hide and go seek with james

Nolan (my 21 month old) did not get a good nap, so he headed to bed at 6:00pm. James had other ideas. He was wide awake and raring to go. He and I decided to play hide-and-go-seek. I have no idea where he learned to play, but he had all the details down. He counted to ten, yelled ready or not here I come, and even hide pretty good.

The funny part about playing with my son is that I am a big dude (280 lbs) and there is no real place to hide in the small apartment. So basically I found different places around the house to sit with a blanket over my head. James would finish counting to ten and head to the small living room where I was sitting Indian style, behind a chair, with a green blanket covering me. James would look for me for near 30 seconds before he would see me and then he would scream and run out of the room. He would come back in and does the same thing… see me, scream and run out. Each time he ran in the room he would get a bit braver and a bit closer to me. Finally he would be close enough to reach out and touch me, but instead of just tagging me he would run up and yell, “I want to hide there too daddy”. We would sit in the hiding place for a few minutes giggling until I got bored hiding with no one to find me and just started hugging, kissing , and tickling by son. It was game with an odd mixture of anxiety, fear, screaming, laughter, hugging, kissing, and tickling.

Then James hid. This was even sillier because I would count to ten, walk in the room, and he would start laughing. I would pretend to not know where he was and yell, “James where are you”. He would quickly answer, “Right here Daddy”, start laughing, and run out in front of me. Then he would tell me what a good job I did finding him.