#969 - Hide & Seek

Hide & Seek with a 3-year-old

When your daddy's a preacher and your house is a stone's throw away from the church, it's inevitable that you spend a large amount of time inside the church building. This morning was one of those times.

I was finishing up the bulletin, and the only thing left was Daniel's articles. As he sat down to type them, Riley looked at me and said, "Let's play hide & seek!" I said that I'd love to and then gave him some boundaries as to where he could and couldn't hide.

The game began with him hiding and me counting. When I finished counting, I left the office where I was working and began walking down the hall toward the sanctuary. And there standing in the doorway of the sanctuary was my son. He said, "Here I am!" I laughed and then tried to explain the concept of "hiding."

So then it was my turn to hide. I went into the choir room (which is beside the office where we were counting) and hid. While I was hiding I heard, "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, eighteen, thirteen, ready or not, here I come!" Again, I laughed to myself and thought, we really need to work on sixteen through twenty! I then heard, "Mama, where are you??" Daniel said, "She's not going to tell you where she is! You have to go find her!" So Riley ran down the hall toward the sanctuary, and I heard him in there saying, "Mama! Mama, where are you?" Daniel convinced him to try the choir room and ta-da, he found me!

The game continued with us going back and forth between hiding and seeking. Every time he 'hid,' I'd find him standing in the middle of a room or hallway, and every time he was supposed to find me, he'd yell out, "Mama, where are you?" So, maybe he doesn't quite get the concept of the game yet, but we sure did have a good time laughing and enjoying each other!