March of the Hedgehogs
S and I really really really wanted to play with GL's hedgehog collection but we're grown-ups (at least chronologically). So we said we'd "clean them". GL said OK, so we lined them all up in a parade around the living room floor, two by two, or sometimes 3 or 4. Then we arranged them in conversation groups so they could chatter amongst themselves. We even had a spectator section for the flat ones: greeting cards, magazine pages, postcards, gift cards, magnets, tiles. The biggest one is an almost perfect sphere made of brass about 18 inches in diameter, and the tiniest is about 1/4 inch, hanging on a clear plastic thread. She has wooden ones, squeezable plastic ones, resin, glass, hard plastic, pottery, porcelain, clay, leather, acryllic, metal, crystal, enamel boxes, cardboard boxes, silver, chrome, coal, boar bristles, fur, quartz, amber, painted rocks, wax. There's even one made of bread dough. Plus the soft stuffed fabric ones. Puppets, fanny pack, bookmarks, ashtrays, earrings, Christmas ornaments, key chains, candles, drink stirrers, buttons, necklaces, flower pots, boot scrapers, dish towels, books. And then the ones made of seeds, sticks, pine cones, chili peppers. 243 - it was a long parade. Boy, did we have fun!
Note: We did actually wash the shelves and dust each hedgehog as we put them back. And every couple of days afterwards we found another one we had somehow skipped over. So the count keeps going up!
Edit: found another magnet: 244
Edit: found a red leather one on a keychain: 245
Edit: found another tile: 246
Edit: found a card that had fallen behind the radio: 247
Edit: found a deflated balloon hedgehog under some Christmas cards from 2002 (no lie): 248, except that we threw the deflated balloon out, so I suppose that puts us back to 247.