my sister and her kids have been in town for a short visit this week. they leave in the morning so we had our last afternoon and evening all together before they shove off. these nonholiday visits have the effect of making normal days feel a little bit like christmas or thanksgiving. just the sheer volume of people around the table, the hanging around my parents’ house like we have no where to be or nothing we have to do (oh the things i must do tomorrow!), the cousins spending the night together (we had seven at our house last night). all these events turn the first week of march into a frozen time, suspended as a little mini vacation, closing everyone else (all those phone calls) out and knitting those cousins together just a little bit more. we still did school and bedtimes, but we held them loosely.

for the grand finale of the visit tonight, we had a no holds barred, every man in hide-and-seek game. round after round of adults hiding in more and more difficult to find places. the last round was ridiculously long, running several more minutes out of fear than out of the lack of will power to find. grace and mary polly walked out onto the dark closed in porch where it was almost certain the final holdout (grandpapa) was hiding behind the porch couch, suspiciously pulled out away from the window. as the girls inched closer and closer to the couch, mary polly said, “grandpapa, if you’re out here, pleeeease don’t scare us!” she reached her hand down behind the couch only to feel…his face…yikes. oh the squeals.

another moment in the running for the best was when cole found grandpapa (again) in the shower. he could see him through the glass, which he apparently thought was a little lame because he remarked, “grandpapa, seriously, come on!” and pulled open the shower door, only to be met with a squirt from the shower head. again, squeals and laughter erupting. people giving away their hiding places by laughing too hard.

my brother, peter, was not in any danger of giving his place away though. high in a closet that was checked over and over again by several children, you could not hear a peep. because he had put his cell phone on silent. oh yes, he takes hide-and-seek seriously enough to take a precaution that would later make his cell phone (which must have slipped out of his pocket at some point) impossible to find.

after all the, pleeease, just one more time. and i didn’t get to count yet. and she ruined my turn by telling! and tears shed over goodbye. the children finally went to bed and the four gals headed to target. i had a lunchbox to buy. for my homeschooler, who started school today. which is another story. and since that story is one i can’t tell without crying, i will instead be laughing as i go to sleep imagining my mother (grandjules) hiding in her kitchen bay window, on a bench that is covered in the food spills of four days of grandchildren crowding onto it.