Conventional wisdom is that you don't have to worry about what your kids are up to if you can hear them playing - it's when they get quiet that you have to worry. When kids cook up mischievous schemes, they think it will help them avoid detection if they are quiet. I just didn't realize how early this starts....
My wife was in the kitchen, I was in my study, and our 11-month-old baby decided to crawl out of the kitchen toward the study - a distance of about four feet. I heard the "pat, pat, pat" of her hands as she headed toward me, then... silence. Only a second or two passed before my wife asked, "Did the baby go into your office?" She hadn't - and she was maintaining complete silence. ("Silent baby" generally translates to "sleeping baby". Their wakeful state is pretty noisy.)
My wife surveyed the kitchen, while I checked the hallway, then we both went into the only possible remaining destination - the living room. Quickly scanning the room, we didn't see the baby. Suddenly the silence was broken with loud peals of baby laughter - she had positioned herself around the corner and against a wall where she was hard to see, but where she could easily see everything in the room. Judging from the volume of her belly laugh, her parents' reaction to her few seconds of "disappearance" was the funniest thing she had ever seen (in all eleven months of her life).
Funny. The same thing applies with my dog. When he's quiet, my wife and I give each other the "oh shit" look.
ReplyDeleteThis really doesn't bode well for the teen years . . .
ReplyDeleteCWD