Day #290 Screwing around

The theme of the weekend is clearly word play, whether drunk or sober.

One of Hawkeye’s long time favourite toys is his tool box set from IKEA. The IKEA DUKTIG range is everywhere. Aside from owning one, I have run across the main kitchen unit in our creche, in waiting rooms, in various public play areas. And in addition to the kitchen itself, there are utensils, pots and pans, soft fabric fruit and vegetables, cash register, doll’s bed, baking sets, and of course, the tool box set.

You will be shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that toddlers love hitting one object with another object. It seemed natural therefore to get him a hammer, and something he could hit with the hammer. The whole tool box is actually ridiculously clever. Early on Hawkeye learned how to manipulate the flip top locking mechanism. The big orange block holds the big square nails that can be hammered in, and then removed with the other end off the hammer (we haven’t quite mastered the coordination required for this skill yet). The screws have a very clever mechanism to allow them to be screwed in or out, using either the screwdriver or either side of the wrench. And the whole thing packs neatly into its own case.

For a while Hawkeye was in love with the hammer. Lately, however, it’s all about the screwdriver. However, I don’t think it’s a screwdriver in his mind anymore. It’s whatever it needs to be to accommodate whatever imaginary scenario he has running through his head. Sometimes he runs around “fixing” things. Other times he gesticulates with it wildly as if it’s a sword or a dagger and he’s in a fight to the death with some fearsome creature.

The problem with this, as you can imagine, is that in addition to sometimes banging the screwdriver against things which shouldn’t be hit, is that he can occasionally hit one of us with it by accident. So we have had a lot of stern talks recently about why it’s not ok to hit with the screwdriver, and why one has to be careful with it, and so forth.

We were watching a movie on the couch today and Hawkeye was curled up next to me, clutching the screwdriver. At some point he inevitably began swinging it around and nearly skewering me in the side.

“I asked you stop, honey. You nearly hit mama with that. Remember what I told you. If you keep swinging that around I’m going to take it away. It’s not for hitting or banging around or stabbing You don’t point it in people’s faces. It’s a screwdriver. It’s for screwing drivers.”

“It’s for driving screws,” The Mister chimes in from somewhere behind me.

I’m not always graceful in correction. “Well, yes” I say gravely. “It’s for that too.”