Why Flashlight Tag Rocks

Tonight Lindsey wanted to play a game of flashlight tag. Now that it's getting darker earlier, we were able to play this by turning off all the lights in the house to play and it was like dark twilight, not pitch black.

For those of you unfamiliar with childhood games, the refresher course is:

1. The person who is "it" has a flashlight.
2. No one else does.
3. The person who is "it" counts to 10, then tries to find everybody by shining her flashlight everywhere.

So here were the best two parts:

When it was Marissa's turn to be "it," I opened the closest door and closed it, then hid behind the couch, thus fooling my 4-year-old into thinking I had hidden in the closest. (I'm an evil adult, I know.) Then I watched her walk by me, shine the light under the door and say, "Mommyyy....I found you!" She paused, then opened the door, shined the light all around and said, "Oh! You're not there!" Then she turned and accidentally shined the light on me, sitting there practically in the open, and jumped up in surprise.

The best other part:

The game had somehow traveled down into the basement by this time it was Lindsey's turn again and I hid in the boiler room. She remembered to check all the other closets but forgot the boiler room. I heard her go upstairs and look for me, then she started calling for me, so I called her name back and she figured out I was in the basement and came back down to keep looking.

When she finally opened the door to the boiler, I was holding up a cooler in front of my face. So picture this: a grown woman, crouching on the floor but whose body is in plain view, holding a cooler in front of my face so Lindsey couldn't see my face or hair. I kid you not, she looked right past me. She even shined the light right on the cooler, which was apparently floating in midair in her view, as she didn't see the body or the hands holding it up. When I finally dropped the cooler and said, "Surprise!" she jumped about three feet and screamed.

I think I'll be waking up a few times this evening, comforting some nightmares. But it'll have been worth it.