Sunday, July 31, 2011

The Burglar


Last night was kind of terrifying.

McKay and I had just put Tyler and Jamie down to sleep, and we were in our room working on various things (me, homework, McKay, Angry Birds), when I thought I heard a door creak open somewhere in the house. I didn't think too much of it, and I asked McKay if he had heard anything. He said no, but he stood up and walked towards the bedroom door to go check it out.

Before he reached the door, we heard quick footsteps running down the hall, away from the bedrooms.

Tyler never, ever gets out of bed after we put him down, so you can understand the panic we felt.

McKay grabbed a big polka dot umbrella, and I grabbed some curtain rods, and we hovered in our doorway, hearts in our throats, hands shaking, torn between grabbing our babies and hiding from whatever or whoever was in our house, and charging down the hallway with our makeshift weapons. McKay yelled a few times down the hall to the rest of the darkened house. I became very aware of the fact that all our hallway light switches were where the footsteps had gone towards, along with our cell phones, knives, hammers, and anything else that might have been more useful than a $5 Walmart umbrella against a robber, and why oh why did we move so close to downtown?

As we stood frozen in the doorway, Tyler peeked his head out of his bedroom across the hall to see what was going on. I snatched him up and pulled him behind me.

"Momma?"

"Tyler, shhh."

"Momma, I gotta go potty."

"Shhh, Tyler...wait, what? You have to go potty?"

"Yeah, I get out of bed, I go potty."

"Tyler, did you just get out of bed to go potty, and then run back into your bed?"

"Yeah, I run back into my bed."

All the tension and adrenaline just whooshed out of us as we realized what had happened. Tyler had, in fact, gotten out of his bed, cracked open his door, and then ran back into bed when he heard us coming. (The raised foundation of our home plus the hardwood floors makes it hard to tell exactly where the footsteps are coming from.)

Rest assured, we did still search the rest of the house, just in case. And Tyler trotted happily off to the bathroom. I spent the rest of the night researching the best way to handle break ins, and I am happy to report I learned nothing useful but I am now freaked out of my mind.

5 comments:

Cindy said...

Oh my goodness! I am so glad that everything is okay. I know the old saying is that crisis plus time = equals humor, especially where a polka dot umbrella is being used to ward off phantom bad guys. I am just glad you guys are safe.

Kim said...

Don't you hate moments like that? Maddie ran off in Lowe's and was lost for maybe 45 seconds before I found her opening refrigerator doors in the appliance aisle. Scared the crap out of me - I immediately had horrible visions of a kidnapper hauling her out to his car. Having children is so nerve wracking!

The Desatoff Family said...

Oh Katie! I had to hurry and scroll to the end of your post to make sure it was just a scare. And then my other thought was, "She took time to take a picture of the intruder!!??"

One night in our Yucaipa apartment I woke up to a dragging sound coming from the kitchen. I shook Russell awake and he grabbed a baseball bat that happened to be under the bed (of course the Desatoffs would have a bat!). I was scared out of my wits because our bedroom was in the back. After what seemed like an eternity Russell came walking back in with the culprit, our kitty Oreo. He had been trying to get into the pantry to his cat food but there was a chair blocking the door. Scary!

Mom said...

Y'all have been reading too many suspense novels! Whoa Buddy! That was a good one. Tylers is an intruder!!

Kristin said...

You had me going on that story!! I am glad everything was okay:)