Greg here. The one thing I regret about giving up blogging is adding to the archive of events in our daughters’ lives. Deb and I keep these memories safe and we do a good job of reminding one another about events in the past – but old blog posts were good for some of the details that fall away. For example, reading about the exact height, color and smell of Allie’s projectile vomiting (years after the fact) made it seem almost charming.
I wonder if I’ll feel the same way about Julia locking herself in her bedroom on Wednesday.
Wednesday night Debbie has class so the girls were in bed by the time she got home. When Deb went upstairs to kiss them goodnight she couldn’t open Julia’s door. I heard the commotion and joined in. Deb and I stood outside Julia’s door asking her to let us in.
No response.
The silence from the other side of the door started a small wave of panic inside me. For me, fear means yelling. I began yelling at Julia to open the door. Finally, after pounding and yelling we could hear Julia whimpering. The yelling and the whimpering went on for a very long time until I gave up on the coat hanger I was using to pick the lock and just unscrewed the entire knob assembly. The knobs fell away and I popped open the door ready to scoop up Julia and fling her out the window. Frightened, angry and probably frothing at the mouth I grabbed Julia’s arm and demanded an explanation. All I got was crying.
The entrance to Julia’s bedroom no longer has a door.
On Thursday after plenty of interrogation Julia said she locked her door because she was mad at Allie. I’m pretty sure she made up the explanation just get me to shut up. I tried to tell her how she could earn back her door but she kept smirking at me and looking out the window so I gave up. It was obvious this was a much bigger deal for me than it was for her.
Last night was the first night Julia slept without a closed door since she was old enough to tell us she wanted her door closed. I suspect this change has disrupted her circadian rhythm or something because around midnight Allie woke me to tell me that Julia was downstairs in the living room. I went to retrieve her and found her on the couch with her head buried in the cushion and her butt in the air. I didn’t carry her upstairs. I made her sleepwalk back to her bed.
So far both girls have made attempts to look for Julia’s door. So far I’ve caught them looking in the garage, under their beds and in various parts of the basement. They still haven’t found it and seemed a little baffled that something so large could remain in the house undetected. I hinted to Julia that I gave her door away. She started to cry so I reassured her it’s somewhere in the house . . . as far as she knows.
UPDATE: This evening I had to take the door knob off our bedroom door because someone had locked it and closed it on an empty room. Deb just went to Home Depot to buy a nail gun.
