Doug LOST Trey and didn't even know it!

I had to post this story right away, otherwise I would never remember, and it's a "classic" that every parent goes through at some point. :)

Trey turned 17 months old yesterday, and this is also the same day that we purchased handle lever locks for all of our doors, since Trey can now open all the doors in the house. The most important door to install this lock on has been the garage door, since it doesn't have a deadbolt, and I have unfounded fears of Trey escaping into the garage, someone not knowing he is there and pulling in... I know that is morbid, but it is a very real fear for me nonetheless.

Yesterday evening, around 8pm, Doug began installing the garage door child safety lock, and in the process, cracked the large garage door about 8 inches to allow air in, since it gets SO stuffy in the garage. As I've mentioned before, Trey wants to do EVERYTHING Doug does, and so Doug didn't see the harm in letting Trey play in the garage with a few tools while he continued to work on the lock. While Doug was hard at work, Trey must have gotten a very brave idea to "shimmy" his way under the 8" of space where Doug had cracked the large door. During this process, my mom and I were upstairs and didn't realize there was a problem. At about 8:15pm, our WONDERFUL neighbor, Carolyn, rang the doorbell. I heard Doug answer the door, and then I heard Carolyn say "I thought you might have lost this"... Um... DOUG?!?!?!

Turns out that while Carolyn was in her house, her son Wesley looked out their window and saw Trey wandering outside alone. He went to his Mommy and said, "I see one of my friends outside". Carolyn looked out, and sure enough, there was Trey, outside at 8:15pm, all by himself. Luckily for us, she promptly returned him to us, while we were blissfully unaware he was even gone. I'm pretty sure this puts us in the "Bad Parent" category, but at the end of the day, all I can do is be grateful that Trey was safe, and that we have fantastic neighbors that look out for us, and hopefully don't judge!!! :)