Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner (Except Baby)

Apparently Norah has laid claim to her "special place" in the living room: the corner behind my rocking chair. This is the second time I've found her back there after being out of the room for only a few minutes.

She had to back up past my chair then turn around while back there to get into this position. And she did it in less than three minutes by my figuring.

The first time wasn't so much fun. I had a pretty good freak-out over it. I left her sitting on the floor, watching Yo Gabba Gabba--her favorite show, which is usually good for about ten minutes of solid distraction. While she was watching, I took the opportunity to do a little laundry. I was out of the room less than five minutes--just long enough for me to sort the kids clothes out of the dryer to bring them back into the living room to fold and to move the next load from the washer to the dryer. I came back into the living room and immediately noticed that something was missing--my baby.

My first thought was that she had somehow worked her way under the couch or our chair--not likely since she's not the slimmest baby and she can't fit anything but her legs under there, but that was my first thought nonetheless. There was no noise or anything, and I'm pretty sure if she'd gotten herself stuck like that, I would have heard something. Obviously, that made me assume that she'd wedged herself under there in such a way that she couldn't breath. I quickly got on the floor and checked under both. Nothing. As freaked out as I was at the prospects of her being jammed under our furniture, I was considerably more disturbed by her complete absence. The baby was gone! Poof!

Then I heard a little "Da da da," coming from the corner behind my chair--just out of view from the rest of the room unless you're right up on the chair. And there she was, smiling pleasantly, like she'd just played a wonderful trick on me. That time, I was so relieved that I didn't think to get a picture.

Today, however, I did get a picture because, well, now it's old hat. I'd left her sitting in the middle of the room again, with a strategically placed arrangement of stuffed animals and toys she could mess with, while I went into the kitchen to warm up some corn dogs.

Let me say this, microwaved corn dogs are an abomination. They should put a warning on the side of the box. I'm not a HUGE fan of the corn dog in the first place, mind you, but I'm even less so of them now. I only ate the things because I saw them in the freezer and figured they were probably about "due." I bought them, I don't know, quite awhile back figuring Gabe would love them--they do, after all, contain two of his favorite food groups, hot dogs and bread. But he hated them, but I tried to feed them to him three different times, just in case he changed his mind. That left two of them in the freezer, which I ate today because I hate wasting food more than I hate eating disgusting food.

Anyway, in the time that it took me to dig them out of the freezer, put them on a plate, and start the microwave, she had once again managed to work her way back behind my chair. This time I knew exactly where to start looking and, sure enough, there she was, smiling up at me again.

These kids, I swear they do things just to teach me lessons. Too bad I'm too stupid to learn them.