I was absolutely intrigued when my neighbor mentioned that her 18 year old sister had spent an entire Saturday putting together a 1000 piece puzzle from start to finish. I thought long and hard about that investment of time in such an activity. I've never done anything like that! I was so fascinated by that, that I picked up a 4 pack of 500 piece puzzles with very pretty scenes and decided to try it!
We have an old card table set that I bought about 15 years ago and I put it up in an out of the way spot in the living room.
It didn't take me long to realize that doing a puzzle requires an abundance of natural light because the differences in color shading are so subtle. I moved it close to the window and gave myself permission to work on it all day! The kids helped for awhile but that wasn't as an idyllic scene as I had hoped!
The main reason why we have never been able to do this kind of thing in the past is because of a steady stream of young children growing up in this family. Now that our own children are old enough to leave the pieces on the table, I decided to take a chance with my grandson by simply explaining to him that he shouldn't touch them. I had never thought of that with my own!
It also helped because he has been on a puzzle kick himself, both here and at his home. These wooden boxed puzzles by the Melissa and Doug toy company are so durable and a pleasure to put together. They each have 12 pieces and are of different transportation vehicles.
The little guy can put them together with minimal guidance and has learned some puzzle vocabulary such as "edge piece" and "corner piece".
I regretted not getting a picture of Tim and Kristy while they sat down for a long time to help on this puzzle. As crazy as it sounds, we decided to give up on finishing this one because after a solid hour, we just couldn't get these solid white pieces to fit! We simply opened up the next one and Kristy and Miss J assembled the entire frame for it.
Some of the oomph has left to work hard on puzzle number two but I am reluctant to put it away. Perhaps we will get a big snowstorm soon and then working a puzzle in the very bright reflected light will be just the thing to invest our time in!
