2/3/2022 The Damn Space Puzzle

 If you asked me what I did this past week, I would say, I drew pictures, went for very short walks (negative degree temps), cleaned the house, read a lot of books, played games, made dinner and cleaned the dishes. But none of those things compare to the sheer volume of helping my two year old son with his space puzzle.

It is a floor puzzle made of 48 pieces, it typically takes 15-20 minutes to complete. I am currently supporting him as I type this up. The puzzle itself is beautiful, a large sun in the top left corner with Mercury and Venus below it, the whole bottom is comprised of a silver of the Earth's moon, which is topped by the Earth itself. Mars sandwiched between the far right corner of the moon and a cascading asteroid belt that acts as a barrier between the rest of the planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune and their many moons. He rotates between what he starts out searching for. This time it was the four piece combination of Jupiter. Sometimes, it is the bright yellow pieces of the sun. Other times it is the pock marked grays of the Earth's moon. On very rare occasions, it is the blues and blue greens of Neptune and Uranus. 

I have got the pieces of the puzzle into their box one time. I was vacuuming the playroom carpet while he was exploring make believe worlds with his older brother upstairs. To my astonishment, he didn't say anything about and wasn't upset when he didn't find it on the carpet. It was surprising because after each completion of the puzzle, he says, "let's leave it!" or destroys only to start building right away again. 

He averages completing the puzzle four and a half times a day. I have kept track. That averages out to an hour and a half a day. It is fascinating because sometimes he can be brutally efficient, almost racing to complete it, other times he asks for support with almost every piece. He is currently asking for support way too much for sometime who has done this puzzle nearly 30 times. There are times that his older brother helps him, usually it is after his younger brother has done most of the grunt work and he comes in and helps place the last 5-10 pieces, saying how easy this puzzle is. Making no effort to recognize his brother's devotion to his current fixation. My favorite times are when he is rolling, just finding one piece after another, but needs to stop after each placement for a high five from me. Usually I just lay there watching him complete his work, debating if I should be doing something else like cleaning or something on my phone, but understanding that moving away will most likely create the need to stop whatever I am doing every two minutes and walk over and help him, rendering whatever motive I have useless and more draining. So I might as well wait and watch his little brain work. 

He picked this puzzle out himself at the thrift store while we were killing time waiting to pick his older brother from his afternoon nature camp. He has to share so much with his brother and gets so many things as hand me downs that I think he always holds anything that he got just for himself with get reverence. Also he is at that age when you can do something you didn't think you could do, you do it over and over again. Jumping on the couch being one of my least favorite examples of this, also anything on big kid playgrounds being another. 

So on this cold January into February week, we will continue to puzzle. It may last one more day, it may last another week. But for now, I will appreciate his hard work, his concentration, his cute ways of asking for help (and his not so cute ways), and his brother's willingness to share facts about our solar system that sometimes are true.