From Calm to Crazy

Sometimes the calmest of mornings can turn into the craziest of moments. On this particular morning last week, all the boys were ready ahead of time for school and quietly playing. (Never happens!) And I was getting ready for a coffee date with a friend.

At about 8:30 when we usually load up and head on out to school, Grant seemed to be MIA. We checked his usual hangouts where he likes to play, but no luck ... until we noticed the guest bathroom door upstairs was closed. Hmmmm. Not only was the door closed ... it was LOCKED! Grant's glee could be heard chirping on the other side of the door. He was having a grand old time in there! But the trouble with a 22-month-old locking himself in a bathroom is that he also doesn't know how to unlock himself in that bathroom.

I kept calm and set out to find one of those little keys that we keep on the top of the door frame ... for emergency lock-picking adventures such as this. Except those little keys were nowhere to be found. Above any door.

On to Plans B, C & D ... a paper clip. A screwdriver. Then a bobby pin. One failed attempt after another.

Then it happened. Yes, the worst case scenario came true. Grant had turned on the water in the sink and was now SCREAMING. A barrage of thoughts flooded my mind. Had he turned on the hot water and was getting scalded? How much water was pooling in the sink? Had he gotten stuck in the sink somehow? This was going from bad to worse ... calm to crazy.

By this time, it was 8:37 (school starts at 8:45). Reid had already grabbed his backpack and was waiting for the rest of us in the car, so he missed out on all of this craziness. Luke was trying to be helpful ... "Mom, should I call 911?"

As Grant's crying continued and concern elevated rapidly and no sensible attempts to open the door were working, I took the what-seemed-logical-at-the-time next step.

I kicked in the door.

Now don't think it was like a TV stunt where one swift kick busted open the door. No. Try about 12-15 kicks with all my might. Front kicks. Side kicks. Any kind of kick to try and open that door. All while wearing some cute gold flats.

And finally, the door gave way and broke open! Little Grant was fine ... just frazzled from all the ruckus his mother was making on the other side of the door! I was so overjoyed to pick up our sweet boy and hold him and calm him down. And beyond relieved that nothing worse had happened.

Now here's the other side of the story ... from the other side of the door. Grant had crawled up on the toilet seat and then climbed on the back of the sink and turned on the water. Yes, the hot water. But thankfully, he had stayed out of it. Our hot water heater is turned down, so our hot water isn't really that hot ... but it still isn't something with which anyone would want to take a chance.

With tears streaming down my face from the frenzy that had just ensued, I got my wits together, calmed down Grant, and shuffled the older boys off to school. And then I called Scott.

"Well, the good news is that Grant is okay. The bad news is that the bathroom door is not."

Because I am married to the most patient man in the world, Scott was very understanding about the incident and even chuckled about it. We thought the door replacement might be relatively easy because we had a spare door in the basement. But that door was the wrong size. And the frame was cracked from all that crazy kicking. So Scott ended up replacing the entire frame & door, which involved a lot of sawing, fitting, sawing, refitting, hammering, woodstaining & painting. But the new door has been installed, and the bathroom is back in working order.

And crazy has now been restored to calm once again. At least until the next incident...