In addition to my wallet, sunglasses and other generally needed and superfluous items, there is easily 15 pounds of “essentials” hanging from my shoulder on any given day—Hot Wheels race cars, small toy bulldozers and backhoe loaders, and a spiral notebook with a couple of glitter pens, to name just a few of these items. Sometimes, when I reach for my lipstick, I pull out a glue stick instead.
When I babysit my grandchildren, I typically pack a separate tote filled with puzzles, board games, and picture books. When he was three, my grandson James would meet me at the door and eagerly rifle through the bag to see what we were going to play with that day. We spent endless hours constructing a car wash (sink filled with water) for all his vehicles. We sorted his cars by color, lined them up for a parade, and built multi-level parking garages for them—only for a “hurricane” to swoop in and knock everything down. We also made individual “garages” for his favorite cars out of air-dried clay and decorated them with colorful frilled toothpicks and buttons.
But by his fifth birthday, James had moved on from cars to rocks, and then monster trucks, and then to birds. Building on whatever he is interested in, we will excavate stones and “gems” from his yard, construct a monster truck garage from a discarded carton, and borrow bird books from the library to identify house sparrows, common grackles, and black-capped chickadees. But one day a few months back, when temps were still uncomfortably cold, we sat together on the couch contemplating the day’s activities. We had already made unicorn pancakes when James suggested, “Let’s do that puzzle again,” referring to a big floor puzzle in my tote. It’s a three-foot puzzle of the 50 states, and I like it because it’s easy. (I am terrible at puzzles, but I know where most of the states are!)
We had done the puzzle the day before, so I was surprised when James wanted to assemble it again. But I spread out all the pieces on the floor and we got to work, fitting in a yellow Florida just beneath a red Alabama and a green Georgia, trying to sort out the oceans by which states they were next to. Still, it wasn’t long before the puzzle was finished, with Hawaii and Alaska next to each other in one corner and an American flag in the other.
Now what? I wondered. To my surprise, James took over. He said he wanted us to each choose which state we most wanted to visit and to say why. So we took turns. Each time one of us picked a state, we removed that piece from the puzzle. I told him Michigan, because I have cousins there, and he told me California since his cousins live in Oakland. He told me he wanted to go to Texas to see monster trucks (How does he even know they have monster trucks there?) and I said I wanted to go to North Carolina to visit the Outer Banks. We both chose Rhode Island since our whole family vacations there every summer, and Hawaii because, Why not?
Then we fitted all the puzzle pieces back in place so the map was completed once more. James said we would take turns telling each other which state to visit and something to see there. He started first, telling me what to visit in a particular state. It helped that each state on this puzzle had a graphic for what it is known for. He sent me to Arizona, and we discussed what it would be like to live in the desert, with cactus instead of the trees we have here in the Northeast. I told him he was going to Georgia, and we talked about how they grow peaches there. Variations of James’ made-up map game kept us busy for close to an hour and by the time we finished, it was dark outside.
James taught me something that day, and it had nothing to do with geography. If we just slow down our pace and give kids the chance, they’ll show us their creativity. It’s easy to just lose track of time and have fun in the moment. I’ll never be good at puzzles but, since that day when James devised most of our games, I’ve stepped back a bit and let him take the lead in how we spend our days together. I still bring a toy-heavy tote along, just in case.
Rosemary Black, a mom of seven and a resident of Pleasantville, NY, writes frequently on health, nutrition, parenting, and food. She is the author of six cookbooks, most recently, The Marley Coffee Cookbook.
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25 May 2025
0 Commentstaking a back seat
In addition to my wallet, sunglasses and other generally needed and superfluous items, there is easily 15 pounds of “essentials” hanging from my shoulder on any given day—Hot Wheels race cars, small toy bulldozers and backhoe loaders, and a spiral notebook with a couple of glitter pens, to name just a few of these items. Sometimes, when I reach for my lipstick, I pull out a glue stick instead.
When I babysit my grandchildren, I typically pack a separate tote filled with puzzles, board games, and picture books. When he was three, my grandson James would meet me at the door and eagerly rifle through the bag to see what we were going to play with that day. We spent endless hours constructing a car wash (sink filled with water) for all his vehicles. We sorted his cars by color, lined them up for a parade, and built multi-level parking garages for them—only for a “hurricane” to swoop in and knock everything down. We also made individual “garages” for his favorite cars out of air-dried clay and decorated them with colorful frilled toothpicks and buttons.
But by his fifth birthday, James had moved on from cars to rocks, and then monster trucks, and then to birds. Building on whatever he is interested in, we will excavate stones and “gems” from his yard, construct a monster truck garage from a discarded carton, and borrow bird books from the library to identify house sparrows, common grackles, and black-capped chickadees. But one day a few months back, when temps were still uncomfortably cold, we sat together on the couch contemplating the day’s activities. We had already made unicorn pancakes when James suggested, “Let’s do that puzzle again,” referring to a big floor puzzle in my tote. It’s a three-foot puzzle of the 50 states, and I like it because it’s easy. (I am terrible at puzzles, but I know where most of the states are!)
We had done the puzzle the day before, so I was surprised when James wanted to assemble it again. But I spread out all the pieces on the floor and we got to work, fitting in a yellow Florida just beneath a red Alabama and a green Georgia, trying to sort out the oceans by which states they were next to. Still, it wasn’t long before the puzzle was finished, with Hawaii and Alaska next to each other in one corner and an American flag in the other.
Now what? I wondered. To my surprise, James took over. He said he wanted us to each choose which state we most wanted to visit and to say why. So we took turns. Each time one of us picked a state, we removed that piece from the puzzle. I told him Michigan, because I have cousins there, and he told me California since his cousins live in Oakland. He told me he wanted to go to Texas to see monster trucks (How does he even know they have monster trucks there?) and I said I wanted to go to North Carolina to visit the Outer Banks. We both chose Rhode Island since our whole family vacations there every summer, and Hawaii because, Why not?
Then we fitted all the puzzle pieces back in place so the map was completed once more. James said we would take turns telling each other which state to visit and something to see there. He started first, telling me what to visit in a particular state. It helped that each state on this puzzle had a graphic for what it is known for. He sent me to Arizona, and we discussed what it would be like to live in the desert, with cactus instead of the trees we have here in the Northeast. I told him he was going to Georgia, and we talked about how they grow peaches there. Variations of James’ made-up map game kept us busy for close to an hour and by the time we finished, it was dark outside.
James taught me something that day, and it had nothing to do with geography. If we just slow down our pace and give kids the chance, they’ll show us their creativity. It’s easy to just lose track of time and have fun in the moment. I’ll never be good at puzzles but, since that day when James devised most of our games, I’ve stepped back a bit and let him take the lead in how we spend our days together. I still bring a toy-heavy tote along, just in case.