One of my favorite children's books of all time is "Where's Waldo?" Let's face it, it's even challenging for adults to find that red and white stripe shirted young man with his color coordinated beanie hat among the throng, much less a toddler. And then when you do find him? Why it's sheer delight because you've uncovered that needle in a haystack. In our home we have a real, live "Where's Waldo?" But we've renamed it, "Where's Willow?" We cannot tell you how many times this little coffee-bean of a girl has elusively escaped our grasp, only to cause us to gasp until we've found our needle in the haystack. Two recent incidents come to mind: (1) While settling Annie into her new "digs" at Cal POLY about two weeks ago, we needed to remove her remaining belongings from our car and put them into the house. The home has a cute little picket fence around the front yard, creating what we like to refer to as "Willow Containment". Believe me, we're always on the lookout for Willow Containment, and this man-made structure seemed like an iron fortress. Well, not for Willow because between the time I took one last item out of the car and put it in Annie's room and my return to the vehicle (literally no less than 10 seconds), I gasped when upon after stepping out onto the front porch I saw Willow walking down the neighborhood street with her happy-go-lucky bounce as if she owned the place. The neighbor next door was pulling his car into his driveway at about the same time and I'm sure considered me to be the irresponsible parent from Mars. Of course I ran as fast as I could toward her and swooped Willow into my arms, thanking God all the while. Saved by grace, literally, once again. (2) The second harrowing experience came just a few minutes later when while unpacking Annie's things in her room, feeling that Willow was safe and secure because all of the doors to the outside were closed and even the doors to all of the other rooms as well, we decided after about four or five minutes of silence from either Willow or Poppy that we better go check to see if Willow was getting into mischief. (A frequent and common question to one another in our household, even asked by Poppy is, "Is Willow getting into mischief?") Actually, Victoria thought I had my eye on Willow and I thought she did. Well, wouldn't you know it? After Victoria yelled out to everyone in the house, "Where's Willow?", she saw her walking down the hallway soaking wet, from head to toe, dripping water from her hair and dress. We couldn't imagine what she had been in to so, after hearing the faint sound of running water, I ran down the hall and into the master bedroom/bathroom only to find the shower running full blast with the curtain wide open and all of the soap articles strewn about from top to bottom. Water was all over the place. We still don't know how she managed to do it, but somehow she got into that shower, turned the water on and decided to cleanse herself, with clothing on and all. We try not to think about the "What ifs?" Again, literally saved by grace, and all in the span of about 10 minutes. I'd say that's about enough mischief for a day.
Hanging on, jumping between uncontrollable laughter and breathtaking terror,
Tom (& Victoria)
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