School Last Week

Last week I had one horrendous day with school (the first day) and then it was better after that. Suddenly the Oldest knew how to isolate X and the Girl knew how to stay on task, and Eraser Eater stopped whimpering from the floor. There were a few times I almost wept openly, crying out to the homeschool gods to release me of this painful task, but because I have a pea brain, I forget about my sorrows once I go to the bathroom or get myself a drink of water, and I start all this malarkey up again, like it is brand spankin' new.

Like things could not have gotten worse, Eraser Eater's chair came in the mail. The smallish sort of box was placed in his chubby hands and he hastily ripped the thing open. It was nearly five o'clock in the evening and I was sitting next to the Oldest at the table, helping him isolate X and gingerly pulling out my teeth, one by one, and pelting them at his nose when things got a bit difficult.

"Mom! Can you help me put this chair together?!" yelped Eraser Eater in an over-excited manner. The Girl and the Neighbor Girl were sitting on the floor helping him rip open the box. The whole idea of putting a chair together was a bit too much for me at that moment. You see, when the mind is freshest it can think clearly and work as expected. But as the day goes on and pressure is applied, soon the brain gives way and soon you have soup once you hit exactly five o' clock. I had about two brain cells left to use floating in that boiled mass of liquid thinking material, and I didn't want to use it on putting a chair together. But then the pieces....

The pieces the girls decided to scatter about in their great haste----it seemed that they were scattering all over the walls and hair and everything scatterable. It was a wretched thought. The next thing you know, I have gathered up all my teeth, put them back in their sockets, and high-tailed it to the scattered pieces. Screws and little do-hickeys. Two arm rests. A pad. Various other pieces of chair like material. I grabbed the instructions. They were unreadable, and they didn't even have any words. Pictures of nonsense. Nothing made sense. Pounding the skull does not work, it just rattles the soup.

When the brain is freshest it can take two seconds to figure out how to put four pieces of chair together. It took me probably forty minutes. I read the instructions backwards, sideways, then finally not at all. I studied the pieces. I put it together wrong then I put it together right. Eventually a very smaller-than-I-thought-it-would-be chair emerged before my eyes.

"It's perfect!" squealed Eraser Eater. "It's modern and perfect!" He sat in it. The Girl sat in it. The Neighbor Girl sat in it.

I turned around. No Oldest at the table. "Oldest!" I yelled.

He peeped from around the corner. "I took a little break...."

Ejected soup on the floor.