Some Assembly Required . . .

I woke up on Saturday Morning to little voices echoing from the living room. I brush my teeth, comb my hair and joined in on the fun. I start the coffee and check my emails. My son-in-law tells me that he is going to play in a golf tournament with a friend and he will be leaving shortly.

‘Have Fun and Good Luck’ I tell him as he heads out the door. My daughter is entering the living room as he exits through the front door. She grabs a cup of coffee and a breakfast bar. I make the boys some eggs and we chat for a little bit.

She tells me about their trip to San Francisco. They certainly did a lot in the day and 1/2 they were gone. They had left the house on Thursday around 5:30 in the morning and got home on Friday around 10:30 at night.

After finishing her cup of coffee, Cesca, my daughter, announces that we are going to be putting together the IKEA dresser!

Let me get this straight. We (Mother and Daughter) are going to assemble an entire dresser while a 20 month old and 4 3/4 year old are also in the house. SURE, I’m down with that.

I did not have the heart to tell her when they had gotten home the night before that the dogs had chewed on the outer boxes. She finds out though as soon as she steps outside to haul them into the living room for assembly. Cesca says a few ‘choice’ words as she inspects the boxes. Thank Goodness they didn’t get through to the actual wood parts of the dresser.

First she opens box #1, finds the instructions and the various plastic bags labeled 1, 2 and 3. Each bag is filled with numerous sized and shaped screws, plastic nuts, and other things I can not identify. I put myself in charge of sorting the pieces in bag #1. Cesca looks through the instructions (or as grandson Michael calls them, the map). She figures out the tools that will be necessary for the assembly.

Okay, I guess we are about to start this process. I have counted, sorted and grouped the above mentioned screws etc. The boys are lucky today because it is going to be a MOVIE day for them.

Francesca consults the instructions, removes some long wooden pieces then some shorter ones. I look at the instructions and pull the corresponding screws to put these pieces together. Each ‘panel’ needs metal roller bars for each drawer, a Right and Left. This is going to be fun keeping them straight. We persevere and get them all in place.
Lunch break for the boys. Mom and GiGi keep assembling this monster. We have finished bag #1 with no extra pieces (always a good thing) and we are almost finished with bag 2 and are about to open bag 3.

Nap time for Tony. (How long have we been at this????) With Tony asleep, the rest of should be a breeze right?

OOOPs. We have to stop and reverse two of the long pieces. The top one and bottom one in the front. Okay, not too bad. Michael helped with that. Not too many bad words escaped our mouths.

The first box is empty! The second box contains all of the parts for the drawers. Did I mention that there are 4 large drawers. 2 on each side and then 8 smaller drawers on the top row. Oh boy, this is going to take some time.

Not only do we have to put each drawer together but we need to put the correct corresponding roller onto each side of drawer. 1st attempt does not go well. We put them on wrong. The roller thing needs to be in the back. On the panels, it needed to be in the front. Now that we have that clear, we continue.

Just as we are about to assemble the last 2 drawers Tony wakes from his nap. OMG we have been at this all day. AND we are still in our PJ’s. The only person who has gotten dressed today is Tony. Cesca emerges from the hallway with Tony who is fascinated with the dresser.

We put the last drawers together as Mike comes home from golfing. He likes the dresser and congratulates us on putting it together. Cesca and Mike are going move a few things around and put the dresser in their room. No need for me to help with that.
I excuse myself, take a shower and get dressed.

It is 5:00 and time for a drink. Cheers.

Frances Graziano Copyright 2017 All Rights Reserved