Puzzles and Pieces

Puzzles and Pieces

Over the years, Sarah and I have put together puzzles over holidays or times with family and friends.  We’ve never been hard-core “puzzle people”…like we didn’t have a puzzle table or special puzzle mats to build on or any of the other puzzle accessories people collect.  We’d do it here and there and enjoy it.  

We hosted our extended family for a reunion back in October, and when they were here, we got 2 puzzles of the area for people to put together.  My family loved them!  Fun puzzles, cool design, and doable in the short amount of time we were together.  On one of the puzzles, we got to the end, and there was a missing piece.  There were nearly 40 of us…so it is not out of the question that someone took it to get the pride of dropping in the final piece.  The people that (nearly) finished it did it late the last night and searched high and low to find the missing piece.  No luck.  Many assumed, myself included, that my younger son had taken it so he could have that privilege…he did start the puzzle days before, so it was a logical conclusion he was saving the final more for himself.

The next morning, we were cleaning up and packing up, and right before we put away the (nearly) finished puzzle, we slid it slightly, and the table had slight gaps between the wood pieces…and there between the wood, there it was.  The final piece.  

Teach A Person To Fish.

Teach A Person To Fish.

My oldest son, Foster loves fishing.  Regularly, he’ll say,

“is everyone else thinking about fishing right now?”

“No buddy.  Nobody is thinking about that.  Just you.”

He loves it.  He loves the calm and quiet.  He loves the excitement when you get a nibble.  He loves being in nature.  It is his passion right now.  He’s new on the journey, but he is jumping in, head first trying to learn everything about fishing that he can.

I was really more of a music, theatre, and dance kid.  I went fishing with my dad a few times growing up.  I love people.  I like nature.  I don’t love extended periods of quiet waiting…so fishing is not really my thing.  

So, I’m not a great leader when it comes to guiding my son in his fishing pursuits.