Spare Keys

Last summer, Claire locked us out of the house. It was a Sunday afternoon in June, right after lunch. Will was in the garage doing something and I had walked outside through the garage to throw something in the outside garbage cans. Claire shut the door from the kitchen to the garage and bolted it. We could see her through the windows in the back of the house, and managed to get her to push a chair over to the door so she could reach to unbolt the door, but she wouldn't/couldn't do it.

We tried to go to our neighbors' house for help and Will walked right in their back door and got no answer. (We knew they were home because we had seen them earlier. They were napping.) I found it comical that we just walked right into their house and couldn't get into our own.

Next, Will tried to break out a back window to get in the house and he couldn't break the glass (with a hammer). Apparently, it is some type of security glass. I am really glad it is so hard to break into our house, but it was not very convenient at the time. And, all the loud banging got a very calm-up-until-that-point-Claire very upset.

My sister and her family just happened to stop by while we were outside on their way home from the zoo. (They live about 40 minutes away.) Too bad they didn't have a key. Claire saw her cousin Evie through the window and fussed at her for getting into her kiddie pool in the back yard.

Two hours, $60 and a locksmith later, we finally got back inside the house. Fortunately, David, who was about 2 months old at the time, was asleep upstairs in his room and did not wake up. Fortunately, Claire did not try to go upstairs by herself. (The gate was not up.)

After that fiasco, we gave our next door neighbors (the ones who were napping) an extra key to our house and they gave us one to theirs.

Fast forward one year later. Saturday night, we ate dinner with these neighbors on their back porch. Claire went inside to potty and apparently locked the door. No problem, right? Because we have a spare key. Unfortunately, our garage door opener (the only way we could get into our house) was inside our neighbors' house. Ugh! Not again!

Fortunately, our neighbors' dog sitter lives nearby and had a spare key. We had to wait about 30 minutes for her to get there and let us in, but nothing too traumatic.

Conclusion: We have both decided that our other neighbor needsto have spare keys to our houses. (We live in a 3 house cul-de-sac.) Or maybe we just shouldn't let our children be inside the house alone.