A few weeks ago, on a lovely Saturday afternoon, I was out and about with the boys and my mom, who happened to be visiting. As we pulled into our carport, tired and hungry, much to our dismay, we realized that the apartment keys were INSIDE the apartment. Wretched me, I had left them on top of the shoe shelf as we left! While I went to see if there was a way in, Mom stayed in the car with the boys, in case we had to go chase down a spare key from the management company, which would have been dicey seeing that it was a Saturday and they were closed. We couldn't ask the manager for a spare key because WE are the managers. Yikes!
I surveyed the apartment, tried one of the front windows, to no avail. We were doomed to more driving, or so I thought until I came around to the bathroom window. Because I hate steamy bathrooms, the window was open just a crack. It was way over my head and a small window, but I had an idea.
I ran back to the car, shared my idea with Mom and brought Ethan back to the apartment with me. I managed to remove the screen from the bathroom window, push it open wider, and boost Ethan up through the window. He then had to drop down onto the bathroom counter and climb down to the floor, come out to the front door, and unlock it for me.
Things went fine until Ethan was inside the bathroom and out of sight. I heard his wails: "Mom, I don't want to open the door. Mom, I don't want to be in the bathroom. Mom! I want you!" It's hard to comfort a howling 3 year old when it requires outdoing his volume. I'm sure the whole neighborhood heard my shouted pleas: "Ethan, go out to the door. I can't get in unless you unlock the door. Please, Ethan, go open the door! You have to do it by yourself."
All I got was the same wailing from him. I had to give up and go to the front door and knock, hoping that would entice him. (He usually runs to fling open the door if anyone knocks, a somewhat dangerous practice I'm trying to eliminate.) Finally, after 10 minutes of his crying and my knocking, he unlocked the door and we were home again. When we recounted all to Mr Moo later that evening, he was duly impressed with Ethan's successful implementation of my break-in idea. Which bring me to the title of this post - thank heaven for 3 year olds!
2 comments:
Vaguely reminded me of this Ensign story about a 3-yr old, sliding doors, and a gumball machine.
It reminds me of when we were moving to Minnesota and I locked the keys in the car on the side of the interstate, engine running, with Ben the only occupant (gasp!) while getting out to confer with Mom in the other car. Ben being a clever almost-2-year-old knew how to unlock the door with a bit of encouragement and all ended well.
Post a Comment