Our evening ritual came about accidentally. My 7 year old son, Daniel got a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle for his birthday and one afternoon he sat on the floor and put most of it together. The only puzzles he had ever done before were of the big 24 piece variety and so he was quite excited to be doing a big puzzle.  The next morning he got up and immediately got busy on his puzzle, finishing it up in an hour or so. He was so proud of his accomplishment that I bought him some puzzle glue and glued the puzzle and hung it on his wall. He liked the puzzle so much that I decided to get him more.

 While in the puzzle isle of Wal-Mart I remembered the fun I had as a child putting puzzles together with my grandmother.  I found some 300 piece puzzles that had big pieces and decided to buy one.

 That evening after dinner and baths, I got out a folding table and we opened our puzzle. Five year old Hunter decided that he wanted to help as well, so I showed the boys how to first find all the edge pieces, and told them how it’s easier to do the frame first.  At first Hunter was disappointed when I told him that we would not be able to finish before bedtime, but I told him we could work on it again tomorrow night.  That drew a yelp of glee from both boys.

That first night we got the frame all put together and then it was time to go to bed. All day the next day, the boys talked about how after bath, it was puzzle time. Usually I have some trouble convincing two dirty little boys that they need a bath, but they were ready to do the puzzle so we sailed right through bath time and even had no arguments about brushing teeth.

 Then at last we gathered around our puzzle table and began searching for pieces that looked like they might match.  Daniel did pretty well, but Hunter had a hard time at first. When he finally found a piece that fit, the pride showed on his face. 

 Some nights we don’t work very long, some nights we just can’t seem to stop. I have discovered that sitting over a puzzle, it is easy to talk about things you wouldn’t ordinarily talk about.  I have told the boys stories about my childhood, my grandmother, and themselves as babies while we worked on our puzzles.  They have told me about their dreams, what they want to be when they grow up and even about the cool lizard they saw.

So what started out as a casual interest for one son has turned into a nightly family tradition that I hope will continue for many years. It has given my boys a sense of accomplishment and taught them about patience and opened lines of communication. Not to mention we have some pretty cool wall hangings.