You might think this is a safe situation -- but it ain't.

There we were, the whole family gathered in the living room on Christmas day, gathered amongst the presents and decorations to share gifts. My newborn son, less than a year old, was sitting happily on the lap of my sister-in-law by the foot of the heavily decorated tree. I was passing out gifts and the others were opening them excitedly when suddenly wee Jared began to choke.

My sister-in-law took him out of the room and my wife and I followed. There, on the hall stairs, we fished a red plastic snowflake out of his mouth. He had apparently plucked it from a garland on the tree as he sat there next to it. Luckily, he was okay, but it could have been much worse. What's surprising is not that he put the snowflake in his mouth -- babies do that with everything -- but that he was able to do so with no one noticing.

Even with a dozen or more adults in the room and assorted older kids, no one saw Jared pick a snowflake like some sort of two dimensional fruit and put it in his mouth. So the moral is, even with everyone there, don't put your little ones somewhere where you wouldn't leave them on their own -- because with all the whoopla and laughter and joy of companionship, you won't be watching them as diligently as you think you will.