Tonight my daughter ran like a flash to the dinner table. Not because she was excited for chicken sausages with onions and peppers, but because she was Queen Elsa and The Flash.

We ate and her baby brother wailed and thrashed in his highchair. He wanted my water. To my one-year-old, there is no nectar more divine than whatever I am drinking. I pulled him in my lap and let him take a sip. When I set the cup down, he wailed again. My husband said, “Geez! He’s so crazy about drinks. We should cut him off.”

That’s when my little Elsa Flash looked up with sad eyes. Her lip quivered. “No! Don’t cut him! Don’t cut my baby brother!”

We sighed and looked at each other before quickly explaining that we would never hurt her or her brother. My husband went on to explain that “cutting him off” was an expression and that to “cut someone off” means to take something away abruptly, like the water. She said, “So, you’re not going to cut him?” No baby, never.

I immediately thought of a nightmare I had when I was little. I dreamed that my little sister fell into the storm drain outside our old house. In the dream my mother and I were standing right near her. Mom’s  jacket zipper was stuck and for some reason that meant we couldn’t save her from falling. You know how dreams are. Reason does not apply. This dream bothered me for years. The idea of my sister getting hurt was excruciating. The idea of not being able to save or help her was unbearable. I used to not want to fall asleep for fear of having that dream again. I remember my mom telling me that if I talked about the dream and my feelings about it, that I might feel better. I did. She was right. I never had the dream about my sister falling again.

I looked at my daughter and knew exactly how she felt. Sometimes she wants to be a superhero for her younger sibling and she knows she can’t always be that. I looked at her little masked face and hoped I can always help her talk through her fears, because even Elsa Flash gets scared for those she loves most.

Someone asked me once, “What’s your favorite smell?” Easy. The smell of my children’s hair after a bath. I’ve always washed their hair with Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo or Head to Toe Shampoo/Body Wash. You know the stuff. It smells like a baby. We’ve all had it around the house forever. My obsession started when they washed Charlotte for the first time in the hospital. I breathed her in. When they took her to the nursery I could still smell her on the receiving blanket next to me. I needed her back with me to breathe her in some more. That’s when I fell in love with the smell.

She’s four. I still wash her hair with it just to smell her. She’s had a ton of cherry-bubblegum scented bubble bath or whatever, but her hair is washed in Johnson’s. Always. For Christmas she got a box of princess bath items. A comb and mirror, complete with her first bottle of body wash. Surely it would make her skin princess-smooth. She was psyched. My heart fell a little when I saw the shampoo in there too. I knew nothing would keep her from hair that magical and I knew it wouldn’t smell like Johnson’s.

That night I reluctantly sniffed the pink bottle and washed her hair. When I went to check on her before I went to sleep I leaned down to kiss her. I smelled her hair.

It was a new smell. A non-Johnson’s princess smell. It is not the smell of a baby. It was a mixture of cherry-bubblegum and sparkles. I loved it. In the whiffs of fruity candy, her curls carry the scent of my four-year-old. The smell is bright and spirited. It somehow represented my funny kid who is learning about a bike with training wheels, builds Lego towers as high as she is and wears dress-up clothes while drawing pictures. My cherry-bubblegum girl who sings loud, runs fast and hugs hard.  It’s perfect for her hair now. All too soon it will smell like highlights or hairspray and I’ll long for the scent of cherry-bubblegum.

Plus, I get to wash her baby brother in Johnson’s until he cares about shampoo, if ever. I think their hair will always be my favorite smell.

Fresh from her princess bath.

Oh. Hi. I wasn’t here much last week. It was mostly because we’ve been to Christmas parties, work functions, preschool performances, church gatherings, neighborhood dinners and any other festive event you can think of.

Of all the frivolity of Christmas 2014, I think this 40 seconds will stand out as the highlight in my mind. It’s my 4-year-old’s rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”

Maybe it’s the baby gate around the tree, the the adorably invasive baby brother waddling in his diaper or the quick pan to the laundry half-folded, but this is what I’ll remember most:  My beautiful, messy babes, ages 4 and 1, singing and stumbling. They are healthy and fun. They make our world go around and they certainly make this Christmas special.

The jolly fat man has become a marker of time. A growth chart. A yearly reminder of all that has changed and all that has stayed the same. I know I can’t always dress them in matching monogrammed plaid, but I’ll do it as long as I can. I’ll make this collage for as long as they will let me pose them, even if they’re just pretending they still believe. Merry Christmas.

If you’re like me, you live in constant fear of some accident or another injuring your children. My fears range from the typical to the ridiculous. From my kids tripping on the stairs to a helicopter landing on the playground and them being knocked over by high force propeller wind.

Anyway, something happened over our Thanksgiving weekend that brought another danger front-of-mind. We were visiting my grandparents who are in poor health. I walked in and after hugs I quickly swept through the room and put all ceramic grandma trinkets up high enough that little hands couldn’t get them. I forgot one thing.

After getting bored with toys from 30 years ago and not being allowed to play with an iPad, (there is no WiFi anyway) my 4-year-old wandered into the kitchen. My grandparent’s health workers and my aunts keep their medicines in those pill boxes organized Monday through Friday and “Morning, Midday, Evening and Bedtime.” So, there are a lot of pills in there. These boxes are colorful and easy to open for arthritic hands. They also look very neat to little people.

I walked into the kitchen to hear dozens of pills hit the floor. My daughter was standing in a chair by the kitchen table, horrified after she dropped the box. I frantically scooped up my one-year-old off the floor as he tried to crawl to the appealing pills. My husband snagged my daughter who was near tears. She looked at us and said, “I thought it was a puzzle! I’m sorry!”

It is a puzzle of sorts since my mom and my aunt had to sort out all the meds again. I’m not trying to be preachy, just remember this holiday season when you’re visiting relatives, watch out for medicine containers that look like toys and pills that look like candy.

Also, put Poison Control in your phone. Our pediatrician said you are most likely to have poison related accidents when you are away from home, like at your grandparents’. Let me know of other hazards you’ve run into, or you have tips for keeping kiddos safe, especially at the holidays. Have a happy and safe season, everyone!