Only Bones

I've got some skeletons in my closet, y'all.

Come to think of it, I've got some skeletons in my bookcase. On my hallway floor. In my kids' beds. Or more precisely, pieces of skeleton. (Just as I was typing that last sentence, as a matter of fact, I spotted a bony little foot beside the refrigerator.)

For his birthday, my parents sent Colin a gift card to Barnes & Noble. And after approximately twelve hundred years of going back and forth down every aisle, carefully deliberating the merits of this and that, he finally chose his presents:

An assemble-it-yourself plastic skeleton, and a journal (which he says he is going to make into a book entitled, "Grandfather 2"). (WTF??)

Anyway, guess who the task of assembling the skeleton fell to? Yeah. Me. It was a little too advanced for his little six-year-old fingers to snap together. And even though the packaging proclaimed that it was "simple" and "easy to assemble," I can vouch that it most certainly was not.

I sat on the floor with what seemed like a million different little bones scattered around me. It looked like I was in the middle of an archaeological dig. (For, like, miniature humans.) It was a little daunting - so thank goodness for the instructions.

"Um ... where are the instructions?" I asked.

*cricket, cricket*

"Instructions??" I piped up again. I was hopefuly, but my optimism was waning fast.

"I don't know, Mommy," Colin finally said. "I have the book, but I lost the instructions."

Fantastic.

Do you know how hard it is to assemble a complete, anatomically accurate skeleton from memory? Because I do. And let me tell you - I'm no slouch when it comes to anatomy, but when there are a bazillion little pieces that look like this ...

 
It was a little bit on the difficult side. I snapped scapulas and pushed pelvises, clicked clavicles and fused fibulas, until finally - after like an hour - I had put together something that at least remotely resembled a proper skeleton.

But the thing was so flimsy that its arms fell off within the first five minutes. That may have had something to do with the fact that I broke the collarbone while attempting to put it on (... backwards). Oops.

Colin was still proud of it. He named it Emma (??) and proclaimed her to be the big sister of Shou, who is a small plastic skeleton I bought at Target around Halloween last year that he's been toting around ever since. Shou is also missing his arms, and one of his legs, but he's well-loved. Some kids have teddy bears, mine has handicapped skeletons.

Alas, poor Emma didn't make it. Cheap plastic model skeletons don't fare well in the hands of six-year-olds (and their even less-careful younger brothers). Consequently, bits of her are scattered all over my house. I've found her bones in the most random of places. Every time I find them, I try to at least put them in a group so we can reassemble her at some point, but I'm pretty sure she'll actually end up as a spart. 

Rest in pieces, Emma.