Ruby is growing and changing so much! She is definitely changing the most out of all our kids right now, which is normal for her age. She has turned into a little monkey and climbs EVERYTHING... and I mean EVERYTHING! These are some places I have found her in in the past couple of weeks. I may appear as a neglectful parent, but I honestly don't leave her for very long. I would say 90% of the time I am washing dishes...by hand... or doing laundry...which requires hanging everything up to dry. Both are not a big deal but just take more time. I always know that if I haven't heard her, I will find her up high into something. That's when I go searching...
Now today there was a not so exciting adventure in regards to Ruby. The day was pretty normal, Cannon was at school and Ruby had taken a nap. Once she woke up from said nap I took Hazyl into Ruby's room, where the A/C was still on (we only turn the A/C on for a couple of hours in the day because the cost of electricity is too high to use all the time. I'm talking at least $550 USD/month is a good average for us since we have four A/C units one in each bedroom. Crazy, huh?) ... we were playing and then I went into my room to go to the bathroom before it was time to get shoes on and pick Cannon up from school. While I was in the bathroom Hazyl casually walks in and tells me, "Mommy Ruby is in her room and I can't get her out." Initially I thought, "Oh Hazyl just can't get the door open." I told Hazyl I would come and open the door. Then I had a sickening feeling... A few minutes before as we had been playing I had watched Ruby playing with the lock on the door knob. Now one thing you have to understand is that all the bedroom doors in our place lock from INSIDE the bedroom and only unlock from the hallway with a key. This is normal for rental properties with more than one bedroom because usually it's multiple students who share a house and split the rent, so they want to lock up their individual belongings in their bedrooms. This might be fine and dandy for individual students, but for a Mom of little kids... NO BUENO! Just a couple of weeks ago Hazyl had accidentally locked herself in her bedroom, but she's old enough that I was able to describe to her what to do and she unlocked it within two minutes and we moved on with our day. After I got that sickening feeling I looked at Hazyl and said, "Is the door LOCKED?" Her reply, "Um..yeah." That's when I RAN! Ruby was knocking on the door calling, "Mommy! Mommy!" At first I was calm... I told Ruby that I was there and that Mommy would open the door. I tried a few spare keys that I had found lying around the house and non of them worked. I then decided that I was going to need to call our landlord and have him bring the key, which I had been meaning to ask for since Hazyl had locked herself in her bedroom. Looking at my watch I realized that I wasn't going to be able to pick Cannon up from school so I would have to call my neighbor to see if she could get him for me. (So grateful her boy's go to the same school as Cannon!) I call my neighbor she doesn't answer. I leave a message... I then start to worry about Cannon. He still is nervous about his new school and if I'm not there when he gets out, if he gets left at school, it might traumatize him. I decide to call my landlord, Ruby is starting to become anxious at this point and begins crying and yelling "Mommy! Mommy!" over and over again...breaking my heart that I can't help my baby. I call my landlord and explain to him the situation. He then states, "I don't have the key to the bedrooms." MY HEART DROPS... then starts POUNDING! What am I going to do now?! This is Grenada! I can't climb in through the window... there are BARS on the window, I can't knock down the door, Ruby is on the other side... and frankly if you've seen my arms you know this isn't a reality anyway. My landlord said he'd be right over with his handyman and would figure something out. So NOW I'm in full panic mode. Thankfully my neighbor calls me back and says she will pick up Cannon, so now I don't have to worry about him. By now Ruby is frantic...screaming and crying! I FINALLY decide I need to call Josh. I call him THREE...or maybe four times before he is able to answer. (Wifi on campus can be sketchy.) I explain to him what is happening, but there's really nothing he can do. I hang up with him and continue to try and calm Ruby down through the door. I am so desperate I even grab a credit card to try and break in, because if it can be done in movies I must be able to do it, right?! I was just so desperate to try and DO something, even if I knew deep down it wouldn't really work. Hazyl was actually really sweet the whole time. She brought out the kid's little toy tool set and told me I could use her tools to get Ruby out. As I'm trying to use the credit card to break in I hear my next door neighbor, Laina, come inside. She said Josh had called her to see if she could help in anyway. Shortly after my landlord showed up, it was concluded that the door needed to be kicked in. At this point Laina had already grabbed a chair, had taken the screen off the window, and was standing on on the chair talking to Ruby to try and calm her down. (Have I told you how much I LOVE my neighbor!) We decided that I should go out and stand on the chair so Ruby would walk away from the door so they could kick it in. As I called Ruby to the window she was so excited to see me and I was still trying to calm her down, but she was still crying because she was trying to get to me through the window. Talk about ripping my heart out! They knocked the door in and Laina was waiting inside and ran to Ruby so a familiar face was there. I then ran around and took her and just held her, trying to comfort her. Shortly after Cannon arrived home from school, and so did Josh. He had tried to catch the bus as fast as possible but even though we only live about 10 minutes from campus...the buses take longer. It was seriously the longest 30 minutes of my life. As a mother, NOTHING is worse than not being able to help your child.
This is the damage on the door. In true Grenada fashion they were able to glue the pieces back together and then duct tape it to old the pieces as the glue dried. When you live on an island where almost everything is imported, which means it's ridiculously expensive, you learn to be pretty resourceful.
This expression breaks my heart. It was a hard day for both of us.
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