Full Blown Panic.

That's it. I've experienced it.

My little girl, The Pig, has me by the heart. Everything she does is golden to me. With that said, she has been getting into more and more trouble lately as she comes into her own form of autonomous toddlerdom. She is fiercely independent, and still somehow very clingy and hungry for approval. In other words, she's two.

I heard the front door slam at 8:47 AM. My panic turned on, but I was still breathing. As I raced to the door, I was glaring, smiling, and on the verge of tears at the same time, trying to imagine what words I would use to convey to Her Royal Highness that she is not, under any circumstances, to open the door. When I arrived, however, she was not standing sheepishly behind the door as I expected. My panic turned up a notch.

"Okay," I thought, "she's gone outside and can't figure out how to get back in." I smiled a little, and hesitated ever so slightly for the little knock on the door that always follows her zest for slamming it shut. It did not come. My smile retreated, and I flung the door open, now expecting that she would be standing, frozen, on the doormat, staring at frog poop. (She enjoys pondering the fact that frogs defecate, and I have thusfar been able to convince her that while frog poop is novel in its own way, it is most assuredly just as undesirable as any other poop.) Not there.

Here goes the panic. All the way to eleven, and then some. My brain short-circuited, and I screamed, running in no particular direction for ten to fifteen seconds. Stumbling back in the door to call 911, I heard a rustling. With Bambino, my son, soundly asleep in my bed, and for all intents and purposes, immobile, I was sure that he was not rustling. I followed the rustling noise right into Pig's bedroom. I still don't see her.

Then, I saw all of the stuffed animals on her bed shudder. Flinging them off the bed, I shouted Pig's name. I saw no one, but a small voice came from under the mattress, saying only, "I'm right here." My panic was abating as I knelt by the bed, and I pulled her out gently and calmly. As I hugged her, she said, into my neck, "Don't open the door, it's not safe for you."

Alright, reality check. My message IS getting through. So I asked her to show me what she had done to the door. We walked there together, and she showed me that she is now tall enough to unlock the deadbolt, and open the handle, but only has the coordination to open it an inch or two, and then slam it. The relief must have showed on my face.

Her response? "Sorry. Let's be friends inside today."