#80 Done

On Friday, as planned, I headed over to my coworker S's house to help prep for Little M's 4th birthday party and the scavenger hunt I had planned. Thursday night I had made 4 clue cards with pictures of the stealing character Swiper from Dora the Explorer, Little M's favorite show. He "swiped" her presents and hid them around the house! How mean!

S and I finished hanging some streamers, blowing up balloons, and headed out to pick up the munchkin from her daycare. S had set up the scavenger hunt before I got there, and as soon as we got the kiddo home, we realized what a hard time we were going to have keeping her and her friends from finding them out of order while we waited for the last one to arrive. We kept having to chase them out of or away from the four hiding spots (her toy mailbox, behind the couch, in the freezer, and in a dollhouse). The last one finally arrived and went straight for the dollhouse, so we had to scoot the three of them outside to get the first clue, which had fallen out of the mailbox and onto the ground behind it. After getting them to hunt around for a few seconds, one of the girls found it, and S asked who could read it. After a bit of being distracted, Little M said she'd read it.

S: What's it say, M?
LM: "It says...vanilla, that's what it says," she answered, beaming as she handed it back to her mother. Haha, from the mouths of babes. So S read the clue instead, and the kids took off back into the house to search behind the couch. Luckily they aren't quite reading yet, because S had put the "Congratulations, you found them all!" clue behind the couch! I can't blame her, she only had two cups of coffee. We winged what it said and sent the kids off on the rest of the hunt. They found the cups and Tangled wigs hidden in the other two spots, and then it was time for dinner and cake. Pizza went in the oven, and the other girls and moms went to the kitchen. Little M stayed behind and started to put her wig in a free space under the TV. She looked up to me and asked if it was okay for her to put it there.

Me: It's okay as long as you remember where you left it.
LM: Swiper's not gonna steal it, is he?
I had to reassure her that no, Swiper was gone and wasn't going to take anything else. I hope I didn't make her too paranoid with the hunt theme. We had pizza and cake (homemade by S!), put the kids to bed with a movie, and I headed back home. It's amazing how much three four year olds can wear you out, even when they're not yours. I sympathize with their mothers. Those kids have boundless energy.

I decided I'm cutting back from 50 games completed to 25. I'm gonna try and finish more if I can, but that's slightly less than 1 game per month, and much more managable than 2 per month. I finished Donkey Kong Country for the Wii on Saturday evening and might be trading it in. It's more than a bit disappointing since the DKC games are some of my favorites. DKC1 was the first console game I ever owned and DKC3 is one of my favorite games of all times. They could be frustrating, but they were still great fun. This one, made by a different group than the others, was still enjoyable for the most part up until the end. The last set of levels depended on cheap tricks, extremely difficult techniques, and just overall unenjoyable stages. It went from being relatively fair and balanced to just frustrating and no longer fun between stage 7-9 and 8-1. I don't mind a challenge, but having to bang my head against a cheap mechanic 15, 20, 30 times, all while a character at the starting point is offering the option to let you watch while it runs through the parts you're stuck at. Basically, the game flat out tells you "Wow, you're bad at this" after you mess up a few times, which is MORE than easy. That frustrated me more than anything else about this game. I sincerely hope if they continue the series that they remove that mechanic. I'd rather bang my head against a hard stage 50 times and get it on my own than have the game tell me I suck by giving me the option to let it play itself.