What Happened to my Little Sanctuary?

My Sanctuary, my little home. It is the reason why my posts have remained slightly boring and uneventful for some time now. You know, ever since the last few times that I left the house with all of my children, which resulted in post-traumatic stress and a glass of wine (or two) not knowing I was knocked up with numero quatro.

So I have made it my goal to make this little home of ours a sanctuary, for sanity's sake. There is not a cleaning product in reach of a toddler's curious hand, there are no sharp corners to be found for wobbler's heads to knock, the shelves are bolted to the walls, the hot water heater is turned down low, there are boundaries, safety gates and order.

And then there was this morning...

I should have seen it coming, there were signs yesterday that I had let it slip. Avery and I were purging toys and cleaning the playroom (the inner sanctuary) and I saw it... a shard of glass from a light bulb that had broken months ago, but I was sure was completely gone. And then... a toothpick, a "could've been terrible" find for Audrey.

No worries, cleaned, dealt with and "sanctified."

I go to check on Audrey as she wakes from her nap, and as I change her diaper in her room, I hear the shrieking fury run down the hallway and into our bathroom. "Avery! Avery, what are you doing?" She comes back from my bathroom, eyes welled with tears, nose resembling Rudolf, just in perfect season. She smashes fistfuls of tissues to her nose, blowing frantically and screaming, "the spices, the spicy spices." I attempt to assist her with the one hand that isn't covered with the toddler poo that had escaped Audrey's diaper, using my forearm to pin our little tornado to the changing table.

She blows out a chunk of crushed red pepper. "Avery, where did you get this?"

"In the kitchen, the play kitchen, in the playroom."

So I grab poopie britches, and pepper schnauz and head to the sanctuary to investigate. A package of crushed red pepper from Pizza Hut, opened and sprinkled all over our little play kitchen. Don't ask me how she got it up her nose.

Oh, just you wait... wait to hear what happened this morning to my little sanctuary.