With so much extra time on our hands because the entire country has shut down, we have been filling our time with crafts (you can read about that here), puzzles, games and reading books. Who knew puzzles could be so fun and addicting. We started with a puzzle that we had bought before everything shut down. This puzzle had different iconic buildings from around the world. We enjoyed this puzzle because as we put the pieces together and saw the different buildings, we would talk about the ones we have been to, and start talking about our favorite memories at the different locations. It was mostly the two older girls that worked on the 1000-2000 piece puzzles. While they worked on their puzzles, we had a few 30-100 piece puzzles that Monster and Little A would work on.
Kevin found a 2000 piece puzzle that had four section of the four different seasons. The issue started with the border. The entire border was exactly identical. The girls found all the edge pieces, attempted to find matches and pretty much called it a lost cause. One particularly dull and boring day, Big Sis went downstairs and since she had nothing else to do, she actually was able to complete the entire border. I was shocked! Once the border was complete, it gave a bit of hope to the rest of the family and as we would walk by the puzzle we would get drawn into the complexity of the jigsaw. In no time at all, the girls were separating the pieces painstakingly by seasons according to the slight color changes. Big Sis said it felt therapeutic. She really enjoyed seeing the puzzle come together. She found all the border pieces that separated the four seasons, which divided the puzzle into four sections and the girls started attacking the puzzle one season at a time.
Towards the end, everyone including Monster were all in the puzzle room and helping to finish the puzzle. The older girls honestly did 80% of the puzzle by themselves, everyone else just came in at the home stretch to take the glory from them.
We started doing puzzle swaps after this. We would trade puzzles with friends, by doing a front door drop and run. We borrowed a bunch of puzzles from friends, and even got two puzzles sent to us from my sister, Lisa in Idaho. Puzzles have become a downtime favorite and a great way to spend time together as a family.
Reading books has also become a surprising benefit of all the downtime and boredom that comes from being at home all the time with nowhere to go. When home isolation started, Little A never read a book and would always complain. I found a few books from my old 3rd grade library from when I taught. Little A found my Magic Tree House books and was hooked. I didn't have all the books, so I asked around and found someone in our church that had about half of the books, she dropped them off on my doorstep. Little A is now reading about one book a day. She is loving the story and loves reading. It has gotten to the point to where I ask her to come down and she is replying, "in a minute" and comes down about half an hour later. Little A has now finished all the books that my friend dropped off, and luckily the school has an account with MackinVia, and MackinVia has the rest of the Magic Tree House books that we don't have. It has been a small miracle that she has found the love of reading during this time.
Big Sis has also found a love of reading. She was spending a lot of time just wasted on games and virtual cross-stitch on her phone, so I presented her with my absolute favorite series, "Poison Study". It has a few adult related content, so I won't let my book worm M&M read them. I used this to my advantage, and said she could read my favorite books, but M&M can't read them for a few years. I explained the adult content (spoiler alert: a girl gets raped, although it doesn't go into details, it is just mentioned in the book because it helps to understand the character) and I made sure she understood what it was and we had a little teaching moment, then I let her have the three books to the series. Now, let me explain, up to this point, unless she was required to read, Big Sis wouldn't be caught ever with a book. She had some eye problems while growing up that made reading actually hurt her head, so she has avoided reading whenever possible. It was crazy having her come down the next night all excited because there are three more books in the series that I didn't know about. She had already read the three books we did have and was thirsty for more. Score!! Luckily, Lauren, my niece came to the rescue. She had the books on her kindle, so she let us use her kindle account so Big Sis could read the books. It has been so great seeing her fall in love with reading. She has now read two separate series by the same author. Thank you Maria V. Snyder!!
M&M has read every book in our house. She is now re-reading pretty much the entire house. And Monster is learning to read. With Kevin home more often, we have taken this time to teach Monster to read. He has completed the Bob Books and is moving on to simple books. He even drew me a picture the other day that said "T Mom From". I was so amazed. Monster has memoized Dr. Suess's ABC book and requests it every night. He knows all his letters, all the sounds and we have been doing sight word flash cards with him. He is just taking off. It feels like there is magic reading powers in our house right now, it is so wonderful. I can just feel all their little brains getting smarter.
When the little kids go to bed, Kevin and I invite the two older girls to the table and we play some of the strategic games that are a little too hard for the littles. We are a super competitive family, so sometimes someone goes to bed a little grouchy because they got cremated during a nightly game. It's been wonderful to truly spend time together and find things to do that strengthen our relationship as a family. I love my family so much. I have the best kids ever!
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