It's All About Strategy

To play a game well, you need strategy. My kids, especially Pax, are too young to understand this concept, and it is just plain funny.

Tonight's game was Hide and Go Seek. Pax would count to 10, then go find his sister who was hiding, in an average hiding spot, and then it would be Pax's turn to hide. He would hide in the EXACT same spot as he just found his sister in, and the kicker was he didn't even wait until she had started counting to head off in that direction.

I tried to help him out by giving him a new spot to hide in. This led to Pax giving himself up after Delanie looked for him for a grand total of 15 seconds. He just couldn't stop giggling when she would look somewhere and he wasn't there...all you would hear were snickers coming from a hiding spot leading to him.

If Delanie played along and acted like she didn't know where he was, then he would pop out of the hiding place to see where exactly she was looking and try to quickly get back into his spot before she saw him.

It was bad....really bad.

Then right before bed, I came up the stairs to give the little guy a hug. Scott told him to quickly go and hide to see if he could scare me. Scott helped him find a spot right behind the door to our bedroom. I played along and looked all over the bedroom for him. Pretending I was getting worried, the whole bit. Meanwhile, he never snickered once or gave himself up by popping out of his spot. I couldn't believe it. In just a short amount of time he finally figured it out.

I went behind the door to uncover his hiding spot, and as I pulled the door back and almost yelled "BOO" at him I noticed why he wasn't snickering or popping in and out of hiding...He had his eyes covered the whole time. He was still hiding. Don't you remember that rule: If I can't see you, you can't see me.

We stood there for about 1 minute. Me staring right at him, he still hiding behind his closed eyes. Sometimes I forget how young he still is. Even though I know he isn't even 3 yet, because he plays all of Delanie's games and is pretty independent, I forget that he isn't the same age as she is.

Standing there staring at my little man with his eyes covered "hiding" from mommy, I realized that at 2 1/2 there is no strategy, just plain having fun. He didn't care that he was being found, just that he was playing.

I wish I had the same perspective sometimes.