Our Monday Adventure

The Predicament:

I had to call Cr to come home to let me and L, Z, & J out of the school room because the doorknob wouldn't work. Where were M & N, you might ask? Why, they were locked in the playroom.

The way our basement is set up is there is a playroom (with a door that leads upstairs) and a hallway (with a bathroom) that leads to the schoolroom.

I always lock a hook and eye at the top of the basement stairway door to make sure the boys don't go upstairs when I'm working in the schoolroom with their brothers. If they are being noisy, I shut the schoolroom door. The little guys were being noisy.

However, the schoolroom doorknob had come halfway loose, so it no longer engaged the latch to let the door open. I tried getting the screws out all the way to take the knob off, but I couldn't.

To top it off, my 2nd cup of coffee had left me in need of a potty.


The Release:

Cr thought he'd come home, jiggle the handle a bit, and let us out. Ha! He slipped me a screwdriver under the door and I took the handle off. Something on the inside of the doorknob had broken completely off and he had to use a hammer and screwdriver to get the latch to loosen and let us out.

When I called him he had a hard time understanding me because I was laughing so hard (at one point he said "are you laughing or crying?"). But really, when I took the boys downstairs for the start of a new school week, it never dawned on me that we'd get locked in there. The little ones were entertaining me by sliding their fingers under the door and saying toddler/preschooler-ish stuff. The older 3 had watched a history thing on China that morning and it had a bit of the history of Kung Fu in it. They were plotting ways to use their Kung Fu to get the door down.

Unfortunately, the only tools I had in the room were paperclips and pencils and a spoon. MacGyver I am not. We could've gone outside through the basement window, but that would've meant braving a spider-infested window well, and if I had been brave enough to do that I would have had to get the screen out first (our screens are nearly impossible to remove without a screwdriver).

What a way to start the week!