Inauguration Day and puzzles

Elias loves doing puzzles; and he's really good at them. This is a 54 piece pirate puzzle that we recently bought for him. I thought it might be a little too hard for him, but he can do it almost all by himself. Usually he requires a little encouragement the first few times while putting together a new puzzle and can do it on his own after that. The encouragement generally consists of sitting next to him and reminding him to look at how the colors of certain pieces match or don't match when he gets frustrated. His patience and attention-span is really amazing for a 3 year old. He must have gotten his love of puzzles from those Olson's. I know that my mom was not happy by our lack of interest in puzzles but I guess it skips a generation. Here's your chance, Mom! I'm sure Aunt Cheryl will be tickled to indulge this interest too.

This has been a pretty satisfying weekend. On Saturday, Elias and I went to his friend's third birthday and then he hung out with Harry at the park while I did homework. On Sunday we went to a bluegrass pancake breakfast and then had people over for the Steelers game. Yesterday was pretty low-key and Elias worked on his puzzles and we played some boardgames that Elias got over Christmas. We also tried to go to the park but it was really windy and cold. Our big event though was our breakfast party this morning in honor of Obama's inauguration. Elias got to stay home from preschool today on the condition that he would watch five minutes during which Obama was sworn in. I thought this was a very important event for Elias to see, even if he doesn't realize the significance of it yet. I'd just like to be able to tell him that he witnessed an important historical event in the making. Who knows? Maybe he'll actually remember it, too. He was true to his word and watched Obama take the oath of office and even stuck around for some of the stuff after that, but then the appeal of running around with his friends seduced him away from the tv. It was nice, though, to celebrate with Elias and some of our closest friends. A champagne toast to Obama! Or mimosas, in our case.