Negotiating for My Release

Three-year-old Jim, as of late, is interested in the many locks and keys at Granma's and Pop Pop's house. Last night he was most intrigued by the key to the secretary desk in our living room. Usually, we simply would divert Jim's attention from the secretary and watch him carefully until he went home. But this week, Jim is vacationing at our house while his parents apartment shop in Chicago. So when Jim wakes this morning and begins searching for the key, it has mysteriously disappeared. Scott informs me he has put the key in a desk drawer for safekeeping. This antique desk matters to my husband. It once graced the parlor of the southern Virginia farmhouse that belonged to Baba, his beloved grandmother. He does not want one of Jim's adventures with keys stripping the lock mechanism on the desk.

This morning Jim is determined. He keeps searching for the key and asks me over and over to help him find it. Granma is a softie. So Granma finds some old car keys to give to him. Jim clearly explains to her that these keys will not do. So Granma finds another antique skeleton key, one too large for him to use on the desk. This makes him happy. He tries it out on the china cabinet. Too big. And then he heads to my bedroom. His goal is to try the key in my black lacquer musical jewelry box. I value my jewelry box, a gift from the months I spent in Japan almost forty years ago. So I have preemptively moved the jewelry box from my mirrored vanity to the top of  my high chest of drawers.

He looks at the jewelry box perched high on the dresser. He recognizes it is clearly out of reach.

He tries jumping. Several times.

"It's so high,” he says to me.

"Yes, it is," I reply.

After he jumps a few more times, we both move on to other things. Or so I think. I run downstairs to the basement to start a load of laundry. I can hear Jim dragging what I presume is a kitchen chair across the hardwood floors of my hallway. Then the dragging stops. By this time I am on my way up the stairs. I can see the chair legs in the crack of light beneath the door.  

He thinks he can blockade me by placing the chair in front of the door, I think. Clearly, he has not calculated on my brute strength. I am certain I can push the chair aside just by opening the door. But when I turn the door knob and try to push the door open, it does not budge. Only then do I realize that Jim has pushed the chair in front of the door not to blockade it, but rather to reach and turn the brass knob high enough on the door for only adults to reach. He has locked the door. I do not know why that lock is there--it came with the house. But Jim has seen us adults use it to block access to the basement when we adults are too tired on Sunday afternoons to supervise the children downstairs. Now Jim has used it to lock me in the basement.

"Jim, please open the door for Granma," I say.

"I locked it," Jim replies. My decisive, authoritative voice clearly does not register.

"Yes, you did,” I say. “Now I need you to unlock it."

Instead, I hear him push the chair into my room. I know he must be pushing it next to the high dresser and pulling down the jewelry box.

“The key doesn’t fit, Granma,” Jim says. He clearly is testing the jewelry box. “I need the little key. I don’t know where the little key is.”

I stay on task. "Jim, I need you to unlock this door," I repeat. Not angry nor desperate, just insistent.

"Granma, I locked it," he repeats.

“Yes, I know, Jim,” I say. “And I need you to unlock it please. Now.”

My house is not prepared for a roaming preschooler. It most definitely is not secure from a free-range Jim. I begin running through rescue scenarios in my mind. It is only 8:30 in the morning. Pop Pop is not due back from work for another eight hours. My cell phone is upstairs. I cannot call anyone. Fortunately, I have my laptop computer with me downstairs. I figure I can email my daughter Chrissy to rescue me. But she lives fifteen minutes away. Obviously, not ideal.

I decide on one final attempt before implementing my contingency plan.

“Jim, Granma really needs you to open the door for her,” I say. 

He giggles.

And we begin another round of trading requests and giggles back and forth. He simply finds it humorous that I am locked behind the door to the basement. His undeveloped mind does not comprehend the power he wields at the moment.

Just as the government of the United States does not negotiate with terrorists, I, as a parent, did not negotiate with my children when they were young. At least most of the time. At least to the best of my recollection. Well, in theory I did not believe in negotiating. Neither do I, as a grandparent, negotiate with my grandchildren. At least when I do not have really good snacks with which to bargain. And at very least when their parents are around. In theory I do not believe in negotiating with my grandchildren. But today I face exigent circumstances.

I begin negotiating for my release. 

"Jim,” I say, “if you do not let Granma out, I can't get you any ice cream."

Immediately, I hear the kitchen chair sliding back across the floor and then being pushed against the door. I hear the lock turn and see the light as the door opens. And I am free. (Jim really, really likes ice cream. Green ice cream, to be precise.)

"Good job, Jim," I say, and he returns to the jewelry box, which is, as I expected, on the floor in my bedroom. He is still intent on getting his key to open it.

Another ten minutes elapse before he demands his reward, which I freely give him. His parents never need know that I gave Jim ice cream so early in the morning, for what happens in Granma’s house stays in Granma’s house.

So we get on with our day. More laundry. More playing. Many, many more locks to try over and over again.  

And as Granma considers her morning, ironically she is filled with a proud awe for her captor's dogged persistence and creative problem-solving abilities. A bit of Stockholm syndrome perhaps. Yet she also realizes she has learned two very, very important lessons. When Jim is in the house, always carry your cell phone with you. And never, ever turn your back on Jim.