An Interesting Thing Happened Today

Just as I got out of the shower this morning the phone rang. It was my neighbor and friend Juleen. She said that Maxwell was at her house, very concerned that I was nowhere to be found and that he and Jackson and Kacie were locked out of our house. Juleen, of course, thought that perhaps I had told the children they had to play outside while I did some cleaning or some other random task without interruption. Why she would think I needed to lock them out to accomplish such a task remains in question. I guess I'll have to ask her kids about that one. Anyway, I assured her that I HAD NOT locked my children outside and that they probably just needed to turn the door knob a little harder. Eventually they managed to get in and the whole incident was forgotten.

UNTIL......

Fast forward about 6 hours. The big kids are outside playing in the pool and Mia and I are downstairs doing laundry. Jackson comes running in, dripping wet and yells, "Mom. You gotta come see this!" Not wanting him to continue dripping all over the carpet, I hurried up the stairs and ran outside to watch the "totally awesome pool tricks" they had managed to invent. I watched for all of about 1 minute and turned to come back inside. NO CAN DO! THE DOOR IS LOCKED and on the other side of the glass stands my 21 month old stinker, MIA. In her efforts to join us outside, she managed to lock the door behind me. HHHMMM...is this what happened this morning too? I quickly remember that the battery is dead in the garage door key pad, (Why didn't we fix that a month ago?...The last time we got locked out.) and that I still - 2 years later - haven't given a copy of our house key to my neighbor!!! GGRRRR!!!! At this point Mia had giant, crocodile sized tears running down her chubby little cheeks and she begged and begged for us to let her outside. Jackson and I tried for 5 minutes to get her to unlock the door but apparently that is yet beyond her capabilities. So I left Jacks to keep an eye on her through the door and ran over to my neighbors to borrow a tiny screwdriver and an assortment of batteries so I could fix the dang key pad. By the time I got into the house, Mia was laying on the floor - calm as could be - watching Elmo and she simply said, "Mommy...Home."

Who knew a 21 month old could cause so much trouble!?!?!?!?