Making Grandpa proud

We were in desperate need of a new dresser because we sold our one and only clothing-storage-apparatus in our garage sale in Fayetteville. IKEA is sort of a haul and I was basically too lazy to pack Alex and all of his paraphernalia up and make the long trip for a single piece of furniture. So I hit the local Big Lots instead, looking for a cheap, assembly-required dresser that would fit into the Altima.

And eww, I've just got to say, I am so not a fan of the "Big Lots Experience", with its dirty floors, its questionable food products and its general ickiness, not to mention the fact that Alex and I made friends with the entire squad of police officers that had been hired to target shoplifters and other such criminals who apparently frequent the establishment. But shoot, the place does have some not-so-hideous cheap crap that prevents me from having to drive to IKEA. So anyway, I found a decent dresser at a decent price, stuffed the box into the front passenger seat, and brought it home.

I could've used Timothy's help to put it together, but he was otherwise occupied. Something about an exam or something. Anyway, Alex was more than willing to help, which this time, was slightly less unhelpful than usual. He would pick through the screws and hand me one when I asked, he would pick up tools and hand them to me - whether I needed them or not - and he would take a tool that I wasn't using and try to emulate what I was doing.

I'd say it was a pretty successful first step towards grooming Alex into a real handyman, or maybe a carpenter like his G-pa. He didn't try to eat any of the small pieces (that I was aware of) or bash himself in the head with the hammer or gouge his eye out with the screwdriver, so I'd say that's a good sign. And, we eventually got the whole thing put together and the drawers fit in fine and it didn't collapse when we put the TV on it. Success! Our underwear is happy to have a home.