Hide the Baby! Sell the Baby!

Of late, I've had such a hard time getting Zoe to let Clementine sleep (she'd rather poke her, pick her up, and/or play with her), that I sometimes play "Hide the Baby."

When Clementine falls asleep, I put her on my bed with piles of laundry all around. To the untrained eye, it appears that there is only laundry on the bed! I can also put her up at the head of the bed between the pillows, and pull the blankets up to her chin....with that nice smooth bed, no one would notice that one of those pillow-shaped bumps is actually a baby. Sometimes I stick her in the office on the sofa, and my mother-in-law suggested that the bathtub might work for a few naps, too.

Of course, Zoe always demands "Where's the baby!?" and I try to convince her not to worry about it, and let's do some coloring or play a game. If I get too busy with the chores, however, she'll sneak around looking. Once she found the baby under the dining room table and shouted "HERE SHE IS!!" which resulted in some very sad tears.

Maybe soon I'll play Debbie's Ithaca-sorority-house version of "hide the baby." Simply put, hide the baby AND the cordless phone, then push the 'seek' button so the phone emits beeping noises, and let the preschooler find the baby! There are oh so many places to hide when you're only 19 inches long.

As for selling the baby, this was an idea I got at the elementary school's silent auction last Saturday night. I was lucky enough to get a friend, "Auntie Margaret" to come sit at my house while my older kids were asleep, so I could take the baby and go to the adult-only event. Of course, when I came in with the baby, people asked, "OOh, how much for the baby!?"

I thought, "That's not a half-bad idea..." and so I put a bid sheet out. For only $5 I was willing to let attendees hold sleeping Clementine for 10 whole minutes. A few puzzled moms let me know they would NOT pay for such a backward service, but several empty-nesters took me up on the offer. One of my friends jokingly let me know he could pay $100 to hold her, because our pal Mr. Adams was willing to pay $200 to be sure that his baby-hungry wife did NOT get a chance to hold a baby. Anyhow, Clementine did a fine job raising some money for her someday school and was able to sleep through most of the ordeal without having to be hidden.