So yesterday I accidentally locked Kendall in the house. It was one of those things I always feared would happen, and I even said to myself out loud as I headed to the door with the bag of trash as Kendall quietly played with his toys in the front room, “don’t lock yourself out, don’t lock yourself out”. I unlocked the deadbolt, unlocked the door handle, closed the door behind me, dumped the trash, went to open the door only to discover that I had actually LOCKED the already unlocked door handle. FUCK! There’s Kendall, his chubby cheeks smooshed to the front window, laughing. Hahahaha! It’s so funny to see mommy freaking out on the other side of this window!

Of course, my brain was exploding with curse words and thoughts and what ifs. I managed to reach back into a corner of my brain and recall a conversation with my husband about a week ago that went something like this.

Me -”You know, I”m always worried that I’m going to accidentally lock myself out of the house one of these days. We really need to hide a key somewhere, like, maybe under a pile of dog poop or something.”
Scott- “No. Then a burglar will find it . They know EVERYWHERE people hide keys. They will find it. You know there is a window unlocked, right?”
Me- “Uhhh..no. Why? If you are convinced someone would find the key and break in, why wouldn’t they find the open window and break in?”

He told me it had something to do with the alarm going off if they opened the window and then told me what window it was. As I was remembering this I was praying he didn’t decide to lock it after that conversation. I would have called the dog sitters who have keys except I didn’t know their numbers and didn’t have a phone since all of that was in the house along with MY CHILD. I ran to the window and discovered the screen would not come off without the use of tools, which were also in the house with MY CHILD.

I darted across the street and pounded on the neighbor’s door, thankful I had managed to brush my teeth that morning. Luckily, they were able to remove the screen and bust in in a matter of minutes.  Poor Kendall had gone from laughing at me to freaking a little when he saw me run across the street.  Then he freaked a little more when a strange man crawled through the window and the dogs went bizerk.  

The whole ordeal was probably 20 minutes from start to finish and Kendall was in my sight the whole time, standing by the window, but it still made me feel like an asshole mom.

We headed out to Gymboree class later in the day where I recounted the asshole tale to a few other moms and then to some moms I ran into at the mall playground after class.  Each one of them responded with, “Oh yeah…that’s nothing.  One time I/my husband/my dog/my son locked (insert baby’s name) in (insert car/house/bathroom).” And as we all sat there and relived the insanity and hilarity that ensued, laughing only because in each case all ended well, it occurred to me that this must be another one of those Motherhood badges.

Yes, if motherhood were like Girl Scouts, my sash would be getting pretty full of badges. I would have the We Survived Colic, My Kid Cried It Out, Molars are AWESOME, Finally Getting Some Sleep Around Here!, Bugs as Snacks, and Crafty and Creative Diaper Blow Out Cleanup badge, among many, many others. Now, I can add the Dimwit Mother Moment In Which I Locked My Child in the House badge to it.

I think it will go nicely next to my other new badge I earned this week, the I Know Brown Bear, Brown Bear By Heart And If You Ask Me to Read It One More Time I Might Set It On Fire badge. In the last week Kendall has taken an extreme level of interest in this book and can not get enough of it. Scott, my sister, my brother, my mom and I all read it to him countless times last weekend and throughout the week. It was adorable the first 200 times. Now, I admit, I’m hiding the book… just for a little while, I swear.

Kendall is 14 months and a week old