May You Have An Interesting Life

Several cultures consider the wish for someone to have an interesting life, journey, etc... to be a curse as they desire nothing more than to have a nice, quiet life; and interesting events are usually things going wrong. I have thus been wishing for my friends to have intelligent and interesting children.

Anyway, I woke up this morning to a happy child. The Gremlin, with all the "interesting" aspects he brings into our lives, is a generally happy child. We've been going over basic emotions so that we can get him to verbalize his feelings and help us figure out what may be wrong with him when he starts crying. He's very adept at using (agreeing or disagreeing) them to help us figure out what a problem is, though this is usually after he gets upset about it.

So I walk into the kitchen this morning in time to hear the Gremlin, who is on the floor with his mother looking at the letter magnets we have on the fridge say, "Momma, I make Dada happy!" I started laughing at how cute it was, and he pointed and said, "See, Momma?!"

As I was almost ready to head out the door, sitting on the couch putting my shoes on, the Gremlin brought in his lunchbox. As it was a slightly less sturdy brand (Crap-Tek), and the metal bracket connecting the handle to the box had bent. All I did was put it back on the track and bend it back in shape, but as soon as I did, the Gremlin started clapping and saying, "Good job, Dada! Good job!"

I smiled as I got up and went to my backpack that he'd dragged right outside his door, when I noticed a screwdriver sticking through the slide-hole on the door where the lock can be turned from. He's back to picking locks...

Locks And Picks

So the Gremlin was wreaking havoc the other day, and in a desperate attempt (wait for it, you'll see) to keep him occupied, I brought him to the front closet, sat him down, and pulled out: the locks we changed when we first moved in.

That's right, I had the brackets, the deadbolt, the cylinder, and the knob. Two sets were spilled out on the floor, and I showed him how the lock cylinder has a flat stick that went through the bolt and into the knob so that when either the knob turned or the cylinder was turned by the key, the bolt slid over.

So not only was he then obsessed with how it worked, but I decided to show him the fully-assembled deadbolt on the front door as I'd removed the lock to his room before he could ever so conveniently lock himself in there, and how each turned internally. And sadly, I forgot the most important thing about the Gremlin - his amazing power of internalization and learning.

As it was time for the Gremlin's nap, I neglected to take any further precautions. It was only later that night after I put him to bed and was closing his door on the way out that I noticed his door wouldn't close. Upon further inspection, the bolt on the lock had been extended. The interesting thing was that I'd removed the lock (the easy turn mechanism for the bolt) just after AJ started walking - over a year ago.

He realized that you could stick something (like a key, or possibly even a pen with enough torque) into the hole where the knob used to be, and turn the square inside it and allow the bolt to come out, or:

He understands completely how locks work, and picked his first lock.

2 years, 5 months ladies and gentlemen.