The other morning Momma woke up and heard the TV on downstairs…and it was on cartoons. Ace has never gone down the stairs before in his life (without rolling down them). She went downstairs to find Ace running around the downstairs nekkid as a jay bird!!
Apparently, he took off his jams and diaper and decided to let the boys air out a bit…
Then she noticed a Fed Ex package sitting inside the living room next to the front door. She figured that I met the Fed Ex guy on my way out the door and threw the package inside…but I didn’t.
So our best guess is that Ace unlocked the front door and opened it when the Fed Ex guy knocked… probably greeting him in his birthday suit. The Fed Ex guy didn’t see a parent around, threw the package inside and shut the door.
Thank goodness it was our honest Fed Ex guy at the door, and not a child molester!!!
We have had a few things in place to keep this from happening…a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs, and a chain lock on the front door.
However, when I leave for work I can not lock the chain lock because you can only lock it from the inside. And the baby gate? I know I shut it. So Ace found some way of forcing it open and then shut it behind him…or he climbed over it.
Then a few days later I wake up to go to work and went to check on Ace before I left. He got sick in the middle of he night and we had to change his sheets at 3 AM, so I was making sure he didn’t puke all over himself again…
He was not in his bed.
I checked the baby gate down the stairs and it was shut. The chain was still on the door. He has to be in the house somewhere!?
I checked all the closets thinking that maybe he climbed in there and slept for the night. I checked all the rooms upstairs and even in the bathtub.
Ace was no where to be found!
So eventually I go downstairs to find Ace lying in the middle of the living room floor, fast asleep, with his Teddy and Blanky where he apparently fell asleep watching cartoons in the middle of the night.
He had shut the gate behind him and could not get it back open to go back upstairs to bed.
One of the scary things is that he isn’t the most graceful person going down the stairs, and he likes to carry 20 times his weight in stuffed animals down with him. I know I am going to wake up one morning the sound of THUMP THUMP THUMP as he is tumbling down the stairs.
And the sad thing is there is no way to gate off the top of the stairs!!
Maybe we’ll have to lock him in his room…but I’m sure that is against all kinds rules to Children Services . 😀
So, we’ve been practicing going down the stairs. If he’s going to do it, we might as well teach him the safe way to do it. Hand on the wall. One step at a time. Put down the stuffed animals. Quit horsing around!
And now I leave through the side door…which he hasn’t figured out how to open yet. This way the chain lock can stay on the front door.
Can you imagine the look on the Fed Ex guy’s face when a butt naked two year old answered the door? 😀
Wow, quite the sneaky little guy.
Luckily, our daughter is still working on rolling over so I have time to prepare myself for when she is mobile!
@Chris: Sneaky sneaky! 😀 It won’t be long man till you’ll be doing the same things… Once they are mobile everything is considered a toy to them. 😀
We have those child safety knobs on the main doors in our house. They haven’t figured them out yet. Well I guess they have. They take something and hit it and it disconnects.
Maybe try coming down the stairs on his butt?
We were at a relatives house this weekend and they have stairs. My 2YO just went up and down them with out help for a few times and then eventually he was jumping off the third step no problem.
@Eric: Our front door has one of those lever door knobs. I haven’t been able to find a child safety thing for it. The chain lock will have to do. 😀
It’s when you come down the stairs in the morning and he’s coming IN the front door you got to worry….
The new look is really good, retro and professional.
@Martin: Especially if he smells of a mix of booze/perfume and has hints of glitter on his face. 😀
That is some nerve wracking shit! My kids are very good at staying inside when I am still alseep–they typically wake me up before going downstairs. I can’t imagine if I had to worry about them getting out of the house.
I say lock him in his room.
@Ed: Believe me, I have seriously considered locking him in his room, but Momma won’t allow it. 😀 A fire safety thing…
Maybe we should actually set the alarm at night so that it will go off if he opens the door. 😀
I have SO lost my kid. After several night time raids on the kitchen (refrigerators are apparently not to be left open for hours), one morning he actually left the house before the sun came up. Luckily we found him right away (sitting on the porch swing in his jammies), but we did have to begin locking him in his room after that.
Now that he’s potty trained, we leave his door open. Thankfully there are no more middle of the night escapades!
@hoenybell: At least I am not the only one. 😀 Bet that was a tad bit scary!!
Wow! now that’s a brave little guy to venture outside. Good thing he didn’t wander too far.
hows about you take the stuffed animals to him? That way he won’t be thumping down the stairs AND he can have his stuffed animals wherever he goes on his break-outs. Everybody wins!
My son was an escape artist and he liked to take things apart. He was as quiet as a mouse. It wasn’t unusual to discover every drawer nob and table let bolt in the house missing. I even found my alarm clock dismantled once. My son walked at 9 months. I found him sitting on top of the refrigerator eating cookies shortly after his first birthday. LOL!! The boy is now 19. Not really sure how he survived all those years. 🙂
@Marsha: On top of the fridge? WOW! I’m pretty sure I would have flipped my lid if I found Ace on top of the refrigerator… 😀
LOL, I forgot to mention the boy was also a climber. We had to put a mattress on the floor in his bedroom shortly after he learned to walk because he could climb out of his crib.