Hide-And-Seek

My kids love to play hide-and-seek, and they want to play all the time. The funny thing is that they are notoriously bad at hide-and-seek.

When we first started to play, I'd walk around saying, "Where is Nicky? Hmmm, where could Laney be?" It would take one second, then one of them would call out, "I'm here!" They'd come out of their hiding place, almost always the same hiding place, in the closet. The more we played, the more hiding places we found, but always, they would give themselves away before I actually found them -- not that I ever have to really look or anything. They both like to hide under the covers, but they can't lay still. It's just so fun to see the covers rustle and move and ask, "Where's Laney?" She always responds, her voice muffled, "I'm here!" Nicky keeps quiet, but sometimes his foot sticks out.

Nicky, being four, has become better at hiding, but there aren't that many places to hide in the house. However, he's still not a good seeker. Once, Seven hid in a corner with a blanket over him, a very large, out-of-place heap of something, and Nicky walked by ten times.

Before Laney hides, the conversation is often something like this.
"Mommy, look. I hide in my bed."
"Don't tell me. You hide, I won't look."
"No, mommy! Here!"
"I have to find you," I say as she crawls under the covers, fully expecting me to go away and count.

She will also dictate where you should hide when she's the seeker. She'll tell you exactly where to hide, go off to 'count,' then call out, "Mommy, where are you?"

I love listening to kids count. Unfortunately for me, Nicky knows how to count now. I no longer get to hear one, two, then up to nine, twelve, seventeen, twenty, twenty-nine, twenty-twelve. I miss that. I really do. I do get to hear Laney though. She's got her own counting style. One, two, three, four, nine, eight, nine, four, nine! I think she likes the number nine.

Laney is also a group hider. She likes to hide with people. Yesterday, I wanted to hide in a back corner, so I grabbed a blanket and scrunched into the corner behind a bookcase. Laney followed, grabbing her own blanket. There was not enough space for the two of us. She just sat down in front of me, munching on an apple she had in her hand, putting the blanket over hear head. Her feet still stuck out, but at least her head was covered.

Nicky's not the best seeker, but he found us easy enough. I don't know if was the exposed feet or the crunch-crunch of the apple that gave us away.