As a mother you get experiences that feel absolutely infuriating and embarrassing in the moment but later become memories that will forever be hysterically funny. I had just such a moment this past week that I will share with you now for your laughing pleasure too, but feel free to feel sympathy for me as well because it truly was awful.
A couple days ago we all awoke early and I sickly pulled myself from my bed (remember I'm pregnant) and threw a robe on to get the family some breakfast. After we ate together we kissed daddy goodbye and I immediately dragged myself upstairs to retrieve the laundry from the girl's room. It was approximately 7:00 am at this point. The girls followed me into their room giggling and laughing and shut the door behind them. I didn't think much of it as I continued to gather dirty laundry from around the room. As I walked to the door to leave Little Miss calls out, "Mom, I locked it." My heart stopped. You see, for time out purposes the lock is on the outside of the door. Little Miss had in fact turned the lock before walking in and shut the door to lock us all in the room.
Let me paint a picture for you. The girls and I are locked in a room on the top floor of the house, with no one home to unlock it, no phone, no clothes for me, no food, no water, no BATHROOM, and not even a clock to keep track of the space of time gone by.
I instantly begin searching for any way to pick the lock. Of course the day before I had cleaned out all the stray bobby pins from their room and put them away. But, I continued to search the carpet on my hands and knees just hoping that I had missed one somewhere. No luck. I finally found a thin-tailed comb, but to no avail it was just too thick. I was starting to get desperate. I found a pen and literally destroyed the thing trying to make it fit and when I did get it to fit it was just to flimsy and broke on me in the process.
At this point I gave up. I started accepting the fact that we just might be stuck in that room for 10 hours until Adam came home. I tried to make the best of the situation by playing with the girls and finding creative ways to occupy the time. I was being pretty optimistic about it all until it hit me how much I needed to go to the bathroom. Let me remind you again, I'm pregnant, holding for 10 hours is not an option. Holding it for one hour is not an option. I became panicky and started trying to think of any way to keep that dang door open. I tried breaking the handle, I tried ripping things apart in the girls room to use as a means to card the door, and nothing was working. And then Little Miss started complaining how bad she needed to go to the bathroom too. At this point I tried opening the window to see if we could see anyone outside to help us, and nothing was working. So finally we made a solution to the current problem. I won't go into details, but I will allow you to use your imagination on what you would do. I only include this part of the story because it gives you an idea of just how awful this situation was.
We continued to find ways to entertain ourselves and when the girls began to get hungry I had to just keep reminding them that mommy could not do anything about it and that they would have to wait until dinner when daddy got home. Missy cried a lot at this point and I felt like I was going looney without a way to know how long we had been in there.
I had said many silent prayers myself but at this point decided that we should say a prayer together. Each of us took a turn saying a prayer asking for help to get out. No joke, I stood up and looked at the window and there was a runner across the street. So I yelled like a mad woman for her to stop. She had ear phones on and I was so afraid she wasn't going to hear me, but eventually she stopped looked around until she saw me. I asked her if she had a cell phone and she did not and she went to run on and I panicky screamed, "No, you can't leave! You don't understand, we are stuck and locked up here. Please, I beg you, run next door and get my neighbor!" Luckily, both the husband and the wife were home!
So they came over with a ladder and the husband was able to climb in and screw the handle of the door and we were set free! I was so excited to be out of there that I didn't even have to time to feel embarrassed about the fact that I was dressed in nothing but a robe.
We were locked in that room for 3 1/2 hours and it felt like an eternity! I can't even imagine if we would have had to stay in there for the entire 10.
All in all, it makes for a good story eh?
15 years ago
