Hiding

Lately Paul loves to hide from us. He hides in the closet, under the bed, and behind the door. Sometimes he hides by secretly following us around the house. No matter how he hides, the outcome is always the same -- he gleefully jumps out and surprises us and then recounts his tale of glory, listing all the places he was that we didn't see him. Since he doesn't read this blog, I can tell you that we almost always have seen him but didn't want to spoil his fun. But sometimes we are surprised.

Today when I picked up Paul at his friend Evan's house, he was hiding again. Evan's yard has a tall pine tree that lost several branches in the the big snow storms. Over the past couple of days the boys have been building a fort out of those limbs and Paul has taken to hiding in there when I come to get him. The entrance faces away from the stairs that I use to go up to the house, but today I walked out in the yard to get a better look at how big the fort has become.

As I looked, a hand shot up out of the fort and scared me.

And then a cute little face peeped out to see if I was there.
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When he saw me looking at him, he knew the game is up, at least until tomorrow.