Chilli Anyone?

The three youngest children enjoy helping me with our little veggie garden, but they also get bored quickly. Five minutes after accompanying me outside to stake my tomatoes and find a suitable pot for my new chilli bush, they disappeared back inside the house.

A short while later Boywonder came to the back door and told me his nose was burning. I didn’t doubt it, as his nose was so red he looked like Rudolph. He said that Tomboy’s top lip was also burning.

I made it very clear to him that they weren’t in trouble and that it was very important that he tell me what they’d put on their faces. The possible scenarios raced through my head. Had someone left the exit mould out after cleaning the bathroom and they’d sprayed it in their faces? Had they used something they’d mistakenly thought was sunscreen?

Boywonder was adamant that they hadn’t put anything on their faces. ‘All we did was smell the chilli,’ he explained.

‘You didn’t bite one did you?’ I asked.

‘No, you told us not to taste them because they were hot, so we only smelled that one,’ he said pointing at half a chilli on the ground near the chilli bush.

Just as they’d been told, they didn’t pull anything off of the bush (the offending chilli had fallen off when I was repotting the plant) and they didn’t taste the chilli.

And now they also know not to touch their faces with a chilli when smelling it.

They spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the house holding wet facewashers to their nose and top lip and I was pleased to know that we’d bought a chilli bush with some heat in it!