Maybe a Switchblade for Christmas

So Margaret has a long history of pulling knives on people.

All right, so there are only really two incidents, once when Leo had balanced her on the counter at his parents’ house (he was standing in front of her) and she reached back and grabbed a knife, and once just after Ellie was born when we didn’t realize that she could reach tabletops, and left a breadknife on the table in the dining room.

But anyway, Margaret, knives, you know.  She likes them.

And recently, she’s been agitating to be allowed to use them at the table.  A couple of weeks ago she announced that she wanted a big girl cup for her milk, and she has used it pretty much without incident, though we need to get more cups in her size, since a smaller, plastic cup is definitely a helpful adjunct to Margaret drinking milk.

So a few days ago, I let her have her knife.

And look – a perfectly cut strawberry.  Isn’t she clever?  It might be more mashed than cut, and honestly, I keep trying to tell her that she should use the curved side of the knife instead of the flat, but in an attempt to make them safe, there is NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER, so it’s a hard case to argue.  But it’s a step towards civilized mealtimes.