Hide 'n' Seek

I found myself on my knees again, and not in the fun way. My hair was gelled and still dripping wet, I was half-dressed tearing through my living room looking under the skirts of my couch and loveseat trying to locate my deodorant. The little thief had struck again playing her amusing game of hide ‘n’ seek, and I was her latest victim.

I knew this petty theft was going to be a problem around the time she turned a year old. While cleaning her toy room I found two pairs of Jeff’s socks, one of Fozzy’s bandanas, and a package of my maxipads. Rachael regularly rifles through the middle drawer in my bathroom, as I’m trying to get ready, and pulls everything out. She will then line all of the items up on the tile ledge of the tub. I have to hand it to her; it’s quite a cool display of perfume bottles, hand cream, eye drops for the dog, and whatever else she can find. The only conflict comes when she decides to hide things, and of course, it’s never Fozzy’s eye drops.

I once heard Jerry Seinfeld on a talk show referring to his two kids as “evil, little leprechauns” after they tried flushing his car keys down the toilet. At the time I was childfree and thought that statement was terrible, now I want to correct you Mr. Seinfeld; children are not evil, little leprechauns, they are scheming, mischievous, evil, little leprechauns! I am convinced that the only reason children get a chance to live past age two is because they are very cute. Even when Rachael is at her worst I find it hard to keep the smile off my face.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the lining up of the toiletries that gets to me and earns Rachael the “evil leprechaun” status, it’s the hiding things, particularly things I need that I happen to find missing when I need them. After several minutes of endless searching, I had to resort to the rather unpleasant task of looking for a new deodorant in the odorous Rubbermaid tub at the bottom of the hall closet. When we moved back in January, we took all of the toiletries that we didn’t use along with the extra stuff we got on sale at Costco and threw it in a Rubbermaid tub. To top it off we threw half-used shampoo bottles, decorative soaps, and a shit load of the tiny bottles you find in hotel bathrooms (because my husband can’t leave someplace without a million of those) in the mix. Now the tub of extra toiletries has a weird squeaky clean, stinky smell to it, which is probably why it hasn’t been unpacked yet. The tub kind of reeks of that junior high kid who just got their first bottle of cologne or perfume and decided to wear half the damn bottle to school on a muggy, Spring day.

After digging through the putrid smelling tub, I was able to find a spare deodorant and a new tube of toothpaste. Unfortunately, the deodorant was broken, so within minutes, I was back on my knees, again, not in the fun way, on a seek and destroy mission for the magical formula that would keep me smelling powder fresh all day. I finally found it in the formal living, or as I refer to it – the enormous waste of space – underneath the chair. Sitting next to my dispenser of Secret was one of Rachael’s binkies that we haven’t seen in months.

I had a suspicion that she was stashing those fucking things everywhere, that way when I finally work towards breaking her away from them, she can go to one of the many household hiding places, pull one out and waggle it in front of me with victory. During my search I found two more binkies, which now greatly advances my conspiracy theory.

I’m told by other mommies with older children that this hide ‘n’ seek phase subsides around the middle to third quarter of the second year, but I’m not taking any chances. From now on, along with all things toxic and non-digestible, I’m putting essential things away where Rachael cannot reach them. The only drawback to this plan is that my daughter, who honest to goodness only had a one in four chance of being tall hit the genetic lotto, and grows two inches at a time. She is already opening the top drawers in my bathroom and can reach the items on the edges. The other day she spilled half of my pricey, Clinique daily facial cream on the floor and took off running, because she knew I was right behind her ready to slam dunk her into the timeout room. Yes, I’m one of those freaky timeout moms, but I have a good reason for using this method. My daughter responds to spankings two ways: she either continues to cry louder, which I don’t want to hear or she will reach back, laugh, and slap me on the hand. She hates timeout the most, so that’s what I do, until the day I can ground her.

I don’t plan to participate in hide ‘n’ seek tomorrow, and took the necessary precautions by moving my deodorant to the back of the top drawer in my bathroom. I’m under no illusions that my evil leprechaun has abandoned her scheming ways, so for now I’m being cautious, keeping my bedroom door closed and praying like hell that she never decides to venture into the top drawer of my bedside nightstand.