Thanks to day-light-savings-time my children firmly believe in waking up before 6am. Every single day.
And they get into stuff if I'm not RIGHT there to stop them. Last week, they escaped downstairs and licked off the frosting off Derek's birthday cupcakes. And they run and jump and wake up the baby.
And me.
And Derek.
And so we decided to ground them to their room until 7am, regardless of what time they awaken.
Great. Except Spencer has learned to climb out of his crib and can open doors. Henry has been opening doors since he was 18 months old and likes to run as fast as he can whilst causing all kinds of mayhem.
Not a good combination.
In order to facilitate their "staying in their room" Derek and I would switch off who chased them BACK into their room, and who got to shout from the warmth of our bed, "GET BACK INTO YOUR ROOM AND CLOSE THE DOOR!"
Not so good.
So, Derek and I discussed locking them in. It would require purchasing a new door knob since their's didn't have a lock on it. And we weren't sure we wanted to take that step. It sounded horrible to us to do. Really awful.
Except we're tired, and the children are HIGHLY annoying before 7am. It's like they wake up on a some kind of happy high that I find to be unspeakably irritating. So, I was a grump. But I still wasn't ready to commit to imprisoning my children.
And then, on Saturday morning, on one of Derek's many trips to the boys' room to tell them to SHUT IT, he came back in hold a strange lumpy thing. (I'm blind sans corrective lenses and it was still dark.)
"What is that?" I asked, in a buzzed exhaustion.
"The boys' door knob. It just fell off in my hand."
And then the angels started to sing.
"It's a sign," I said. "It's a sign that we need to get a new door knob and start locking them in the morning." I was sure of it.
"Of course it is!" Derek agreed falling into bed. "CLOSE YOUR DOOR!" he shouted to the boys who were trying to escape again. "It is meant to be. We're supposed to be locking them in."
And so we did.
Now, to be clear, I only lock the door in the mornings, not all night. And if Henry bangs on it and whines enough, I let him out to use the potty. Other than that, they are in their room until 7am.
Now, granted, I still hear them banging around and jumping off the changing table, but at least they can only trash their room. NOT the kitchen, bathroom, living room, other bathroom or garage. It's great.
I'm telling you, it was divine intervention. There was no reason for that door knob to fall off. It hadn't been loose before then. It hadn't been tampered with by anyone.
It just fell off.
It's a beautiful thing.
10 comments:
That is HILARIOUS! And even more so because we do the same thing with our kids!! Except we never have locked them in. We just indoctrinated them early that they couldn't come out till 7. And we also set the clocks so they're behind. They never know it's actually 7:10 instead of 7:00.
We have done this that last two places we've lived. and like you, only the early mornings. kids have to give parents just that little extra space and time so they can compose themselves to not kill them the other 18 hours they are awake in the day :)
I'm a grump in the mornings too! And I'm also a fan of kids in their room until 7!
I have no problem with that!!! the girls sleep in the basement bedroom attached to the laundry room and a bathroom too so we use a baby gate and gate them in. Luckily for us they don't climb the gate. but they can go potty and play in their room until I wake up, we love it!! And really its for their own safety as well as the safety of my house!
Anna- I agree about the safety issue. My boys can fall off just about anything more than 2 inches off the ground. It's not cool.
Don't you remember the rope from the door to another door and how stratigic that had to be? You caould always use a rope!!!
Morgan- Deana and Lynn lock their girls in their rooms, or at least they used to. If they can then why not! I used gates when the boys were little. Now we just have rules which work most of the time. Even at 7 (nearing 8) Logan likes to get up very early. Our most recent rule is that if we're not up then he has to climb in my bed until I say it's time. He usually goes back to sleep for a while and then bounces of the walls when we do get up. On non-school days he isn't allowed downstairs (basement-tv) until we're up either.
Good for YOU!! That's all I have to say about THAT!! :-)
seriously ours is like that BUT david CAN unlock it and i hate it.. i think i want to get one of the sliding locks and use it at the top or one like you had at your front door when you were here i do not like getting up that early.. 5am.. 5am... no thanks how am i supposed to get up earlier than them and workout if I even wanted to? get up at 4?
Okay, so I'm down with the whole change the clocks thing. Especially since we used to do it on Christmas Eve so that we'd get more sleep.
MA
Post a Comment