Baby Hudson Finds Freedom

This morning our family got ready for church and was moments away from heading out the door, when a crisis struck. That crisis came in the from of my oldest child deciding to help me contain his brother by locking him in our downstairs bathroom. Connor didn't really think his plan through and underestimated his little brother's finger dexterity. Hudson was trapped.

For some inexplicable reason our downstairs half bath has a keyed lock. Apparently we are really worried about privacy violations in our powder room. In six years of home ownership it has never occurred to us that we might need the key to this super sturdy lock, so after about 7 seconds of confinement, the Mush got hysterical and we started tearing the house apart trying random keys. We own a ridiculous amount of keys. None of these keys unlocked this bathroom. To add to the drama, I think it needs to be noted that my energy efficient electrician husband also installed power saving motion sensor light switches in our house, so someone (me) would stop leaving lights on and "throwing our money out the window." This means that whenever you leave a room or sit really really still the lights go out. The lights also go out if you are unnaturally short, like a certain Mushy, and are not tall enough to activate the motion sensor. Cue the hysteria. So, with the background of a screaming two year old, we decided to abandon the key plan and switch to the breaking and entering plan. It looks so easy on TV. Surely two semi-smart adults with fully developed brains can break into a bathroom. Nope. Matt is a pretty handy guy, but after a solid hour of trying a myriad of ideas from coat hangers to power drills, we were still talking to a nutso Hudson through a bathroom door. So close, yet so far. He was pretty much inconsolable. I tried to amuse him by sliding an Elmo book under the door. It was immediately and angrily slid back. Matt was kind enough to point out that even in the best of circumstances Hud is rarely amused by books, so seeing his point, I switched to cookies. While Matt worked on the lock, I kept the cookies flowing under the door and he was somewhat soothed. The only breaks in his cries came whenever it was time to stuff another cookie down his gullet or whenever it struck his fancy to flush the toilet for the millionth time.

Finally, after almost an hour and a half, Matt just decided to break the stupid thing down. Who knew what kind of trauma was being inflicted on our two year old, locked in a small dark room with only cookies and toilet paper to keep him company. We then started the enormous task of trying to talk him into backing away from the door. With our outstanding luck, Matt would bust the door down and knock our kid unconscious in the process. This is not a big bathroom, so I very clearly instructed Hudson to stand back against the wall and away from the door. I got a very sad and tiny, "Okay Mommy." But just as Matt reared back to start busting, two tiny hands would poke out from under the door. So we tried again. This time we were more specific, "Hudson go stand behind the potty and stay there so Daddy can get you out. Do. You. Understand?" " Yes, Mommy. I get out now." Okay, ready to start the demo. No, wait, there are his hands again and now one foot. Good grief, this kid cannot follow directions! Matt decided to give the door a warning hit, hoping that the sound would scare him into the corner. No, the warning hit just prompted him to wiggle the locked door handle and remind us, "I get out now Daddy?" Like, maybe after all this fun, we had forgotten that the goal was to get him out. Eventually, with my constant supervision and opinion, Matt managed, through a series of tiny yet powerful hits, to create a large enough hole and stick his hand through to unlock the door.

Oh sweet freedom! When we opened the door and the lights came on (thanks to those handy dandy sensors) we weren't sure what to expect. It was like pulling baby Jessica out of the well. He might as well have spent 90 days instead of minutes in that stupid bathroom. In all his anxiety, he felt it necessary to completely disrobe. At least attempt to disrobe. (Who am I kidding here, there isn't an emotion in the spectrum where Hudson doesn't feel it appropriate to disrobe) He got everything off except his shirt which got stuck on his giant head. So when the light of day was shed on our poor captive son, he was nude except for what looked like a veil holding his hair back His face was tear stained and there was chocolate and toilet paper everywhere. What did he say? "Thank you Daddy. I stuck." Oh crap. We felt like the worst parents ever. Who knows what kind of psychological damage he'll be working out in therapy down the road.

But I can't worry about that now. We have the slightly more pressing issue of a missing bathroom door in a house that is currently (yes still) for sale. With the way our luck is running we will have a ton of people show up to see it and think that we are some kind of weird pervy family that won't allow guests to use the bathroom in privacy. Yep, we are so like that.

Power Play! And other terms I don't understand.....

Last night, Matt and I got to have a date night. Yipee! His company gave him tickets to the Stars game, his mom offered to keep the boys and he said we could splurge and go out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, Pappadeaux. It was like a trifecta of awesomeness. What? You didn't know we are hockey fans? Oh, that's because we're not. But the awesomeness came in the form of the beautiful words, "free tickets." So off we went!

I don't get hockey. I know I have said that about other (or all) professional sports, but I really just don't get it. Matt and I have been to one other hockey game in our relationship and it was in the year 2000. I was clearly still a girlfriend that was trying to impress him by showing how "into" sports I was. Ha! That didn't last long. Last night, I came to the realization that all of my hockey knowledge was acquired from about 72 viewings of the movie, "The Mighty Ducks" starring the illustrious Emilio Estevez. What can I say, friends, 1992 was a good year for me. So armed with all the Walt Disney knowledge, I was totally prepared for the game. As usual, when we got to game, I quickly realized that we were seated next to "super fans." That is always our luck. Matt had the audacity to suggest that it might not so much be an issue of "super fans" as much as it is an issue of simply regular fans and me. Since I never appreciate a scenario where I am the odd person out, I immediately dismissed this idea. Here is what really chaps me about the super fan problem, it's that Matt is like a sports chameleon. I know for a fact that he doesn't know jack about hockey, yet he has this ability to morph into a fan no matter what the team or sport. Under pressure, he can spout off random facts, players' names and regulation grade trivia. This is supremely annoying. Speaking of annoying, coming in second to the single superfans are the totally adorable super fan couples who have their own really cute little dances and hand shakes when the team does well. Yuck. So to counter act this super saccharine display of team spirit I suggested that Matt and I devise a ridiculously elaborate routine whenever Team Hill does something awesome at a game. For example, two hip bumps and a low five whenever Matt brings me a gourmet pretzel from concessions. Or a two handed high five, fake chest bump followed by exploding "knucks" whenever Melissa goes an entire period without mistakenly cheering for the wrong team! Yes! Talk about team spirit!

So there we were, getting all pumped up for this game when my seatmate arrived to my left. It was really a rather large family all pimped out in their Stars gear and I was fortunate enough to get little sister #4 seated directly next to me. Actually to be more accurate, I was seated next to her hair. Once she got all settled in, she went through an elaborate routine of positioning her luxurious mane of hair. Where did her hair feel the most comfortable? Draped down the right side of my body of course. Hmmm. I don't much care for that. But after a little repositioning, I discovered that there was no escaping the hair sleeve I was being forced to wear. It was like a waist length waterfall that cradled my arm and side oh so lovingly. I felt like vomiting. Despite what I do for a living, it might come as a surprise that I am extremely uncomfortable with random child hair being draped across me. Since Matt had become instant best friends with Stan the super fan on his left, my only option was to lean as far across the armrest as I could and get as much of my upper body in Matt's seat as possible. It was a pose that smacked of desperation and it definitely looked like we don't get out much.

Whatever, I decided to amuse myself by people watching. There are some interesting people at hockey games and lots of yellers. The yellers are my favorite. There was one man who had worked himself into such a frenzy that he was practically frothing at the mouth. I found this super entertaining until I noticed what he was wearing. I then became consumed with worry that this man was about to scream himself into a heart attack while wearing acid washed jeans and a cream colored linen blazer. It could very well have been called ecru though, Matt said he thought maybe swiss coffee, but in retrospect, I think he was just being sarcastic. I told myself that if that man dropped dead, I would be forced to leap over the seats and rip that jacket off his lifeless body, because no one, even a man in acid washed jeans, deserves to yell himself to death in a Miami Vice cast off. I am super compassionate like that :)

So bottom line, here is what I think of hockey. It looks really hard. After all my loops around Texas Skatium, I still to this day cannot skate backwards, so I was really impressed. In fact, I think I am going to rank hockey players above even roller skating Sonic carhops on my list of jobs that I really respect. That's kind of a big deal.