True Stories

When Luke was soaked by a sudden surprise sprinkler-shower
in a neighbor's yard, she offered him some little towels to dry off.

Number One: When Left to His Own Devices

On Friday afternoon Eliza went out to our little back yard to blow bubbles and the boys went out with her.  I heard the outside water running when I was in the house and when I went out to investigate, I was told that Luke had pulled the kiddie pool over to the spigot and was filling it up.  Before I knew it, he walked into the pool, fully dressed in long pants and a long-sleeve shirt, shoes and socks.  I was pretty upset.  I turned the water off and got Jack and Eliza back in the house immediately.  Luke wouldn't come in, though, and I was too tired from the day to engage in what would have been the third battle of wills with Luke since he'd woken up from his nap, so I left him outside, assuming that he would be cold soon enough and would come in on his own.  To my surprise, he stayed out for a while longer, and when I finally checked on him again, there was a bucket in the pool, the spigot was on once again, and the pool was overflowing.

Number Two: Dependent on a Toddler's Cooperation

Last week a friend came over to play with Eliza one morning and we all walked out together when it was time for the friend to go home.  I chatted with the friend's mom for a couple more minutes then when we were going inside, I noticed that Luke wasn't around.  I hoped he was in the house.  When I got to the door, I saw that he was in the house.  And I also noticed that the door was locked.  I didn't have my phone or my keys, and all of the doors and windows were locked.  I tried for several minutes to convince Luke to unlock the door, and he tried, but the deadbolt is harder to unlock than it is to lock, so he was unsuccessful.  I offered fruit leather, then upped the ante to a treat, and he still couldn't make it work.  He looked amused at first, but that soon subsided.  He wandered around within sight of the front door and I yelled at the door, trying to help him to open the door.  After several minutes I told him to open the garage door.  He unlocked the house door just fine, but couldn't reach high enough to push the button to open the garage door, so he gave up and wandered around the hallway some more.  That's when I started getting worried.  I went to my neighbor's house to ask to use their phone to call the police but they weren't home.  When I came back to our house Luke was looking in the window, probably wondering where I'd gone.  I didn't want to leave him again to talk to another neighbor, so I kept talking to him, hoping something would work, then Eliza said something about the back door and I knew that was it.  I ran around to the back, knocked on the door until Luke heard me, and told him to open the door.  He did it!  Hooray!  We were back in the house and everything was fine.  It was probably only about 15 minutes of worry but I was so glad when it was over.