Solomon's new (safer!) stool

This past winter, Solomon discovered the freedom of being able to reach things easily himself.  I have a vintage wooden stool in our kitchen and he loves to push it around wherever he wants, pull the steps out, and climb right up.  This thing has literally been all over our downstairs.  Here's just a sampling:

Helping in the kitchen

Sneaking and re-arranging things on the fridge

"reorganizing" the silverware drawer

Getting into my apothecary cabinet (herbs)

adding things to my "to-do" list

Tabby and Hunter and I have had many laughs when we would suddenly hear the stool being moved across the floor and we'd know Solomon was up to something.

It hasn't been all fun though.  As you can imagine, he's had some falls off the stool.  Amazingly he's never been hurt badly.  (He has a good guardian angel!)  But there has been a few times where his falls scared me enough I gave him a quick dose of Arnica to prevent any bruising or bad headaches.

Ok - you may be thinking "just tell him he can't use the stool."  But seriously - that's not the answer when a child is loving being up at the counter and helping me and learning so much.  A chair wasn't the answer as kids fall off chairs too.

Earlier this month, Solomon had several scary falls.  I remembered seeing a special stool with sides in a children's catalog a couple years ago (called a "kitchen helper stool"), and decided to start checking CraigsList for one.  Nothing appeared.  Then he had a very clumsy day and after those falls I thought "enough!"  I suddenly realized that the price tag of the special stool, which had been holding me back from buying it, was much cheaper than a trip to the emergency room would be.

So I got on amazon.com and ordered GuideCraft's Kitchen Helper stool.  It comes in a variety of colors and I choose red.

When it arrived a few days later, Hunter helped me assemble it.  Solomon tried it out and spent the first 5 minutes climbing in and out.  He loves it!  And I now have peace of mind and know he's so much safer.

A nice feature about this stool is that it folds up.  (Hunter is obsessed with folding it up and then opening it up.)  When folded, it is the same height, but the width is only 4.5 inches.  The stool also adjusts to 4 different heights, so it "grows" with your child.

I highly recommend the kitchen helper stool and just wish I had bought it sooner!

Finally - can you "guess the picture?"

Answer:  a box of Peeps!  (not the marshmallow kind you see at Easter though - these are Tabby's Silkie Bantam chicks.)

"For it is written: 'He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; . . . ." - Luke 4:10

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