The other day, Maranda left to run some errands right after I got home. The girls were standing by the back door when she left, and Izzy started playing with one of the deadbolts (it's a Dutch door, so the lower deadbolt is right at the girls' level). They do this all the time, of course. For some reason on that day I mentioned to Izzy that it was called a lock.
"Lock?"
"Yes, that's a lock. You turn it."
"Turn it? Turn the lock."
"Yep." I turned the lock a few times.
Izzy laughed and started turning it back and forth, saying, "Turn the lock. Turn the lock." (In the literary world, that's called foreshadowing.)
Half an hour later, my phone's alarm went off to remind me to give Lily her medicine. I got everything ready (Lily takes her medicine through the g-tube button, so you need the extension tube, a syringe, the medicine and some water), and went into the living room. As I was giving Lily her medicine, my cell phone started ringing, still in the kitchen. By the time I finished giving Lily her medicine and got back into the kitchen, I just missed answering the phone. The caller ID told me it was Maranda, so I tried to call her back. It rang a few times, then went to voicemail.
Just then the doorbell rang, so I hung up the cell phone and went to answer the door. As I opened the door, the home phone began ringing. At our doorstep was a woman saying that she thought her daughter's dog was in our backyard. I was holding Lily and trying to hold Izzy and Audrey back as this woman was explaining the situation and the phone was ringing. I quickly (but hopefully not too rudely) told her I would look for the dog, then shut the front door (locking it, because who knows who this lady is, right?).
I grabbed the phone just as the machine was picking up, and headed to the backyard. The girls were following me as usual, so as I went out the back door I shut the wooden door just so they wouldn't follow me outside (which would cause a whole corraling situation to get them back inside).
I talked to Maranda as I looked for the dog, which wasn't there. Then I heard the lady from the door -- she had come around the side of the house, and was shouting over the fence that she was pretty sure the dog was down the street. I said okay, got off the phone from Maranda, and tried to go inside.
No, Izzy had not locked the door. Lily had. As I mentioned, all three girls like to play with that lock, and Lily had taken the opportunity. She was still standing at the back door, and she looked up at me through the window in the upper half of the Dutch door.
"Lily, unlock the door, please. Lily? Do what you just did. See the thing? The thing on the door? Turn the thing on the door." Right. It wasn't going to happen. Lily looked up at her silly daddy shouting through the window and laughed. (And honestly, I am positive that she had no idea that I was stuck outside. They don't have enough interaction with the locks and opening doors to make that connection.)
Just then, Izzy walked back over to the back door.
I shouted, "Izzy! Turn the lock!"
Izzy beamed and shouted back, "Oh! Turn the lock!" She barreled past Lily and unlocked the door.
The lesson of this story? Hide a key under a rock in the backyard.*
*But don't tell everyone on the Internet that you're doing that. Because that would be dumb.
5 hours ago
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