One, Two, Or Not!

Mia’s newest obsession is with the game of Hide and seek.  She is not only quite an avid participator, but she is much more adept at the game than Toby ever was at such an early age.  She has come up with a few hiding spots that are, although not ingenious, quite sufficient at hiding enough of her to make a game out of it.  Then again, it doesn’t get much worse than hiding in the middle of the room (which Toby used to do, triumphantly, during his games of Hide and Seek).

The other night, though, her true hide and seek sense of humour came through.  I got home for a very brief interval between my regular office day and my night shift in the after hours clinic.  I had initially planned to stay at work but called at he last minute to say I’d be home for a short time to hang out with my family.

I burst through the doors to a dead quiet, empty house and was greeted only by a very serious Mia who was eerily standing alone in the front hall.

“Where is everyone?” I asked, slightly disappointed that they weren’t all around to hang out with me in my brief interlude at home.

But Mia’s next expressive and overly enunciated word explained it all,

“HIDING!!!” she said in an excited whisper and threw her chubby little finger up to her lip to emphasize her point before covering her eyes with both hands and quickly reciting her Hide and seek mantra, “One….two…OR NOT!”

AHA!  So Rob WAS excited to see me.  SOOO excited, in fact, that he and Toby were making a game out of it.  This was EXACTLY what I needed and why it is worth the extra driving!

I quickly dropped all of my work stuff, grabbed her hand and set of about the house  reciting the phrase, whith childish flare, “Wheeeeere’s DADDY?   Wheeeeere’s TOBY?” while I looked in all of the obvious hiding spots.

I believe I was looking under our bed, bum in the air, a giggling Mia by my side, when Rob and Toby came stomping up the stairs, loudly declaring their whereabouts (they had been in the basement getting something out of the freezer for dinner) and blatantly dissolving the imaginary game of hide and seek that Mia had so ingeniously invented.

“What are you looking for?”  My uber-practical husband asked expectantly.

“You?”  I answered sheepishly…

Sometimes life is just more fun seen through the eyes of a 20 month old…