My Advice--Go With the Musket

During our friends' recent visit, we made it to Old Ironsides for a looksie. There are two tour options available for visitors. The guided tour that includes a visit to the lower portion of the ship and the fly-over tour that allows visitors to roam around on the top level only. Since there were varying degrees of interest among our group, 4 went for the whole enchilada (to include Cory and Riley) while the other 6 of us simply took the opportunity for a photo-op on the upper deck...

While we waited for the rest of our party, the six of us (to include Mary, Lucy and me) did some looking around the gift shop and visiting the USS Constitution Museum nearby. What I should have been doing is examining the ship more closely before purchasing a sweet wooden model boat of the very ship they were touring as a souvenir for Cory. His friend got a musket. Guess who was mad that all he got was a stupid boat?

Soon after, however, I had him convinced that the boat would be super fun to build, and not to worry, we would definitely be getting him a musket soon--mostly because it would be a fun thing to remember our time living near the historic Battle Trail. Unfortunately, I had him convinced so well, that he could hardly wait to start constructing.

I was able to hold him off until the next day while our friends did some solo sightseeing. After opening the box and examining the contents I realized my mistake. I should have just bought the musket! But no, Cory was now WAY excited and WAY impatient.

I discussed with him his options...he could get going right away and have a ship that looked silly in the end, but would be done quickly, or he could show some restraint and end up with a great boat. He opted for restraint (but really, restraint isn't exactly the word I would use to describe his incessant begging of me to let him get started). After gluing the first three pieces together, we loaded up to head the craft store, because the next thing we had to do was paint all the parts. That's right--paint--multiple colors and designs.

And after painting all the parts, we had to assemble, which Cory tried to help with, and I tried to let him do as much as he could, but there's only so much a 6 year old's hands can do on a boat whose instructions suggested an age of 10 or older. Really, I should have gone with the musket.

And then there was the rigging--over half of the instructions dedicated to rigging the thing! Guess who did that?

FYI--the musket didn't have any parts to glue on, paint or string...and two days later I ended up buying him one. Guess which one he plays with and hung in his bedroom