Now that Baby T is walking and that we have more room in our new house, our collection of toys has dramatically increased over the past few months.  In the fall, we hit up garage sales to pick up tools for suburban living.  We did not even own a rake- the only use for a rake in the city would be to save a parking spot when it snowed.  While we did not always find tools, we almost always found toys.  Looking back, we probably should have picked up more because assembling new toys is a major pain!

Two toys in particular that we have bought have practically required a PhD in engineering: the Melissa & Doug Cook’s Corner Wooden Kitchen and the Little Tikes Cozy Coupe.  I knew from reading a few reviews that they would be a little tricky to put together, but I did not anticipate how many hours I would have to spend on each one to assemble them!

First, let’s discuss the kitchen set.  I really wish I had taken a picture of all the hardware and pieces that came in that cardboard box.  There were so many little bags of screws, bolts, hinges, and plastic pieces.  Here’s a picture I took on my phone about halfway through- check out all the pieces that still remain in the sink:

Overall, the instructions were fairly easy to follow, but the sheer number of things that had to be assembled just took a long time.  Some kitchen renovations probably take less time to put together.  I think it took three of Baby T’s nap time session to get this kitchen to look like this:

Now onto the Cozy Coupe…let’s just say this: at one point I actually googled “Cozy Coupe Hell” to see what would come up.  The assembly to put this bad boy together was a nightmare.  The directions are just pictures, you have to physically slam pieces together to make them fit, and it requires a drill to put together.  As you can see from this blogger, I am not the only one who had trouble with Step 12, which is simply a diagram noting to put the stickers on the dashboard.  I spent a good 30 minutes looking for plastic parts that the diagram appears to be showing!  Baby T is loving his new car, but I am just waiting for the moment when the whole thing comes crashing apart:

On the side of the box, it states that in 1999, the Cozy Coupe was the top selling car in America outselling the Honda Accord and Ford Taurus.  By 2003, over 10 million Cozy Coupes had been sold.  First off, that means over 10 million people have had to assemble this car.  Secondly, it also means there are probably 9,990,000 Cozy Coupes that people are going to sell in their next garage sale…

Readers, what is the most difficult toy you have ever had to assemble?

-m