Sometimes, I think that if our days around here can be this eventful now, with one 18 month old boy, WHAT IS TO COME???

Maybe you all shouldn’t answer that question. My heart may not be able to handle it.

What, ask you, am I referring to?

Yesterday, peeps.

The morning began as most Friday mornings around here…the only difference of yesterday was that I’d come down with a cold the day before and had slept nary a wink the night before. I woke up to find my amniotic fluid leaking and the contractions that have come and gone with more regularity the past week continuing, a bit more definite. We’re in the “any time now” mode, but I wasn’t too worried at this point. With Troy, my water leaked for three days before it broke, and the contractions haven’t felt too “real” yet.

Troy and I had a whole list of errands to run, some shopping for labor supplies in there as well, so I figured we’d leave early and get them done and over with. Because, you know, I knew I’d be worn out in the afternoon, and was already looking forward to nap time.

We had a Mommy and Troysie breakfast date first, then hit Target, the little kids’ barber shop, Trader Joes, with a few little stops in between.

While I was unloading groceries at home, my next door neighbor–the only neighbor we really know and have a relationship with–pulled out of her driveway and we stopped to chat for a few minutes about them checking on our dog when the baby’s born. Then she drove away. Remember that, ‘kay? She was gone now.

I went inside and starting unloading the grocery bags while Troy played with his toys in the living room. The empty paper bags were all over the floor, toys strewn about and some full Target bags sitting in a pile.

I went out back to put a few things in the garbage can, leaving the sliding door open a few inches. On my way back in, I stooped over to pick up the dog’s water dish to fill…

And heard the door slide closed. And heard a click.

My heart stopped.

There was Troy, grinning at me from inside the door he had just closed and locked.

I pulled on the door, just in case. Please, Lord? It wouldn’t budge.

Trying not to panic, I went around to the front door, thinking that maybe since I’d just been unloading groceries, I’d left it unlocked.

Nope.

Then I went ahead and started to panic.

I went back around to the slider door, only to peer in and find Troy standing on a kitchen table chair, dancing around. I called through the glass to “get down.” He smiled a wide smile at me and repeated, “Det doon! Det Doon!” Then he waved and sweetly called out, “Hiii!”

Once he was on the floor again, I ran next door, thinking that just maybe there would be someone home at our neighbors’.

Nope.

I ran back to the back yard to check on Troy again. I didn’t see him. The sense that did kick in was my sense of smell as I looked down and saw that my brown flats had apparently landed in a fresh pile of dog poop. Ahem.

Troy appeared from around the corner. I cleaned off my shoe the best I could and saw that he was sitting on the floor playing with his See n’ Say.

This little man has just recently figured out how to turn on light switches, because he’s just barely tall enough to push them up. But he’s not tall enough to turn them back off. The back door lock is, SIGH, very similar to a light switch. I kept trying to coax him to open the door, tapping on the door and saying, “Open it, Troy… open the door.”

All this accomplished was to encourage him to bang on the door back at me and say, “Mama? Out’ide? Mama? Out’ide?”

I ran back to the front and went to the next door over. No answer. The next door. No answer.

NINE doors later and multiple trips into the back yard to check on Troy, a door finally opened.

I didn’t know what exactly the purpose of the hanging flowers above the front door were at that house, though it made a little more sense when the young woman who opened the door turned out to clearly be a devout Hindu…. who barely spoke English.

I asked if I could use her phone to call my husband… feeling a mixture of panic and ridiculousness as I explained that my toddler had locked me out of the house. She sweetly lent me her phone and I called John–whom I knew to be in the middle of some things he really couldn’t get out of that day and at least thirty minutes away from home. He suggested seeing if I’d locked the truck and could perhaps open the garage, and that MAYBE the garage-to-house door would be unlocked, too.

My Hindu neighbor assured me that I could use her phone again if this plan didn’t work, and I ran back across the street. The truck was unlocked…. the garage-to-house door wasn’t.

I checked on Troy again–by this time it was nearing forty minutes he’d been alone in the house. It is a very odd feeling looking inside one’s house through a window, seeing your child in there, and having no way of getting inside. Once again I couldn’t see him. I could hear his little voice through an open upstairs window. Then I saw, through the banister railing, his little blonde head, sitting half way up the stairs. He was crying pitifully. “Mama. Mama?? Mama? Out’ide? Mama?”

I was close to tears myself.

On my way running back to my neighbor’s house I realized that in my running back and forth, I’d done something again to the foot I’d hurt two weeks before. Now I was hobble-running with a big ol’ belly back and forth across the street. I’m sure to anyone watching from their own window, it was quite the comical sight. To me… not so much.

I called John again. He said he was on his way home, but that it would be close to a half hour before he was even here. He said I might have to call the fire department.

Oh, YES. That was JUST what I wanted. The fire department to show up at my house, arousing the curiosity of our whole little community (though it might seem me and my Hindu neighbor were the only ones HOME on this Friday afternoon) and tell them my toddler had locked me out of my house. I’m a fireman’s daughter. To me, this sounded as absurd as calling them to get a cat out of a tree.

I decided to run–er, uh, to hobble-run-limp–back to check on Troy again before calling 911. Ahem. I thought maybe I could think of some new brilliant idea in the meantime.

He was still crying on the stairs. I banged on the window to get his attention, finally convincing him to come downstairs and over to the door. I tapped on the door again, asking him to pleeeeease, Troy-Troy, open the door! See this switch? Pull it down!!

Suddenly he seemed to get the idea. He was pulling on the handle, then saw the lock. He started pulling… and pulled it down–then pushed it right back up again.

I thought I was going to die.

I applauded and praised. Try again!

This time I was also pulling on the door from my side. He pushed up… the door slid open.

A sigh of relief would be a HUGE understatement.

I scooped up Troy, called John to tell him all was well…

…and decided it was just. about. nap. time.

John decided it might be a good idea to have a hide-a-key somewhere on our property. I think I agree.

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