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Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Why I am So Tired

I have always loved Christmas. I love the lights, the smell of pine, the music, the food and of course the presents. Plus, a couple weeks after Christmas is my birthday. I have to say I've never thought of Christmas as being exhausting until this year. That's because until this year, I haven't been up until the wee hours of the morning trying to put together Christmas presents for my older son (OS).

I'm not sure exactly what we paid for when we purchased a Little Tykes Kitchen set for OS because it certainly wasn't for labor. I believe I read somewhere that the writers/illustrators of instructions for toys for kids are blind; the crappy instructions certainly make me believe that. The plastic pieces didn't even have holes for the screws. Instead there were indentations that you needed to take a screwdriver and hit with a hammer to start a hole. They claim you don't need an electric screwdriver, but all I can say is that this Christmas in addition to being grateful for my husband, sons, pets, friends, and good health, I was also grateful for the Barbara Electric Screwdriver for Ladies that I happened to pick up when I was buying curtain rods last year (because it was really cheap, not because I thought my feminism extends to requiring gender-specific tools).

I was also convinced that the illustration for Step 10, was in fact from another toy. I couldn't figure out what they were talking about and as much as I gripe about toys, I'm usually pretty good at putting them together. At some point in the wee hours of the morning, I realized it was a sketch of the kitchen set upside-down and on its side. You would think somewhere in that set of directions they would have said "turn kitchen set upside down and on its side". Nope!

It took my husband and me many attempts to get this kitchen set together. We could not get the pieces to line up properly. I should have been susipicious when this somewhat large kitchen set was delivered in a fairly small box. We finally got it together, and I do have to say it looks pretty good. I even handled the finishing touches like mounting the included "wall paper" (which was a set of about 4 stickers). I also feel that succeful assembly of a toy kitchen set is a skill that should be put on my resume. I'll have to check with my college's alumni career services office.

The rest of the toys we put together were fairly easy. Fisher Price defintely shells out more money on their instructions and pictures, because they are a lot better.

I do have to say that it was all worth it Christmas morning when a very excited OS discovered that Santa had brought him a kitchen set. He didn't even finish opening his presents until this morning.

In spite of all the frustration, swearing and cuts on your finger from the Barbara Ladies Electric Screwdriver that may require you to wear a Sesame Street Band-Aid if that's all you have in your house, the expression on your child's face when he sees his brand-new kitchen set all assembled makes it worth it.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Get an electric screwdriver.

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posted by Alex Elliot @ 11:36 PM   1 comments
1 Comments:

  • At 12/27/2006 1:08 PM, Blogger Kate said…

    That is so funny! Having children truly is a labor of love in more ways than one, isn't it??

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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