I try not to complain about being a single mom.  I mean, really, it’s not like I came to be a single mother by accident.  Oops, how did that dossier get submitted?  I knew going in that it was going to be difficult – especially if I had to deal with frightening medical issues.  I failed to anticipate one key component, though.  A matter so menacing that, had I known about it before hand, I might have thought twice about taking that first leap.

Before becoming a parent, did you have any idea the amount of assembly actually required by the words “some assembly required”?  If you’re a married mom, maybe you haven’t given this much thought.  The single moms out there know what I’m talking about, though.  Especially if they have boys.  I first noticed this issue at Christmas, when I spent night after night assembling Oscar’s presents.  It was miserable enough that I have not purchased anything for him since then that I couldn’t take straight out of a box and hand to him to play.  

Sadly, he’s turning two this week, which meant that I had to go and buy him a present.  Don’t tell him, but he’s getting a big train set, complete with a train table.  So, guess what I did this weekend?  The train table alone took me almost three hours to put together.  It had over 58 parts, not including the hardware.  Sure, it would have taken less time had he not been at my side with his little screwdriver (don’t worry, he can’t tell what the table is for – he just thinks it’s a new addition for the family room – one that he can climb onto and jump off of – all while I’m thinking, please don’t stand on that, don’t you know that I put that together?  it could disintegrate any second now).  It looks great, and I’m sure it will all be worth it, but why is it so complicated?  Why do the instructions not have ANY words on them?  Why are the illustrations themselves ALWAYS inaccurate?  Why?  Is it some conspiracy?  Better get married; you’ll never figure this stuff out without some guy.

It’s really kind of pathetic.  I’m fine with the other aspects of single motherhood.  Now that I have the whole brain scan and first E.R. visit under my belt, I’m feeling like I can deal with the serious issues that might crop up.  It’s this stuff – the “guy” stuff – that concerns me.  I don’t want to be one of those girls who calls their male friends each time they need to build these things, so I won’t.  But that just means that I spend 2-3 times as long as I should working on these projects when I could be doing other things with Oscar, or barring that, sleeping.   Sorry for the rant, but I’m only midway through this project and had to let off some steam.  I have three more boxes of parts to assemble before the weekend.  Who was the genius who thought that the train set with over 100 pieces of track plus all of the buildings that have to be assembled individually was such a great move?  Oh yeah, I have no one to blame but myself.