Every word of this is true.

When Emily was very young, she spent the night with me almost every Friday night. As a result of this, I have about a million stories to tell of our wonderful times together. Here’s one of my favorites:

One particularly cold February night, when Emily was three years old, she was at my house and for some reason her car seat was inside my house. It was very, very cold, about 20 degrees, and dark at about 6pm and we were going to go to dinner, so I took the car seat outside to set it up in the back seat of my car. This procedure only took about 2 minutes and I didn’t bother to put on a coat. So, seat belt in place, I ran the five steps to my front door and turned the knob and the door would not open. Someone on the inside had locked the deadbolt. Oh, shit, I thought. How do I explain to a three-year-old how to unlock a deadbolt? She doesn’t know what that means! Panic began to rise in me as I tried to calmly tell Emily, “Unlock the door, sweetheart, for Nessa. Nessa’s cold and wants to come inside.” After I had repeated myself at least 49 times, she started turning the knob. “It’s not the round thing, honey; it’s the thing that goes up and down.” Oh, God, I’d started to panic, and I was really, really cold. She gave up and wandered off. Oh, no! I was imagining her playing with knives inside my apartment while I was outside freezing and trying to think of a way to get inside. I started to scream through the door for her to come to the door and help me, and as casually as she could, she sings, “just a minute!!” (Imagine a really cute three-year-old voice singing that.) Now I was exasperated. Just as I was about to break my kitchen window, she came back to the door and I could hear her fumbling with the deadbolt! When she finally unlocked the door, I was leaning on it and it hit her on her head as it flew open with my weight on it. It knocked her down and she had a large red bump forming immediately. She started crying and I fell to the ground and started crying, too, and held her and told her I was sorry about a million times. I probably said something like, “Oh, honey, I’m sorry you locked me out!” I don’t remember what I said, but I was so relieved to be with her again I would have apologized for all the sins of the world. After she calmed down and we stood up again I looked over into the kitchen and the knife drawer was open.

More stories to come.

All my love to my friends and family,
Vanessa