A Cooper. A Stick. and A Pocket Knife.

This afternoon I walked in to the garage and found Cooper, sitting on his bike with a stick on his lap and a pocket knife.



“Hi mom.

I'm just sitting here, cutting this big stick with this pocket knife.

Pocket knifes are really sharp.

They are so good at cutting big sticks.

‘Cuz you know what Mom, you have to have a really sharp knife to cut a stick and a pocket knife is a really sharp knife.

And I like to use sharp knifes to cut sticks…”





I had two choices:



Be the un-cool mom and make him hand over his pocket knife and choose a better activity.



OR



Be the cool mom and choose not to stifle his dreams and rather leave him in peace to whittle away at his stick.



Unfortunately I choose to be the cool mom rather then protect my son’s appendages.





Ugh! I know what you’re saying but I get so few opportunities to be the cool mom...



And honestly it made my heart do a little “awe” moment to think of my little boy being a little boy whittling down a stick… so Tom Sawyer-esk

(I’m not really sure Tom Sawyer whittled sticks but it seems like something he would have done.)



So I left my son, in the garage, with a stick and a pocket knife, and told him to be very careful as to not cut off his finger.



I returned to the garage a minute later to check on my boyish boy. My garage was missing a Cooper, and a stick, and a pocketknife. I thought about being concerned but seeing as I heard no blood curdling screams I choose to believe he had ventured off to a new boy activity.



I returned to my project in the dining room and a couple minutes later my little stick whittling friend approached me.



“Mom, you’re right, you got to be really careful with pocket knifes ‘cuz they are super sharp.

I even cut off part of my finger.”



“What?”



“I cut off a piece of my finger.

It was a pretty big piece… but it’s okay.

It’s not a really REALLY big piece, just a big piece like this.”



Oh my goodness.



For the record, he was totally okay with it.





About five minutes later Cooper walked back into the dining room and handed me the pocket knife.



“Here Mom, you better keep this. It’s probably not good for people to play with this.”