It’s the last night of spring break, and all through the house, the panic was rising, for even the mouse.

It began with a phone call from my stepdaughter, asking if she could come over to use the color printer for a school project. Sure, says her Dad. She arrives with her mom in tow. Mom sits outside the house idling the car engine while her 17-year-old daughter runs inside.

Her panick-stricken face said it all. She’s a conscientious student, and we’d talked about this project over dinner many times. She’d already written her paper, and thought the storyboard was due later in the week. But lo and behold – it was due tomorrow, not Tuesday like she’d thought.

Of course – in this situation, the first thought that jumps to any parent or stepparent’s mind is – why did you wait until the last minute to do this project? But we didn’t say it. Nope, mum’s the word. We said, what can we do to help?

With errors abounding on the printouts and tweeks she wanted to make, twenty minutes later her Mom went home – it was clearly going to be a while. Her Dad showed her how to make the adjustments on the computer screen to the text. Her mom returns to drop off the white storyboard for the project.

It was clear – even with the printouts – reinforcements were needed. I ran upstairs and cracked open my scrapbooking supplies. Out came the paper, the sticky photo adhesive, and the cutting guides. I charged down to the kitchen table with the scrapbook stash – where she has often helped me with my craft projects. She opts to mat all of her photos, and to triple mat a couple of key items so they will stand out and pop on the storyboard.

I help her with the matting and cutting, and only feel slightly guilty about not making her do all of the matting herself. After all, it is her project, and I know she knows how to use the cutter. I feel a slight twinge of guilt about helping her. But I know that it’s not normal for her to wait to the last minute. And this is the real world – it’s not unusual for parents (and stepparents) to help their children with school projects. Making her stay up half the night to slice paper seems cruel.

She thanks me profusely for helping and says how stupid she feels for mixing up the due dates. I smile and mutter something about how things happen that we don’t expect sometimes, and merrily slice and stick. I was happy to be able to help her, and secretly thrilled that she wanted my help. My editing eagle eye spies a type-o inside a text block. It taunts me on the page. I will myself to ignore it. Helping with the matting is one thing, nitpicking through the text for her after she has proofread it, is something else entirely.

Her Dad teaches her how to make a visual effect for the header. We finish the matting, and I find the foamy sticky things in my scrapbook tote. We use them to make a three-dimensional effect for the header. She starts attaching everything else to the storyboard.

Her dad is a professional graphic designer, and I can tell it takes every ounce of will he possesses to not re-arrange everything himself. But she plops it where she wants it, and he offers advice on how to save space, and a few design tips. He wants to stick one little photo caption under a photo. She doesn’t want it there. He tries again. I snap at him and it stays off the board. It’s her storyboard. It’s her project.

It will go to school without the caption and with the little type-o. She gives us all hugs, and then her dad drives her back over to her Mom’s house. She usually stays there on school nights, but we were happy to spend three crazy hours helping her. Because that’s what families do.

The jury’s still out yet on her grade, but we are all rooting for an "A."

Dawn Miller writes a column on life in blended families at thestepfamilylife.com. 
Visit Dawn's blog for a daily dose of life in the blender.
Sign up to get columns delivered to your email in-box each week.