Last Sunday was Mother's Day, and I got up at 6am to make gun turrets. Now, I could say what a sacrifice this was, but in truth early morning is my favorite time of day, especially when I don't have to go to work. On Mother's Days past I have patiently stayed in bed, pretending to sleep and waiting for my cold scrambled eggs and shells. But I knew the kids would sleep in, we'd stayed up late watching a movie, and I had too much to do. Oh yeah, back to those gun turrets.
My 11 year old son Peter had a big project due the following day, about the HMS Hood battleship. I mean battlecruiser. He had been working hard on the written report, and his dad had cut the hull of the ship out of wood. Together Peter and I had been adding to the hull, but Sunday was crunch day. We had most of it figured out, except for the gun turrets. I finally hit on the idea of making them out of homemade play dough with wooden skewers for the guns. But I knew they'd need a while to dry, thus started making the dough at 6am. So I shaped 4 turrets and got them drying in the oven.
Once the kids were up, shipbuilding began in earnest. I had bought a drill but couldn't figure out how to get a bit into it. I was about to curse in frustration, when my neighbor, a furniture builder, rang the doorbell. His son had pink eye, and he wondered if I would write a prescription for him. I said only if he would teach me how to use the drill.
We took a mid-afternoon break to visit my mom in her nursing home. She is only 67, but has been debilitated with multiple sclerosis. Here we are with my mom, my sister and her kids.
So we were drilling, cutting, gluing, spray painting most of the afternoon. We had gone to a junk store and gotten all kinds of dooleydads and diddlybobbers that looked like miniature battlecruiser parts, also used a lot of styrofoam, wooden dowels, wire. Mid afternoon, we glued the turrets on, even though they were a bit gooey on one side. In the evening, we had to tip the ship on its side to paint the hull red, and the turrets fell off. So they went back into the oven for a while, and were re-glued in the morning. 
The next morning. . . . TADA!!! Didn't it turn out great? Peter was so proud, and his teachers and classmates were very impressed.
4 comments:
very cool boat!! This is what I do for photos: I post my photos last after I have typed everything in, then click on 1 photo at a time and drag it to the location I want the picture, when all my photos are in the right spot I go back to the top of my post and delete all the extra blank rows space' etc - I'm sure there is an more technical / easier way - but thats how I do it! Good Luck!
Great family ship making there. Very cool!( does it float? )
I must try Mechelle's idea with the photos too - Thanks.
I put all my pictures in first and then drag them down so that there is a space at the top. I then write between the pictures moving them as necessary. Works for me but like you I find the act of inserting photos less than user friendly. Blogger needs to take some tips from Wordpress where the picture goes where you want it immediately!
Don't you just love helping the kids. Your son's ship looks great!
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