How the Warners party.

Jessie and I started a puzzle the other day, as a sort of anti-television device. It's one of those really difficult puzzles, where half the puzzle is red leaves that all look alike, and the other half is completely black. The last time we did a puzzle was when we were young and innocent and, most importantly, childless. We are quickly discovering that puzzles are not family friendly activities- at least when one member of the family thinks the point of a puzzle is crumbling it into little tiny pieces and seeing how quickly one can disperse those pieces in an average size room. Suffice it to say, we have to keep the puzzle locked up in the spare bedroom to make any sort of progress. And work on it at night, in secret, after the puzzle Nazi has retired for the evening. And remember to keep it locked while you're in the shower so said Nazi doesn't undo half the puzzle on you. Not that anything like that happened to me.

We have this problem with a lot of our time filling activities. We used to whip out Sorry or Sequence or Settlers of Catan when we were bored on a Saturday night, being the awesome exciting party people we are (who are also obsessed with the letter 'S' apparently). But now, unless we can finish the game in less than two minutes, it's bound to get interrupted and scattered across the floor. We've tried to include Madeline in our game playing, but all attempts to play Memory or Sorry with her have resulted in copious amounts of cheating and rule-flouting on her part. No respect for authority. So we watch Pixar movies and play princess dress up and let Madeline run our life. As is the natural order of things.