Kid for Sale: Cheap

Thing 2 enjoys causing our hearts to race in fear. She's skilled at this hobby, having a great deal of practice in the field. She set a new precedent today.

Now, see if you can figure this one out: a sealed 2 bedroom apartment. No doors or windows opened. Yet, this enterprising 3 year old manages to TOTALLY and completely vanish. Silent. No giggling to give her away. No movement. No PRESENCE.

Usually, you can tell if there's someone IN a space. Somehow she manages to just put this little psychic shield or some such nonsense around herself. She's a null spot when she wants to vanish.

It's gotten quiet in the house. Too quiet. Quiet and children mean trouble. Total silence and children mean it's time to panic. I look around to see why. Thing 1 is reading a book by herself, unmolested.

Thing 2 is missing. Totally missing.

The three of us, her sister included, spend a good frantic 10 minutes trying to find her. We look in closets. We look under beds, behind doors, under furniture, in laundry baskets, in bedclothes. No Thing 2. We keep right on looking, getting more frantic by the minute.

There's complete silence. Nothing to give the child away.

The mind starts to snap at that point with the weight of What Ifs: what if she climbed into a space and can't breathe? What if she climbed and got ahold of someone's meds and managed to get them open? (there's no such thing as Heddaproof that doesn't involve six different deadbolts, timelock tumblers and retinal scans) What if ... what if ...

Panic.

It's Mommy that finds Evil Thing 2 at last, catching the gleam of an eye in the shadows. She's managed to work herself into an area in our bedroom near a box that had blankets piled on it. Beside the box had been a stack of Things That Need to go Into the Closet. Without disturbing them, she got behind them and tucked herself in.

We called her and called her. She ignored us entirely. It was a big game to Thing 2.

Daddy swats her. She acts like she's been killed. Mommy scoops her up, hugging her tight enough to smother said child, explaining why what she did was wrong. Thing 2, still mortified by the swat, clings to Mommy and sobs. Mommy, exhausted and in pain and still scared half to death, clings back.

Child for sale. Cheap. Payments accepted.