Quinn has also enjoyed making maps at school, and within hours of starting summer vacation seemed to be going through a bit of withdrawal. He asked if he was allowed to make maps at home and I said of course. So he got out his Asia puzzle and put India on a piece of paper and tried to figure out how he could trace it like he would the traceable wooden map parts at school without ruining the puzzle piece with a pen or pencil. Quinn is careful with things, and couldn't figure out a way to make it work without damaging his puzzle. He began to look dejected.
So I asked him if there was something else we could do that was different from what he did at school, some new kind of project. He thought about it and decided what he really wanted was a map puzzle of Australia. The map puzzles we have from GeoPuzzles include North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. When he does them all at once he then lays them out on the floor together like one big map, and every time he points out to me that we are missing Australia and Antarctica. He likes things to be complete, so this bothers him.
We agreed a map of Antarctica in the style of the other GeoPuzzles would be boring because the land mass would be one big piece. (Although we can always just do that someday like a regular puzzle and cut up the continent into random shapes.) But Australia has states (which Quinn could readily name and I could not) so it would make a good puzzle. We set to work.
I'd never made a puzzle from scratch before, but it didn't look hard, so I thought I'd share what we did here in case anyone else wants ideas for making a personalized puzzle for their kid. (Maybe with pictures of family pets or favorite toys. Lots of possibilities!)
We started by finding a piece of cardboard (taken from the back of a big pad of drawing paper) about the thickness of our existing puzzles. Since Quinn wanted the new puzzle to match the others I let him use a ruler and a pencil to mark off how big he wanted the finished puzzle to be.
(Lots of photos in this post, so maybe it's best to add a jump here....)
Technically, blogging is new to me, although anyone in the long list
of friends and family members who have been receiving my mass emails for
years will tell you otherwise. They already know the cast of
characters I write about, but the Babble audience could use some
introductions, so I’m going to go in order of age starting with my baby
(who is quick to remind me he is NOT a baby).
Quinn is 2 (but I guess in baby speak he is 33 months). If I know
nothing else in this world, I know that the boy loves me. He would do
nothing but lounge in my lap and smile all day if I’d let him. Not a
day goes by that I don’t look at him with wonder and think about how we
almost didn’t try for that third child. I had two miscarriages after I
had my girls, and as much as I wanted another baby I didn’t know if I
could handle one more failed pregnancy. I’ve never been more glad that I
took a chance on anything in my life. Quinn is adorable and funny and
he rounds us up to the family of 5 I always hoped for, but I never
imagined kids or a husband as remarkable as the ones I actually have. I
am a very lucky person and try hard not to take that for granted.
The two words used most often to describe my son are cute and smart.
Indulge me in a proud mom moment as I present evidence of both.
Here is proof of cute (off my husband’s phone):
And here is proof of smart (filmed by my brother at Christmastime):
Quinn was heavily into puzzles from about 18 months old until pretty
recently. I think he specifically liked map puzzles because with their
clear shapes they were actually easier, and I know he liked that the
individual pieces had names. He used to be proficient at Asia, Africa,
the United States, and most of Europe and Canada, but then his interest
waned and now he’s just into things that are purple. He has passing
phases like that, where he dives in wholeheartedly, masters something,
then lets it go. Just after he turned 1 he was obsessed with sign
language and could recognize probably over 100 signs at his peak, but
now it doesn’t interest him and he seldom does signs for me anymore. If
I could just get him hooked on doing the laundry for awhile….
Of all my children, Quinn is the one who shows the most impact of
birth order. He would not be the same person he is now if he did not
have 2 strong older sisters. At the moment he shares their room, and
his life has always been about following them around and keeping up with
what they do. If he’d been born first he would still have been cute
and smart, but I honestly can’t imagine him with his sisters out of the
equation. For him the house has always been full of playmates and toys
that aren’t his and he’s always had someone to share the tub with. As
long as one of them isn’t climbing into my lap he adores his sisters.
I can’t predict how the upcoming deployment will affect him. He was 9
months old when his dad returned from the last assignment in Iraq and
he adjusted quickly, but this time is very different. Ian has been the
stay-at-home parent for the past couple of years, which means dad has
been making the bulk of the decisions about what the kids eat and where
they go and how they do everything. Not only will they have to adjust
to a parent being gone for a year, they will have to adjust to mom’s way
of managing their world. I suspect at first Quinn will be glad to have
dad not around to compete for my attention. On regular Army reserve
weekends he is thrilled to have me by his side all day and doesn’t ask
about his dad at all. I have a feeling he will begin to notice the
things Ian contributes after they have been missing for more than a
week. He lets the kids take way more risks on the playground than I’m
comfortable with, I don’t do horsey rides, I’m no help with their
computer problems, and there will be no more cake batter for lunch (not
that that happened often, but the likelihood with me around will drop to
zero).
I hate that Ian will miss nearly all of Quinn being 3. Despite the
whining, I have always loved age 3. That’s always seemed the age to me
when kids are the most uninhibited and expressive and you get a real
glimpse of who they are. I will take a lot of photos and video footage
and hope that Ian doesn’t feel too left out.
Next post: Meet Mona (Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.)
