Marco? Polo!

Ella has learned to open our front door

How do I know this? Because she locked me out of the house again today without my keys and after about 5 minutes of giggling behind the closed door, she let me back in. Luckily, our concierge has a set of keys to our place so that she can water the plants, turn on the heat or air conditioning before we got home from vacation, bring our mail in, rescue us from our own stupidity, etc. But who wants to admit that they were outsmarted by a 2 year-old for the second time in as many weeks?

She's sneaky, I swear. I generally hold my keys in my hand in the elevator after opening the security door in the hall downstairs. Ella will ask for them all the way up in the elevator and I'll sometimes hand them to her after I get our door open, especially if I am juggling lots of packages/umbrellas/hats/gloves. The two times that she has managed to lock me out, I turned towards the stroller to grab something while she walked in the house ahead of me and then Boom! the door banged shut and I was left standing there with my mouth gaping open like a fish.

"Ella?"

"Maman!" giggle giggle

"Ella, open the door, please sweetheart!"

"Maman!"

"Ella!"

"Maman!"

"Ella, please can you just open the door? Can you pull down on the handle please? You can do it, just like a big girl. Let mommy in, please, Ella."

"Maman!"giggle giggle

And of course, the whole time, I am trying to sound as sweet and unconcerned as possible to avoid getting Ella upset or, worse, bored so that she wanders off. Meanwhile, she is trying to get the keys in the lock from the inside which would be catastrophic. The sweat was beading up on my forehead as I imagine having to go down to the concierge to ask her to call the pompiers to break down our door, while all the old coots in our building "Tut, tut" in the entryway over the savage American on the 4th floor who can't even keep her child under control and I try to imagine a way for this to not get back to B. You know you're doing a bad job when these old blue-haired ladies start comparing you unfavorably to the lesbians with triplet 6-year-old boys across the hall. (Personally, I think that they are a pair of saints but it would take Mother Teresa, Rambo, and Dr Kevorkian to get those three kids quietly through the building. )

Finally, finally!, I hear her drop the keys and rattle the door handle. All of a sudden, pop, she swings the door back and sticks her cheeky little face out. "Maman!" giggle giggle, and she takes off running, clearly indicating that we have moved on to the chasing part of the game. I am so happy to be in the house that I decide against both yelling and chasing. If I get locked out again- which, lets face it, is bound to happen- I don't want her to remember the part where she let me in, only to get into big trouble. However, I do warn both B and the new babysitter to never walk into the hall without their keys. I could tell by the evil glint in Ella's eye that she wasn't done with this game quite yet.