Posted on December 25, 2008
Merry Christmas from our family to yours!
Family image on the left captured by Susanne of Dream Street Photography. THANK YOU Susanne!
Posted on July 22, 2008
Let me just start this post out by saying EVERYONE IS FINE. No one is permanently physically hurt, all the wounds suffered in this upcoming story are minor enough to not need medical care or even a bandaide. Okay, now on with the regularly scheduled programming. This is the story of what will now be referred to as T.I. (Traumatic incident). The door locks here in Germany are different than in the states. In the states on the bathrooms and bedrooms doors where one usually finds an inside lock that you simply turn clockwise or counter clockwise to lock or unlock is something Germans just don’t like to use. Instead they use keys. Physical keys that you can switch from either the inside or the outside locks of each door. So when the bathrooms aren’t in use, I keep the two bathroom doors locked from the OUTSIDE to ensure Kate doesn’t wander off and play in the toilet, or be pulled into the exciting world of hand washing which is a 30 minute process that ends in screaming because I don’t want her to have the water blasting out for a half hour. So the other day I needed to quickly use the facilities, so I unlock the door, run in, do my quick business and not 30 seconds into it I hear her run down the hall, shut the door and lock it, from the outside. I didn’t even know she could lock doors!! So I’m sitting there with my pants around my ankles thinking, “No, no, this would be a nightmare, so this can’t be happening, David is deployed off in another country, my parents are in another country, my friends here would have no idea to even come look for me until several days, my toddler is roaming free through the house now doing Lord knows what, this just couldn’t be. So I calmly get up and wash my hands WILLING the door not to be locked, I’m humming a song, trying to appear calm and collected. I reach the door, gingerly clinch the handle with my trembling fingers and sure enough. Locked. I try and talk Kate through opening it, but she just doesn’t get it. She actually pulled the key out enough for her to not even be able to turn it and make a connection and the doors are so tight to the ground that even if she pulled it out she couldn’t push it underneath the door. Let me also note that I REALLY do not believe she locked the door to keep me out. She LOVES to be a big girl and do whatever Mommy does, so I am sure she just saw an open door and a lock and though, “Oh I’ll be cool like mom and lock this”. So to give you a visual of what I was experiencing at the time: Here is said lock:
And the key:
So I spend about 10 minutes trying to talk Kate through this. By this time she was hysterical and sobbing because well…I was hysterical and sobbing. I just kept thinking, “It’s SATURDAY NIGHT, David should be HOME, he could help me, but instead I’m here, alone, locked in a foreign bathroom!” I started praying BIG TIME! Just begging God to help me find a quick way to my girl and out of that room! While praying I start frantically looking around the room for anything, something I could use to somehow get myself out. I had a few candles, a sewing needle (no idea why that was there) some magazines stored in a basket and some bathroom cleaner. I never was a Girl Scout, but I was PRETTY sure none of that equalled a way out of this mess.
So I wipe my tears and pull my chin up and realize there was only one option. I open the window and through the blinding rain (yes…blinding rain, cause the horror wasn’t enough WITHOUT rain!) I see that my landlords two cars are parked out front, which is a blessing because they usually park downstairs (blessing #1 in T.I.), if they hadn’t been in front I wouldn’t have been certain at least one of them would have been home. I also know that they keep an extra key to our front door at their place (blessing #2 in T.I.). So I start looking down out the window, it was going to be a little bit of a fall and onto rocks. I knew nothing that would break a bone, but that would hurt my feet and possibly hurt my completely messed up ankles (thanks to the endless holes in all the backyards I lived in, an entire childhood of running around and oops…there’s a hole thanks to the doggy digging are sure to permanently dork up your ankles). But my baby was outside the door screaming frantically for me to come out and I knew I couldn’t just wait around, so I did it. I went out butt first and let my legs drop, then just dropped. Here is a photo of the drop drop site during T.I.:
My only memory at that time was gratefulness that I landed on my feet, (Blessing #3 in T.I.) I immediately run down the very jagged graveled driveway towards my landlords door. Reach it and knock. Their door is half glass so I remember seeing my reflection. I was wearing a “I Gave Blood” Tee-shirt from 2003 and very baggy ill fitting sweats, barefoot, hair wet and clinging to me. I looked like a homeless wet cat wearing clothes found in a dumpster. My landlord comes to the door. Looked like she was dressed up to go out for a fun Saturday night, cute shirt, hair all curled and pretty (she has long hair that is full of body that I envy very much) and she had this expression on her face like, “Why is this forlorn red neck American on my door step?” So in bursts of simple English words I say something like, “Daughter locked me out. Key please” She immediately runs to get it and then I realize my arm was really hurting, look down and it’s completely torn up, all bloody and bruised, guess the texture I so love on the house side of our house does a real doozy on forearm skin. She brings me the key (BIGGEST BLESSING EVER during T.I.) and even offers me her shoes, but I realize that my feet are sopping wet and I just needed to go to the house and cry and having to bring back shoes just seemed too horrible. So I thanked her profusely and just run back up the jagged driveway to my front door, open it and find my poor baby girl sooo scared, still standing at the bathroom door screaming my name. So I just grab her, fall to the floor and sob. I mean the guttural hysterical sobbing you hear at funerals. Sure I probably over-reacted, but the feeling of not being able to get to your baby and being completely and totally alone, it was SERIOUSLY traumatic. So we just sat on the floor and cried. Once my tears dried up the soreness started setting in, I realized my ankle was sprained, the bottoms of my feet were cut up and my shoulders joints felt completely reamed out. Kate kept saying she was sorry…which was sweet and I’m GLAD she felt remorseful and horrible about it, hopefully it’s a large enough lasting memory where she’ll NEVER think to even TOUCH a lock again (not like I’ll take the chance though!). Notice where all the keys are stored now after I lock the doors:
So we’re all fine, I’m just so grateful for all the wonderful blessings surrounded around T.I. I shudder to think what would have happened if I’d been out in the pouring rain and my landlords hadn’t been home, if they hadn’t had an extra key, if I’d been in a higher room in a window I couldn’t jump out of. God seriously had His hand on me that day. I’m really thankful He answered my prayer and helped me find a quick way back to my girl.
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