(Contributed by Angela J. Workman. Read more about our writers here.)

“Mmmmmmm-amma!”

“Da-da-da-da-daaaaaah…!”

My 20 month old howls at my husband and I as he tries, unsuccessfully, to open up a kitchen drawer we have just affixed a baby lock to. He is furious. And we’re all paying the price.

Do I feel bad? Should I feel bad? I’m not gonna lie…I really do.

It wasn’t always this way.

My son Luca LOVES to open my kitchen utensil drawer. This kitchen drawer is full to the brim with a miscellaneous hodgepodge of random kitchen tools. From wooden spoons to can openers to cheese graters and strainers, this drawer has it all. It’s loud when you rummage through it, at the perfect height for a one year old to see and reach in, AND it has many shiny objects in it. So naturally, the obvious desire of my child’s heart is to be in this drawer. Every second. Of every day.

When Luca began walking, we thought it was delightful that he liked to imitate his Mamma by “helping in the kitchen.” He would adorably follow me around, moving from the sink to wash food, to the island, where I chopped the food up on a cutting board, and finally to the stove. He would reach into Mamma’s hodgepodge of a kitchen drawer to grab a random sparkly utensil and pretend to use it like Mamma. I loved it. My husband loved it. Guests would watch him calling out gleeful exclamations like, “He’s going to be a great cook, just like his Mamma!” or “Come sit down Angela…looks like Luca is making us dinner!” Everyone would laugh, Luca included, and the cuteness gage of our daily lives rose exponentially.

Then…the transformation from cute to crazy town began.

This charming and endearing practice turned into a personal game Luca played with himself in which he was no longer concerned with being like Mamma; now, he meticulously placed each individual utensil into our large lidded garbage can three feet away from the drawer. Instead of sweetly looking up at me while I cooked and emulating everything I was doing in an adoring way, currently he can no longer be bothered by Mamma’s kitchen shenanigans. He had his own shenanigans to embrace. And Luca, ignoring me completely, began to concentrate on challenging himself daily regarding how many items he could place in the garbage. Nothing is safe. Books, my work bag, bibs, toys, daddy’s watch and/or shoes, and regrettably, my clean kitchen utensils, could be found in a huge heaping pile…in the trash.

As the Mamma, I knew it was my moral obligation to begin cracking the metaphoric whip. “This Mamma is not raising a fool; I’m raising a man!” I’d say to my best friend, Jessi. “Time to lay down the law.” I’d postulate to my husband. Except he’s one…soooooo…how?

How indeed. So, I began by unavoidably posting on the Facebook,

“My son is a tornado of terror today, wreaking havoc on my kitchen. I’m sure this is normal, soooo anyone else have a child that throws EVERYTHING into the trash and climbs into the drawers? Suggestions? Remedies? Tribal chants that will make this stop?”

And just like that, I had fifteen comments from Mammas and Daddies who have been through it all. And I realized this is not a trash can calamity. This is not a problem. This is something every parent goes through, the inevitable drawing-of-the-line. This is an opportunity - one of the first, and definitely not one the last, in which I have the honor of coaching my son.

A friend said, “Time to make a game out of it…put a bunch of random crap on the floor and see if he can figure out what goes in the trash, the drawer, the dresser, etc.” I absolutely loved that idea! How fun! So I added a song to the game - because what toddler doesn’t love a catchy tune, “Clean up, clean up, clean up your mess…clean up clean up clean up your mess,” and began the rigorous journey toward redirecting Luca’s attention to this new game. It was like his old game, just less crazy town and more mamma’s-kitchen-friendly. He was learning how to win and how to follow the rules of Mamma’s Kitchen like a champ.

What it ended up looking like was this. Luca put all-the-everything into the toy bin, including himself. He had a blast doing it too. This child. *Insert mamma sigh here.* We’re working on it.

I took, and am taking, a lot away from this experience that I keep experiencing. I learned that if I ever have a second child, we will keep the kitchen drawers off-limits from the start. I also learned that every problem is an opportunity, and my son is not the only one on a learning curve. We can learn together...and in the meantime, I’ll just be doing A LOT of dishes.