There are some new stages in a baby’s life that are down right adorable. First words are precious. First steps are endearing. Sleeping through the night is ah-mazing.
However, every now and again a new stage comes around that is less than desirable. For example, the day a young babe figures out how to remove his/her own diaper. Or the first time they discover belching, or punching you in the boob at the store, or biting the dog, you get the idea.
Anyway, we had just moved into a new house and my 18-month-old had recently discovered, much to my dismay, how to open doors. He would get into the pantry, run out the front door, or run out the back door faster than I could catch him half the time. He was into EVERYTHING, and was going EVERYWHERE. Constantly.
It was exhausting.
One morning, the baby was still asleep so I decided to take full advantage of the situation and made the choice (that would later come to haunt me forever) to take a shower without the usual entourage. When I was finished, I hopped out threw on an old robe and wrapped my hair in a towel. I then stepped outside on my back patio to let the dogs out in my backyard so they could go to the bathroom.
My two older children followed me outside, and I waited for the dogs to do their business and turned to go back inside. I twisted the door knob, and it wouldn’t budge. I gave it a little extra push. Nothing.
That’s when I remembered a little something about our new doors. They are tricky. When they are locked you can get out, but you sure as heck can’t get in.
I was locked outside in all of my braless glory.
I panicked. I freaked out. I had a mini heart attack while I evaluated my predicament. My phone was in the kitchen on the island, along with my set of keys, and most importantly the baby was locked in the house asleep.
I tried all of the doors and all of the windows, and every single one of them were locked.
Let me just take a moment to explain to you that I am not the kind of gal who looks naturally put together when I hop out of the shower. I typically have mascara all over my face, my hair is guaranteed to be a knotted, tangled mess, and that day I happened to be wearing the rattiest crappiest robe you’ve ever seen. To make matters worse, my kids were all wearing their underwear and had a bad case of bedhead.
We were all aboard the hot mess express, and I was their captain.
I weighed my options, and I plotted out my plan of action. I tried to jiggle to door knob off. FAIL. I tried to throw body weight against the door, in some sort of feeble attempt to kick in the door. Nothing.
And then the Heavens opened up and it came to me.
The baby and his “annoying” new skill might just be my life line.
I ran to his window and knocked on it loudly yelling, “Mama’s outside, come outside and play with Mama! Open the backdoor, Baby!”
I peered through his blinds and saw him perk right up. He was clearly thrilled to be able to play outside before breakfast. He had scored majorly in his book. My pint sized knight in shining armor toddled over to the backdoor, opened it, and let us all in. I was instantly filled with gratitude for his new found door opening ability. We ate breakfast outside that morning, as little reward to my two foot tall hero.
The moral of my story is this: Some phases seem annoying. They seem inconvenient. They will try your patience like nothing else. But just remember, what seems like a thorn in your side may just in fact turn out to save your braless behind in a time of desperate need.
