Adjusting to a new house, or, Caleb locks himself in his room · 14 January 2010, 13:20
This morning started off very well. Caleb ate just about all of his breakfast on his own, needing assistance only for the last two spoonfuls of oatmeal. We had our morning blanket time, a couple of stories, and then he and I headed to his room for his independent playtime. Independent playtime is where I put the baby gate up in his room, he plays in his room with his toys while I do other stuff. He didn’t complain when I left, and seemed quite happy playing in there. I went downstairs and ate breakfast, assembled dry granola ingredients, took care of some dishes, etc. It seemed awfully quiet up there, so I crept upstairs to see what he was up to. He had shut his door, and it sounded as though he was probably lying on his lambskin with his blanket, relaxing and possibly settling for a little catnap. Fine with me, I thought, so I went back downstairs and got my shopping list ready so we could go to the store in a little bit. He began to stir and talk in his room, and I was ready to go, so I went to fetch him from his room … and couldn’t. He had not only shut the door, but managed to lock it (our bedroom doors have the kind of lock where you turn the lock in the doorknob). There is a small hole in the middle of the doorknob, so I unbent a wire hanger to try to get it unlocked. It wasn’t working, and by this time, Caleb was fussing about the fact that he wasn’t being fetched from his room.
Long story short, Clint had to come home from work (thankfully only 5 minutes away) to rescue Caleb. I am accustomed to interior door locks of the push-button sort, and it turns out that with these, one needs a very small flathead screwdriver to turn the mechanism inside the little hole, rather than just flicking an internal catch with a coathanger.
The ironic thing is that just last night, as we were going to bed, Clint and I were talking about the fact that we had never unlocked these doors from the outside, and should probably make sure we knew how, before we had to. Yeah. Great idea.
— Jennifer
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