HUNGRY HIPPOPOTAMUS

As a Mother, I must share a bit of advice...be careful what you put on your adorable toddler's gift wishlist. The title alone should have tipped me off, "Wooden Four-in-One Fishing Log Board". This item has everything my daughter is down with: Colors, shapes, rings, sorting, and counting. Perfect! 85 pieces of perfect. Eighty-five. 8 and 5. There's 4 rows of 10, but the last row is made of little stackable rings, and the rings  are what you get you. Listen, this game is great for kids, but as a parent I've had to pick up 85 pieces 5 times a day for about 4 months now. That's roughly 47,600 little pieces, and her love for dumping this entire game on the floor is growing. I know. It makes me shudder as well.  One day last week though, I got creative. I thought "how can we make this mess a game that tiny people can be tricked into playing?". Hungry Hippo popped into my head! We had 4 toy shovels of various sizes. (Which seems like too many shovels for a 2 year old. What is she burying? I digress.) I grabbed a bowl, tossed some doodles of the shovels in it so we could choose our weapons, and BAM! Success! We've now played Hungry Hippopotamus 5 times, and I'm full.

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