My Little One's Special Little Place
Just before Easter, I set out on a mission with No. 5 son (age 5) to scout the best places to hide our annual Easter treats: the eggs; the chocolate; the jellybeans; the extra chocolate; the beer ("Hey, kids, look what the bunny brought Daddy!"); and the Rolaids (for Mommy, who every Easter religiously consumes the entire supply of emergency extra chocolate.)
We quickly ruled out several potential hiding spots, starting with No. 3 son's bedroom. See, even though photographic evidence exists proving this room contains furniture, bedding, and carpeting, exactly 0% of it is presently visible. Every surface is covered in a careless – yet strangely artistic – mosaic of clothes, audio gear, fallen posters, and half-eaten bowls of those yellowy orange fish shaped crackers.
(By the way, since No. 3 son isn't even eleven years old yet, I've started describing his room - with apologies to The Who - as a "Tweenage Wasteland.")
Anyway, No. 5 and I decided that everybody's bedroom should be off-limits to hidden Easter treats. After all, he said, "You prolly don't want Mommy looking under your bed and axdentlee finding that ESPN magazine with lotsa pitchers of Danica Patrick."
Smart kid.
But there was more to it than that. No. 5 also doesn't want anyone snooping around in HIS room, and finding HIS special place. I thought he meant the rocking chair, which becomes a special place every night at bedtime, when he curls up in Mommy's lap to hear exciting and creative stories, such as how Daddy explained the Danica Patrick pitchers under the bed to Mommy.
But the chair isn't No. 5's special place. It's the space behind the chair. There, scattered on the rug, is what can only be described as an eclectic collection of items that No. 5 considers vitally precious, including:
> A neatly folded poster of Darth Vader. It's hidden so that "no one will know that I like Star Wars a little bit." I guess he figures no one has ever noticed his other "secret" Star Wars stuff - the 247 action figures strewn about the house, his Star Wars sneakers, his Star Wars sunglasses, his life-size poster of Princess Leia in that skimpy courtesan costume. Wait, never mind, that's mine.
> A "tape ball." It's a wadded-up hunk of packing tape, and it's special "because I play with it and it sticks to my hands." I knew this precious item was behind the chair, because he comes to me two or three times a week crying for a new one. They keep "walking away" from his hiding spot. Literally. They stick to the cat when she falls asleep in No. 5's special place.
> A sheet of stickers from the role-playing card game and TV show called Yu-Gi-Oh. No. 5 excitedly told me that this sheet is special because one of the stickers depicts a Yu-Gi-Oh creature "that's rilly, RILLY cute." The sheet is missing half its stickers, and as the seconds ticked by without No. 5 discovering the RILLY cute one that he especially likes, it dawned on me - where's the cat?
Sure 'nuf, it was stuck to her, but I carefully peeled it off, and only got bit twice. Now it's back where it belongs, on No. 5's sticker sheet. And there's a bonus: No. 5 has no idea what this rilly, RILLY cute Yu-Gi-Oh creature's name is, but now, thanks to some stray cat fur, he calls it "Fuzzy."
> Three baseballs. No. 5 hoards these "because I like baseball," and also because all three balls are autographed. One is a freebie I received at work, with a mechanically applied signature reading "Oprah." There's one he had me sign, but not with my name, or "Daddy"; he made me write "Babe Ruth."
His favorite is the ball signed for one of his brothers at a minor league baseball game, by a guy whose autograph appears to read "F#a$} Yi<]&." After I failed for about the 300th time to decipher this scrawl, No. 5 shouted that he'd figured out the player's name: "Fuzzy Yugioh!"
> And the final treasure hidden in No. 5's special place - something he rilly, RILLY didn't want me to see, and for which he still owes me an explanation: his own copy of ESPN magazine with lotsa pitchers of Danica Patrick.
TakefiveT5@yahoo.com.
We quickly ruled out several potential hiding spots, starting with No. 3 son's bedroom. See, even though photographic evidence exists proving this room contains furniture, bedding, and carpeting, exactly 0% of it is presently visible. Every surface is covered in a careless – yet strangely artistic – mosaic of clothes, audio gear, fallen posters, and half-eaten bowls of those yellowy orange fish shaped crackers.
(By the way, since No. 3 son isn't even eleven years old yet, I've started describing his room - with apologies to The Who - as a "Tweenage Wasteland.")
Anyway, No. 5 and I decided that everybody's bedroom should be off-limits to hidden Easter treats. After all, he said, "You prolly don't want Mommy looking under your bed and axdentlee finding that ESPN magazine with lotsa pitchers of Danica Patrick."
Smart kid.
But there was more to it than that. No. 5 also doesn't want anyone snooping around in HIS room, and finding HIS special place. I thought he meant the rocking chair, which becomes a special place every night at bedtime, when he curls up in Mommy's lap to hear exciting and creative stories, such as how Daddy explained the Danica Patrick pitchers under the bed to Mommy.
But the chair isn't No. 5's special place. It's the space behind the chair. There, scattered on the rug, is what can only be described as an eclectic collection of items that No. 5 considers vitally precious, including:
> A neatly folded poster of Darth Vader. It's hidden so that "no one will know that I like Star Wars a little bit." I guess he figures no one has ever noticed his other "secret" Star Wars stuff - the 247 action figures strewn about the house, his Star Wars sneakers, his Star Wars sunglasses, his life-size poster of Princess Leia in that skimpy courtesan costume. Wait, never mind, that's mine.
> A "tape ball." It's a wadded-up hunk of packing tape, and it's special "because I play with it and it sticks to my hands." I knew this precious item was behind the chair, because he comes to me two or three times a week crying for a new one. They keep "walking away" from his hiding spot. Literally. They stick to the cat when she falls asleep in No. 5's special place.
> A sheet of stickers from the role-playing card game and TV show called Yu-Gi-Oh. No. 5 excitedly told me that this sheet is special because one of the stickers depicts a Yu-Gi-Oh creature "that's rilly, RILLY cute." The sheet is missing half its stickers, and as the seconds ticked by without No. 5 discovering the RILLY cute one that he especially likes, it dawned on me - where's the cat?
Sure 'nuf, it was stuck to her, but I carefully peeled it off, and only got bit twice. Now it's back where it belongs, on No. 5's sticker sheet. And there's a bonus: No. 5 has no idea what this rilly, RILLY cute Yu-Gi-Oh creature's name is, but now, thanks to some stray cat fur, he calls it "Fuzzy."
> Three baseballs. No. 5 hoards these "because I like baseball," and also because all three balls are autographed. One is a freebie I received at work, with a mechanically applied signature reading "Oprah." There's one he had me sign, but not with my name, or "Daddy"; he made me write "Babe Ruth."
His favorite is the ball signed for one of his brothers at a minor league baseball game, by a guy whose autograph appears to read "F#a$} Yi<]&." After I failed for about the 300th time to decipher this scrawl, No. 5 shouted that he'd figured out the player's name: "Fuzzy Yugioh!"
> And the final treasure hidden in No. 5's special place - something he rilly, RILLY didn't want me to see, and for which he still owes me an explanation: his own copy of ESPN magazine with lotsa pitchers of Danica Patrick.
# # #
TakefiveT5@yahoo.com.
posted by Don Stuart at 3:58 PM
1 Comments:
Don, just checking back in with your blog and this entry was hilarious! Enjoyed it!
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