How I Burned My Fingers....
October 2005

Well, my dear younger son (11) came home yesterday and went off to play. I hollered for him to do his homework, which he said was already done. Right. I told him I KNEW he had homework (since he didn't seem to have any the past few days) and he brought me over a paper with the instructions for a project he was to do. "Wow, this looks like a fun project, when is it due?" I asked. "October 28," was the reply. "You mean it's due tomorrow?!" This was at 5pm (he is in a math club at school so arrived home late), I had to leave in fifteen minutes to take older son to piano theory class (a 15 minute drive, one way, for a 45 minute class, which means I had to stay there). This meant arriving home after 6:30, making dinner, washing dishes (did I mention my dishwasher broke?), and helping him with his project. So needless to say, I was not happy. On the way home with eldest son (whose lesson ran late, of course), my darling daughter (9) informs me she is going to have a terrible day tomorrow. "Why?" I ask. "You don't want to know," she said. "Okay." After a few minutes she changed her mind and decided to inform me (now at 7pm-with no supper yet) that she has a project due tomorrow as well! She "forgot" about it, and now she knew I was going to be upset. So, while making stir-fry for dinner, I was on the floor with the hot glue gun, gluing penguins to posterboard (and before anyone cries "animal cruelty", they were origami penguins!), when I stuck one finger into freshly squeezed hot glue, and to get the glued object off, stuck another finger in more glue, and then again, by now yelling, "Son of a ....gumball machine!!!" So the tips of several fingers on each hand have second degree burns. Makes typing a tad difficult and slow. By the way, the projects were finished (I don't see any A's coming, but at least they were done), and all the children are still alive. Where was dear hubber? Trying to unfold black paper cranes (from my thousand paper cranes, the only black and white origami paper I could come up with in a pinch) so they could be refolded into penguins.