# 0003: Puzzled

Two year olds L-O-V-E puzzles! Need a great gift idea for a two year old? Puzzles! Age appropriate puzzles! Remember the old school cardboard frame tray puzzles? They are not easy to find in stores. We ordered all of ours off eBay. We got some larger and small Disney themed puzzles. (They also worked great as potty training prizes.)

I love doing puzzles with the kids! It is so much fun to watch them think. You can see the little wheels in their heads turning. They try different spots... then, they finally get their piece in the right place and you can see they're faces light up at how proud thy are of themselves. And you get to heap the praise on them as well. Then, they very quickly move on to the next piece because they ARE ON A MISSION! I love how focused they are on completing these puzzles.

I love spending time together in this way. I enjoy watching them concentrate. I enjoy working with them and taking turns. I enjoy encouraging them, showing them patience, and telling them how awesome they are at doing puzzles. I enjoy giving them undivided attention during the completion of the puzzle. You have to do a puzzle with nothing else going on. It's so much more fun and enjoyable for everybody.

I've tried to play extreme puzzle madness where you dump out all your puzzles, mix up all the pieces and then see how fast you can put all of them back together. No one has been too into that... Yet!