For Pauliporcupine!

Once again, awesome thanks to the girls for being my sounding boards and keeping the secret.

Adventures in Minion-getting

There were two rules that little Rebecca Lynd Castle knew that she absolutely had to follow in the Castle household, no wait, make that three. The first was never talk to strangers, the second never ever touch the stove, and the third was that the Minions that sat on her Mommy's dresser were to stay there. She didn't so much care about the smaller ones but the big, oh the big one that looked squishy was the one she wanted.

She started at a young age attempting to get to the giant yellow and blue stuffed toy, but was always stopped. Usually Mommy or Daddy caught her but sometimes Lexi and Grams prevented her from climbing on the chair next to Mommy's dresser. It wasn't that she never got to hold it but she wanted to have it all the time, not just when she thought there were monsters were under her bed. She wanted to take it to her room and change it out of its stupid pants and put it in a pretty dress. She wanted to have a tea party with it but she wasn't allowed. It wasn't fair! What could Mommy and Daddy possibly want with the toy? They didn't even play with it! She knew that the Minion would have so much more fun if it could just come and live in her room instead of staying on Mommy's dresser.

Well, tonight was the night she was going to get it.

Mommy and Daddy had gone somewhere tonight that meant Mommy looked like a princess so Uncle Espo had come over to play with her until they came home. They had already watched Cinderella and now they were now playing hide and seek. The first time they played, she had hidden in Mommy and Daddy's room and saw that the Minion was all alone on the dresser and no one was there to stop her! She thought about climbing up to get it but then remembered that Uncle Espo was going to come looking for her. Sending the Minion one last look, she quickly dove under the chair right as he came through the door.

When she was found, she demanded that Uncle Espo go hide and that it had to be a really good hiding spot. After checking that he had left and counting to ten so he had time to hide, she climbed up into the chair and saw the Minion. She had to be careful getting it because it had a lot of stuff near it including Mommy's princess picture. Brushing a curl out of her face, she slowly reached out, her bottom lip captured between her teeth, grabbed the Minion in her hands, pulled it off the dresser and quickly climbed out of the chair.

But what was she going to do with the Minion now? She knew that she had to find Uncle Espo soon or he was going to come looking for her. He was never very good about staying hidden and sometimes that made her grumpy. But now she had this Minion that she wasn't supposed to have and she had no place to put him! She had to get him up to her room but also had to make it past Uncle Espo. Looking out of the bedroom door, she didn't see Uncle Espo anywhere in the living room and she knew she would have if he was there because he wasn't very good at hiding.

She raced across the room to the stairs and began to climb them as fast as she could. She kept listening for Uncle Espo making sure that she didn't hear his feet coming towards her. She got to the top of the stairs and quickly moved towards her room. Just as she reached her bed to put the Minion on it, she heard, "Yo, Baby Becks, where are you?"

She quickly shoved the Minion under her bed - he had to stay hidden after all - and went back out in the hallway. Making her way back the staircase she replied, "Right here!" Looking down, she saw that Uncle Espo was standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"What you doing up there?"

"I was looking for you but I couldn't find you," she replied moving to come back downstairs. Uncle Epso watched her but never went to help her down them. She liked that about him, he always let her do it herself unless she asked for help. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, he swooped her up into a big bear hug and blew a raspberry on her cheek. It always made her giggle because it felt weird. She rested her head on his shoulder, strangely sleepy after her adventure retrieving the Minion.

After a few seconds Uncle Espo asked, "You gettin' tired, Baby Becks?"

She shook her head, she didn't want to go to sleep yet! There was more hide and seek to play and princess movies to watch but clearly Uncle Espo didn't understand that because he then said, "How 'bout some milk and cookies? And then it is time for princesses to go to sleep."

While she didn't really want to go to bed, milk and cookies did sound good and, if she was in her room and Uncle Espo thought she was sleeping, she could play with the Minion. So she let him carry her to the kitchen and ate some milk and cookies with him. Then she snuggled back into his arms and let him carry upstairs to her room. After the milk and cookies she was actually sleepy and happy that she already had her pjs on. She let Uncle Espo tuck her into bed and read her a story before he kissed her on the forehead and turned of her lights with a quiet "Night, Baby Becks".

She waited until she heard his footsteps go down the stairs to throw off her covers and dive under her bed to retrieve the Minion. Pulling it out from her under her bed, she thought about what she wanted to do with it first. She couldn't have a tea party with it in the dark and she could find the dress she wanted to put it in without making too much noise. The last thing she wanted was for Uncle Espo to come back upstairs. After a few minutes of thinking she decided that she wanted to tell the Minion a story. So she crawled back into her bed and proceeded to tell it the most wonderful story about a princess and the dragons she fought, until her eyes felt so heavy that she couldn't keep them open anymore.

Kate Castle stood in front of her dresser as she took her jewelry off and pulled the multitude of pins out of her hair. While she and Rick had thoroughly enjoyed their dinner, she was glad to be home and out of her heels. As she moved to put her necklace away, she noticed that the wedding picture she kept on the dresser was had been moved slightly. It was then that she noticed what was missing from the dresser. There was a large gap behind the picture frame where there should have been a Minion and she had a pretty good idea where it had gone. Knowing that Rick was already upstairs checking on Rebecca, she made her way towards him fully expecting to find the Minion somewhere along the way. When she was about halfway up the stairs she heard, 'Kate, come here."

She made her way up the rest of the stairs and found her husband standing in the doorway of their daughters room. "Seems she found a new friend." Seeing the look on his face and hearing the tone in his voice , she knew exactly where her Minion had run off too. Coming to wrap her arms around Rick, she looked through the door of Rebecca's room and saw the precious picture Rick had seen. There was their daughter with her unruly curls and button nose curled up in bed with the Minion clutched in her arms. While she didn't even want to think about how her daughter had managed to climb up to her dresser to get to the stuffed toy, she had to admire the long-held determination Rebecca had for getting that toy. Watching the scene a few seconds longer, she reached up to give Rick a loving kiss.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"This. Happy fifth anniversary, Rick."