Safety First

Apparently my 3 year old daughter is teaching the safety class at the School of Mom. Here is the sage advice she offered me today. Yes, this was all in the course of a few hours.

While driving in the car, I reach to the back seat and hand her an animal cracker.

“Thanks mom. But don’t look at me, mom,” she says.

I wasn’t actually looking at her at the moment, just handing her the cookie blindly. Thinking that she said this because she was doing something 'bad', which is usually when she uses this sentence, I ask the obvious follow up question: “Why?”

“Because you don’t want to get in an accident,” she states.

Oh, of course.

And she follows it up with “You can look at me in the mirror if you want.”

What a smart idea, wee one.

Later on, while playing in the family room where her little brother was busy at work taking things apart and generally making a mess, she exits the room, goes through the room I am sitting in with her older sister, and goes to the bathroom.

A few seconds later, I hear her little voice from the potty asking “Mom, can you check on little brother for me?”

Why yes, that would be a good idea too.

And still later, while I was helping my oldest fix something with staples in it, I put a staple in that always-available spot for holding things when your hands are full or you don’t want to put something on the floor. Yes, in between my lips. I just wanted it off the floor and out of reach from little hands.

My 3 year old sees this and says “Mom, don’t swallow that. You could choke and that would be bad.”

Yes, that would be bad, oh-wise-one.

Learning from you well I am.