I was doing the Wii fit in the basement in late January while Graham and Callie fought over where to sit on the couch. Graham got mad and clawed Callie in the face drawing blood. I scolded Graham and he stormed upstairs. With just a minute left on the exercise I was doing, Graham came down and went out the window. He was in his pajamas and socks. I thought this odd since fresh snow had fallen the night before. My minute was up and I looked out the widow well but didn't' see any sign of him. I went upstairs to and realized he had locked the basement door. I understood now why he had gone out of the window, he was going to come back inside and leave me and Callie locked downstairs to show how mad he was at us. Instead, I could hear him pounding on the locked patio door screaming and crying. I had to go into the storage room so he could hear me telling him he needed to come back in the family room widow. Great, now we were all locked in the basement. When Graham realized this, he was so upset. He really showed me didn't he? I couldn't go traisping around outside the way I looked so I hopped in the shower and got ready using the girls things; even curling my hair. Then I went out the widow well and tried every door and window but they were all sealed tight. I came back in the window and figured I'd make use of this time to finally take down the Christmas tree that I had been putting off. Callie and Graham watched "Bug's Life" while I placed each bulb in it's designated box. I was also thinking hard, 'Figure this out Abby, there has got to be a way to get upstairs; you have a brain, figure this out." But nothing came to me. I figured I could put a note on the door for when the kids came home from school telling them to come in the side window. But then I remembered I had a parent teacher conference right after school. Finally when the kids were on their second movie I realized we had been down in the basement for 3 1/2 hours, and we were getting hungry. There was a cup downstairs so we had water, but unless we wanted to feast on taco shells from the food storage, we didn't have anything else to eat. I called Vyrl, our next door neighbor and asked if I could borrow a small flathead screw driver. He kept peppering me with questions till I finally had to admit, "I'm locked in my basement." Since I had already tried unsuccessfully to pick the lock with a bobby pin, Vyrl came through the window to look at the lock. It took him a couple trips back and forth going through the window before he took the door knob off all together and we were free at last!!! When Vyrl put the knob back on the door he reversed it so that won't happen again. I couldn't thank him enough for getting me and my babies out of this embarrassing predicament. Graham was beyond sorry and for months afterwards has felt sad about doing that. I'll see him crying and ask why, "I am just thinking about when we were locked in the basement." Locked doors are now his biggest phobia.
