The kid loves puzzles.

Alphabet puzzles, number puzzles, animal puzzles, etc. If he’s not begging to watch Winnie the Pooh or read his Thomas the Tank Engine book, he’s carrying a puzzle over and sitting on my lap to do it.

Unfortunately for me, watching him do puzzles is excruciating.

The last puzzle I remember doing featured Jabba the Hutt, C-3P0 and Princess Leia in a gold bikini. I don’t remember much else about that thing, but I suspect if I wore a blindfold and did a three-minute keg stand, I could still finish it faster than my son can complete his slotted board of letters.

He’s not dumb, he’s just two, which means he’s easily distracted. It’s not particularly easy to get a two-year-old to finish anything, from a meal to a bath to putting his shoes on, let alone a puzzle. He’ll often start singing a song in the middle that may or may not have to do with the task at hand (I honestly can’t tell what the hell he’s saying half the time), he’s probably shit his pants more than once during the process, and sometimes he may need to be tossed into time-out in the middle.

I am not entirely sure how children under ten are diagnosed with ADD and ADHD and all that stuff, since I’ve never met a kid that can sit still for more than a few minutes. I strongly suspect that these doctors just get so frustrated during appointments – kids are so annoying! – they just throw up their hands and prescribe Ritalin or Adderall or whatever the latest “concentration” drug is.

Aside from not having the stamina to stick with a puzzle, my son struggles with putting the pieces in their proper places. If this were a game of Operation he’d be a smoking corpse by now. Or else the operating table would be smashed into bits, because if he can’t get something to fit, he makes it fit.

I admire his tenacity. But it’ll be a while before I let him go anywhere near any cool Star Wars themed puzzles. They’re valuable.

Especially the ones with scantily clad women in them. Not that I own several or anything.