I Lock It!

I will actually upload some current pictures tonight to post soon, but for the time being...

Alex and mommy had an interesting Sunday afternoon. It started innocently enough as Josh went into the office for a few unknown number of hours and Will was sleeping in the swing. I folded laundry while Alex played and started putting it all away. First my room, then Will's, then Alex's room. I put away a few things as I heard Alex say "I lock it" and shut the door. "Ahhh" I say as I continue doing what I was doing, until I finally realized what he said.

Most of you are thinking, no big deal. Well, it looks like we didn't post it when we did it, but in June Alex still was not sleeping well, waking throughout the night, screaming, coming to our bedroom and screaming, and then throwing a 3 hr tantrum in the middle of the night. We spoke with one of Josh's friends ( a mother to twins and a singleton) and she told him to lock Alex in. While it's kind of shocking, it's really the same as letting a child cry it out in a crib, so we tried it... with success I might add. The bad thing about this whole ordeal is that to "lock Alex in his room" we had to change the lock so that it was on the outside of the door.

So yeah, Alex locked his door from the outside and shut us both in with Will downstairs and Josh at work and I had no idea when he'd come home.

My first thought was @#%! and yes, I said that out loud and Alex saw the look in my eyes and immediately started screaming and crying. I tried calming him down, opened his window and gave him the job of telling me if/when he saw anyone outside to yell to while I tried to find a solution.

The door doesn't use a real key, just a skinny post with a flat end, so I tried to find anything that might work. Long, pokey, metal things are not really easily available in a toddlers room.

First I unscrewed the door spring/stopper thing and tried to unwind it a little. That didn't work.

The only other metal thing in Alex's room was the antenna on his radio, so I broke that off, but it was too thick to fit in the keyhole. Eek. I thought, well maybe I could use that to take the door off the hinges, but there was nothing strong enough in Alex's room to pound it through.

I realized there was really no other way to get out. Will would wake up any minute and Josh could be gone for hours. I really was not looking forward to yelling to a neighbor and feeling like a tool. Well, the doors look a little cheap (it's a fake wood), so I figured I'd start by trying to break the handle and see if I could unlock it then? So I yanked it as hard as I could and finally using both hands and almost breaking it off, the door flew open!! Whew! Alex was still bawling (this time because I told him to stay away from me and the door since I didn't know what the end result would be). It took him a while to relax, but then we went downstairs and danced and he was better but kept saying "No lock the door." That's right kiddo. No locking the door.