A Monday to Remember

Like most human beings, I try to save my pride. I have to wonder why. It’s not like I don’t have enough of it with a great deal to spare. But I still find myself saying, “Well, at least I didn’t do THAT.”

Which, in this circumstance is one of the silliest things I could say. What I did do was bad enough. All I should be doing is thanking God it wasn’t worse, Emry is extremely good natured and I have neighbors who went above and beyond the call of duty.

I’ve been feeling so tired and not 100% myself with this pregnancy that I feel there simply isn’t enough time in the day to get it all done plus get caught up with the hundreds of little things I haven’t gotten done. After several naps this weekend, I felt that today would be the day I might catch up just a little…until I locked myself out of the house…with Emry inside.

Truth be told, it’s amazing I haven’t done it before. It’s rather a habit to lock the back doorknob when I exit. This time I was simply taking an armload of recyclables out to the bin. I was thinking more about the multiple things I needed to do when I got back inside, so I didn’t realize I had flipped the lock on the knob until I came back to the closed door and tried to get inside. It was lock shut…and I could see Emry happily sitting on the kitchen floor eating her snack.

Kuddos that I didn’t quite panic. But still…it’s one thing to lock yourself out of the house. It’s another to lock yourself out of the house at the same time you locked your 15 month old inside. I made my way around the house trying each window. But I’m too good about keeping at least one of the latches on each one locked. There was simply nothing else left to do: I went next door and asked the neighbors if I could borrow a phone.

Being way more introvert than extrovert, I’m not best friends with our neighbors, but I do know they are very good neighbors. He found a credit card in an attempt to unlock the door. (Apparently he is exceptionally good at that – in fact, he did it for her on their first date when she locked herself out of her apartment – but we have newer doors. Credit cards don’t work on them.) So, we checked all the windows again. The front door was a no go because I knew the dead bolt was locked. Our last attempt was the cellar door. He worked for a  good ten minutes with a block of wood wedging it up and another long piece  he maneuvered until the latch loosened. Sadly, I had forgotten: there’s a deadbolt on that one too.

Meanwhile, we were keeping an eye on Emry through the windows. She was as happy as could be playing peek-a-boo with us in the windows. It never crossed her mind that something was amiss. She just kept smiling and waving.

A good twenty minutes had now passed and we were out of luck. I had their phone, but while I thought I finally had Ed’s cell number memorized, I couldn’t recall the correct order of the first three digits for the life of me. So, my neighbor looked up the store number where he works and I was able to reach him. It was nearly an hour before he was supposed to be off, but my locking our toddler in the house was a good excuse to leave. He was home in 15 minutes. Emry was still as happy as could be. I was relieved, a bit embarrassed and more than a little frazzled at it all. I still am.

As you might imagine, I shall be very careful in the future. Not to mention I will be getting a spare key to hide. I could care less about locking myself out…but I never want to lock Emry in again!