Stumped

I pride myself in my ability to follow instructions. I spent years putting Lego together for George. I can construct an office chair from Officeworks and a wall of shelves from Ikea. If I pay attention, I can install a scanner or the latest version of Call of Duty onto a computer. I have read the manual for my car and can now use the navigation and the heater. I've made 2,000 piece jigsaws before. Geoff has charged me with programming the watering system. I'm just that kind of nerd!

Or I thought I was.

When we were in Thailand last year, I bought one of those lights that you put together yourself and is meant to look something like this....

In my excitement and liking the freestanding look, I bought 120 pieces - the mother of them all. The guy at the night market (says it all really - like he was ever going to see me again!) said it was easy to put together.

Well it's NOT!!!!

I have wasted at least two hours of my life that I will never get back and this is what it looks like so far.....

 

Aggggghhhhh!! I laid all the pieces on the floor as per the instructions below for all 120 pieces, and that didn't work. It was very confusing. Especially as the instructions say "have a play, be inventive!" For fuck's sake, I can't even get them in the right order!!!

Then it says start with the five and then turn it upside down 'like a bowl' and keep building. You can see it starts off looking okay, but then it becomes too complicated for my clearly decaying mind and I can't work out what goes where. I've had several goes at it and it still isn't making sense. I just keep thinking the pattern will become apparent - like in an IQ test. (There's a thought....)

I've even Googled it and no luck there either in finding anything that makes it the remotest bit clearer.

So if any of you are harbouring a child-genius who's brilliant at this kind of stuff, I'm prepared to pay money to have them put it together. Real money. Happy to negotiate. It'll probably cost more than the light - but that's NOT the point. My pride is at stake.

Sadly, I also have a sneaking suspicion I'm not not going to like it nearly as much as I did after eight beers and a green chicken curry in the Phuket night market at 11pm - but again, that's NOT the point!! Let's see if I can get it made and then worry about getting rid of it!

Message me peeps!

Pros & Cons of Being #4

I was reflecting today how disciplined we were with George and Jaz when they were little,. The routine was clockwork. The only time they knew as pre-schoolers was 'twenty past seven' which was either ten minutes until we left for creche if it was the morning or ten minutes until they were tucked up in bed if it was night.

And once tucked into their cosy little beds, that was it. They never got out. On occasion, they would call for room service, but on the whole, it was dinner, bath, book and bed. We even used to pop Enya on the portable CD player to get them off to sleep.

Then straight up at 6.30am to do it all again.

Oh how things have changed!

It started to slide a bit when Elle was born - she's 5 1/2 years younger than George - but on the whole, it was still pretty much on track.

But then Saskia arrived - a mere 12 1/2 years after George  - and that perfect pre-schooler routine was never located again. We did look. But even by three she was a reluctant participant. 'Why am I going to bed?' she'd complain, bewildered, as George, now 15, Jaz 13 and Elle 9 were all settling in for a bit of Australian Idol.  Yep - just wasn't happening. We'd still be trying to round her up at 9.30pm.

This year was our big year. She's now 7 and the only one at home. Surely we could get a routine going. And we have - sort of. She does go to bed between 7.30 and 8pm. But does tend to pop out several times if the mood takes her. It's a complete mystery to me now as to how I got the others to stay there. And I'm sure there wasn't any yelling involved either.

But it has been pointed out by Saskia's peers mothers that there are up-sides. She is incredibly articulate and usually pretty confident. She can also be extremely grown up for someone who's 7 and be very responsible with our young, pre-school neighbour.

I think you do ease up a bit as they go on and I hope there were pros and cons for all of them. But I am wondering if, like grand parenting, there should be some refresher courses for those of us who thought they'd just sneak in that last one before menopause. But at least tonight I did think to pop some music on - the iPod not the CD - and I haven't heard peep out of her!

All six of us circa 1855. (or 2006!)