The Pocket Knife

The Big Boy Update:  Tonight is mostly a story about my son, so he gets top billing for the whole post.

My son and daughter were playing in our closet, getting into things they shouldn't be getting into when my son discovered my husband's pocket knife.  He really, really, really wanted to play with it because it was filled with tools and he loves tools.  

My husband and I sent the children outside in the nice weather and my husband decided to let my son use the pocket knife.   As a small child with little fingers, he didn't have the strength needed to pull out any of the tools so daddy had selected two for him: the magnifier glass and the phillips screw driver.  

My son was thrilled.   He was looking at all sorts of things with the magnifier glass and discovering what the screwdriver would jab into.   And yeah, I wasn't thrilled about the jabbing part so there was a lot of counseling him on what was appropriate (not on the play ground equipment or the house and certainly not at people.)  He was brandishing the knife like a weapon over his shoulder.   I don't know why, but I didn't like the associations I had with that position and a knife.

Then my husband came outside.  He had drilled some holes in a piece of wood and had brought out some screws that would work well in the holes.   Great, I thought my son would be interested in screwing the screws in.   And he was...for about three minutes.    Then he was back to other things.

Soon my daughter needed to go to the bathroom and needed help getting in the basement doors.   When I returned—after reminding my son to be careful—he was holding his hand, standing very still and crying.    

He had gotten a pointy and sharp knife out after all and had sliced a c-shaped cut on his finger.    We went inside—I exclaimed that we had an "emergency" that needed to be taken care of—to take care of his finger.

He whimpered, but was good throughout the whole process.   At first he was unhappy about losing access to the pocketknife but later he wanted it to be thrown in the trash forever.    We talked about how our body heals and kept pressure on the cut so that it would heal faster with the tissues connected.  

He got a band aid and his sister got two (while I wasn't looking) and is completely fine.  Hopefully he's a little wiser too.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:   "I have tappy toes."  I needed to fix my daughter's hair so I put her on the counter in my bathroom.   I wasn't paying attention when she told me she had tappy toes but I looked down when I heard little sounds.  We have a dixie cup dispenser on the counter.   I only keep three plastic cups in it because any more than that or any paper cups get used up in one toddler sink experience.    These three little cups we wash out and put back in the dispenser for the next day.   She had taken two of the cups and put them over her feet and was tapping her toes on the counter, making a little, "tink tink" sound as she did so.