This story takes you through the tramatizing night Joshua and Terry had the night Joshua decided to...read on to discover what happen!

From Joshua's Journal Entry...

So last night was an adventure! It all started off okay when I left work early at 2 PM to come home and watch you while Mom had a doctor appointment about your upcoming baby sister. You woke up after your nap and things looked pretty good. Only a few curious chirps for 'mamaaa' but they were not too panic filled - so nothing to worry about there. We played for a bit downstairs, had a little post lunch snack - fruit snacks and spaghettio's - and everything was looking like it was going to be a routine night. Oh how I was wrong.

Mom also had commitments later that night to go over to her friend Becky's house for dinner so I was thinking that our biggest adventure would be dealing with your separation anxiety. Before she left, we all ran a couple of errands together - grocery shopping and to Tom's new house to see how it was coming along - and then came home and played some more. So you had been with me for over 4 hours by the time she was leaving. As much as this would have helped in normal circumstances, it provided me no benefit with what was about to transpire.

You had a dirty diaper so I was changing that, Mom snuck out the door around 6:15 to avoid the separation meltdown. I finished up on the changing table, set you on the ground and grabbed the garbage bag (your poop stinks so bad now that we have to dump it every time you go to bathroom) and headed for the garbage can in the garage. Now just in case (actually Mom and I hope constantly) we aren't in the same house by the time you are old enough to read this, let me layout the house schematics for you. We have a simple split level house. You bedroom is upstairs at the moment and obviously at one end of the house. So to get to the garbage can, we walk out of your room, down the hall, down eight steps or so, back through the mudroom (which is fairly large for a split - about 15-20 feet), then out to the garage and to the far corner where the garbage can is. So all in all, I would guess the entire trip from your changing table to the garbage can is about 40 feet one way.

So before we get back to the story, I should also note how you think you are God damn Deon 'Primetime' Sanders...high stepping and running all over the place. I only mention this because I'm guessing this is what you did to get us in our upcoming predicament.

All right, back to the story, I started walking for the garage, not really paying attention to you, figuring you would either play upstairs in the living room until I got back (probably a 20 second trip) or maybe follow me down and I would see you at the bottom of the steps or something. I proceeded to throw the bag in the trash and was heading back to the door. As I am reaching for the door handle, hand inches away, I hear a heart-stopping CLICK. Now you may ask how a click could stop my heart, but let me explain. I put it all together very quickly.

Number 1, some how you had managed to high step your way down to the hall, down the steps, and into the mudroom before I walked to the trash and back to the mudroom. Impressive feat in itself, but at this moment I wasn't the 'proud father' I should have been. Number 2, even though I took your shoes off when changing the diaper, you were still able to stand on your tiptoes and flip the deadbolt lock even though with your shoes I swear I only saw an overlap of about one centimeter between your finger and the bottom of the switch. Now if only you could talk, because I would like to know if you thought of flipping this deadbolt when you started sprinting for the mudroom or only when you got there? ;) Because like I said, I wasn't wasting any time, so it wasn't like you got down there and were standing there waiting for me and out of boredom turned the deadbolt. You must have made a b-line for the deadbolt and flipped it. By now, I'm sure you know where this is going, but I'll finish for your amusement. Number 3, Mom and I used to have a spare key hidden outside the house, but for unnamed reasons, that key is no longer there, so I knew I wasn't going to find a key like most people have hidden. Number 4, I had taken my cell phone off my hip during your snack to let you play with it, so I didn't have any 'easy' way to call people since that was still inside the house - read on to number 5 and 6 for further ramifications. Number 5, since we never lock the door from the garage to the house (we simply use the garage door as the lock) we don't have a spare key in the garage, but the key ring of one of the vans has a key on it. Luckily that was the van that was in the garage with me (therefore a cell phone to call Mom would have been useless because she wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway), unluckily I had just taken that key off the key ring the day before to enter the house quietly during your nap (instead of using the loud garage door) and had neglected to put it back on the ring yet. Number 6, I frantically tried to recall who had keys to our house. I knew Bob Tougas (the contractor you befriended) had one and I wasn't sure if Sissy had one or not. Other than that, all the keys were either inside the house or given to the Hennen's (closest one being in St. Cloud, MN). Number 7, because Mom watches too many scary movies, she is paranoid about locking windows and doors, so I knew there would be nothing left unlocked to get into our house.

So that was my thought process in the mere seconds after I realized I was locked outside my house by a nineteen month old and was going to have to try and talk you through letting me back in the house, get a hold of Sissy or Bob, or resort to destroying something to get in. I tried my first tactic...talking to you through the garage entry door and trying to convince you to let me back in. As futile as this sounds now, at the time it sounded like a good idea. Seeing that you had just locked me out, it might be fresh in your mind to flip it back the other way and let me in. The conversation went something like this...

"Josh?"

"Ya!!!"

"You have to unlock the door to let Daddy back in the house."

"Dooooorr!"

"Yes, you have to unlock it". Then I would see the door handle turn, so I would inject, "No, not the handle, the lock right above the handle, you have to turn that!" I would then tap my finger on my side of the door on the deadbolt lock. You, thinking I'm doing an S.O.S. signal through the door, proceed to do your own version of Morse Code and knock on the door back to me. Now at this time, I was still pretty confident that you were going to let me back in the house, so I can remember even now thinking this was funny and cute. But after going through this exact same conversation about six times in a row, I started to lose hope. To your credit, I could have swore I heard noises as if you were reaching for the deadbolt on a few occasions because I heard things but didn't feel the handle turning but without being able to see you through the door I couldn't be sure how much progress we were making.

So now fifteen minutes (which seemed like 2 hours) past and you were showing your first signs of cracking by starting to whine. Now I had to decide how long I was going to push our Morse Code training or resort to Plan B of calling someone and seeing how long it would take for them to get over, but seeing as how I didn't have my cell I had to borrow a phone from a neighbor. Neighbors...funny thing...you'll have to read 'Badger Ridge War' sometime to see what I think of them. Let's just say I'm not going to win any Neighborhood Arthur Ashe Awards. So I opened the garage door and to sprintted over to Jim and Jenna's (immediately on our right) and as I came out of the garage like a bat out of hell, there was SB Number 2 (see reference in Badger Ridge War) walking up to the door to pick up her kid from day care. Remember, by now, it is 6:30 PM and dark, so she about had a heart attack seeing a man charging her full speed out of no where. I feigned an apology after she recovered - let's just say I had more pressing thoughts on my mind ;) I asked to borrow Jenna's phone and she gave me her cordless, I called Sissy at home, but there was no answer. I quickly told Jenna what the issue was and she offered me her cell, so I took it and ran back home. I was probably gone a minute and a half, but I'm sure the silence was deafening for you. When I got back, by now, you were crying pretty heavily. I was going to try Sissy again in a minute on her cell, so I tried talking you through unlocking the door again, but you were crying so much now that you weren't even listening to me. Now a sense of urgency started to kick in. Best case scenario, if I got a hold of someone it was still probably 20 minutes at least before they showed up, and since we were already at T+20 minutes locked out, that would mean 40 minutes of you being alone - not to mention the last 20 of it you crying hysterically.

Out of embarrassment, I closed the garage door so the neighbors weren't privy to seeing me trying to talk you through letting me back in the house. But I realized that you needed to see me, so I unlocked the deadbolt on the garage service door and walked out to the front door where there were two window panes on either side of the door. I called for you from the front door, but you stayed in the mudroom crying for me. So I was going to go back in the garage and tell you to go to the front door so you could see me (don't ask me why I didn't think to use the door bell) and I walked back to the service door. I grabbed the door handle and Mom added yet another obstacle to our night...she had locked the handle of the door too! I've told Mom, so now I'll tell you, if someone is going to break in and they can get past the dead bolt, the stupid handle lock isn't going to help, but I digress. Now, this door being locked didn't really present any more obstacles for us because thankfully I hadn't left the cell phone in the garage, so I went back to the front door and rang the door bell. You came sprinting and wailing. I finally saw you for the first time in 20 plus minutes and it looked like someone painted polka dots on your face. You were starting to splotch up from crying so hard. You had tears streaming down your face and a severe case of PANIC written across your forehead.

I called Bob Tougas (even the site of the phone didn't ease your nerves at all)...he answered but I could tell he was a bit apprehensive about driving over. I don't think he really got the urgency of it all and didn't realize the full circumstances. I told him I'd try Sissy again and he said to call back if she couldn't. I called Sissy and got a hold of her. Unfortunately, she didn't have a house key. So that meant that the only key within a 200 mile radius to get into the house was being held by Bob. I called him back and told him he had the only key and he said he'd be over. One problem was that I didn't know where he lived and I didn't ask so I wasn't sure how long it was going to take.

While waiting for Bob, I resorted back to Plan A - talking you through unlocking the door, but this time I had the luxury (or agony seeing how close we were) of seeing you and trying to walk you through it. You were trying your hardest. Standing on your tip toes reaching for the dead bolt, but without your shoes on you were just short. So then you would grab the door handle with one hand pulling your self up just a few millimeters higher, but still the deadbolt was just out of reach. You looked like a rock climber hanging from a cliff reaching with all he had trying to grab a rock that could save his life. But when you realized you couldn't reach it, you would let go in defeat and cry even louder and put your face in the window pane against mine and wail. By now, both you and I were in a fragile state of mind (albeit I would like to think I was a bit better off than you). I was assessing the house to make sure there wasn't anything you could hurt yourself with and determining if we could wait out Bob or if I would have to proceed to Plan C...destroying a window to get in the house. I my fragile state of mind, I decided to sprint around to the back of the house on the slimmest chance that somehow the deck door was unlocked. When you switched from one window pane to the other one (on the far side of the door), and I took my chance. Pitch dark now, I was sprinting back to the deck hoping I remembered where the trees and retaining wall was so I wouldn't run into them. I made it up the steps and to the door and just as I always knew, it was locked. I could see you down in the foyer frantically going from one window to the other trying to find me, so I took off for the front door again, missing a few steps getting off the deck but no major damage done - I'm sure I looked funny stumbling, bumbling, fumbling down the steps being pitch dark no one could see anyway.

After getting back to the front, you were a disaster. At first I thought you had given yourself a bloody nose from crying so hard, but upon further inspection, I realized it was just a big black booger, so at least we cleared out all the boogers you were having lately. Hey we got to look at the positives right ;) Jim had made it over (Jenna's wife whose phone I borrowed) and came over for moral support - not sure if Jenna sent him for me or you more but he was there. Hey tried and failed miserably at distracting you, and I think he thought I was pretty crazy for still trying to talk you through unlocking the door. He would comment how you don't have a chance and aren't listening, but I knew you did! Only problem was I could get you calmed down a bit, at least enough to stop and look at me and listen, but every time I would say the word 'Unlock' you would start balling. Obviously associating that word with all your previous defeats, it was more than you could bear. Unfortunately it was getting worse because in between your 'normal' wailing you were throwing in dramatic 'mamaaaaa' cries. I knew my time was running out.

Trying to comfort you, I made the mistake of saying Bob was coming over to unlock the door. Now remember, you have befriended Bob (who is currently finishing our basement bathroom) and love going in the bathroom to 'help' him. So when I said his name, and I'm sure you were just hoping he was down there and going to save the day, you shakily chirped out 'Ba' (your version of Bob) and started heading downstairs into the darkness towards the bathroom. Great, just sent you off for a wipe out in the dark. So I frantically started yelling at you to stop and ringing the door bell. About two steps down into the darkness, you gave up on that idea and came back to me begging with your eyes for me to open the door.

Well to bring this portion of the night to a close, we waited another 10 minutes or so, 50 minutes of total lock out time, until Bob showed up and unlocked the door. Now, you would think this would be a good thing, but as emotionally distraught as you looked before, you must have been holding it in, because now you totally fell apart. You started trembling screaming for Mom as loud as I'd seen or heard you do it before. I tried to comfort you but was failing pretty bad. I finally got you calmed down a bit by letting you play with the kitchen sink. Even though you weren't crying as you turned on and off the water, you were still trembling and if I tried to take you away from the sink for dinner you would lose it. After several minutes of playing with the sink, I figured I had to start dinner (which I knew would be a battle) and get back to your schedule so we could bathe and go to bed on time.

After a little bit you calmed down and we got to dinner. Both of us spent. You had spaghetti which is always fun for you to eat. Even more fun after I taught you the Lady and the Tramp trick where we both take one end and eat it until we kiss. You even got spoiled a bit by me and I gave you a Kit Kat to destroy. Of course with your eating habits, where whatever size piece of food is put in front of you have to put the whole thing in your mouth (if there are small pieces you are fine with them but if big pieces, you take that challenge head on) you put the whole Kit Kat in your mouth. This was made a bit funnier, because you were trying to talk to me with your mouth full and the food would start to fall out so you'd quickly stop talking and slap your hand to your mouth the make sure none fell out. But you'd forget and start to talk again. You went through this a couple times until you realized you had to eat everything (especially if it is chocolate) in your mouth before talking or you might lose some. We had our bath and bottle time and the night finally concluded.

To your credit, I have to mention, I went into the laundry room and looked at the deadbolt. At a locked position it is probably at 10 o'clock and unlocked it is at 2 o'clock. The position of the deadbolt was at 1 o'clock. We were so close, I swear I could have blown on the dead bolt and it would have fallen to the unlocked position.