Hide the Elephant

Dear Princess,

The full story of your Ellfant is elsewhere on this blog - here to be exact, but there's a fun little bit that I just realized I left out that I want to recount for you tonight.  I decided it fit, because as promised all those years ago, I'm hugging your Ellfant tonight and thinking of you... extra hard, in fact, because I'm really missing you tonight.

A day or two after you 'adopted' Ellfant (you were six), I had the day off work, so you had the day off from daycare, and it was pouring down rain.  We usually tried to spend our days off together doing something extra fun, but that day, going anywhere was out of the question.  After a lazy breakfast, we sat down and tried to think up things to do.  You would've been happy to play any one of your million games... Chutes and Ladders... Candy Land... but I was getting oh-so-sick of those games.  I thought back to my own childhood and tried to think of a different game we could play, something I might actually enjoy.  You suggested Hide-and-Seek... but I protested that I was too big to really hide anywhere.  Then I had an idea.

One of the things I used to do growing up was hide one of my many stuffed animals with my mom, and take turns finding it.  So I told you that I had a NEW hide and go seek game that we could play, and that Ellfant (who you were dragging around the house with you) could play too.  You were excited as I explained that it was called "Hide the Elephant", and we would take turns counting while the other person hid the elephant, since he was small and could fit lots of places that neither one of us could.  Then the other person would find him, and it would be her turn.

You were eager to go first, so I let you - but you didn't quite have the hang of it yet.  You 'hid' Ellfant somewhere in plain sight and I found him right away.  When it was my turn, I hid him a little tougher - behind a pillow, with just the tip of his trunk sticking out for you to notice.  After proclaiming that it was impossible for a couple minutes, you found him and laughed with joy, and then caught on immediately.  Soon it was as hard for me to detect your hiding places as it was for you to locate mine!  Soon, we were purposely picking the silliest places to hide the elephant, or hiding him in a funny pose, like standing on his head, then dissolving into giggles when we found him.

Our elephant-hiding locations also got harder and harder until at one point you got frustrated and wanted to give up.  That was when I taught you the second game - the Warmer-Colder game.  As you walked around looking for the little stuffed animal, I'd tell you 'warmer, warm, hot, burning!" the closer you got to him, and "cold... colder, freezing, you're an ice cube!" when you were far away.  This eased your frustration and you thought it was hilarious, and play went on for hours.

"Hide The Elephant" became a favorite game of yours and you wanted to play on all our days off, in our free time, with my mom and M... when you wanted to play, you'd come to me with Ellfant in your arms and say "Katie, can we play Ellfant Hide an' Go Seek?"  It was precious and I could hardly say no... in fact, I have a big cheesy grin on my face right now remembering your sweet little requests.  It was just one more simple little thing that doing with you turned into an extraordinary memory.

Love you forever,

Katie