The Joys of Parenting
Several weeks ago, kid the elder figured out how to manipulate door knobs through the supposedly child-proof plastic caps. He utilized this discovery to exit his room during afternoon naps, cross the upstairs hall to the room of kid the younger, enter that room, chin himself on kid-the-younger's crib, and belly-flop down on top of said sibling. Kid the elder squealed with delight. Kid the younger also squealed, with notably less pleasure. This was clearly a problem.
Meanwhile, kid the elder has also figured out how to manipulate door locks, raising the unpleasant possibility that he could lock himself into his own bedroom (or that of his brother). This was also, clearly a problem.
Fortunately, anticipation and advance planning are the hallmarks of successful parenting, so about two weeks ago I dis-assembled the knob on the elder's door and rebuilt it so that the lock was on the outside. This enabled us to contain him in his room during naps, while also preventing him from sealing himself within. Problem solved.
Last week, it was bedtime. My lady was off knitting with friends, the evening routine had gone along smoothly, and it was now time to take the kids up to their rooms for the good-night story. The younger child indicated that he wanted to climb the stairs rather than be carried, so I set him down, trailing along one step behind in case he slipped. The older child raced ahead laughing gleefully. Clearly, some mischief was afoot, but given that his bedroom is completely empty aside from the actual bed (he's taught us a lot), I was not terribly concerned. In hindsight, this was a problem.
Kid the younger and I reached the top of the stairs and entered the kid-the-elder's room; with a laugh that was disturbingly close to maniacal, the elder slammed the door. The little varmint had locked the door while it was open, and slammed it with enough velocity to force a closure. He'd locked all three of us in.
It's okay, I thought -- there's another door, that goes directly between the two children's rooms. We don't ever use that door, because we wanted to keep the older child ignorant of its existence, and thus I felt reasonably confident it would be unlocked. I was wrong. It was also locked, also from the outside. This was, quite clearly, a problem.
I gave serious thought at this point to simply bedding both children down in the elder's room, turning off the lights, and dozing peacefully until my lady returned. The squealing and screaming (some delighted, some not) and pinballing motion of the two children chasing each other around the room, however, strongly indicated that this was not a viable option.
After some exploration, I discovered that the door to the younger child's room had the disassembly screws on our side. After further exploration, I discovered that there were no screwdrivers in the closet. I did, however, have my keys -- and exactly one key was small enough to engage the head of the screws on one notch, and be rotated approximately one 32nd of an arc at a time. Unscrewing the knob was an extremely delicate and pain-staking process, not eased in the slightest by the antics of my two children, who were both thrilled with the unexpected delay of bedtime. Nonetheless, I was eventually able to take off the inside knob and push the outside knob and the locking mechanism through into the other room, allowing me to then realize that without the knob attachment I had no way to engage the actual bolt.
After several more minutes, I discovered that I could lever a different key sideways into the back of the bolt with enough play to push it (and that pushing from the inside actually drew the outside of the bolt back into the door. All told, it took 58 minutes to escape that room. And yes, there is now a screwdriver in the closet -- on a shelf the older kid can't reach.
Scott took me to a comics and games conference this weekend, and bought me a t-shirt which he said I simply had to have. It's hard to argue the point, in that the shirt features a giant kitten who has clawed its way to the top of Empire State Building, Kong-style, and is now snarling and swatting at a bunch of little, mouse-piloted biplanes. I wore the shirt today as I woke up the children, and both reacted immediately.
As soon as I flicked the light on in his room, the older kid (three-and-a-half) pointed at the shirt and said, "Daddy, why is there a kitty-cat on your shirt?" "Why do you think?" I asked. "I think he's snarling and swatting," said the child. "What do you think he's snarling and swatting at?" I asked. "The little planes!" said my child.
As soon as I flicked the light on in his room, the younger kid (not quite one-and-a-half) pointed at the shirt and said, "Gato!"
Clearly, Scott's assessment of the shirt was correct.