Today, we hosted Kaia’s bestie, his little sister, and their parents for lunch and a play date at our place. For the lunch, I prepared butter chicken, pea pulao rice, besan chilla (chickpea based pancakes with various vegetables), served with cilantro mint and tamarind date chutney, tofu scramble (was very impressed by this, as it really did taste like eggs!), and a mushroom and kale salad with cashew dressing, topped with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. We chatted about child rearing, the kids, work, commuting, and travel. Kaia and her friend enjoyed each others’s company by playing with and around each other. Jacob’s little sister slept in the beginning, then woke up to eat a good number of my chickpea pancakes and a nice handful of my tofu scramble (I was so excited to watch her eat and ask for more!). And then, out of nowhere, Jacob runs out of Kaia’s bedroom with one of my Christmas houses – the one with a moving train and lights.

I held my breath when I watched him run out of the room with it and present it to us. I calmly told him, no, he could not take that, and immediately walked him back to the window sill where all my precious real estate sat and placed it back in its place and plugged it in. I noticed my Hamburg Christmas house was taken apart (it’s two pieces). I examined it to make sure it wasn’t damaged and immediately saw the edge of the roof had chipped a little. It wasn’t the end of the world and only someone really scrutinizing it would notice it (so, really, just me), but I was not super thrilled this happened. In general, Kaia has always stayed away from the Christmas houses and a few other very delicate pieces on display in our home. But alas, I cannot control what tempts other kids.

It was just a reminder to me that I couldn’t just let other kids come into our home without watching them and being aware of what they could look at as “toys.” My real estate collection on Kaia’s window sill is really the only “property” we own, so I would have been absolutely devastated if anything had gotten destroyed due to a 3-year-old friend’s desire to have some fun.