A Good Thing That Happened Yesterday (Tuesday) Was...

... we did our new Presidents of the United States puzzle.  I credit myself with this even being a candidate for "A Good Thing That Happened...", but I do have to give Cal some credit.  Afterall, he pulled it out of the closet reminding me of its existence.

I bought this thing at a nearby half-priced bookstore figuring Cal would love to put it together.  He's interested in the presidents and pretty good with puzzles, so it was a natural fit for him.  The pieces are a little smaller than the others that we have, and I figured it would be a good yet conquerable challenge for him.

It went unused for a few weeks.  When he pulled it out, he tried (the Cal level of trying, which is fairly unimpressive) to open it, failed and started to put it back in the closet.

"Wait, let's do this puzzle, Baby Bear," I said while intercepting the puzzle from him.  I spent the better part of the next five minutes trying to open the not-yet-used packaging; and by the time I finally had, he had moved on to something else... downstairs and out of sight... surely distructive... with his sister.  I had dinner already cooking on the stove and figured I'd fill the time until it was to be ready by sitting down at the kitchen island in silence to do the puzzle myself.

By the time I had the border pieces together to create the frame, the kids had made their way back upstairs and pulled chairs up to either side of me where they set up to breathe hot air down my neck "help" me finish the puzzle.

Now, this puzzle isn't the biggest of puzzles and takes up very little space.  So imagine what it was like with six hands grabbing many little puzzle pieces and trying to find a home for each -- 2 hands experienced and methodical, 2 fairly agile and 2 all over the place.  It was a test of patience on all of our parts; and, to my surprise, we all passed.

Our Completed Presidents of the United States Puzzle

Once they were involved, I became more of an orchestrator than a doer, suggesting that Cal look at the numbers on the puzzle pieces to help him find their homes and directing Ella to look for "purple" to find the one piece that fit in the spot I decided to have her focus on.  Doing a puzzle with Cal is easy -- he works pretty independently and logically and is sure handed; with Ella, doing a puzzle can be frustrating, particularly when she has the right piece for the spot but has is turned the wrong way... and with every "turn it a little" she turns it 180 degrees (too far)... well, there was a lot of that, and I managed to keep my frustration at a minimum.  Afterall, we were enjoying doing a puzzle together and completed it; and I call that a good thing!