Friday, July 07, 2006

Heeeeree's Mommy!

Holy crap. You won’t believe what just happened here. I don’t even know where to begin for dramatic effect. I guess I’ll cut right to it. I just had to bash a hole in our office door with a hammer. While Noah was shrieking in complete panic on the other side of the locked door. A door I didn’t even know locked. For which we have no key.

I had been sitting in the hallway playing with him when he went into the office and closed the door on me. And I guess the lock had been pushed at some point – though I’m not sure how. So then he was locked in the office – and I was locked out, and he couldn’t turn the knob. He started screaming in complete panic. I called Mark while starting to cry and freak out. He told me to take the door off – but there were no hinges or screws on my side. I hung up on him and called 911 and then went to the basement to grab a tool box. I tried to break the lock but it wasn’t happening. And I couldn’t exactly calmly contemplate the best strategy – so I told Noah repeatedly to go sit on the couch away from the door, and then I started bashing a hole in our thankfully cheap door with a hammer. This of course caused Noah more panic but I kept telling him it was only me trying to get the door open and to stay away from the door. Once I got the hammer completely through the door I reached my hand through and opened the lock. For like ten minutes Noah just clung to me sniffling. I told him it was okay, that I was sorry he was so scared, that I was scared too. And I explained to him what happened. Then we went downstairs to await the police arrival. The female officer said she was probably going to do the same thing to our door. She said has a two year old too. I was thankful she acted like it was par for the course and that I wasn’t a complete moron. That was very kind of her. Well – Noah is napping now and I have to clean up bits of splintered door from the floor. Bye.

9 comments:

thelyamhound said...

Darling, that's a rather harrowing story . . . and hence highly entertaining, particular in light of the more-or-less happy ending. Sorry you had to go through that, but it's pretty entertaining to imagine your hand reaching through a hole in the door for the knob, like Nicholson in The Shining.

lonna said...

Oh how horrible. You poor things. I guess that now you have an excuse to buy a better door that doesn't lock. Noah's such a good boy that he didn't get in your way while you were hammering away. I don't know if I could trust Dermot to stay away from the door in this situation.

Stine said...

Dude, poor kid. I bet he was just terrified. Things like that suck when you're a toddler.

amandak said...

Trauma! Glad everyone is freed from the confines of the office. I would have been FREAKING OUT. Way to bash in the damn door.

Missuz J said...

Nicely done mom!

Anonymous said...

Oh no! That would be so scary. My blood pressure went up just reading about it. Poor things!

hazel said...

holy shit, nicole! you must have been completely freaked out. you poor thing. I know noah was freaked out too, and it's horrible, but you were the one who knew what was going on and felt helpless. you did a great job though - nice thinking, seriously. now that this is over with, you have to know you can do anything.

OMH said...

Wow your now a HERO MOMMY!!!! (Not that you aren't for him all the time) I have to say you handled that like a pro! I'm not sure I wouldn't have ended up with a broken foot trying to kick the door down like in the movies (which I'm sure would not have worked at all - LOL).

I love that you admitted to him that you were scarred too - that is a lesson that I think all children should learn that Moms & Dads get scarred - get mad - get sad - get angry just like they do. Hopefully we also teach them (like you did in this case) that it takes action to solve a problem - ignoring it never seems to make it go away.

Teri said...

OMG. Your story made me laugh and cry! I have heard of that happening before. My one-yr-old daughter is just discovering the whol opening /closing door thing so I've been hyper-careful about that very thing.

You're a rock star!