Door Locks

What I had hoped would be a quiet evening turned out to be anything but that. I have been sick and not feeling well for several days and decided to stay home from church tonight. If this has been a virus I've had I certainly did not want to share it with anyone by going to Mutual this evening. So, Nicholas had taken a very late afternoon nap and I went to wake him up a little after 7pm. I was surprised to find that his door was locked. Up until now he hadn't yet figured out how to turn the lock in the handle of our interior doors. We have lever style door handles and when you lock one of them you have to open it with a small long metal "key" that you insert into a tiny opening. It looks nothing like a typical key, and you have to do it just right or the door will not unlock.

I got the key and proceeded to try to unlock Nicholas' bedroom door. Even though I was trying to be quiet, Nicholas apparently heard me trying to unlock his door and woke up crying. After trying unsuccessfully for five minutes I tried calling Rick several times on his cell phone. I was hoping he could walk me through it over the phone, but I just kept getting his phone message. I knew he was in a meeting a church, but I figured if I kept calling several times in a row he would think it was pretty important and answer his phone. No luck! I made many more vain attempts at unlocking the door, then called my parent's house. I quickly told my mom what the situation was and asked her to send my dad over.

Five more minutes go by. I still can't reach Rick and where is my dad??? Nicholas is still crying and I try to comfort him by talking to him through the door. I even asked him to try to unlock the door from his side, but he just couldn't do it. He gets even more upset and starts crying hysterically. Now I'm also crying and call my parent's house again to ask why dad isn't at my house yet. My mom tells me not to be upset and cry and that dad is now on his way. Okay, I know that not feeling well probably magnified the whole situation, but how could I not be upset and not cry when my baby is now sobbing and I can't get to him to hold and comfort him?

It took my dad between 5-10 minutes to unlock the door. I was so relieved and felt like at least I wasn't too incompetent if it also wasn't easy for him to unlock the door. He picked Nicholas up in his arms and tried to console him. When Nicholas wouldn't stop sobbing dad took him outside over to his truck and sat him on the tailgate. Dad said it took Nicholas a while to settle down, but at least he did calm down while being with his grandpa and watching a plane and a group of Canadian geese fly over. I felt so bad for him because I knew it was a traumatic experience for him and I had felt so helpless. I really, really, really don't like the interior door locks in my house!

My Grandma Luke is such a sweet person. She was very concerned about the whole situation and had followed my dad over to my house. It's no small effort for her to walk from my parent's house across the yard to my house. She stood right there with us in the hallway until my dad had Nicholas' bedroom door open. Then she stayed with me in the family room while dad had Nicholas outside until she was sure that I was going to be fine. I told her that I was much better now that the ordeal was over and appreciated her coming over.

When dad brought Nicholas back he got a screwdriver and proceeded to take the door handle off of Nicholas' bedroom door. He was adamant that this situation not ever happen again, and I agreed. When Rick got home later he knew something was wrong. I was still frustrated that I had never been able to get a hold of him. Rick said that he had left his cell phone in the truck and had not brought it into the meeting with him. He felt bad that I couldn't reach him. We decided to switch door handles with one from a hall closet that didn't have a lock on it. Rick took care of that pretty quickly and I felt much better about Nicholas not being able to lock himself in his room anymore.

It was just two days ago on Monday that Nicholas figured out how to unlock the deadbolt lock on the front door. I was in the office on the computer and the dog started barking. This is a signal that usually means one or both of my parents are walking across the yard to my house. Nicholas was in the family room and the next thing I heard was the front door open. By the time I got to the front door Nicholas was at the end of our concrete driveway and my dog was halfway to my parent's house at our family garden. I called Rick and told him to pick up a door latch of some type on the way home. After Rick installed it that night it made me feel even more secure about Nicholas not being able to open the front door and escape at will. It's also great because I can answer the door and slightly open it while it is still locked. I hope that's the last of the drama with door locks for a while!