Locked doors = Trouble

Robby is at the age where he doesn't always take a nap. This Mommy needs him to take a nap, but my desire doesn't always translate into his resting. Yesterday we engaged in one of our epic nap struggles.

Typically, our struggles follow a set pattern. I put Robby into bed for a nap, and he would lay quietly until I left the room. Then he pops up and begins to jump, run, spin and play. When he hears me coming towards his room, he runs and quickly jumps into the bed, pulling the covers over his head. Usually this pattern continues through several cycles until "Mean Mommy" emerges, with her forceful tone and stern body language, dictating that he lay quietly and rest.

Yesterday afternoon, after hearing him jump around his room for about 10 minutes, I decided it was time to bring out "Mean Mommy." I walked to his room and tried to open the door. It was locked.

I remember, when I was growing up, that my Mom would often insert a q-tip into the hole of the door knob to release the lock. I particularly remember us accidentally locking ourselves in the bathroom on more than one occasion. I guess I assumed that all doors had this safety mechanism.

I never really looked at our door knobs before yesterday. I knew that they locked, but what I didn't realize is that the knobs are missing the "access hole" in the front of the knob. In other words, there was no way to unlock the door from the hallway. This left me with a huge problem, because my precoscious three year old was locked in his room.

Robby heard me try to open his door, and was eager to leave his room. He became upset when the door didn't open, and started knocking loudly. I asked him to unlock the door, which was a useless request because he didn't understand. He kept knocking, and began to cry. Then he started to scream "Mama Mama help."

He was scared, and I needed to be calm. I went to the kitchen and retrieved a box of Lucky Charms. I then went and laid on the floor in front of his door. I put my fingers under his door. I knew that he saw my hand because he started to grab my fingers. My solution to his panic? I started to pass Lucky Charm marshmallows to him under the bedroom door.

With a constant supply of sugar, he began to relax. Actually, I think he thought of the situation as a fun game. With him calmed down, I was able to work on freeing him from the room.

I began to jiggle the door knob while singing a silly song. Then I stopped jiggling, and he began to jiggle his side of the knob in response. We continued this game for about 20 minutes, pausing only to pass through the marshmallows. Finally, he jiggled the knob in the correct direction and the door was unlocked.

With him freed from his room, I put him in the car and went directly to Lowes. I bought him a new doorknob that I can unlock from the hallway. He finally took his nap, in the car, when we were on our way home.