Sam had a few weeks where he would go into the playroom and slam the door behind him, despite repeated warnings. Eventually the doorknob got loose and was hard to open. The first time he couldn't open it, he stood on the other side of the door, inside the playroom and wailed.
"I'm locked out!" he cried. I tried not to laugh as I opened the door from the kitchen and let him in.
"Well, it broke because you slammed the door so many times," I told him.
I thought he just couldn't manipulate the doorknob from the inside. Until last night. Sam and I were in the playroom, he was crying because he had fallen off a balance ball and I was trying to comfort him. Vivian was in the kitchen and closed the playroom door. Then she cried (that's what she does right now because she can open doors but not close them, so she immediately decides she does not like the door closed and being on the outside of it). I got up to open the door. I couldn't get the doorknob to catch to open it. So Sam and I were stuck in the playroom and Vivian was in the kitchen(/the rest of the apartment) by herself. And both kids were crying on each side of the door.
This used to happen when I was growing up (perhaps slamming doors runs in families?), and my parents would eventually remove, or the doorknob would fall out, and you could open the door with a pair of scissors or a screwdriver. None of which were readily available, plus the doorknob was still in the door, which I would have to remove.
I assessed my limited options (a set of plastic tools in the playroom with me) and thought about what Vivian could potentially get up to by herself and unsupervised. Luckily the playroom opens up onto the deck, so I opened the window, took out the screen and climbed out onto the porch. The deck door was also luckily unlocked, so I was able to open it and enter the kitchen where Vivian was very surprised to see me. The playroom door easily opened from the kitchen side. Sam had forgotten he was crying by the time I opened it. Watching your mom climb out a window is a good distraction.
Whew. So now it was time to get pajamas on and get the tired kids into bed. I got their pajamas out and was helping Sam get his pants off (his foot is peeling from last week's virus, and skin is literally coming off in layers which is just gross and a little painful). Vivian took this opportunity to shut the playroom door again. This time we were all inside the playroom. So I got to climb out the window again. Which was very funny for both kids. Which now Vivian probably thinks is a great activity to do herself.
I taped over the latch on the door, so it will no longer catch and get stuck, as much as I enjoy climbing out the window.
So interestingly, this happened in my childhood too. When Tessa was around 3 or 4, she closed the door to my bedroom and for some reason my doorknob didn't work- she locked herself in. And despite my mom's repeated attempts to talk Tessa through opening the door from the inside, she couldn't do it. Eventually, my father had to go and borrow a ladder from a neighbor, set it up on the deck, and climb up and in through the bedroom window. What I remember distinctly at the beginning of the ordeal, was being mad at Tessa for being locked in my room and playing in there in the first place. I was such a sympathetic sister. Once she was in there for a little while I did feel badly though.
When Chris got home last night I had to explain that no one tried to break in, I was just too tired to put the screen back in, let alone finish the other nightly chores. I'm also adding changing the doorknob to the to do list.
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