Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Aubrey is VERY good at hide and seek, so good, in fact, that she has made my heart race a few different times in the last week. The first time we discovered her 19-month-old talent at this game was right after dinner one evening last week. Greg was working on something out in the garage. Kari and Joel were out in the garage and playing out front, and I was inside cleaning up dinner with Aubrey inside with me. I realized at one point that the house had gotten really quiet, and any parent of little ones knows that's not usually a good sign. I looked around and didn't see her. I started calling her name--no response. I looked in all the rooms--nothing. Huh, strange. I went out to the garage and asked Greg if Aubrey had somehow made her way out there with them. Nope. Greg searched the front yard and then the back. Panic started setting in. We came inside, still calling her name, looking in all the nooks and crannies and favorite hiding spots. More panic. Could she have gone outside somehow without anyone knowing? Then finally, I looked again in the bathroom off our room and saw two little legs peeking out from behind a towel hanging on wall.

"Aubrey!" I said, relieved. "There you are!" Still not a peep, didn't move a muscle.

"Greg!" I called, "I found her!"

She still had not moved or made a sound. The panic was subsiding and the hilarity of the situation was rising. We stood there laughing, and she stood there completely still behind the towel, unwilling to reveal herself. I discovered the reason when I lifted the towel and saw my eyeliner drawn all over her guilty, serious little face.

The second time she hid I was able to find her quickly, but the third time caused some panic. We were getting ready to leave my parents' house after Blake birthday celebration, and we couldn't find Aubrey. Their house is a lot bigger than ours with many more places to hide. We were searching all over the house, once again calling her name over and over with no response. We hadn't been outside much, so we didn't really think she could have gotten out. Because she'd done this twice earlier in the week, I was fairly certain she was just hiding somewhere in the house, but when you've been searching for a few minutes, you start to consider all the possibilities. After running up and down stairs and looking in every corner, we finally found her. Blake spotted her crouching under Grandma's big desk in the family room, hiding behind the chair. She'd been watching us look for her and listening to us call her name the whole time without saying a word. Crazy girl! This time she wasn't really doing anything bad--just trying, unsuccessfully, to do her "business" in private, I think.

I know Kari and Joel were never that good at hiding (still aren't), so it makes me wonder what we're in for with this one! Oh boy!