Playing Hide and Seek with my Son

by Melinda
(WA, USA)

Playing Hide and Seek

My son is almost one year-old and he started to walk recently. Needless to say it is much more difficult to look after him now.

It’s impossible for him to remain in the same room of house for more than a few seconds. Even though I worry constantly that he will fall or bump into something, his obvious preoccupations his new ability, is absolutely charming to watch. His whole face lights up as he runs around the house, arms flailing, looking like he will wipe out at any minute.

One day, after being distracted by the newspaper for only a moment, I realized that the little man was no longer in the room. Even worse, the whole house was eerily quiet. I started running thru the house, room by room, calling his name.

You can imagine my panic when I couldn’t find him. Everything remained absolutely quiet! I didn’t know what to think! I was going for the phone to call for help when I heard somebody giggling in the distance.

Was it him? I couldn’t tell where the giggle was coming from… It had to be, no one else was at home. At least I knew he was three, albeit hiding from me. For the next ten minutes he remained absolutely silent. It took me forever to discover his hiding place.

At last I spotted his tiny feet appearing under a pair of curtains. Then, it was my turn to play! I kept on calling his name as I pretended a rampant desperation. It seems that my acting was convincing because after a while my son came out from his hiding place and hugged me. After that, both of us laughed together for about ten minutes.

It seems that the whole experience turned out to be fascinating for the little boy. Since that day he takes every opportunity to hide in any imaginable place and he always celebrates when I play my desperation act. Hide and seek has become our favorite game.

It is amazing playing with my son because, even though he can’t talk yet, we communicate a lot thru hand gestures and facial expressions. I am constantly surprised as how well he expresses himself if I am paying attention! We have build up tremendous trust as we have learned how to communicate non verbally together. For me, is very important to feel capable of understanding him. I feel that by playing games like hide-n-seek together, our relationship grows stronger every day.