The Lock Out

We had a busy, busy morning. One of the new groups we are joining for the fall requests you sign up for 3 committees upon joining. (That is a whole separate story.) Anyway one of the committees I am on is the "celebrations" committee. It is quite fitting for me as I love birthdays, anniversaries, new babies, holidays and just general celebrations. The group gives a gift to each mom on her birthday, anniversary and for a new birth. Super!

The only glitch is we have to have the summer birthdays, anniversaries and births for the first meeting which is next week. Not much time. So we planned to get together this morning to get our gifts together. They are homemade, of course and entirely too adorable. We have some real creative cats on this committee!

This would be a majorly enjoyable meeting sans children but it is a Tuesday morning so we all had the kids with us. It was every bit of a zoo as I had imagined it would be. Oh I also want to add, we had it here because I was burning some CDs on the computer. Just to give you an idea of the kid factors, I was the only one with 2 kids but Madelyn was the oldest. Lots of babies all between 5 and 13 months! Holy chaos. But the supermoms we are we did it all---entertained the kids, crafts the gifts, fed the kids snack, cleaned up spills....

I was very thankful Madelyn was gentle with all the little ones. She can play nicely! Hmmm...why does she not play with her sister like that? Madelyn was so excited though. Every time the doorbell rang she said, "My babies are here!" Cute.

Well it gets better.

As the last mom and baby left I walked out onto the front step, as I often do. Abby is in my arms and Madelyn right behind me. I am saying goodbye when all of the sudden....WHAM!....Madelyn slammed the front door and locked me out. She is inside. I think I can hear her cackling! I panic. My heart stops. My neighbor Amy has a key. She's at work but not too far away. I try so hard to remember her number at work but in my heart racing state I can't remember my own phone number. I say a dozen and a half Hail Marys.

What could she do in there by herself? What couldn't she do?

I borrow my friend's cell phone (Nice first impression! I mean I just met her the other day but now we have a bond.) Still can't remember the number. I go to the back door and pound on it. Maybe if I get her to the back door I can walk her though unlocking it for me. Is she still laughing at me in there? Probably. More Hail Marys. I go back to the front and all of the sudden....as fast as it slammed shut...the door opened. I guess Madelyn decided the fun was over and opened the door. Or maybe the Hail Marys were paying off and some guardian angel stepped in. Maybe Madelyn wasn't laughing after all but she sure wasn't crying. At least if she was crying I might think perhaps she realized this is a major no-no.

I plan to hid a key in a secret location so this will never happen again. It was really only a few minutes but I think I honestly lost a few years in those two to five minutes.

The best part about today: We had an all-girl afternoon playdate with a college friend that just moved into the neighborhood and our other good friends/neighbors. It was major dress-up time. It's so fun to have girls!