Secret Spot

Nathan has always been a collector of incidental items he deems special. To most of us these items would be things we would normally put in the trash...things like metal juice bottle caps. Most of the time he thinks they are special because they are colorful or because they make a cool noise. All the more reason in my opinion to throw them away. We surely don't need anymore noise in our lives. Most of his secret spots are truly secret. Some of them are just under a piece of furniture or behind a planter. And, he makes a secret spot anywhere he spends the night. In August, we stayed with my parents for a few weeks and there were several items that went missing. I couldn't find my bright pink and purple hair clips, and Grandaddy couldn't find his small pocket knife. We looked high and low for these items. We never found them even after drilling Nathan about their where abouts. He didn't know anything about them. A few weeks later my mother called me and told me that she had found the missing items. I asked her where they were and she said that she was vacuuming and moved a small table and the clips were under it. She said she also found a few items that we had not missed behind her dresser. Those of us that know my mother know these items were not casualties of falling behind the dresser. They were put there by a little boy that always has a secret spot.

Now we are staying with my in-laws for a few days and of course Nathan has another secret spot. This one however is a little more visible than most of his other secret spots. It is just under the corner of his little bed.

He has all of his Madagascar toys from McDonalds lined up, his special pens, pencils and eraser, his tooth fairy money and an old used toothbrush that should be in the garbage.

The other morning we were headed to town and I happen to look in my purse and realized that I didn't have my little leather credit card carrier. I pulled the car over and searched my purse to no avail. I told Nathan that I couldn't find it and that we would need to return home to find it. I made a few more worried comments about not knowing where it was. He said, "Maybe it's in my secret spot." I told him that it better not be. He assured me that it wasn't. And it wasn't. I had left it in my jacket pocket. But, I have learned that when something does go missing to look in one of his secret spots. If I could only find them all.