|
|
 |
|
The
views expressed
on this page are soley those of the author and do not
necessarily
represent the views of County News Online
|
 |
Broke Wife, Big City
The Complete
Idiots Guide to Minor Toy Assemblage
By Aprill Brandon
I was told a lot of things about being a parent before I had my son.
For example, some of my favorite gems include:
“You’ll never not be doing laundry.”
“You’ll never not be covered in fluids that aren’t yours.”
“You’ll spend the first part of their life trying to teach them to talk
and the rest of their life telling them to shut up.”
But the one thing I wasn’t told? That I would need a degree in
engineering.
Yes, I was, and still am, highly ill-equipped to deal with the barrage
of “some assembly required” items that have entered my home since
junior arrived. Toys, activity play sets, swinging chairs, various
contraptions that basically serve as baby jails. All of them needing a
toolbox and a set of skills that are more advanced than my current
level of construction knowledge, which begins and ends with the phrase
“rightie tightie, leftie loosie.”
And silly me, wasting all that time getting a journalism degree (which
now should just be called a “Hey, want to write for my website for
free? It’ll give you good exposure” degree) when I should have been
building a replica of the Death Star or whatever it is they do in
engineering school.
Take my most recent baby item building adventure. Last week, I
discovered a still-in-the-box bouncy chair, which was revealed after
the Great Stuffed Animal Mountain Avalanche of 2014 (a mountain hastily
constructed by me a few months ago while “cleaning” the nursery closet,
which should already give you some idea of my engineering
capabilities).
I immediately decided I had to put it together because as I’ve learned
(and here’s a little parenting gem I can pass on to you), you can never
have too many places to set your child down. So, I opened up the
instruction manual and spent the next three hours doing the following:
Step 1: Hold down the two sides of the dobbler and insert the dobbler
into the doohickey. But only if you happen to have the natural strength
of Hercules because the dobbler is actually manufactured to be just
slightly larger than the doohickey because we here at Generic Toy
Company have a cruel sense of humor. In a last ditch effort, use a
hammer (not included) to just bang the crap out of both parts until
they fit.
Step 2: Take the oddly shaped bright red thingy and screw it into the
oddly shaped bright yellow thingy.
Step 3: Insert the dancing cow beside the singing duckies until you
hear it click into place.
Step 4: Hook the canvas piece onto the tiny plastic hook and then
attempt to stretch it all the way across to the other tiny plastic
hook. Which is, of course, impossible because we manufactured it to
only go three-fourths of the way across. But that won’t stop you from
pulling and stretching and pulling and cussing and getting all
red-faced and sweaty until you finally get so fed up you throw it
across the room while your dog cowers in the corner.
Step 5: Spend a frustrating 20 minutes looking for that stupid blue
piece, which was JUST HERE A MINUTE AGO, DAMMIT!
Step 6: Locate the battery panel. Which you probably won’t be able to
do because we hid it. Extremely well. And even if by some miracle you
do happen to find it, we screwed it tightly shut because of all the
criminals out there who sneak into homes and steal all the batteries
from children’s toys. Even though technically that’s a counterintuitive
measure considering there are no batteries in there yet. Spend 45
frustrating minutes trying to unscrew the battery panel screws, which
are specifically designed to not fit well with any standard
screwdriver. Insert 28 double AA batteries.
Step 7: Debate internally for at least an hour whether or not this
death trap is safe enough for your child.
Step 8: Decide “screw it” and plunk him down in the bouncy chair
because you’ve been up since 5 a.m. and haven’t peed since 5:01 a.m.
and it’s now 8 p.m. and your arms are numb from carrying him around and
he hates the crib and the swing this week and you haven’t eaten since
Tuesday and hey, kids in the 60’s survived licking lead paint walls and
cars with no seat belts.
Step 9: Enjoy 12 blissful minutes of peace as he plays in the bouncy
chair, which seems, at least marginally, structurally sound.
Step 10: At 13 minutes, take him out of bouncy chair because he is now
crying hysterically.
Step 11: Add bouncy chair to the Corner of Useless Baby Crap, which is
now no longer really a corner but more three-fourths of your living
room.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
|
|
|
|
