Locked Out and Freaked Out

Yesterday I had such a scary experience. I must still be feeling it because I cried again telling my mom about it this morning.

Both of the girls had just woken up from naps and I decided to go out and get the mail. I laid Ava on a blanket on the floor and went to the garage door because my shoes were there. I got the mail, but when I tried to open the door going from the garage into the house, it was locked. Every door was locked and every window shut and Brie and Ava were inside. I was calm at first trying to think through ways of getting in. I came up with nothing. I thought to call Scott, but he forgot his cell phone and was already driving home from work. It was exactly 5pm. I thought things would be ok if I just kept watching them through the window to make sure they were alright and I would wait for Scott to get here.

It was already getting dark and then it started to thunder, lightening, rain down frozen sleet and the wind was blowing so hard. It was practically a white out. I got more nervous then because I knew it would take Scott much longer to get home now that snow and ice were coming down so hard. I kept watching Brie through the windows and she was just walking around eating pretzels and thought I was playing with her by looking at her through the back window, then the front window. I was watching through the front window and saw Ava roll herself from her back to her stomach. She lasted like that for a minute, but then was mad. I saw her crying so hard, red face and burying her face in her blanket because she couldn't keep her head up. That is when I freaked out and panicked. I had all kinds of scary, irrational thoughts of her smothering herself in the blanket. I had to get in there!

I ran to the next door neighbor, who is about 85. I started crying when I told him and he almost started crying with me. He called the old owners to see if they had a key. Nope. We were trying to call a lock smith, but I knew that would take forever because of the horrible snow storm. The roads were already really bad. Then I saw my neighbor across the street walking home. I yelled to him to please come help. I told him that I didn't care if he broke the door down, I just wanted to get in. So, he did just that. He took an iron wrench (?) and broke the handle so that it would open and I went running in to a pant less Brie still munching on pretzels and a screaming Ava. I was SO grateful for good neighbors that were home.

It took Scott an hour and a half to get home. I told him everything (in tears again) and he immediately started taking care of things. He changed the door handle and lock on the back door and changed the handle on the garage door. They were dumb locks that stay locked even when you open the door and go outside. He made copies of keys and distributed them. We should be all taken care of now and hopefully that will never happen again. It was way too traumatic for me to be locked outside in a blizzard (in flip flops) and my kids inside. Yikes.