Locked In

We had a bit of a predicament one evening before supper this week. After Joel & CJ got home from work/daycare, we had CJ wash his hands before supper. Joel was putting down his work stuff and CJ ran into the main floor bathroom to wash his hands.

In the spirit of doing everything by himself, CJ closed the bathroom door behind him so he could wash his hands on his own, saying "I do it all by myself." However, he also LOCKED the door. Yikes! I don't remember him ever closing the door behind him (to wash his hands) and he has never locked a door before.

Joel found something to unlock the door, only to find that the slot in the knob where the key would normally go didn't actually go through all the way (like a normal bathroom door knob - this must have been a very cheap one). Oh no, this keeps getting worse. I felt fairly calm (though my heart was beating fast), but I kept wondering "Now how are we going to get him out of there?"

Through the locked door, Joel & I could hear CJ running the water. He sounded perfectly fine in there. We were trying to convince him to unlock the door and gave him instructions on how to do this. We even bribed him with dessert if he could unlock the door. Unfortunately none of that worked and he just kept saying "I do it all by myself." When he did finally decide to open the door, he couldn't figure out how to get it unlocked.

Soon CJ started to understand what he had done and was saying "get me out!" Thankfully he wasn't crying or upset by this situation (he was still having lots of fun in there), but I think he knew locking the door was a problem. After trying a few other things, Joel found a large rubber mallet and smashed the door handle so we could get CJ out. The whole ordeal lasted less than 10 minutes, but I was thankful the situation wasn't worse than a sink full of soap suds!

We left the old door handle on for about a day after the "locked in" incident. Each time CJ walked by it, he made a comment about Daddy going "bang bang bang" with the hammer.

Joel & CJ went to the hardware store to buy new door handles. CJ ended up telling the guy at the store all about how Daddy had to break the handle because he locked himself in. Joel installed the new handles on the main floor and they look very nice (we've been wanting to replace them for awhile, but not under these circumstances).

Why do I have the feeling that this won't be the only incident like this we'll experience as parents? I guess it's a great story we can tell for years to come! At least CJ's hands were clean...