This morning I rolled out of bed at 8:52am absolutely AMAZED that my two naughty boys, DJ (5) and Drake (3), actually allowed me to sleep in for the first time since the blessed day that they were born. I should have known that it was too good to be true! I am, however, getting a little ahead of myself... In order for you to really understand what I am talking about, I need to take you back to the beginning.
When my precious little boy, DJ, took his first, unassisted steps at the tender age of 8 1/2 months, rather than being amazed and overjoyed, I should have taken it as an omen of the future mischief that would ensue.
By the time DJ was almost 2, he and his new baby brother, Drake were sharing a room together and DJ loved having his little brother in his room to share everything with. Unfortunately for Drake, that usually entailed DJ sharing all of his toys with him by tossing them over the rail into his crib. While Drake relished the attention that his older brother regularly showered him with, being showered with the toys that were too large to fit through the bars was a whole different story! To make matters worse, DJ got tired of playing with Drake through those crib bars so he decided that he needed to scale the crib and play inside the crib. I would go into the room in the morning to find both boys fast asleep, buried under a mound of toys. That was a little unsettling to say the least seeing as how Drake was only 6 months old at the time, (O_O) so I placed an order with Amazon for one of those mesh infant crib tents that most people use to keep cats away from the baby.
Once the crib tent arrived I attached it to the crib and hoped for the best. Within a week, I came in to the boys' room to discover the crib tent fully unzipped and two sleeping babies curled up together in the bed. I guess that it must have taken DJ a good little while to figure out the zipper and that he must have been tired by the time that task was complete because there were only a few toys in bed with them this time. The next night I took a string and tied the zipper closed. Once again, that solved my problem for about a week or so until one morning I walk in to find two babies asleep in the crib this time with minimal toys. I guess the bowtie knot and zipper posed little challenge for my mischievous toddler.
That's it... deciding that it was time for drastic measures, the next night I zip tied the zipper shut. (I would like to note that, being the paranoid mom that I am, I put a pair of scissors on the top shelf of their closet so that I would have quick access to get the baby out in case of an emergency.) FINALLY, I woke the next morning to find ONE baby nestled snuggly in his crib with the other baby sleeping on the floor beside it with the baby's binky in his 22 month old mouth! After realizing that mommy had finally foiled his efforts at getting into bed with his new baby brother, DJ stole the sleeping baby's binky through the bars of his crib and curled up to go to sleep himself.
The next night the baby monitor starts screaming bloody murder, or rather my 7 month old does via the monitor, but trust me, from a dead sleep it matters little whether it is the box or the baby, it scares the living crap out of you just the same. I turn over to look at the video monitor, (yes I had both an audio and a video monitor equipped with audio of its own in their room. told ya... paranoid mom), just in time to see a naughty little 2 year old boy withdraw his chubby little arm from the bars of his brother's crib with binky in hand. Once again, DJ had stolen Drake's binky and this time Drake was still awake and was NOT happy about it! After returning the binky to the proper baby and moving Drake to the far side of the crib I returned to bed.
Early the next morning I entered the babies’ room to check on the two of them only to find Drake's crib in the center of the room and DJ sound asleep on the ground among a pile of toys with Drake's binky in his mouth.
That same scenario played out several times throughout the next week, often with me having to get up in the middle of the night to rectify the situation with a less than pleased Drake adamantly exercising his first amendment rights. It was quite clear that, in order to get a decent nights rest ourselves, something needed to give, so Dave and I got the brilliant idea to remove the wheels from Drake's crib so that DJ couldn't just wheel him around the room willy-nilly. Crisis averted and we got a solid night’s sleep for about a week before DJ had had enough of that.
Frustrated that he could no longer reach his little brother and growing weary from not being able to push, pull, or otherwise relocate his little brother so that he could swipe his binky, DJ had decided that enough was enough and it was time for drastic measures. The next morning I woke to find a caved in crib tent, (that mesh tent was no match for the full weight of my chubby little DJ's body), and two babies snuggled closely inside the wreckage. The crib tent was fully inverted with one side of the mesh thoroughly torn and mangled, admitting one naughty 2 year old free passage to his beloved little brother... or should I say beloved little brother's binky!
Enough was enough. It was quite clear that DJ was not going to give up on spending quality time with his little brother or his binky during the night so we just needed to adapt and overcome. Unbelievably, for their own safety, at the ripe old age of 8 months, we converted Drake's crib into a "big boy bed". That worked like a charm, (provided we return the boys from wherever they fell asleep playing, back to their respective beds), up until DJ figured out that he could use his Gravedigger monster truck as a step stool to reach the door knob. That was the beginning of a whole new set of adventures for the mischievous duo.
The morning following DJ's new revelation, I woke to find one naughty baby asleep under the dining room table with the other baby solidly wedged between Dave's recliner and the wall. It should come as little surprise to you that the little brother of the child who was walking at 8 months of age had no problem traversing the flight of stairs to the first floor at the tender age of 9 months. We cleaned out the boys' room of everything that could possibly be used to stand on and thought we were good until the next morning when we, once again, found our boys downstairs fast asleep (thank goodness the downstairs doors were equipped with dead bolts!)
Although I wasn't overly pleased with the fact that my children could escape their room and do so in such a stealthy manner that neither the video nor audio monitor would create enough of a stir to wake Dave or I, our house was thoroughly child proofed and I could find little recourse at the time.
It wasn't until the house alarms sounded, rudely waking us from a dead slumber a month later that I fully realized the error in my thinking. Dave and I bolted out of bed at a dead run for the offending breach in our security only to find a wide eyed, panicked DJ standing on the porch just outside the back door and a terrified, crying Drake just inside the foyer. Yep, you guessed it... DJ, being the ever observant toddler that he is, had figured out that he could reach the deadbolt if he pushed one of the dining room chairs up to it. It surely took him very little time to figure out how to disengage the lock. As frightened as both children were, nothing will ever compare to the cold chill of dread and terror that crawled down my spine at the thought of, "what if?" Thank the good Lord above that Dave and I had always been diligent about setting the home security system.
Later that morning I made a trip to Lowes and purchased two of those flip/slide, hotel style locks and attached them to the very top of the door frames of both the front and the back doors. Surely that would be sufficient, right? WRONG! Within the week we again woke to the screaming alarms warning us that our home had been compromised, only to again find a stunned and terrified DJ & Drake standing at the back threshold of our home. My mischievous 2 year old had scaled a set of built in shelves that were adjacent to the back door and flipped the lock open and climbed back down to escape while his little brother looked on with delight at the prospect of escaping himself.
The next day I had Dave go to the babies' room and reverse their door knob so that the lock portion of the knob was on the outside of the door and from then on we would lock the boys in their room at night to protect them from their mischievous, adventurous selves.
I often find that many people consider those final measures extreme and often they are received with disbelief and even contempt, and to those who feel this way I say only this; my measures were extreme! Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures and I will take any measure necessary to protect my children... even if I am only protecting them from themselves. I have heard all of the arguments and there is simply no argument that is going to convince me that I didn't act with my boys' best welfare in mind. One such person argued that, "What if there were a fire?!" I mean, come on? If there were a fire do you really think that my 2 year old and 9 month old would be escaping on their own anyway? And do you really believe that I wouldn't allow the flames to lick every ounce of skin and life from my body before I ever allowed it to touch one hair on my children’s head? Not likely! They were in much more danger from wandering into the busy country road, drowning in the nearby creek, wandering around the woods lost, or being abducted by some stranger than anything that they faced by me locking them safely in their bedroom at night.
Once we arrived in Japan, a whole new set of challenges presented itself. The first was that we no longer had a home security system as additional backup in case our naughty babies' made good their bedroom escape. Additionally, the single biggest issue that we faced in trying to safely contain our children was night time potty training. How could I ever get this child potty trained at night if he couldn't leave his room to go potty? Fortunately, in this new house, our room is directly across from the boys' room, making it that much easier to keep tabs on them.
I came up with the brilliant idea of tying bells to the inside of the boys' door so that they would wake us when they are leaving the room. That way DJ could still go to the bathroom at night, but I could be alerted to ensure that he made it back, safely to his room. About a week later I woke to find DJ and Drake snuggly secure in their room, only, to my great surprise and chagrin, they weren't alone! In DJ's little hand was one of their little yellow drinking cups filled to the brim with bubbles. While DJ doggedly avoided eye contact, when I asked him what he was doing with a cup full of bubbles, (They had obviously been out of their room!) chubby little Drake excitedly pipes up that the turtles were dirty and needed a bath! It took me but a fraction of a second to digest the meaning behind those words as I snatched the cup away from DJ and sprinted to the bathroom. I dumped the cup into the sink, and as you might've expected, two little turtles slid out. I quickly turned on the water and rinsed the poor little creatures off until I was certain that no trace of soap lingered, (I am happy to report that both turtles made a full recovery), and then proceeded to figure out how they got out without me knowing. DJ then proudly demonstrated how he secured the bells so that they could not chime with one hand while slowly opening the door with the other.
Having taken note of the obvious flaw in my last "door alarm" design, I adjust the bells to the outside of the door and locate them up high out of both kids' reach. Another week or so later I wake up at about 5am to giggles and a ruckus coming from the toddlers' bedroom. Although I'm not thrilled about being awakened at 5am, I was quite pleased that at least my latest alarm attempt had held out strong against the cunning of my ever conspiring young duo. Or so I had thought... All my illusions came crashing down around me when I opened the door to DJ diving for cover behind his bed while Drake popped up with a huge chocolatey grin on his face proclaiming that, "DJ got us icepweam fo bweakfast!" Once again, foiled by a 2 year old! Again I ask DJ to show me how he got out and again, with a proud grin he demonstrated for me how if he opens the door reeeeeeally slow, the bells don't chime. Argggh!! Back to the drawing board!
Finally I turn to my one of my best friends and an ultimate source of infinite wisdom, Google. I research every viable option known to man as a possible alarm system for my children's door. After much bleary eyed research, I settled on an infrared driveway alarm sensor that I could mount in their room with a corresponding chime box that could be put in our room on a night stand. I was extremely grateful that Amazon is able to ship items to us here in Japan in around 8 day’s time.
After 8 restless days I was excited when Dave arrived home with an Amazon box in tow. I tore into that box like a kid at Christmas and wasted no time in locating batteries and testing it out myself. After much discussion on the part of Dave and myself as to where the best location would be for the infrared motion sensor, we settled on an area on their inside wall adjacent to their door where it wouldn't be falsely activated by someone passing by their room. We positioned it so that the door itself would have to pass by the sensor for anyone trying to enter or exit the room and so that it was low enough that their bodies would have to pass in front of it to activate it but not so low that the cats walking past it would falsely activate it. We were very proud of ourselves for all of the foresight that we showed this time. There was NO WAY that these kids would get out of their room without us knowing now!!
The next morning I felt pleasantly refreshed when the chime box next to my bed "ping ponged" letting me know that one of my little ones was up and about. Imagine my surprise when I pushed the door all the way open to find a chubby little Drake smiling a sticky red, toothy grin that spread from ear to ear while DJ, again, dove for cover behind his bed! Drake, "DJ got us popsicles fo bweakfast!" HOW WAS THIS POSSIBLE?? Once again, I ask DJ to demonstrate how he got out and this one just boggles the mind! He walked up to the door and jerked it open really fast, (I later discovered from reviews on the driveway sensor that if the motion that passes it is too rapid, the sensor may not detect it). He then lay down on his belly and proceded to low crawl, inching beneath the sensor that was located less than 18 inches off of the ground! Once he was a safe distance out of the sensor range he jumped up to his feet and yelled, "TADA!!"
I guess I should be grateful that the reason that he was caught is because, even though they fight nonstop, he still loves his little brother dearly and has such a generous nature that he couldn't go downstairs and eat breakfast by himself while his little brother starved upstairs... either that, or he figured that he would get into less trouble if he had a cute little coconspirator! Needless to say, regardless of his generosity or conniving, once he had escaped, he gave little thought to the fact that the alarm might pose just as much a threat to someone trying to enter his room as it would someone trying to leave!
Our latest strategy, and the only one that has thus far had any success, is that we simply place the sensor on the floor against the wall directly inside the door. Regardless of how fast they open the door, their legs are far too short for them to clear the top of the sensor without setting it off. Yes, we do get the occasional false alarm when the boys manage to sneak a kitty into their room at bedtime, but that is something I can live with as it has been the only success we have enjoyed in keeping our boys contained... until now... which brings us to present day.
It seems that my little Houdini has discovered yet another way of escaping his room undetected. Apparently at some point in the day yesterday, one or both of the boys relocated the sensor to a position facing the wall. Because it's not likely that a wall will ever trigger the motion sensor, I would have to say that this was by far their best bet in foiling our latest alarm system. I can’t help but to silently congratulate their cunning and power of deduction. My big, fat, deaf cat, Jay Jay, who subsequently received a tag-team haircut bright and early this morning by the team of mischievous misters, would beg to differ!
