Lock Down

I thought I'd better blog about this before I forget the details. We're trying to figure out what we'd like to do with the yard. I called a couple companies to come and give some quotes on a few of the big jobs. I had a guy scheduled to come at noon on Thursday. It was Thursday morning and I had my day all figured out on how I was going to have kids all fed and down for naps before the guy came. The twins have been waking up kind of early lately, so an 11:30 nap time works well. Elin was fed and asleep. The twins had just gone potty before naps. I'm heading Ewan's room to lay home down when the doorbell rang. The guy is at the door a half an hour early! So, I blame this chaotic episode completely on him! In that half an hour, I would have had all four of them asleep and we could have discussed landscape options without little ones.Here goes it. I send the kids into the playroom so we can talk for a few minutes. It wasn't supposed to take very long. I show him the picture of what we want to do and explain in what sequence we're needing things. We then walk outside to look at the grandeur that is our backyard. The little ones follow. It's over 100 degrees already and it's not even noon! Ewan tries to walk out to the backyard, but soon realizes that it's way too hot for his little feet. The guy goes to measure some things, and I put the kids in the nice cool house. I put a Dora on so we wouldn't be distracted. I shut the back door to keep the cold air in and keep the little ones in. I'm standing at the shut door talking to Paul on the phone to get specifics while the guy measures some more. We have a window the length of the door, so I'm looking in at Ewan. He reaches upto the knob and locks the door. He's been doing this a lot lately. Aislee comes over and I try to explain to her how to unlock the door so I can get in. She reaches up and deadbolts the door. Yes, that's right. She deadbolts the door. I tell the guy that we're locked out of the house. He laughs and says, "Seriously?" We walk to the front of the house and find out that I locked the front door behind him as he came in, and the 3rd garage door is also locked. Yes, indeed. We are locked out of the house. We walk back around to the back of the house. He sits in one of our nice lawn chairs while I call Paul and tell him that he needs to come home and let me into the house. He's on his way. I continue in my attempts to explain to two and a half year olds how to unlock the deadbolt and doorknob. The doorknob is unlocked. Ewan is crying because Aislee took the grass samples from him. Olivia is crying because someone pulled her hair and "Mommy needs to come in and talk to them". I can hear all this, but can't do anything about it. I tried to calm the crying children down, and convince the other to reach up like she does every day, and unlock the deadbolt. I'm doing this while trying to convince the nice landscape guy that my life isn't always this chaotic. We were out there for about 40 minutes talking, trying to get them to unlock the door, and then I hear Elin wake up. She has been woken up by the crying of the other two. I'm praying that Paul gets home soon, and feeling extremely helpless with this very nice man who's asking me if we plan on having more kids "'cause you sure make cute ones". I was seriously waiting for Danny Tanner or the Olsen Twins to come around the corner! This doesn't happen to normal people! Paul arrives. My hero! He goes to talk to the guy while I soothe three crying children, and try to convince them that Mommy did not mean to leave and not help them. Lesson that I have learned, carry my keys at all times, you never know when the landscape guy is gonna come over early and you're not gonna be able to get everyone to sleep and a toddler will accidentally lock you and the landscape guy out of the house. We're safe, unscathed, and probably not gonna go with the quote this guy gave us, as nice as he was.