Jonah has ALWAYS had a bit of a mischievous side.

This photo came up in my memories today.
4 years ago. Jonah had just turned a year old.

He had opened the cabinet drawer and “locked” Mama inside the bathroom.

He thought it was great. I thought it was hilarious.

And then it reminded me…

Later that year, Jonah managed to lock ME out of the house too. Because, apparently, he was already smarter than me when he was only 2 years old.

Would you like to hear the tale?

(Of course you do!) I wrote about it in a long since forgotten blog… many years ago.

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“Laundry and Keys”
August 26, 2015

So funny story this morning…

I went into the garage to throw a load of laundry in the washer before leaving the house (closing the door behind me so Jonah couldn’t follow, to his chagrin). I remember thinking, “boy I’ll sure be in trouble when Jonah figures out how to lock the door.”

And wouldn’t you know it, just then Jonah proceeded to crawl over to the door… pulled himself up, reached for the doorknob, and turned the deadbolt.

The front door was locked. The back door was locked. And now the garage door was locked. Every door to my house was locked. I stood there in the garage.

I was locked out of the house.

Not kidding.

I stood there stunned. We had to leave in like 5 minutes.

I thought to myself (or I may have said to myself) “Did THAT really just happen? Can’t I hit ‘undo’ somewhere?”

I really had no recourse for this as I had not been properly caffeinated yet, my ‘to-go’ cup of coffee sat full on the counter in the kitchen. Problem-solving and critical thinking were certainly not happening.

Honestly, the only things I could think of at that point were kicking the door in, breaking a window, or trying to pick the lock.

So, as none of those options appealed to me, I decided to at least be productive, in the predicament.

So, I walked out to the curb and pulled the garbage cans in that I left out yesterday. Check THAT off the “to-do” list. Now, I suppose I could clean the garage… maybe wait for the laundry to finish and fold the clothes… I dunno, maybe what…. mow the lawn? Do yard work? (gosh, I hope Jonah isn’t pulling down the TV or opening the fridge to dump everything out…he kind-of does that now)…

It was about the point when I started walking in circles pondering my options, I remembered the upstairs bedroom window was opened.

So I thought, maybe I could pull the ladder out of the shed to climb the 15 feet up to the window, take the screen off the bedroom window, while perched high in the air, and simply climb through it.

Seemed reasonable. And safe.

And then as I was walking around to the back of the house and thinking about how late I was, I remembered that Jonny hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet.

“Great” I thought. “I got him dressed and just let him play in our bedroom on Mama’s tablet all morning without even eating.”

I was trying to decide the most portable breakfast that could be eaten in the car, when it finally dawned on me.

Jonny might be able to unlock the door to the garage… duh!!

So I yelled at him to open the garage door and I went around to the front of the house.

Jonny has been working on his dexterity and he cannot unlock the front door yet… Come to think of it, he can’t unlock the BACK DOOR yet either. Could he open the garage door?

I didn’t actually know. If he couldn’t manage to unlock the garage door, not only would I be locked out of the house, Jonny would panic. Seriously. What would I do?

And then Jonah would… what… climb on the tables? Climb on the walls? Destroy the entire playroom, kitchen, and our bedroom? Who knows?

Hmm. At least if I mow the lawn, it will look like I did SOMETHING productive today besides being neglectful of my 14-month-old … (besides a load of laundry!)

But as I was thinking about how much gasoline we had for the lawn mower and how the neighbors would feel about me mowing my lawn at the crack of dawn, Jonny managed to twist the deadbolt and opened the door.

Jonah sat right inside the door in our playroom, just playing away, not even caring one bit. The little miscreant.

Jonny stood there laughing at and encouraging Jonah to “do it again” (because he is the world’s biggest enabler).

But enough. It was time to leave. We were late.

I loaded both kids up and fed Jonny smore-flavored pop-tarts in the car on the way to school.

I’m really glad Jonny was home. I mean. What the heck!?

JOOOOONAHHHHH!!

(Now I have to remember to bring my keys to do the laundry.)

Original Facebook Post.