I had another “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry” day a few weeks ago. Perhaps it was more of a “cry during and laugh after” type of moment. I’ll start by saying that I had the whole morning planned out to run smoothly and seamlessly. Nathan has a soccer game on Saturday mornings. Sometimes we all go together and other times David takes Nathan by himself. Well this particular Saturday David had a training session at work, which meant I would have had to take all three kids to the soccer game alone. Since all three are engaged in completely different activities (William on the playground, Nathan on the soccer field, and Colin crawling around on the grass probably eating small bugs) there was no way I was going to attempt to do this by myself so I was resigned to the fact Nathan would just have to miss a game. However, his coach generously offered to pick him up, take him to the game and bring him home afterwards. It was so kind and we were thrilled that Nathan wouldn’t have to miss a game, even though we wouldn’t be there to see it. Well, my plan was that when the coach came to pick Nathan up, Colin would be napping, William would be engaged in a TV show and I could take Nathan outside to wait for the coach, calmly put him in the car and send him on his way. Unfortunately, this is not what happened.

As the time drew nearer for Nathan to be picked up, I started to work on putting Colin down for a nap. Little Colin, however, had other plans. He was in no way tired or ready to even think about napping. No big deal, I’ll just take him outside with me and perhaps William (the real challenging one who likes to dart away from me) would be happy to stay inside and look at the iPad. Well Colin began to settle down so I gave him a bottle in his chair. Then the phone rang and it was Nathan’s coach saying he was on his way. I wasn’t quite ready so I began to scramble around getting Nathan dressed. By now, the coach would be here any second so I let Colin drink his bottle, William had the iPad and I went with Nathan outside to wait. We walked across the little courtyard to wait by the street and a mere two seconds after we got there, I could hear William frantically screaming because he had been left behind. I ran back to the house only to discover that William had locked the door from the inside. I began to panic. I screamed (as calmly as I could if screaming and calmly can both go in the same sentence) to William to unlock the door. He couldn’t do it. I started to run with Nathan back and forth from the road to the house in a complete haze of “Oh my god what am I going to do?!?!” I didn’t want to miss the coach and I couldn’t leave William screaming by himself. Finally, the coach arrived. I flung Nathan at him and shrieked that William had locked himself and Colin in the house. He said something but I have no idea what it was since I was already back at the front door. Thankfully, I had my cell phone and frantically called the front office saying I had locked both my babies inside the house and was stuck. All the while William was still screaming, Colin was silent (which just led me to fear he had suddenly died) and I was yelling instructions to William on how to unlock the door.

It must have been 60 seconds after I hung up the phone that two men raced down and unlocked the garage so I could go in the through the laundry room. I thought the whole ordeal was over and breathed a massive sigh of relief only to discover the laundry room door was locked too. The men raced back up the leasing office to get the key for the front door (why they didn’t bring one down the first time is beyond me). By this time William had stopped screaming. As calmly as I could I explained to him one more time how to unlock the door (there are three locks) and William magically did exactly as I told him. I burst through the door expecting to see him a complete mess and Colin barely alive. To my great relief, Colin was in his chair finishing his bottle as if nothing had happened and the only thing on William that was bleeding was his toe from me accidentally smashing it when I burst through the door.

I called the leasing office to tell them the emergency was over and gave William a huge hug. I said, “William! You scared me very badly!” And he answered back with his sweetest, cutest voice “Oh I’m so sorry mommy!” The ordeal was far from funny while it was going on, but even as I am writing this, I can’t help but laugh a little 🙂