If you can avoid it, don’t do it. Here’s why:
Toddlers, or at least our toddler, are obsessed with doors. It doesn’t help that Bean gets a healthy dose of tidy-OCD-ness from both of his Daddies, so he finds it completely unacceptable that doors are open at any time. They NEED to be closed. And then opened. And then closed. And then opened. And then closed. And the best part: they also need to be locked.
Here’s our house hunting adventures by the numbers:
42 – the number of houses we’ve seen in the past 55 days.
Approximately 1,567.856 – the number of houses we’ve looked at online.
2 – the number of houses we’d consider living in.
27 – the number of houses the Bean has seen with us.
5 – the number of houses in which Bean has locked himself in a room alone, unable to open the door.
314 – the number of swear words Jer has mumbled each time Bean locks himself into a room.
16 – the number of cups of water, juice and milk we’ve gone through with Bean on the hunt.
1 – number of times we’ve had to ask for help getting Bean out of a locked room.
67 – the number of times we say “NO!” to Bean while viewing a house, as he tries to close and lock a door (I actually counted this out).
4 – the number of cookies we bribed Bean with to keep him happy while viewing 27 houses.
34 – the number of times Bean has yelled “OH MAN!” excitedly when walking into a house, room or backyard (I counted after the third time because it’s sooo cute).
1 – the number of lost sippy cups during the house hunting process.
6 – the number of times Bean fell asleep in houses.
1 – the number of times we’ve run around frantically to find Bean, only to hear him giggling while hiding in a closet.
2 – the number of tantrums or meltdowns while viewing houses.
18 – the number of houses Bean sang parts of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” in.
1 – the number of Bean’s tantrums or meltdowns while viewing houses. :)
3 – the number of kisses given to a statue of a dog in one of the homes we viewed. He loved the “bupeee”.
5 – the number of toilets Bean flushed to check the house’s plumbing for us.
If I were reading this post, I’d say, “hey – why don’t you just carry Bean so he won’t lock himself in random rooms”. Totally makes sense. Until you strap an almost-two-year-old in a car seat for hours on end while driving house-to-house. There’s no caging the beast once he’s out of the car (plus he needs that time to walk, stretch, burn off some energy and yell and sing at the top of his lungs into empty rooms). We stuck close to him at all times, but homeboy is as fast as lightning and as quiet as a ninja when he wants to be. I seriously contemplated getting him one of those backpacks that he could wear that also had a leash on it. Know what I mean? But I couldn’t stymie his independence like that.
The good news is we’ve made some decisions, deals have been negotiated, plans have been made. But it’s all backwards and unpredictable. So, I’ll share more about our current adventure soon. :)
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