Olly Olly Oxen Free!

So, I know that nothing I post going forward (or anything in the past for that matter) is unique, spectacular or otherwise in the life of a toddler. I know that Liliana is not the first child to say, "Owie Mama my butt" after over shooting the end of the slide and landing on a gravel patch. Surely 2 year olds all over the world hold their hands up like monster claws and proclaim "tickle monster" before clumsily grabbing at mama and dada's ribs. Even understanding this, I still can't help wanting to brag to whomever will listen, even cyberspace, about all the normal, yet to us, amazing things Liliana is doing. Changes are happening so fast, and there are so many of them that I haven't even bothered trying to document them. But tonight we witnessed our first real example that Liliana has moved into a new stage of play that is so cool and fun! I imagine she learned this at daycare (her new, fantastic daycare that I probably should have blogged about already but will save it for another day).
We were upstairs getting Liliana ready for bed. She gets super wired right before bedtime so it is always a battle convincing her to get in her crib. I dream of a child that will get sleepy around bedtime and cuddle with me while we read Llama Llama Red Pajama together. However, tonight we were just letting her run wild because she was cracking us up. She kept running to the bathroom and then back to Chris and touching his head. Chris would shriek and Liliana would giggle. She repeated this several times. Then, Chris hid behind the bedroom door so when Liliana returned she stopped in her tracks, held up her hands, shrugged her shoulders and asked me "where's dada?" I whispered and pointed behind the door. She found him and when he jumped out she was beside herself with glee. And so it began. At first we were a bit confused about what she wanted to happen next. Chris would walk out from behind the door and she would say "stop it dada, go right there" while pushing him back behind the door. She would join him behind the door, put both hands on the the towel rack that is on the back of the door (strange but there are 2 bars on the back of her bedroom door- one down low) and she would say three words that I recognized as "eight, nine, TEN!" Then she would run out, run back and "find" Chris. We realized she was playing hide and seek! So knowing what she was doing, Chris began to hide in other places. She returned to the door, counted while now hiding her eyes on the back of her hands, then yelled and began looking for him! It was so incredible to watch how this morphed into a real and true childhood game! It makes me want to go back and take my Child Developmental Psych class again to learn about stages of play.
I look forward to seeing Liliana every single morning I wake up. I can't even sleep in on weekends when Chris offers to get up with her because I don't want to miss a single moment with her. I am loving every minute of this experience and can't believe she is ours. I am so happy.