P is for Puzzle

While it may not be a ‘giant leap for mankind,’ my little boy has once again surprised me with an evolutionary step forward, this time in his puzzle building skills.

I spent the last ten minutes watching just watching Andrew work. This was a puzzle that he and I had done before, but as far as I know, he’d only done it once. In fact, when I came downstairs and found him pulling the pieces out of the box, I had to suppress the urge to demand he put it away and wait until ‘I could help him with that puzzle.’ What else would a normal father think when he foresaw the impending mess? This wasn’t, after all, a small board puzzle with six to ten pieces. Twenty-four pieces was a quantity I would surely be finding scattered throughout the house over the next few months. But being the father I hope I am, I suppressed that thought and merely suggested he move to the coffee table for a flatter surface.

Which leads me off track for a short jaunt. What kind of father am I? Good or bad aside, I’m the guy who has no qualms about sending his three year old to daycare carrying an egg for ‘E’ show and tell. To my credit, though, I was smart enough to boil the egg before entrusting it to my, um, sure handed son. (My efforts were well rewarded a few days later when the egg’s younger brother filled the need of a quick breakfast.)

Back in the living room, Andrew had heeded my suggested relocation. During the few minutes I was gone, he had put two or three pieces together, having matched some of the more distinguishable features of the puzzle. While Boost and DJ had taken shape (anybody here think they’ve seen the movie ‘Cars’ more than Andrew?), the subtle connections between the remaining pieces seemed too tall a task for a three year old. I smugly perched myself on the couch, determined to let the upcoming struggle play out unimpeded.

As Andrew picked up and explored the pieces, he treated many of them as he has always done, taking a piece and trying every possible angle to make it fit before repeating the process with the next piece. But not every piece was managed with such brute force. Every once in a while, he would pick up a piece and try the right place and the right direction the first time. One such success was followed by a victorious exclamation, “The green matched!”

As I watched, I tried to follow the pieces he was moving about. Looking at the puzzle from an up-side-down point of view, I often found myself trying to mentally place the piece he was working with. More than once, I was still turning the piece in my mind as he was snapping it into place.

Having started with individual cars, Andrew soon found himself with two or three large sections. As is often the case for any puzzle maker, he had the left side of the puzzle on the right and the right side on the left. I knew this, but would he notice? I was still wondering about this when he started pushing all the remaining pieces to the far side of the table. A few moments later, he had managed to slide the two largest pieces around each other. He correctly tried to connect them, but one section fell apart as he tried to lift it. Undaunted, he patiently pieced them back together one by one until he proudly exclaimed, “Look what I did!” His puzzle was but a few pieces from being complete!

The last six pieces of the puzzle were probably the toughest. The bottom three were merely shades of gray and the other three were background pieces that didn’t have much to visually tie them to the rest of the puzzle. Understandably, the brute force method was again in use, that is, until he had fit two pieces into the bottom corner. He picked up a piece that I instantly knew belonged up top, and moved it towards the bottom section. Halfway there, he stopped and looked at it for a moment. He then put it down and grabbed the lone remaining gray piece to fit into the empty space.

The last three pieces went together with little hassle and my little boy, still staring at his work, raised his hands behind his head as a broad smile spread across his face. I cannot say that I’ve never been more proud of him, but I did find infinite delight in watching him accomplish something I thought was well beyond his capabilities.

Natural curiosity won over and I eventually checked the suggested ages for this 24 piece puzzle. Andrew just fit the bill, having crossed into the ages 3-7 category just one week earlier. That knowledge, though it did temporarily dash my hopes of retiring early in the wake of a prodigious offspring, did not dampen my spirits. I had witnessed my son using puzzle skills that went beyond the basic plug and chug, skills I and others had been attempting to teach him and up until now, he had failed to master.

This small success amongst the many achievements I have been privilege to witness gives me continuing hope that other lessons may someday find their way home. I anxiously await the first time I see him holding his crayon ‘the right way.’ I look forward to the day he responds to something with a logic that makes me stop and think. But right now, I am most looking forward to the day he again decides baths are something that should be taken without throwing a fit. Oh well. One small achievement at a time . . .