With the holiday season, there were aromas to smell and sights to see. We created our ambiance with lights and candles and garland and ornaments and yarn. Lots and lots of yarn.

The middle of it all is our little toddler who is a curious as curious can be. Whether he is staring at a candle, playing with an ornament, or climbing all over everything. He wants to experience it all, especially whatever his mommy and daddy are doing.

One of the many things he wants to do is blow his nose, the same as we do. And so when we would blow our noses, sometimes he would blow his nose. On one fateful evening when we blew our noses, he blew his nose. When he finished, he decided to incinerate the evidence of his nose blowing.

My wife first arrived on the scene to see the makeshift campfire engulfing the tissue and yelled in alarm.

Having enough evidence from their reactions that something was an emergency. I teleported my self into the living room and found the small bonfire.

I then huffed. Puffed. And blew the fire out as my wife hollered, “NO!”

One big puff and the whole blaze was out. In my mind I was as much a Superman freeze breath as it was a good gust of wind.

But you might ask yourself, why would anyone say no to blowing the fire out.

Well, in blowing the fire out, little particles of tissue then floated around the room. Nothing else caught on fire and there wasn't any real damage anywhere. But her response to not want little flaming bits of tissue all over the living room is a right reaction. I even had the same thought as I huffed and puffed.

I decided blowing the flame out was the most important goal. Despite some potential ramifications. After one giant huff and puff, the next step was going to be a fire extinguisher and it would cause damage we didn’t want.

Now, I do have a penchant for dramatics. The fire may never have reached a status of engulfing our house had we done nothing. I did see how it could do more and I was not about to take a gamble on what was going to happen next with that little tissue.

But in the moment of crisis I would say we were all doing the right thing. Except my son, who decided to burn the tissue. He definitely did the wrong thing.

We had a focused but gentle conversation with him about staying away from candles. He could taste the anxiety still floating in the room from our pyrotechnics display. And he cried despite our attempt to not blow a gasket. We were all happy to be alive.

What do you do in the moment of crisis? What have you done before in moments of crisis? How do you operate at the moment of ignition in a fire? Do you have a huff and puff mentality when things go wrong at work? Do you know where your preverbal fire extinguisher is at work in case things escalate?

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