Noah's a puzzler

For the past month or so, really since Christmas, Noah has been Sam's mini-me.  In the morning I'll ask the boys what they want for breakfast and Noah will shout out "Oatmeal!"  Sam will casually look up and say "grits," which immediately causes Noah to proclaim "Grits AND Oatmeal!"  Or we'll ask the boys if they want to wear car shirts or dinosaur shirts.  Noah's preference is almost always swayed by Sam's decision.

The one area where Noah will always break with Sam is over the issue of puzzles.  Sam has always ignored puzzles, playing with the car pieces as cars instead of wondering how they fit into the puzzle's scheme.

Not Noah.

Noah is obsessed with puzzles.  For Christmas, his Aunt Heather gave him a box with four wooden Disney puzzles in it.  The puzzles fit into nice compartments under a sliding top that acts as the puzzles' frame.  Almost every day, without fail, Noah pulls the box out of his closet and systematically goes through each puzzle, carefully putting each puzzle back into its slotted container before moving to the next puzzle.  He dug through Sam's toy drawers and found all the puzzles we bought or were gifted to Sam that have languished for years and cheerfully took them to his room and added them to his collection.

Perhaps the best puzzle yet came from Aunt Misty and Uncle Stephen.  They gave Noah a giant dinosaur floor puzzle.  This puzzle is four feet long and features Noah's favorite animals.  The puzzle is a perfect storm of Noah obsessions.  He pulls it out and without any assistance (he will actually push me and Joy away if we attempt to help) covers his floor with dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes.  If we need 15-20 minutes of peace, all we have to do is pull out the puzzle and close the door to Noah's room.

But the puzzling is getting a bit out of hand.  I had never noticed before how many doctor's offices, banks, and play centers have puzzles until Noah started pulling them out.  He'll find any puzzle around and start piecing it together, not allowing any interruption until he is finished.  Just yesterday, I went to pick him up at PDO and after giving me a hug (usually a prelude to running out to the car), Noah turned and declared he had to finish his puzzle.  So if we are late in the next few months, you'll have a good guess as to why.