Fixer

The weather this morning kept us indoors. It was just as well because Matthew would not have been able to ride his bike; Daniel accidentally broke one of its training wheels yesterday. The twins, especially, Matthew love their training wheel bikes, which they just started using this year. I take them around the neighborhood on their bikes nearly every day.

When we returned from our walk yesterday afternoon, Matthew wanted to ride up and down the sidewalk in front of our house. I agreed and brought my book out onto the porch where I could keep an eye on him.

"Mama! My training wheel went up again," Matthew called. This had happened to us several times on our walk.

"I'll fix it," offered Daniel, who was playing with his new Star Wars Lego set on the porch next to me.

"Thanks, honey," I said, returning to my book. A sudden wail pulled my attention away from it again.

"Daniel broke my training wheel!" Matthew was sobbing.

"It was an accident!" Daniel shouted.

Matthew was inconsolable, even when I told him that it was indeed an accident, that Daniel had been trying to help him, and that Daddy could probably fix or replace it. That was the end of bike riding for the day and probably for the week until Tab has a chance to repair it.

Tab is usually the fixer around here, but I have had to learn how to repair stuff, too. For instance, one of my projects today was to fix the twins' bureau drawers, which are once again falling apart. We bought this bureau from Ikea, which I'm beginning to think must be part of Sweden's secret plot to take over the world. When Sweden is ready to invade the U.S., there will be no one defending the country because everyone will be home trying to put together a wall unit with a screwdriver, an Allen wrench, a page of incomprehensible directions, and approximately 987 unlabeled parts. Or they will be trying to fix their Ikea furniture that is falling apart.

To be fair, we haven't had any trouble with the more expensive Ikea furniture we bought; my computer desk and our wall unit are solid pieces and have held up very well. But the inexpensive bureaus we bought for the boys have turned out to be a disaster. They are made of waferboard and are just not tough enough to survive the abuse the boys hand out. The bottoms of each drawer are always popping out and the sides will not remain attached.

I sat on the floor this afternoon reassembling each drawer and reinforcing the sides with gaffer's tape, which is like duct tape but better, according to Tab. Then I had to replace the twins' clothes in their bureau, trying hard not to overload any of the drawers, which would only start the problems all over again.

One of these days we hope to replace the boys' cheap Ikea furniture with solid furniture made out of real wood. When Jake's twin brother Al was visiting, he told us about an Amish furniture maker he knows in Pennsylvania who makes solid bed frames and bureaus out of oak and maple. That's exactly what we need: plain, simple, durable furniture that can stand up to boys' carelessness and rough use. I'd be happy to retire my roll of gaffer's tape.

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