Hide and Seek

“I’m going to hide in my room!” Zuzu shouted joyfully to Grammie and me during our game of hide-and-seek, and ran off. Grammie counted nice and loudly, then we went to Zuzu’s room to find her. She was on the bed, sitting straight up, with a blanket over her head. She was very quiet and didn’t move while Grammie pretended to search all the corners of the room. With difficulty I muted my laughter. Did Zuzu believe she was out of sight? Why didn’t she at least crouch? Finally she couldn’t take it anymore and cried out from under the blanket, “I’m right here!”

Later, after Grammie had left, it was my turn to hide. Zuzu told me all the places where she wanted me to hide, then scurried away while I put myself in those places, then ran back and found me. Finally she ordered me to hide in her room. She walked with me all the way to her room, even closing the door behind me. A few seconds later she came in to find me—and didn’t see me. She must have expected me to sit on the bed and put a blanket over my head. Instead I sat behind her little dresser—in plain sight, had she bothered to walk into her room a few more steps. But in confusion she left her room, and began to look for me all over the house. I could hear her as she went, wondering aloud where mommy was hiding. At first I thought maybe she was pretending, the way Grammie and I had pretended earlier to draw out the search. But I could tell she was gradually becoming more distressed. So finally I called out, “here I am!” She didn’t hear me, and her cries were becoming louder and more pitiful. I wasn’t ready to reveal myself yet, because I thought the whole thing was funny. I kept calling to her, but hadn’t managed to get her to hear me, when the garage door went up. “Oh, there is daddy, I will ask him!” she said out loud. And that’s when Anders walked in, home from work, to find little Zuzu with a tear-stained face and no idea where I was. I got up out of my hiding spot and came out quickly so he wouldn’t panic.

All this time Bear was playing happily on the living room floor.