The power of suggestion

Things are going well here at the Pickett household.  See?

(I'm afraid that this might be what every picture looks like for the next 15 years.  Owen: "Oh yeah, everything is great, Mom!"  James: "How could you let this happen.")

Don't let Owen's innocent face fool you.  He seems to have a little terror streak hidden in that little body of his.  Don't believe me?  Let me illustrate:

Wednesday morning was going to be one of my first mornings to venture out.  We had some library items to return, and I thought the library sounded like a safe outing.  I got us breakfast and was going to take a shower and get us all dressed when James started crying.  I stopped and sat down in the rocking chair in Owen's room to feed him.  Now, we recently flipped the door knob in Owen's room around so that it can be locked from the outside, because he's been getting out of bed a lot as of late.  That is an important factor in this story.  So there I was, feeding James, when I saw Owen start to play with the lock button.  My panic response set in, and I said in a rather severe tone, "Owen, do not press that button and close the door!"  Can you guess what happened next?  You bet.  He pressed the button and slammed the door, locking all of us inside.  After reprimanding him (also rather severely, if I'm being completely honest), I started thinking of ways to get us out.  I finished feeding James, then started combing the room for something, anything, to unlock the door.  By this time Owen started screaming, "I WANT TO GET OUT!!!" over and over.  I finally decided that their was nothing that would allow me to unlock the door, when Owen changed his chant to, "I NEED TO GO POTTY".  Add to this James' screams, which also started during my search, and you can imagine I was feeling pretty desperate.  I then tried to take the pins out of the door hinges and open it that way.  Out came one...two...and the third was stuck. Fast.  I then started thinking of people I could call, although I wasn't sure any of our doors to the outside were unlocked, and the situation was rather embarrassing for me.  I started out calling people on my street.  One after the other, no answer.  Then I moved to the next street.  One phone call, no answer, next phone call, thankfully, Mandy answered the phone.  I asked if she was home, and then explained the situation to her.  She said that she and Heather would be right over, and I hoped beyond hope that our back door was open.  Shortly thereafter they arrived and opened the back door (it was unlocked, hallelujah!) and opened Owen's door for us.  I thanked them profusely, Owen went potty, James fell asleep, and all was well with the world.  Traumatic at the time, hilarious in hindsight.  (Huge thank you, once again, to Heather and Mandy.  You saved us!)

In all seriousness, I love both of my little guys, and I'm grateful for Owen's keeping life exciting and fun!

And just for good measure: