The Scary Years

    
Here is the knife drawer that Malachi can reach.     

Here is the new home for our knives, an oval platter placed well back on the counter.  
 

Here is our adorable toddler, busily marching back and forth from the knife drawer to the dining room, placing objects on the chair.
You can see some of my favorite kitchen tools: a Swedish cheese slicer (no wire slicers here, thanks to my friend Gretchen. We've used this one for over 15 years and it still slices beautifully); a flat cheese grater (perfect for block parmesan); a small cookie scoop.

I would love to tell you about my other fave kitchen tools, but I have no time, because my days are filled with chasing this baby boy. Keeping him safe and alive has become my main task. I haven't had a little boy in the house for many years. They are different than girls. Girls are talkative and can be active, but Malachi has a yearning to reach and conquer and figure things out mechanically, that our daughters didn't have. In this way he reminds us of Isaac, our oldest, who is a freshly minted engineer.    

We are trying to remember that these frantic years do not last forever, that we successfully kept four other toddlers alive, and that all this energy can be corralled into something that benefits society.

In the mean time, watching him want things that are terrible for him is a fantastic spiritual lesson.

"So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom!" (from Romans 6, The Message)

Here's to following the ways of God, asking for strength for each day, and encouraging each other along the way.

If you have any tips or advice on keeping toddlers safe, I'm all ears!