Reconnect and Relax With Family Puzzle Nights
After my son’s travel baseball season, we suddenly had much more free time at home. Our September weather in Chicago is gorgeous, so we are still enjoying that as much as possible. We jump on our bikes after I get home from work and take a short ride around our neighborhood. My son and I then go to our big backyard to play catch and work on his pitching. But every night, the sun goes down a little sooner.
As we went inside for the evening, I noticed the kids quickly gravitating to their electronic devices to fill the gaps. My frustration grew. I snapped at them more, asking them if they had finished their daily chores.
My parental instinct called me to our closet, where I had stored a new 1000-piece puzzle featuring a collage of 1980s pop culture – TV, movies, news, celebrities, and fads. We moved our puzzle table into the living room and went to work.
Puzzles weren’t new to us. I bought puzzles for the kids when they were very young, starting with a 46-piece “Frozen” jumbo floor puzzle for my daughter Elizabeth when she was two years old. I later bought a similar “Star Wars” floor puzzle for my son Eric.
We stayed with puzzles over the years, culminating in a binge in late 2019/early 2020. Over those months, we bought every Star Wars puzzle on Amazon – 300 pieces, 500 pieces, 1000 pieces, even a 2000 piece one. But, for whatever reason, we had drifted away from puzzles during the last several years.
I had forgotten how much I enjoyed us doing puzzles. I love how we work together, relaxing while we talk about our days and what they are learning in school. We typically have a baseball game or old TV show/movie playing in the background, things to which we don’t need to pay super close attention. We started rewatching “Little House on the Prairie” episodes, a show with a slower pace to match our activity.
The 1980s puzzle was a blast and generated plenty of questions from the kids. I enjoyed pointing out Ronald Reagan, Joe Montana, an Apple Macintosh computer. We laughed together as I reminisced about the VHS tape, the Swatch watch, and the Atari.
I searched for more puzzles from the same company (White Mountain) and found many great ones. We quickly moved on to the 1990s puzzle, then did puzzles dedicated to movies, sports heroes, and baseball. We found an “I Love Chicago” puzzle and an “I Love Iowa” one. Not everything has to be educational, but the puzzles have introduced new things to both the kids and me.
Along with the family fun, the puzzles are also a form of meditation for me. I lose track of time while my eyes scan the table for a specific piece. It is a terrific way to forget about a worrisome problem at work or in your world.
And while it’s nice to take a break from your life’s problems, working on puzzles is an excellent reminder of how to attack those same challenges.
A big problem might start off looking like a new puzzle after you dump it from the box and encounter an overwhelming number of loose pieces. But the key is to push past that feeling and get started!
As Norman Vincent Peale said, “When a problem comes along, study it until you are completely knowledgeable. Then find that weak spot, break the problem apart, and the rest will be easy.” And the best way to do that is to flip over all the pieces, grouping the border pieces as you flip them (upper right corner of the table).
From there, start working on whatever sticks out as most obvious. As you spend more time with the puzzle, your brain will recognize the similarities between different pieces in the various sections. You become great at picking out the slightest differences in color or font among a group of pieces. Can you guess the theme of the puzzle yet? It’s some kind of team sport…
You gain more confidence and pick up some momentum, but you will invariably hit a wall where progress starts to slow. This is usually right before bedtime so we call it a day and come back refreshed the next day.
After a good night’s sleep, things start to make sense again. You know the puzzle well enough now to surprise yourself by picking up a piece, going with your hunch, and plopping it right down in the correct spot as if you are using the Force. Along with recognizing colors and patterns, you also start to place pieces by shape.
The end – congratulations, you did it!
As the weather gets colder and we all spend more time inside, I encourage you to give the screens a break, pick out a puzzle, and give it a try. I hope you enjoy them as much as we have. The experience may even give you the confidence/perspective you need to deal with your latest “unsolvable” problem.
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