Hide and....(Anna)

I'll try to stop laughing long enough to write this.

Some context: Emmy has been figuring out a lot about language recently, and often gets words mixed up. So, for example, tonight she was staring at a picture and saying "Carrot. No. Carrot. No, it's not, it's not carrot" and getting increasingly frustrated. Eventually, she turned to me and said, "Mumma what is it?!" And I looked at the picture and told her it was a "parrot", much to her relief.

So when she wanted to play 'Hide and Squeak," we thought it was the same kind of thing. She closed the door on me in the bathroom and said "We play hide and squeak". So I dutifully "hid" in the bathroom. But a few seconds later, Emma started shouting at me. "You have to squeak, Mumma!"

And because she is tolerant and patient with her oh-so-slow parents, she condescended to demonstrate how to play the game. She came into the bathroom, closed the door and said, "Now squeak." And then she started squeaking in a high-pitched, "Ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee," just like a little mouse.

I was pretty much rolling around on the floor in hysterics by this point, but apparently it wasn't so funny to her. She frowned at me, instructed me to stop laughing and hide, in that order, then closed the bathroom door on me. "Now squeak, Mumma," she instructed me in the bossy voice she's developed recently. So there I was, locked in the bathroom, hiding and squeaking. When I wasn't giggling.

I must say, it's a much more fun game than counting to twenty and tryng to find people. I don't completely understand the rules, yet, but my daughter apparently has faith in me than I can learn. You know, with enough instruction.