Stash

Zeb thinks its clever to hide things by putting them down his pants.
He does this with vending machine bouncy balls (see previous entry) and he did it with one of the hickory nuts that Lulu has been collecting at the school playground.
After school, she and her friends scour the ground for these nuts and stuff them in their backpacks. She and Zeb like to dump them on the carpet, transfer them to a large baking bowl, then dump them on the floor again and forget about them. The strays roll under the couch and collect cat hair.
Lulu set aside four special hickory nuts that were supposed to be a family. But one day Zeb stole the baby and slipped it down his pants.
Lulu was livid. Regis had to hold her back while I pulled Zeb's pants down and searched. It wasn't in his underwear or socks or on the floor. Had it gotten trapped between his bum cheeks?
Before I had chance to look, it rolled out of the elastic cuff of his sweat pants and Lulu pounced on it, hollering self-righteously. (She's the one who usually gets in trouble for snatching Zeb's toys--maybe that's why he now puts them down his pants--so she wanted to milk her victim status).
Last week, Zeb had been playing in the living room all morning when I brought him upstairs to get dressed. When I took off his pants, I found a pink plastic gel ball with spikes, the kind people use as a dog toy.
"Oh,'' said Zeb nonchalantly. "There it is.''