The Key

Because AJ is a pull-up thief, we have to keep them locked in a cabinet in the spare bedroom. The key for this cabinet is smaller than a penny, on a tiny little ring about the size of my smallest hoop earrings. We had to find somewhere to hide the key so AJ wouldn't find it.

First we put it on a hook on the inside of the closet in our room. Every time we needed a pull-up for either of the boys we had to get that key out of the closet without AJ seeing us. I know this will be hard to believe but as stealthy as we are, still one day AJ figured it out and went into the closet and got the key out himself. I knew this for several reasons:

1. He was wearing a pull-up instead of his underwear.

2. The key was gone.

3. There was an empty, upside down laundry basket on the floor of the closet directly under the hook where the key was supposed to be.

When questioned, AJ calmly and easily showed us where he'd left the key - right in the middle of the bed in the spare room. 

We celebrated. This was quite the intellectual achievement! Wow. This was amazing! The little stinker, he'd outsmarted us.

But seriously we had to find somewhere new to hide the key. I decided it would be simpler to have the key hidden in the same room the cabinet is in, so I stashed it under a Halloween costume of a blue M&M on the top shelf in the closet. If AJ happened to be in the room, I asked him to go wait for me in his own room, so I could retrieve the key. I'd get out a pull-up, return the key, and be on my way.

At some point though, he saw one of us either get the key out or put it back, because one day I went upstairs to find some wedding photos, and the bag that had my veil in it, my wedding shoes, and the Halloween costume on the floor in the spare room, and the key - of course - was laying in the middle of the bed. I reminisced through a few photos, stuffed the veil back into its bag, briefly thought about how uncomfortable those stupid white shoes were, before putting everything away and stashing the key on the other side of the closet - between some empty boxes. I know, not terribly creative, right?One day the other half of the closet was all over the floor, and I knew I had to get more serious.

The dresser in the spare room has a top drawer that will hold nothing wider than a small notebook. So we don't even use it because there's no clothing category where there are either so few of them or they are so small that they would all fit in that drawer. It was wasted space until I got the genius idea to keep the key up there.

That worked for a couple of weeks, but AJ the little detective heard us opening and closing dresser drawers in the room, even if he wasn't in there with us, and he figured it out, again.

Now we keep the key in a ring box in Mark's top dresser drawer, which happens to be full of socks and underwear. So it's perfect until there's a sitter or grandparent here, who might not be comfortable rifling through Mark's underwear to find the pull up key. We've been known to put it in Aliza's room, on those occasions.