At Long Last, The Volcano

Sing praises to the Gummi Mary! My #2 son's Nintendo DS replacement game arrived yesterday from Scholastic. He has been thinking about it day and night since he got the broken one. It has been about two weeks, I think. Every night, he says, "Maybe my DS game will come in tomorrow!" And every afternoon, he gets off the bus, hangs his head, and greets me with, "It didn't come." Hallelujah! Those days are done. I had a meeting in Basementia yesterday, and when it was over, I walked across the hall (yes, indeed, Basementia's meetings are held in Lower Basementia) and found him happily pecking away at the controls. He'd told me to take his DS in when I got to Basementia, no doubt because the little eternal optimist thought his game would come in. And it did! He said, "Mom, it wasn't there by lunch time. Then after lunch, Mrs. My Teacher said, '#2 Hillbilly, there is a new box in the teacher workroom, and I think it's your game.'" That made his day. I'm surprised we didn't have to go to the ER to have the smile removed from his face.

The #1 son wants to build a volcano. Never mind that he made one back in 2nd or 3rd grade. He says he can get bonus points in class. That boy needs bonus points like a bicycle needs a fish. Oh, and he wants to work on it with a partner. Perhaps you recall my reluctance to let him make his Science Fair project with a partner. You know, the project that won 1st Place in his division, and earned him a $50 prize? Oh, excuse me...he only got $25 because his partner got the other half. Not to mention, I spent $40 on supplies and a display board for that project, and #1 spent many a night working on it, and, oh...the partner worked on it during class time at school.

I am not fond of partner projects. One always ends up doing most of the work. When I was in school, that one was me. I hated partner and group projects. OK, so maybe it's just because I'm so hard-headed and overbearing, but I do not like the partner thingy. Why does he need a crutch? He is perfectly capable of making his own childish volcano display. Every partner project has a pooper, and that pooper is me. I that so wrong? Would you want your child making a volcano with a partner? Would you want to drive him to town, or drive in and fetch the partner and then take him home? If you lived 15 miles from the partner? And drove a Large SUV? And the price of gas at your last fill-up was $2.79?

Well, you say, how about building that project at the partner's house? Let him take charge of it and buy the stuff and design it and haul it to school. Oh, nooooo...you don't understand my child. He would never take a back seat to a partner. He wants to run the show. Yet have a partner. I don't get it. It's not like he's friendless. He has a regular group of cronies. Is he afraid of failure? Does he want a scapegoatish partner? I can't figure that boy out. It's that darn Sagittariusness in him, I suppose. Always wants to be around people. Bah! Humbug! Hillbilly Mom does not like people. They piss her off. And take away valuable time that she could be spending with her favorite person...herself.

Why can't he just put an egg in a bottle? Alone.