Monday, January 23, 2006

Puzzles

Caitlin loves to put together ~25-piece puzzles, and we're happy that she can do them by herself. She has about 80 of them, so we especially appreciate them on those mornings when she wakes up hours before we want to.

Of course, we like puzzles, too. Puzzles let us sit by each other and work on something while we talk, watch a movie, or whatever. We just set up the card table and go to town. We can work on different colors or areas, and when either of us gets tired with what we're doing there are plenty of other pieces.

Mary seems to enjoy puzzles, too. Mostly she enjoys scattering Caitlin's completed puzzles all over the room. In fact, Mary really seems to enjoy doing anything that gets a rise out of Caitlin. This morning each girl had a throw pillow on the floor on which they were laying their heads. Caitlin was on the red pillow, while Mary lay on the blue.

After a (short!) time Caitlin was distracted doing something else, and Mary saw the available red pillow. She looked at Caitlin, saw that her back was turned, then crawled at top speed towards the pillow. Just before resting her head on it, Mary again checked Caitlin, who was still playing with something else. Mary lay there for a minute until she realized that Caitlin wasn't going to look over. At that point the game must have become no fun, because Mary just crawled away.

Anyway, puzzles. I like brainteasers, like those wooden pieces that you're supposed to put together to make an icosahedron, or the metal pretzels that somehow come apart. I've never had the patience to learn how to solve Rubik's Cube, but my brother David gave me another chance.

After a delayed delivery, his Christmas gift arrived in my hands yesterday (Sunday). I was actually kind of excited to try it, especially considering the booklet "7 Step Solution Guide" was included in the packaging. But this afternoon I couldn't find it.

Well, Cami not only found it, she also provided the help I needed to solve Rubik's Cube without using the solution booklet.




Thank you, David. Thank you, Rubik. Thank you, Cami. And thank you, Chevrolet.