# 3 Hide and Seek
This story was written over 10 years ago and many of my friends have already read it, but it's still a good story for any who haven't heard it before. It centers around my youngest daughter, B, when she was about 8 years old, give or take. It may be a bit of an understatement to say that she is a selective eater. (How PC does that sound? Aren't we all glad I didn't say that she was a picky eater? Don't we all feel better? I thought so.) When she was much younger we would kid her by saying she only ate white foods - mashed potatoes, ice cream, milk, ramen noodles, pasta, etc. We don't say it very often any more, but we did when she was little. She loved it. Well...ok...maybe "love" is a bit of an overstatement...but only a bit...I promise.
So without further ado...I give you the Hide and Seek story aka B likes Oreos...
B likes Oreos. Yes, I know, she's a white food eater, and Oreos are black and white, but what can I say? She ventures out every so often. And Oreos are a firmly, placed "like" in the "not-so-white" food column.
Knowing this, her Grandma N gave her a bag of Oreos and a pottery-like, Oreo cookie jar as one of her Christmas presents one year. This jar is shaped like an old-fashioned milk can that they used to use on dairy farms decades ago. It has the Oreo logo on the outside, and the lid is shaped like an Oreo.
After she'd eaten a few Oreos, I placed the rest in the jar and took the jar to her room, placing it on one of the lower shelves.
After she'd eaten a few Oreos, I placed the rest in the jar and took the jar to her room, placing it on one of the lower shelves.
She never noticed it.
Until one weekend a few weeks later. At which point, she decided that she didn't want the cookie jar in her room, so she walked it into the kitchen with the announcement that it belonged there. "I don't want a cookie jar in my room!"
"But it's your cookie jar," I said. "Grandma gave it to you, not us."
"I don't care," she said. And walked out, thinking that the question was closed.
It wasn't. On a lark, when she wasn't around, I walked the jar back into her room, and put it on that same shelf. A day or so later, she saw it, and walked it back into the kitchen. This went on a couple of times back and forth, each of us walking it into the opposite room when the other wasn't looking to see how long it would take for the other one to notice. And each one would laugh when they found it back in the "wrong" room!
Then one night, I come home from work to find the cookie jar in the kitchen again.
"And don't move it back into my room!" B exclaimed.
"Oh, I will. Only this time, I’ll put it in a different place. I’ll hide it, so you can't find it," I told her.
"You better not!" she again exclaimed.
I left the cookie jar in the kitchen that night. The next morning I was putting school lunches together, and got ready to pack a couple of Oreos into B's lunch. Lo, and behold, the cookie jar wasn't in the kitchen!
I looked on the shelf in B’s room where I had been putting it, and it wasn't there either. Was I wrong? Was it in the kitchen and I missed it the first time? Nope, it wasn't there. So I went and asked my son, D, if he had decided that he wanted the Oreo cookie jar for himself.
Um, yeah, suffice it to say that he looked at me like I had lost all my marbles.
And that's when I heard it. A little "tee-hee" coming from the back bedroom. B’s room.
"You didn't!" I said. "Did you hide the cookie jar on me?"
More laughter. That sneaky, "tiny-little-woman," as she likes to call herself. Well, I showed her. She got vanilla wafers in her lunch!
But I couldn't find it. I looked in my room. I looked inside cabinets. I looked in the pantry. I couldn't find it. I even looked in the basement. No cookie jar. And the whole time that I am looking, I’m thinking...
"I’m playing hide and seek with a girl who is legally blind. AND SHE'S WINNING."
No comments:
Post a Comment