Ah, There It Is

One of Charis' most oft-requested foods these days is bagels with cream cheese. I've always said that, for me, bagels are merely the conveyance by which the cream cheese finds its way to my mouth, but Charis takes this to another level, often eating all of the cream cheese off of the top of the bagel and leaving the bagel shell behind. As you can guess, then, we go through cream cheese quite quickly.

I had just purchased a block of cream cheese last Monday and hurriedly stashed it in the fridge in an unusual spot. Even at the time, I knew that would cause frustration later when I looked for the cream cheese in its normal spot and could not find it. Little did I know . . .

Charis and Judah share a room, as you probably remember. I've safety-pinned a bedspread up around the crib's perimeter in an attempt to block the kids from seeing each other, and to give Judah his own dark space to be. The side effect of this is that the bottom of his crib is, in effect, skirted, hidden from view. Well, one of my frustrations has come during nap time, when Charis has developed a fondness for waking her brother up by climbing under his crib and kicking his mattress. She KNOWS that this is naughty, but she's 3, so of course, she persists. On Monday afternoon, the children refused to nap, and I went upstairs to find that Charis was again hiding under Judah's crib, apparently up to no good. I ordered her out, and she came out sheepishly, of course, and crawled back into her bed.

On Tuesday morning, Charis requested bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. I retrieved the bagels and opened the fridge to look for the cream cheese, and could find it nowhere. This is why I should have put it in its normal place to begin with, I chided myself. I looked and looked, to no avail, and eventually gave up the search, completely flummoxed.

Fast forward to Tuesday night, right before bedtime, when I was searching for Judah's bear. (Bear had been missing for quite some time, and is, in fact, still missing. If you have any knowledge of his whereabouts, please contact me.) Oh, I thought, maybe Judah lost Bear under the crib! So, as best I could, I wriggled under the crib. I did not find Bear, but what I did find astonished me:

A butter knife. And a half-eaten block of cream cheese.

So when Charis was hiding under Judah's bed, she was actually just enjoying an afternoon snack.

I promptly threw the cream cheese away, and I haven't purchased any since.