My in-laws have a couple of stories that they like to tell about my husband. There are several tales of mysterious fires and/or explosions. A few involve minor tortures delivered upon the family cat. (Said cat, by the way, gave as good as she got and lived for two decades despite routinely having her whiskers trimmed and her paws taped.)
But everyone's favorite story involves my husband's bedroom door.
His parents, being mostly sane and rational people, liked to sleep during traditional sleeping hours. My husband, being constitutionally unable to be both awake and still, did not understand why anyone would waste all of that precious time when one could be exploring.
You can see the dilemma.
So my husband's parents installed a hook-and-eye on the outside of his bedroom door, which they'd latch when they settled in for the night, simply so that he would be contained while they weren't able to watch him.
In the morning, they'd usually find him asleep on his bedroom floor, fingers jammed under the door because he couldn't resist the mocking hall light that crept into his room. My mother-in-law remembers pushing him across the hardwood floor with the opened door so that she could wiggle into the room enough to carry him out of the way.
The hook-and-eye had a sudden end when my husband's sister locked him in his room one day when they were teenagers. But that is another story for another time.
Before I had kids, I found the very idea appalling. How could you lock a small, helpless child in his room from the outside? What kind of monster does that?
It isn't something we worry about with The Diva. If she leaves her room while we're sleeping, she doesn't sneak off to discover mischief. Her primary goal is find someone to complain to because her room's too cold or her feet are too itchy or her pillow too lumpy.
But The Boy. Oh, The Boy.
For the first 3-plus years, we had the security of the baby cage, aka his crib.
Toward the end, we knew (and he knew we knew) that he could crawl out whenever he liked and open his door. But he only did that during naps. We'd put him down in the middle of the afternoon. Fifteen minutes later, he'd be by your elbow, ready to play.
He never did that at night, however. He was perfectly content to spend an hour lying in his dark room, in his crib, talking to his stuffed animals and singing. Eventually, he'd fall asleep.
On the rare occasions he woke up in the middle of the night, he'd start singing again. If there was an issue that required intervention _ like a leaky diaper _ he'd stay in his crib and holler until someone came to help.
All things end, however.
We moved a whopping two blocks a few weeks ago, into a bigger house with a fenced backyard. It went about as smoothly as we could hope. The kids may be in college by the time we get everything where it ought to go, but all of our stuff was successfully hauled from one place to the other.
Given that The Boy is almost 4, we decided it was time to pass the crib along to another family who needed it more. Besides, he is too long for the silly thing and has to fold himself like origami to get comfy. The move was the perfect time to make the change.
We expected wailing. We were prepared for teeth gnashing. We got none of that.
What happened on the first night was that he gladly climbed into his big-boy bed and went to sleep.
We figured he was just so very tired from the move that he didn't have the energy to protest.
He did the same thing the next night. And the next. He has mentioned his crib exactly once since then and isn't the slightest bit fazed by its disappearance.
Around Night Four, he had the stunning revelation that there was no longer any barrier to leaving his room. When I heard his feet thud onto the floor about 10 minutes after I finished up the bedtime routine and went downstairs, I knew we had entered a new era, that of the free-range boy.
Then we started a new routine, one where I'd settle him back in his bed and he'd immediately leap out, only to open his door and find me sitting across from it. I went through my usually litany of threats and promises, all flung at him in increasingly desperate hope that he'd just stay in his stupid room already. None of this worked, which should come as no surprise at all.
Now, when I put him to bed, after I leave the room, I turn around and latch the hook into its eye on the outside of the door. When I head up for bed, I break the seal to make sure he's at least in the vicinity of his bed and covered; then leave the room for the rest of the night. Right now, at least, he seems to stay put once he's actually asleep.
When he decides to get up in the middle of the night to trim the cats' whiskers, then we'll re-evaluate.
Adrienne Martini is a freelance writer, instructor at the State University College at Oneonta and Hartwick College, mom to Maddy and Cory, wife to Scott, and author of "Hillbilly Gothic," published by the Free Press.
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