A.R.S.

Or because everything deserves an acronym when you work for the State Department

As I was waking up this morning, I heard tiny feet run across my bedroom.  Savoring the last minute of shut eye, I listened as one drawer in my bathroom slowly opened, followed by the sound of running footsteps back across my bedroom.  I opened my eyes just in time to see the shadow of a 17 month old disappear into the living room.

"ARS is at it again," said Chris.  "He's relocating your bathroom one item at a time.  You better get up before it's all lost."

I found my toothpaste and contact solution in the living room, but my hairbrush was MIA.

ARS (pronounced like a pirate's "Aargh" but with an s), or the Andrew Relocation System, activated when Andrew learned to walk and no longer needed his hands for transportation, and thus had two able means of relocating items in the house.  However, over the past couple of months, as Andrew learned to walk faster and then to run, items began to disappear at an alarming rate.  And try as we might to locate "relocated" items, they are often lost until ARS brings them back.  Last time my hairbrush disappeared, I spent two days looking for it to no avail, and on the third day when I had decided to just buy a new one since my hair was looking, err, beautiful, the hairbrush showed up in my bathroom once again.  ARS had brought it back. 

As with all systems, patterns have emerged over time.

1. His favorite hiding places are the back yard or the laundry hamper. 

No, ARS!  Not the Drexel Heritage pillow.  No!

Hmm, When a Monster is Born. Is he hiding the reading material he finds offensive?

We tried to contain him, but he keeps getting out.

2.  He likes to pick on Jacob, i.e., steal one of his shoes.  The rest of our shoes are luckily exempt to ARS, but more than a few times, Jacob has been found hobbling around the house with only one shoe and shouting about the injustice of ARS.  It's probably because Jacob's shoes are extra smelly.

3.  If it has batteries, it is in danger, especially if it is a remote control.  Imagine Chris's delight each night as he spends 10 minutes crawling around the living room peeking under furniture for the ever elusive remote control.

4.  My bathroom is the most likely place for ARS to strike.  If it's not bolted down, he will take it.  I actually caught him carrying off our scale, even though it's almost as big as he is.

So if you see me with disheveled hair or no mascara, please cut me some slack.  I've probably just lost half of my toiletries to the Andrew Relocation System.