Well that fear came true today. Fortunately, and thanks to the power of prayer, our guardian angels? and the upstairs neighbor, we came out of it without any known casualties.
Dan was attending meetings downtown and Alexander was sleeping. Stephen and Lincoln really wanted to play in the snow and they had earned the privilege to do so. I thought if I took the baby monitor out with us, I could tell when babycakes woke up and could run down and get him. It sounded like a good plan so the boys and I got into our snow gear. The boys had a hard time opening the back door and I thought it was because the door handle was locked so I unlocked it (or so I thought) we went out and I closed the door. The boys ran into the snow. They were excited to discover "a hole!" or what seems to be the fire pit.
A minute or two later I thought I'd grab a book so I tried the handle and panic ran through me. It was locked! What?!!! How could this be? My mind raced. No one was home. The Spencers were out of town for a week. The upstairs neighbors weren't home. What was I going to do? How would we get back in? What if the baby woke up?
I ran around and tried every door and every window. Nope, the house was locked up tight. The only hope we had was that Dan would come home and let us in. Luckily I had my phone! Unfortunately Dan's phone was shut off. Meetings! To make matters worse, the battery in the baby monitor was dead. I knew that before we came out so I brought the charger. I then ran around the house looking for an outlet. There was nothing I could see or get to except for right next to the front door - the opposite end of the property from where the boys were playing. Ach!
I figured that Alexander had at least another 30 minutes of a nap so I plugged it in and hoped. I tramped through the snow until I got to the windows of our apartment and peeked in - everything was quiet. Whew!
The boys played and I tried to make a good situation out of it all by taking movies of the sledding.
After 30 minutes I ran to the front and grabbed the monitor. Still quiet. Dan's phone still off. We played. I tried to act normal and pretend there wasn't a problem. The boys discovered icicles for the first time ever which of course meant another movie.
After what seemed like only a few minutes the monitor died again. Darn that battery. Then I noticed an outlet up high on the eaves right by the back door. I got the charger and a chair and climbed up to plug it in. Right when I got the monitor back on the charger and turned it on - I heard a far away noise . . . it sounded like a voice. Oh no!!!!
I ran around the house to our windows. And this is what I saw:
My heart sank. What in the world were we going to do?!!!
I prayed and I called Dan over and over again. At this point the boys were tired and cold and wanted to go inside so I had to explain the problem. We decided to pray together. I felt better and decided that the only thing that was going to keep Alexander from banging on the computers or ripping books or playing in the toilet is if we got his attention and talked to him.
He was so cute. When he finally noticed me he showed me his airplane and talked to me about it.
Then he kept asking me to hold him. I felt terrible. He got on the couch right under the window and talked to me. We sang some songs. Then he climbed onto the window ledge and we sang more songs. The boys thought it was hilarious - I was a little too stressed to be that amused.
I was running out of songs to keep him entertained. Bless his heart he tried over and over to open the window. The little boys lost interest and went back to playing in the snow. I called Dan some more.
Then Stephen came running back. "Mom - I just met a nice girl called Alexa and she said it would be her pleasure to let us in!" YEAH!!!! The upstairs neighbor, who just moved in and who we had yet to meet had come home! We wouldn't have known it unless the boys had gone back to playing. She let us in and we ran downstairs. Babycakes was still in the window - bless him.
And then who should walk in the door not 5 minutes later with his phone still turned off? Yep. Oh and that window that the baby kept trying to unlock? It actually was unlocked. I could have removed the screen and slid it open! Oh well.
All in all we were locked out for a total of 90 minutes but luckily the only casualty that I'm aware of at this point is that Alexander now knows how to climb into the window.
Of course, knowing what he is capable of when he's right under our noses, it could have been a lot worse!
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