a sock on the doorknob

Preston is basically Houdini Jr. Nothing keeps him in his room. He learned to open doorknobs long ago. We tried a child-proof doorknob thing, he took the whole thing off. I duct-taped the child-proof doorknob thing together, he used the duct tape to grip the doorknob.

Why is he not in a crib any more? Oh, because he could launch himself out by 16 months. Just like his sisters.

For the last few days, he’s been coming out at nap time and bedtime roughly 637 times. It’s not fun for anyone. After his whole not-walking-for-a-week-due-to-a-foot-infection thing, he stayed in his bed no problem. For months. It was fantastic. And then that ended.

I tweeted something about my son’s super power and got some practical advice from @cenobyte. A sock on the doorknob. And, to make it extra slippery, a ziplock bag underneath.

(I know, I know. A sock on the doorknob. Hilarious. But at the time the advice was given, my sense of humour was non-existent.)

Last night after I’d received the tip, I waited for Preston to come out again, which he inevitably did, while declaring, “All done bed.” I instructed him to hop back in his bed while I fixed his doorknob. “What dooeen, Mum?” he asked.

It took a few tries and some stripping of the sticky tape residue off the doorknob before I got to where I thought it would hold. And it did. And there were tears. But I went to him, tucked him back in, and he didn’t come out again. Magical.

When I was a kid, Houdini was my hero. I guess my kid is just sharing in my interests. Who wants to place bets on how long it takes him to figure this one out?