“Look with your hands not with your eyes,” is a phrase I made up to help my boys (9 and 12) and my husband (old enough to know better) find things. My husband thinks it means something else. No honey, it is not a “come on” or a signal to meet you in the bedroom!
No one told me that being a mom and a wife would automatically make me the finder of all things. I think they have a saint for that and if I hadn’t married a Jew and given up the Catholic me, I could probably remember which saint it is. Every day at least 500 times I am tasked to find keys, wallets, shoes, IPods, IPhones, DSs, chargers and everything else, it seems. Of course, this is all while I am working, making dinner, helping with homework and the like. The strange thing is, I always seem to find everything or at least know where to look.
Needless to say it is annoying to be the go-to person for finding things. I want to enable my children (my husband too!) to find their own stuff. So, of course, I started by saying, “Don’t ask me where something is until you have looked everywhere you can think of.” But then I started to watch them look for things and realized they were using their eyes to look! It seems like that would be the way to go but as most of you finders-of-all things (also known as moms!) know, it takes more than eyes.
I will give you an example. My husband says, “Do we have any salad dressing?” “Yes! it is in the fridge,” I respond. He opens the fridge, takes one quick look straight in and doesn’t find it. He did not attempt to move things or search through bottles or look on the door! He closes the door and says, “I can’t find any.” Needless to say, I was stunned. From my vantage point, I could see the dressing, hiding behind the mustard (crafty little bugger!). But for some reason, it was not visible to him! Seriously, dude?
Right then and there, I made up the rule and did a brief demonstration (exaggerated of course). “See. You gotta move stuff out of the way and moves things around. Sometimes things you are looking for are behind other things.” Or as I like to call it, hiding in plain sight!! I tell my kids I am helping their future wives by making them be better finders, be self-sufficient and not drive them crazy locating things for them. And hopefully save them from divorce and moving back in with us!
Amy Newman is a recovering Jersey Girl, former and present Rhode Islander, children’s chauffeur, franchise owner and the go-to-gal in her family. She owns her own Discovery Map franchise for Narragansett and Block Island, Rhode Island. She lives with her husband, two sons, two cats (free to whoever wants them!), two guinea pigs, and two guppies. She continues to try to figure out where her youth went and what she did with all the free time she used to have. This is her first blog.
