You see, it was a great way for me to spend time with each of the children. Parker in particular got to work on it in the mornings because he likes to wake up very early but then gets bored because he doesn't leave for school until after 8:30 a.m. Recently I had been wondering how to spend more time with him because he comes from school, quite late (yes, late start, late finish). So I made a simple adjustment. Since I usually start working very early in my home office, I started to take a break and work on the puzzle with him for a few minutes until it was breakfast time. We have done this every morning for the last several days. In the early evenings I would spend another few minutes with another one of the children. Whenever we had a bit of downtime I'd go to the puzzle table and say "ok I'm going to work on the puzzle if anyone wants to help" and every time at least one of the children would join me.
Today after dinner, Camille came to help and after a while she started singing primary songs. I joined in. It was marvelous! Later in the evening the three oldest boys asked if we could finish it. I really didn't want to. I wanted to make it last a little longer. But we couldn't help ourselves. We only had a little bit to go and between the four of us we finished it. During this time, we enjoyed each others' company and even had a small father-boys council which we needed to have.
So we finished this puzzle. We will start a 1,000 piece puzzle next. I look forward to it. I love puzzles because it is such a great time to spend one on one quality time with each of my children. It is a time to work together. It is a time to communicate. It is a time to help them solve their own puzzles. It is a time for me to solve my own father puzzle. Questions like...
-Do I have all the pieces or am I missing something?
-Does this piece go this way or that way?
-Where does this piece go anyway?
That's why I love puzzles.
What a great idea. As a family with young children my wife and I sometimes find it hard to have quality time with the boys. But I think our definition of quality time was a little off. We thought we had to be teaching them constantly but found that hard because of the age they are at, we couldn't tell if they were getting it. But just being together, spending time, and doing what is right has been very beneficial to them and us. The Church hit it right on the nose. "Family. Isn't it about time?"
ReplyDeleteYes, it is about time. You know the interesting thing is that before, if I were to propose building a puzzle for FHE or a Sunday afternoon activity, my kids would vote it down in a hurry. But this morning, I said, let's to the 1,000 piece and my son, the one who is always saying "i'm bored" "i want to do something" (meaning jumping around or playing ball or something active like that) said yes! I know he's discovering the joy of working on a problem and patiently find the pieces (which I think in itself is a great thing), but I hope that he also enjoys the time together with me, though he'd probably never say it...not to his friends anyway!
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