Never A Dull Moment

Life with a (almost) one-year-old and a two-year-old can be interesting. Case in point: my day today.

Some days just don't go as planned and today was a prime example. The plan was to make sugar cookies with Ashlyn and take them to Brian's workplace. Turns out, Ashlyn wasn't really in the mood to bake this morning. This might not have been a bad thing, since she tends to slow things down a bit. She frosted ONE cookie and she was done.

I finished the cookies, cleaned up a bit and was about to put the kids in a bath when I made a startling discovery. Trent had locked, or rather, had barricaded himself in the bathroom! He was just in the kitchen with me two minutes before, how did this happen?

Now, if you are confused as to what I mean by "barricaded", let me draw you a mental picture. Trent had gone into the bathroom, closed the door, and opened a drawer, making it impossible for me to open the door from the outside. Got it?

My first course of action was to try to get Trent to close the drawer. That didn't go over very well. He's 11 1/2 months and doesn't follow directions. But, boy did I try. After a few times of trying calmly, I started getting desperate and began yelling, "TRENT, CLOSE THE DRAWER!" This alerted Ashlyn and she came a runnin'. She began repeating everything I said and did. Yelling only made matters worse, because Trent didn't understand why mommy was getting angry, and he began to cry. Great.

The second course of action was to get a wire hanger, bend it into and "L", wedge it under the door, and try to close the drawer. After trying that a couple times and getting NOWHERE, I called Brian.

Me: Um, Trent is locked in the bathroom.
Brian: So, just pick the lock.
Me: No, you don't understand, he is in the bathroom with the door closed and the drawer open.
Brian: Oh, that's not good. Get a wire hanger and-
Me: I'm already doing that.

After giving me a few pointers, I tell Brian I will try some more and call him back. Poor Trent just doesn't understand why instead of rescuing him, I am shoving wire hangers at him. Then I call Aaron since he now lives 2 minutes away, and tell him that I could really use his help. I explain the situation and he says he will be right over. Aaron gives the hanger-under-the-door method a couple tries and we quickly realize that is not going to work. I call Brian again and tell him to come home.

The third course of action is to try to get into the bathroom through the window. So, we pull the ladder out and Aaron takes apart the window. Trent is crying even harder by now and I am beginging to worry that he has somehow hurt himself. I don't keep any cleaners in the bathroom, so I know he is not ingesting anything harmful, but I am worried that he has hit his head, or poked himself in the eye with a bobby pin, or somehow cut himself.

As soon as Aaron gets the window open and says, "Hey Trent buddy", Trent immediately calms down and stops crying. Aaron thinks the whole thing is pretty humorous and snaps a photo, for posterity.

Notice all the hangers? That was Ashlyn's attempt at helping.

By the time Aaron saves the day and gets through the window, Trent had been in the bathroom for 1 1/2 hours, and had been crying for at least an hour! Poor guy. He quickly recovered once he was held and smothered with hugs and kisses.

Brian arrived just after Trent was rescued. After thanking Aaron for coming to my aid, and giving Trent a few more kisses, he took the cookies and headed back to work.

Here are my unsuccessful tools -

Aaron putting the window back together -

Next on our home improvement list: child locks on the bathroom drawers. Today does not need to be repeated, EVER!