Locked Doors Mean Nothing

            There are days when I marvel at what my kid can do. We all know what she can’t do, but I have a feeling my readers are suffering from shit fatigue. So, let me tell you a story of intrigue and problem solving that my kid did a while ago.

            Most of you will remember that we nicknamed her the Ninja when she was still a fetus and it would seem that she heard us and took it to heart. She has a tendency to sneak around when she is up to no good and is alarmingly stealthy. In my house, as with any other child infested home, silence usually means some sort of mischief and possibly a mess to clean up.

            This story begins a few months ago. It was a Friday and I was off school and having a lie-in. She was up relatively early and after some early morning cuddles, she was off to play in her room. I was enjoying the beginning of my day with dozing and checking my phone. In between the two states of consciousness, I heard a crinkling coming from her bathroom. Suspicious of her getting into anything under the sink, I hauled myself out of bed to check on her. Between my becoming aware of her doing something I wouldn’t approve of and checking on her, she had booked it into her room, closed the door and locked it.

            We have had some issues in the past with her getting into things [READ: smelly, soapy, toothpasty things] in her bathroom when she was supposed to be sleeping. As such, we have a habit of locking doors on the upper level when she was put to bed. Since the whole potty-training thing is ongoing, we have stopped locking the bathroom door in case she has to go. Hence why she knows how to lock a door.

            Being prepared for a lock out, we have a screwdriver for lock picking purposes on the doorframe above our bedroom door. I grabbed it and opened the door she thought was secure and would keep me out. She was in her bed with her dental flossers. They had been dumped out and she was playing with them. I am not sure what compels the small ones to play with non-toy things. But I let her know my opinion, while putting them back in the bag from whence they came. I deposited them back in the bathroom and locked the door. Satisfied that I had won that round, I went back to bed to continue my lie-in.

            A few minutes later, after she cooled down from the indignity of losing her new “toys” she came to my room and closed the door. Thinking nothing of it, I continued to look at my phone. I could hear her go down the stairs, move the baby gate, push a chair around in the kitchen and then come back upstairs. A few minutes later I heard the door on her room shut and the lock click. That was followed by the only thing that a parent dreads; silence.

            Curious, I got up and went to investigate. The first thing I noticed was that my door was locked. Strange, but sometimes she plays with the locks for whatever reason. Even stranger was that she had locked it with no noise. I unlocked and opened my door, finding nothing amiss. The bathroom door was still secured. I went to her door, screwdriver in hand and heard the same crinkling. Even more curious, I once again picked the lock and opened her door. There she was, merrily playing with her flossers again. Now, instead of getting angry for her not listening to me, I went into detective mode.

            “So, tell me, how did you come to have these flossers?” I asked her, eyeing up the mess on her bed.

            “Du-na-no,”she replied.

            A likely story.

            “Did you pick the lock on the bathroom door,” I went on, knowing full well I had her trapped like a rat.

            “No,” her voice inflected skyward at the end of that no. So, she was going to play sly.

            I took the flossers away, again, much to her chagrin. I then went to the bathroom and opened the door. She was hot on my heels protesting in a high-pitched whiny voice which was outside of my hearing range (but had my dog alarmed). I then relocked the door and turned to her.

            “Show me how you got into the bathroom,” I instructed her, passing over the screwdriver. She looked at me with narrowed eyes, sizing up her chances of time out.

            “Du-na-no,” she said again, taking the screwdriver from my hand.

            “Look, we both know you picked the lock. The flossers didn’t just march out of that bathroom on their own. Show me what you did.” She took a deep breath, stepped forward and carefully put the screwdriver in the slot on the lock and turned. It made no sound because she was so careful. I was watching a future criminal mastermind at work. She opened the door and looked over at me with a big grin on her face. But that left me with another question. What had she picked the lock with? I went back into her room looking for the tool of her crime, she followed, too casually. I found a button on the floor. I tried it in the slot on the doorknob. She didn’t quite have the dexterity.

            “What did you use to open the door?” I asked. She was sitting on the bed with the sweetest, most innocent look on her face. In response she leaned back and reached down behind her bed. My eyebrow moved in an upward trajectory. She pulled out the screwdriver from the high counter on the main floor. “Oh. Interesting”

            What could I say, I was proud. But, at the same time I was disappointed that we would have to find another way to outsmart her.

            “Can I have that please?” She turned it over and I got down to her level. “Stay curious kiddo, I want you to always keep me on my toes.”

            That evening, the doorknob from her bedroom was moved to the bathroom because the lock mechanism is harder to pick, if you’re a four-year-old.

             Now, we just have to figure out where she learned how to her record shows on the PVR…