It's a Puzzlement

The kids are moving up in the world and it's not just kindergarten: they're doing 100-piece puzzles! Mama, who did puzzles with her parents as a child, had purchased them 60-piece puzzles earlier this month, something for them to do independently when I couldn't play. And they quickly breezed through four of them--space, chocolate, horses, and dinosaurs. So today, during an outing to the grocery store, Mama picked up two bigger puzzles at the toy store, one on dinosaurs and one with a fairy princess. And they are currently getting the borders in, with minimal help from Mama. What's nice about the puzzles they're doing, by German company Ravensburger, is that the pieces are developmentally appropriate. In other words, the pieces are bigger than average even though there are a lot of them; typical small puzzle pieces, even if only 60 or 100 of them, would probably be much harder to manipulate with their burgeoning fine motor skills. The kids are so proud, particularly because they can complete the puzzles by themselves but most of all because they can tell that they are labeled "6 and up." Sis declared, "I feel just like a six-year old!"