New Exterior Door and The Incident That Made It Happen

Whoop whoop! New windows and doors for my whole house are in my near future. Does being excited for something like that make me old? Don’t respond to that.

Anyway, the story that led to the decision to get new doors and windows didn’t make me say “whoop whoop” at the time. While the before pictures of my windows and front door can wait until the new ones are installed, I am going to show you the back door.

Here it is! Fancy, yeah? Check out that awesome trash bag for a window!

Doors
Back Door — When we moved into this house in 2015, there was a storm door on the outside of this door, and the window was still intact. Since then, the wind has taken the storm door off and, well, you can read the window story.

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A little pre-incident backstory

A couple weeks ago, Taylor was out of town for an annual guys weekend. I swear something goes wrong at home every. single. time. he goes on this trip. This time, it was in the form of locking myself out of the house with my toddler inside.

Taylor being out of town means I’m extra paranoid about locking my doors. The back door has a keypad on it, as that’s the one we usually use. Now before I tell you the rest of this story, know that this keypad is a lifesaver because I hate carrying keys!

It had snowed and iced the night before this “incident” and I had a two hour delay before I had to be at work. Wyatt was in his high chair eating breakfast, so I went outside to start my vehicle and let it warm up before Wyatt and I went to check cows (please don’t crucify me for leaving him alone for what I thought would be 10 seconds).

The “incident”

Running back to the house, I hit the lever to open the door. The door didn’t open. Crap — duh! It was locked. So I punched in the code, heard the mechanism unlock, turned the lever, and the door didn’t open. Odd, but whatever. I punched in the code again. Still nothing.

Now, you’ve heard the phrase “the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over, and getting the same results”, right? Well, call me insane, because I punched in the code and the door didn’t unlock — not three, not four, but SEVENTEEN times. Yes, I counted.

By the fourth time, my heart started racing and slight panic set in. These were my thoughts:

My son was inside, in his high chair. (he could work his way out and fall off the chair; he could choke on his food)
My phone was inside, on the table next to my son. (I had no way to call anyone to help me)
My house key? No idea where it was.

My assumption was that some of the sleet from the night before must have gotten into the lock and froze it in the lock position.

I remember leaning my head against that window glass and praying for a way in.

All I could imagine were horrible scenarios of Wyatt getting hurt and me not being able to get to him. By attempt #17, I was desperate and willing to try just about anything.

Looking to my left, I saw a small pile of 2 x 4’s that had been sitting near the door since summer. The only logical thing my panicked mind could come up with was sending one of those boards through the window. Obviously it worked, and I was able to reach through the broken glass to open the door.

Everything was fine

There was glass all over the stairs just inside my house. Not caring, I sprinted up the five steps leading into my kitchen. As I made it through the kitchen doorway and into the dining room, Wyatt sat in his high chair blinking at me with a grin on his face. He was fine. I glanced at my phone, realizing that the whole thing — from the moment I left the dining room until the time I got back — took about four minutes.

As the adrenaline subsided, I taped up the window, cleaned up the glass, and let Taylor know what happened. Now that it’s all over, I can laugh about it a little (but hope it never happens again!).