{"id":345,"date":"2018-05-22T18:57:11","date_gmt":"2018-05-22T23:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morsepower.net\/?p=345"},"modified":"2018-05-22T19:07:13","modified_gmt":"2018-05-23T00:07:13","slug":"the-eighth-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/?p=345","title":{"rendered":"The Eighth Hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"

For three years running now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been making Mia a scavenger hunt for her birthday to lead her to one of her presents.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought this year I’d actually show it off.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Each clue is in an envelope marked with a number and a letter. \u00c2\u00a0We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll come back to why later. The first clue, as always, is sitting and waiting on the kitchen table. \u00c2\u00a0There are eight envelopes for her eighth birthday. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably break that pattern some time before her 18th birthday.<\/p>\n

The clues are mostly written on pieces of green paper. \u00c2\u00a0Because we had a bunch of green typing paper.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The first clue just says \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fold me\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the middle, with some hopefully-unreadable lines written on the top and bottom reverse side.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Fold it just right, and you get this. She got this without any assistance! Off to a great start!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The second clue is written backwards, and requires the use of a mirror to read.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

She hit her first snag here. \u00c2\u00a0She kept trying to figure out what it said without using a mirror. \u00c2\u00a0I realize that the idea of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mirrors make things backwards\u00e2\u20ac\u009d might not be the first thing that comes to mind when a kid sees backwards writing. \u00c2\u00a0And the clue is solvable without one, just harder. Mommy might have given her a little guidance to take the clue to the bathroom.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The third clue didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work out well. \u00c2\u00a0My goal was to just tell her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153try saying it really fast.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00c2\u00a0I was trying to point her to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dresser drawer in your bedroom.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00c2\u00a0She figured out \u00e2\u20ac\u0153bedroom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d instantly and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dresser\u00e2\u20ac\u009d not long after, but didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really put it together. \u00c2\u00a0Also, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure she realized the big fixture in her room is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dresser.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I need to make sure I confirm her vocabulary before designing these.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The fourth envelope just contained a single Trader Joe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Chocolate Cat Cookie (for people)\u00e2\u201e\u00a2. \u00c2\u00a0The goal was to guide her to the pantry. This mostly worked, but we just moved to a new house and it turns out she had no idea where the nonperishable food was stored. \u00c2\u00a0Apparently she thought I was sourcing her Chocolate Cat Cookies (for people)\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 from the refrigerator.<\/p>\n

Oops. \u00c2\u00a0We had to guide her straight to the pantry door.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Clue number five was, I must admit, too obtuse.<\/p>\n

I had to tell her that LINUX is a kind of computer (shush), which was enough to get her looking in the office.<\/p>\n

\"\"
See it?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The goal being to find the matching bumper sticker on my desk. With a little pointing, she figured it out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This clue envelope contained a single Uno card. \u00c2\u00a0She got this right away, it was pointing her to the board games shelf.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It took, however, a surprising amount of time for her to find the actual envelope.<\/p>\n

In general, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been trying to frame these puzzles as a way of emphasizing the extraordinary progress she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made in school the past couple of years. \u00c2\u00a0The 6th birthday treasure hunt was a lot of pictures, but this one had more actual reading involved. With the penultimate clue, I really leaned into it, because now she can do basic arithmetic! \u00c2\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

She crushed it. \u00c2\u00a0Decoded, it spells \u00e2\u20ac\u0153BEANBAG,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d a clear direction to the bean bag chair she sits on in front of the TV.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The final clue was just the numbers 1 through 8, written in circles the same way they appear on the envelopes. \u00c2\u00a0This was a new gimmick: the envelopes as part of the final clue. But, this was too vague. She never had to keep track of the envelopes before, and her first instinct was to discard them. \u00c2\u00a0This goes to a consistent issue she had with the game; she wanted to move fast<\/i>, but the game was forcing her to slow down. \u00c2\u00a0Perhaps a present is too strong of a motivator. It was actually causing her visible anxiety to stop and re-order the envelopes numerically to get the clue.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

She did, however. \u00c2\u00a0The letters spell out \u00e2\u20ac\u0153WASHDISH,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d leading her to the dishwasher for the actual present. \u00c2\u00a0I spelled it that way because I was worried that if I spelled it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153DISHWASH,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d 1) figure out the letters were spelling a word, 2) find 4 envelopes, 3) realize they spelled DISH, and 4) go straight for the dishwasher and bypass half the game. \u00c2\u00a0This was over-thought; as I mentioned, she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even get past #1. But I still think it was worth it.<\/p>\n

The ultimate reward for this tireless treasure hunt was: a build-it-yourself robot toy!\u00c2\u00a0 Which apparently wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly at the top of her wish list.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Can I have a different present?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Parenthood. \u00c2\u00a0You win some, you lose some.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For three years running now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been making Mia a scavenger hunt for her birthday to lead her to one of her presents.\u00c2\u00a0 I thought this year I’d actually show it off. Each clue is in an envelope marked with a number and a letter. \u00c2\u00a0We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll come back to why later. The first clue, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions\/369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morsepower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}