Finding Damo

Birthday fun.

When my daughter came home from school today she found this stuck to the front door.

This is Fia:

O and her friend had to use all of their detective skills to find the toys and return them to the bed before… well, before Fia got some probably much deserved rest and quiet.

The girls looked at the first clue.

“24. That could be an advent calendar!” they exclaimed after a bit of postulating, and off they went. I sighed in relief. Not too difficult then. Behind the Advent Calendar, the second clue awaited them.

Some of the pedants out there might notice that this is not actually a Beanie Boo. I had more clues than I had Beanie Boos, so the panda kindly stepped in. The Rainbow Bears were less accommodating. I had to bribe them.

This clue reads:

It’s been a hard day’s night
And I’ve been working like a dog.
So it’s time to unwind with a good back rub

“To the massage table!” O cried.

This is where I should have thought through the clues. Our next bear was downstairs. Luckily, some verbal clues from helpful parents sent them in the right direction. I need to workshop clues in the future. “Ahem, flowers,” I said. “What do you do with them?”

“Cut them up and put them in a vase?” said O’s friend, who was turning out to be a very competent detective.

“To the vase!” yelled O.

I’d alternated the clues, sending the girls up the stairs and down the stairs, to make it seem like a longer and more involved treasure hunt. This proved very effective.

Easy. There’s only one window looking over next doors’ fence. Back upstairs.

This really should have referenced a computer somehow, but seeing as neither of the girls had been born for WarGames, I left the clue as a literal thing. “To the games cupboard!”

Notice Catan Jr in the background? That’s right. We indoctrinate early in this house! The Apple in the box clue took them awhile. And then O had no idea where she kept the box for the iPad, but we got there in the end. I felt a bit bad stuffing a turtle in a box. It had overtones of pet burials from our childhood (surely a turtle gets a box, not a flushing).

This next one was exciting for me as a parent.

“In the wild I hide in the forests. In this house, there’s only one place to hide that’s similar.”

“Hmm,” Miss O said. “What’s similar to a forest?” It’s Christmas. There’s a whopping great Christmas Tree in the front room. I thought it would be obvious. “Wait! To the library!”

“What? Why?”

“Books used to be forests.” Duh. We had just shown her Silence in the Library (Doctor Who).

“Ohhhh. Ok. Try being more literal.”

“The, um, the Christmas Tree?”

“They say it’s dangerous to hide inside a fridge. But this is only a very little one. I’m sure it’ll be OK.”

This photo didn’t turn out well. That’s what the note says. I have a little one-can fridge for cooling Coke cans powered by USB. I left the door open a crack (What? You don’t want the raccoon to suffocate, do you?). They still had a look in the real fridge, and O’s friend was sure it was an esky, before I said we didn’t have one.

Don’t try this at home kids! I thought this next clue would be easy. Magic, wizard, wizard hat, too big for a Beanie Boo. No problems. But sometimes a detective can be too clever for their own good. These two gave me too much credit as a clue-master.

“Gandalf was in the Hobbit. She must be hidden next to the Hobbit book!”

At this point I was in trouble. I’d “hidden” a Rainbow Bear on a bookshelf in plain sight. I really didn’t think this through. “Umm, don’t look at the Bear. That one’s for later. What is Gandalf?”

On the right track again, they found the cutest looking wizard I think I’ve ever seen.

A quick advertisement. My lovely wife made this hat for me. It’s spectacular. The octo-wizard sent the girls back up stairs, to find the next critter, nice and safe and cosy sleeping where any cat would sleep given a chance…

Fia the Dog, meanwhile was enjoying the peace and quiet, not realising that karma was creeping up behind her with a Nerf bat.

Finally, the girls were legitimately allowed to find Rainbow Bear (2? 2, I think. I can’t tell them apart).

And then to find the final Rainbow Bear, somewhere near water.

“The fish pond?”

“Oh. No, that would be mean,” I said.

“The sink? The dog’s water bowl? The washing machine?”

This is the last one and, I thought, the easiest. “Where in the house is there enough water to swim?”

“Ah,” Miss O’s friend said, as the party girl herself kept reeling off answer after answer. “The bath.”

A few more answers later, the bath answer filtered through and they dashed upstairs again. All of the toys had been found and there was to be a party on the bed.

I’m sure (ahem) that Fia was very happy to see all of her friends returning to the bed, and they all piled on to show her how much they missed her while they were away. Did you notice the dog’s expression change at all?

Sorry, this has been a really weird post. But I had fun, and the kids enjoyed it immensely.

If I don’t get back on here before Christmas, have a good one, and I’ll see you in 2015!