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Sep
1
Dylan has this Melissa & Doug box that has separate containers for four small jigsaw puzzles. Each puzzle is supposed to be stored in its own little section of the box, like so:
The problem, of course, is that he’s constantly dumping the whole thing out so there are puzzle pieces all over the floor, and I’m the one who always sorts through every damn piece in order to get them back in their proper container. Imagine, if you will, the time-consuming process of sifting through a pile of these things on, like, a DAILY BASIS. The painstaking effort of making sure the school bus puzzle is in the school bus puzzle area, the fire engine puzzle is in the fire engine puzzle area, and so on. Basically assembling each and every puzzle, each and every time, all the while grumbling about messy preschoolers and the never-ending cleanup jobs they cause.
Yesterday afternoon as I was rooting through the discarded pieces for the frillionth time, I suddenly noticed a tiny shape printed on the back of one of the pieces. Huh, I thought. I turned over another piece, and what fuck, that one had a shape too. Only it was a different shape.
Slowly, a dim bulb in the recesses of my brain began to flicker. I stared fixedly at the puzzle piece, breathing heavily through my mouth as I tried to chase down the creeping thought that there was something . . . something important about these shapes. Something that served a purpose. Something I maybe should have noticed many, many months ago.
I was kind of starting to get a headache from all the thinking, so I ended up just tossing them willy-nilly in their box and forgot all about it. Until approximately 11:12 PM, when I suddenly dropped my book, shot upright in bed, and moaned out loud, “OH. MY. GOD.”
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60 Responses to “Mensa disqualification, #28605”
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Thanks for the laugh. Its 8 PM, I’m still at work and I really really needed this.
Does it help to know I knew exactly where this was going because I also had one of those moments of discovery?
I did.
Ha ha ha haaaaaaa! Oh, I love you.
Haha! I like the end of the story!
LOVE. THIS.
i give you credit for having the strength to continue to put the pieces back in the right “cubby” in the first place! i would have long ago been “f it, theyre just gonna dump them all out and mix them up anyways!” and thrown them all haphazardly into the container.
that said, this is hilarious. also, i am clearly SUPER LAZY.
I was so ready to get to the end and comment that you should just put marks on the back of the puzzle peices to easily sort the puzzles – but DUH they did it for you! Too funny!
Melissa and Doug=GENIUS! They actually get what it is like to have small children, I am totally impressed!
In amazon description:
Backs of pieces are shape-coded for easy sorting
LOL
Clever designers!
Wait, what are the shapes for? I still don’t get it.
(HAHAHAHA.)
We have these puzzles and I’m dying!! HA!
OMG. Awesome.
That’s hilarious. Also the reason why I, after my toddler ransacked the tupperware drawer for the frillionth time, numbered the tupperware and it’s corresponding lid with a permanent marker. Not that I don’t get lazy and just toss them all back in there randomlike anyway.
HA! This makes me think of the evening when I realized that I could dry off my daughter while she stood up on her own after a bath instead of trying to juggle a slippery baby and a towel. She was 18 months old and had been standing well for 6 months. Those no-sleep months change you forever.
Ok, I’m laughing my ass off over here because we have the same freaking puzzle and it was my son (who was THREE at the time) who told me, “Mom, we don’t have to put it together. Just match the shapes!” *drool*
YOU ARE SOOOOOOOOOOOO FUCKING FUNNY!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for sharing these moments of motherhood that remind me other moms have better-late-than-never a-ha moments too.
God you crack me up. The mouth breathing part had me rolling.
I LOVE THIS.
Fucking hysterical!!! I have had those manic moments trying to sort/organize/clean toddler mess. They have progressed to legos and now I’m wishing for the Melissa n Doug days.
*condescending head pat*
True confession: I had to click through to read the comments to see what the answer was.
Ohhhhh.
/smrt
Ah, the “Garanimals” method of puzzle sorting. I like it!
Oh, hunny, you’re so pretty…
Oh yes. Yes!
I am an organizational freak and as I was reading my mind was going crazy with the ways that you could make the task easier…paint the back of each puzzle a different color, number them, make a mark on the back of each etc. That was until I got to the end! LOL! And no, I don’t work for Melissa and Doug – but maybe I should!!!
As my mother would say, “Bless your heart” which is the southern way of showing pity for us mouth-breathers.
HA!!!!
haha! Silly you. My kids have a ton of puzzles from when I was a kid and give me a piece and I can tell you where and to which puzzle it goes. But I can’t calculate a tip. We have a puzzle book that’s similar only there’s 20 puzzles in it and the little one always likes to dump them all together. Even knowing what goes where it still takes me almost an hour to put it together. Finally I got wise and put it up on a high shelf. Dur.
Now you can point this out to Dylan so HE can sort them out (and think that mom is a genius)! Supermom reputation remains in tact!
Have a great long weekend!
Ha! And thank you! Now I can go home and sort those damn puzzles out. I got so tired of it I just threw them in the last time and hid the box. :). ( I’m running for mother of the year if you want to vote). I kept thinking that was a terrible design, they get mixed up too easily. Now I know the real problem was ME!
Yep, I mark the back of my kids’ puzzles, too, with numbers, shapes, leters, whatever it takes to make the process easier. In the hopes that one of these days, they will get the idea themselves and make a game out of it and sing the alphabet song or count the puzzle pieces. Hasn’t happened yet, but a Mom could dream!
LOLOLOLOLOLLLL Been there, done that, have a frillion tee shirts
Thanks for the Friday laugh! (and psst, I would have done the same thing too)
OMG! I was thinking, yeah those puzzles drive me crazy but why does she put them together instead of looking at the backs?! Makes me feel better about all my other DOH! moments, though :)
OH, how I needed this. I did actually LOL at work, so thank you. You are a fucking riot. I have had MANY of these mouth-breathing moments. I really do think some of my brain cells slipped right out when my son was born. Well, who am I kidding? They didn’t *SLIP* out, I pushed and pushed AND PUSHED those bastards out!
Oh yeah, I totally did the same thing! Glad to know it’s not just me! Even with the markings, though, it’s way too much work to sort all those little things.
At least you figured it out before your jillionth time of resorting. Unless that comes before frillionth, I forget.
I’ve thought “OH. MY. GOD.” exactly like that way too many times to count! Dramatic pauses included!
We’ve graduated to legos too, and it took my son almost breaking out in tears for him to finally allow me to give him a tupperware container to keep them in rather than the box they came in which is now falling apart. It drives me crazy because he’s a tyrant about stuff like that, yet his room is constantly a wreck because he never puts anything away!
That was EXACTLY what I needed to read today. You crack me up!
We have a few of those at home, too. You might consider rotating just a couple of them and storing the others elsewhere so it isn’t 4 puzzles-worth you have to sort and store each time. Then when you rotate them out they will be new! puzzles! yay!
Now if only they could do that with the Legos…
LMAO!
I just want to thank you for reminding me that I’m not the only one that has these moments. My “ah-ha” is usually followed by thinking back to the incident and trying to decide if anyone else was around that may have sniffed out my brain fart.
This is so funny. My granddaughter has a Walt Disney puzzle collection that is just like this.
LOL! Well, at least you figured it out.
I HATE picking up and sorting thru puzzle pieces. I make my daughter finish one puzzle and put it away before getting another. Or really any activity with pieces has to be put away before another is brought out. Also, do the trolls come you house and steal puzzle pieces too, or is that just us?
Oh, Linda.
You are awesome. Also, way tan.
Hope your weekend is great!
HA! At the very beginning I was thinking, “well, why doesn’t hers have the shapes on the back like mine?”
my husband recently bought a thomas the train puzzle like that, 4 puzzles, one box. i’m telling you that the shapes on the back don’t make cleaning them up any less time consuming!
BWAHAHAHAHA
We were listening (for the zillionth time) to Sesame Street Platinum Hits and the 2nd track came on. If you’d never looked at the track listing (as my husband had not) you wouldn’t have noticed the song title ABC-DEF-GHI, and when the lyrics says “if I ever find out just what this word can mean” and my husband looks at me and says, “18 months listening to this album and I cannot figure out what that word is!” When I told him, I guarantee he felt the same way you did. :)
HA! I needed that laugh.
I have a dumper, too. I finally threw all his little blocks & flash cards & puzzles in the trash because they were missing half the pieces & I was so fucking sick of picking them up every night.
Also? No Lego’s allowed in our house. Ever. (Or at least until he’s old enough to pick up his own crap.)
How I love thee.
Oh, that’s awesome.
I feel so much better when someone else admits something like this; it means I have company on my small portion of the bell curve.
Although I may still be below you, because I was nine before I realized what those little E’s were on M&Ms. I spent much time while eating them wondering, Does E stand for an ingredient? The inventor? A company name? Then one day it dawned on me…
Lesley
Oh man, thanks so much for sharing this. I feel slightly better about the fact that I *just* realized there is a gas cap holder on my car, just a few plastic ridges where the cap will fit when I’m fueling. This is on the car that I’ve owned for 11 YEARS. Sigh. Better late than never, right?
That is awesome! Totally something I would do, too.
Just another supportive anecdote in my quest to prove that “pregnancy brain” is not a temporary condition. Lord help us!
I learned this trick from an “old” teacher when I was doing my practicum. Saved me hours of frustration.
Get a new puzzle. On the back of each piece put the initials for the puzzle (RR) AND THE NUMBER OF PIECES. (18, 24, 60)
Print this information in the bottom of the box… since who knows where the lid went.
Match the initials to the box bottom. Count the number of pieces.
If they are all there great, good job, atta boy, have a biscuit.
If they aren’t, well when that odd piece shows up in wrong box, back pocket, inside the truck, dog’s bed you will know where it goes.
Also helps to check the pieces to see if they are all there and match to the puzzle “code” before starting.
Just sayin’
LMAO! We have two of these sets!!
Thank you for the laugh this a.m. That is just too hilarious! I also loved your comment on the ever messiness of preschoolers. Seriously who thought kids would be so messy CONSTANTLY!!