fairness and puzzles

Shannon has not yet used the word "fair," but he is beginning to be exposed to the concept. Shannon was never a thumb-sucker, but he occassionally puts his fingers in his mouth--all of them. At this point, we are trying to discourage this behavior, so he is often instructed to get his hand out of his mouth.

Today, Jack was merrily sucking his thumb while lying on his little play mat. Shannon was on the opposite side of the room playing with his train puzzle. At one point, Shannon got up, walked to Jack, pulled Jack's hand from his mouth and said, "hand out of mouth." Then, he went back to his train.

So, it appears that Sean and I will now be navigating a more complicated terrain of parenting.

A little more on Shannon's train puzzle. Shannon has not been very exposed to puzzles in his two and half years. But this summer, I purchased at a garage sale a five-foot floor puzzle in the shape of a train. The box indicated that the recommended age range was 4+. I know that these are generalizations, and that many children will enjoy the item sooner than the recommended age. But, I was guessing that it would be a good six months before Shannon really got into this puzzle.

Given that assumption, we had gotten the puzzle out only a few times. Shannon would just play with the individual pieces and occassionally try to put pieces together. But, he didn't really seem to be trying to put like pieces together--just any pieces. Then I put the puzzle together for him a couple times with him watching. The next thing I know, Shannon is sorting the puzzle by train cars and putting it together. Now, he hasn't actually put the whole thing together, but he has put a couple of the cars nearly together in one sitting. This after having been exposed to this particular puzzle only a handful of times and puzzling in general only occassionally over the last couple months!

What a smart boy! I'm really enjoying this age of learning and discovery where he so often surprises me with how quickly he picks up on things I didn't even realize he was learning.