The best things in life require lots of Crazy Glue.

For about a month now the boy child has been working on a space diorama for school. It has been the source of much excitement around our home.

It has been extremely difficult for me to not, you know, step in and TAKE OVER HIS PROJECT. Because I’m maybe just slightly a control freak or something. I don’t know. I do know I looked at his project and thought, “OH MY FROG. THIS LOOKS LIKE AN 8 YEAR OLD DID IT.”

Which is okay. Cause, you know, he’s EIGHT.

Anyway, he’s been very diligent in working on it. He came up with the idea for his design completely on his own. He memorized the planets order from the sun. We went online and looked up their colors and interesting things about them. It’s been super. Some of the other parents in his class went out and bought this diorama “kit” they have at Wal-Mart. So his won’t be nearly that impressive. It won’t even be as impressive as say a Magic Mart project. Or even, a Dollar Tree kit. But whatever. It’s all about the hard work you put into it.

I’ve been trying to let him do the majority of the work himself. I want him to learn to be self-reliant and all that crap, even if his project turns out looking less than art show worthy.

And then, last night, we bought crazy glue.

See, his planets are made out of Play-Doh. (I hope that’s not a copyright infringement, if so, sorry). He calls it Clay-Dough. Which is hilarious. But anyway, we couldn’t figure out how to make them stick onto the shoe box which he had colored black and painted gold glitter stars onto. (Incidentally, I noticed as we were walking out the door this morning that the side of the box said “X-Appeal!” Sorry, third grade students. Didn’t mean to sexually harass you like that.) So I decided that Crazy Glue was the perfect solution! We picked some up last night.

Within about 20 seconds, all of my son’s fingers were glued together in one large lump. He was frantic. He ran to the bathroom and washed fervently, to no avail. Of course, you can get stuff like that off with nail polish remover, but do I have any of that? Of course not. While I’m often quite girly (Hello? The Elle Woods of the EPA here!) I don’t bother with my nails most of the time. I do so many things that require me to get my hands in the dirt, muck, mud, and then there is my son’s underwear to contend with…it’s just not worth it to me.

So he glued all the planets down. Awesome! Now we had to label them. He knew all the names, but I told him, “If you write them down, I’ll glue them on for you.”

He came to Venus.

“Mom,” he says, “Venus? The planet? That sounds like penis!”
“True dat,” I said.
“Mom! Did the person who NAMED Venus mean for it to sound like penis?”
“Not sure,” I replied.
“Well,” he said, “whoever it was that named it? They were pretty sick!”
“Check this out,” I said, helpfully. “Do you know what Uranus means?”
He laughed hysterically and then said, “Um, no.”
I said, “Uranus? Your anus?”
He laughed hysterically and then said, “I don’t get it.”
I said, “Your anus? That’s your BUTTHOLE.”

Hysterical laughter. My son has a very contagious laugh. When he starts laughing I cannot STOP laughing.

He said, “All the people who named the planets? They are totally sick!”

While gluing on Uranus, I totally got glue all over my fingers. I have three white fingers today. I’m hoping no one notices.

This morning as we got in the car to go to school, my son said, “My teacher is going to be all like, ‘I totally love this! This is the best project ever!’”

I said, “I hope so, honey. I really hope so.”

Really. Last night was one of the best nights ever.