Tool Time With Logan

Emily’s wonderful cousins the Alexanders bought Logan a kids’ work bench and tool set about a year ago. I just now got around to setting it up for him. Here are some photos of me and my boy doing some father son bonding while I attempt to assemble this thing. Now I know why it took me a year to prep myself – it was one hell of an undertaking. I needed a real work bench with real tools in order to put together a “LittleTykes” work bench with toy tools. Go figure. The whole process took just under 4 hours to put together (3 hours of which was deciphering the Da Vinci Code-like instructions). Logan was involved for 7 minutes total but it was quality time together and the end result was wonderful.

Here are the photos of a guy with no ability to put things together, putting something together. Enjoy!

Father and son taking all the parts and pieces out of the bags. Dumping stuff out and making a mess was Logan’s favorite part. There were over 1,000 parts, many of which looked the same, and when the work bench was finally assembled there were still hundreds of leftover pieces. Is that bad?

15 minutes into it and I’m already confused. Notice the concentration on my face, the tool in my hand ready to be put to use and my son Logan looking on thinking “I could’ve had three of these built by now. C’mon pops!” The problem were many: the directions were in Deutsch or Finnish or something, the illustrations were so small it was impossible to make out the details and the entire time I had a 2 ½ year old repeating “Dad, is it done? Dad, is it done? Dad, is it done?” in my ear while smacking me with the toy tools (which DO still hurt when you take one to the face by the way.)

30 minutes into it and I’m ready to kill myself. Too bad this was a toy drill or else I may have ended it right then. There were 39 steps in total! 39! There weren’t that many steps to follow when I assembled his crib! But there WERE just as many left over parts…now that’s bad, right? I better check on that. Thankfully Logan “talked me off the ledge” by hitting me as hard as he could in my crotch with a toy Allen-wrench. No they don’t hurt as bad as a real wrench does, something I have experienced before, but it still packs quite a wallop. My eyes were teary.

Finally we get a few key pieces together and it’s starting to resemble the picture on the box. Sort of. No joke, it took at least 30 little screws to attach these legs. And after painstakingly screwing each one in I realized the legs were backwards while screwing the last one in. Did I spend the extra hour to unscrew all of them and start again to make it perfect for my son like any good dad would do? Hells no! I screwed the last one in and just hoped that no other parts relied on this one being correct. As long as Logan doesn’t lean on it or put anything heavier than a can of tomato paste on it than we’re golden.

Logan and I consulting the directions for the 50th time. The manual read like nuclear reactor blueprints and were impossible to follow: “Insert the light tan A-beam into the corresponding beige A-hole and blah blah blah.” (Hahaha, A-hole.) It was worse than when I put together our TV stand from Ikea (which does wobble pretty badly whenever you change a channel.) But this is just a toy! Why does it have to be so complicated? Better yet, why am I so stupid that I can’t assemble a toy? Logan seemed to understand it very easily though and had to explain it to me…

…but the boy also spent the majority of the time playing inside the box, so what does he know. Seriously, forget the toys. Some company should come up with kids “toys” that are nothing but corrugated boxes and bubble wrap. That’s all they like anyway. You open up the box and guess what’s in it? A box! Oh boy! It would keep ‘em entertained for hours and cut holiday gift giving costs as well.

Here is the completed project! The Craftsman Work Bench and Toy Set by LilttleTykes. Sure there were a lot of pieces left over, it shimmies a little when you walk by it and there is a pronounced lean to one side…but it’s done. And look how happy Logan is? He doesn’t care that it’s a half-assed job. What’s the old saying? Any job worth doing is worth doing fast? Yup, that’s my credo. Plus, it’s a tool set/work bench so part of the fun is for Logan to fix it himself right?

Now the fixing begins! There was a lot of screwing, banging and sticking things in holes. (Get your minds out of the gutter people.) But seriously, Logan LOVED playing with this thing. He was like a real handyman and was fixing things all around our house – things I’ve been neglecting for months. The light in our hallway now works, the toilet’s stopped making that hissing sound and the front door doesn’t squeak anymore. He’s very authentic too - he doesn’t speak great English, takes his sweet-ass time and even has a beer gut in the photo on the right. All he needs is a dirty pickup truck and a yellow page ad and he’d be in business.


Many, many loud hours and many “projects” later Logan is still having fun. Next to a drum set though I’m not sure you can get a more earsplitting toy than a work bench. Every little part made loud tool noises and it encourages hammering and loud banging as play. I’m guessing “Baby’s First Jackhammer” or the “Lil Jet Engine Playset” were sold out so this was the only toy available? What did we ever do to our cousins to deserve this evil noisemaker? Just kidding, it’s a great toy but wow, the racket was relentless. But at least our house is fixed up just in time for us to sell it.

This is me after hours of the aforementioned noises. Unfortunately this was only a fake staple gun. Apparently little kids do a lot of fake stapling and need a fake staple gun in their tool set. (Fake staples sold separately.)

This is the best photo of them all as it captures Logan in true handyman form! Bent over showing the world the ol’ plumbers crack! PERFECT! To complete the effect he also smelled like turpentine mixed with instant coffee and cigarettes and told us he’d be back to finish sometime between 9am and 4pm. He even left us an invoice for $150 for 3 hours of work. If school doesn’t pan out for him he’ll have a successful career as a handyman. He’s definitely got the mind (and the crack) for fixing things!

Hope you enjoyed tool time with Logan. We’ll see you soon!

All our love,
Adam, Emily, Logan, Sawyer and Bob the Fish.