Locked in the bathroom

This evening just before dinner Maren locked herself in the bathroom and then proceeded to get stuck on the toilet, and there was no mechanism for unlocking the door from the outside.

She was tired. She went into the bathroom to pee before dinner, and was already upset that she was being taken away from her Legos. We told her not to lock the door and then she did, and she proceeded to try to unlock it but couldn’t, got frustrated, and then went and sat on the toilet to pee. Then she accidentally kicked her stool in such a way that she couldn’t get off the toilet. It took us forever to figure this out, because she had been crying the whole time related to being overtired and upset that she couldn’t keep playing.

When we finally did figure it out, first we try to coach her on how to get off the toilet without the stool, and that went nowhere. Then Jeff scrounged around the house for things that could be taped together that would fit under the bathroom door to try to move the stool. He succeeded moving the stool closer to the toilet but it was at an angle, and although Maren definitely could have used the stool to get down, she did not believe she could and therefore she couldn’t.

At this point Jeff was frustrated and wanted his toddler out of the bathroom, so started talking seriously about breaking down the door. Fortunately, just before we were about to destroy the door, I thought of trying to drill a hole in the door to access the lock mechanism. We were lucky that the first place Jeff drilled was the bullseye, and we were able to use a screwdriver to unlock the door.

All told, it took about an hour to get her out, and the whole time she was just sitting on the toilet. It’s kind of hilarious but also definitely not funny to us in the moment. I am sure every parent has a story like this, and I’m sure the number of such stories multiplies as children get older and there are more opportunities for ridiculous things to happen.

As an antidote, here are some adorable pictures: