Thinking Outside the Basket

Maybe it's all kids - but my kids don't really "think outside the box." They are fans of routine and schedules (which I think is true of all kids to varying degrees). I'm sure some of this is because they have a mom who plans her spontaneity. Flexibility is not a word that comes easily to my vocabulary. I try to be flexible, and have certain degrees of success - but it's almost always a stretch for me.

I see this trait played out in my kids' lives in different ways every day. Today we were playing hide-and-seek in the basement. I typically hide in one of three places... in the bedroom closet, behind the laundry room door, or in the shower. So, after the boys count to ten (or to thirty-seventeen if Asher's counting), the first three places they look are the bedroom closet, behind the laundry room door, and in the shower. If I'm not in one of those three places, they are stumped and go look again at all three places - maybe to make sure I'm not being tricky and hiding in the soap dish in the shower. I mixed it up today and hid behind the bathroom door. After about 5 minutes of looking (at the same 3 spots), the boys were stumped... so I started making bird noises and finally, they found me. When it was my turn to hide again, I thought I'd make it ridiculously easy - but not hide in one of the normal spots... so I "hid" standing in the laundry room, with the lights on, with a laundry basket over my head. Mind you, it's a rather short laundry basket, which really only covered my head and shoulders. It is full of cutouts. Not a great hiding place. Ezra and Asher walked into the laundry room, looked behind the door, and headed out. They looked in the other usual spots, came back to the laundry room, looked behind the door again, headed out once again. Finally, on their third trip into the laundry room, Ezra finally spotted me. I suppose I need to work on the boys' super-sleuth skills... and teach them to look for the woman standing the middle of the room with a laundry basket on her head laughing - those tend to be good clues when trying to find a hiding mom.