The Locked Door Incident

We've now had our second "big boy room" ordeal with Jake. Thursday afternoon he was "helping" me fold laundry in Ty and I's room and we were going from our room to his to put up his laundry. If you've been to our house, you know the upstairs is quite small--all four bedrooms are very close together. Jake went ahead of me to his room, and I was coming behind him with some laundry when he shut his door and then I heard a lock. I didn't think much of it because he locked our door the other day, and I just got a bobby pin out and opened it right away. I looked at his door and noticed instead of the little push button lock, Jake had an actual keyed lock on his door. We have lived here almost 5 years and never noticed that you had to have a key for that lock. Since we never had noticed it, we most certainly didn't have a key for that lock. It was like a outside door lock. Before this room became Jake's a month ago, it was the office and we'd never had a reason to lock the door.

I called Ty at work and he didn't know it had a keyed lock either. A year ago my dad re-keyed our downstairs doors and we got rid of all of the keys that came with the house. It could have been one of those keys...So I called my dad who lives in Oklahoma because he just happens to be a locksmith and asked him how to get Jake out of the room. He said without locksmith tools, there would be no way to get in without breaking off the doorknob or breaking down the door. It wasn't even the kind of lock you could use a credit card with. He suggested I try a hammer and a screwdriver which I did for about 15 minutes to no avail. I then called back Ty and asked him to come home to get the knob off; he came right away but works almost an hour from home so it took a little bit.

Meanwhile, Jake had a blast playing in his room. I heard him playing his drums, working his puzzles (several have sound effects when you put them together), and I heard him drag out his books. I sat by the door and every 5 minutes would ask him a question to make sure he was OK. I would ask, "What does a lion say?" and he would roar loudly back at me...we did all of his animal sounds in the next hour and a half. I also kept hammering away at the knob, but just managed to chip off the paint on the door. Jake never once cried.

When Ty got home, it took him about 10 minutes to break the doorknob off and rescue Jake. Jake wasn't phased in the least and was just glad that his dad was home from work. Here's the door now...we will definitely be replacing the doorknob with a simple one with no lock at all!