This evening at our temporary house – the ‘back-up house’, as we call it – Rowan and I were working on a puzzle he got recently as a gift. It had been a long day for both of us, and we were glad for the time together on the floor. The movers had spent all day packing up our final belongings and moving some of them out to storage, while preparing the rest for the air and sea shipments. I’d spent the entire day with the moving team, making sure things went to the right spots, answering questions, and cleaning for the renters who will move in two days from now. Rowan had spent the majority of the day at Survival Camp, learning all about edible plants and how to make your own rope, but at the edges he’d been at the house with me, watching all of his stuff get packed in brown paper, and watching me handle the somewhat controlled chaos of moving and all the emotions that go with it. He’s been remarkably resilient through the whole process – worrying about his stuffed animals, about our things taking a boat across the ocean, and about missing friends and making new ones. But through it all, he’s really held it together and has been talking more about the things we’ll get to do in Germany, more than the things we won’t get to do here in the U.S.

As we worked through the puzzle – a magnificent rendering of a french bulldog with oversized sunglasses licking an equally giant lollipop – Rowan was getting super frustrated with it. He’d picked, as usual, the hardest part of the puzzle to work first – skipping the conventional route of always putting the edges together first in favor of going straight to the colorful swirl lollipop where any piece could fit any other. I held my tongue (we’ve had the ‘edges first’ conversation a number of times) and let him try to work through it, rather than give advice he didn’t need or want to hear. As time went on, though, the frustration became sniffles and sniffles became real tears.

I asked Rowan what was wrong – how could I help? – and what was upsetting him. He wouldn’t answer – just shook his head – not totally typical of him. I asked him if it was the puzzle? Head shake. Problems with friends? Nope. Did it have to do with the move? Maybe, he said. But he didn’t want to talk about it.

Oh man, I thought, this is it. Here is where things finally start to fall apart. I’d been holding my breath for the time when we’d all be in tears together, crying it out on the bed, and it hadn’t yet happened. And now here we were, in a somewhat dingy, unfamiliar HomeAway rental, and it was happening.

I coaxed Rowan back into one of the bedrooms with the promise that I wouldn’t ask any more questions – we’d just hug for a bit. I let Cara know that she could join us, mentally preparing myself for two sobbing kids and a (quieter) cry for myself, into their hair. I prepared myself for all the words that were sure to finally come streaming out of both of their mouths, blaming me and Matt for ruining their summer, their friendships, their lives.

Rowan continued to sniff a little, and Cara watched him, and we all waited. Eventually, he finally came out with it.

“It’s this PUZZLE, mom!!! It is SO STUPID!! All the pieces look the same, and none of them fit, and I don’t even like doing it!! The picture is stupid, and the pieces are stupid, and I just DON’T WANT TO DO IT! Do we have to finish it, mom? It is so stupid and I really don’t like it!”

Ohhhh. Oh my god, I thought, that’s it?! That’s really all? The puzzle? I started laughing so hard from the sheer joy that he really was only crying about the puzzle, and then had to catch myself before he thought I was laughing at him, which would have (justifiably) started another round of crying. I took a minute to think about how to respond to this – we don’t usually call things ‘stupid’ in our house, and we usually try to tell the kids not to sweat the small stuff, and we usually finish everything we start – you know, all the great life lessons that as parents we are supposed to impart to our kids so they hate us for a while and then come back to us as adults with understanding.

“Rowan,” I said, “I don’t like the puzzle either. It IS stupid. And we do NOT have to finish it.”

“What?” he said. “We really don’t have to finish it?”

“No, Rowan, let’s not worry about it. It’s pretty dumb, and we don’t have to do it.”

He was quiet for a while, and calmed down, and I could feel the relief emanating from his skin. Poor kid, I thought, I’ve already given him a complex about having to finish whatever you start, and he’s not even ten.

After a few moments, he said, “Well, maybe we could at least do the sunglasses, and then we can stop.”

So we did the sunglasses, and we finished the dumb puzzle, and everything was OK. I do think the tears had more to do with moving than with the stupid puzzle, but, God help me, I’m so grateful we cried about the puzzle and not everything else. It really is a stupid puzzle, and all the pieces really are the same.