…but I have to write this one up because it was too sweet. We were getting packed up in preparation to leave to go home today, having had a lovely weekend with my parents and some of their friends in the mountains, My children were excited because Beth, their newest best friend in the whole world (and close friend to my parents), had come back down to spend a little more time with them before we departed.
Beth had joined us for dinner on Saturday night and had brought presents for the children. There were two feather boas for my daughter, who asked what colors they were and then asked her brother straight away which one he wanted. Beth said it was for when you wanted to feel glamorous. I think my son, not entirely sure what the word ‘glamorous’ meant, still wanted to be it because Beth made glamorous sound pretty exciting. (For those of you who don’t know Beth, she makes everything sound exciting.)
The other presents were balls that had light-up components in them when you bounced them. The children wanted to bounce them non-stop, but we had to take them away for adult sanity purposes when we got seated at our table at Outback.
Beth is a very happy, positive person and I’m not really sure how she disengages herself from children, because she speaks child better than actual children do. My children had invited her to move in with us by the end of the night I think. I didn’t disagree, we were all having fun with Beth.
But this isn’t getting to the main point of this post, which involves my son and Beth when she came back today to see the children again before we left. I was packing up when I heard a game of hide and seek beginning on the floor below. It would appear my children were the hiders with Beth being the seeker. I knew this because I listened to Beth count in language after language after language. Some of them you’d predict such as English, Spanish or Japanese. What you wouldn’t guess were things like Tibetian Himalayan or Donkey.
She finally reached the agreed upon counting number and then went hunting for the children. The floor they were on was at the bottom of the house—a mountain house—which means it was both the entry level and the smallest level. But Beth was looking and looking. And eventually she found the children.
A few minutes later and everyone was upstairs except for my son, who called up to me to come downstairs for a minute. I called back, “I’m packing up, can you come to me?” He said he couldn’t, that it was sort of something he needed me to come there to help with. He didn’t sound upset or worried. Just that he needed me.
I came down to find him in the room they’d been staying in, now completely empty of their belongings as I’d already packed them up. He was holding his pants in his hand, having nothing on but his shirt and some socks. He said he had been really committed to his hiding place and he’d wet in his pants during the whole process of remaining hidden.
We’ve never shamed the children for wetting their pants and I can’t remember the last time my son did so. I told him I’d be back with some clothes from the car, to wait there. He handed me the pants and I got a second surprise—they weren’t wet, they were drenched. I had to give him points for dedication, he wasn’t giving up his hiding place, even if that meant his pants would suffer.
I came upstairs and sent my husband for the pants while I got a bag for the wet ones. And I called Beth to the corner and whispered to her what had happened. She, my mother and I were all giggling because it was just too sweet. I told Beth he didn’t get that into hide and seek with just anyone, that she was special. Beth said she’d been saying how her nose had been tickling and she just could’t keep from sneezing and she was doing all sorts of trickery to try and get my son to reveal his hiding location. Committed my son was to winning the game.
So son, when you read this in fifteen years and realize I told everyone about you wetting your pants at seven during an intense game of hide and seek, I hope you can forgive me.
The Big Boy Update: My son wrote Beth a thank you note today with a picture of him (I think?) wearing the feather boa she gave him. He said he hoped she would come to see us. (Hear that, Beth? The invitation is open from the whole family.)
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter wrote Beth a thank you note on her brailler and then She stuck crystals on it with double-stick tape. I translated the braille to text on her note so Beth could read it. Beth has said she’s going to hang it on her mantle. I’m not sure there could be higher praise.
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