I am doing a 2000 piece puzzle with my son. We’re both very keen on puzzles.
“Why couldn’t you have just gotten me a board game?” he asked.
“I already told you. I wanted something we could do together.”
“You could play a board game with me.”
“I already explained why we are doing this. What? Do you want a challenging life or an easy one?”
“Challenging, of course.”
I was surprised. “Really? Why do you want a challenging life?’
“Don’t go all fortune cookie on me, Mom,” he said.
My son is “eight slash nine” now. He is 8, but he is a year ahead in school. He’s decided the kids in his class do not need to know this (Mars in Scorpio) so he is 8/9. “I am 8 when I am home and 9 when I am at school and when my birthday comes I will be 9 slash 10.
I didn’t argue. His chart is almost entirely cardinal and he runs his own life.
skip to puzzle – day 1
Awesome. My 8/9-year-old daughter (whose chart is remarkably similar to your son’s) and I had a pretty cool conversation this afternoon on the early drive home from Grandma’s (don’t ask why we didn’t stay) about how the Beatles progressed from pop boy band to psychedelia. I gave her a matter-of-fact primer on pharmaceutical classes, and now she knows the difference between pot and acid and bad music and good music.
What was truly convenient was that the Stones were playing “Shattered” on the radio while I was switching discs, and that interlude gave me the chance to explain what the two feuding fan camps were all about; indeed, what the culture of the time was all about. And she got it. Too bad she has such crap bands to choose from these days.
But she also gets that the Beatles rule, and the Stones also rule; we don’t live in a universe in which either must be de facto “better,” and that’s all that matters.
And as far as board games, it becomes too much of a competition on her part. Puzzles? Same thing. She wants to do it all herself and gets frustrated when I find fits when she can’t. I’ve resorted to giving her a chemistry set and a microscope this year. She can do it all herself, with a little guidance here and there. We’ll see how it works out, but I have high hopes.
Our kids have Jupiter conjunct Mercury in Aries and love to compete. My son, however has Libra, lots of it, and like to partner. We are very similar in this way. We work together very easily but also respect each other’s abilities or else.
I can put a puzzle together but I am no more skilled than he is. He inherited the knack, see. But I get the idea w/ your daughter. If there is no Libra… well that would make all the difference in the world.
Ah, he’s so cool.
I love puzzles and making them with people too.