Crouching Tiger, Hidden Ian

You see this?


This is my living room.

It's nothing too fancy, just a couch, a couple of chairs, an ottoman, a ladder bookshelf, and a TV (not pictured). I show you this photo, not because I think my living room is wonderfully decorated (I'm working on it). I show you this because you will need it as reference for the rest of this story, so just take a good look and stash it in your memory box.

*****Picture it*****

It's a nice, sunny Saturday afternoon and Dan and I have been straightening up the house. As we tidy up each room and move on to the next, we make sure to close the door to the newly cleaned room. It's a precaution, you see. If we leave the doors open, Ian will crawl into the room, close the door, and then sit right in front of it so that we can't open door. As you can imagine, it's the perfect toddler game, but not so much fun for Mommy and Daddy.

Anyway, once all of the rooms were cleaned, Dan decided to watch some TV in the living room, Ian was playing basketball in the corner next to the TV, and I decided to head into to kitchen to make some lunch.

As I'm preparing lunch, and basking in the glow of our freshly cleaned home, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Ian was crawling away from his basketball game. I didn't give it much thought since I knew that we closed all of the doors in the house, which meant he had to stay in the common area. After a couple of minutes of silence from Ian, I decided to find out what he was doing.

"Pooh", I called out. "What are you doing?"

Silence.

Me: "Dan, is Ian playing basketball over there."
Hubby: "Nah, I think he's behind the couch playing with some of his other toys."

Thanking God for open floor plans, I peer over the counter to sneak a peek at the kid.

Hmm, no Ian.

I glanced down the main hallway to see if he was sitting there playing.

Nothing.

At this point, my heart starts racing a little bit. Where the heck is this kid? I'm nervous, but I'm steadily reassuring myself that it was silly to get worked up over this. Obviously he's in the house, and odds are he's fine.

So now I'm thinking maybe I didn't close one of the doors all the way, and he managed to get into one of the rooms. I checked 2 of the bedrooms, and when I still didn't see the master of hide and seek, I decided to ask Dan to help me find him. After another 15 seconds or so of searching I heard Dan exclaim "Boy! What are you doing there?", and then he proceeds to laugh quite loudly.

I hurriedly head back towards the living room where the noise was coming from, and this is what I saw.


Do you know where he is? Go ahead, refer back to the living room pic. I'll give you a minute.
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Yep, that rascal crawled behind the ladder bookshelf and was quietly crouching behind it. Crouching, I say! He only stood up once Dan saw him. We thought this was so hilarious that, of course, we just had to take a picture.

When will I ever stop underestimating this kid?