That's Puzzling

FrogBoy doesn't have a lot of toys that he enjoys playing with, but he really loves building things and playing with puzzles. When he creates something with his Legos, he is "Legoing." When he puts together a puzzle, he's "puzzling." If you think about it for a few minutes, the lingo actually works.

Right before Froggie was diagnosed with autism, we noticed that he was really good at putting together puzzles. I mean REALLY good. He was 5 years old at the time, and he would sit, in true Frog fashion, in the hallway of our house, with a 500 (or more) piece puzzle, and put it together. UPSIDE DOWN. That's right, with the blank side facing up. And he'd get it right.

Most people start by putting the border together and then filling it in. Not the case with my Frog Man. He would just take the first piece he picked up, and that's where he started. And he would rarely make a mistake. He would dump all the pieces in a pile; he would study and study and when he was sure he knew which piece was next, he would carefully choose it and attach it to the existing part of the puzzle. It was fascinating. And a little scary.

I tried to stump him. I bought a round puzzle, with over 750 pieces that weren't "normal" jigsaw puzzle piece shapes, and the entire puzzle was a tye-die motif. He knocked it out of the park in one afternoon.

He also loves word puzzles. It doesn't matter what kind of word puzzle you give him, unless it's a crossword, he can kick fanny. And he's amazing with those annoying mazes. He looks at the maze, puts his pen (he does them in pen!) down on the "start" area, and makes one line straight to the end - without doubling back!

Ask him to clean his room - he looks at you like you have 2 heads. Give him a puzzle - he's golden.