couple of the needles on the lower bit of her outfit but she was laughing and cooing as normal and nothing was in her mouth luckily. C had a long talking too where she was very very upset at the thought she hurt her little sister. She assumed since J knows not to eat such things (yep she'd given him a cup of Christmas tree tea too, but he knows to only eat real food) E would too. She has been even more sweet than normal to her baby sister since and really felt horrible when she realized.

As per pediatrician's recommendation we kept an eye on E just in case (though like I said believe it or not Christmas trees are edible....ironically I've even learned some people use spruce needles to make tea). Yep happy baby as always and nothing out of the ordinary. Disaster averted, heart beat slowed, all is well with the world.

Well..........
Earlier tonight E had a very big poop. This was one of the fun yellow explosive breast milk poops that happen once in a blue moon (if you haven't had kids yet, look forward to that one) and E was actually laughing at me and blowing raspberries as she let it all out lol. Well in the midst of changing diaper and clothes I see it. In the middle of the diaper....covered in poop but very identifiable....a single spruce needle. Hubby and I couldn't help but throw up our hands and laugh. It obviously caused her no issues and sometimes in parenthood all you can really do is laugh.

Yes we're still planning to wait till 6 months on "real" foods for E, but technically her first food, fed to her by big sis, was Christmas tree! And I really hope C has many children when she grows up so when she's complaining to me about her kids doing things to each other (purposeful or not) that I can say "Well you know you fed your baby sister Christmas tree...."

To add to this amusing situation Hubby shared with me that he fed his sisters several non-food items (his closest is 3.5 years younger) and this is him being paid back. And one of my first things eaten to give my mom a mini-heart attack was a Christmas cactus. *Sigh* like I said some times all you can do is laugh and though I'm not as much a fan of the experience right now, I'm sure in years to come we will often recount the tail of C and E's Christmas Tree Tea.