Just to be clear, I am not responsible for any children that you guys have as a result of reading this thread!
The latest update is that it was rainy around here a bit yesterday and that put the kibosh on any outside adventures. But that didn't stop her from insisting that we have another one. So this time we rescued a little ceramic frog from the cabinet where my wife keeps her collection of little ceramic animals.
This required a key that could only be obtained from The Tall Doggy (a little dog puppet perched atop one of the flagpoles on her little "castle tent" that's set up in her playroom). But first she had to get through The Magic Gate (that'd be the Baby Gate set up at the top of the stairs). She made it through the Magic Gate by virtue of a Magic Wand given to her by Binky the Gnome who lives in the bottom of a large potted tree in the foyer.
Once through the Magic Gate, we made our way upstairs to see The Tall Doggy but, alas, he was too tall for her to reach the key he offered so he advised her to visit the Troll Wizard down in the living room to see if he had a solution. The Troll Wizard was happy to help her in exchange for having a thorn removed from his foot, which she extracted with a pair of tweezers that she carried in her Backpack.
Thrilled to have the thorn removed, the Troll Wizard offered her two potions. One would make you really tall and the other would make you really small. She took these and immediately ran back upstairs to The Tall Doggy. She quaffed the Tall potion immediately (it was apple juice in a tiny little bottle) and I raised her up high enough to reach the key. Then it was back downstairs to discover that the Magic Gate that led to the basement was again closed.
It didn't take her long to figure out that she needed to use the Small potion to let her squeeze through the gate (the Magic Wand was a one-use item). With that done, she got back downstairs, climbed atop a stool and freed the froggy from his prison. Quest completed!
What I learned from this latest adventure was that, considering my audience, I can slap these things together VERY quickly if I don't mind winging it a fair bit. With all the toys she has accumulated over the years, it is easy to find props for the various stuff I want to include. But she does really like using the Map so I may still have to take the time to make one of those in the future.
Even though I'm unabashedly grooming my daughter for life as a gamer, my wife has been very happy with all of this. She thinks the puzzles and things that I'm coming up with are fun and good for her development. What thrills me (but shouldn't surprise me) is how naturally the roleplaying comes to her. She looks at the critter that is supposedly doing the talking instead of me. And if I'm not quick enough or verbose enough with my responses, she says, "Talk him, Daddy!"
It's a bit gloomy here right now but they say it is supposed to warm up and get sunny later today so I'd better have something worked up for when she gets home from preschool!