Lockdown

My friend Gen and I went shopping this morning, leaving Chris with the girls and Gen's son Sam. Taking on a preschooler, a toddler and an infant all alone is no small task, but my husband seemed up for the challenge. Gen and I had a good time, and Chris assured me when I called to check in that things were going well.

But of course, the Fates couldn't possibly let Chris escape that easily. They decided to have a little fun with him before we got home. When Gen and I walked in the door, we found a confused Sophie, a freaked out Sam, and one crazed-looking husband flinging himself repeatedly against the bathroom door. And where was Emma, you might ask? Oh yeah, you guessed it...she locked herself inside the bathroom.

Apparently she'd been in there for half an hour before we arrived, and Chris had tried talking her through unlocking the door again - to no avail. She was either too scared to do it, or the lock was stuck. Either way, it wasn't happening. Since this was the first I'd realized we even had a lock on our bathroom door, it was a double surprise to learn that we didn't just have a lock - it seemed our door was sealed up tighter than a vault's. Chris tried everything he could think of to open the darn thing. He took the doorknob off. He rammed the door with his shoulder. He used a hammer. A wedge. A crowbar. A bunch of other tools whose names I do not know. He banged, pushed, kicked, shook that door with all he had - he even tried pleading with the door (if you consider F-bombs the height of persuasive language). Nada.

In the meantime, I held Sophie and tried to stay out of the way while Gen and Sam ate lunch and looked desperately helpless. Which is how all of us felt, especially Chris. I tell ya, there is nothing worse than hearing your child cry in fear and BEING UNABLE TO GET TO THEM. Yes, I wanted to throttle her for locking herself in there in the first place. And I also wanted to scoop her up and hold her until her tears subsided and she felt safe again. But at the moment, as there was a door between us that Fort Knox would be proud to own, I could do neither. And it was excruciating.

Finally, after much crying (Emma) and grunting (Chris), the lock broke and Emma was free. Although Gen and Sam had crept out the door by this point (they said they had a swimming lesson, but I suspect they were going straight home to make sure there was no lock on their bathroom door), I was so grateful for the distraction of their presence because it had kept my worry at bay. Only after the incident was over did I allow myself to think about how much worse it could have been. Chris removed the lock from the door permanently, Emma seemed to forget the entire event within five minutes, and we continued to go about our day. Crisis averted. Well, not averted, I guess...um, maybe squashed. Crisis squashed? Or crisis solved? Anyway, crisis DONE and now we are on the other side, ready to face the next one - which I've no doubt will reveal itself soon. It wouldn't feel normal around here otherwise.