Ellie can now reach the dead bolt!

How do I know this you ask, well here is my fun story from the other day. It was Harrison's birthday. We had just dropped the kids off at school. I unlocked the garage using the key pad to get into the house. I carried a few of Harrison's presents and Ellie into the house. I set down my purse and keys and walked out through the garage go get another load of stuff out of the van. I get to the door to walk in and it won't open. It takes me a minute to realize that my two year old has somehow managed to deadbolt the door. The major issue with this is I just set my keys on the counter and need to find a way to get into my house. I try to talk to her through the door to get her to unlock it but she doesn't get what I'm saying. She keeps turning the bottom handle not the deadbolt. I had been on the phone when it happened so I called my husband in a panic. Not much he can do he works close to an hour away from home. I call a couple friends who might have a key. One thinks she can find it and says she'll come over. She lives about 20 minutes away. The others who live closer either don't or I can't get a hold of them. Another friend comes by to drop her son (9 mo old) off that I'm supposed to be babysitting and tries to talk to Ellie and get her to unlock it. We finally realize that the front door has only the bottom doorknob locked so a much better shot at getting that door open. We convince her to go to the front door and tell her to turn the lock like she's been doing on the back door. She did just what we said, we heard the click of the deadbolt clicking into place. UGHHH!!!! Off my friend has to leave, leaving me with her son who I buckled in Ellie's car seat and left the door open so I could keep him safe while I messed with Ellie. I also by this point have called my sister in law who lives about an hour away who can find my house key at her house and she is on her way. The first friend Laurel ended up not finding the key but still drove the 20 min out to see if she could help. I have great friends! Through all this I kept talking to Ellie. As frustrating as all this was it really was cute to listen to Ellie respond back to me so eager to do what I was telling her. "Go get your stool so you can reach better." "Okay, I do it" or "Sweetie, please turn the top shiny lock thing." "Momma, I aldready dood it! I am! I am!" She'd get so frustrated with me since I just kept telling her to do the same thing over and over again and it just wasn't helping. I wasn't sure what else I could do. My friend Laurel got there with her daughter and tried to talk Ellie into unlocking it. The frustrating part was that she was trying she just couldn't do it. She finally successfully unlocked the bottom doorknob, so had she just had to get the dead bolt undone on one of the doors since they are both now locked. Laurel kept a hold of the doorknob so she couldn't re-lock it.

Then she did it. We heard the click as the deadbolt unlocked!!! HOORAY!!! I was so proud of her. She was so proud of herself. She kept telling me, "I dood it with the lock momma, I dood it" What a relief. By this my sister in law was about 10-15 min away from my house and so she still came on the rest of the way and spent the day helping me try to catch up from all the time I lost in that little escapade.

Now, to address a couple things, not much I could have done to change things. When we had her show us how she did it, she had to stand on her tippie toes and with one finger could barely push the lock just enough to make the door not open. Garage key pads do you no good when the door from the garage to the house is locked. But in the end I am super grateful that she kept her head through it all, that I mostly kept my head through it all, that I have some seriously amazing family and friends who drive that far out of the their way to save my behind!!