Last night I was tip-tap-typing away on my laptop while curled up on the living room sofa. Cute W was upstairs reading to M, J was asleep, and I was being unbelievably productive. Until–
“What’s Holly doing in the laundry basket?” J asked.
There was probably a 2 second delay while I processed that someone was in the room. J was in the room. Right next to me. Pointing. I followed her finger and her gaze to to Holly the Elf, whom I’d unceremoniously dumped into the basket full of clean laundry about twenty minutes earlier. My stomach dropped and I gasped.
“I have no idea!” I said. This wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. To prevent myself from forgetting to move the elf entirely, as soon as J’s safely up in bed, I’ve been picking Holly up and moving her just a bit. Often I want to put her upstairs, but I don’t want to draw attention if J’s not fully asleep, or I want to drag out a couple of candy canes or come up with a cutesy pose, but I’m tired and not feeling creative, so I procrastinate. I’ll put Holly in my bed or on top of the book I’m reading or somewhere else where I’m sure to encounter her before heading off to bed. Last night I planned to fold laundry, so I’d thrown Holly in with the clean clothes (come to think of it, I still haven’t gotten around to folding that batch. . . ).
Luckily, I was so surprised and appalled by J’s presence that I looked as shocked as J felt. “How did she get there?” I gulped. “Did you. . . ? Or, no–M?” J was shaking her head, brow furrowed into as many wrinkles as a pug puppy. “Do you think that she moves all over the place at night?” I whispered. “Does that freak you out? I’m a little bit freaked out,” I babbled. “I mean–I’m sorry, Holly, I don’t mean to be insulting, but you’re sort of freaking me out here.”
J was laughing–she was freaked out, too.
The next morning, Holly was posed next to the fish tank, bonding with Madison. “Do you think maybe I walked into the room while she was moving, and she dived into the laundry basket to try to hide from me?” I asked J.
She shrugged. Maybe.
– – – – –
Today Cute W arrived home from work to find me once again tip-tap-typing on the computer. I was ranting feverishly and chuckling to myself. Cute W asked me what the post was about. I told him my topic. “You can’t write about that,” said Cute W. “I mean, you can write about anything you want, but. . . think about it. You will get into trouble.” This is true. I abandoned that post. Which is sort of a bummer. Sometimes I think that I need to create a new secret anonymous blog. But if I did, I couldn’t tell you, could I?
