I am Houdini

We all have different titles that we secretly label each other with. For example, the baby is "the Climber", or "the Destructor". My four year old is "the Singer." My husband is the "Absent-Minded Professor." And I am "Houdini".

This is why.

I am the only one who can find anything (with the exception of my cell phone-the absent minded professor is very good at finding my cell phone). Better explained-I'm the only one who can see things when they are under something, behind something, or have been moved.

Example:

Husband: Where's such and such?
Me: On the table.
Husband: I don't see it.
Me: It was on the table just a minute ago.
Husband: Are you sure?
Me: (walking over to table, lifting up a book which was covering such and such) You have to move things around.
Husband: Thank you.

Another example:

Me (to four year old): Hand me that thing-a-ma-jig
Four year old: Where?
Me: On the counter.
Four year old: I don't see it, Mama.
Me: LOOK BEHIND THE SALT.
Four year old: Oh. There it is!

Notice that they are impressed and say thank you when I perform this trick. That is why I am Houdini. No one else can perform this trick. Just me.

And I was feeling pretty invincible as a Houdini until the other day when I realized I couldn't find a single pacifier in the house.

The baby was screaming and a pacifier was nowhere to be found.

Which is so dumb, because I have like, fifty of them.

It seems I have been outsmarted by the pacifiers. How can fifty pacifiers just vanish? It's not like we live in a mansion. It's not like they can walk away on their own. It's not like they can find a better mouth to suck on them somewhere else. Where did they go?

Because the baby was screaming and all I cared about was quiet, I sent my husband downstairs to find a pacifier. "Go find a pacifier."

My husband came back with the most archaic pacifier I have ever seen.

"That's it?" I sighed. "That's the 'pacifier-of-last-resort'."

My husband looked at me like I had lost my mind.

"It means if that's the only one we can find, there are no other binkies in the house! Where did they go?!?"

The next day I went out and bought two new pacifiers.

I set one aside and gave one to the baby. He was very appreciative.

By the end of the day, both of the pacifiers were in my daughter's hands and she was playing a game called "Run from the Binkies."

"Don't lose those," I told her.

"I won't."

The next day I couldn't find any pacifiers again.

"Where are the pacifiers?" I asked my daughter.

"I don't know. Maybe in the blanket?"

I shook out the blanket that was on the floor. No pacifiers. I was pretty frustrated and threw around words like "ridiculous".

I got home from my staff meeting today and there was my baby, sitting in the middle of the kitchen, sucking on one of the new pacifiers.

"Hey! There's the pacifier!"

My four year old said, "Yep. We found it."

There goes my Houdini title.