Hide the Baby

Here's David's favorite game to play with Lance. He gets a kick out of finding small & unusual places to hide him. I get a laugh or two, but I do admit that when Lance was only a couple months old I was very distressed by this game. I always panicked when David would say, "Where's Lance?" I made up a few of my own rules mostly having to do with where not to hide the baby. The refrigerator, oven, & microwave were outlawed as hiding places (only after seeing David try to fit Lance in each one). It just didn't seem right to put the baby in the major appliances. Mostly he has been hidden in plain sight & in safe places like under the crib, or on the floor under an upside-down laundry basket. One very obvious hiding place was on the couch with a fortress of pillows around him. He was only a month old at the time & no pillows were on top of him, but as unconcealed as he was, I still completely missed him--thus the distress of the whole game.


My crazy (but wonderful) husband likes to give me a hard time (ALL the time), and one day told me that Lance fit in the fridge perfectly. This & the refrigerator items on the floor gave me great alarm. Looking into the kitchen--which is pretty small--I couldn't see Lance. Of course I yelled at David, & he started laughing. David was holding Lance on the counter top next to the fridge (which was behind the fridge from my vantage point). Whew!! What a scare.


The kitchen cupboard was the most recent hiding place. David was thrilled that Lance fit on the shelf. He held the cupboard closed for baby safety (like that made me feel better), and I could hear a faint scratching from the inside of the cupboard. Lance usually gives away his hiding places with little scratches or faint baby noises (sometimes very loud baby noises). And as you can see, he was fine and actually smiling and laughing at the game. Thankfully, we live in an apartment, & I think David is out of hiding spots. But I must admit that at times I have enjoyed the game. After my initial fear of "what has David thought of now," I usually laugh long and hard at his very creative game.