When Elle was a newborn I remember hearing our upstairs neighbor getting locked out of her apartment by her two-year-old son.

“Let mommy back in!” she kept repeating. After about 15 minutes the kid figured out how to unlock the door and the day went on as normal.

I figured I’d never be in that potion, but I was wrong.

It happened again last weekend: Elle locked me in the basement while I was doing laundry.

The house we rent has a lock on the basement door from the outside, which has come in handy keeping Elle from going in to the basement when we don’t want her to.

However, its become a real hassle finding an additional gate that will work with blocking the door area because of some awkward wall positioning--we’ve already returned more than one because it won’t fit right. So we’ve basically given up and decided to take Elle in the basement with us when it’s just one parent around.

Unfortunately, Elle is getting really good at climbing the stairs. She cleared them and locked me down the stairs in the time it took me to turn around and set the timers on the washer and dryer.

This time she realized she had done something wrong and tried really hard to open the door for me; she couldn’t figure out how to unlock the bottom lock though. She got really upset and ended up sitting down next to the door and crying until her mother finished showering and heard me pleading with the 18 month old to let me out.

I was relieved that Elle stayed by the door and managed to not get in any more trouble while I was locked in the basement.

Although my fiancé got a good laugh at me, I know many other parents have been “locked out” by their kids. Have you ever been locked out and what’s the story?